LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO FIGHT ABOUT ?
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.')
Sin,—Your leading article upon this subject in the Spectator of September 23rd renders a most necessary service to such of your readers—and they must be very many—as find them- selves unable to keep pace with the whirligig of events in South Africa. The reasons which you there assign are the reason 3 officially alleged for the momentous proceedings upon which our Government has embarked, and that they are valid and sufficient reasons no candid critic of the Government is likely to deny. But it does not follow from their being valid and sufficient that they are the only reasons in- fluencing the conduct of Great Britain, and as many persons feel a natural, and perhaps insuperable, objection to the forcing of an electoral reform upon the Republic at the point of the sword, it is perhaps right, and even necessary, that the full case should be laid before the British public. Reasons of a very urgent nature, which it would have been merely provocative to put forward for the notice of the Transvaal Government, have no doubt strongly influenced the decision of the British Government to bring the controversy to a head just now, and to take its stand upon electoral reform. These reasons, delicate as they are, were not very obscurely glanced at by Mr. Chamberlain in his despatch of July 27th last addressed to Sir A. Milner, in which he said : "This deplorable irritation between kindred peoples whose common interests and neighbourhood would naturally make them friends is due primarily to the fact that in the South African Republic, alone of all the States of South Africa, the
Government has deliberately placed one of two white races in a position of political inferiority to the other, and has adopted a policy of isolation in its internal concerns." The italics are mine, and are introduced because the italicised words are all important for the present purpose. The "policy of isolation" is not a very perspicuous phrase, but to any one who is familiar with the recent history of the Transvaal its meaning is unmistakable. It refers to a policy which has remodelled the whole polity of the State since 1884, and in such a manner as to separate it from the comity of nations in that part of the world. To illustrate this proposition : South Africa, like every other part of the civilised world, is knit together by railways, and the Transvaal is united to its sister States by a railway system which puts it into com- munication with the Free State and Cape Colony on the one hand, with Natal on the other hand, and secures for it the economic advantage of competing rates Over these two alternative routes to the coast. But the Transvaal Govern- ment has done all that it can do to strangle traffic along these two highways, and to divert it to its own Delagoa Bay line, which runs through an uninhabitable marsh to the sea. Again, South Africa is a bilingual country where English is the language of business, of current literature, and of the townsmen generally ; Dutch the hereditary language in a large number of families, and generally of the countryside. The Transvaal Government, to the great inconvenience of business men and the serious impairment of justice, has ex- cluded the English tongue from all official use, even from such popular official publications as the postal guide and the railway time-tables, and is making strenuous efforts to banish it from common use by putting it on the footing of a foreign language in the elementary schools. Yet again, South Africa is the land of the immigrant where liberal conditions of naturalisation facilitate the migration of families from place to place, or the incorporation of the Outlander from oversea. Englishmen have carried with them thither their traditionary respect for the political rights of strangers, and the Dutch for the more part entertain on this point the sentiments that are natural to men whose fathers were famous "trekkers" The Government of the Transvaal has changed a Republic into an oligarchy. Yet once again, South Africa is a country where the administration of the law is regarded with great reverence and carefully protected from corruption, The Transvaal alone among South African communities bas reduced its Supreme Court to a position of subordination in the State. Lastly, and most conspicuously of all, the Govern- ment of the South African Republic stands alone by reason of exaggerated and menacing increase during the past few years of its military equipment, an equipment manifestly designed,—first to overawe Johannesburg, and in the next place to put the Republic in a position to defy Great Britain.
This summary of points, not even intended as an exhaustive summary, will suffice to indicate what is meant by the "policy of isolation." But, your reader will say, those are all items in the policy of placing one white race in a position of political inferiority to the other. How do they afford any justification for the action of her Majesty's Government over and above their obligation to defend our own kith and kin from ill usage ? The answer is that this isolation of one member, and that a very influential member, of the group of States, tends powerfully to draw all the others out of their orbits, and threatens to revolutionise the political system of South Africa. Take, by way of illustration, the one instance of the damaging of the Colonial railway traffic. The Colonies and the Free State all derive a considerable portion of their revenue from the profits of the railway. If those profits suffer, the Colonists and the burghers suffer by reason of the increased taxation rendered necessary to make good the deficiency. Such people naturally ask themselves on what terms they can mollify their estranged kinsfolk, and receive for answer that they can only be acknowledged friends of the Transvaal upon the terms of sharing her enmity. She points to her formidable armament, and in effect says : You know the malign Power against which lam preparing all this defiance; you see who are the unwelcome intruders whom I am holding by these means in subjection. If you wish to be my friends you, too, must hate the rooineks.' In a word, the policy of isolation is an embodiment of race hatred, and tends by a pernicious fecundity to propagate race hatred through the length and breadth of the land. Bat even this is not the most formidable result of this policy of isolation. For years past a body of idealists in South Africa have been preaching up a Dutch United States of South Africa, and preparing the minds of men for an upheaval in that part of the world which should result in the abrogation of British authority there and the launching of a new Republic under a new flag. Whether the Government of the South African Republic has ever encouraged this propaganda, I do not know. It is not uninteresting to note in this connection that probably four years ago, I write from memory, one of the State-subsidised newspapers—the Standard and Diggers' Eews, if I mistake not—discussed at great length and in a leading article the question whether Cape Town or Pretoria should be the metropolis of that Republic, and came, of course, to the conclusion that the Northern Capital had the paramount claim. Bat it is of very little conscquence whether the Transvaal Government has actively promoted, or only passively waited upon, this agitation. The result is the same, and it comes to th s, that with a centre like the Transvaal breeding disaffection, an idea of that sort actively propagated becomes a serious peril to South Africa. We shall not be expelled thence without a convulsion, but if the hostile forces of the Transvaal are to be arrayed on the aide of the agitators the convulsion must come ; the only question is,— w hen ?
In conclusion, I claim in behalf of the British Government that its policy at the present conjuncture has been in substance a model of fairness and consideration for the sus- ceptibilities of those who have placed themselves in a position of hostility—in large measure groundless and malicious hos- tility—to us. We have offered to make the extension of a reasonable liberty to our own kindred in the State the basis of a settlement. That is a very bold policy, for the impatient censure to which we are constantly subjected by the Colonial and Outlander Press shows that we could not expect even so to put an end to all differences with the Republic. But if its complexion ceased to be aggressively Dutch, the Dutch peril would be at an end, and we are content accordingly to accept this measure of simple justice for the Outlander as our own security against the long-prepared and now imminent attack. If there are any Englishmen who, understanding it, disap- prove of that policy, I for one shall find a comfort in differing
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