Native Life in South Africa Part 43

During the past two years while the Empire was involved in one of the mightiest struggles that ever shook the foundations of the earth, South Africa was wasting time and money in a useless and unprecedented attempt at territorial segregation betwixt white and black. Judging by the recently published Report of the Lands Commission, however, she has failed ignominiously in the task.

Whenever, on behalf of the Natives, the hardships disclosed in this book were mentioned, the South African authorities invariably replied that these hardships would cease as soon as the Commission submits its Report.

This has now been done. General Botha laid the Report on the table of the house on May 3, 1916, and intimated as he did so that "the Government propose to take no immediate action upon the recommendations, but will give the country twelve months to consider the Report and the evidence." Meanwhile the eviction of Natives from farms continues in all parts of the country, and the Act debars them from settling anywhere, not even in Natal, although Natal witnesses (like the Chairman of the Commission) have definitely claimed the exemption of their Colony from this form of Union tyranny.

It is a Report of many parts. A good deal of it is instructive and much of it is absurd. Most of the Commissioners and many of the witnesses have expressed themselves with a candid disregard for the rights of other people.

Government publications, at least, should be beyond question; thus, old Government archives give correct histories of native tribes for 500 years back, because their compilers invariably sought and obtained reliable evidence from Natives about themselves. But this Commission's Report (to mention but one instance among several inaccuracies) tells us, on page 27 of U.G. 25-'16, of "the original inhabitants of Moroka ward who had lived in Bechua.n.a.land under the Paramount Chief Montsioa (sic).

Their original chief was Sebuclare" (!)

No Barolong tribe ever had a chief by this name. The fact is, that Governments of to-day frequently publish unreliable native records, for they are mainly based on information obtained from self-styled experts, who, in South Africa, should always be white.

Again, it is not explained why the Commission publishes, in a permanent record, particulars of enc.u.mbrances on native farms such as we find on page 29 of the same volume. Is it to damage the credit of the native farmers? Supposing some of the hypothecations given in the "list of mortgaged native-owned farms in the Thaba Ncho District"

were wiped off before the Report was issued, will it be fair to the native owners to read, say in 1999, that their farms are mortgaged for those amounts?

In the published evidence given before other Commissions questions put to the witnesses are usually printed along with the answers.

This has not been done in the present instance, and consequently some of these replies are so clumsily put that the reader cannot even guess what the witness was answering. If the questions had also been printed, the whole Report might have been illuminating. It is interesting, for instance, to read what was apparently a lively dispute between the Commissioners and one witness -- Mr. J. G. Keyter, M.L.A., the arch-enemy of the blacks and one of the promoters of the whole trouble -- as to what is, or is not, the meaning of the Natives' Land Act.

Indeed the various definitions and explanations of the Act, given by the Commissioners and some of the witnesses, contradict those previously given by the Union Government and Mr. Harcourt.

And while the ruling whites, on the one hand, content themselves with giving contradictory definitions of their cruelty the native sufferers, on the other hand, give no definitions of legislative phrases nor explanations of definitions. All that they give expression to is their bitter suffering under the operation of what their experience has proved to be the most ruthless law that ever disgraced the white man's rule in British South Africa.

The Report and the evidence at any rate bear out the statement set forth in this book, namely, that the main object in view is not segregation, but the reduction of all the black subjects of the King from their former state of semi-independence to one of complete serfdom.

The Commission's Awards

The population of South Africa is very commonly overestimated.

As a matter of fact there are in South Africa about one and a quarter million whites and four and a half million blacks.

According to the Census of 1911, the exact figure is a million less than the population of London, -- viz., 5,973,394 -- scattered over an area of 143,000,000 morgen -- nearly ten times the size of England.

A morgen is about 2 1/9 English acres.

But if we are to understand what is proposed, we would have to consider the position in the sub-continent under different heads: --

I. English or Urban Areas, inhabited by 660,000 whites and 800,000 blacks: 1 3/4 quarter million morgen; and

II. The remaining 141 1/4 million morgen, which the Commission would divide as follows: --

(a) NATIVE AREAS, for the Bantu and such other coloured races as are cla.s.sed along with them numbering just about 4,000,000 SOULS: 18 1/4 MILLION MORGEN.

(b) EUROPEAN AREAS, or nearly the whole of Rural South Africa, for the occupation of 660,000 RURAL WHITES (mainly Boers): 123,000,000 MORGEN.

The English Areas (I) are not affected by the troubles which form the subject of this book. None but the four million blacks will be allowed to buy land in the Native Area (II(a)); while all the blacks who hitherto lived on the Boer Areas (II(b)) must clear out.

They would only be allowed to come back to Union territory as servants to the white farming population.

That, in a nutsh.e.l.l, is the Report of the Segregation Commission.

The Chairman Dissents

On the whole these drastic findings are against the weight of evidence.

The Report, moreover, shows that the decisions were not carried through without some difference of opinion. It would seem that Sir William Beaumont, the Chairman of the Commission, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court (whose legal training and experience were a.s.suredly ent.i.tled to more respect than they received) gave a saner interpretation of the Natives' Land Act.

He evidently wished to treat the amount of land awarded to Natives as an instalment to which additions might be made in the future.

This, he said, was quite within the power of the Commission to recommend.

But his colleagues presumably preferred, not the legal, but their own interpretation, namely, that this sane interpretation was "contrary to the intention of the legislature". The Chairman's well-weighed judicial verdict appears on page 42 of volume one of the Report: --

== In my opinion, neither the Natives' Land Act, nor the terms of its reference, require the Commission to delimit the whole extent of the Union into European and Native Areas respectively . . . and I think it is quite competent for this Commission, where this cannot be conveniently done, to leave undefined areas which would be open alike to white and black for the acquisition of land. But this opinion is not shared by my fellow-commissioners, who regard it as contrary to the intentions of the legislature and the terms of the Act.

Sir William Beaumont's rejected opinion is supported by the evidence of Senator T. L. Schreiner, who said: --

== When the Bill was before the House, I brought to its notice the fact that there were areas in the country which it was impossible to declare native areas or non-native areas. The late Minister said it was not the intention to divide the whole country of the Union; therefore I thought that the difficulty was covered (p. 224 vol. ii).

But as in Parliament so also in the Commission it would appear that the steam-roller was set in motion; and it operated in each instance in favour of repressing the black races.

These four Commissioners presumably thinking that Imperial attention would be too much engrossed with the war to notice such insignificant affairs as the throttling of the South African Blacks, seem to have decided that now or never was the opportune moment for degrading the aborigines into helots; therefore, the Chairman, finding that he could not persuade his colleagues to adopt his view of things, indited the following minority report respecting his own Province of Natal and Zululand (vol. i. p. 41): --

== The conditions in Natal are, and have been, totally different to those in the other Provinces. There has been no demand in Natal for the enforcement of a Squatters Act or for any further segregation of the natives. Indeed, the opinion of Natal, as expressed in the evidence given before the Commission by those best qualified to know, is against the application of the Natives' Land Act to Natal.

In Natal, since it became a British possession, the Natives have always had, and largely exercised, the right to purchase land outside their defined locations, and they regard any infringement of this right as a breach of the terms of the Proclamation issued by Her late Majesty Queen Victoria at the time the country was annexed by Great Britain.

(See the pet.i.tions presented to the Commission.) The Natives in Natal now privately own about 359,000 acres, on which are residing some 37,000 Natives. These lands are, in certain areas, so intermixed with lands owned by Europeans that any line of demarcation can only be arbitrarily made, and may result in serious hardship or injustice to both European and Native owners.

The area set aside for native occupation (including mission reserves) and preserved for their use by Royal Letters Patent and by the South Africa Act, amount to nearly two and a half million acres, or about 15 per cent. of the whole of Natal. These areas are, according to the native mode of occupation, almost all fully occupied, and do not afford more than a very limited opportunity for the introduction of Natives from outside.

A further point which has to be considered, and it is one on which the Natives lay great stress, is that it seems unjust to debar the native from purchasing land in areas where the Indian, who is alien to the country, is free to do so.

Zululand

As regards Zululand, it is sufficient here to point out that Zululand was delimited into native reserves and Crown lands by the Zululand Delimitation Commission of 1902-1904, the Crown lands being made available for disposal by the Natal Government, to which the country was annexed. It was not, however, intended, nor did the Zulus understand, that they were to be deprived of their right to acquire any portion of the reserved Crown lands by purchase.

The delimitation was made after a very thorough inquiry by persons well acquainted with the Zulus and their country; but, even so, we find that whole tribes or large portions of tribes who had long been in occupation of their lands -- some of which were not acquired by conquest but by voluntary surrender -- were not provided for, and were left on the reserved Crown lands.

There are to-day some 24,328 Zulus and Amatonga occupying these lands, and they are asking to-day for their lands to be restored to them.

The delimitation was acquiesced in by the Zulus only because they had no alternative, and the inevitable had to be accepted.

Since the delimitation they have remained loyal and peaceful and the bitterness of the losses suffered is past.

The Delimitation Commission in its report expressed the hope that the delimitation would be: "as final a settlement as it is possible to effect, and that no further changes will be initiated in the near future . . ."; but if the question is now re-opened and European and native areas are defined anew, I think endless trouble is likely to ensue. If any alterations may be found necessary in the future, either in the interests of black or white, the machinery exists whereby such alteration can be effected with little or no disturbance of the natives.

Colonel Stanford Reverses His Views

One redeeming feature in a Report which otherwise is melancholy reading is to be found in the consistency of the statesmen of Natal, which is admirable in comparison with the fast degenerating land policy of Cape Statesmen. Ten years ago the Native Affairs Commission reported on the question of Land Tenure in South Africa.

Messrs. Marshall Campbell and S. O. Samuelson, Natal representatives on that Commission -- ably supported by Colonel Stanford, the Cape representative -- expressed themselves unambiguously against this limitation of native progress. History was about to repeat itself in favour of justice in the latest Commission but for the manner in which Colonel Stanford completely reversed his former att.i.tude.

He is the only member of this Commission who had a seat on the first Commission, and in 1905 he was reported thus: --

== Col. Stanford dissented from the view of the majority on the question of restricting to certain areas only the right of the individual Native to purchase land. He holds that the acquisition by the more advanced Natives of vested individual interests in the land is a powerful incentive to loyalty. In his opinion sufficient cause has not been shown for the curtailment of privileges enjoyed for many years in the British Colonies. . . .

The contention that the safety of European races must be guarded by such restrictions as have been under discussion he does not hold to be sound. The Church, professions, commerce, trade and labour are open to the ambition and energy of the Natives, and with so many avenues open to their advance the danger of their swamping Europeans, if a real one, is not avoided by denying them the right individually to buy land.