A MATABELE CHIEF.
A KAFFIR CHIEF.
PRESIDENT STEYN, ORANGE FREE STATE.
SIR W. HALY-HUTCHINSON. GOVERNOR OF NATAL.
ENGLISH, DUTCH AND NATIVE TYPES, SOUTH AFRICA
A DERVISH CHARGE, SOUDAN WAR.
A battle of the Soudan in which Sir Herbert Kitchener avenged
the massacre of Hicks Pasha and his 12,000 men; also the death
of the heroic Gordon which occurred a year later.
Progress of the Natives
The Superintendent-General of Education, already quoted, in a supplementary Report published in 1884, speaks of the general opposition he has had to meet as coming from two classes of people—one which describes the schools as worthless and decries educated natives as useless, and another which describes the aborigines as getting a better education than white people and denounces the system as consequently increasing the competition in industrial employments. And then he appeals to such evidences of progress and success as: "The large interchange among natives of letters passing through the Post-Office; of the utilization of educated natives as carriers of letters, telegrams and parcels; of the hundreds who fill responsible posts as clerks, interpreters, school-masters, sewing-mistresses; and of the still larger number engaged in industrial pursuits, as carpenters, blacksmiths, tin-smiths, wagon-makers, shoe-makers, printers, sail-makers, saddlers, etc., earning good wages and helping to spread civilization amongst their own people." This is a good record, and there is no doubt that amongst the million natives of Cape Colony the influence of the system is steadily spreading. There is the natural defect, however, of the refusal of the white population to mix with the black either in school or elsewhere, outside of politics. The native schools and the native system are things apart and isolated, although, throughout the Colony, there are wealthy and influential Kaffirs, many of whom are substantial owners of property. And, as a matter of fact, there are more negro children now attending Government schools than there are pupils of white extraction.
Everywhere in British territory an effort has been made to utilize Kaffir free labor and to make the native appreciate the money value of his work and his time. But although some progress may be seen, it has not been very great. In Natal, for instance, the sugar industry, with an invested capital of nearly five million dollars, finds colored labor absolutely essential. But the Kaffirs cannot be got to work with any degree of permanence, or effectiveness, and the planters have had to import coolies in thousands, while all around them are multitudes of natives admirably suited to the work. At the Diamond Mines of Kimberley, Mr. Rhodes has employed thousands of black laborers, but it has only been for short periods and in successive relays. They make a little money and then go back to their huts, or kraals, as miniature millionaires—able to obtain cattle enough to buy a wife and to settle down in Kaffir comfort. Of the important matter of liquor drinking and liquor selling to natives a word must be said here. In Natal, where there are at least half a million Zulus, scattered around the villages and settlements of the fifty thousand white men, it is naturally a vital question—as in a lesser degree it is all through South Africa. The law is therefore very strictly administered, and the penalty for a European selling liquor to a native is severe. It is practical prohibition, and a similar law has been enforced in the vast territories of the Chartered Company. Incidentally, it may be said that in the Colony of Natal the general native management approximates somewhat to the model of India. The tribal organization has been largely preserved, instead of being broken up, as it was in Cape Colony by Sir George Grey. The native mass was too great to be merged in the small white population. European Courts, mixed Courts of native and European Judges, and Courts composed of Kaffir chiefs alone, administer the law in a peculiar form which admits the validity of Kaffir custom and precedents and law—modified, of course, by Colonial statutes. Order is maintained, and splendidly so, by a system of passes and by a code of special police regulations applicable to natives alone. Written permission from a magistrate must be obtained before a Kaffir can change his abode, and in the towns all natives must retire to their huts when curfew rings at nine o'clock. Registration of firearms is imperative, and the sale to natives is guarded by very strict enactments. Every native who is responsible for a hut has to pay a yearly tax of 14s., and this is very cheerfully done.
The Liquor Laws
Drunkenness amongst the Kaffirs of Natal is limited, as may be inferred from this sketch of their management. But in Cape Colony the natives are not nearly so well guarded from its evils—partly because of the aversion of the Dutch electorate to legislate in their behalf or to enforce laws of this kind when they are made; partly from the influence of the wine-growers and distillers, who naturally have something to say; partly, in general result, from the intermixture of lower races such as the Hottentot and Bushmen, and the creation of a type of negro and half-breed much inferior in parts of the Colony to the Kosa of the east or the Zulu of Natal. Civil Rights and Qualifications In the important matter of civil rights there is a common feeling among all settlers of British origin in South Africa, as elsewhere in the Empire, that no color line should exist in the franchise—other things being reasonably equal. The qualification is, of course, vital, although the Dutch part of the community make no qualification or admission of equality in any way, shape or form, and were, for instance, greatly disgusted when, in 1895, Khama, the educated, Christianized and civilized Chief of the Bechuanas, was received in England with respect and consideration, and entertained by prominent personages. The principle of political equality is, however, firmly established in British South Africa. But, so far as the natives are concerned, the tribal system must be given up, and this debars the greater part of the population of Natal. In that Colony, also, a native must have lived for seven years exempt from tribal laws before he can share in the franchise under qualifications of the same kind as affect the white population. In Cape Colony there are similar conditions, with an added proviso that the would-be native voter must be able to sign his name and write his occupation and address.