TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SOUTH AFRICAN DEBATE IN THE LORDS. 1, iv E do not profess to be unmoved by the difficulties and dangers that may arise in South Africa owing to the policy which the Government have adopted of giving self-government at once to the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal. Taking the balance of difficulties and dangers, we hold, however, that the Government have done right in choosing the course that they have chosen. That they were well aware of the objections to their policy we do not doubt, but, as must always happen in political affairs, they had to set one objection against another, and choose what they believed to be the lesser evil. And in this context it must not be forgotten that a heavy responsibility rests upon those who introduced a problem so exciting and so difficult into the politics of South Africa as that of Chinese labour. If Lord Milner had such grave doubts and anxieties as to the condition of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, and as to the temper of the Boers, surely it would have been the part of statesmanship not to have yielded to the cry of the mineowners for the importa- tion of Oriental labour into South Africa under conditions which were bound to excite extreme hostility and indignation in the British democracy. It may be urged that Lord Milner could not have realised that public opinion here would be so strongly moved by the use of Chinese labour under the semi-servile conditions imposed by, the Ordinance. Our answer to this objection is that Lord Milner, occupying the position he did of a great Imperial statesman, should have made it his business to consider public opinion in England. Lord Milner has himself appealed to the example of Egypt, and we there- fore will make no excuse for citing that example also. We venture to assert, without fear of contradiction, that no small part of Lord Cromer's success in Egypt, and of the confidence which he inspires in all parties and in all sections of the nation, has been due to the fact that he has always carefully studied British public opinion, and has made it one of the guiding rules of his statesmanship never to flout that public opinion. In a sense Lord Cromer is the greatest of bureaucrats, but at the same time he has always avoided that Jacobinic,a1 temper which is to be found in too many bureaucrats,—the temper which insists that a certain thing is politically expedient, and therefore must be carried out without any thought of ulterior considerations and ultimate consequences.
But perhaps it may be asserted that Lord Milner was not in a position to consider public opinion in England because the need for increasing the supply of cheap labour was so urgent. From this view we absolutely and entirely dissent. No doubt Lord Miler's policy of reconstruction was too eager and too hurried, and led him into certain administrative and. financial difficulties ; but, in spite of that, the way out was not by still further complicating the situation through indentured Chinese labour. We think that, in view of all the circumstances, it would probably have been unwise to introduce Chinese labour in any form ; but at any rate, when Lord Milner found that the Colonists would only tolerate the use of that labour under the semi-servile conditions of the Ordinance, he should have abandoned the scheme altogether. People talk as if it had become absolutely necessary two years ago to do something to provide cheap labour ; but this is, we venture to say, a pure delusion. If Lord Milner had remained firm, and told the mineowners that they could not have Chinese labour, it might not have been possible for them to contemplate the development of new companies, or to start that new era of prosperity which, even with Chinese labour, has proved illusory ; but there would have been no real crisis on the Rand and no cessation of work. Things might have gone slower, but that would have been ail. At the very worst the crisis would have been a Stock Exchange crisis. Forced, if they desired development, to consider other means of promoting their industry, the mineowners would, like other men in similar positions, have been obliged to contemplate the use of the labour actually available. In the first place, they would have made greater efforts to obtain native labour. Next, they would have had recourse to labour-saving machinery. And lastly, they would have employed white unskilled labour, which labour .was, always available provided they cared to use it. We 'are,'. of course, well aware that the mineowners assert' that white labour was too expensive to be employed. As a matter of fact, however, this is only an excuse. Mr. Creswell's experiment proved that white men were willing and able to do the work, and proved also that such, labour was not in the long run more expensive than Chinese labour. What the mineowners were afraid of, and what some of them originally admitted they were afraid of, was not so much the expense as the fact that the white unskilled labourers would have become possessed of the vote,, and thus would have had a, right to influence the internal politics of the Rand. Again, white miners could not have been prevented from forming Trade-Unions. White labourers also, if they struck, could not have been coerced by corporal punishment inflicted in the mines. In other words, the mineowners were terrified at the notion of employing white labour because they believed that it might bring with it what they would describe as Trade- Union tyranny. Therefore, as long as there seemed any other alternative, they would not contemplate the. employment of unskilled white men. If, however, the Chinese alternative had been closed to them, we have little doubt that by this time the white population of the Rand would have had some thirty thousand or forty thousand men added to it, and that it would have been found perfectly possible to place the mining industry on a sound basis. Even if our view is too optimistic, the worst that would have happened would have been that the industry would have developed somewhat more slowly. There would have been no ruin, no crisis in the true sense, though possibly there might have been a reduction of inflated share values. In truth, the desire to hurry was the fatal blunder. And here again we may once more invoke the analogy of Egypt. Had Lord Cromer been a bureaucrat in ahurry instead of an extraordinarily patient and cautious adminis- trator, he could never have carried out his work in Egypt. His refusal to hurry, and his steady rejection of desperate remedies, even when things looked most hopeless, again' and again proved the salvation of his administration, and enabled him to lay its foundations well and truly. A ruler in a hurry might easily, ten years ago, have declared that the opposition of the French, and the right of finan- cial veto belonging to the Powers, made our position in Egypt intolerable, and that something bold, and even violent, must be done to obtain a freer hand for the British rulers. Lord Cromer, though so sorely tried, never yielded to the temptation. Instead, he hung on in bulldog fashion, knowing that it was batter to do nothing than to do a foolish thing, and in the end his patience and his caution were rewarded.
But though we cannot but blame Lord Milner for ignoring public opinion here, and for yielding to the policy of hurry, we must blame still more the late Govern- ment for endorsing his views. After all, the ultimate responsibility lay with them, and it would be most unfair to saddle it upon Lord Milner and allow them to escape. They, at any rate, should have realised the nature of British public opinion, and should have exercised a restraining force when precipitate and impulsive action was suggested from South Africa. They should have told. Lord Milner that if the Colony would not have Chinese labour under free conditions, it could not have it at all, and should have urged him to give every encouragement to the use of white labour on political as well as on economic grounds. They should have reminded him that the introduction of thirty thousand or forty thousand white miners would have had an enormous effect in solving the racial question in South Africa.
Though we have expressed certain doubts and anxieties as to the result of the granting of self-government to the Orange River Colony, we are, on the whole, inclined to think that the Government are wise in taking a bold course. After all, the whole history of the British Empire shows that self-government acts as an anodyne in the case of political agitation, and that while men who are deprived of self-government will intrigue and conspire, the gift of self-government tends to sterilise the more dangerous forms of hostility. We assume, of course, that the Government will take precautions in the new Consti- tution fully to protect men of British race and sympathies in the Orange River Colony, and will promptly veto any legislation which will be injurious to them. They anust also, both in the Orange River Colony and in the Transvaal, take special precautions to protect those Boers who towards the close of the war took the British side and. joined the National Scouts. It is not only a matter of honour With us to give these men the most ample protection, but it is also, for political reasons, essential to prove to the whole world that no man who has ever supported the Imperial Government shall be deserted, or shall suffer for having given that support. If, then, the Government are vigilant in the ,matter of vetoing unjust laws, and if a proper garrison is retained, we do not fear that any serious trouble will arise from self-government, but are, on the whole, inclined to agree with Lord Elgin that the grant, even though it may now seem somewhat premature, will be justified by results.
In the case of the Transvaal—granted, of course, that there is no gerrymandering in favour of the Boers —it , is pretty obvious that there will be a pro-British majority. Here, however, difficulties may no doubt arise. In view of the past history of the Boers and their known opinions in regard to native labour, there is a certain risk that they may combine on terms injurious to British interests with a portion of the British popu- lation to introduce legislation , in regard to labour which will be resented, and rightly resented, by the British democracy. When we say this we are not accusing the Boers of any special turpitude. They would not be human if they were to refuse to do a " deal " with the mine- owners on a question where in all probability their natural sympathies are with the mineowners. Perhaps we shall be told that if we are not libelling the Boers, we are, at any rate, libelling the mineowners by making. such a su jges- tion ; and we frankly admit that if the mineowners are as patriotic as they profess to be, and as undoubtedly many of them are in fact, they would absolutely refuse to make any compact with the Boers of the kind we have indicated. Unfortunately, however, those who know the mineowners well and are in sympathy with them do not scout our fears in this direction as ridiculous. We note, for example, that Lord Montagu of Beaulieu is reported to have said in Tuesday's debate that "there might be a coalition between 'the mineowning interests and the Dutch which might ignore the interests of this country, and even cut itself adrift." That is a danger which we would advise the Government and the Liberal Party as a whole to watch with the utmost care. If they are wise, they will let it be known from the very beginning that they do not intend, in any circumstances, to yield to the demands of such a combination, and that they are pre- pared, whatever may be the risk, to appeal to the British people to deal sternly with the situation should it arise.
Though we have thought it right to enter this warning, we trust that the gloomy prognostications on both sides will prove erroneous, and that after a certain amount of rhetorical talk South Africa will settle down under the new conditions to a healthy development, both political and economic.
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