Impressions of South Africa

by Viscount James Bryce Bryce

The number of natives regularly employed was in 1896 47,000, the total employed altogether during the year 70,000. In 1898 these numbers had risen to 67,000 and 88,000 respectively. The average monthly wage of a native was in 1896 £3 0s. 10d. and in 1898 £2 9s. 9d. The number of whites employed was in 1896 7,430 (average monthly wage £24), in 1898 9,476 (average monthly wage £26). Whites would be still more largely employed if they would work harder, but they disdain the more severe kinds of labour, thinking those fit only for Kafirs. The native workmen are of various tribes, Basutos, Zulus, Shanganis, and Zambesi boys being reckoned the best. Most of them come from a distance, some from great distances, and return home when they have saved the sum they need to establish themselves in life. The dream of the mine manager is to cut down the cost of native labour by getting a larger and more regular supply, as well as by obtaining cheaper maize to feed the workmen, for at present, owing to the customs duties on food-stuffs, the cost of maize—nearly all of which is imported—is much higher than it need be. So white labour might be much cheapened, while still remaining far better paid than in Europe, by a reduction of the customs tariff, which now makes living inordinately dear. Heavy duties are levied on machinery and chemicals; and dynamite is costly, the manufacture of it having been constituted a monopoly granted to a single person. Of all these things, loud complaints are heard, but perhaps the loudest are directed against the rates of freight levied by the railways, and especially by the Netherlands Company, which owns the lines inside the Transvaal State itself.

Even apart from the question of railway freights, Johannesburg believed in 1895 that better legislation and administration might reduce the cost of production by twenty or thirty per cent., a difference which would of course be rapidly felt in the dividends of the mines that now pay, and which would enable many now unprofitable mines to yield a dividend and many mines to be worked which are now not worth working.[61] However this may be, an examination of the figures I have given will show how great has been the development of the industry during the last eight years, how largely the dividends have grown and how much the cost of production has been reduced. Thus in spite of the difficulties mentioned, the profits made have greatly increased, and the shareholder has fared well.

There is nothing in the natural aspect of the mining belt to distinguish it from the rest of the Transvaal plateau. It is a high, dry, bare, scorched, and windy country, and Johannesburg, its centre, stands in one of the highest, driest, and windiest spots, on the south slope of the Witwatersrand ridge, whose top rises some 150 feet above the business quarters. Founded in 1886, the town has now a population exceeding 100,000, more than half of them whites. In 1896 the census (probably very imperfect) showed within a radius of three miles 50,000 whites, 42,000 Kafirs, and 6000 Asiatics. Though it is rapidly passing from the stage of shanties and corrugated iron into that of handsome streets lined with tall brick houses, it is still rough and irregular, ill paved, ill lighted, with unbuilt spaces scattered about and good houses set down among hovels.

Another element of unloveliness is supplied by the mines themselves, for the chief reefs run quite close to the southern part of the town, and the huge heaps of "waste rock" or refuse and so-called "tailings", the machinery which raises, crushes, and treats the ore, and the tall chimneys of the engine houses, are prominent objects in the suburbs. There is not much smoke; but to set against this there is a vast deal of dust, plenty from the streets, and still more from the tailings and other heaps of highly comminuted ore-refuse. The streets and roads alternate between mud for the two wet months, and dust in the rest of the year; and in the dry months not only the streets, but the air is full of dust, for there is usually a wind blowing. But for this dust, and for the want of proper drainage and a proper water-supply, the place would be healthy, for the air is dry and bracing. But there had been up to the end of 1895 a good deal of typhoid fever and a great deal of pneumonia, often rapidly fatal. In the latter part of 1896 the mortality was as high as 58 per thousand.[62]

It is a striking contrast to pass from the business part of the town to the pretty suburb which lies to the north-east under the steep ridge of the Witwatersrand, where the wealthier residents have erected charming villas and surrounded them with groves and gardens. Less pretty, but far more striking, is the situation of a few of the outlying country houses which have been built to the north, on the rocky top or along the northern slope of the same ridge. These have a noble prospect over thirty or forty miles of rolling country to the distant Magaliesberg. East and west the horizon is closed by long ranges of blue hills, while beneath, some large plantations of trees, and fields cultivated by irrigation, give to the landscape a greenness rare in this arid land. Standing on this lonely height and looking far away towards the Limpopo and Bechuanaland, it is hard to believe that such a centre of restless and strenuous life as Johannesburg is so near at hand. The prospect is one of the finest in this part of Africa; and it is to be hoped that a tract on these breezy heights will, before building has spread further, be acquired by the town as a public park.

Though in its general aspect Johannesburg comes nearer to one of the new mining cities of Western America than to any place in Europe, yet in many points it is more English than American, as it is far more English than Dutch. Indeed, there is nothing to remind the traveller that he is in a Dutch country except the Dutch names of the streets on some of the street corners. The population—very mixed, for there are Germans, Italians, and French, as well as some natives of India—is practically English-speaking, for next in number to the colonial English and the recent immigrants from Great Britain come the Australians and Americans, who are for all social purposes practically English. It is a busy, eager, restless, pleasure-loving town, making money fast and spending it lavishly, filled from end to end with the fever of mining speculation. This pursuit concentrates itself in one spot where two of the principal streets meet, and where a part of one of them is inclosed within low chains, so as to make a sort of inclosure, in which those who traffic in gold shares meet to buy and sell. "Between the chains" is the local expression for the mining exchange, or share market, and a sensitive and unstable market it is. It had been "booming" for most of the year, and many stocks stood far too high. But while we were there what is called a "slump" occurred, and it was pretty to study the phenomenon on the countenances between the chains.

The passion of the people for sport, and especially for racing, is characteristically English. The gambling-saloon is less conspicuous than in Transatlantic mining-camps, and there are fewer breaches of public order. Decorum is not always maintained. When I was there, a bout of fisticuffs occurred between the ex-head of the town police and his recently appointed successor, and the prowess of the former delighted a large ring of English spectators who gathered round the combatants. But one hears of no shootings at-sight or lynchings; and considering the great number of bad characters who congregate at places of this kind, it was surprising that the excess of crime over other South African towns (in which there is very little crime among the whites) should not have been larger. Partly, perhaps, because the country is far from Europe, the element of mere roughs and rowdies, of scalawags, hoodlums, and larrikins, is smaller than in the mining districts of the Western United States, and the proportion of educated men unusually large. The best society of the place—of course not very numerous—is cultivated and agreeable. It consists of men of English or Anglo-Jewish race—including Cape Colonists and Americans, with a few Germans, mostly of Jewish origin. I should conjecture the English and colonial element to compose seven-tenths of the white population, the American and German about one-tenth each, while Frenchmen and other European nations make up the residue. There are hardly any Boers or Hollanders, except Government officials; and one feels one's self all the time in an English, that is to say, an Anglo-Semitic town. Though there are some 50,000 Kafirs, not many are to be seen about the streets. The Boer farmers of the neighbourhood drive their waggons in every morning, laden with vegetables. But there are so few of the native citizens of the South African Republic resident in this its largest town that the traveller cannot help fancying himself in the Colony; and it was only natural that the English-speaking people, although newcomers, should feel the place to be virtually their own.

Great is the change when one passes from the busy Johannesburg to the sleepy Pretoria, the political capital of the country, laid out forty-three years ago, and made the seat of government in 1863. The little town—it has about 12,000 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are whites—lies in a warm and well watered valley—about thirty miles N.N.E. of Johannesburg. The gum-trees and willows that have grown up swiftly in the gardens and along the avenues embower it; and the views over the valley from the low hills—most of them now (since the middle of 1896) crowned by batteries of cannon—that rise above the suburbs are pleasing. But it has neither the superb panoramic prospect nor the sense of abounding wealth and strenuous life that make Johannesburg striking. The streets are wide, and after rain so muddy as to be almost impassable; the houses irregular, yet seldom picturesque. Nothing could be less beautiful than the big Dutch church, which occupies the best situation, in the middle of the market square. There is, however, one stately and even sumptuous building, that which contains the Government Offices and chambers of the legislature. It is said to have cost £200,000. The room in which the Volksraad (i.e., the First or chief Volksraad) meets is spacious and handsome. It interests the visitor to note that on the right hand of the chair of the presiding officer there is another chair, on the same level, for the President of the Republic, while to the right there are seats for the five members of the Executive Council, and to the left five others for the heads of the administrative departments, though none of these eleven is a member of the Raad.

We had expected to find Pretoria as Dutch as Johannesburg is English. But although there is a considerable Boer and Hollander population, and one hears Dutch largely spoken, the general aspect of the town is British colonial; and the British-colonial element is conspicuous and influential. Having little trade and no industry, Pretoria exists chiefly as the seat of the administration and of the courts of law. Now the majority of the bar are British-colonials from Cape Colony or England. The large interests involved in the goldfields, and the questions that arise between the companies formed to work them, give abundant scope for litigation, and one whole street, commonly known as the Aasvogelsnest (Vulture's Nest), is filled with their offices. They and the judges, the most distinguished of whom are also either colonial Dutchmen or of British origin, are the most cultivated and (except as regards political power) the leading section of society. It is a real pleasure to the European traveller to meet so many able and well-read men as the bench and bar of Pretoria contain; and he finds it odd that many of them should be excluded from the franchise and most of them regarded with suspicion by the ruling powers. Johannesburg (with its mining environs) has nearly all the industry and wealth, and half the whole white population of the Transvaal—a country, be it remembered, as large as Great Britain. Pretoria and the lonely country to the north, east, and west[63] have the rest of the population and all the power. It is true that Pretoria has also a good deal of the intelligence. But this intelligence is frequently dissociated from political rights.

President Kruger lives in a house which the Republic has presented to him, five minutes' walk from the public offices. It is a long, low cottage, like an Indian bungalow, with nothing to distinguish it from other dwellings. The President has, however, a salary of £7,000 a year, besides an allowance, commonly called "coffee money," to enable him to defray the expenses of hospitality. Just opposite stands the little chapel of the so-called Dopper sect in which he occasionally preaches. Like the Scotch of former days, the Boers have generally taken more interest in ecclesiastical than in secular politics. A sharp contest has raged among them between the party which desires to be in full communion with the Dutch Reformed Church of Cape Colony and the party which prefers isolation, distrusting (it would seem unjustly) the strict orthodoxy of that church. The Doppers (dippers, i.e. Baptists) are still more stringent in their adherence to ancient ways. When I asked for an account of their tenets, I was told that they wore long waistcoats and refused to sing hymns. They are, in fact, old-fashioned Puritans in dogmatic beliefs and social usages, and, as in the case of the more extreme Puritans of the seventeenth century, this theological stringency is accompanied by a firmness of character which has given them a power disproportionate to their numbers.