Chapter 10

I turn to their Laws, and in judging these, it is hardly possible to be too severe. Law is a great teacher, a trainer, to a great extent, of the character of the people. The Boers would have been an exceptional people under the sun had they escaped the deterioration which such Laws and such Government as they have had the misfortune to live under inevitably produce.

A pamphlet has lately been published containing a defence of the Boer treatment of Missionaries and Natives, and setting forth the efforts which have been made in recent years to Christianize and civilize the native populations in their midst. This paper is signed by nine clergymen of the Dutch Reformed Church, and includes the name of the Rev. Andrew Murray, a name respected and beloved by many in our own country. It is welcome news that such good work has been undertaken, that the President has himself encouraged it, and that a number of Zulus or Kaffirs have recently been baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Transvaal. But the fact strikes one painfully that in this pleading, (which has a pathetic note in it,) these clergymen appear to have obliterated from their mind and memory the whole past history, of their nation, and to have forgotten that the harvest from seed sown through many generations may spring up and bear its bitter fruit in their own day. They do not seem to have accepted the verdict, or made the confession, "we and our fathers have sinned." They seem rather to argue, "our fathers may have sinned in these respects, but it cannot be laid to our charge that we are continuing in their steps."

No late repentance will avail for the salvation of their country unless Justice is now proclaimed and practised;--Justice in Government and in the Laws.

Their Grondwet, or Constitution, must be removed out of its place for ever; their unequal laws, and the administrative corruption which unequal laws inevitably foster, must be swept away, and be replaced by a very different Constitution and very different Laws. If this had been done during the two last decades of Transvaal history, while untrammelled (as was desired) by British interference, the sincerity of this recent utterance would have deserved full credit, and would have been recognized as the beginning of a radical reformation.

The following is from the last Report of the Aborigines Protection Society (Jan., 1900). Its present secretary leans towards a favourable judgment of the recent improvements in the policy of the Transvaal, and condemns severely every act on the part of the English which does not accord with the principles of our Constitutional Law, and therefore this statement will not be regarded as the statement of a partisan: "It is laid down as a fundamental principle in the Transvaal Grondwet that there is no equality of rights between white men and blacks. In theory, if not in practice, the Boers regard the natives, all of whom they contemptuously call Kaffirs, whatever their tribal differences, pretty much as the ancient Jews regarded the Philistines and others whom they expelled from Palestine, or used as hewers of wood and drawers of water, but with added prejudice due to the difference of colour. So it was in the case of the early Dutch settlers, and so it is to-day, with a few exceptions, due mainly to the influence of the missionaries, whose work among the natives has from the first been objected to and hindered. It is only by social sufferance, and not by law, that the marriage of natives with Christian rites is recognised, and it carries with it none of the conditions as regards inheritance and the like, which are prescribed by the Dutch Roman code in force with white men. As a matter of fact, natives have no legal rights whatever. If they are in the service of humane masters, mindful of their own interests and moral obligations, they may be properly lodged and fed, not overworked, and fairly recompensed; but from the cruelties of a brutal master, perpetrated in cold blood or a drunken fit, the native practically has no redress."

The Rev. John H. Bovill, Rector of the Cathedral Church, Lorenço Marquez, and sometime Her Majesty's Acting Consul there, has worked for five years in a district from which numbers of natives were drawn for work in the Transvaal, has visited the Transvaal from time to time, and is well acquainted with Boers of all classes and occupations. He has given us some details of the working out--especially as regards the natives--of the principles of the Grondwet or Constitution of the Transvaal.

To us English, the most astonishing feature, to begin with, of this Constitution, is that it places the power of the Judiciary below that of the Raad or Legislative Body. The Judges of the Highest Court of Law are not free to give judgment according to evidence before them and the light given to them. A vote of the Raad, consisting of a mere handful of men in secret sitting, can at any time override and annul a sentence of the High Court.

This will perhaps be better understood if we picture to ourselves some great trial before Lord Russell and others of our eminent judges, in which any laws bearing on the case were carefully tested in connection with the principles of our Constitution; that this supreme Court had pronounced its verdict, and that the next day Parliament should discuss, with closed doors, the verdict of the judges, and by a vote or resolution, should declare it unjust and annul it.

Let us imagine, to follow the matter a little further on the lines of Transvaal justice, that our Sovereign had power to dismiss at will from office any judge or judges who might have exercised independence of judgment and pronounced a verdict displeasing to Parliament or to herself personally! Such is law and justice in the Transvaal; and that country is called a Republic! "This is Transvaal justice," says M. Naville; "a mockery, an ingenious legalizing of tyranny. There are no laws, there are only the caprices of the Raad. A vote in a secret sitting, that is what binds the Judges, and according to it they will administer justice. The law of to-day will perhaps not be the law to-morrow. The fifteen members of the majority, or rather President Kruger, who influences their votes, may change their opinion from one day to the next--it matters not; their opinion, formulated by a vote, will always be law. Woe to the judge who should dare to mention the Constitution or the Code, for there is one: he would at once be dismissed by the President who appointed him."

It was prescribed by the Grondwet that no new law should be passed by Parliament (the Volksraad) unless notice of it had been given three months in advance, and the people had had the opportunity to pronounce upon it. This did not suit the President; accordingly when desirous of legalizing some new project of his own, he adopted the plan of bringing in such project as an addition or amendment to some existing law, giving it out as _no new law_, but only a supplementary clause. Law No. 1 of 1897 was manipulated in this manner. By this law, the Judges of the High Court were formally deprived of the right to test the validity of any law in its relation to the Constitution, and they were also compelled to accept as law, without question or reservation of any kind, any resolution passed at any time and under any circumstances by the Volksraad. This Law No. 1 of 1897 was passed through all its stages in three days, without being subjected in the first instance to the people.

But I am especially concerned with what affects the natives.

Article 1 of this section says:--A native must not own fixed property.

(2) He must not marry by civil or ecclesiastical process.

(3) He must not be allowed access to Civil Courts in any action against a white man.

Article 9 of the Grondwet is not only adhered to, but is exaggerated in its application as follows:--"The people shall not permit any equality of coloured persons with white inhabitants, neither in the Church, nor in the State."

"These principles" says Mr. Bovill, "are so engrained in the mind of an average Boer that we can never expect anything to be done by the Volksraad for the natives in this respect. It appears inconceivable," he continues, "that a Government making any pretence of being a civilized power, at the end of the nineteenth century, should be so completely ignorant of the most elementary principles of good government for such a large number of its subjects."

As to the access by the natives to the Courts of Law.

"If you ask a native he will tell you that access to the law-courts is much too easy, but they are the Criminal Courts of the Field Cornets and Landdrosts. He suffers so much from these, that he cannot entertain the idea that the Higher Courts are any better than the ordinary Field Cornets' or Landdrosts'. However, there are times when with fear and trepidation he does appeal to a Higher Court. With what result? If the decision is in favour of the native, the burghers are up in arms, crying out against the injustice of a judgment given in favour of a black against a white man; burghers sigh and say that a great disaster is about to befall the State when a native can have judgment against a white man. The inequality of the blacks and superiority of the white (burghers) is largely discussed. Motions are brought forward in the Volksraad to prohibit natives pleading in the Higher Courts. Such is the usual outcry. Summary justice (?) by a Landdrost or Field Cornet is all the Boer would allow a native. No appeal should be permitted, for may it not lead to a quashing of the conviction? The Landdrost is the friend of the Boer, and he can always "square" him in a matter against a native. "It was only to prevent an open breach with England that these appeals to the Higher Courts were permitted in a limited degree."[33]

No. 2.--The Native Marriage Laws. "Think," says Mr. Bovill, "what it would mean to our social life in England if we were a conquered nation, and the conquerors should say: 'All your laws and customs are abrogated; your marriage laws are of no consequence to us; you may follow or leave them as you please, but we do not undertake to support them, and you may live like cattle if you wish; we cannot recognise your marriage laws as binding, nor yet will we legalise any form of marriage among you.' Such is in effect, the present position of the natives in the Transvaal.

"I occasionally took my holidays in Johannesburg, and assisted the Vicar, during which time I could take charge of Christian native marriages, of which the State took no cognisance. A native may marry, and any time after leave his wife, but the woman would have no legal claim on him. He could marry again as soon as he pleased, and he could not be proceeded against either for support of his first wife or for bigamy. And so he might go on as long as he wished to marry or could get anyone to marry him. The same is applicable to all persons of colour, even if only slightly coloured--half-castes of three or four generations if the colour is at all apparent. All licenses for the marriage of white people must be applied for personally, and signed in the presence of the Landdrost, who is very cautious lest half-castes or persons of colour should get one. Colour is evidently the only test of unfitness to claim recognition of the marriage contract by the Transvaal State.

"The injustice of such a law must be apparent; it places a premium on vice.[34] It gives an excuse to any 'person of colour' to commit the most heinous offences against the laws of morality and social order, and protects such a one from the legal consequences which would necessarily follow in any other civilised State."

Mr. Bovill has an instructive chapter on the "Compound system," and the condition of native compounds. This is a matter which it is to be hoped will be taken seriously to heart by the Chartered Company, and any other company or group of employers throughout African mining districts." The Compound system of huddling hundreds of natives together in tin shanties is the very opposite to the free life to which they are accustomed. If South African mining is to become a settled industry, we must have the conditions of the labour market settled, and also the conditions of living. We cannot expect natives to give up their free open-air style of living, and their home life. They love their homes, and suffer from homesickness as much as, or probably more than most white people. The reason so many leave their work after six months is that they are constantly longing to see their wives and children. Many times have they said to me, 'It would be all right if only we could have our wives and families with us.'"

"The result of this compound life is the worst possible morally."....

"We must treat the native, not as a machine to work when required under any conditions, but as a raw son of nature, very often without any moral force to control him and to raise him much above the lower animal world in his passions, except that which native custom has given him."

The writer suggests that "native reserves or locations should be established on the separate mines, or groups of mines, where the natives can have their huts built, and live more or less under the same conditions as they do in their native kraals. If a native found that he could live under similar conditions to those he has been accustomed to, he will soon be anxious to save enough money to bring his wife and children there, and remain in the labour district for a much longer period than at present is the case.

"It would be a distinct gain to the mining industry as well as to the native."

Mr. Bovill goes into much detail on the subject of the "Pass Laws." I should much desire to reproduce his chapter on that subject, if it were not too long. That system must be wholly abolished, he says: "it is at present worse than any conditions under which slavery exists. It is a criminal-making law. Brand a slave, and you have put him to a certain amount of physical pain for once, but penalties under the Pass Law system mean lashes innumerable at the direction of any Boer Field Cornet or Landdrost. It is a most barbarous system, as brutal as it is criminal-making, alone worthy of a Boer with an exaggerated fear of and cowardly brutality towards a race he has been taught to despise."

Treating of the prohibition imposed on the Natives as to the possession in any way or by any means of a piece of land, he writes: "Many natives are now earning and saving large sums of money, year by year, at the various labour centres. They return home with every intention of following a peaceful life; why should they not be encouraged to put their money into land, and follow their 'peaceful pursuits' as well as any Boer farmer? They are capable of doing it. Besides, if they held fixed property in the State, it would be to their advantage to maintain law and order, when they had everything they possessed at stake. With no interest in the land, the tendency must always be to a nomadic life. They are as thoroughly well capable of becoming true, peaceful, and loyal citizens of the State as are any other race of people. Their instincts and training are all towards law and order. Their lives have been disciplined under native rule, and now that the white man is breaking up that rule, what is he going to give as a substitute? Anarchy and lawlessness, or good government which tends to peace and prosperity?

"We can only hope for better times, and a more humane Government for the natives, to wipe out the wrong that has been done to both black and white under a bastard civilization which has prevailed in Pretoria for the past fifteen years. The Government which holds down such a large number of its subjects by treating them as cut-throats and outlaws, will one day repent bitterly of its sin of misrule."[35]

* * * * *

Tyranny has a genius for creeping in everywhere, and under any and every form of government. This is being strikingly illustrated in these days. Under the name of a Republic, the traditions of a Military Oligarchy have grown up, and stealthily prevailed.

When a nation has no recorded standard of guiding principles of government, it matters not by what name it may be called--Empire, Republic, Oligarchy, or Democracy--it may fall under the blighting influence of the tyranny of a single individual, or a wealthy clique, or a military despot.

Too much weight is given just now to mere names as applied to governments. The acknowledged principles which underlie the outward forms of government alone are vitally important, and by the adherence to or abdication of these principles each nation will be judged. The revered name of _Republic_ is as capable of being dragged in the mire as that of the title of any other form of government. Mere names and words have lately had a strange and even a disastrous power of misleading and deceiving, not persons only, but nations,--even a whole continent of nations. It is needful to beware of being drawn into conclusions leading to action by associations attaching merely to a name, or to some crystallized word which may sometimes cover a principle the opposite of that which it was originally used to express. Such names and words are in some cases being as rapidly changed and remodelled as geographical charts are which represent new and rapidly developing or decaying groups of the human race. Yet names are always to a large part of mankind more significant than facts; and names and appearances in this matter appeal to France and to Switzerland, and in a measure to the American people, in favour of the Boers.

Among the concessions made by Lord Derby in the Convention of 1884, none has turned out to be more unfortunate than that of allowing the Transvaal State to resume the title of the "South African Republic." In South Africa it embodied an impossible ideal; to the outside world it conveyed a false impression. The title has been the reason of widespread error with regard to the real nature of the Transvaal Government and of its struggle with this country. If "Republican Independence" had been all that Mr. Kruger was striving for, there would have been no war. He adopted the name, but not the spirit of a Republic. The "Independence" claimed by him, and urged even now by some of his friends in the British Parliament, is shown by the whole past history of the Transvaal to be an independence and a freedom which _involve the enslavement of other men._

A friend writes:--"In order to satisfy my own mind I have been looking in Latin Dictionaries for the correct and original meaning of 'impero,' (I govern,) and 'imperium.' The word 'Empire' has an unpleasant ring from some points of view and to some minds. One thinks of Roman Emperors, Domitian, Nero, Tiberius,--of the word 'imperious,' and of the French 'Empire' under Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. The Latin word means 'the giving of commands.' All depends on whether the commands given are _good_, and the giver of them also good and wise. The Ten Commandments are in one sense 'imperial.' Now, I think the word as used in the phrase _British Empire_ has, in the most modern and best sense, quite a different savour or flavour from that of Napoleon's Empire, or the Turkish or Mahommedan Empires of the past. It has come to mean the 'Dominion of Freedom' or the 'Reign of Liberty,' rather than the giving of despotic or tyrannical or oligarchic commands. In fact, our Imperialism is freedom for all races and peoples who choose to accept it, whilst Boer _Republicanism_ is the exact opposite. How strangely words change their weight and value!

"And yet there still remains the sense of 'command' in 'Empire;' and in the past history of our Government of the Cape Colony there has been too little wholesome command and obedience, and too much opportunism, shuffling off of responsibility, with self-sufficient ignorance and doctrinaire foolishness taking the place of knowledge and insight. Want of courage is, I think, in short, at the bottom of the past mismanagement."

* * * * *

The assertion is repeatedly made that "England coveted the gold of the Transvaal, and hence went to war." It is necessary it seems, again and again, to remind those who speak thus that England was not the invader. Kruger invaded British Territory, being fully prepared for war. England was not in the least prepared for war. This last fact is itself a complete answer to those who pretend that she was the aggressor.

In regard to the assertion that "England coveted the gold of the Transvaal," what is here meant by "England?" Ours is a representative Government. Are the entire people, with their representatives in Parliament and the Government included in this assertion, or is it meant that certain individuals, desiring gold, went to the Transvaal in search of it? The expression "England" in this relation, is vague and misleading.

The search for gold is not in itself a legal nor a moral offence. But the inordinate desire and pursuit of wealth, becoming the absorbing motive to the exclusion of all nobler aims, is a moral offence and a source of corruption.

Wherever gold is to be found, there is a rush from all sides; among some honest explorers with legitimate aims, there are always found, in such a case, a number of unruly spirits, of scheming, dishonest and careless persons, the scum of the earth, cheats and vagabonds. The Outlanders who crowded to the Rand were of different nations, French, Belgians and others, besides the English who were in a large majority. The presence and eager rush of this multitude of gold seekers certainly brought into the country elements which clouded the moral atmosphere, and became the occasion of deeds which so far from being typical of the spirit of "England" and the English people at large, were the very reverse, and have been condemned by public opinion in our country.

But, admitting that unworthy motives and corrupting elements were introduced into the Transvaal by the influx of strangers urged there by self-interest, it is strange that any should imagine and assert that the "corrupting influence of gold," or the lust of gold told upon the British alone. The disasters brought upon the Transvaal seem to be largely attributable to the corrupting effect on President Kruger and his allies in the Government, of the sudden acquisition of enormous wealth, through the development, by other hands than his own, of the hidden riches within his country.