Impressions of South Africa

by Viscount James Bryce Bryce

In this forecast I have said nothing of the gold mines, because they will not be a permanent factor. The present gold fever is a fleeting episode in South African history. Gold has, no doubt, played a great part in that history. It was the hope of getting gold that made the Portuguese fix their first post at Sofala in 1505, and that carried the English pioneers to Mashonaland in 1890. It was the discovery of the banket gold beds on the Witwatersrand in 1885 that finally settled the question whether South Africa was to be an English or a Dutch country. Yet gold mining will pass away in a few decades, for the methods which the engineer now commands will enable him within that time to extract from the rocks all the wealth now stored up in them. A day will come when nothing will be left to tell the traveller of the industry which drew hundreds of thousands of men to a barren ridge, except the heaps of refuse whose ugliness few shrubs will, in that dry land, spring up to cover. But South Africa will still be a pastoral and agricultural country, and none the less happy because the gold is gone.

Neither have I said anything as to the influence of any foreign power or people upon the South Africans, because they will to all appearance remain affected in the way of literature and commerce, as well as of politics, by Britain only. There is at present no land trade from British or Boer States with the territories of Germany and the Congo State which lie to the north; and spaces so vast, inhabited only by a few natives, lie between that no such trade seems likely to arise for many years to come. Continental Europe exerts little influence on South African ideas or habits; for the Boers, from causes already explained, have no intellectual affinity with modern Holland, and the Germans who have settled in British territories have become quickly Anglified. Commerce is almost exclusively with English ports. Some little traffic between Germany and Delagoa Bay has lately sprung up, aided by the establishment of a German line of steamers to that harbour. Vessels come with emigrants from India to Natal, though the Government of that Colony is now endeavouring to check the arrival of any but indentured coolies; and there are signs that an important direct trade with the United States, especially in cereals and agricultural machinery, may hereafter be developed. In none of these cases, however, does it seem probable that commercial intercourse will have any considerable influence outside the sphere of commerce. With Australia it is different. Having ceased, since the opening of the Suez Canal, to be the halfway house to India, the Cape has become one of the halfway houses from Britain to Australasia. The outgoing New Zealand steamers, as well as the steamers of the Aberdeen Australian line, touch there; grain is imported, although the high tariff restricts this trade, and many Australian miners traverse Cape Colony on their way to the Witwatersrand. A feeling of intercolonial amity is beginning to grow up, to which a happy expression was given by the Cape Government when they offered financial assistance to the Australian Colonies during the recent commercial crisis.

With the other great country of the Southern hemisphere there seems to be extremely little intercourse. Britain did not use, when she might have legitimately used, the opportunity that was offered her early in this century of conferring upon the temperate regions of South America the benefits of ordered freedom and a progressive population. Had the territories of the Argentine Republic (which now include Patagonia), territories then almost vacant, been purchased from Spain and peopled from England, a second Australia might have arisen in the West, and there would now be a promise not only of commerce, but ultimately of a league based upon community of race, language, and institutions between three great English-speaking States in the south temperate zone. That opportunity has, however, passed away; and southern South America, having now been settled by Spaniards and Italians, with a smaller number of Germans, seems destined to such fortunes as the Hispano-American race can win for her. But it may well be hoped that as trade increases between South Africa and Australia, there may come with more frequent intercourse a deepening sense of kinship and a fuller sympathy, inspiring to both communities, and helpful to any efforts that may hereafter be made to knit more closely together the English-speaking peoples all over the world.

Although the relations of the white race to the black constitute the gravest of the difficulties which confront South Africa, this difficulty is not the nearest one. More urgent, if less serious, is the other race problem—that of adjusting the rights and claims of the Dutch and the English.

It has already been explained that, so far as Cape Colony and Natal are concerned, there is really no question pending between the two races, and nothing to prevent them from working in perfect harmony and concord. Neither does the Orange Free State provide any fuel for strife, since there both Boers and English live in peace and are equally attached to the institutions of their Republic. It is in the Transvaal that the centre of disturbance lies; it is thence that the surrounding earth has so often been shaken and the peace of all South Africa threatened. I have already described the circumstances which brought about the recent troubles in that State. To comment upon what has happened since the rising, to criticize either the attitude of the President or the various essays in diplomacy of the British Government, would be to enter that field of current politics which I have resolved to avoid. What may fitly be done here is to state the uncontroverted and dominant facts of the situation as it stands in the autumn of 1897.[90]

What are these facts? The Boer population of the Transvaal is roughly estimated at 65,000, of whom about 24,000 are voting citizens. The Uitlanders, or alien population, five-sixths of whom speak English, are estimated at 180,000, of whom nearly one-half are adult males. These Uitlanders hold sixty-three per cent. of the landed and ninety per cent. of the personal property in the country. In December, 1895, their number was increasing at the rate of one thousand per week through arrivals from Cape Town alone; and though this influx fell off for a time, while political troubles were checking the development of the mines, it rose again with the renewal of that development. Should the Deep Level mines go on prospering as is expected, the rate of immigration will be sustained, and within ten years there will probably be at least 500,000 Uitlanders in the Republic, that is to say, nearly eight times the number of the Boers.

The numerical disproportion between these excluded persons—a very large part of whom will have taken root in the country—and the old citizens will then have become overwhelming, and the claim of the former to enjoy some share in the government will be practically irresistible. The concession of this share may come before 1907—I incline to think it will—or it may come somewhat later. The precise date is a small matter, and depends upon personal causes. But that the English-speaking element will, if the mining industry continues to thrive, become politically as well as economically supreme, seems inevitable. No political agitation or demonstrations in the Transvaal, much less any intervention from outside, need come into the matter. It is only of the natural causes already at work that I speak, and these natural causes are sufficient to bring about the result. A country must, after all, take its character from the large majority of its inhabitants, especially when those who form that large majority are the wealthiest, most educated, and most enterprising part of the population.

Whether this inevitable admission of the new-comers to citizenship will happen suddenly or gradually, in quiet or in storm, no one can venture to predict. There are things which we can perceive to be destined to occur, though the time and the manner may be doubtful. But as it will be dictated by the patent necessities of the case, one may well hope that it will come about in a peaceable way and leave behind no sense of irritation in either race. Boers and Englishmen cannot in the Transvaal so easily blend and learn to work together as they have done in the Orange Free State, because they were in the latter State far less socially dissimilar. But the extension of the suffrage, while it will be followed by legislation beneficial to the mining industry, need not involve legislation harmful to the material interests of the Boer element. On the contrary, the Boers themselves will ultimately profit by any increase in the prosperity of the country. An improved administration will give a more assured status to the judiciary, as well as a better set of laws and better internal communications, advantages which will be helpful to the whole Republic.

That the change should come about peaceably is much to be desired in the interest not only of the Transvaal itself, but of all South Africa. The irritation of the Dutch element in Cape Colony, both in 1881 and again in 1896, was due to an impression that their Transvaal kinsfolk were being unfairly dealt with. Should that impression recur, its influence both on the Dutch of Cape Colony, and on the people of the Free State, whose geographical position makes their attitude specially important, would be unfortunate. The history of South Africa, like that of other countries nearer home, warns us how dangerous a factor sentiment, and especially the sense of resentment at injustice, may become in politics, and how it may continue to work mischief even when the injustice has been repented of. It is, therefore, not only considerations of magnanimity and equity, but also considerations of policy, that recommend to the English in South Africa and to the British Government an attitude of patience, prudence, and strict adherence to legal rights. They are entitled to require the same adherence from the Transvaal Government, but it is equally their interest not to depart from it themselves, and to avoid even the least appearance of aggression. The mistakes of the past are not irremediable. Tact, coolness, and patience—above all, patience—must gradually bring about that reconcilement and fusion of the two races to which, it can scarcely be doubted, South Africa will at last attain.

When, by the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders, the Transvaal has ceased to be a purely Boer State, questions will arise as to its relations with the other States of South Africa. Cape Colony and the Orange Free State, as well as Basutoland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate, already form a Customs Union, and they have long sought to induce the Transvaal and Natal to enter into it and thereby establish internal free trade throughout the country. Natal at last consented (in 1898); but the Transvaal people steadily refused, desiring to stand as much aloof as possible from Cape Colony, as well as to raise for themselves a revenue on imports larger than that which they would receive as partners in the Customs Union. A reformed Transvaal Government would probably enter the Customs Union; and this would usher in the further question of a confederation of all the States and Colonies of South Africa. That project was mooted by Sir George Grey (when Governor) more than thirty years ago, and was actively pressed by Lord Carnarvon (when Colonial Secretary) and Sir Bartle Frere between 1875 and 1880. It failed at that time, partly owing to the annoyance of the Orange Free State at the loss of the diamond-fields in 1871, partly to the reluctance of the Dutch party at the Cape, who were roused against the proposal by their Transvaal kinsfolk. The desire for it is believed to have moved some of those who joined in the Transvaal Uitlander movement of 1895-96, and no one can discuss the future of the country without adverting to it. The advantages it offers are obvious. A confederation would render in Africa services similar to those which the federal system has rendered in the United States and Canada, and which are expected by the colonial statesmen who have laboured to establish such a system in Australia. I heard not only railways and finance (including tariff and currency), but also commercial law and native questions, suggested as matters fit to be intrusted to a federal authority; while it seemed to be thought that the scope of such an authority should, on the whole, be narrower than it is under the Canadian Constitution, or under that of the United States. The love of local independence is strong in South Africa, but might be deferred to and appeased, as is being done in Australia, by appropriate constitutional provisions. So far, no fatal obstacle stands in the way; but a difficulty has been thought to arise from the fact that whereas Cape Colony, Natal, and the other British territories are part of the dominions of the British Crown, the Orange Free State is an independent Republic, and the Transvaal may be so when federation becomes a practical issue. "Can a federal tie," it is asked, "bind into one body communities some of which are Republics, while others, though practically self-governing, are legally parts of a monarchy?"