Native Life in South Africa Part 46

Is there n.o.body left on earth who is just enough to call on South Africa to put an end to this cowardly abuse of power?

We appeal to the Colonists of Natal, who have declared themselves against the persecution of their Natives; and would draw their attention to the fact that in spite of their disapproval, expressed to the Lands Commission, the Union Government, at the behest of a prisoner, is still tyrannizing over the Zulus.

We appeal to the Churches. We would remind them that in the past the Christian voice has been our only shield against legislative excesses of the kind now in full swing in the Union.

But in the new ascendency of self and pelf over justice and tolerance, that voice will be altogether ignored, unless strongly reinforced by the Christian world at large. We appeal for deliverance from the operation of a cunningly conceived and a most draconian law whose administration has been marked by the closing down of native Churches and Chapels in rural South Africa.

We appeal to the Jews, G.o.d's chosen people, who know what suffering means. We would remind them that if after 1913 there was no repet.i.tion of a Russian pogrom it was largely because the native leaders (including the author) have spared neither pains nor pence in visiting the scattered tribes and exhorting them to obey all the demands of the South African Government under the Grobler law pending a peaceful intercession from the outside world.

But for this self-imposed duty on the part of the native leaders, I am satisfied that numbers of the native peasantry would have been mown down early in 1914, and humanity would have been told that they were justly punished for disobedience to const.i.tuted authority.

We appeal to the leaders of the Empire -- that Empire for which my own relatives have sacrificed life and property in order to aid its extension along the Cape to Cairo route, entirely out of love for her late Majesty Queen Victoria and with no expectation of material reward.

We ask these leaders to honour the plighted word of their n.o.ble predecessors who collectively and severally a.s.sured us a future of peace and happiness as our membership privilege in the Empire for which we bled.

They were among the n.o.blest Englishmen that ever left their native sh.o.r.es to create a prestige for their nation abroad. They included heroes and empire-builders too many to mention, who all told us that they spoke in the name of Queen Victoria and on behalf of her heirs and successors.

What has suddenly become of the Briton's word -- his bond -- that solemn obligations of such Imperialists should cease to count? And if it is decided that the Victorian Englishman and the Twentieth Century Englishman are creatures of different clay (and that with the latter honour is binding only when both parties to the undertaking are white), surely this could hardly be the moment to inaugurate a change the reaction of which cannot fail to desecrate the memories of your just and upright forebears.

We would draw the attention of the British people to the fact that the most painful part of the present ordeal to the loyal black millions, who are now doing all they can, or are allowed to do, to help the Empire to win the war, is that they suffer this consummate oppression at the bidding of a gentleman now serving his term for partic.i.p.ating in a rebellion during this war. We feel that it must be a source of intense satisfaction to Mr. Piet Grobler in his cell, that the most loyal section of the King's South African subjects are suffering persecution under his law -- a fact which, looked at from whatever standpoint, is equal to an official justification of the ideals for which he rose in rebellion. And if there is to be a return to the contented South Africa of other days, both the Natives' Land Act -- his law -- and the Report of the Lands Commission -- its climax -- should be torn up.

Courting Retribution

For three years and more the South African Government have persecuted my kinsmen and kinswomen for no other crime than that they have meekly paid their taxes. I had come to the conclusion, after meeting Colonials from all quarters of the globe and weighing the information obtained from them, that in no Colony are the native inhabitants treated with greater injustice than in South Africa.* Yet in spite of all I had seen and heard, I must say that, until this Report reached me, I never would have believed my white fellow-countrymen capable of conceiving the all but diabolical schemes propounded between the covers of Volume I of the Report of the South African Lands Commission, 1916, and clothing them in such plausible form as to mislead even sincere and well-informed friends of the Natives. There are pages upon pages of columns of figures running into four, five or six noughts.

They will dazzle the eye until the reader imagines himself witnessing the redistribution of the whole sub-continent and its transfer to the native tribes. But two things he will never find in that ma.s.s of figures; these are (a) the grand total of the land so "awarded" to Natives; and (b) how much is left for other people. To arrive at these he has to do his own additions and subtractions, and call in the aid of statistics such as the Census figures, the annual blue books, etc., before the truth begins to dawn on him. They talk of having "doubled" the native areas.

They found us in occupation of 143,000,000 morgen and propose to squeeze us into 18 million. If this means doubling it, then our teachers must have taught us the wrong arithmetic. Is it any wonder that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to continue to love and respect the great white race as we truly loved it at the beginning of this century?

-- * Some white South Africans in recent years have migrated to the Katanga region in the Belgian Congo. I have read in the South African daily papers, correspondence from some of them complaining of their inability to make money. They attributed this difficulty to the fact that the Belgian officials will not permit them to exploit the labour of the Congolese as freely as white men are accustomed to make use of the Natives in British South Africa.

We would submit a few problems in this Report for the British People and their Parliamentary Representatives to solve: --

First: Who are to become the occupants of the lands from which the Commission recommends the removal of the native proletariat?

Secondly: In view of certain upheavals which we have seen not very long ago, and others which might take place in the future, it is pertinent to ask, concerning the "very small minority of the inhabitants" -- the Whites -- alluded to by Mr. Schreiner at the head of this chapter, (a) what proportion is in full sympathy with the ideals of the British Empire; (b) what proportion remains indifferent; and (c) what proportion may be termed hostile?

Thirdly: Does the autonomy granted to this "small minority"

amount to complete independence, or does it not?

Fourthly: Would it not be advisable also to inquire: Of "the vast majority of the inhabitants" the King's Black subjects, doomed by this Report to forfeit their homes and all they value in their own country, (a) how many of these are loyal, and (b) how many are not?

Finally and solemnly we would put it to all concerned for the honour and perpetuity of British dominion in South Africa, can the Empire afford to tamper with and alienate their affections?

As stated already, this "very vast majority of the inhabitants"

of South Africa has been strafed by the "very small minority"

for over three years. And when the burden loaded on our bent backs becomes absolutely unbearable we are at times inclined to blame ourselves; for, when some of us fought hard -- and often against British diplomacy -- to extend the sphere of British influence, it never occurred to us that the spread of British dominion in South Africa would culminate in consigning us to our present intolerable position, namely, a helotage under a Boer oligarchy. But when an official Commission asks Parliament to herd us into concentration camps, with the additional recommendation that besides breeding slaves for our masters, we should be made to pay for the upkeep of the camps: in other words, that we should turn the Colonials into slave raiders and slave-drivers (but save them the expense of buying the slaves), the only thing that stands between us and despair is the thought that Heaven has never yet failed us. We remember how African women have at times shed tears under similar injustices; and how when they have been made to leave their fields with their hoes on their shoulders, their tears on evaporation have drawn fire and brimstone from the skies.

But such blind retribution has a way of punishing the innocent alike with the guilty, and it is in the interests of both that we plead for some outside intervention to a.s.sist South Africa in recovering her lost senses.

The ready sympathy expressed by those British people among whom I have lived and laboured during the past two years inspires the confidence that a consensus of British opinion will, in the Union's interest, stay the hand of the South African Government, veto this iniquity and avert the Nemesis that would surely follow its perpetration.

Her mind must have been riveted on South Africa when, quite recently, Ida Luckie sang: --

Alas, My Country! Thou wilt have no need Of enemy to bring thee to thy doom. . . .

For not alone by war a nation falls.

Though she be fair, serene as radiant morn, Though girt by seas, secure in armament, Let her but spurn the vision of the Cross; Tread with contemptuous feet on its command Of mercy, Love and Human Brotherhood, And she, some fateful day, shall have no need Of enemy to bring her to the dust.

Some day, though distant it may be -- with G.o.d A thousand years are but as yesterday -- The germs of hate, injustice, violence, Like an insidious canker in the blood, Shall eat that nation's vitals. She shall see Break forth the blood-red tide of anarchy, Sweeping her plains, laying her cities low, And bearing on its seething, crimson flood The wreck of Government, of home, and all The nation's pride, its splendour and its power.

On with relentless flow, into the seas Of G.o.d's eternal vengeance wide and deep.

But, for G.o.d's grace! Oh may it hold thee fast, My Country, until justice shall prevail O'er wrong and o'er oppression's cruel power, And all that makes humanity to mourn.

[End of original text.]

[Original Advertis.e.m.e.nts.]

Some Opinions of the Press on the First Edition

"It is difficult to believe that such barbarities are possible; but Mr. Plaatje gives chapter and verse for every one of his indictments; the Act itself is quoted in extenso; various debates in the Colonial Parliament are given, and arguments for and against the Act furnished by the different speakers. The whole book is really interesting, and will come as a great surprise to many English people who know little of the South African Native as an educated, thinking human being, and will certainly excite sympathy with his present precarious state under colonial laws, which seem to be little inspired by the principles of justice and liberty which British supremacy formerly guaranteed." -- 'Yorkshire Observer'.

"Whatever may have been the intention of the home Government, in practice this Act has meant the restriction of Natives to their reservations, or to servitude among the white population.

Mr. Plaatje states his case clearly and a.s.serts that this movement is reactionary and a false step on the part of the Government to placate the extreme Dutch party in South Africa." -- 'Glasgow Herald'.

"The author makes an excellent case for the consideration of the Imperial Government. He convincingly proves that the fortunes of the native races should not have been handed over to the Dutch Republicans without adequate safeguards.

He gratefully acknowledges the enthusiastic support given to the Natives by the British settlers and appeals for an inquiry. The interest of the book for the Punjabis consists, not in the similarity of the grievances, for we here have no such grievance against the Government, but in showing the way for inviting attention to the injustice involved in excluding a large cla.s.s of Hindus from agriculture."

-- 'The Tribune', Lah.o.r.e.

"It is a serious case, well and ably put, and the evidence embodied in it is very disquieting. Here at any rate is a book which makes the native agitation intelligible and may conceivably have an influence on future events in South Africa -- and at home, for by no legal fiction can the Imperial power dissociate itself from responsibility for Native affairs." -- 'Birmingham Post'.

"The supporters of the Act do not make the principles attractive in explaining them. Mr. J. G. Keyter, Member for Ficksburg, said "they should tell the Native as the Free State told him, that it was white man's country, that he was not going to be allowed to buy land there or hire land there, and that if he wanted to be there he must be in service." -- 'New Statesman'.

"There is the spice if not the charm of novelty about this book.

It is written by a South African native and he holds strong views on some recent public questions. He occasionally expresses himself well and forcibly, and it is all to the good that South African publicists should have the advantage of reading the opinions of a native observer when dealing with legislation affecting his race." -- 'South Africa'.

"In this well arranged and lucidly written book the author shows from authentic sources how changeable and often unreasonable has been the treatment of the loyal Natives under the South African flag.

Mr. Plaatje is no fire-brand; he writes with moderation, and his book should attract sympathetic attention." -- 'Booksellers' Record'.

"Mr. Plaatje has marshalled his facts with considerable skill.

He sets forth the case of his countrymen with energy and moderation.

His conclusions seem to be warranted by the information at his disposal, and the facts he adduces seem to bear but one interpretation.

And lastly, in the existing circ.u.mstances, he is fully justified in appealing to the court of public opinion." -- 'United Empire'.