Chapter XIX: , page 276 (4)

"History records no precedent," says The Times History of the
War, "for the state of affairs which existed in South Africa
between April 18 and May 15, 1902. War went on, but, to borrow
a metaphor from football, the ball of war was continually
rolling into ‘touch.’ Kitchener loyally carried out his
undertaking to the Boer leaders. Commandos were allowed to
assemble and confer unmolested; officers and messengers
scoured the country by road and railway with free passes,
passing through British outpost lines, receiving the unstinted
hospitality of their foes, and occasionally, to the chagrin of
a junior British officer, undergoing accidental capture,
followed by immediate release on the production of the magic
pass. Steyn, indeed, was too ill to take part in all this
activity and had retired to a farm near Wolmaransstad. But De
Wet, with amazing energy, travelled over the whole of the Free
State, inspiring the burghers with his leader’s fiery spirit.
At eight successive meetings he personally addressed
practically the whole of the commandos and secured unanimous
resolutions against any surrender of independence. The
Transvaal leaders were scarcely less active, though the
purport of their activity was by no means the same." These
chiefs of the Transvaal, Louis Botha and others, were disposed
to end the struggle for independence; those of the Free State,
inspired by their unconquerable President, were not.

On the 15th of May the officials of the two Boer governments
met the sixty delegates from the burghers at Vereeniging, and
the question between surrender and a hopeless continuation of
war was threshed out. The Free State delegates and a few of
the Transvaalers had been bound by pledges to vote against any
surrender of independence; but in the end they were persuaded
by their own legal advisers that such a restriction on the
free action of a delegate was contrary to the principles of
law; and gradually the question of independence gave place to
other matters of consideration in the discussion of terms. On
the 19th a sub-committee was appointed to consider those
details, and several days of bargaining with Kitchener and
Milner, at Pretoria, ensued. There was much use of the cable
meantime, to secure assent in London to what might be done.
The result was a draft treaty which Lord Milner assured the
Boer Commissioners was absolutely final, and must be accepted
or rejected without any change, on or before the 31st of May.
{623}
They took it to the convention at Vereeniging on the 29th, and
there, in two days of stormy debate, the no-surrender party,
led by Steyn and De Wet, made their last stand. When the
decisive vote was taken, their ranks were reduced to six,
against fifty-four. The Boer commissioners returned at once to
Pretoria, with the accepted draft-treaty, and it was signed on
the night of the 31st, a little less than an hour before the
expiration of the fixed term of grace. The following is the
text of this treaty, which ended one of the worst of modern
wars:

"General Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, Commander-in-Chief, and
His Excellency Lord Milner, High Commissioner, on behalf of
the British Government;

"Messrs. S. W. Burger, F. W. Reitz, Louis Botha, J. H. De la
Rey, L. J. Meyer, and J. Krogh on behalf of the Government of
the South African Republic and its burghers;

"Messrs. M. T. Steyn, W. J. C. Brebner, C. R. de Wet, J. B. M.
Hertzog, and C. H. Olivier, on behalf of the Government of the
Orange Free State and its burghers, being anxious to put an
end to the existing hostilities, agree on the following
points:

"Firstly, the burgher forces now in the Veldt shall at once
lay down their arms, and surrender all the guns, small arms,
and war stores in their actual possession, or of which they
shall have cognizance, and shall abstain from any further
opposition to the authority of his Majesty King Edward VII.,
whom they shall acknowledge as their lawful sovereign.

"The manner and details of this surrender shall be arranged by
Lord Kitchener, Commandant-General Botha, Assistant
Commandant-General J. H. De la Rey, and Commander-in-Chief de
Wet.

"Secondly, burghers in the Veldt beyond the frontiers of the
Transvaal and of the Orange River Colony, and all prisoners of
war who are out of South Africa, who are burghers, shall, on
their declaration that they accept the status of subjects of
His Majesty King Edward VII., be brought back to their homes,
as soon as transport and means of existence can be assured.

"Thirdly, the burghers who thus surrender, or who thus return,
shall lose neither their personal freedom nor their property.

"Fourthly, no judicial proceedings, civil or criminal, shall
be taken against any of the burghers who thus return for any
action in connexion with the carrying on of the war. The
benefit of this clause shall, however, not extend to certain
deeds antagonistic to the usages of warfare, which have been
communicated by the Commander-in-Chief to the Boer generals,
and which shall be heard before a court-martial immediately
after the cessation of hostilities.

"Fifthly, the Dutch language shall be taught in the public
schools of the Transvaal and of the Orange River Colony when
the parents of the children demand it; and shall be admitted
in the Courts of justice, whenever this is required for the
better and more effective administration of justice.

"Sixthly, the possession of rifles shall, on taking out a
licence in accordance with the law, be permitted in the
Transvaal and the Orange River Colony to persons who require
them for their protection.

"Seventhly, military administration in the Transvaal and in
the Orange River Colony shall, as soon as it is possible, be
followed by civil government; and, as soon as circumstances
permit it, a representative system lending towards autonomy
shall be introduced.

"Eighthly, the question of granting a franchise to the natives
shall not be decided until a representative constitution has
been granted.

"Ninthly, no special tax shall be laid on landed property in
the Transvaal and Orange River Colony to meet the expenses of
the war.

"Tenthly, as soon as circumstances permit there shall be
appointed in each district in the Transvaal and the Orange
River Colony a Commission, in which the inhabitants of that
district shall be represented, under the chairmanship of a
magistrate or other official, with a view to assist in the
bringing back of the people to their farms, and in procuring
for those who, on account of losses in the war, are unable to
provide for themselves food, shelter, and such quantities of
seed, cattle, implements, etc., as are necessary for the
resuming of their previous callings.

"His Majesty’s Government shall place at the disposal of these
Commissions the sum of £3,000,000 for the above-mentioned
purposes, and shall allow that all notes issued in conformity
with Law No. 1, 1900, of the Government of the South African
Republic, and all receipts given by the officers in the Veldt
of the late Republics, or by their order, may be presented to
a judicial Commission by the Government, and in case such
notes and receipts are found by this Commission to have been
duly issued for consideration in value, then they shall be
accepted by the said Commission as proof of war losses
suffered by the persons to whom they had originally been
given. In addition to the above-named free gift of £3,000,000,
His Majesty’s Government will be prepared to grant advances,
in the shape of loans, for the same ends, free of interest for
two years, and afterwards repayable over a period of years
with three per cent. interest. No foreigner or rebel shall be
entitled to benefit by this clause."

The following military statistics of the War, as conducted on
the British side, were published in a Parliamentary paper soon
after its close:

The garrison in South Africa on August 1st, 1899, consisted of
318 officers and 9,622 men; reinforcements sent between then
and the outbreak of hostilities, October 11th, 1899, totaled
12,546. Thereafter the troops sent up to May 31st, 1902,
reached the great total of 386,081, besides 52,414 men raised
in South Africa. The final casualty figures are: Killed,
5,774; wounded, 23,029; died of wounds or disease, 16,168.

A return made to Parliament in April, 1902, of the estimated
amount of war charges in South Africa that had been and would
be incurred up to the 31st of March, 1903, gave the following
figures:

For the first year of the war (1899-1900), £23,217,000; for
the second year, £65,120,000; for the third year, £71,037,000;
for the year in which it ended, £63,600,000. Total,
£222,974,000.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902.
Cape Colony and Natal at the Colonial Conference, London.

See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE.

{624}

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1903.
Repatriation and Resettlement of the Boers in
the Transvaal and Orange River Colony.
Work of the first Eight Months of Restored Peace.

The following passages from a report dated March 14, 1903,
made by Governor Viscount Milner to Mr. Chamberlain, British
Secretary for the Colonies, will give some intimation of the
task of reconstruction and restoration which the war had
imposed on the victors, and the vigor with which it was
performed:

"The Terms of Surrender were signed at Pretoria on the 31st
May, 1902, but the Civil Government could not really begin to
take over the administration of the new Colonies, and
especially the country districts, for nearly a month after
that date. At Lord Kitchener’s request no attempt was made to
enter into possession of those districts until after the
surrender of the Commandos, and though that surrender was
accomplished with extraordinary celerity and smoothness,
something like three weeks elapsed before any Civil officer
could even set out for the house or tent, generally a tent,
allotted to him in the wilderness which we were about to take
over, devoid, as it was, of crops, of stock, of population,
and, to a large extent, of habitable dwellings. The period
over which this review extends is, therefore, one of about
eight months—from the end of June, when the work of
restoration commenced, till the end of February. …

"To begin with the Prisoners of War. The Vereeniging Terms
entitled something over 33,000 people to be restored to
liberty, and if they happened to be burghers imprisoned out
side South Africa, to be brought back to their homes as soon
as transports could be provided and their means of subsistence
assured. Of this large number upwards of 24,000 were in
prisoners’ camps in St. Helena, Bermuda, India and Ceylon;
upwards of 1,000 were in a prisoners’ camp, at Simons Town,
and about 1,200 were prisoners elsewhere in South Africa. Of
the rest the great majority had been allowed to live in
Concentration Camps, while the balance were on parole in
different parts of South Africa and a few in Europe. The
principal difficulty in connection with the prisoners was, of
course, the bringing back and distribution of the 24,000 odd,
who were at prisoners’ camps oversea. …

"The prisoners of war, on their return to South Africa, were,
in the first place, with few exceptions, sent to the
Concentration Camps of their respective districts, there to
rejoin their families, if they had them, and to return
together with them to their homes. They thus, in the majority
of cases, helped to swell the enormous number of people for
whom the Repatriation Departments of the two colonies had to
provide the means of transport to their homes, and, as a
general rule, the means of subsistence for months after such
return, as well as the seeds, instruments and animals
necessary to enable them to raise a crop. … In the eight and a
half months that we have been at work, we have restored about
200,000 of the old Burgher population in the two Colonies to
their homes, including all the inhabitants in the
Concentration Camps in the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony,
the Cape Colony and Natal, and the Prisoners of War. …

"By hook or by crook we had succeeded by the end of 1902, in
enabling the people to sow a fairly large mealie crop, besides
a considerable amount of forage, potatoes and other
vegetables. The change in the attitude of the farming
population, about that time, was very noticeable. The extreme
depression which characterised them two or three months
earlier had almost completely passed away, and they were
looking forward to the future with much more hopefulness. I
may say that almost the whole time, even when the outlook was
blackest, their attitude towards the Government was not
otherwise than a friendly one. They showed, with few
exceptions, great patience under hardships, and much energy
and resourcefulness in making the best of the small means at
their disposal."

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
Death of Cecil Rhodes.
Survival of his Influence and his Policy.
Dr. Jameson, as his representative, made Premier
of Cape Colony.

On the 26th of March, 1902, two months before the end of the
British-Boer war, Cecil J. Rhodes died at Cape Town, and his
death removed the most powerful of the personal influences
that would have been reckoned on for determining the results
of the war. He had been the master-spirit in South Africa for
nearly thirty years. Indications of the part he had taken in
the expansion of the British dominion in that part of the
world, and in the conflict of British with Dutch ambitions
which produced the war, will be found in Volume VI. of this
work (see, especially, pages 460-466, 470-471, and 475-477, in
that Volume).

Had he lived and been in health there can be no doubt that he
would have been a leading actor in the political
reconstruction of British South Africa since the war. He had
been the Premier of Cape Colony from 1890 to the end of 1895;
then his career was clouded by the "Jameson raid" into the
Transvaal, and he was forced to resign. But the cloud would
have cleared, as it has cleared from Jameson. Indeed, the new
career of Dr. Jameson, since 1904, when a general election in
Cape Colony brought the party of the Progressives into power,
and put the former chief lieutenant of Cecil Rhodes in the
place of Sir J. Gordon Sprigg as Prime Minister of the
colonial Government, is indicative of the new career that
would have opened to Rhodes. It is the Rhodes policy and the
Rhodes influence that has prevailed, as was said by Mr. Edward
Dicey in an article written at the time:

"When Rhodes’ life came to a sudden and melancholy end,
Jameson felt the best way he could show his respect for his
dead friend was to carry on the work of his lifetime. Amongst
the Progressives there were several public men who, in normal
circumstances, might have been selected as leaders of the
party, but there was a well-grounded conviction that the man
who could best carry on Rhodes’ policy, with the least breach
of continuity, was Jameson. Even the few British colonists who
had not altogether condoned the Raid, felt that there was no
one so qualified to lead the Progressive Party as the author
of the Raid. The result was that Jameson was appointed, by
acclamation, the political successor of Rhodes. It was under
the new leader that the battle of the general election in the
Cape Colony has been fought and won.
{625}
The Progressive majority in the Cape Parliament is small; but,
in spite of all disintegrating influences, it may be trusted
to hold together till a Redistribution Bill has been passed.
When the influence of the Bond was supreme in the Cape
Parliament, the electoral divisions were manipulated in such a
manner as to give thinly populated, rural constituencies equal
representation with that enjoyed by the comparatively densely
populated urban constituencies. This arose from the fact that
in the country the Dutch settlers outnumbered the British,
while in the town the British composed the vast majority of
the electorate. The simplest way to rectify this abuse was to
remodel the existing electoral system, by making population
the basis of representation. This reform, however, was open to
the objection that it practically disfranchised a large number
of rural constituencies in which the Boers were in a majority.
On Jameson being appointed Prime Minister, after Sir Gordon
Sprigg’s compulsory retirement, his first step was to
introduce a new Redistribution Bill based on a less invidious
principle than its predecessor."

_Edward Dicey,
The New Cape Premier
(Fortnightly Review, April, 1904)._

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1903-1904.
The Labor Question.
Investigation and opposing Reports by a Commission.
Adoption of Ordinance to admit Unskilled Non-European Laborers.
Beginning of Importation of Chinese Coolies.
The Political Side of the Question.
Debate in the British Parliament.

Early in 1903 Lord Milner appointed a Commission to
investigate and report on the labor question in South Africa,
which is a question between the mining people, who maintain
that the needful supply of labor for profitable mine-working
is not procurable, at rates which mine-owners can afford, from
any other than an Asiatic source, and their opponents who deny
the need of bringing either Chinese or East Indian coolies
into the mining fields. In November the Labor Commission
produced a majority and a minority report, the former agreeing
substantially with the mine-owners, the latter in contention
with them. The signatures to the majority report were ten in
number, the latter were but two. In the discussion of the
reports which took place in the Legislative Council of the
Transvaal late in the year, one speaker made the statement
that he was authorized by General Louis Botha to say that he
and all the Dutch he represented were opposed to the
introduction of Asiatics. A resolution favoring the
introduction of Chinese was adopted in the Council by a vote
of 22 to 4.

Ultimately, against the protests of a great majority of the
Boer population, an ordinance to regulate the introduction
into the Transvaal of unskilled non-European laborers was
adopted by the Legislative Council. It applied to males of
other races than those indigenous to Africa south of 12
degrees north of the Equator. The ordinance was to be
administered by an official superintendent; the laborers were
to be brought in by licensed persons only; they were to be
employed only in the Witwatersrand district, and only in
unskilled labor connected with the production of minerals, and
they were to be sent back to the country of their origin, at
the expense of their importer, at once on the termination of
their contract, which should not be for a longer term than
three years, renewable for two more. Provisions as to their
treatment, their passport identification, their restricted
residence, etc., were very precise and minute. The importation
of Chinese coolies under the provisions of this ordinance began
in June, 1904. At the end of the year over 20,000 had been
brought in.

That the question has its political as well as its industrial
side, and is one which concerns democracy no less than labor,
is shown in the following: "The political and industrial
position of the Rand, and, in some degree of the Transvaal as
a whole, is almost unique. The only parallel that comes to
mind is that of the town and district of Kimberly. A
considerable European community is dependent—on the Rand
entirely, throughout the Transvaal very largely—on a single
industry for the maintenance of its prosperity. This
dependence necessarily places great power in the hands of the
small group of men who are the owners, or represent the
owners, of the capital by which the industry has been created
and is now worked. Their influence is supreme. No law which
threatened their interests could be placed on the Statute
Book. Men who offer any effective opposition to their
wishes—like Mr. Wybergh, the Commissioner of Mines, Mr.
Creswell, the manager of the Village Main Reef Mine, Mr.
Moneypenny, the editor of the chief Johannesburg
newspaper—find it impossible to retain their positions. Two
dangers, and two only, threaten the permanency of this
supremacy—the Trade Union and the ballot, the combination of
the men employed and the possibility of an unsympathetic
majority in the legislature when a system of self government
is restored. Both these dangers would be increased in degree,
and brought nearer in time, by a large and rapid growth of the
white population.

"‘If 200,000 native workers were to be replaced by 100,000
whites,’ said Mr. Rudd, one of the directors of the
Consolidated Goldfields Company, ‘they would simply hold the
Government of the country in the hollow of their hand, and,
without any disparagement to the British labourer, I prefer to
see the more intellectual section of the community at the
helm!’ ‘ With reference to your trial of white labour for
surface work on the mines,’ wrote Mr. Tarbutt, another
director of the same important company and the chairman of the
Village Main Reef Company, in an often-quoted letter to Mr.
Creswell, 'I have consulted the Consolidated Goldfields
people, and one of the members of the board of the Village
Main Reef has consulted Messrs. Wernher, Beit and Co., and the
feeling seems to be one of fear that if a large number of
white men are employed on the Rand in the position of
labourers, the same troubles will arise as are now prevalent
in the Australian Colonies, i. e., that the combination of the
labouring classes will become so strong as to be able to more
or less dictate, not only on questions of wages, but also on
political questions, by the power of the votes when a
Representative Government is established.’
{626}
There have been other declarations of the same tenour; and,
indeed, no one who is acquainted with the views that prevail
among the circles of South African finance would seek to deny
that this dread of a second Australian democracy influencing
the political and economic future of the Rand is one of the
chief motives that direct the policy of the more far-sighted
men among those groups. …

"White labour, coupled with improved mechanical appliances,
stands established as the feasible remedy for the admitted
shortage in the number of Kaffir workers. To reject it in
favour of the introduction of Chinese is a policy which has
natural attractions for the owners of the mines. It is a
policy which should not have won the support of the
representatives of the British people."

_Herbert Samuel,
The Chinese Labour Question
(Contemporary Review, April, 1904)._

The bringing of Asiatic laborers into the mines was resisted
as strenuously in Cape Colony as by the Boer burghers and the
non-mining interests in general of the Transvaal. The leading
colony addressed a petition on the subject personally to King
Edward, saying: "Such an immigration, hampered and restricted
as it is proposed to be by stringent regulations, would, even
if it were possible to enforce such regulations, which is
doubtful, introduce a servile element, alien to the country,
destitute of rights, or interests, either in the present or
future of South Africa, and worked for the benefit of masters,
in many cases non-resident, thus constituting what would
practically be a slave state, in close contact with the other
free communities of South Africa. Your petitioners feel that
the introduction of such a class of labour would place an
obstacle in the way of the natural growth alike of European
and native elements in the population. …

"Such an importation would decide whether South Africa is in
future to constitute one of those great free communities under
the British flag, the growth of which shed so much lustre on
the reign of your august predecessor, or whether it is to be
ranked as a mere plantation worked in the interest and for the
benefit of foreign holders. Your petitioners therefore most
earnestly pray that your Majesty may be pleased to withhold
your sanction from any measure having for its object the
importation of Asiatics into South Africa, and by so doing
save them and those who may come after them from consequences
that will be fatal to their peace and prosperity."

_Parliamentary Papers, 1904
(Cd. 1895), page 133._

Mr. Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, returned
to England in March, 1903, from a visit to South Africa, and
made an extended statement in Parliament soon afterwards of
his observations and his conclusions from what he had seen. On
the labor question, then the subject of greatest agitation in
South Africa, he stoutly supported the mine-owners in their
contention that native labor, and supplies from beyond the
Zambesi, to supplement the Kaffir supply, is a necessity of
the mining industry; that white labor is impossibly expensive,
and that the feeling against the introduction of Asiatic labor
seemed invincibly strong. There was not, he maintained, the
slightest foundation for the charge that the mine-owners
wanted forced labor or slavery in any shape or form, but that
they must have cheap labor if the mines were to be worked.

A few days later Lord Lansdowne, the Foreign Secretary,
received a deputation from various missionary societies to
protest against a proposed exportation of native labor from
Central to South Africa. In reply to them he said that the
Government had no more in view at present than an experiment
with 1000 laborers, who would be taken from British Central
Africa to the Rand District of the Transvaal and employed
there under regulations very carefully framed. If
objectionable results were found the experiment would be
carried no farther. This was followed by warm debate on the
subject in the House of Commons, where Sir William Harcourt
and others denounced the greed of the mining companies,
insisting that the mines could not pay fair wages simply
because the rich mines were over-capitalized and the low-grade
mines had been developed only for sale. Mr. Chamberlain again
championed the mine-owners, and defended the policy of the
Government, which sought, he said, to promote the general
prosperity of the country by getting as many of the mines as
possible into working order. The debate had no practical
result.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1903-1908.
Hostility to British Indian Immigration.

See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS: A. D. 1903-1908.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1904.
Census of all British South Africa.
Whites and Natives.

A general census taken in 1904 showed a total white population
in all British South Africa--south of Zambesi—of 1,135,655,
and a colored population of 5,169,338. The distribution of
this in the several colonies was as follows; Cape Colony,
580,380 white, 1,825,172 colored; the Transvaal and Swaziland,
300,225 white, 1,030,029 colored; Natal, 97,109 white,
1,011,645 colored; Rhodesia, 12,623, white, 593,141 colored;
Orange River Colony, 143,419 white, 241,626 colored;
Basutoland, 895 white, 347,953 colored; Bechuanaland, 1,004
white, 119,772 colored.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1905.
Importation of Chinese Coolies Suspended
by orders from London.

The Liberal Ministry in Great Britain, under Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, which succeeded the Conservative-Unionist
Ministry of Mr. Balfour on the 10th of December, 1905, had
been seated but twelve days when a despatch was cabled by Lord
Elgin, Secretary for the Colonies, to Lord Selborne, the High
Commissioner in South Africa, that "the experiment of the
introduction of Chinese laborers should not be extended
farther until they could learn the opinion of the colony
through an elected and really representative Legislature, and
they had accordingly decided that the recruiting, embarking
and importation of Chinese coolies should be arrested pending
a decision as to the grant of responsible government to the
Colony"—that is, the Transvaal.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1905-1907.
Fulfillment by the British Government of the Promises
of the Treaty of the Vereeniging Treaty.
Representative Government restored to the Boer States.

The seventh stipulation in the Vereeniging Treaty of May 81,
1902, which ended the Boer-British War (see above, A. D.
1901-1902), contained the promise, on the part of the British
Government, that "military administration in the Transvaal and
in the Orange River Colony shall, as soon as possible, be
followed by civil government; and, as soon as circumstances
permit it, a representative system tending towards autonomy
shall be introduced."
{627}
On the 31st of March, 1905, the first step toward the
fulfillment of this pledge was taken, by the issue of letters
patent from the crown (without action of Parliament, inasmuch
as the Boer States, in the eye of the law, had been under the
suzerainty of the British sovereign, had been in revolt, had
been subjugated, and were directly subject to the crown, as
conquered territory), conferring a Constitution of Civil
Government on the Transvaal. It gave popular representation in
a legislature of a single chamber, styled the Legislative
Assembly. Not exceeding thirty-five of the members of this
body were to be elected, and from six to nine others were to
be appointed by the High Commissioner of South Africa,—in
which office Lord Milner had been succeeded of late by Lord
Selborne. Every burgher of the former Transvaal Republic not
disqualified by conviction for treason since May 31, 1902, was
to be entitled to vote in the election of representatives; and
so were all white males of British birth occupying premises at
an annual rental of not less than $50, or possessed of capital
to the value of $500. The debates in the Assembly were to be
in English—not in English or Dutch, like the English or French
of the Parliament of Canada; but there is a provision that the
Speaker may permit a member to use the Dutch language. No bill
passed by the Legislative Assembly which should subject the
natives to disabilities or restrictions could become law until
it had received the sanction of the Colonial Office in London.

This organization of a partially representative colonial
government extended only to the Transvaal. The Orange River
Colony remained still under the Crown Colony system, which had
been the status hitherto of both the Boer states since the
close of the war.

This limited realization of the promise of representative
government to the Boers was undoubtedly all that could be
expected from the Conservative Ministry in England, which went
out of power soon after it had conferred the Transvaal
Constitution. Its successors, of the British Liberal party,
soon broadened the basis of self-government in the Transvaal,
by a new constitutional instrument, which was outlined to
Parliament on the 1st of August, and issued December 6th,
1906. This made the legislature a bicameral body, having, for
the time being, an upper Council of 15 appointed members,
which, however, it was said to be the intention of the
Government to extinguish at no distant day. The elective
Assembly was to be composed of sixty-nine members, elected by
secret ballot for terms of five years. Every adult male of
twenty-one years of age who had been a resident for six
months, except members of the British garrison, was entitled
to vote. The general lines of the old Boer magisterial
districts were followed, and, on the basis of the census
figures of 1904 the Rand would have 32 members, Pretoria 6,
Krugersdorp 1, and the rest of the country 30. The
constitution prohibited Chinese contract labor, and no more
coolies could be imported into the country after November 15.
Either the English or the Dutch language could be used for
public business, and naturalization was made easy, but the
Boers’ request for woman suffrage was denied.

A Constitution framed on similar lines was given to the Orange
River Colony within the same year.

In the first elections for the Transvaal Assembly there were,
besides Socialists and labor organizations, three parties
engaged in a somewhat embittered contest. "The Progressives
are the party of the great mining houses on the Rand; the
Nationalist party is composed of British electors opposed to
the enormous political influence which the mining houses have
hitherto exercised; while the Boers at Johannesburg and
Pretoria and in the rural constituencies are organized in Het
Volk. There was a coalition between the Nationalists and Het
Volk. These two parties united against the Progressives, and
adopted as the chief plank in their platform a declaration
that the one question on which the election must turn was,
‘Who shall control the Transvaal—the people or the mining
houses?’ The Progressives on their part insisted that the
question was, ‘Shall the Transvaal be governed by the people
of the Transvaal, or from Downing Street?’ They were aggrieved
by the action of the British Government in making legislation
concerning non-European labor subject to review in London, and
in the campaign they made no attempt to conceal their
hostility to the Campbell-Bannerman Government. In this way
the question of Chinese labor was forced to the front. The
Nationalists and Het Volk coalition was successful," and
General Lotus Botha, who has been the leading spirit and
guiding mind among the Boers since the war ended, became the
Prime Minister of the Transvaal Government then organized.

It has been fortunate for the Transvaal, and no less for South
Africa at large, that so large-minded and strong a leader of
the subjugated race was found for the trying period in which
victors and vanquished were to have peace and friendship
established between them.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1906-1907.
Revolt of the Zulus in Natal.
Their Grievances.

An extensive and determined revolt of the Zulus living within
the Colony of Natal broke out late in January, 1906, as the
consequence of an attempt to collect a poll-tax levied on them
by the colonial Parliament. A police sergeant and two or three
native policemen were killed in the first melée, and from that
time until near the end of the following summer there was war.
That it was prosecuted with fierceness, if not actual
ferocity, by the whites of the Colony, is made manifest by the
fact that about 3500 Zulus are said to have been slain and
2000 taken prisoners. The principal Zulu leader, a chief named
Bambaata, was killed in a battle fought in June, and the
revolt declined from that time. Sigananda, another chief, was
condemned to death, and twelve prisoners, convicted by
court-martial of complicity in the original murder of police
officers, were executed; while thirty-eight others were
sentenced to imprisonment for two years.

A serious question between the colony and the
Imperial-Government arose in connection with these military
trials. The sentences to death, confirmed by the governor and
the Natal ministry, were about to be carried out, when Mr.
Winston Churchill, with the approval of Lord Elgin, Colonial
Secretary, cabled to the Natal premier ordering the suspension
of the execution pending an investigation by the Liberal
government, on the contention that the natives should have
been tried in a civil court.
{628}
Premier Smyth refused to obey, but the governor postponed the
executions, whereupon the Natal ministry resigned. Much
indignation was evident in England, as well as in the colony,
against what was regarded as an unwarrantable interference in
colonial affairs by the Imperial government. The matter was
concluded by Lord Elgin cabling to the governor of Natal that
the home government had no intention of interfering in
colonial matters, and that, upon the receipt of full
information, it recognized the right and competency of the
Natal ministry to decide the question at issue.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1907 (April-May).
Imperial Conference at London.

See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909.
Formation of the Legislative Union of South Africa.
The Framing of the Constitution.
Compromise on the Race Question of Franchise.
British Imperial Assent.
The Royal Proclamation of Union.

Very quickly after the placing of the Boer colonies on a
footing of political equality with their English neighbors a
fresh desire for South African Union, in which they, who had
fought to the death for its prevention only six years before,
now shared, began to be earnestly voiced. Its genesis was
explained clearly by a correspondent of the London
_Times_ of May 24, 1909, who wrote "Economic causes of a
special character assisted the process. A great wave of
commercial depression, following hard upon the golden
expectations of the peace, passed over the whole country, but
made itself specially felt in the coast colonies. Here the
situation was painful in the extreme. It was a tale of
deficit, of retrenchment, of heroic Budgets. But far beyond
the rolling hills of the Karoo and the flat tableland of the
Orange River there was a wealthy State, a State with a
surplus. The Transvaal, possessing in Johannesburg the
principal centre of opulence and the chief market for produce,
was in a position to exert economic pressure upon colonies
whose principal source of revenue was derived from the profits
upon their railways and from the sale of their goods to the
great city on the high veld. The poorer colonies lived, so to
speak, upon the custom of the Transvaal, and were unable to
ignore, however much they might dislike, their position of
dependence. A rate war or a tariff war between the Transvaal
and the coast colonies could hardly end with a victory for
Cape Town or Durban, and so by a process of reasoning which
was not always pleasantly illustrated the coast colonies came
to accommodate themselves to the view that some form of
arrangement as to railways and Customs was desirable in their
own interests. Other causes contributed to illumine and
enlarge the horizon. A Zulu rebellion in Natal brought home
the common danger to the white community from native unrest or
from mistakes made by a weak colonial Government in its native
policy; the grant of responsible government to the two
conquered Colonies tended, not only to bring the English and
Dutch leaders into habitual communion, but to give to the
progressive section of the community a pressing interest in
the construction of a Government which should be strong enough
to resist the influences of the back veld."

The first action taken to transform the desire for Union into
a movement to that end was early in May, 1908, by a convention
of officials from the several colonies, assembled at Pretoria
to negotiate a new customs agreement and to arrange
intercolonial railway rates. The railway situation was nearly,
if not quite, the most serious one that brought pressure to
bear on some of the colonies, forcing them to seek a union in
which conflicts of interest would be overcome. It was a
situation which the High Commissioner, Lord Selborne,
described briefly, in a review of the many reasons for Union
which he addressed to the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors
of the several colonies, on the 7th of January, 1907:

"Of all the questions fruitful in divergence of opinion or of
interest to the Colonies of South Africa, there is none so
pregnant with danger," he wrote, "as the railway question. It
is not an exaggeration to say that a field more thickly sown
with the seed of future quarrel and strife than the
[State-owned] railway systems of South Africa does not exist.
As long as the Governments of the five British Colonies in
South Africa are wholly separated from, and independent of,
each other, their railway interests are not only distinct but
absolutely incompatible. There is a competitive struggle
between the ports of Cape Colony and of Natal to snatch from
each other every ton of goods which can be snatched. The
Orange River Colony desires as many tons of goods as possible
to be passed to the Transvaal through its territory, but it is
to the interest of Cape Colony that no such tons of goods
should pass into the Transvaal through the Orange River
Colony. … In the same way it is to the interest of Natal to
pass the goods consigned to the Transvaal from Durban into the
Transvaal at Volksrust, and not at Vereeniging through the
Orange River Colony. Thus the interests of Cape Colony, of
Natal, and of the Orange River Colony conflict the one with
the other. But when it comes to considering the railway
interests of the Transvaal, then it will be found that the
interest of the Transvaal is diametrically opposed to the
interests of Cape Colony, of Natal, and of the Orange River
Colony. The Transvaal loses revenue on every ton of goods
which enters the Transvaal by any other route than that from
Delagoa Bay [on the Portuguese coast]. … If the [Transvaal
Government] were as indifferent to the welfare of the three
sister Colonies as every State in Europe is to the welfare of
every other State, the Transvaal would see that all the trade
to the Transvaal came exclusively through Delagoa Bay. And
what then would be the position of the railways and the
finances of the three sister Colonies and of the ports of Cape
Colony and of Natal? This divergence, this conflict of railway
interests, this cloud of future strife, would vanish like a
foul mist before the sun of South African Federation, but no
other force can dissipate it."

That a railway and customs convention should start the action
which united the colonies of South Africa happened as
logically, therefore, as the happenings which derived the
American Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787 from a
River and Harbor Convention at Annapolis in 1786.

{629}

The South African Railway convention, before adjourning,
adopted a resolution recommending the appointment of delegates
from each colony to a convention for the framing of a
Constitution of United Government. Cape Colony led off in
approving the proposal, followed within a day or two by the
Transvaal and Orange River Colony, and a week later by Natal,
where the strongest opposition was developed. The
apportionment of delegates to the Convention was, for Cape
Colony 12, for the Transvaal 8, for Orange River and Natal 5
each. On the 12th of October these delegates assembled at
Durban, in Natal, under the presidency of Sir Henry de
Villiers and were in session there until the 5th of November,
when they adjourned to meet again at Cape Town, November 23.
Their labors were not concluded until the 3d of February,
1909, when all differences had been harmonized or compromised
and a draft Constitution approved, which every delegate signed
that day.

The Constitution was officially published on the 9th of
February, with a recommendation that the several Parliaments
should meet on March 30 to consider the draft, and that the
Convention should meet again in May on a day to be fixed by
the president of the Convention and the Premiers in
consultation. The final draft to be submitted to the
Parliaments in June. Then a committee of delegates appointed
by the Governments to proceed to England to facilitate the
passing of the Act.

This programme was successfully carried through. Cape Colony
and Natal contended for certain amendments to the draft
Constitution, but the Transvaal and Orange River colonies
approved the instrument and instructed their delegates to
support it as a whole. The General Convention was reassembled
at Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange River Colony, on the 3d
of May, when it discussed the proposed amendments and agreed
to eight of them. As thus amended the draft was adopted in
June by the parliaments of each of the four colonies, and sent
with that endorsement to the Imperial Government for the seal
of Sovereign Law. It was followed by an official mission,
composed of nineteen members, who represented, as a London
journal remarked, "almost the whole of the driving power in
South African politics," including, of course, such former
antagonists as General Botha and Dr. Jameson, now shoulder to
shoulder in powerful leadership of the movement for South
African Union.

One feature of the Constitution, as framed by the four
colonies and presented for the imperial approval, was
profoundly repugnant to English feeling. It was the product of
a compromise in the colonial convention, which ran a curious
parallel to that in the American constitutional convention of
1787, which gave the Southern States a representation in
Congress for their slaves. The question of elective franchises
and legislative representation for the colored natives had
troubled the South African union-making, just as the slavery
question had troubled the American. Cape Colony had conferred
the suffrage on its qualified colored citizens, and refused to
disfranchise them; the other colonies had disfranchised all
races but the white, and refused to allow a possible election
from the Cape Colony to the Union Parliament of any other than
members of European descent. The necessary compromise which
secured the Union left the Cape franchise undisturbed for the
present, but exposed to a future chance of being overruled;
and it barred all but European humanity from both houses of
the general Parliament.

This compromise was opposed with unyielding resolution by a
strong party in Cape Colony, led by two former premiers, Mr.
W. P. Schreiner and Sir J. Gordon Sprigg. Mr. Schreiner went
to England to appeal there to the Imperial Parliament against
the sanctioning of these provisions of the proposed
Constitution.

Mr. Schreiner found in Great Britain almost universal sympathy
with the feeling that he represented. In Parliament and out,
it was expressed by all parties; but there went with it a
prevailing opinion that the matter in question and the
attending circumstances were such that the Imperial Parliament
ought not to refuse assent to the action of the colonies. The
Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, set forth the reasoning to this
conclusion very clearly and concisely, when, on the 19th of
August, he moved, in the House of Commons, the third reading
of the South Africa Bill. "I wish," he said, "in submitting
this motion to the House, to take the opportunity of putting
on record the fact that this Bill, consisting of over 150
clauses and a very complicated schedule, has, after the most
careful consideration by this House, been passed without
amendment. It would, however, be a totally false impression
were it suggested that as regards all provisions of this Bill
there is unanimity of opinion in the House. In particular as
regards some of the clauses which deal with the treatment of
natives—the access of native members to the Legislature—as
everybody who has followed the debate can see, there is not
only no difference of opinion, but absolute unanimity in the
way of regret that those particular provisions should have
been inserted in the Bill. I wish before the Bill leaves the
Imperial Parliament to make it perfectly clear that we here
have exercised, and I think wisely and legitimately exercised,
not only restraint of expression, but reserve of judgment in
regard to matters of this kind, simply because we desire that
this great experiment of establishing free self-government in
South Africa should start on the lines and in accordance with
the ideas of our fellow-citizens there which they have
deliberately and after long consideration come to.

"It is perfectly true that the Imperial Government cannot
divest itself of responsibility in this matter. We do not do
so. I think that if we have yielded, as we have, on points of
detail—on some points on which many of us feel very
strongly—to the considered and deliberate judgment of South
Africa, it has been because we thought it undesirable at this,
the last, stage in the completion of an almost unprecedentedly
difficult task to put forward anything that could be an
obstacle to the successful working of the Bill. Speaking for
myself and the Government, I venture to express not only the
hope, but the expectation, that in some of these matters that
have been discussed in this House, both on the second reading
and in the Committee stage, the views which have been so
strongly expressed, and practically without any dissent, will
be sympathetically considered by our fellow-citizens in South
Africa.
{630}
For my part I think, as I have said throughout, that it would
be far better that any relaxations of what almost all of us
regard as unnecessary restrictions upon the electoral rights
and eligibility of our native fellow-subjects there should be
carried out spontaneously and on the initiative of the South
African Parliament rather than that it should appear to be
forced on them by the Imperial Parliament here."

The Bill had already passed the House of Lords. It received
the royal approval on the 20th of September; and, on the 2d of
December, the Union of South Africa was proclaimed, to be of
effect on and after the 31st of May, 1910.

Soon after the passage of the Bill, announcement was made that
the Prince of Wales would visit South Africa to open the Union
Parliament, as he had done on the opening of the Parliament of
the Australian Commonwealth, in 1901.

In December it was made known that the Right Honourable
Herbert Gladstone would be the first Governor-General of
United South Africa.

For the text of the South African Constitution:

See (in this Volume)
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909.
The Native Protectorates.
Their Condition and Circumstances on the Eve of
the Inauguration of the Union of South Africa.

"It should not be forgotten that the protectorates are in
being to-day not because this particular arrangement of
protection was economically necessary or inevitable, nor even
because the general relationship of the native tribes of South
Africa made it the best that could be devised. The fact is
that they came into existence at different times and as
definite and probably expedient results of various fortuitous
crises in a chaotic native political history, which is at
least characteristic of South Africa. …

"To-day the protectorates are to a considerable degree
isolated native communities, so far at any rate as they are
concerned with any possible united feeling among the other
native tribes of South Africa. They are carefully guarded by
their responsible officials from interference and possible
harm from outside their own territories—that is from taking
any considerable interest or partnership in the real or
fancied troubles of neighbouring states. They are in a
sense—and more than a political sense—inside a ring fence.

"As regards the relationship between the native inhabitants
and the white settlers of the several protectorates, there are
no striking points of difference. In Basutoland no land is
held under white ownership. Such white residents as there are,
apart from officials and missionaries, are there as traders
and storekeepers. No land rights have been alienated to white
men. In the Bechuanaland Protectorate certain areas are held
by white men, but at the same time very large areas are
reserved entirely for native uses. In Swaziland the
relationship was, until a few months ago, upon a very
different basis—a position surely unique in the history of the
British colonial possessions. I have not space to describe
even briefly the extraordinary intricacy of the concessions
troubles or the heroic measures found necessary to effect a
settlement at once just to the concessionaire and the native.
It must be sufficient to say that today about half the area of
the country is held in white ownership, while rather more than
one-third is reserved for the exclusive use and benefit of the
natives. In Zululand certain areas of land are held by whites,
but the bulk of land is held in native possession. In each
case, however, it is not probable that any more land will be
alienated for purposes of sale or settlement by whites. It may
be accepted without doubt, I think, that the natives will
retain in perpetuity the land they hold at present. It will be
seen that the material interests of the natives, at any rate
as regards land, have been well guarded in the three
protectorates."

_R. T. Coryndon,
The Position of the Native Protectorates
(The State, South Africa, September, 1909)._

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909.
Introduction of Proportional Representation.

See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: SOUTH AFRICA.

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909.
Native Labor Supplanting the Chinese.

See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS: SOUTH AFRICA. A. D. 1909.

----------SOUTH AFRICA: End--------

SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

See (in this Volume)
American Republics.

SOUTH CAROLINA, and Interstate and West Indian Exposition.

See (in this Volume)
CHARLESTON: A. D. 1901.

SPAIN: A. D. 1870-1905.
Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.

See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.

SPAIN: A. D. 1898-1906.
Gains from the Loss of Cuba and the Philippines.
Growth of Close Relations with the Spanish-American States.

"In many a war it has been the vanquished, not the victor, who
has carried off the finest spoils. Cuba and the Philippines
have been like a tumor in the side of Spain, dragging her down
in the race of civilization. They have drained her life-blood
and disturbed all her national activities. Only a serious
surgical operation could remove this exhausting excrescence;
and Spaniards themselves have been the first to recognize that
the operation, though painful, was in the highest degree
beneficial. Not even the most Quixotic of Spaniards dreams of
regaining these lost possessions. The war has been beneficial
in at least two different ways. It has had a healthy economic
influence, because, besides directing the manhood of Spain
into sober industrial channels, it has led to the removal of
artificial restrictions in the path of commercial activity. It
has been advantageous morally, because it has forced even the
most narrow and ignorant Spaniard to face the actual facts of
the modern world.