Impressions of South Africa

by Viscount James Bryce Bryce

Regarding the pastoral and agricultural capabilities of the country there need be little doubt. All of it, except those lower grounds to the north and south-east which are infested by the tsetse-fly, is fit for cattle; some parts, such as the Matoppo Hills in Matabililand and still more the Inyanga plateau in Mashonaland (mentioned in the last preceding chapter), offer excellent pasture. The "high veldt" of central Matabililand is no less available for sheep. Most of the cattle that were on the land have perished in the recent murrain. But this plague will pass by and may not return for many years, perhaps for centuries, and the animals that will be brought in to restock the country will probably be of better breeds. The quality of the soil for the purposes of tillage has been tested by Europeans in a few places only. Much of it is dry; much of it, especially where the subjacent rock is granitic, is thin or sandy. Still, after allowing for these poorer tracts, there remains an immense area of land which is fit to raise cereals and some subtropical crops such as cotton. The immediate question is not, therefore, as to the productive capacities of the country, but as to the existence of a market for the products themselves. Nearly all staple food-stuffs have of late years become so cheap in the markets of Europe and North America, owing to the bringing under cultivation of so much new land and the marvellous reduction in the cost of ocean carriage, that in most of such articles Mashonaland, even with a railway to the sea, could not at present compete successfully in those markets with India and South America and the western United States. It is therefore to consumers nearer at hand that the country must look. If gold-mining prospers, population will rapidly increase, and a market will be created at the agriculturists' own door. If, on the other hand, the reefs disappoint the hopes formed of them, and the influx of settlers is too small to create any large demand, tillage will spread but little, and the country will be left to be slowly occupied by ranchmen. Thus the growth of population and the prosperity of every industry will depend upon the extent to which gold-mining can be profitably developed. Of course I speak only of the near future. However rich some of the reefs may turn out, they will be exhausted within a few decades, and the country will have to depend on its other resources. However unremunerative the reefs may prove, these other resources will in the long run assure to it a settled white population and a reasonable measure of prosperity. But these are days in which we all have learned to take short views of life for nations and countries as well as for our individual selves, and unquestionably the more or less of gold in its quartz will for this country make all the difference between its speedy and its slow development.

Peace.—Thirdly, there remains the question whether the natives can be kept quiet. The first occupation of Mashonaland was so tranquil, the first conquest of the Matabili so swift and easy, that everybody perceives that some further trouble ought to have been expected before British control could be deemed secure. Now there has been a second struggle and a pacification if not a victory. Has the suppression of the revolt given permanent security? Are the natives at last aware that the superiority of intelligence and organization on the part of the whites more than counterbalances their own immense preponderance in numbers, a preponderance of fully one hundred to one? No one will speak confidently on this point who remembers how implicit and how vain was the confidence felt in 1895 that the natives were contented and submissive. There was some little risk of trouble in the spring of 1899 among the Matabili, but the unrest became known in time, and is believed to have subsided. On the whole, there is reason to think that if the natives are ruled in a prudent and friendly spirit, making due allowance for their often unreasonable alarms and suspicions, no fresh rising need be feared. The chief aim of the ruling officials should be to draw and not to drive them to labour, and to keep in check those white adventurers who hang about the frontiers of civilization and sometimes ill-use or defraud the Kafir in a way which makes him hostile to the next whites, however well intentioned, who come into his neighbourhood. It may be some years yet before the natives will seek work at the mines to the extent desired, for they dislike underground labour. They were reported in 1899 to be still deaf to the mine-owners' blandishments, although the average wage is £2 a month; and the want of labour is assigned as a cause why many mines said to be promising have made little progress. But policy, as well as humanity and justice, forbids any resort to compulsion. Though it is quite true that the native hates to see the white men come in, disturb his old way of life, and take the best land, still I doubt if anything less than some positive grievance, such as forced labour or the taking of cattle, will be likely to rouse him to another attack on the strangers. Should such an attack occur, it would be less formidable than that of 1896. The tribal system, already weakened, tends among the Matabili to dissolve still further, as was seen by the absence of notable leaders and the general want of plan and co-operation in the late conflict. Among the Mashonas each village is independent, so that a combined effort is still less to be feared.[58] Moreover the completion of the two railways to Bulawayo on the western and Fort Salisbury on the eastern side of the country now enables reinforcements to be rapidly sent up from the coast, and has removed the only danger that really threatened the whites in 1896—their isolation from help and from supplies of ammunition and of food.

What, then, are the general conclusions to which this rapid survey leads? I will summarise them.

1. Though parts of the country will remain malarious, great areas will be sufficiently healthy to enable a large white population to grow up and maintain itself on the soil in vigour of mind and body. In this sense it will be a "white man's country."

2. The black population is, however, likely to remain by far the more numerous element, partly because it is better fitted for the malarious and the hottest regions, and partly because here, as elsewhere in South Africa, it is by the blacks that nearly all manual labour will continue to be done. In this sense, that of numerical preponderance, the country, and of course especially the parts of it which lie near to and north of the Zambesi, will be a "black man's country."

3. The material progress of the country, and the more or less rapid increase of its white population, will depend, in the first instance, on the greater or less success with which gold-mining is prosecuted. If the reefs turn out well, growth will be rapid; if not, it will be slow. But in the long run the soil and the climate will be the main factors in material and social prosperity. These give abundant grounds for hope. The rainfall is larger than in the interior of Cape Colony, and much of the soil will therefore be more productive. Therewith other industries will spring up; and some of them will remain even when mining has declined.

4. The political future will depend upon the growth of population, as that depends upon the development of material resources. Should there be a large and steady influx of white settlers, there must before long come a demand for self-governing institutions. To concede these institutions will be in the well-established line of British Colonial policy, and the question will then arise whether the country, or the more settled parts of it, should form a separate Colony or be incorporated with Cape Colony (as British Bechuanaland recently was). That one found in 1895 very little disposition among the white settlers to grumble at the administration seemed chiefly due to the great personal popularity of the genial Administrator, Dr. L. S. Jameson.

5. In 1898 the government and administration of the region south of the Zambesi, i.e., Matabililand and Mashonaland, theretofore in the hands of the British South Africa Company, were re-settled by an Order in Council (Southern Rhodesia Order in Council, October 20th, 1898). It vests authority in an Administrator appointed by the Company (with the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies), a Resident Commissioner, appointed by the Secretary of State and reporting directly to him, an Executive Council of four persons appointed by the Company, together with the senior and any other Administrators and the Resident Commissioner, and a Legislative Council consisting, besides the Commissioner and Administrators, of nine members, five appointed by the Company, and four elected by the registered voters in electoral districts. The Resident Commissioner, though entitled to be present and speak at meetings, has no vote. Legislative Ordinances may be vetoed by the High Commissioner for South Africa or by the Secretary of State. The police (a force of 1,200 is now maintained) are under the orders of the High Commissioner. There are various provisions for the protection of the natives, and the recognition of native law; and it is provided (§ 47) that any "customs duties to be levied are not to exceed the duties levied at the commencement of the Order by the South African Customs Union Tariff, or by the Customs Union Convention of May, 1898, whichever are higher."

This form of government is evidently provisional, and questions must arise in the future, regarding the political constitution to be given to this region and the relations of the Company to it, which will present much difficulty.

The country lying north of the Zambesi has been divided into two districts, North East Rhodesia and North West Rhodesia, each of which is placed under an Administrator appointed by the Company, the extreme North Western strip, towards the Portuguese territory, remaining meantime under the more direct authority of the High Commissioner. It is understood that these areas also are to be regulated by Orders in Council.