"English should be the official and predominant language in the higher courts, and in the public service—combined with such concessions in favour of Dutch as justice, convenience, and circumstances may require. Dutch interpreters should be attached to all courts and to the principal public offices, and their services should be available free of charge, in civil as well as in criminal cases. English should be the medium of instruction in all secondary schools, and in all standards in primary schools situated in English districts, and in the higher standards in all other primary schools. Dutch should be the medium of instruction meanwhile in the lower forms in the Dutch districts, and it should be taught in all schools where there is a reasonable demand for it."[324]
On the question of disarmament they wrote:
"In order to secure complete pacification, disarmament is necessary. Re-armament should not be allowed until both the new colonies are considered fit for self-government, and even then the carrying of arms and the issuing of ammunition should be contingent on the taking of the oath of allegiance."
The native question.
On the subject of the treatment of the natives in the new colonies, the remarks of the Natal ministers are weighty and pertinent.
"For a long while," they wrote, "the natives cannot be given political rights. The grant of such rights would have the effect of alienating the sympathy of English and Dutch alike, and would materially prejudice the good government of the new colonies, and be provocative of racial bitterness. In the meantime the natives should be taught habits of steady industry.
"Officers appointed over the natives should be acquainted with their language and customs.
"The assumption in England that colonists are unjust and brutal to the natives has worked great harm, and both Dutch and English have suffered from its influence.
"A native policy out of sympathy with colonial views is likely, owing to the past history of South Africa, to arouse so strong a feeling that even the just rights of natives would be disregarded. It is essential, in the interests of the natives themselves, generally, that the Home Government should work in accord with colonial sentiments as a whole, and the great influence of a colonial minister in sympathy with colonists will secure far more reforms than will any attempt to over-rule local feeling."[325]
As one of certain immediately practicable steps in the direction of South African unity, the Natal Ministry advocated "reciprocity" in the learned professions and the Civil Services of the several colonies. To effect this purpose they recommended that uniform tests of professional qualifications should be adopted throughout South Africa, and that public officers should be allowed to proceed from the civil service of one colony to that of another, their separate periods of service counting as continuous "for pension and other purposes." They also put forward a claim for the incorporation of certain districts of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony into Natal. The justice of this claim, in so far as it referred to a portion of Zululand wrongfully annexed by the Transvaal Boers, was recognised by the Imperial Government, and the district in question was transferred to Natal on the termination of the war.