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

by J. W. Matthews

“Affairs of State” did not run altogether smoothly in Griqualand West. When Major Lanyon returned he found that the late Mr. Advocate Davison, member for Barkly, had resigned his seat in the Griqualand West council and left for England, and there were but three elected members in council when he introduced his annexation motion, to which he desired to gain their assent. Mr. Advocate Halkett, the senior member for Kimberley, and Mr. R. W. Murray, the member for Hay, contended that before such a vastly important change was made as the annexation of the province to the Cape Colony, which involved the destruction of its constitution and government, there ought to be a full council to discuss the submitted resolution, and they therefore demanded that the seat for Barkly should be filled up. This the administrator refused to do, or rather implied that he had contemplated doing so, but had neglected it. He evidently was determined to get his motion carried, while the members for Kimberley and Hay were equally determined that if he should do so, it would be by his own casting vote alone; and knowing that they were masters of the situation, they bowed themselves out with the announcement that they would not return until all the constituencies were represented. They kept their word. There was no election for Barkly and no more sittings of that council, which was shortly afterward dissolved, and it was not until some months had passed that a new one was elected. There were three councils in all. The names of the first members have been before given; the elected members of the second council, which was elected after the arrival of Major Lanyon, were Messrs. Tucker and Gilfillan (Kimberley), Davison (Barkly), and Murray (Hay). A vacancy occurred through Mr. Henry Tucker becoming disqualified, and the late Mr. Halkett was elected in his place. The next council, which was elected on Nov. 30th, 1878, consisted of myself and Mr. Bottomley (Kimberley), Mr. J. Paddon (Barkly), and Mr. J. Orpen (Hay).

An act of the colonial legislature which is not put into force within three years of its having been assented to at home becomes a dead letter, and it was not until this period had nearly expired that the concluding scene was put on the stage of the little theatre of the Griqualand West council, under the management of Mr. J. Rose Innes, but this I will describe later on.

There is no hiding the fact that during Major Lanyon’s administratorship there was a good deal of hostile feeling shown against him in some quarters, which was fostered by many who held the opinion that the major was inclined to be more of a martinet than if he had had the training of an officer in a regiment other than one of those in which Charles Lever’s Major Monsoon would have found congenial companionship, and in politics at least his peculiar idiosyncrasies, as displayed toward opponents, would have caused the late Dr. Johnson, had he known the major, to admire his talents as a “good hater,” although at the same time he would not have found him wanting in that opposite quality which is said to naturally follow. I have often heard Major Lanyon say: “Gentlemen, if I have ever erred, it has been the fault of the head, not of the heart,” and I may here state that the gallant major’s abilities, which were of no mean order, and his honesty of purpose, always received due recognition. The want of tact of this administration, and the unfortunate personal leaning of its chief, were strikingly exemplified by a case in point, in the prosecution of the editor of the Independent for an alleged criminal libel published in the issue of that paper of Nov. 16th, 1876. At that time the trade in diamonds with roguish natives employed by diggers which unscrupulous persons carried on, though they must have well known these cheaply acquired gems to have been stolen, was, as it still is, the plague and disgrace of the community. Proclamations and ordinances of the severest character were leveled against it, but without appreciable effect. A few of the lesser culprits were caught, imprisoned, and in some cases flogged, but still the illicit trade (before fully described) flourished, and this too although the laws had been rendered so stringent and complex as to prove a trap for the innocent but unwary.

Out of the confused state of these laws two causes célebres arose, which excited much interest among the diggers and showed the continued lack of common sense displayed by the government in their policy and modes of procedure. In the first instance an old digger, who had made himself prominent in the prosecution of diamond thieves and had also materially assisted in the overthrow and subsequent recall of the Southey-Currey faction, had in a moment of forgetfulness purchased a small diamond without having a dealer’s license and without being able to produce his special permit to the magistrate as by law required. There was no pretence that the diamond had been stolen or improperly obtained, but nevertheless the unlucky purchaser of this “precious” stone was sentenced, if I remember rightly, to twelve months’ imprisonment without the option of a fine. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the punishment was technically commensurate with the offense, the ardor exhibited by the authorities in the original pursuit of a political foe, to the minds of the independent diggers, was anything but satisfactory. That the man had no license to purchase diamonds, and that his permit, if he ever had one, had been lost or mislaid was admitted, but when the prosecution sought to establish the fact of there having been no permit given by the production of a list kept in the Kimberley resident magistrate’s office, and manifestly a most careless one, in which there was no mention of the name of the accused, his attorney very properly if not conclusively contended that this evidence was not sufficiently formal upon which to found a conviction for a technical fault involving extremely severe punishment. He argued moreover that if one magistrate’s list of permits was produced, those of all other magistrates should be put in evidence also; that the list in question might be imperfect, and as it was not in the custody of the buyer, entries might have been confused, altered or annulled without his knowledge; in short that the rough list of a single magistrate was not sufficient evidence on which so heavy a punishment ought to be inflicted on any member of the body politic. A subordinate official, however, swore “by all his gods” that it was “impossible for a permit to have been issued to the prisoner without an entry having been made in his record book,” and upon the strength of that evidence the accused was accordingly “cast into prison.” But observe the sequel. The ink was scarcely dry upon the warrant which tore the unhappy culprit from his wife and family and confined him amidst the vilest criminals, when lo! a whisper went abroad that his excellency himself had also been purchasing diamonds without any license and without any record of the necessary permit. What was the inference? Mindful of the positive manner in which the keeper of the records had gravely sworn to the impossibility of any permits having been issued without an entry in the proper book, the editor of the Independent newspaper, which had taken up a position of uncompromising hostility toward diamond thieves, published in the public interest certain queries respecting the anomalous and unpleasant predicament in which the administrator might be placed. There was no contention that he had been guilty of any malum in se or of purchasing other than for his own private use and pleasure, but merely of malum prohibitum. The Draconian severity of the law and the apparent impropriety of the previous conviction was strikingly shown forth. The article was very aptly headed: “Where is this to end?” and at the moment it was a question difficult to answer. The administrator, nevertheless, very promptly set about his reply, and took active steps against the bold editor who had dared to “come between the wind and his nobility.”

It was impossible to conjure up any entry in the record of permits, for the book had been too carefully and publicly examined by hostile critics for that; but hey! presto! in a very few hours after the newspaper article had appeared, a notice said to have been inspired by the government was publicly issued, in which it was triumphantly stated that the versatile major was after all in possession of a permit which could be inspected, etc., etc.

Upon reading this the cognoscenti winked knowingly at each other. After such an astonishing announcement it would only be thought reasonable that the administrator, upon finding so striking a confirmation of the force of the argument of the prisoner’s attorney that the record was not infallible, would have taken some immediate steps toward a reconsideration and possible mitigation of a sentence passed under a harsh law.

No such thing happened, however. On the contrary, elated with the successful experiment of “breaking a butterfly on the wheel” in the recent prosecution, he at once caused the outspoken editor to be arrested for a criminal libel upon “his excellency,” the accused being temporarily liberated upon the modest bail of £6,000! which was at once found.

A preliminary examination before the magistrate followed, and the editor was fully committed for trial. It would perhaps not be judicious to refer too specifically to the adverse opinions which were entertained by an independent public with regard to this case. Lawyers have or used to have a saying that “the greater the truth the greater the libel.” Suffice it to say that public comments were far from flattering to Major Lanyon and the members of his executive.

When the day of trial arrived excitement was raised to a very high pitch. The court was crowded to overflowing, and large numbers of the diggers were anxiously awaiting the result in the market square in front of the court-house. The administrator was located during the trial in a private room which adjoined the court, where a dejeuner à la fourchette and subsequent refreshments were plenteously dispensed to some chosen supporters of the existing state of things.

The judge wore his severest frown; the government officials hovered round the precincts of the court, and with bated breath awaited the verdict, which was to clear their chief’s character from the calumnious breath of an audacious critic.