Oom Paul's People / A Narrative of the British-Boer Troubles in South Africa, with a History of the Boers, the Country, and Its Institutions

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

YEAR. Value. Per cent
increase.
1895 $5,000,000
1896 12,000,000 140
1897 16,000,000 33 1/8
1898 (estimated) 20,000,000 25

A fact that is deplored by Americans who are eager to see their country in the van in all things pertaining to trade is that almost every dollar's worth of this vast amount of material is carried to South Africa in ships sailing under foreign colours. Three lines of steamships, having weekly sailings, ply between the two countries, and are always laden to the rails with American goods, but the American flag is carried by none of them. A fourth line of steamships, to ply between Philadelphia and Cape Town, is about to be established under American auspices, and is to carry the American flag. A number of small American sailing vessels trade between the two countries, but their total capacity is so small as to be almost insignificant when compared with the great volume carried in foreign bottoms.

The American imports from South Africa are of far less value than the exports, for the reason that the country produces only a few articles that are not consumed where they originate. America is the best market in the world for diamonds, and about one fourth of the annual output of the Kimberley mines reaches the United States. Hides and tallow constitute the leading exportations to America, while aloes and ostrich feathers are chief among the few other products sent here. Owing to this lack of exports, ships going to South Africa are obliged to proceed to India or Australia for return cargoes in order to reduce the expenses of the voyage.

However great the commercial interests of the United States in South Africa, they are small in comparison with the work of individual Americans, who have been active in the development of that country during the last quarter of a century. Wherever great enterprises have been inaugurated, Americans have been prominently identified with their growth and development, and in not a few instances has the success of the ventures been wholly due to American leadership. European capital is the foundation of all the great South African institutions, but it is to American skill that almost all of them owe the success which they have attained.

British and continental capitalists have recognised the superiority of American methods by intrusting the management of almost every large mine and industry to men who were born and received their training in the United States. It is an expression not infrequently heard when the success of a South African enterprise is being discussed, "Who is the Yankee?" The reason of this is involved in the fact that almost all the Americans who went to South Africa after the discovery of gold had been well fitted by their experiences in the California and Colorado mining fields for the work which they were called upon to do on the Randt, and, owing to their ability, were able to compete successfully with the men from other countries who were not so skilled.

Unfortunately, not all the Americans in South Africa have been a credit to their native country, and there is a considerable class which has created for itself an unenviable reputation. The component parts of this class are men who, by reason of criminal acts, were obliged to leave America for new fields of endeavour, and non-professional men who follow gold booms in all parts of the world and trust to circumstances for a livelihood. In the early days of the Johannesburg gold fields these men oftentimes resorted to desperate means, with the result that almost every criminal act of an unusually daring description is now credited against them by the orderly inhabitants. Highwaymen, pickpockets, illicit gold buyers, confidence men, and even train-robbers were active, and for several years served to discredit the entire American colony. Since the first gold excitement has subsided, this class of Americans, in which was also included by the residents all the other criminal characters of whatever nationality, has been compelled to leave the country, and to-day the American colony in Johannesburg numbers about three thousand of the most respected citizens of the city.

The American who has been most prominent in South African affairs, and the stanchest supporter of American interests in that country, is Gardner F. Williams, the general manager and one of the alternate life governors of the De Beers Consolidated Diamond Mines at Kimberley. A native of Michigan, Mr. Williams gained his mining experience in the mining districts of California and other Western States, and went to South Africa in 1887 to take charge of the Kimberley mines, which were then in an almost chaotic condition. By the application of American ideas, Mr. Williams succeeded in making of the mines a property which yields an annual profit of about ten million dollars on a nominal capital of twice that amount. He has introduced American machinery into the mines, and has been instrumental in many other ways in advancing the interests of his native country. Although Mr. Williams receives a salary twice as great as that of the President of the United States, he is proud to be the American consular agent at Kimberley--an office which does not carry with it sufficient revenue to provide the star-spangled banner which constantly floats from a staff in front of his residence.

Dr. J. Perrott Prince is another American who has assisted materially in extending American interests in South Africa, and it is due to his own unselfish efforts that the commerce of the United States with the port of Durban has risen from insignificant volume to its present size. Dr. Prince was a surgeon in the Union army during the civil war, and afterward was one of the first Americans to go to the Kimberley diamond fields. He it was who later induced Dr. Leander Starr Jameson to accompany him to Kimberley in the capacity of assistant surgeon--a service which he performed with great distinction until Mr. Rhodes sent him into Matabeleland to take charge of the military forces, which later he led into the Transvaal.

Dr. Prince's renown as a physician was responsible for a call to Madagascar, whither he was summoned by Queen Ranavalo. He remained in Madagascar as the queen's physician until the French took forcible possession of the island and sent the queen into exile on the Reunion Islands. Dr. Prince has lived in Durban, Natal, for several years, and during the greater part of that time conducted the office of American consular agent at a financial loss to himself. Unfortunately, Dr. Prince was obliged to end his connection with the consular service, and the United States are now represented in Durban by a foreigner, who on the last Fourth of July inquired why all the Americans in the city were making such elaborate displays of bunting and the Stars and Stripes.

The consular agent at Johannesburg is John C. Manion, of Herkimer, N.Y., who represents a large American machinery company. Mr. Manion, in 1896, carried on the negotiations with the Transvaal Government by which John Hays Hammond, an American mining engineer, was released from the Pretoria prison, where he had been confined for complicity in the uprising at Johannesburg. American machinery valued at several million dollars has been sent to South Africa as the result of Mr. Manion's efforts.