Native Races and the War Part 9

[Footnote 20: Blue Book, C. 2454, p. 57.]

[Footnote 21: Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere, by J.

Martineau.]

[Footnote 22: Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere, by J.

Martineau.]

[Footnote 23: The italics are my own.]

[Footnote 24: There are between sixty and seventy resolutions and addresses recorded in the Blue-book, all pa.s.sed unanimously except in one case, at Stellenbosch where a minority opposed the resolution. The spokesman of the minority, however, based his opposition not on Frere's general policy, still less on his character, but as a protest against an Excise Act, which was one of Mr. Spring's measures.]

[Footnote 25: Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere.]

[Footnote 26: Blue Book, C. 2740, p. 46.]

[Footnote 27: Blue Book, C. 2740, p. 63.]

[Footnote 28: Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. Sir Bartle Frere, by Martineau.]

[Footnote 29: In the sense in which the great Lord Chatham used the words.]

VII.

TRANSVAAL POLICY SINCE 1884. DELIMITATION OF BOUNDARY AGREED TO AND NOT OBSERVED. THE CHIEF MONTSIOA. HIS COUNTRY PLACED UNDER BRITISH PROTECTION. TRANSVAAL LAW. THE GRONDWET OR CONSt.i.tUTION. THE HIGH COURTS OF JUSTICE SUBSERVIENT TO THE VOLKSRAAD OR PARLIAMENT.

ARTICLE 9 OF THE GRONDWET REFERRING TO NATIVES. NATIVE MARRIAGE LAWS. THE Pa.s.s SYSTEM. MISPLACED GOVERNMENTAL t.i.tLES,--REPUBLIC, EMPIRE, ETC.

The Boer policy towards the natives did not undergo any change for the better from 1881 and onwards.

At the time of the rising of the Boers against the British Protectorate, which culminated in the battle of Majuba Hill and the retrocession of the Transvaal, a number of native chiefs in districts outside the Transvaal boundary, sent to the British Commissioner for native affairs to offer their aid to the British Government, and many of them took the "loyals" of the Transvaal under their protection. One of these was Montsioa, a Christian chief of the Barolong tribe. He and other chiefs took charge of Government property and cattle during the disturbances, and one had four or five thousand pounds in gold, the product of a recently collected tax, given him to take care of by the Commissioner of his district, who was afraid that the money would be seized by the Boers. _In, every instance the property entrusted to their charge was returned intact_. The loyalty of all the native chiefs under very trying circ.u.mstances, is a remarkable proof of the great affection of the Kaffirs, and more especially those of the Basuto tribes, who love peace better than war, for the Queen's rule. I will cite one other instance among many of the gladness with which different native races placed themselves under the protection of the Queen.

In May, 1884, in the discharge of his office as Deputy Commissioner in Bechua.n.a.land, and on behalf of Her Majesty, the Queen, Mr. Mackenzie entered into a treaty with the chief, Montsioa, by which his country (the Barolong's country) was placed under British protection, and also with Moshette, a neighbouring chief, who wrote a letter to Mr. Mackenzie asking to be put under the same protection as the other Barolong.[30]

Mr. Mackenzie wrote:[31]--"Whatever may have been the feelings of disapproval of the British Protectorate entertained by the Transvaal people, I was left in no manner of doubt as to the joy and thankfulness with which it was welcomed in the Barolong country itself.

"The signing of the treaty in the courtyard of Montsioa, at Mafeking, by the chief and his headmen, was accompanied by every sign of gladness and good feeling. The speech of the venerable chief Montsioa was very cordial, and so cheerful in its tone as to show that he hoped and believed that the country would now get peace.

"Using the formula for many years customary in proclamations of marriages in churches in Bechua.n.a.land, Montsioa, amid the smiles of all present, announced an approaching political union, and exclaimed with energy, "Let objectors now speak out or henceforth for ever be silent."

There was no objector.

"I explained carefully in the language of the people, the nature and object of the Protectorate, and the manner in which it was to be supported.

"Montsioa then demanded in loud tones: "Barolong! what is your response to the words that you have heard?"

"With one voice there came a great shout from one end of the courtyard to the other, "We all want it."

"The chief turned to me and said, "There! you have the answer of the Barolong, we have no uncertain feelings here." As I was unfolding the views of Her Majesty's Government that the Protectorate should be self-supporting, the chief cried out, 'We know all about it, Mackenzie, we consent to pay the tax.' I could only reply to this by saying that that was just what I was coming to; but, inasmuch as they knew all about it, and saw its importance, I need say no more on the subject.

"Montsioa, in the first instance, did not like the appearance of Moshette's people in his town. I told him I was glad they had come, and he must reserve his own feelings, and await the results of what was taking place. I was pleased, therefore, when in the public meeting in the courtyard, just before the signing of the treaty, Montsioa turned to the messengers of Moshette and asked them if they saw and heard nicely what was being done with the Barolong country? They replied in the affirmative, and thus, from a native point of view, became a.s.senting parties. In this manner something definite was done towards effacing an ancient feud. The signing of the treaty then took place, the translation of which is given in the Blue Book.

"After the treaty had been signed, the old chief requested that prayer might be offered up, which was accordingly done by a native minister.

The satisfaction of the great event was further marked by the discharge of a volley from the rifles of a company of young men told off for the purpose; and the old cannon of Montsioa, mounted between the wheels of an ox-waggon, was also brought into requisition to proclaim the general joy and satisfaction.

"But alas! such feelings were destined to be of short duration. While we were thus employed at Mafeking, the openly-declared enemies of the Imperial Government, and of peace and order in Bechua.n.a.land, had been at their appropriate work elsewhere within the Protectorate. Before sunset the same evening, I was surprised to hear the Bechuana war cry sounded in Montsioa's Town, and shortly afterwards I saw the old chief approaching my waggon, followed by a large body of men.

"'Monare Makence!' (Mr. Mackenzie), 'the cattle have been lifted by the Boers,' was his first announcement. I shall never forget the scene at that moment. The excitement of the men, some of whom were reduced to poverty by what had taken place, and also their curiosity as to what step I should take, were plainly enough revealed on the faces of the crowd who, with their chief, now stood before me.

"'Mr. Mackenzie,' said Montsioa, 'you are master now, you must say what is to be done. We shall be obedient to your orders.' 'We have put our names on your paper, but the Boers have our cattle all the same,' said one man.

Another shouted out with vehemence, 'please don't tell us to go on respecting the boundary line. Why should we do so when the Boers don't?'

'Who speaks about a boundary line?' said another speaker, probably a heavy loser. 'Is it a thing that a man can eat? Where are our cattle?'

"As I have already said, I shall never forget the scene in which these and similar speeches were made at my waggon as the sun went down peacefully--the sun which had witnessed the treaty-signing and the rejoicings at Mafeking. Its departing rays now saw the cattle of the Barolong safe in the Transvaal, and the Barolong owners and Her Majesty's Deputy Commissioner looking at one another, at Mafeking."[32]

Mr. Mackenzie then resolved what to do, and announced that he would at once cross the boundary and go himself to the nearest Transvaal town to demand redress. There was a hum of approval, with a sharp enquiry from Montsioa,--did he really mean to go himself? "Having no one to send, I must go myself," Mackenzie replied. The old Chief, in a generous way, half dissuaded him from the attempt. "The Boers cannot be trusted. What shall I say if you do not return?" "All right, Montsioa," replied Mackenzie, "say I went of my own accord. I will leave my wife under your care."

"Poor old fellow," writes Mackenzie, "brave-hearted, though 'only a native,' he went away full of heaviness, promising me his cart and harness, and an athletic herd as a driver, to start early next morning."

Mr. Mackenzie had little success in this expedition. He was listened to with indifference when he represented to certain Landdrosts and Field Cornets that he had not come to talk politics, but to complain of a theft. Those to whom he spoke looked upon the cattle raid not as robbery, but as "annexation" or "commandeering." A man, listening to the palaver, exclaimed: "Well, anyhow, we shall have cheap beef as long as Montsioa's cattle last." At the hotel of the place Mr. Mackenzie met some Europeans, who were farming or in business in the Transvaal. They said to him: "Mr. Mackenzie, we are sorry to have to say it to you, for we have all known you so long, but, honestly speaking, we hope you won't succeed; the English Government does not deserve to succeed after all that they have made us--loyal colonists--suffer in the Transvaal. For a long time scarcely a day has pa.s.sed without our being insulted by the more ignorant Boers, till we are almost tired of our lives, and yet we cannot go away, having invested our all in the country."

"Many such speeches were made to me," says Mackenzie, "I give only one."

I cannot find it in my heart to criticize the character of the Boers at a time when they have held on so bravely in a desperate war, and have suffered so much. There are Boers and Boers,--good and bad among them,--as among all nations. We have heard of kind and generous actions towards the British wounded and prisoners, and we know that there are among them men who, in times of peace, have been good and merciful to their native servants. But it is not magnanimity nor brutality on the part of individuals which are in dispute. Our controversy is concerning the presence or absence of Justice among the Boers, concerning the purity of their Government and the justice of their Laws, or the reverse.

I turn to their Laws, and in judging these, it is hardly possible to be too severe. Law is a great teacher, a trainer, to a great extent, of the character of the people. The Boers would have been an exceptional people under the sun had they escaped the deterioration which such Laws and such Government as they have had the misfortune to live under inevitably produce.

A pamphlet has lately been published containing a defence of the Boer treatment of Missionaries and Natives, and setting forth the efforts which have been made in recent years to Christianize and civilize the native populations in their midst. This paper is signed by nine clergymen of the Dutch Reformed Church, and includes the name of the Rev. Andrew Murray, a name respected and beloved by many in our own country. It is welcome news that such good work has been undertaken, that the President has himself encouraged it, and that a number of Zulus or Kaffirs have recently been baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Transvaal. But the fact strikes one painfully that in this pleading, (which has a pathetic note in it,) these clergymen appear to have obliterated from their mind and memory the whole past history, of their nation, and to have forgotten that the harvest from seed sown through many generations may spring up and bear its bitter fruit in their own day. They do not seem to have accepted the verdict, or made the confession, "we and our fathers have sinned." They seem rather to argue, "our fathers may have sinned in these respects, but it cannot be laid to our charge that we are continuing in their steps."

No late repentance will avail for the salvation of their country unless Justice is now proclaimed and practised;--Justice in Government and in the Laws.

Their Grondwet, or Const.i.tution, must be removed out of its place for ever; their unequal laws, and the administrative corruption which unequal laws inevitably foster, must be swept away, and be replaced by a very different Const.i.tution and very different Laws. If this had been done during the two last decades of Transvaal history, while untrammelled (as was desired) by British interference, the sincerity of this recent utterance would have deserved full credit, and would have been recognized as the beginning of a radical reformation.

The following is from the last Report of the Aborigines Protection Society (Jan., 1900). Its present secretary leans towards a favourable judgment of the recent improvements in the policy of the Transvaal, and condemns severely every act on the part of the English which does not accord with the principles of our Const.i.tutional Law, and therefore this statement will not be regarded as the statement of a partisan: "It is laid down as a fundamental principle in the Transvaal Grondwet that there is no equality of rights between white men and blacks. In theory, if not in practice, the Boers regard the natives, all of whom they contemptuously call Kaffirs, whatever their tribal differences, pretty much as the ancient Jews regarded the Philistines and others whom they expelled from Palestine, or used as hewers of wood and drawers of water, but with added prejudice due to the difference of colour. So it was in the case of the early Dutch settlers, and so it is to-day, with a few exceptions, due mainly to the influence of the missionaries, whose work among the natives has from the first been objected to and hindered. It is only by social sufferance, and not by law, that the marriage of natives with Christian rites is recognised, and it carries with it none of the conditions as regards inheritance and the like, which are prescribed by the Dutch Roman code in force with white men. As a matter of fact, natives have no legal rights whatever. If they are in the service of humane masters, mindful of their own interests and moral obligations, they may be properly lodged and fed, not overworked, and fairly recompensed; but from the cruelties of a brutal master, perpetrated in cold blood or a drunken fit, the native practically has no redress."

The Rev. John H. Bovill, Rector of the Cathedral Church, Lorenco Marquez, and sometime Her Majesty's Acting Consul there, has worked for five years in a district from which numbers of natives were drawn for work in the Transvaal, has visited the Transvaal from time to time, and is well acquainted with Boers of all cla.s.ses and occupations. He has given us some details of the working out--especially as regards the natives--of the principles of the Grondwet or Const.i.tution of the Transvaal.

To us English, the most astonishing feature, to begin with, of this Const.i.tution, is that it places the power of the Judiciary below that of the Raad or Legislative Body. The Judges of the Highest Court of Law are not free to give judgment according to evidence before them and the light given to them. A vote of the Raad, consisting of a mere handful of men in secret sitting, can at any time override and annul a sentence of the High Court.

This will perhaps be better understood if we picture to ourselves some great trial before Lord Russell and others of our eminent judges, in which any laws bearing on the case were carefully tested in connection with the principles of our Const.i.tution; that this supreme Court had p.r.o.nounced its verdict, and that the next day Parliament should discuss, with closed doors, the verdict of the judges, and by a vote or resolution, should declare it unjust and annul it.

Let us imagine, to follow the matter a little further on the lines of Transvaal justice, that our Sovereign had power to dismiss at will from office any judge or judges who might have exercised independence of judgment and p.r.o.nounced a verdict displeasing to Parliament or to herself personally! Such is law and justice in the Transvaal; and that country is called a Republic! "This is Transvaal justice," says M.

Naville; "a mockery, an ingenious legalizing of tyranny. There are no laws, there are only the caprices of the Raad. A vote in a secret sitting, that is what binds the Judges, and according to it they will administer justice. The law of to-day will perhaps not be the law to-morrow. The fifteen members of the majority, or rather President Kruger, who influences their votes, may change their opinion from one day to the next--it matters not; their opinion, formulated by a vote, will always be law. Woe to the judge who should dare to mention the Const.i.tution or the Code, for there is one: he would at once be dismissed by the President who appointed him."

It was prescribed by the Grondwet that no new law should be pa.s.sed by Parliament (the Volksraad) unless notice of it had been given three months in advance, and the people had had the opportunity to p.r.o.nounce upon it. This did not suit the President; accordingly when desirous of legalizing some new project of his own, he adopted the plan of bringing in such project as an addition or amendment to some existing law, giving it out as _no new law_, but only a supplementary clause. Law No. 1 of 1897 was manipulated in this manner. By this law, the Judges of the High Court were formally deprived of the right to test the validity of any law in its relation to the Const.i.tution, and they were also compelled to accept as law, without question or reservation of any kind, any resolution pa.s.sed at any time and under any circ.u.mstances by the Volksraad. This Law No. 1 of 1897 was pa.s.sed through all its stages in three days, without being subjected in the first instance to the people.