Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

by J. W. Matthews

An executive was created consisting of four members, viz.: the lieutenant governor, the secretary to government (Mr. Currey), the crown prosecutor (Mr. J. C. Thompson), and the treasurer general (the late Mr. R. W. H. Giddy). No constitution was proclaimed for some time after Mr. Southey’s arrival, and the Fields were governed by the lieutenant governor and his executive, legal enactments being made by means of proclamations. One of Mr. Richard Southey’s first proclamations, issued on Feb. 5th, 1873, almost immediately on his arrival, and which pleased the diggers very much, was one to restrain the jumping of claims. Previous to this, a claim in any one of the mines, which might be worth thousands of pounds, if left by its owner unworked for three days, could be legally seized by any man who could prove this neglect; but the proclamation containing the letters patent declaring the colony of Griqualand West a crown colony was not promulgated until the July 16th, 1873, when Klipdrift was rechristened Barkly and the “Colesberg Kopje” Kimberley. The new names were given in honor of the then secretary of state for the colonies, Lord Kimberley, and of Sir Henry Barkly. They were created electoral divisions, the third consisting of the outlying or agricultural districts, being grouped together under the name of Hay, in honor of Lieut. Governor Hay, who was the first to unfurl the British flag over the Diamond Fields. The chief town of the last-named division was Griquatown, in which the Griqua chief Waterboer resided.

THE VAAL RIVER DRIFT, NEAR BARKLY.

The constitution was, however, not received with anything like unanimous approval. The boundaries fixed were disputed by the neighboring States, and the enfranchisement and representation was by no means in accordance with the promises made by Sir Henry Barkly, inasmuch as it was not according to the Natal model. The legislative council was constituted on the deadlock principle, consisting as it did of eight members, four nominated by the general government and four elected by the voters, the lieutenant governor being president and having the casting vote. The governor had a power to veto in the first place, and the Queen in the second. At first it was said that no one would consent to be put into nomination for the four seats to be filled by the votes of the people. However, when the time of the elections came round, the seats were hotly contested. The council was first convened in 1873, but did not meet for business until January, 1874, when the elective members were Messrs. Green and Dr. Graham for Kimberley, Mr. Advocate Davison for Barkly, and Mr. David Arnott, the agent for Waterboer, to represent the electoral division of Hay. The first ordinance, viz. for the better regulation of diggings and mines, was promulgated on the 30th of the month named. The government and legislature for some time worked very well, but then a lack of cordiality among the members of the government themselves in the executive manifested itself, and there was as well no lack of revolutionary agitators to stir up the people to rebel against the government from the outside. Among the agitators were one or more generally accepted as Fenians, and several foreigners; the former with a hatred of British rule were bent on creating disturbances. They were joined by men who, although owning themselves British subjects, had party and personal ends to serve, dearer to them than their reverence for the crown. Leagues were formed and meetings were held, where sedition was loudly and plainly talked, mass meetings were convened on the market place, and the governor roundly abused. The lieutenant governor offered to receive deputations and to discuss matters, provided that the deputations should be composed of men who were known to be in the habit of conducting themselves in a becoming manner. But the agitators wanted their followers to come in large bodies, and this the lieutenant governor decided not to permit. The members of the league assembled armed for drill, and assumed a most warlike and threatening attitude. The lieutenant governor urged the necessity of the presence of a small body of her Majesty’s troops, and pointed out that moral force, the only force at his command, had no influence upon the men who, led by a clever and excitable digger named Aylward, were plotting against law and order. No attention whatever was paid to the suggestion of the lieutenant governor by the executive of the Cape Colony. There were no definite grievances brought forward by the men under arms, who were mere puppets in the hands of the riotously inclined wire-pullers. There were grievances, however, of a grave nature, and the non-fulfilment of promises respecting the land titles was the greatest of all. It is only right, however, to mention that the majority of the white population, aliens as well as British subjects, were thoroughly satisfied with Mr. Southey’s rule; and he had, during the time he was at the head of the government, done all in his power to make the people happy and prosperous, while the foundations of law and order had been so far as possible “both well and truly laid.” The social state of the Fields was excellent, and Government House was so thoroughly well-conducted that it led society with a genial and assuring hand. Balls and parties, indoor and outdoor pastimes and pleasures, afforded the recreation which the busy population required, and life in the Fields was generally pleasant and seemly.

Armed malcontents were now drilled in the public squares, and wherever they thought their proceedings would be most exasperating to the government and the loyal portion of the community.[^[58]] This was kept up during the early part of 1875. Arms were imported from all directions and concealed in stores and licensed liquor shops, and in the month of April of that year the mob were led into open rebellion, the occasion chosen for the outbreak being the seizure of arms by the magistrate and police of Kimberley, and the arrest of the man on whose premises they were discovered. A body of armed men marched down to the magistrate’s office and demanded the release of the prisoner, the court-house being surrounded and an attack threatened should their demand be refused. A black flag to be hoisted on the edge of the Kimberley mine was to be the signal for the revolters to fire upon the court-house and government offices. The Kimberley prison was to be leveled to the ground, when, as the rebels calculated, the liberated prisoners would instantly swell their ranks and help to overthrow the government. The lieutenant governor refused to make any terms whatever with men under arms and ordered them to give up their weapons to the government. This they refused to do. The authorities were not, however, to be driven from the position they had assumed. A number of loyal inhabitants volunteered to assist the government, and the prison was guarded by these assisted by some of the police. Greatly to their credit the Germans then came forward almost to a man and joined the volunteers. Mr. James Anthony Froude, “the eminent historian,” as he is called, had paid a visit to South Africa at the instance of the Earl of Carnarvon, then secretary for the Colonies, to report on the chances of federating the whole of the Colonies and States under the British flag, and that gentleman, with his characteristic mental twist, took a most distorted view of everything he saw, and instead of supporting the lieutenant governor disparaged him, and actually held a conference with the rebel leaders. This conference did not take place in the presence of any of the authorities, and the insurgents declared at the time that their course of conduct had secured Mr. Froude’s[^[59]] approval. This was before they broke out in actual revolt. A quotation from Mr. Froude’s writings, which appears in a book of which one of the most bitter opponents of the government is the author, strengthens the belief that Mr. Froude actually did encourage the rebels, whether intentionally or not. The passage is as follows: “The English government in taking up Waterboer’s cause, have distinctly broken a treaty which they renewed before in a most solemn manner, and the colonial office, it is painfully evident to me, has been duped by an ingenious conspiracy.”

The “ingenious conspiracy” was one of those flights of imagination in which the eminent historian occasionally indulges with most mischievous results to the colonies that he has visited and attempted to describe. There was no such thing as an “ingenious conspiracy to delude the colonial office,” as may be gathered from the facts before stated respecting the action of Sir Philip Wodehouse in the matter of the wrong done Waterboer by the Boers of the Free State. The chieftainship of Andreas Waterboer, the father of Nicholas, was confirmed by the British government before Nicholas was born, as is shown in the earlier portions of these pages. This is wandering from the subject of the revolt, but the necessity for this digression will be manifest to the reader.

The rebels had calculated that no magistrate would be found with sufficient courage to sit on the bench and try the arrested prisoner while the court-house was surrounded by men armed with guns and revolvers ready to fire at a given signal. They were mistaken, however, for the late Mr. Advocate Gray, then president magistrate of Du Toit’s Pan, took his seat on the bench, and then the Fenian leader, sword in hand, ordered the man appointed (one Albany Paddon[^[60]]) to hoist the flag, which was accordingly done. There was no firing, though one gun was accidentally discharged. Some of the leaders began to reflect and came forward and entered into bail bonds for the prisoner. The rebels did not then, however, put down their arms. It was only after the high commissioner had threatened to send troops that they consented to do so. Colonel Crossman, who had been sent out as royal commissioner in Oct. 1875, to make inquiries and report, after taking evidence absolved the government of all blame. Then when the mischief had been done troops were sent up at an expense of £20,000, under the command of Sir Arthur Cunningham. Beyond showing that the imperial government were determined to uphold law and order, the troops did nothing but manœuvre in the market place, encamp at Barkly and attend balls and banquets given in their honor, as well as to fête the Diamond Fields horse, who had shortly before so gallantly fought under Sir Arthur in the war on the northeastern frontier, driving Kreli out of the country and bringing his tribe into subjection. The real grievance—and one destined to produce dire consequences upon the province—the delay in giving out titles and settling the land, had as yet found no remedy. Not even the chief Waterboer had been settled with, and Mankoroane, the chief of the Bechuanas, harassed on all sides by the Boers, had called upon the British government for protection, offering to make over his territory and people to the queen, as Waterboer had done before him. He, like Waterboer, had always been loyal to the British rule, and to use his own words: “I have always been true to the queen, have protected her people when they were in danger from the Boers, and now when my people are being crushed out of existence by the Boers the queen ought to protect me and my people.” The lieutenant governor was of the same opinion, and he suggested to the high commissioner that in justice and in policy the British government could not do better than annex Bechuanaland. His excellency further pointed out that to leave this fine country open was to pave the way for future troubles—which it has done. The high commissioner encouraged the scheme. Mankoroane and his councillors with a number of his people came down to Kimberley, if I recollect rightly, at the very time of Mr. Froude’s visit, and long conferences then took place between the chief and his advisers, and the lieutenant governor and his, the old chief being ultimately given to understand that he and his people and country were to be taken over, as Mr. Southey said, with the knowledge and consent of the high commissioner. This was another of the promises made only to be broken; and to prove beyond question that all the troubles predicted have come about, it is only necessary to allude to recent historical events culminating in Sir Charles Warren’s expedition to Bechuanaland. Mr. Southey had from the time of his taking office persistently requested the high commissioner to get the land question settled, and had sent warning after warning that delay in giving out the titles was fraught with the greatest possible danger. But the high commissioner was in the hands of the secretary of the colonies in the first place, and in the second his excellency had not mastered the situation. Then those who fomented discontent and disturbance had circulated, among other infamous slanders, that the lieutenant governor and the secretary to government were men bent on land-jobbing in their own interest and in the interest of their friends and political adherents.

In the session of 1875 the high commissioner, despite his previously issued reassuring proclamation to the effect that no private rights should be disturbed, sent up a land ordinance drafted in Capetown, and requested the lieutenant governor to introduce it to the legislative council and get it passed into law. This the lieutenant governor respectfully but firmly refused to do. By the draft ordinance a land court was to be created, and a judge appointed to decide upon the claims of every one, no matter whether his claims were disputed or not. Even Waterboer himself, from whom the government had derived all their territorial rights, was to be forced into court and pay the expenses himself, to prove that his private properties, farms, etc., belonged to him. The judge was, moreover, to have power to reduce the size of farms, and in no case to permit one to be given out of more than 6,000 acres in extent. The lieutenant governor held that by allowing this ordinance to pass into the statute book the government would be abrogating its especial function, which was to protect those who could produce unimpeachable titles, whether obtained by grant, purchase or other legitimate means. The cost of going to law to obtain them they, he said, ought not to be compelled to incur. The law courts ought not, he maintained, to be called upon to deal with any land claims excepting such as were in dispute. The executive government could deal with the undisputed claims, exchange British for existing titles, etc., thus saving expenditure and delay, while the high court was quite sufficient to deal with disputed claims.

The high commissioner paid no heed to the lieutenant governor’s remonstrance, but came from Capetown to the diamond fields and introduced the draft ordinance into the council himself, while presiding, as he was empowered to do, when in the province. The popularly elected members at first declared that they would not vote for the measure; nor would they even take their seats; which course, had it been adhered to by them, would have effectually prevented the measure being carried, as no business could be transacted unless two of the elected members were in their seats. The high commissioner, however, by the free use of his powerful influence, led the elected members to alter their determination, hinting that if they did not take their seats, a proceeding equivalent to assisting in passing the ordinance, he would dissolve the council, and every one saw that if the high commissioner could not control the council the constitution under which it was created would be abolished altogether. The members took their seats, and the ordinance was forced through and became law. The land court was established, and Mr. Advocate Stockenstrom, of the supreme court, who was then practicing at the bar of the court of the eastern districts, was appointed the judge.

Sir Henry Barkly, having forced his land bill through the council, returned to Capetown, leaving Mr. R. Southey at the head of the government.