An African Adventure Part 8

The Charter itself was a visualization of the Rhodes mind and it matched the Cape-to-Cairo project in bigness of vision. It gave the Company the right to acquire and develop land everywhere, to engage in shipping, to build railway, telegraph and telephone lines, to establish banks, to operate mines and irrigation undertakings and to promote commerce and manufacture of all kinds. Nothing was overlooked. It meant the union of business and statesmanship.

Under the Charter the Company was given administrative control of an area larger than that of Great Britain, France and Prussia. It divided up into Northern and Southern Rhodesia with the Zambesi River as the separating line. Northern Rhodesia remains a spa.r.s.ely settled country--there are only 2,000 white inhabitants to 850,000 natives--and the only industry of importance is the lead and zinc development at Broken Hill. Southern Rhodesia, where there are 35,000 white persons and 800,000 natives, has been the stronghold of Chartered interests and the battleground of the struggle to throw off corporate control. It is the Rhodesia to be referred to henceforth in this chapter without prefix.

The Charter is perpetual but it contained a provision that at the end of twenty-five years, (1914) and at the end of each succeeding ten years, the Imperial Government has the power to alter, amend or rescind the instrument so far as the administration of Rhodesia is concerned. No vital change in the original doc.u.ment has been made so far, but by the time the next cycle expires in 1924 it is certain that the Company control will have ended and Rhodesia will either be a part of the Union of South Africa or a self-determining Colony.

The Company is directed by a Board of Directors in London, but no director resides in the country itself. Thus at the beginning the fundamental mistake was made in attempting to run an immense area at long range. With the approval of the Foreign Office the Company names an Administrator,--the present one is Sir Drummond Chaplin,--who, like the average Governor-General, has little to say. The Company has exercised a copper-riveted control and this rigid rule led to its undoing, as you will see later on.

The original capitalization was 1,000,000,--it was afterwards increased to 9,000,000,--but it is only a part of the stream of pounds sterling that has been poured into the country. In all the years of its existence the company has never paid a dividend. It is only since 1914 that the revenue has balanced expenditures. More than 40,000 shareholders have invested in the enterprise. Today the fate of the country rests practically on the issue between the interests of these shareholders on one hand and the 35,000 inhabitants on the other. Once more you get the spectacle, so common to American financial history, of a strongly intrenched vested interest with the real exploiter or the consumer arrayed against it. The Company rule has not been harsh but it has been animated by a desire to make a profit. The homesteaders want liberty of movement without handicap or restraint. An irreconcilable conflict ensued.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photograph Copyright by British South Africa Co._

CULTIVATING CITRUS LAND IN RHODESIA]

II

We can now go into the story of the occupation of Rhodesia, which not only unfolds a stirring drama of development but discloses something of an epic of adventure. With most corporations it is an easy matter to get down to business once a charter is granted. It is only necessary to subscribe stock and then enter upon active operations, whether they produce soap, razors or automobiles. The market is established for the product.

With the British South Africa Company it was a far different and infinitely more difficult performance, to translate the license to operate into action. Matabeleland and Mashonaland were wild regions where war-like tribes roamed or fought at will. There were no roads. The only white men who had ventured there were hunters, traders, and concession seekers. Occupation preceded exploitation. A white man's civilization had to be set up first. The rifle and the hoe went in together.

In June, 1890, the Pioneer Column entered. Heading it were two men who left an impress upon African romance. One was Dr. Jameson, hero of the Raid and Rhodes' most intimate friend. The first time I met him I marvelled that this slight, bald, mild little man should have been the central figure in so many heroic exploits. The other was the famous hunter, F. C. Selous, who was Roosevelt's companion in British East Africa. Under them were less than two hundred white men, including Captain Heany, an American, who now invaded a country where Lobengula had an army of 20,000 trained fighters, organized into _impis_--(regiments)--after the Zulu fashion and in every respect a formidable force. Although the old chief had granted the concession, no one trusted him and Jameson and Selous had to feel their way, sleep under arms every night, and build highways as they went.

Upon Lobengula's suggestion it was decided to occupy Mashonaland first.

This was achieved without any trouble and the British flag was raised on what is now the site of Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia.

Most of the members of the expedition remained as settlers, and farms sprang up on the veldt. The Company had to organize a police force to patrol the land and keep off predatory natives. But this was purely incidental to the larger troubles that now crowded thick and fast. In the South the Boers launched an expedition to occupy Matabeleland by force and it had to be headed off. To the east rose friction with the Portuguese and a Rhodesian contingent was compelled to occupy part of Portuguese East Africa until the boundary line was adjusted.

In 1893 came the first of the events that made Rhodesia a storm center.

A Matabele regiment raided the new town of Victoria and killed some of the Company's native servants. The Matabeles then went on the warpath and Dr. Jameson took the field against them. For five weeks a bitter struggle raged. It ended with the defeat and disappearance of Lobengula and the occupation of Bulawayo by the Company forces. This brought the whole of Matabeleland under the direct authority of the British South Africa Company. The campaign cost the Company $500,000.

Three years of peace and progress followed. Railway construction started in two directions. One line was headed from the south through Bechua.n.a.land toward Bulawayo and another from Beira, the Indian Ocean port in Portuguese East Africa, westward toward Salisbury. Gold mines were opened and farms extended. At the end of 1895 came the Jameson Raid. Practically the entire force under the many-sided Doctor was recruited from the Rhodesian police and they were all captured by the Boers. Rhodesia was left defenceless.

The Matabeles seized this moment to strike again. Ever since the defeat of 1893 they had been restless and discontented. Various other causes contributed to the uprising. One is peculiarly typical of the African savage. An outbreak of rinderpest, a disease hitherto unknown in Southern Africa, came down from the North and ravaged the cattle herds.

In order to check the advance of the pest the Government established a clear belt by shooting all the cattle in a certain area. It was impossible for the Matabeles to understand the wisdom of this procedure.

They only saw it as an outrage committed by the white men on their property for they were extensive cattle owners. In addition many died after eating infected meat and they also held the settlers responsible.

The net result of it all was a sudden descent upon the white settlements and scores of white men, women and children were slaughtered.

This time the operations against them were on a large scale. The present Lord Plumer, who commanded the Fourth British Army in France against the Germans,--he was then a Lieutenant Colonel--came up with eight hundred soldiers and drove the Matabeles into the fastnesses of the Matopos,--a range of hills fifty miles long and more than twenty wide. Here the savages took refuge in caves and could not be driven out.

You now reach one of the remarkable feats in the life of Cecil Rhodes.

The moment that the second Matabele war began he hastened northward to the country that bore his name. As soon as the Matabeles took refuge in the Matopos he boldly went out to parley with them. With three unarmed companions, one of them an interpreter, he set up a camp in the wilds and sent emissaries to the syndicate of the chiefs who had succeeded Lobengula. He had become Premier of the Cape Colony, was head of the great DeBeers Diamond Syndicate, and had other immense interests. He was also Managing Director of the British South Africa Company and the biggest stockholder. He was determined to protect his interests and at the same time preserve the integrity of the country that he loved so well.

He exposed himself every night to raids by the most blood-thirsty savages in all Africa. Plumer's command was camped nearly five miles away but Rhodes refused a guard.

Rhodes waited patiently and his perseverance was eventually rewarded.

One by one the chiefs came down from the hills and succ.u.mbed to the persuasiveness and personality of this remarkable man who could deal with wild and naked warriors as successfully as he could dictate to a group of hard-headed business men. After two months of negotiating the Matabeles were appeased and permanent peace, so far as the natives were concerned, dawned in Rhodesia. After his feat in the Matopos the Matabeles called Rhodes "The Man Who Separated the Fighting Bulls." It was during this period in Rhodesia that Rhodes discovered the place which he called "The View of the World," and where his remains now lie in lonely grandeur.

At Groote Schuur, the Rhodes house near Capetown, which he left as the permanent residence of the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, I saw a prized souvenir of the Matopos conferences with the Matabeles.

On the wall in Rhodes' bedroom hangs the faded picture of an old and shriveled Matabele woman. When I asked General s.m.u.ts to tell me who she was he replied: "That is the woman who acted as the chief negotiator between Rhodes and the rebels." I afterwards found out that she was one of the wives of Umziligazi, father of Lobengula, and a noted Zulu chieftain. Rhodes never forgot the service she rendered him and caused the photograph of her to be taken.

Following the last Matabele insurrection the Imperial Government which is represented in Rhodesia by a Resident Commissioner a.s.sumed control of the natives. The Crown was possibly guided by the precedent of Natal, where a premature Responsible Government was followed by two Zulu wars which well-nigh wrecked the province. It has become the policy of the Home Government not to permit a relatively small white population to rule the natives. Whatever the influence, Rhodesia has had no trouble with the natives since Rhodes made the peace up in the hills of the Matopos.

The moment that the war of force ended, another and bloodless war of words began and it has continued ever since. I mean the fight for self-government that the settlers have waged against the Chartered Company. This brings us to a contest that contributes a significant and little-known chapter to the whole narrative of self-determination among the small peoples.

Through its Charter the British South Africa Company was able to fasten a copper-rivetted rule on Rhodesia. Most of the Directors in London, with the exception of men like Dr. Jameson, knew very little about the country. There was no resident Director in Africa and the members of the Board only came out just before the elections. The Administrator was always a Company man and until 1899 his administrative a.s.sociates in the field were the members of an Executive Council nominated by the Company.

Meanwhile thousands of men had invested their fortunes in the land and the inevitable time came when they believed that they should have a voice in the conduct of its affairs.

This sentiment became so widespread that in 1899 the country was given a Legislative Council which for the first time enabled the Rhodesians to elect some of their own people to office. At first they were only allowed three members, while the Company nominated six others. This always gave the Chartered interests a majority. Subsequently, as the clamour for popular representation grew, the number of elected representatives was increased to thirteen, while those nominated by Charter remained the same. To get a majority under the new deal it was only necessary for the Company to get the support of four elected members and on account of its relatively vast commercial interest it was usually easy to do this.

It would be difficult to find an exact parallel to this situation. In America we have had many conflicts with what our campaign orators call "Special Privilege," an inst.i.tution which thrived before the searchlight of publicity was turned on corporate control and prior to the time when fangs were put into the stewardship of railways. These contestants were sometimes decided at the polls with varying degrees of success. Perhaps the nearest approach to the Rhodesian line-up was the struggle of the California wheat growers against the Southern Pacific Railway, which Frank Norris dramatized in his book, "The Octopus."

All the while the feeling for Responsible Government in Rhodesia grew. A strong group which opposed the Chartered regime sprang up. At the beginning of the struggle the line was sharply drawn between the Charter adherents on one side and unorganized opponents on the other. By 1914 the issue was sharply defined. The first twenty-five years of the Charter were about to end and the insurgents realized that it was an opportune moment for a show of strength. The opposition had three plans.

Some advocated the conversion of Rhodesia into a Crown Colony, others strongly urged admission to the Union of South Africa, while still another wing stood for Responsible Government. It was decided to unite on a common platform of Responsible Government.

For the first time the Company realized that it had a fight on its hands and Dr. Jameson, who had become president of the corporation, went out to Rhodesia and made speeches urging loyalty to the Charter. His appearance stirred memories of the pioneer days and almost without exception the old guard rallied round him. A red-hot campaign ensued with the result that the whole pro-Charter ticket, with one exception, was elected, although the antis polled 45 per cent of the total vote.

Out of this defeat came a partial victory for the Progressives. The Imperial Government saw the handwriting on the wall and acting within its powers, which permitted an administrative change in the Charter at the end of every ten years, granted a Supplemental Charter which provided that the Legislative Council could by an absolute majority of all its members pa.s.s a resolution "praying the Crown to establish in Southern Rhodesia the form of Government known as Responsible Government," provided that it could financially support this procedure.

It gave the insurgents fresh hope and it made the Company realize that sooner or later its authority must end.

Then the Great War broke. Every available man that could possibly be spared went to the Front and the life of the Council was extended until 1920, when a conclusive election was to be held. Meanwhile the Company, realizing that it must sooner or later bow to the people's will, got busy with an attempt to realize on its a.s.sets. Chief among them were the millions of acres of so-called "unalienated" or Crown land in Southern Rhodesia. The Chartered Company claimed this land as a private a.s.set.

The settlers alleged that it belonged to them. The Government said it was an imperial possession. The Privy Council in London upheld the latter contention. Thereupon the Company filed a claim for $35,000,000.00 against the Government to cover the value of this land and its losses throughout the years of administration.

Yielding to pressure the Legislative Council in 1919 asked the British Government to declare itself on the question of replacing the Charter with some form of Government suited to the needs of the country. Lord Milner, the Colonial Secretary, answered in what came to be known as the "Milner Despatch." In it he said that he did not believe the territory "in its present stage of development was equal to the financial burden of Responsible Government." He mildly suggested representative government under the Crown.

The general expectation throughout Rhodesia was that no election would be held until a Government Commission then sitting, had inquired into the validity of the Company's immense claim for damages. Early in March 1920, however, the Legislative Council gave notice that the election was set for April 30th. It proved to be the most exciting ever held in Rhodesia. The Chartered Company made no fight. The contest was really waged between the two wings of the anti-Charter crowd. One favored Responsible Government and the other, admission to the Union of South Africa.

The arguments for Responsible Government briefly were these: That under the Supplemental Charter it was the only const.i.tutional change possible; that the financial burden was not too heavy; that the native question was no bar; that the Imperial Government would never saddle the country with the huge debt of the Company; that under the Union a hateful bi-lingualism would be introduced; that taxation would not be excessive, and that finally, the right of self-determination as to Government was the birthright of the British people.

The adherents of Union contended that the original idea of Cecil Rhodes was to make Rhodesia a part of the Union of South Africa; that by this procedure the vexing problem of customs with the Union would be solved; that the system of self-government in South Africa meets every requirement of self-determination. Moreover, the point was made that by becoming a part of the Union the whole railway question would be settled. At present the Rhodesian railways have three ends, one in South Africa at Vryburg, another on the Belgian border, and a third at the sea at Beira. It was claimed that through the Union, Rhodesia would benefit by becoming a part of the nationalized railway system there and get the advantage of a British port at the Cape instead of Beira, which is Portuguese. In other words, Union meant stability of credit, politics, finance and industry.

The outcome of the election was that twelve Responsible Government candidates, one of them a woman, were elected. Women voted for the first time in Rhodesia and they solidly opposed the union with South Africa.

The thirteenth member elected stood for the conversion of the country into a Crown Colony under representative government. Throughout the campaign the Chartered Company remained neutral, although it was obviously opposed to Responsible Government. The feeling throughout Rhodesia is that it favors Union because it could dispose of its a.s.sets to better advantage.

I arrived in Rhodesia immediately after the election. The country still sizzled with excitement. Curiously enough, the head, brains and front of the fight for union with South Africa was a former American, now a British subject and who has been a ranchman in Rhodesia for some years.

He prefers to be nameless.

In the light of the landslide at the polls it naturally followed that the new Legislative Council at its first meeting pa.s.sed a resolution declaring for Responsible Government. The vote was twelve to five. Since this was not an absolute majority, as required by the Supplementary Charter, it is expected that the Imperial Government will decide against granting this form of government just now. The next procedure will probably be a request for representative government under the Crown or some modification of the Charter, and for an Imperial loan. Rhodesia has no borrowing power and the country needs money just as much as its needs men. The adherents of Union claim that on a straight show-down between Crown Colony or Union at the next election, Union will win. From what I gathered in conversation with the leaders of both factions, there would have been a bigger vote, possibly victory for Union, but for the Nationalist movement in South Africa, which I described in a previous chapter. The Rhodesians want no racial entanglements.

Northern Rhodesia has no part in the fight against the Charter. It is only a question of time, however, when she will be merged into Southern Rhodesia for, with the pa.s.sing of the Company, her destiny becomes identical with that of her sister territory. Northern Rhodesia's chief complaint against the Company was that it did not spend any money within her borders. After reading the story of the crusade for Responsible Government you can understand the reason why.

Whatever happens, Charter rule in Rhodesia is doomed and the great Company, born of the vision and imperialism of Cecil Rhodes, and which battled with the wild man in the wilderness, will eventually vanish from the category of corporations. But Rhodesia remains a thriving part of the British Empire and the dream of the founder is realized.

III

Rhodesia produces much more than trouble for the Chartered Company. She is pre-eminently a land of ranches and farms. Here you get still another parallel with the United States because it is no uncommon thing to find a farm of 50,000 acres or more.

I doubt if any other new region in the world contains a finer or st.u.r.dier manhood than Rhodesia. Like the land itself it is a stronghold of youth. Likewise, no other colony, and for that matter, no other matured country exercises such a rigid censorship upon settlers. Until the high cost of living disorganized all economic standards, no one could establish himself in Rhodesia without a minimum capital of 1,000. So far as farming is concerned, this is now increased to 2,000. Therefore, you do not see the signs of failure which so often dot the semi-virgin landscape. Knowing this, you can understand why the immigration inspector gives the incoming travellers a rigid cross-examination at the frontier.

Also it is simon-pure British, and more like Natal in this respect than any other territory under the Union-jack. I had a convincing demonstration in a personal experience. I made a speech at the Bulawayo Club. The notice was short but I was surprised to find more than a hundred men a.s.sembled after dinner, many in evening clothes. Some had travelled all day on horseback or in buckboards to get there, others had come hundreds of miles by motor car.