South Africa, vol. II.

by Anthony Trollope

An Englishman, or an Africander with an English name and an English tongue, is under the constitution as capable of being elected as a Dutchman. A very large proportion of the wealth of the country is in English hands. The large shopkeepers are generally English; and I think that I am right in saying that the Banks are supported by English, or at any rate, by Colonial capital. And yet, looking through the names of the present Volksraad, I find but two that are English,—and the owner of one of them I believe to be a Dutchman. How can it be possible that such a House should vote away its own independence? It is so impossible that there can be no other way of even bringing the question before the House than that of calling upon it for a unanimous assertion of its will in answer to the demand, or request, or suggestion now made by Great Britain.

Nor can I conceive any reason why the Volksraad should consent to the proposed change. To a nationality labouring under debt, oppressed by external enemies, or unable to make the property of its citizens secure because of external disorders, the idea of annexing itself to a strong power might be acceptable. To have its debts paid, its frontiers defended, and its rebels controlled might be compensation for the loss of that self-rule which is as pleasant to communities as it is to individuals. Such I believe is felt to be the case by the most Dutch of the Dutch Boers in the Transvaal. But the Orange Free State does not owe a penny. Some years since it had been so impoverished by Basuto wars that it was reduced to the enforced use of paper money which sank to half its nominal value. Had England then talked of annexation the Boers might have listened to her offer. But the enormous trade produced by the sudden influx of population into the Diamond Fields created a wealth which has cured this evil. The bluebacks,—as the Orange Free State banknotes were called,—have been redeemed at par, and the Revenue of the country is amply sufficient for its modest wants. Enemies it has none, and from its position can have none,—unless it be England. Its own internal affairs are so quiet and easily regulated that it is hardly necessary to lock a door. No annexation could make a Boer more secure in the possession of his own land and his own chattels than he is at present.

It may of course be alleged that if the State were to join her lot with that of the Cape Colony or of a wide South African Confederation, she would increase her own wealth by sharing that of the larger nationality of which she would become a part,—and that the increase of national wealth would increase the means of the individuals forming the nation. This, however, is an argument which, even though it were believed, would have but little effect on the minds of a class of men who are peculiarly fond of self-government but are by no means desirous of a luxurious mode of life. It is often said that the Boer is fond of money. He is certainly averse to spending it and will grasp at it when it comes absolutely in his way; but he is the last man in the world to trust to its coming to him from a speculative measure of which he sees the certain immediate evil much more clearly than the possible future advantage.

There is one source of public wealth from which the Orange Free State is at present debarred by the peculiarity of its position, and of which it would enjoy its share were it annexed to the Cape Colony or joined in some federation with it. But I hope that no British or Colonial Statesman has trusted to force the Republic to sacrifice herself for the sake of obtaining justice in this respect. If, as I think, wrong is being done to the Orange Free State in this matter that wrong should be remedied for the sake of justice, and not maintained as a weapon to enforce the self-annihilation of a weak neighbour. On whatever produce from the world at large the Free State consumes, the Free State receives no Custom duties. The duties paid are levied by the Cape Colony, and are spent by it as a portion of its own revenues. The Free State has no seaboard and therefore no port.[13] Her sugar, and tea, and whisky come to her through Capetown, or Fort Elizabeth, or East London, and there the Custom duties are collected,—and retained. I need hardly point out to English readers that the Custom duties of a country form probably the greatest and perhaps the least objectionable portion of its revenue. It will be admitted, at any rate, that to such extent as a country chooses to subject its people to an increased price of goods by the addition of Custom duties to the cost of production, to that extent the revenue of the consuming country should be enriched. If I, an individual in England, have to pay a shilling on the bottle of French wine which I drink, as an Englishman I am entitled to my share of the public advantage coming from that shilling. But the Republican of the Orange Free State pays the shilling while the Colonist of the Cape has the spending of it. I hope, I say, that we on the south side of the Orange River do not cling to this prey with any notion that by doing so we can keep a whip hand over our little neighbour the Republic.

Two allegations are made in defence of the course pursued. It is said that the goods are brought to the ports of the Colony by Colonial merchants and are resold by them to the traders of the Orange Free State, so as to make it impossible for the Colony to know what is consumed within her own borders and what beyond. Goods could not therefore be passed through in bond even if the Cape Government would permit it. They go in broken parcels, and any duties collected must therefore be collected at the ports whence the goods are distributed. But this little difficulty has been got over in the intercourse between Victoria and New South Wales. A considerable portion of the latter Colony is supplied with its seaborne goods from Melbourne, which is the Capital and seaport of Victoria. Victoria collects the duties on those goods, and, having computed their annual amount, pays a certain lump sum to New South Wales in lieu of the actual duties collected. Why should not the Cape Colony settle with the Orange Republic in the same way?

The other reason put forward for withholding the amount strikes me as being—almost mean. I have heard it put forward only in conversation, and I am bringing no charge against any Statesman in the Cape Colony by saying this. I trust that the argument has had no weight with any Statesman at the Cape. The Cape Colony makes the roads over which the goods are carried up to the Free State. She does do so,—and the railroads. But she collects toll on the former, and charges for carriage on the latter. And she enjoys all the money made by the continued traffic through her territory. And she levies the port duties, which no one begrudges her. I felt it to be a new thing to be informed that a country was so impoverished by being made the vehicle for traffic from the sea to the interior that it found itself compelled to reimburse itself by filching Custom Duties.[14] England might just as well claim the customs of the Cape Colony because she protects the seas over which the goods are carried.

But the Orange Free State can carry on her little business even without the aid of Custom Duties, and will certainly not be driven back into the arms of the mother who once repudiated her by the want of them. She can pay her modest way; and while she can do so the Boer of the Volksraad will certainly not be induced to give up the natural delight which he takes in ruling his own country. The Free State might send perhaps six members to the central Congress of a South African Federation, where they would be called upon to hear debates, which they would be unable to share or even to understand because spoken in a foreign language. They would be far from their farms and compelled to live in a manner altogether uncomfortable to them. Is it probable that for this privilege they will rob themselves of the honour and joy they now have in their own Parliament? In his own Parliament the Boer is close, phlegmatic, by no means eloquent, but very firm. The two parliamentary ideas most prominent in his mind are that he will vote away neither his independence nor his money. It is very hard to get from him a sanction for any increased expenditure. It would I think be impossible to get from him sanction for a measure which would put all control over expenditure out of his own hands. “We will guard as our choicest privilege that independence which Her Majesty some years since was pleased to bestow upon us.” It is thus that the Boer declares himself,—somewhat sarcastically,—when he is asked whether he does not wish to avail himself of the benefit of British citizenship.

Somewhat sarcastically;—for he is well aware that when England repudiated him,—declaring that she would have nothing to do with him across the Orange River, she did so with contempt and almost with aversion. And he is as well aware that England now wants to get him back again. The double consciousness is of a nature likely to beget sarcasm. “You thought nothing of me when I came here a poor wanderer, daring all dangers in order that I might escape from your weaknesses, your absurdities, your mock philanthropies,—when I shook off from the sole of my foot the dust of a country in which the black Savage was preferred to the white Colonist; but now,—now that I have established myself successfully,—you would fain have me back again so that your broad borders may be extended, and your widened circle made complete. But, by the Providence of God, after many difficulties we are well as we are;—and therefore we are able to decline your offers.” That is the gist of what the Boer is saying when he tells us of the independence bestowed upon him by Her Majesty.

Thinking as I do that Great Britain was wrong when she repudiated the Orange Free State in 1854, believing that there was then a lack of patience at the Colonial Office and that we should have been better advised had we borne longer with the ways of the Dutch, I must still acknowledge here that they were a provoking people, and one hard to manage. Omitting small details and some few individual instances of misrule, I feel that when the Dutch complained of us they complained of what was good in our ways and not of what was evil. It was with this conviction that we repudiated both the Transvaal and the other younger but more stable Republic. Good excuses can be made for what we did,—not the worst of which is the fact that a people whom we desired to rule themselves, have ruled themselves well. But we did repudiate them, and I do not know with what face we can ask them to return to us. If the offer came from them of course we could assent; but that offer will hardly be made.

We could certainly annex the Republic by force,—as we have done the Transvaal. If we were to send a High Commissioner to Bloemfontein with thirty policemen and an order that the country should be given up to us, I do not know that President Brand and the Volksraad could do better than comply,—with such loudest remonstrance as they might make. “The Republic cannot fight Great Britain,” President Brand might say, as President Burgers said when he apologised for the easy surrender of his Republic. But there are things which a nation can not do and hold up its head, and this would be one of them. There could be no excuse for such spoliation. It is not easy to justify what we have done in the Transvaal. If there be any laws of right and wrong by which nations should govern themselves in their dealings with other nations it is hard to find the law in conformity with which that act was done. But for that act expediency can be pleaded. We have taken the Transvaal not that we might strengthen our own hands, not that we might round our own borders, not that we might thus be enabled to carry out the policy of our own Cabinet,—but because by doing so we have enabled Englishmen, Dutchmen! and natives to live one with another in comfort. There does seem to have been at any rate expedience to justify us in the Transvaal. But no such plea can be put forward in reference to the Free State. There a quiet people are being governed after their own fashion. There a modest people are contented with the fruition of their own moderate wealth. There a secure and well ordered people are able to live without fear. I cannot see any reason for annexing them;—or any other excuse beyond that spirit of spoliation which has so often armed the strong against the weak, but which England among the strong nations has surely repudiated.