Impressions of South Africa

by Viscount James Bryce Bryce

The position in which Britain stood needs to be examined from two sides, its legal right of interference, and the practical considerations which justified interference in this particular case.

Her legal right rested on three grounds. The first was the Convention of 1884 (printed in the Appendix to this volume), which entitled her to complain of any infraction of the privileges thereby guaranteed to her subjects.

The second was the ordinary right, which every State possesses, to complain, and (if necessary) intervene when its subjects are wronged, and especially when they suffer any disabilities not imposed upon the subjects of other States.

The third right was more difficult to formulate. It rested on the fact that as Britain was the greatest power in South Africa, owning the whole country south of the Zambesi except the two Dutch Republics (for the deserts of German Damaraland and the Portuguese East-coast territories may be practically left out of account), she was interested in preventing any causes of disturbance within the Transvaal which might spread beyond its borders, and become sources of trouble either among natives or among white men. This right was of a vague and indeterminate nature, and could be legitimately used only when it was plain that the sources of trouble did really exist and were becoming dangerous.

Was there not also, it may be asked, the suzerainty of Britain, and if so, did it not justify intervention? I will not discuss the question, much debated by English lawyers, whether the suzerainty over the "Transvaal State," mentioned in the preamble to the Convention of 1881, was preserved over the "South African Republic" by the Convention of 1884, not because I have been unable to reach a conclusion on the subject, but because the point seems to be one of no practical importance. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is a suzerainty, it is perfectly clear from an examination of the Conventions and of the negotiations of 1884 that this suzerainty relates solely to foreign relations, and has nothing whatever to do with the internal constitution or government of the Transvaal. The significance of the term—if it be carried over and read into the Convention of 1884—is exhausted by the provision in Article IV of that instrument for the submission of treaties to the British Government. No argument, accordingly, for any right of interference as regards either the political arrangements of the Transvaal or the treatment of foreigners within its borders, can be founded on this real or supposed suzerainty. This view had been too frequently and too clearly expressed by the British Government before 1896, to make it possible for any British official to attempt to put any such construction upon the term; and the matter might therefore have been suffered to drop, since the right to veto treaties was explicit, and did not need to be supported by an appeal to the preamble of 1881. The term, however, though useless to Britain, was galling to the Transvaal, which suspected that it would be made a pretext for infringements upon their independence in internal affairs; and these suspicions were confirmed by the talk of the Uitlander spokesmen in Johannesburg, who were in the habit of appealing to Britain as the Suzerain Power. It has played a most unfortunate part in the whole controversy.

Suzerainty, which is a purely legal, though somewhat vague, conception, has in many minds become confused with the practical supremacy, or rather predominance, of Britain in South Africa, which is a totally different matter. That predominance rests on the fact that Britain commands the resources of a great empire, while the Dutch republics are petty communities of ranchmen. But it does not carry any legal rights of interference, any more than a preponderance of force gives Germany rights against Holland.

As I have referred to the Convention of 1884, it may be well to observe that while continuing to believe that, on a review of the facts as they then stood, the British Government were justified in restoring self-government to the Transvaal in 1881, they seem to me to have erred in conceding the Convention of 1884. Though the Rand goldfields had not then been discovered, Lord Derby ought to have seen that the relations of the Transvaal to the adjoining British territories would be so close that a certain measure of British control over its internal administration might come to be needful. This control, which was indeed but slight, he surrendered in 1884. But the improvidence of the act does not in the least diminish the duty of the country which made the Convention to abide by its terms, or relieve it from the obligation of making out for any subsequent interference a basis of law and fact which the opinion of the world might accept as sufficient.

It has not been sufficiently realised in England that although the Transvaal may properly, in respect of British control over its foreign relations, be described as a semi-dependent State, Britain was under the same obligation to treat it with a strict regard to the recognised principles of international law as if it had been a great power. She had made treaties with it, and those treaties it was her duty to observe. Apart from all moral or sentimental considerations, apart from the fact that Britain had at the Hague Conference been the warm and effective advocate of peaceful methods of settling disputes between nations, it is her truest interest to set an example of fairness, legality and sincerity. No country, not even the greatest, can afford to neglect that reasonable and enlightened opinion of thoughtful men in other countries—not to be confounded with the invective and misrepresentation employed by the press of each nation against the others—which determines the ultimate judgment of the world, and passes into the verdict of history.

Did then the grievances of which the British residents in the Transvaal complained furnish such a basis? These grievances are well known, and will be found mentioned in [chapter XXV]. They were real and vexatious. It is true that some of them affected not so much British residents as the European shareholders in the great mining companies; true also that the mining industry (as will be seen from the figures on p. [301]) was expanding and prospering in spite of them. Furthermore, they were grievances under which, it might be argued, the immigrants had placed themselves by coming with notice of their existence, and from which they might escape by taking a train into the Free State or Natal. And they were grievances which, however annoying, did not render either life or property unsafe,[1] and did not prevent the Johannesburgers from enjoying life and acquiring wealth. Nevertheless, they were such as the British Government was entitled to endeavour to have redressed. Nor could it be denied that the state of irritation and unrest which prevailed on the Witwatersrand, the probability that another rising would take place whenever a chance of success offered, furnished to Britain, interested as she was in the general peace of the country, a ground for firm remonstrance and for urging the removal of all legitimate sources of disaffection, especially as these re-acted on the whole of South Africa. The British authorities at the Cape seem indeed to have thought that the unyielding attitude of the Transvaal Government worked much mischief in the Colony, being taken by the English there as a defiance to the power and influence of Britain, and so embittering their minds.

Among the grievances most in men's mouths was the exclusion of the new-comers from the electoral franchise. It must be clearly distinguished from the other grievances. It was a purely internal affair, in which Britain had no right to intermeddle, either under the Convention of 1884 or under the general right of a state to protect its subjects. Nothing is clearer than that every state may extend or limit the suffrage as it pleases. If a British self-governing colony were to restrict the suffrage to those who had lived fourteen years in the colony, or a state of the American Union were to do the like, neither the Home Government in the one case, nor the Federal Government in the other would have any right to interfere. All therefore that Britain could do was to call the attention of the South African Republic in a friendly way to the harm which the restriction of the franchise was causing, and point out that to enlarge it might remove the risk of a collision over other matters which did fall within the scope of British intervention.