Native Races and the War

by Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler

The great Charter of our Liberties was born, as all the most precious things are, through "great tribulation," at a time when our whole nation was groaning under injustice and oppression, and when sorrow had purified the eyes of the noble "Seers" of the time, and their appeal was to the God of Justice Himself, and to no lower tribunal. These Seers were then endowed with the power to bend the will of a stubborn and selfish monarch, and to put on record the stern principles of our "Immortal Charter."

I have often longed that every school-boy and girl should be taught and well-grounded in these great principles. It would not be a difficult nor a dry study, for like all great things, these principles are simple, straight, and clear as the day. It is when, we come to intricacies and technicalities of laws, even though based on these great fundamental lines, that the study becomes dry, useful to the professional lawyer, but not to the pupil in school or the public generally.

The principles of our Constitution have been many times in the course of our national history disregarded, and sometimes openly violated. But such disregard and such violation have happily not been allowed to be of long duration. Sometimes the respect of these principles has been restored by the efforts of a group of enlightened Statesmen, but more frequently by the awakened "Common Sense"[29] of the people, who have become aware that they, or even some very humble section of them, have been made to suffer by such violation. Again and again the gallant "Ship of our Constitution," carrying the precious cargo of our inalienable rights and liberties, has righted herself in the midst of storms and heavy seas of trouble. Having been called for thirty years of my life to advocate the rights of a portion of our people,—the meanest and most despised of our fellow citizens,—when those rights had been destroyed by an Act of Parliament which was a distinct violation of the Constitution, and having been driven, almost like a ship-wrecked creature to cling, with the helpless crew around me, during those years to this strong rock of principle, and having found it to be political and social salvation in a time of need, I cannot refrain, now in my old age, from embracing every opportunity I may have of warning my fellow countrymen of the danger there is in departing from these principles.

My hope for the future of South Africa, granting its continuance as a portion of our Colonial Empire, is in the resurrection of these great principles from this present tribulation, and their recognition by our rulers, politicians, editors, writers, and people at large as the expression of essential Justice and Morality.

France possesses, equally with ourselves, a record of these principles in its famous "Declaration of the Rights of Man," born also in a period of great national tribulation. That document is in principle identical with our own great Charter. But France has only possessed it a little more than a century, whereas our own Charter dates back many centuries; hence the character of our people has been in a great measure formed upon its principles, and they have been made sensitive to any grave or continued violation of them. In France, earnest and sometimes almost despairing appeals are now made to these fundamental principles expressed in their own great Charter by a minority of men who continue to see straight and clearly through the clouds of contending factions in the midst of which they live; but for a large portion of the nation they are a dead letter, even if they have ever been intelligently understood.

How far has South Africa been governed on these principles? I boldly affirm that on the whole, since the beginning of the last century, it is these principles of British Government and Law, so far as they have been enforced, which have saved that colony from anarchy and confusion, and its native populations from bondage or annihilation. But they have not been sufficiently strongly enforced. They have not been brought to bear upon those Englishmen, traders, speculators, company-makers, and others whose interests may have been in opposition to these principles.

A Swiss missionary who has lived a great part of his life in South Africa, writes to me:—"The whole of South Africa is to blame in its treatment of the natives. Take the British merchant, the Boer and Dutch official, the German colonist, the French and Swiss trader,—there is no difference. The general feeling among these is against the coloured race being educated and evangelized.... Only what can and must be said is this, that the Laws of the English Colonies are just; those of the Boer States are the negation of every right, civil and religious, which the black man ought to have." I have similar testimonies from missionaries (not Englishmen); but I regret to say that these good men hesitate to have their names published,—not from selfish reasons,—but from love of their missionary work and their native converts, to whom they fear they will never be permitted to return if the ascendancy of the present Transvaal Government should continue, and Mr. Kruger should learn that they have published what they have seen in his country. It is to be hoped that these witnesses will feel impelled before long to speak out. The writer just quoted, says:—"I firmly believe that the native question is at the bottom of all this trouble. The time is coming when, cost what it will, we missionaries must speak out."

In connection with this subject, I give here a quotation from the "Daily News," March 21st, 1900. The article was inspired by a thoughtful speech of Sir Edward Grey. The writer asks the reason of the loss of the capacity in our Liberal party to deal with Colonial matters; and replies: "It is to be found, we think, in want of imagination and in want of faith. There are many among us who have failed, from want of imagination, to grasp that we have been living in an age of expansion; or who, recognising the fact, have from want of faith seen in it occasion only for lamentation and woe. Failure in either of these respects is sure to deprive a British party of popular support. For the 'expansion of England' now, as in former times, proceeds from the people themselves, and faith in the mission of England is firmly planted in the popular creed." We recall a noble passage in which Mr. Gladstone stated with great clearness the inevitable tendency of the times in which we live. "There is," he said, "a continual tendency on the part of enterprising people to overstep the limits of the Empire, and not only to carry its trade there, but to form settlements in other countries beyond the sphere of a regularly organized Government, and there to constitute a civil Government of their own. Let the Government adopt, with mathematical rigour if you like, an opposition to annexation, and what does it effect? It does nothing to check that tendency—that perhaps irresistible tendency—of British enterprise to carry your commerce, and to carry the range and area of your settlement beyond the limits of your sovereignty.... There the thing is, and you cannot repress it. Wherever your subjects go, if they are in pursuit of objects not unlawful, you must afford them all the protection which your power enables you to give." "There the thing is." (But many Liberals have lacked the imagination to see it.) And being there, it affords a great opportunity; for "to this great Empire is committed (continued Mr. Gladstone) a trust and a function given from Providence as special and as remarkable as ever was entrusted to any portion of the family of man." But not all Liberals share Mr. Gladstone's faith. They thus cut themselves off from one of the chief tendencies and some of the noblest ideals of the time. Liberalism must broaden its outlook, and seek to promote "the large and efficient development of the British Commonwealth on liberal lines, both within and outside these islands."

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Blue Book, C. p. 28, 2673.