Native Life in South Africa Part 23

Two members of the South African Parliament -- Senator T. L. Schreiner and Mr. Wilc.o.c.ks, M.L.A. -- the former an opponent and the latter a supporter of the Natives' Land Act, recently discussed the Act from separate points of view; and both came to the conclusion that the measure was designed to keep the blacks in subjection. This conclusion is in harmony with the bitter experiences of the native races since this Act was enforced.

Yet in the face of this unanimous testimony of different observers, Mr. Harcourt equivocates behind the irrelevant "a.s.surances of General Botha"

about a possible segregation, which question is not now before the country.

a.s.surances on segregation only serve to confound the issue.

If the Beaumont commission, or its successor, should ever report then the question of segregation may come before Parliament some time in 1926. The point before the country now is not segregation, but the Natives' Land Act of 1913, which is now scattering the Natives about the country. That is the measure against which the Native appeals for Imperial protection. Not the future segregation.

The only serious objection with which Mr. Harcourt apparently was able to charge the native deputation, and one which the Natives do not deny, is that they came to England against the "entreaties of Lord Gladstone"

(who previously had twice refused to see them), and against the "advice of General Botha", by whose Cabinet the measure was enacted and enforced.

It is a pity that Mr. Harcourt did not at the same time tell the House of an authentic case where an aggrieved party ever sued for redress with the consent and advice of his oppressor.

In this connexion, the scope of our reading being limited, our ignorance is possibly abysmal; but it must be confessed that we have never heard of such an interesting appellant and we are inclined to believe that there never has been one.

If General Botha wished to tell the whole truth, instead of making vague a.s.surances to Mr. Harcourt, he would say: "I foresaw all the difficulties under which the Natives are suffering; and when Mr. Grobler proposed the summary stoppage of the sale and lease of land to Natives before the areas are segregated, I warned the House against this trouble, but the Hertzogites being too much for me I had to give in."

Gen. Botha could go further and say to Mr. Harcourt: "If you will turn up page 579 of the South African Hansard (first column) reading from the top of the page, you will find my warning in these words: --

== Unless they went slowly and carefully, there was a danger that they might take steps which would be unreasonable, unjust, and unfair on one section.

For that reason, he regretted the amendment proposed by General Hertzog, because the amendment would have bad results if it were accepted.

It would lead to an over-hasty measure of a most impracticable kind.

This House would have to demarcate exactly and immediately those parts where the Natives would have to live, and he asked them: was this House able to do so? (Cries of "No".) It was all very nice to talk and take a map and draw lines on it. On the map they might be able to beacon off parts, and say, "This is for the Natives,"

but then, when they put their scheme into effect, they might find that the ground of many individuals had been taken away without any inquiries or any investigations having been made.

(Laughter, and "Hear hear".) This House would expropriate the rights of many white people, and they would meet with the greatest opposition. Where were they going to put these people then?

In the Transvaal, farmers certainly would not consent to this; he did not know the people of the Free State so well, but he doubted whether they would agree.

(A Free State Member: "No, they certainly will not.") Instead of taking any steps like this, they should be practical, and not land themselves into greater difficulties than they could help. Governments before them had done their best. He agreed that the squatting of Natives should be put an end to as soon as possible, but they should not lose sight of the fact that many Governments before them had done their best to put an end to this squatting evil. He knew well how the Transvaal Government had, year after year, taken up this matter. But what did they find? Simply that when they had pa.s.sed a Squatters Law they could only put it into operation in one small part of the country. (Hear, hear.) To introduce another Bill like that would simply mean deceiving the country -- (hear, hear) -- and the Natives. If they accepted the proposal of the Minister of Native Affairs to appoint a Commission to investigate the various conditions prevailing throughout the country, he thought they would be taking a step in the right direction. (Hear, hear.) However, care was essential, because they must prevent causing a sort of revolution through the country. What they wanted was a measure which would be acceptable to the white man as well as to the Native. (Hear, hear.) ==

These were General Botha's views when the Land Act was first mooted, but in defiance of his solemn warning, the Bill, when gazetted, provided that the eviction of native tenants should precede the Commission's inquiry; harsher and still harsher clauses were inserted in the Bill until the Act finally embodied all the proposals brought forward by General Hertzog.

The promise to refer the Bill to a Select Committee was also broken, presumably as a result of pressure from the caucus. The Government could not face a Select Committee after this complete change of front as they must have known that reason was absolutely against them.

It might be asked: How could a Minister turn round afterwards and give "a.s.surances" concerning the benefits of a measure which he had opposed before? To such a question we would hazard the following explanation: Our Prime Minister, on the one hand, is a British Privy Councillor and a General in the British Army; and, on the other hand, he is a simple Afrikander Boer, who only speaks Dutch in Parliament and addresses English audiences through an interpreter. And so in the eyes of General Botha, the British Crown Minister, if the Natives be treated justly, as British subjects should be treated, it is right; and, again, in the eyes of General Botha, the Afrikander Boer, if the Natives be treated harshly and barbarously, that too is right.

It is not unusual to find these two natures contending against each other in one and the same person, whenever the Prime Minister deals with native questions; then more often than not the Boer view, being that of his own nature, dominates the British sentiment, which is a fresh acquisition.

Having given above a striking extract from a speech on native policy, by the Rt. Hon. Louis Botha, Premier of British South Africa, we will now proceed to give an extract from another declaration by General Louis Botha, the Transvaal Boer. The Union Premier was giving evidence before the Labour Commission in Johannesburg and this is what he then said: --

== 11,302. Sir GEORGE FARRAR: You said that you would recommend the breaking up of Locations like Swaziland, Zululand and Basutoland and the putting of white settlers there? General BOTHA: I would suggest that these countries be given up to the white people to live in. . . .

11,337. The general tenor of your remarks is that there is sufficient labour, and it only wants a little patience to wait for it, that is all?

I have distinctly stated that there is a greater amount of labour than has at present been obtained. But there are farmers who have farms, and have no Natives living on these farms. For these people it is difficult to obtain Natives because the Natives who are not living on the farms are in locations. If the locations were broken up the Natives would be made to live on farms.

11,338. You suggest that we should break up such land as Basutoland, Swaziland and Zululand? Yes, I say that such places are a source of evil.

It is building up a Kaffir kingdom in the midst of us which is not only bad for the Kaffirs themselves but is a danger in the future.*

-- * One of the Chiefs in these locations gave General Botha 200 bullocks to feed his troops engaged in crushing a rebellion of white men.

11,339. But take Zululand, for instance; there is a quarter of a million people there. What would you do with them if you break up their territory?

They would all live on the farms as the white people are doing now.

11,340. Oh, you want to cut up the land into farms, give it to the white people and retain the Kaffirs on the farms? Yes.

11,343. But what will the white people do with the Kaffirs, pay them wages or charge them rent for the ground or what?

My opinion is that Kaffirs who now live in locations should work for the white people, and the land should be exploited. The white people would pay them for the work they did and this would civilize them.

11,344. A nation like the Basutos you would deal with in the same way? -- Yes.

11,345. They at present occupy the land, we have had it in evidence before us to the effect that every inch of land in Basutoland is occupied and worked by the Kaffirs themselves as their own property? -- That is just my argument . . . because there is opening for the Kaffirs there they go and live there without doing anything.

11,347. But they do something. They work the whole country, they have a lot of grain? -- Yes, for themselves.

11,352. . . . I have shown you that Basutoland is fully occupied by Kaffirs, and they work it. Do you want to apply your scheme to Basutoland? -- I do not know very much about Basutoland, I have never been there personally; but I am well acquainted with Zululand and also Swaziland, and I want to state this, that in my opinion it is not only a wrong policy, but also dangerous policy to have large tracts of country inhabited by uncivilized races, and to keep them there on the present terms.

11,353. But these Natives lived there from time immemorial.

It was theirs before we came here. How can we drive them off the land now, and take it for ourselves? I think we are feeling very happy that we drove them from Johannesburg in the olden days.

They lived in this country too just the same and the Kaffirs who became civilized under us have improved.*

-- * 'Transvaal Labour Commission', pp. 717-726.

In the foregoing extract the reader has the root principle of the Natives' Land Act in a nut-sh.e.l.l. Not from hearsay "a.s.surances"

but from what fell from the Premier's own lips.

Mr. Jacob de Villiers Roos, head of the Union Law Department (who knows more about South African law than outsiders who have to rely on "a.s.surances",) says in his evidence given before the Select Committee on Public Accounts, February 25, 1914, incidentally or accidentally: --

== "A circular was issued by our Department, at the instigation of the Native Affairs Department, asking that prosecutors under the Natives' Land Act, before commencing prosecutions, should refer to the Native Affairs Department as otherwise IT WAS FEARED THAT AN UPHEAVAL MIGHT RESULT. The Transvaal Attorney-General drew our attention to this circular and said that it was an infringement of his powers. . . . When Mr. Beyers went away on leave Mr. Greenlees was appointed Acting Attorney-General, and he first drew the attention of the Minister to it.

The Minister took no action until Mr. Beyers returned when the matter was again raised and then this circular was withdrawn."*

-- * S.C. 1-'14, pp. 136-137.

Now, what, in the name of common sense, does a supposedly civilized Government want with a law that it knows will cause "an upheaval"?

This Act should be abolished in the interest of the morality of the State and for the sake of the reputation of the Union Jack, because of the harm it does to the Natives and because its promoters have rebelled against the Crown. The Act has benefited no one; it has driven the Natives from the country to the cities, and has also disappointed the White Labour Party, who supported it in the belief that by its clause forcing Natives to work for white farmers it would keep the Natives away from the industrial centres.

It should be abolished in the interests of the Boers, for it has aroused the bitterest enmity of the blacks against the Dutch section of his Majesty's subjects.

Further, the Act should be abolished because it has lowered the prestige of the Union Jack in the eyes of the coloured subjects of the King, who have suffered and are still suffering untold misery under it.

Perhaps nothing ill.u.s.trates more clearly this changed feeling of the Natives than the present state of things in South Africa. Thus, if German South-West Africa had been annexed to the Cape before the Union, every Native, south of the Zambesi, would have approved of the step, whereas to-day, as a result of the Natives' Land Act, there is a different feeling extant.

For now the Natives know that annexation to the Union will mean the elimination of the Imperial factor, and that as Capetown, like Pretoria, has ceased to represent British ideas of fair play and justice, such a change would in the annexed territory establish "Free" State ideals under the aegis of the Union Jack. The Natives of the Union shudder at the possibility of the Damaras, who are now under the harsh rule of the Germans, being placed under a self-governing Dominion in which the German rule will be accentuated by the truculent "Free" State ideas of ruling Natives. And they think that in the existing state of circ.u.mstances, Portuguese or French rule would be infinitely better for the Damaras than a Government which, although protected by the Union Jack, yet is inspired from Pretoria and Bloemfontein.

And it is to be feared that the pernicious principles which Tommy Atkins is now fighting on the Continent to suppress, are going to be rigorously applied in a South-West Africa under Burgher rule. The prosperity of no State can afford to alienate the sympathy of any considerable portion of its tax-payers. And so, as 5,000,000 blacks have been alienated in their sympathies to the Union by this oppressive law, and as the Union Government is unable or unwilling to amend it, in the interest of the Union Government, no less than the 5,000,000 blacks, outside intervention becomes a necessity.

During three separate white men's upheavals in the last two years -- two b.l.o.o.d.y strikes and a civil war -- white revolters made frantic efforts to embroil the Union in a native rising, but the Natives very sensibly sided with the Government. The native leaders, in order to counteract this mischief-making, had to incur the expense of journeys by rail besides financing their own mission to reach the scene of the would-be native disturbance.

The time will come when these leaders will tire of spending their own money in paying fares to the Government Railways, to render free services to a Government which taxes them to pay other people lavishly for similar work, while it does not even tender them so much as a word of thanks.

Instead of the smallest recognition for our voluntary services, the Union Government repays our loyalty by persecuting our widows and fatherless children with the cold-blooded provisions of the Natives' Land Act. These cruelties are euphemistically described as the first step towards the segregation of white and black, but they might more truthfully be styled the first steps towards the extermination of the blacks.

When the war broke out, the Government promptly suspended the inquiries of the Commission, whose report is naively alleged to be pregnant with the fruits of the millennium, but the cruel evictions under the same law of the rebel Grobler are pursuing their course while the war lasts and the Union Government remains unconcerned.

It was only when a whole tribe was evicted during the war that the Government interceded on behalf of the victims, but then, the only extent of the intervention has been to secure exemption for the chief of the tribe alone, on the condition that HE FORCED THE REST OF HIS TRIBE TO RENDER EVERY YEAR THREE MONTHS' LABOUR TO THE LANDOWNER. Yet these people could live happily on some other farm did not the Government prohibit their happiness at the behest of a rebel who, at or about the time of this enthralling compromise, was conducting treasonable operations against the Government.

The sublime ingrat.i.tude of the Union Government is wellnigh unbearable!