TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SITUATION IN SOUTH AFRICA. THOUGH we still believe that President Kruger will end by yielding, it is impossible not to recognise the fact that the situation in South Africa has again become dangerously strained. We are rapidly approach- ing the point at which President Kruger will have to decide whether he means to accept and act on the only principle which can give permanent peace and prosperity—i.e., the principle of equal rights in the conduct of government for all white men—or whether he means to defy that principle and to try to maintain a minority of the white population as a privileged caste. If he finally refuses to reconsider his Franchise Act, the next step for our Government will doubtless be to themselves appoint a small body of two or three experts to examine the Franchise Act on the spot, and to report upon the effect it will be likely to have as regards the admission of the Outlanders to the vote. If the report should be that the Act will at once admit to the full franchise sufficient Outlanders to secure a reasonable amount of representation in the Raad, and that it in fact satisfies Sir Alfred Milner's essential condition, then of course our Government will be satisfied and no further action need take place. If, however, the report is unfavourable to the working of the Act as regards the procuring of adequate representation, and states that such-and-such modifications will be necessary to meet the requirements laid down by Sir Alfred Milner, the Imperial Government must, and no doubt will, inform the Transvaal Government what altera- tions they consider absolutely necessary in the Franchise Law in order that it may become satisfactory, and further will ask them in diplomatic language to make such altera- tions. If the Boers then refuse to act upon these sugges- tions, two courses will be open to the Imperial Government. They can either drop the franchise question, and take up one by one the chief grievances of the Outlanders and require the Transvaal to give relief in regard to them, or they can present an ultimatum to the Boers on the franchise question, and insist on their modifying the law so as to admit the Outlanders to the vote on reasonable terms. The Daily News, which throughout the present crisis has shown not only great courage and independence —a more difficult position than that of an Opposition paper supporting the Government on such a question as that of the Transvaal cannot be imagined—but has also always handled the details of the problem with statesmanship and discretion, is evidently most anxious that the Government should concentrate their final acts of moral pressure upon the general grievances. They assume, indeed, that this will be the next move of the Government if further com- promise is refused in regard to the franchise. In 'spite, however, of such an expression of opinion from so com- petent a source as the Daily News, we are most strongly of opinion that it will be wiser to persist with our demands in regard to the franchise, and to make it the subject of the final question of peace or war, if final question there unhappily must be. Our reasons against taking up the general grievances are many, but some of the most important may be stated shortly. In the first place, the question of the grievances contains almost endless grounds for argument and delay. Upon almost every point, such as the action of the police, the effects of the monopolies, the corruption of the Administration, the partiality of the Law Courts, there is sure to be the most bewildering conflict of evidence. The Outlanders have administrative grievances at every point, and hence to take these up must involve an examination into the whole working of the machine of government. The advantage of singling out the franchise question is that in regard to this grievance there can be little or no conflict of evidence. Whether the law declaring fourteen years' previous residence and a multitude of official acts and sanctions necessary to obtain the vote is a fair or an unfair law can be decided on abstract considerations. The withholding or not withhold- ng of the elementary right of self-government does not de- pend upon disputed evidence. Again, the franchise by its nature includes the other grievances. If it is righted, those who have suffered can work out their own salvation. Yet another ground for preferring the franchise grievance is that in pressing it we exercise the minimum of inter- ference with the details of local government. If you inter- fere on a police question you have to criticise the domestic administration, and can be told, and told at every turn, that you are misunderstanding the local conditions. If you insist that the unenfranchised part of the population shall have their proper share in the government there is no such possibility of going wrong, for the question whether the right of self-government should be withheld from the majority of the white inhabitants of a country is the same in South Africa as in Australia or Canada.
There is yet another reason, and to this we attach very great importance, against taking up the grievances of the Outlanders in detail. We should have to face, were we to do this, the immense diffi- culty of finding out whether agreements to remedy grievances had been properly kept. Suppose the Boers to yield on all the grievances except the franchise, and to agree to provide the necessary reforms. While the right of self-government was denied we may feel quite sure that the Outlanders would still feel aggrieved, and would be pretty sure to say that the Boers were not keeping their promises. The Boers would, of course, declare that they were. In that case we should have to inquire where the truth lay, and this would mean yet another crisis or series of crises, depending upon the ungrateful task of deciding whether the Boers had or had not evaded their promises. Again, when you come to go into a political grievance in detail you usually find that the best way of settling it is to give the people affected a voice in the settlement of the laws that control the situation and of the Executive that administers the laws. You find, in fact, that the grievances always lead you back to the franchise, and that the giving of the vote is the only efficient and practical way of settling the matter. The best thing to say to people who are suffering from grievances is, "Go and use your votes to put things right." When, then, they have not got votes the simplest plan is to help them to get votes in order to redress their grievances for themselves. In hun- dreds of cases the grievance can only disappear through the exercise of self-government, for the sting rests in the fact that the persons affected by a law have no power to say in what particular ways it shall be enforced. In truth, the only really practical way of righting the grievances of the Outlanders short of giving them their proper share in the government would be for us to interfere so constantly and so minutely in the administration of the Transvaal that we should be really responsible for its working. But this is the very last thing we want to do,—the thing, indeed, which we must avoid at all costs. We come back, then, to this, that the only satisfactory way out of the present situation is to obtain the enfranchisement of the Outlanders,— by peaceful means, if possible ; if not, by force of arms.
A very curious commentary upon the pig-headedness of the Boers in refusing to emancipate the Outlanders is to be found in the recent amendment to the Constitution passed by the First Raad. It runs as follows :—"In case of war, rebellion, or other circum- stances of pressing danger, the President, in con- junction with the Commandant-General, and with the consent of the Executive Council, can proclaim martial law, and then every inhabitant without distinction is bound to give his support in defence of the State." This sounds at first exceedingly well, but in reality it brings the Boers face to face with their essential error. It is no use to call out a general levy of the inhabitants of the Transvaal to protect the Republic when the majority of the inhabitants have been rendered bitter enemies of the Republic owing to the treatment they have re- ceived. The Boers dare not arm them, for they would not use their rifles on the Boer side. They are, again, too many to be put in prison till an invasion is repelled. The Outlanders, indeed, are far worse than useless when it comes to a supreme effort in the direction of national defence. In fact, the Boers, if it comes to war, will find what the old slave-owning States of the ancient world found when threatened with invasion. Their first and chief dread was often not the enemy outside, but the enemy at home. They were haunted by the fear that the moment the enemy got into their territory their slaves, who formed a majority of the population, would rise and destroy them. No doubt the Outlanders are not slaves, but they are hostile, and a majority, and thus you have the same problem of a ruling caste in a minority, surrounded by those who will always welcome the enemy of their masters. The Outlanders are not armed, but that will matter comparatively little. If, then, the Boers are mad enough to go to war, they will find how useless it is to make regulations as to the duties of all inhabitants in case of invasion. A tiny nation, if it has pluck and grit, and if it is united and has no hostile population within its own borders, may do great things against even a huge Empire.—There were no Outlanders in the Transvaal in the last war.—When, however, instead of the whole country defending itself with enthusiasm, the enthusiasm is confined to an oligarchy surrounded by a hostile majority, there can only be one end. Despite the courage of the Boers, their new forts, and their policy of disarmament, the fact that the Out- landers live in their country, outnumber them, and are hostile settles the matter. That fact seals the fate of the Boers if they have recourse to arms.
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