The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction

I have said that foreign affairs and army and navy questions do not, under the ordinary practice of the colonial system, have much connection with colonial governments, and therefore may be left out of most federal proposals. But though the technical last word may never lie with the Federal Government, yet a South African federation would have genuine foreign interests, and would keep a watchful eye on the movements of the colonising Powers of Europe. Had there been a federation, there would have been no German acquisition of Damaraland, nor would we have found imperial authorities refusing the offer of Lourenço Marques for a trifling sum. No colonist can ever quite forgive those memorable blunders, which prevented British South Africa from having that geographical unity from the Zambesi to the Cape which its interests demand. Thirty years ago it would have been easy for Britain to proclaim a Monroe doctrine for South Africa – for that matter of it, for East Africa also. The opportunity has passed, but a strong national Government could still exercise great influence on foreign affairs, and prevent encroachment upon Portuguese territories by that Power which twenty years ago saw in Africa material for a new German Empire and has never forgotten its grandiose dreams, as well as keep an eye upon that dangerous mushroom growth, the Congo Free State, and check its glaring offences against civilisation. Army and navy questions belong, in their broadest sense, to schemes of imperial federation, a discussion of which here would be out of place; but since there is already in South Africa a large military force under one commander-in-chief, certain army questions arise which may find their proper answer only in federation, but which even now require a provisional settlement. According as we treat the matter, it may become a unifying or a violently disjunctive force, a step towards federation or a movement towards a wider disintegration. The bearing of the army question on South African policy is the subject of another chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ARMY AND SOUTH AFRICA

The foremost political lesson of the late war was the solidarity of military spirit throughout the Empire. But this cohesion is only in spirit, and the actual position of colonial forces is that of isolated units, connected in no system, and subject to no central direction. For a student of military law, or that branch of it which concerns the relation of military forces to the civil power, a survey of the British colonies has much curious interest. Speaking generally, since 1868 there have been no imperial forces in any self-governing colony, since we have acted on the principle that when a colony became autonomous the defence of its borders, except by sea, must be left to its own government. Colonial troops are, therefore, militia and volunteer, who take different forms according to the needs of the colony. In some the militia, or a part of it, is to all intents a regular force, performing garrison duty and acting as a school of instruction for the other auxiliary forces. In Canada, for example, there were in 1902 a troop of cavalry, a troop of mounted rifles, two batteries of field artillery, two companies of garrison artillery, and a battalion of infantry, in which the men were enlisted for three years’ continuous service. In New South Wales, to take one state of the Australian Commonwealth, provision was made for a permanent force, which included a half-squadron of cavalry, three companies of garrison artillery and one field battery, a company of infantry and various supplementary services, with men enlisted for five years. In New Zealand the enlistment for the permanent force, which consists of artillery and submarine miners, is for eight years, three of which may be passed in the reserve. Next comes the militia proper on the home model, where the men are partially paid and are subject to a certain amount of annual training. Lastly there is a wide volunteer organisation, stretching from fully organised companies of infantry and mounted rifles down to small local rifle clubs. In certain colonies where there is an aboriginal or unsettled population, such as Canada, Cape Colony, and Natal, there is also a permanently embodied police force, which may rank with the permanent militia as a sort of colonial regulars. All such forces are under the full control of the Colonial Governments, whether, as in the Australian Commonwealth and Canada, under the Federal Ministry of Defence, or, as in Cape Colony, under the department of the Prime Minister. An imperial officer may be lent, as in Canada and Australia to-day, for the command of the colonial force, but as soon as he enters upon his command he becomes a servant of the Colonial Government. To that Government alone belongs the power of raising new forces, of changing the status of existing troops, of ordering their distribution, of regulating their rates of pay, and of lending them for service beyond the colony. A strong general officer commanding may have great influence in all such decisions, but technically he is merely an adviser who receives his orders from the local authorities.

This is one chief type of the organisation of our over-sea imperial force. The other is furnished by India. There we have a native Indian army, and a large number of imperial troops, all of whom are under the authority of the commander-in-chief in India, who in turn is under the control of the Indian Government. When imperial troops are stationed in any other part of the Empire they are commanded by an officer who is directly subject to the War Office; but in India, as soon as a battalion lands it takes the status of the local forces and passes under the authority of the local government. The War Office retains certain powers, but for all practical purposes the Indian command is wholly decentralised.

South Africa affords the spectacle of a confusion of the two types. It is made up partly of Crown colonies and dependencies and partly of self-governing states. At this moment it is occupied by imperial troops whose numbers, for the purpose of this argument, may be put at 30,000. Such troops are stationed in Cape Colony and Natal as well as in the new colonies, and the command has been unified and vested in one commander-in-chief, who is subject only to the War Office and has no responsibility to the local governments. We have, therefore, the anomalous case of an autonomous colony occupied by imperial troops, a policy which is out of line with English practice. When self-government is given to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, the South African general will command what will be neither more nor less than an alien army of occupation. At the same time, wholly apart from the regular forces, there are police troops in Natal, Cape Colony, the new colonies, and Rhodesia; and a large number of volunteer regiments, who are directly under the control of the local governments. The South African military organisation is thus split in two by a deep gulf, and unless some method of union is found, we shall be confronted with a system alien to the tradition of our colonial policy and in itself clumsy and unworkable. But this question is intimately bound up with others – the desirability of the retention of imperial troops, the organisation of such troops in relation to the imperial army, indeed the whole question of that branch of imperial federation which is concerned with the defence of the Empire. It involves certain problems of military reform which are violently contested by good authorities. In this chapter it is proposed, as far as possible, to consider the matter of the South African army solely from the standpoint of South African politics, referring to the military aspect only in so far as may be necessary at points where South African politics are merged in wider schemes of imperial unity.

The first question concerns the policy of keeping imperial troops in South Africa at all. The size of the force depends, of course, on the duties which it is intended to perform, but for the retention of some troops there seems to be every justification. Few people believe that there is much likelihood of another outbreak, but after a war of the magnitude of that which we have recently gone through it would seem scarcely provident to leave the peace of the country solely to the care of the police. In a country, again, where British prestige is a plant of recent growth, it is well to provide the moral support of regular battalions. If useful for no other purpose, they serve as a memento of war, a constant reminder of the existence of an imperial power behind all local administration. We have also to face the fact that we have committed ourselves to some kind of occupation force by undertaking a large preliminary expenditure on cantonments, which will be money wasted if the scheme is dropped. For this purpose we have spent between two and three millions, and unless we are to be held guilty of causeless extravagance, we must abide by the plan to which this outlay has committed us.

The original scheme was for a garrison force. For this purpose 30,000 men are too many if our forecast be correct, and far too few if it be wrong. Half the number would be ample for any peace establishment, and we may be perfectly certain that as soon as self-government is declared in the new colonies there would be many attempts to cut down the number or do away with the force altogether. Alien garrison troops will be always unpopular, and, as has been said, they are foreign to British policy with regard to autonomous colonies. A force on the garrison basis would find itself with little to do, the general commanding would be exposed to the jealousy of the colonial troops, and involved in constant difficulties with the colonial governments, and, save in the unlikely event of a rebellion, would have no very obvious justification for the existence of his command.

If South Africa is to remain a station for any considerable number of imperial troops, some mode of co-operation must be discovered with the local governments. This co-operation would be possible between the colonial administration and a garrison force; but it would be infinitely more satisfactory if the whole status of the imperial troops were changed. For a garrison establishment makes it difficult, if not impossible, not only to bring the general commanding into touch with the governments, but to bring the local troops into line with the regular, and both unions must be accomplished before any satisfactory settlement can be given to the problem. The simplest solution was to treat the South African force, not as a garrison, but as part of the regular army on the home establishment, sent there for the purpose of training, and liable to be utilised at any moment for active service in any part of the Empire. There are certain objections to the scheme, plausible enough though not insuperable, from the military standpoint; but for the present we may limit our argument to those points which concern South Africa, and those difficulties which spring from the nature of the country – difficulties which are far more real to the soldiers who are directly concerned than the wider question of the present scheme of military organisation.

The advantages are sufficiently obvious. There are few finer manœuvring grounds in the world than the great Central South African tableland. There is sufficient cover to make scouting possible and not enough to make it easy, and the intense clearness of the air and its singular acoustic properties will train a man’s senses to a perfection unknown in other armies and impossible to acquire in the restricted areas of a populous country. The soldier will have to face the rudiments of war in a far more difficult country than he is likely to be used in. He will learn to shoot, or rather to judge ranges correctly under unwonted conditions, which is rarer and more vital than mere accurate marksmanship. He will learn the real roughness of campaigning in long manœuvres; and from the same cause regiments will acquire that elasticity and cohesion which come from constant working together. If we except enteric, caused by bad sanitation, which has been the curse of the war, but is not a speciality of the country, the veld is almost exempt from diseases. Life there will not only train the senses and the intelligence, but will give health and physical stamina. A year of such training will make a man of the young recruit from the slums of an English city. Physique is the final determinant in war, and with our present system of recruiting and training there is no guarantee for its existence. Lastly, our soldiers trained on the veld will become natural horse masters, which few even of the cavalry are at present. They will learn that care of their horses which every Boer has as a birthright, that simple veterinary skill and common-sense whose lack has cost us so many millions. South Africa is a natural horse-breeding country, and in co-operation with Government stud-farms a breed of remounts could be got which would unite the merits of the Afrikander pony with the weight and bone required for army work. Instead of having to ransack foreign countries for our horses, we should breed all we wanted for ourselves under the eye of our imperial officers, and breed them too in a place which is the best centre in the Empire for distribution to any possible seat of war.

The objections to the scheme are partly of sentiment and partly of technical difficulties. South African service, it is said, is at present unpopular. Our army has recently concluded a long and arduous war, fought under conditions of extreme discomfort. Small wonder if troops who have been kicking their heels for eighteen months in remote blockhouses should have little good to say of the pleasures of the life. For the officers there have been dismal quarters, a cheerless dusty country, heavy expenses, little sport, and no society; and the lot of the men, though relatively less hard, has been equally comfortless. The proper answer to such a contention is to ignore it. It is the objection of the non-professional officer, and cannot be entertained. The forces in South Africa are sent there for training, not for garrison life, and if the place is a good training-ground, the question of congenial society and interesting recreation has nothing to do with the matter.[38 - The final answer to this objection would be the reorganisation of the militia – the only force for home defence – and the release of the present regular army for service over-sea.] But there is no reason why South African life for the future should be unattractive. An English society is rapidly arising, English sports are becoming popular, the cantonments can easily be made comfortable homes, and there are a thousand ways, such as the allotting to each soldier who desires it a small patch of land to cultivate, in which the men can be made to feel an interest in the country. For the officers there is a sporting hinterland as fine and as accessible as the Pamirs to the Indian sportsman. Living is undoubtedly more costly, and there will have to be special allowances for South African service; but with a proper canteen system, such as existed during the war, the cost of luxuries might be kept low enough for all. There is a future, too, for the reservist which he cannot look for at home. Even as an unskilled workman he can command wages which are unknown in England; and the men who, at the end of their three years’ service, would join the South African reserve, would be young enough to begin civil life in whatever walk they might choose.

The chief technical difficulties, exclusive of sea-transport, which is outside our review, are the extra cost, the difficulty of recruiting, and the delays in bringing reservists from home in case of active service. The last will be met in a little while by the creation of a South African reserve; but in the meantime there are many ways in which it might be surmounted. Battalions might be brought up to fighting strength by the inclusion of men from local forces. It would be an easy matter to introduce into the terms of enlistment of the South African Constabulary a condition of foreign service, and to keep from 1000 to 2000 men in readiness. It would be possible also to enlist 1000 men of the Transvaal volunteer force for special foreign service, paying to each man a bonus of £12 per annum. The real solution of this difficulty is bound up, as we shall see later, with the whole theory of a colonial army; but even on the present system it is easy to provide a working expedient. The question of extra cost – for each man would require an extra 6d. per day, or £9, 2s. 6d. per annum – is answered by pointing out that such a force being on the home establishment would do away with the necessity of linked battalions, and would effect a saving of twenty-four battalions and six regiments of cavalry, so that even if the extra cost were 50 per cent, the total saving would far outbalance it.[39 - I have thought it unnecessary to recapitulate in detail the financial argument used by advocates of this policy. Roughly it is as follows: The present Army Corps system provides for 78 battalions at home, 66 in India, and 12 in South Africa – a total of 156. The proposed system provides for 42 at home, 24 in South Africa, and 66 in India – a total of 132. There is thus a saving of 24 battalions, besides 6 regiments of cavalry.Including supplementary expenses, the total reductions would be over £2,000,000.] The recruiting difficulty is unlikely to be a serious one. We may lose to the army a little of the loose fringe of half-grown boys from the towns, – stuff which, as history has shown, can be transformed into excellent fighting men, but which at the same time does not represent the last word either in moral or physical qualities. But many of the best of our young men, whose thoughts turn naturally to the colonies, would gladly seize the chance of three years’ service there, in which they would gain experience of the new lands, and be able to judge, when their turn came for entering reserves, which line of life promised most. No Emigration Bureau or Settlement Board would be so effective an agency in bringing the right class to the country. But, further, such a system would throw open to us the vast recruiting-grounds of our colonies. It is difficult for one who has not been brought face to face with it to realise the military enthusiasm which the war has kindled not only among the more inflammable, but among the coolest and shrewdest of our younger colonists. They know – none better – the joints in our armour; but they have paid generous tribute to the solidarity of spirit, the gallantry of our leaders, the unbreakable constancy of our men. A few fanciful war correspondents have done a gross injustice to our colonial soldiers by painting them as a race of capable braggarts, who laughed at our incompetence in a game which they understood so vastly better. It is safe to say that in the better class there was no hint of such a spirit; and the way in which irregular horse, with fine records of service, have traced the source of victory in the last resort to the stamina of the British infantry, does credit both to their judgment and their chivalry. They have become keen critics of any organisation, looking at war not only with the eyes of fighting men but of professional soldiers. All the details of the profession are of interest to them, and an imperial force in South Africa could draw largely both for officers and men upon the local population. The benefit of such a result, both to the colonies and to ourselves, is difficult to over-estimate. A common profession would do much to smooth away the petty differences which are always apt to widen out gulfs. The army would become a vast nursery of the true imperial spirit, and a school to perpetuate the best of our English traditions; and would itself gain incalculably by the infusion of new and virile blood, and the weakening of prejudices, both of class and education, which at present are a grave menace to its efficiency.

If the imperial Government accept the retention of a South African Army Corps as part of the home establishment, it is worth while considering how best this new departure in army policy can be used to further the interests of South Africa herself, and those wider imperial interests which are daily taking concrete shape and casting their shadow over local politics. Leaving for a moment the question of imperial forces, we find in South Africa a local military activity which, though less completely organised than in some of the older colonies, is yet well worth our reckoning with. The war brought into being a large number of irregular corps, most of which have now disappeared. In Cape Colony the permanent force is the Cape Mounted Rifles, which has an average strength of 1000 men, enlisted for five years, and sworn to “act as a police force throughout the colony, and also as a military force for the defence of the colony.” Since the war the town guards and district mounted troops, the former limited to 10,000 and the latter to 5000 men, have been placed on a permanent footing. They are loosely organised volunteer forces, enlisted for no fixed period, and bound to serve in the one case in the neighbourhood of the towns, and in the other within their own districts. There are also a number of ordinary volunteer corps, composed chiefly of mounted infantry, and field and garrison artillery, and a number of mounted rifle clubs for local defence. All types of corps included, there are probably not less than 20,000 men undergoing some kind of military training and pledged to some form of service in Cape Colony alone. Natal presents a very similar picture. Her regulars are the Natal Police Force, with a strength, including the Zululand Police, of between 500 and 600 men, enlisted for three years, and including both mounted and foot divisions. There is a considerable volunteer force, with artillery, infantry, and mounted rifles, two companies of naval volunteers, and a number of rifle clubs with a strength of over 2000. We may put the defensive strength of Natal, which, considering her size, is remarkable, at a little under 5000 men. The British South African Police, which is stationed in Southern Rhodesia, has a strength of a little over 500, and the Southern Rhodesia Constabulary and volunteers increase the forces of that district to nearly 2000 men. In the new colonies the chief force is the South African Constabulary, with a nominal strength of 6000 men, of which two-thirds are stationed in the Transvaal. It is an expensive force, each man costing on an average £250 per annum; but there is reason to believe that the figure may soon be reduced to £200, or even less. In the Transvaal a volunteer force has been organised of nine regiments. No ultimate strength has been fixed, but 10,000 may be taken as a fair estimate. In April 1903 the force numbered fully 3000, and as the country becomes more populous there is little reason to doubt that the maximum will be reached.[40 - The details of the force may be of interest. In April 1903 it consisted of two regiments of the Imperial Light Horse, one regiment of the South African Light Horse, one regiment of the Johannesburg Mounted Rifles, one regiment of the Scottish Horse, one regiment of the Central South African Railway Volunteers, one regiment of the Transvaal Light Infantry, one regiment of Transvaal Scottish, one regiment of Railway Pioneers, a medical staff corps, and a headquarters’ staff. The names of some of the most famous irregular corps are thus perpetuated. A new regiment – the Northern Rifles – has recently been formed at Pretoria.]

There is thus a force of over 40,000 men engaged in local defence throughout South Africa, and of this the 8000 police are for all practical purposes regular troops. At the present moment the command of this force is split up among the different colonial governments and is wholly dissociated from any connection with the command of the imperial regulars. We have seen that the situation is full of grave difficulties for the regulars themselves, since there is no place in colonial policy for an alien garrison force. But the strongest argument in the present system lies not in the difficulties which it involves but in the advantages which it forgoes. We have in South Africa a population which, to use Napier’s famous distinction, is not only bellicose but martial, with a natural aptitude for soldiering and a keen interest in all details of military organisation. Until the regular command is brought into line with the local forces this genius will expend itself on casual volunteering, and when we next call for colonial aid we shall have the same haphazard units, instead of colonial regiments drilled and manœuvred on one system and forming a part of some regular division. The arguments for a federation of the whole South African command are difficult to meet, and there is little danger of opposition from the local governments. The danger lies in the fact that it would necessarily involve some reconstruction of our whole military system, and military conservatism is slow to depart from the traditions of the elders.

If imperial defence means anything it must include the provision in every great colonial unit, in Canada, Australia, South Africa, – particularly in South Africa, – of a force on the lines of the Indian army, with an elastic organisation, embracing both imperial regulars and local troops. Granted the sanction of the imperial Government, there is no special difficulty in the machinery required to create it. If South Africa were federated it would be simplicity itself. All that would be wanted would be to bring the general officer commanding the imperial troops, since his command has been unified, into relation with the Federal Ministry of Defence, and unite in his person the functions which Sir Neville Lyttelton now exercises in South Africa and those which at present belong to Lord Dundonald in Canada. But, pending federation, we must have recourse to one of those intercolonial representative bodies which form the thin end of the federal wedge. The general commanding would be given the command of local forces by an act of the local legislature, subject in all questions of policy, finance, and organisation to the authority of an intercolonial committee of defence.[41 - A committee of defence has been formed in Natal, consisting of the officers commanding the imperial and the local forces and representatives of the local government.] Each colony would elect two or more representatives, on the lines of the present Intercolonial Council of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony; the council thus formed would be empowered by the legislatures which elect it to decide what share of the cost was to be borne by the separate colonies, to arrange for combined manœuvres, to supervise appointments, and, in case of local wars, to decide what force should be sent to the front, and in the event of an imperial war, to say what local forces should be lent for service. The general commanding would be responsible to the War Office for moving imperial troops, subject to its direction, and for the internal discipline and organisation of the imperial divisions. There would, thus, be clearly defined limits of authority for both the imperial and local Governments, and at the same time every inducement to co-operation. In so far as he was in command of the whole of the South African forces, the general commanding would be subject in South African matters to the defence committee; while, in so far as he was in command of imperial troops, he would take his orders on imperial questions, such as a foreign war, from the Home Government. The present officers in command of colonial police and volunteers would, of course, come under his authority precisely on the same basis as officers of regulars.

The advantages of such a scheme are many, both from the standpoint of policy and of military efficiency. It would please the colonies, who would have an army of their own, drilled on regular lines and affiliated to the imperial army, and at the same time would feel that they had a share in the control of the forces and the military policy of the Empire. It would ensure the efficiency of local troops, and would prepare them for co-operation with the regulars, – not the clumsy partnership of troops tagged on to a division which cannot use them, but the true co-operation which follows on absorption in a larger unit with which they have been trained. It would provide an easy means for the transfer of colonial officers to imperial regiments, and would act as a magnet for colonial recruiting. In the case of local wars, as I have said, the whole force would be ready to take the field under the orders of the general commanding. In the case of a foreign war the imperial Government would direct the distribution of the regulars, and it would be for the committee of defence to say what local troops should be lent for foreign service.[42 - This scheme would involve a departure from the present military organisation on the basis of army corps. We cannot expect to get an army corps for each colonial district, and the advantages disappear if such reinforcements are to be distributed to make up the strength of the army corps drawn from the whole Empire. The unit must be smaller – something in the nature of a division of, say, three brigades with one brigade of mounted troops. In South Africa we could have several divisions of regulars and several of local troops. The system would have the merit of harmonising with the organisation of the army in India, where reinforcements are most likely to be required.] Beyond this, the only duties of the War Office would lie in the selection of staff officers and the general commanding – a matter in which the concurrence of the colonial governments might be obtained as a matter of courtesy. On the financial side it is probable that the scheme would considerably lessen the burden of defence. The only way in which the colonies can ever be expected to contribute to the cost of imperial defence is by providing armies and navies of their own. To pay for that which does not directly concern you is a form of tax, and so hostile to the letter and spirit of our colonial traditions. But if local governments are given a direct interest in an imperial army in which their own troops are subsumed, and whose policy they largely control, I do not think they will be ungenerous. There is no reason why they should not meet the cost of the general and his staff, and contribute part, if not the whole, of the extra pay which the regular troops in the South African command must receive, and the bonus to the volunteer corps which are held ready for foreign service. Such payments, once the federation were effected, would no doubt come as a spontaneous offer. Decentralisation and centralisation are, by way of becoming catchwords, repeated without understanding to justify the most diverse schemes. But every true policy must include both, since in certain matters it is well to decentralise, and in others unification is imperative. Such a scheme as has been sketched combines the sporadic colonial forces in one effective unit of organisation, and at the same time relieves the tension at imperial headquarters by relegating detailed administration to the local authorities, who are best fitted to supervise.

The military is, as a rule, the most difficult aspect of a federation, but in our circumstances it is likely to be the simplest. We have a federal nucleus in the imperial command, and a strong impulse in the fact that the local volunteer and police forces have already served side by side with regulars in the field, and are inspired with a military spirit which may soon disappear unless fostered and utilised. A federation of local forces exists in Canada and in the Australian Commonwealth; a union of the imperial forces exists in South Africa. The problem is to federate the local forces in advance of a political federation, and to unite them with the imperial command in a system which, though a new departure in military policy, contains no detail which has not been somewhere or other already conceded. If the scheme in itself is worth anything, the practical difficulties are small. It is unlikely that the colonial governments will offer any opposition; and so far as South African interests are concerned, the foundations would be laid of a true federation. From the point of view of imperial politics the step would have an even greater significance, for a type would be created of a new army organisation which would provide for a federated imperial defence; and the precedent having once been created, the other colonies would readily follow suit.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FUTURE OUTLOOK

The problems discussed in the foregoing chapters have been concerned chiefly with the new colonies, for it is to them that we must look for the motive force to expedite union. They must long continue to be the most important factor in British South Africa, partly from their accidental position as the late theatre of war, and more especially from their wealth, the intricacy of their politics, the high level of ability among their inhabitants, the splendid chances of their future, and the delicacy of their present status. Union, if it comes, will come chiefly because of them; and in any union they will play a great, if not a dominant, part. Whither they pipe, South Africa must ultimately follow. But this is not because there can be any differentiation in value between the states, since all are self-subsistent and independent, but because in the new colonies the problems which chiefly concern South Africa’s future are already naked to the eye and focussed for observation. The Transvaal will be important because within it the fight which concerns the whole future of the African colony will be fought to a finish. It will add to the problem some features which concern only itself, but the general lines it shares with its neighbours. The economic strife, the amalgamation of races, the native question, the movement towards federation, with all its many aspects, and, last but not least, the intellectual and political development of its citizens, – this is the problem of the Transvaal, and in the gravest sense it is the problem of South Africa’s future.

In the preceding pages the separate questions have been briefly considered. But here we may note one truth which attaches to them all – the settlement of no single one is easy. Each will defy a supine statesmanship, and in each failure will be attended with serious disaster. Patience and a lithe intelligence can alone ensure success, and it is doubtful if that happy Providence which has now and then taken charge of our drifting and muddling will interfere in this province to save us from the consequences of folly. Every question stands on a needle-point. Mining development – if the wealth of the country is to be properly exploited – must continue as it has begun, utilising the highest engineering talent, and straining every nerve to extend the area over which profits can be made. The labour question requires tact and patience, prescience of future interests, a recognition of the needs of the complex organism of which it is but one aspect. The native question shows the same narrow margin between success and failure, and demands a degree of forethought and statesmanship which would be an exorbitant requirement were it not so vital a part of the social and economic future. Agriculture and settlement can only be made valuable by a close study of facts, and an intelligence which can correctly estimate data and bring to bear on them the latest results of experimental science. Finally, in its financial aspects the problem has a near resemblance to the most complicated of recent economic tasks, the re-settlement of Egypt. Burdened with a heavy debt, the country is speculating on its future and living on its capital. For the next few years it will in all likelihood achieve solvency; but the margin may be small, and the result may be secured only by the retention of certain revenue-producing charges at an unnatural figure. A considerable part of the debt will be applied to services which will make a good return in time, but for a little while revenue may barely cover disbursements. In finance, above all other provinces, there is need of a severe economy, coupled with a clear recognition of the country’s needs and a judicious courage. It is a gamble, if you like, but with sleepless and ubiquitous watchfulness the odds are greatly in our favour. The very forces which fight against us, the complexity of economic and social interests, will become our servants, if properly understood, and will solidify and preserve our work, as the house fashioned of granite will stand when the building of sandstone will crumble. The shaping force of intelligence remains the one thing needful. Of high and just intentions there can be little doubt, but in the new South Africa we are more likely to be perplexed by the fool than the knave. Will the result, as Cromwell asked long ago, be “answerable to the simplicity and honesty of the design”? Neither to the one nor the other, but to that rarer endowment, political wisdom.

So much for administrative problems. A country whose future is staked upon the intelligence of its Government and its people is an exhilarating spectacle to the better type of man. England has succeeded before on the same postulates and in harder circumstances. But there are certain subtler aspects of development, where the same high qualities are necessary, but where the end to be striven for is less clear. There is the fusion of the two races, an ideal if not a practical necessity. As has been said, a political union already exists after a fashion. There seems little reason to fear any future disruption, for on the material side Dutch interests are ours, and all are vitally concerned in the common prosperity. Administrative efficiency will make the Boer acquiesce in any form of government. But that which Lord Durham thought far more formidable, “a struggle not of principles but of races,” may continue for long in other departments than politics, unless we use extraordinary caution in our methods. The very advance of civilisation may militate against us by vivifying historical memories and rekindling a clearer flame of racial resentment. The Dutch have their own ideals, different from ours, but not incompatible with complete political union. Any attempt to do violence to their ideals, or any hasty and unconsidered imposition of unsuitable English forms, will throw back that work of spiritual incorporation which is the highest destiny of the country. They have a strong Church and a strong creed, certain educational ideas and social institutions which must long remain powers in the land. And let us remember that any South African civilisation must grow up on the soil, and must borrow much from the Dutch race, else it is no true growth but a frail exotic. It will borrow English principles but not English institutions, since, while principles are grafts from human needs, institutions are the incrusted mosses of time which do not bear transplanting. It is idle to talk of universities such as Oxford, or public schools like Winchester, and any attempt to tend such alien plants will be a waste of money and time. South Africa will create her own nurseries, and on very different lines. If we are burdened in our work with false parallels we shall fail, for nothing in the new country can survive which is not based on a clear-sighted survey of things as they are, and a renunciation of old formulas. Let us recognise that we cannot fuse the races by destroying the sacred places of one of them, but only by giving to the future generations some common heritage. “If you unscotch us,” wrote Sir Walter Scott to Croker, “you will find us damned mischievous Englishmen,” and it will be a very mischievous Dutchman who is coerced into unsuitable English ways and taught sentiments of which he has no understanding. When a people arise who have a common culture bequeathed from their fathers, and who look back upon Ladysmith and Colenso, the Great Trek and the Peninsular War, as incidents in a common pedigree, then we shall have fusion indeed, a union in spirit and in truth. Nothing which has in it the stuff of life can ever die, and there is something of this vitality in the Dutch tradition. Our own is stronger, wider, resting on greater historical foundations, and therefore it will more readily attract and absorb the lesser. But the lesser will live, transformed, indeed, but none the less a real part of the spiritual heritage of a nation where there will be no racial cleavage. The consummation is not yet, and, maybe, will be long delayed. It will not be in our time; perhaps our sons may see it; certainly, I think, our grandchildren will be very near it. Such a development cannot be artificially hastened, and all that we can do is to see that no barriers of our own making are allowed to intervene. Meantime we have a de facto political union to make the most of.

What manner of men are the citizens of this new nation to be? They will have the vigour which belongs to colonial parentage, the freshness of outlook and freedom from old shibboleths. But they should have more. They start as no colony has ever started, with the echoes of a great war still in their ears, with a highly developed industry and the chances of great wealth, and with a population showing as high a level of intelligence as any in the world. The nature of their problem will compel them to remain intellectually active, and as the eyes of the world are on them they will have few temptations to lethargy. They may take foolish steps and be beguiled into rash experiments, but I do not think they will stagnate. And for this people so much alive there is the chance of an indigenous culture, born of the old, when they have leisure to make it theirs, and the freshening influences of their new land and their strenuous life. South Africa cannot help herself. She must play a large part in imperial politics; her views on economic questions will be listened to by all the world; a political future, good or bad, she must accept and make the most of. But behind it all there is the prospect of that intimate self-development, that progress in thought, in the arts, in the amenities of life, which, like righteousness, exalteth a nation. The finest of all experiments is to unite an older civilisation with the natural freshness of a virgin soil, and she, alone among the colonies which have ever been founded, has the power to make it. Not only is it a new land, but it is Africa, a corner of that mysterious continent to which the eyes of dreamers and adventurers have always turned. The boundaries of the unknown are shrinking daily, and where our forefathers marked only lions and behemoths on the map, we set down a hundred names and a dozen trading stations. The winds which blow from the hills of the north tell no longer of mystic interior kingdoms and uncounted treasures. We know most things nowadays, and have given our knowledge the prosaic form of joint-stock companies. But the proverb still justifies itself.[43 - “Out of Africa comes ever some new thing” is generally quoted in the Latin of Pliny, but it is probably as old as the first Ionian adventurers who sailed to Egypt or heard wild Phœnician tales. It is found in Aristotle: Λέγεταί τις παροιμία ὅτι ἀεὶ φέρει Λιβύη τι καινόν (Hist. Anim., viii. 28).] Africa is still a home of the incalculable, not wholly explored or explorable, still a hinterland to which the youth of the south can push forward in search of fortune, and from which that breath of romance, which is the life of the English race, can inspire thinkers and song-makers. Girdled on three sides by the ocean, and on the fourth looking north to the inland seas and the eternal snows of Ruwenzori – I can imagine no nobler cradle for a race. I have said that a structure built with difficulty is the most lasting. Her complex problems will knit together the sinews of intelligence and national character, and the great commonplaces of policy, so eternally true, so inexorable in their application, will become part of her creed, not from lip-service but from the sweat and toil of practical work. If to these she can add other commonplaces, still older and more abiding, of civic duty, of the intellectual life, of moral purpose, she will present to history that most rare and formidable of combinations, intellect and vitality, will and reason, culture guiding and inspiring an unhesitating gift for action.

There is already a school of political thought in South Africa, a small school, and thus far so ill-defined that it has no common programme to put before a world which barely recognises its existence. It owes its inspiration to Mr Rhodes, but its founder left it no legacy of doctrine beyond a certain instinct for great things, a fire of imagination, and a brooding energy. Its members are very practical men, landowners, mine-owners, rich, capable, with nothing of the ideologue in their air, the last people one would naturally go to for ambitions which could not be easily reduced to pounds sterling. But they are of the school: at heart they are pioneers, the cyclopean architects of new lands. It is one of South Africa’s paradoxes that there should exist among successful and matter-of-fact men of business a hungry fidelity to ideals for which we look in vain among the doctrinaires who do them facile homage. And they are also very practical in their aims. Mr Rhodes never desired a paper empire or that vague thing called territorial prestige. What filled his imagination was the thought of new nations of our blood living a free and wholesome life and turning the wilderness into a habitable place. He strove not for profit but for citizens, for a breathing-space, a playground, for the future. The faults of his methods and the imperfections of his aims, which are so curiously our own English faults and imperfections, may have hindered the realisation of his dreams, but they did not impair that legacy of daimonic force which he left to his countrymen. You may find it in South Africa to-day, and if you rightly understand it and feel its hidden movements you will be aghast at your own parochialism. It is slow and patient, knowing that “the counsels to which Time hath not been called Time will not ratify.” But with Time on its side it is confident, and it will not easily be thwarted.

Excursions in colonial psychology are rarely illuminating, lacking as a rule both sympathy and knowledge; but on one trait there is a singular unanimity. The two chief obstacles to imperial unity, so runs a saying, are the bumptious colonial and the supercilious Englishman. I readily grant the latter, but is the first fairly described? A colonist is naturally prone to self-assertion in certain walks of life. If he creates an industry alone and from the start in the teeth of hardships, having had to begin from the very beginning, he is apt to lose perspective and unduly magnify his work. If he owns a bakery, it is the finest in the world, at any rate in the British Empire. He compares his doings with his neighbours’ within his limited horizon, and he is scarcely to be blamed if he brags a little. His bravado is only ridiculous when taken out of its surroundings, and at the worst is more a mannerism than an affection of mind. But on the intellectual side he is, in my judgment, conspicuously humble, a groper after the viewless things whose omnipotence he feels dimly. To the home-bred man history is a commonplace to be taken for granted; to the colonist who has shaped a workaday life from the wilds, it is a vast mother of mystery. Traditions, customs, standards staled to us by the vain emphasis of generations, rise before him as revelations and shrines of immortal wisdom. What to us is rhetoric is to him the finest poetry; and for this reason in politics he is prone to follow imaginative schemes, without testing them by his native caution. Our somewhat weary intellectual world is a temple which he is ready to approach with uncovered head. It is not mere innocence, but rather, I think, that freshness of outlook and optimism which he gathers from his new land and his contact with the beginnings of things. Truth and beauty remain the same: it is only the symbols and the mirrors which grow dim with time; and to the man who is sufficiently near to understand the symbols, and sufficiently aloof to see no flaw or tawdriness, there is a double share of happiness. The superficial assurance, the “bumptiousness” of the saying, is surely a small matter if behind it there is this true modesty of spirit.

A national life presumes union, but South African federation is simply a step to a larger goal. It may be objected that in the foregoing chapters the cardinal problem is treated as less the fusion of the two races than the development of South Africa on certain lines within our colonial system. Such has been the intention of the book. The Dutch have accepted the new régime; they will fight, if they fight, on constitutional lines under our ægis and within our Empire, and in a sense it may be said that racial union on the political side already exists. But the further political development of the country, as self-consciousness is slowly gained – that, indeed, is a matter on which hang great issues, good or bad, for the English people. Because the furnace has been so hot, the metal will emerge pure or it will not emerge at all. A new colony, or rather a new nation, will have been created, or another will have been added to the catalogue of our infrequent failures, and the loose territorial mass known as South Africa will become the prey of any wandering demagogue or aspiring foreign Power. Our late opponents will take their revenge, if they seek it, not by reviving the impossible creed of Dutch supremacy, but by retarding South Africa from what is her highest destiny and her worthiest line of development. Her future, if she will accept it, is to be a pioneer in imperial federation: a pioneer, because she has felt more than any other colony the evils of disintegration, the vices of the old colonial system, the insecurity of government from above, and at the same time is in a position to realise the weakness of that independence which is also isolation. This is not the place to enter upon so vast a question. To many it is the greatest of modern political dreams. Without it imperialism becomes empty rhetoric and braggadocio, a tissue of dessicated phrases, worthy of the worst accusations with which its enemies have assailed it. Without it our Empire is neither secure from aggression nor politically sound nor commercially solvent. Within it alone can any true scheme of common defence be realised. Moreover, it is the glamour needed to give to colonial politics that wider imaginative outlook which England enjoys in virtue of a long descent. Colonial politics tend to become at times narrow and provincial; in a federation they would gain that larger view and ampler pride which a man feels who, believing himself to be humbly born, learns for the first time that he is the scion of a famous house. Their kinship, instead of the long-remembered sentiment of a descendant, would become the intimate loyalty of a colleague. And home politics also would lose the provincialism, equally vicious, if historically more interesting, which lies somewhere near the root of our gravest errors, and in relinquishing a facile imperialism find an empire which needs no rhetoric to enhance its splendour.

But before South Africa can become an ally in federation she must make her peace with herself. If it is difficult to exaggerate the need for untiring intelligence in the making of this peace, it is even harder to over-estimate the profound significance which her success or failure in the task of self-realisation has for the prestige of our race. Our colonial methods are on trial in a sphere where all the world can watch. And while our aim is a colony, the means must be different from those which we have hitherto used in our expansion. A nascent colony was neglected till it asserted itself and appeared already mature on the political horizon. But in the growth of this colony England must play a direct part, since for good or for ill her destinies are linked with it, and supineness and a foolish interference will equally bring disaster. There is one parallel, not indeed in political conditions, but in the qualities required for the shaping of the country. If we can show in South Africa that spirit of sleepless intelligence which has created British India, then there is nothing to fear. For, as I understand history, India was made by Englishmen who brought to the task three qualities above others. The first was a wide toleration for local customs and religions – a desire to leave the national life intact, and to mould it slowly by those forces of enlightenment in which sincerely, if undogmatically, they believed. The second was the extension of rigorous justice and full civil rights to every subject, a policy which in the long-run is the only means of bringing a subject race into the life of the State. Last, and most vital of all, they showed in their work a complete efficiency, proving themselves better statesmen, financiers, jurists, soldiers, than any class they had superseded. This efficiency is the key-note of the South African problem, so far as concerns British interests. If the imperial Power shows itself inspired with energy, acumen, a clear-eyed perception of truth as well as with its traditional honesty of purpose, South Africa will gladly follow where it may lead. But she will be quick to criticise formalism and intolerant of a fumbling incapacity.

Sed nondum est finis. We stand at the beginning of a new path, and it is impossible to tell whither it may lead, what dark fords and stony places it may pass through, and in what sandy desert or green champaign it may end. Political prophecy is an idle occupation. American observers on the eve of the French Revolution saw England on the verge of anarchy and France a contented country under a beloved king. Even so acute a writer as de Tocqueville assumed that America would continue an agricultural country without manufactures, and that the fortunes of her citizens would be small. If philosophers may err, it is well for a humble writer to be modest in his conclusions. In the past pages an effort has been made neither to minimise the difficulties nor to over-estimate the chances of South African prosperity. “Whosoever,” said Ralegh, “in writing a modern history shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out his teeth.” I can ask for no better fate than to see all my forecasts falsified, the dangers proved to have no existence, the chances shown a thousandfold more roseate. But whatever may be the destiny of this or that observation, there can be no dispute, I think, upon the gravity of the problem and the profound importance of its wise settlement. And when all is said that can be said it is permissible to import into our view a little of that ancestral optimism which has hitherto kept our hearts high in our checkered history, for optimism, when buttressed by intelligence, is but another name for courage. There is an optimism more merciless than any pessimism, which, seeing clearly all the perils and discouragements, the hollowness of smooth conventional counsels and the dreary list of past errors, can yet pluck up heart to believe that there is no work too hard for the English race when its purpose is firm and its intelligence awakened. With this belief we may well look forward to a day when the old unhappy things will have become far off and forgotten, and South Africa, at peace with herself, will be the leader in a new and pregnant imperial policy; and the words of the poet of another empire will be true in a nobler and ampler sense of ours, “They who drink of the Rhone and the Orontes are all one nation.”

notes

1

An interesting sketch of the palæolithic remains in South Africa is contained in two essays appended to Dr Alfred Hillier’s ‘Raid and Reform’ (1898).

2

The chief authorities on this curious subject are Mr Bent’s ‘Ruined Cities of Mashonaland,’ Dr Schlichter’s papers in the ‘Geographical Journal,’ Professor Keane’s ‘Gold of Ophir,’ and Dr Carl Peters’ ‘Eldorado of the Ancients.’ Mr Wilmot’s ‘Monomotapa’ contains an interesting collection of historical references from Phœnician, Arabian, and Portuguese sources; and in ‘The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia,’ by Messrs Hall and Neal, there is a very complete description of the ruins examined up to date (1902), and a valuable digest of the various theories on the subject.

3

There is an account of Bantu life in Dr Theal’s ‘Portuguese in South Africa.’ The same author’s ‘Kaffir Folk-lore’ and M. Casalis’ ‘Les Bassoutos’ contain much information on their customs and folk-lore; while Bishop Callaway’s ‘Nursery Tales of the Zulus,’ M. Jacottet’s ‘Contes Populaires des Bassoutos,’ and M. Junod’s ‘Chants et Contes des Baronga’ and ‘Nouveaux Contes Ronga’ are interesting collections of folk-tales.

4

There is an English abbreviation of dos Santos in Pinkerton’s ‘General Collection of Voyages and Travels.’ The original work was printed at Evora in 1609.

5

The Portuguese geographers divided Central Africa into Angola in the west, the kingdom of Prester John in the north (Abyssinia), and the empire of Monomotapa (Mashonaland) in the south. The real Prester John was a Nestorian Christian in Central Asia, whose khanate was destroyed by Genghis Khan about the end of the twelfth century; but the name became a generic one for any supposed Christian monarch in unknown countries.

6

Purchas wrote, “Barreto was discomfited not by the Negro but by the Ayre, the malignity whereof is the same sauce of all their golden countries in Africa.”

7

One missionary wrote, “They have already lost the knowledge of Christians and thrown away the obligations of Faith” (Wilmot, ‘Monomotapa,’ p. 215).

8

Among the Baronga, the Bantu tribe who live around Delagoa Bay, there are some ancient folk-tales, derived from Portuguese sources, in which the heroes have Portuguese names, such as João, Boniface, Antonio. One tale about the king’s daughter, who was saved from witchcraft by the courage of a young adventurer called João, is a form of the story of Jack and the ugly Princess, which appears throughout European folk-lore. Cf. M. Junod’s ‘Chants et Contes des Baronga,’ pp. 274-322.

9

In Lichtenstein’s ‘Travels in South Africa’ (1803-6) there is an interesting and comparatively favourable account of Buys in his Cape Colony days.

10

The word “Boer” is used in this chapter to denote the average country farmer in the new colonies, and not the educated Dutch of the towns.

11