The Africanders

by Le Roy Hooker

Concerning the other grounds of complaint Mr. Statham writes:

“There are, besides the material grievances alluded to above, what may be called the political grievances, such as (1) the alleged government of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, (2) the language grievance, (3) the educational grievance, and (4) the franchise grievance.

“As regards the first mentioned of these, an honest and impartial person would search for evidence of it in vain. All the members of the executive, with one exception, are South African born; so are the majority of heads and sub-heads of departments. * * * The only Hollander of any distinction in the government [[201]]is the state secretary, Dr. Leyds, a man of exceptional ability and integrity, who, in spite of enormous difficulties and constant attacks, has deserved and retained the confidence both of the president and the volksraad. To say that he is the ablest and most cultured official in South Africa is to say what is simply true, and if his ability has excited jealousy and resentment, it is only what a general study of human nature would lead one to expect.

“As regards the language question and the education question, consideration has to be paid to the language most usually spoken in the country. Entirely misleading ideas are liable to be formed on this point, owing to the erroneous impression as to the relative strength of the Dutch and the foreign population. A habit has arisen of speaking as if the foreign population greatly outnumbered the burgher population. The case is quite the opposite of this. The census of Johannesburg taken in 1896 by the Johannesburg Sanitary Commission showed that the population of the place had been greatly overestimated, the male European population of all ages amounting to 31,000. As there are 25,000 burghers on the military register of the republic, it seems fair to assume that the burgher population is at least [[202]]150,000, while the foreign population is probably not more than half of that. Of the 150,000 burghers and their families fully two-thirds do not understand English. Is it, then, unreasonable to claim that the official language, the language of official documents, shall be the language spoken by two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch, there is not a single government office in which there is not English or German spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the higher courts the judges frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language in the witness-box, and in the lower courts English is invariably spoken by English litigants.

“As regards the education question, there is not now much need to discuss it. The volksraad during the session of 1896 passed a law in further expansion of the principles laid down in the law of 1892, and under the regulations drawn up in accordance with the law, as now expanded, state schools, in which English-speaking children will be taught in English, and which are placed under the control of representative school boards, have been established in the gold-mining districts.

“The franchise question has been made the [[203]]subject of special complaint. Here, however, there are several difficulties in the way. In the first place, the majority of the foreign population do not want the franchise, because they are quite content with their position as it is and do not want to become—as they would have to do if they exercised the franchise—burghers of the South African Republic. The very agitation over the question has increased the difficulty, for the more there seems to be a possibility of a serious misunderstanding between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the less disposed British subjects become to place themselves in a position which might compel them to fight against their own countrymen. Meantime the government and the volksraad have been compelled to the conclusion that the agitation for the franchise is not genuine—that it has not been encouraged with the view to obtaining a concession, but with the object of establishing a grievance. They have seen, too, that to grant wholesale political privileges to the foreign residents in Johannesburg, even if those foreign residents were willing to become naturalized, would be to a great extent to deliver up the interests of all the dependent classes—the shopkeepers, the miners, the professional men—into the hands of a small group of [[204]]capitalists, who would use their influence, as they have used it elsewhere, to corrupt the political atmosphere and to subject the interests of every individual to their own. The political tyranny that exists in Kimberley, where employes of De Beers are compelled to vote to order on pain of dismissal, supplies a sufficient illustration of what would happen in Johannesburg if once the financial conspirators secured political control. A further and most significant illustration is supplied by a well-known incident in connection with the revolutionary movement in Johannesburg, when miners under the control of the leading conspirators were ordered to take up arms under penalty of forfeiting their wages. That in the great majority of cases they preferred the latter course is in itself a complete exposure of the hollowness of the whole revolutionary movement. In all known cases of revolution arising from discontent on the part of a mining population it has been the miners who have taken the lead and dragged others in with them. In this case the miners, who had never dreamed of discontent, were ordered to take up arms and refused.

“Out of the facts of the position actually existing in Johannesburg and other gold-mining [[205]]centers it was utterly impossible for any honest man to manufacture a serious complaint, least of all such a complaint as would in any respect justify a revolution to secure redress. So far from being treated with unfairness or hardship, the foreign residents in the Transvaal have been treated with marked consideration. The interests of the gold industry have been consulted in every possible way. If the government has not in some instances been able to do all it might have wished to do, it has been because the reckless language of a portion of the press and the overbearing attitude of the capitalist agitators have aroused the suspicion and the resentment of the volksraad.

“Yet out of this position of things a case had to be got up against the Transvaal government in order to justify the revolutionary movement that had been planned in the interest of the small groups of capitalists who had determined to make themselves as supreme over the gold industry in Johannesburg as they had become over the diamond industry in Kimberley.”

It has seemed necessary to quote Mr. Statham thus at length in order that the alleged grievances of the foreigners in the Transvaal, and the Africander answer thereto may be considered [[206]]side by side. To say the least, Mr. Statham has not dealt in vague generalities. His assertions are specific and his figures can easily be investigated. It is for those who sympathize with the complaints which led to prolonged agitation and finally to war, to show that Mr. Statham was in error. Until they shall have done so charges of “oppressive” and “extortionate” imposts, taxes and tariffs will lie, not against the South African Republic, but against the British administration in Cape Colony, Natal and Rhodesia.

Mr. Statham’s contention that the Dutch ought to be the official language of the Transvaal seems well founded. The account he gives of a somewhat tardy provision—made after the raid of December, 1895—for the instruction of English children in the English language evinces a disposition to meet the reasonable demands of the foreigners in that regard; but the delay in doing so is to be regretted. The matter of franchise became the subject of acrimonious diplomatic negotiation and the immediate cause of war, which will be treated of more fully in a later chapter. [[207]]