Article 9 of the Grondwet is not only adhered to, but is exaggerated in its application as follows:—"The people shall not permit any equality of coloured persons with white inhabitants, neither in the Church, nor in the State."
"These principles" says Mr. Bovill, "are so engrained in the mind of an average Boer that we can never expect anything to be done by the Volksraad for the natives in this respect. It appears inconceivable," he continues, "that a Government making any pretence of being a civilized power, at the end of the nineteenth century, should be so completely ignorant of the most elementary principles of good government for such a large number of its subjects."
As to the access by the natives to the Courts of Law.
"If you ask a native he will tell you that access to the law-courts is much too easy, but they are the Criminal Courts of the Field Cornets and Landdrosts. He suffers so much from these, that he cannot entertain the idea that the Higher Courts are any better than the ordinary Field Cornets' or Landdrosts'. However, there are times when with fear and trepidation he does appeal to a Higher Court. With what result? If the decision is in favour of the native, the burghers are up in arms, crying out against the injustice of a judgment given in favour of a black against a white man; burghers sigh and say that a great disaster is about to befall the State when a native can have judgment against a white man. The inequality of the blacks and superiority of the white (burghers) is largely discussed. Motions are brought forward in the Volksraad to prohibit natives pleading in the Higher Courts. Such is the usual outcry. Summary justice (?) by a Landdrost or Field Cornet is all the Boer would allow a native. No appeal should be permitted, for may it not lead to a quashing of the conviction? The Landdrost is the friend of the Boer, and he can always "square" him in a matter against a native. "It was only to prevent an open breach with England that these appeals to the Higher Courts were permitted in a limited degree."[33]
No. 2.—The Native Marriage Laws. "Think," says Mr. Bovill, "what it would mean to our social life in England if we were a conquered nation, and the conquerors should say: 'All your laws and customs are abrogated; your marriage laws are of no consequence to us; you may follow or leave them as you please, but we do not undertake to support them, and you may live like cattle if you wish; we cannot recognise your marriage laws as binding, nor yet will we legalise any form of marriage among you.' Such is in effect, the present position of the natives in the Transvaal.
"I occasionally took my holidays in Johannesburg, and assisted the Vicar, during which time I could take charge of Christian native marriages, of which the State took no cognisance. A native may marry, and any time after leave his wife, but the woman would have no legal claim on him. He could marry again as soon as he pleased, and he could not be proceeded against either for support of his first wife or for bigamy. And so he might go on as long as he wished to marry or could get anyone to marry him. The same is applicable to all persons of colour, even if only slightly coloured—half-castes of three or four generations if the colour is at all apparent. All licenses for the marriage of white people must be applied for personally, and signed in the presence of the Landdrost, who is very cautious lest half-castes or persons of colour should get one. Colour is evidently the only test of unfitness to claim recognition of the marriage contract by the Transvaal State.
"The injustice of such a law must be apparent; it places a premium on vice.[34] It gives an excuse to any 'person of colour' to commit the most heinous offences against the laws of morality and social order, and protects such a one from the legal consequences which would necessarily follow in any other civilised State."
Mr. Bovill has an instructive chapter on the "Compound system," and the condition of native compounds. This is a matter which it is to be hoped will be taken seriously to heart by the Chartered Company, and any other company or group of employers throughout African mining districts." The Compound system of huddling hundreds of natives together in tin shanties is the very opposite to the free life to which they are accustomed. If South African mining is to become a settled industry, we must have the conditions of the labour market settled, and also the conditions of living. We cannot expect natives to give up their free open-air style of living, and their home life. They love their homes, and suffer from homesickness as much as, or probably more than most white people. The reason so many leave their work after six months is that they are constantly longing to see their wives and children. Many times have they said to me, 'It would be all right if only we could have our wives and families with us.'"
"The result of this compound life is the worst possible morally."....
"We must treat the native, not as a machine to work when required under any conditions, but as a raw son of nature, very often without any moral force to control him and to raise him much above the lower animal world in his passions, except that which native custom has given him."