THE GERMANS IN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA. T HE charge of excessive cruelty
so constantly brought against the officials of the German colonies in South- West Africa is a little perplexing to those who, like ourselves, are accustomed to regard the Germans as on the whole a good and just, though rather domineering, people. It is opposed to a great deal of evidence from other countries. It is certainly the last charge which will be brought against the immigrants who swarm into our own cities ; it is denied by the Americans, who in their rough criticisms upon immigrants make clear exceptions in favour of the British, the Norsemen, and the Germans ; nor have we ever seen accusations of cruelty brought against the German colonists who begin to play so large a part in Southern Brazil. The usual Canadian descrip- tion of the German is that of a somewhat immovable but industrious and genial man. It is impossible, how- ever, to doubt that there must be some truth in the accusation as regards the behaviour of official Germans in South-West Africa. Herr Bebel may be over- possessed with the passion of pity, which in some natures occasionally rises to the height of cruelty, and Herr Raren, a Judge of the highest character and a member of the Centre Party, may be too completely in the hands of the Roman Catholic missionaries ; but they know how readily they may be accused. of want of patriotism in making these charges, which, again, are acknowledged to be partly true by the Government itself. The Colonial Depart- ment, though it talks about exaggeration, and is of course anxious to extenuate the offences of its servants, admits that " abuses " have been prevalent, and promises inquiry and redress. "I have lanced the sore," says Herr Dern- burg, the commercially trained Minister whom Prince Billow has recommended. The difficulty is to understand how the charges come to be even partially true. We can comprehend why the Belgians are cruel on the Congo, because cruelty produces for them immense dividends; but that is not in most cases the governing motive in the German colonies. It cannot have paid Herr — to order fifty-two black babies to be thrown into the river and drowned, and the balance of proof as yet is that this order was actually given and carried out. Only two ex- planations occur to us. One is that the German.officials in a negro State, belonging themselves, as they usually do, to the residuum of the German official world, regard negroes in the way bad-minded Americans and Spaniards are apt to do, as animals not entitled when they disobey to the treatment of human beings. The other is that, being accustomed in their own country to strict discipline and rigid supervision, they become when they are at the top, and liberated from control and the sense of responsibility to opinion, as they are in South-West Africa, intoxicated with their new powers, . and, when resisted, lose all sense both of justice and humanity. One saw something of that during the Terror in the first French Revolution. This explanation would suggest that the German authorities at home, not expecting the difficulty, have failed to provide the necessary restraints in the way of Supreme Courts, or of Governors with strict instructions and exceptional powers, or of chiefs of regiments specially selected for their lenity and breadth of mind. These defects can be remedied ; or, if all else fails, the German Government may adopt the plan which, in the same circumstances, was for some time pursued by Isabella of Castille, who sent to Peru officers with special powers, the great Las Casas being one of them, intended to act as protectors of her Majesty's Indian subjects. Very serious efforts were for a time made to prevent cruelty, and even to check the form of forced labour known as the repartimientos. There will not, we think as well as hope, be any reluctance to adopt these plans on the part of the German Government. The Emperor has no shares in any South-West African undertakings. It is in no way his interest to relax discipline, as permitted or habitual cruelty invariably relaxes it ; and we have always reckoned his speech about Huns, delivered before the Chinese War, as a literary aberration rather than an index of his latent feelings towards non-Aryan peoples. We expect a speedy attempt at cure for the half-admitted "abuses," though we must point out that inquiry at .home will not of itself produce the necessary improvements. The delay is too great, and the difficulty of securing evidence nearly insuperable. Some restraining power must be established on the spot sufficient to hold cruel or—for that is more nearly the truth—half-mad officials in check before they can commit such atrocities as Herr Bebel and Herr Riiren believe they have committed.
The matter is an exceedingly serious one. It is not only that if remedies—and sufficient remedies—are not found Europe will form a new and, a worse opinion of the German character, which naturally must produce a reluctance to see German dominions extended, but there is positive danger lest the whole native population of Africa should become penetrated with a dread and hatred of the white men. It is reported from many quarters that this feeling is already betraying itself throughout the vast dominion of the Congo State, and it may easily spread southward and northward till the entire continent of Africa is filled with a hostility to Europe resembling that which three hundred years ago undermined the ascendency of the triumphant Spanish Monarchy. There is a comity of the black as there is of the white world ; and while the black is prepared to be governed by his white superior with a certain absolutism, he will not bear that un- reasonable cruelty which keeps him in perpetual terror, as well as in the kind of bewilderment, as not knowing what is required of him, which tempts inferior races to believe that only in massacre can they find deliverance. The white men in Africa can never be irresistible from their numbers ; and the popular European belief that the blacks can never combine, and therefore never insurrect successfully, is but partially supported by the evidence. A Bantu tribe annihilated a British regiment, and there have been black generals developed from the people who have founded kingdoms and made very effective armies. Europe desires to rule Africa, and intends to do it ; but she has sufficient perception of her own iuterest not to wish to do it by incessant fighting, or through a system like that which is gradually extirpating the black races in the vast system of river valleys which we call the Congo State. However stern the conquerors are in enforcing their own superior civilisation, they must be seen to wish for substantial justice, however harsh, and must avoid a cruelty which suggests to their victims that they are in the hands rather of evil demons than of able fighting men. We must add, though we are unwilling to enter upon that side of the subject, that peaceful security will never be attained until the invaders have learned, what we early learned in India, to let the women alone. The negresses of South and Central Africa are not English ladies, but they care for their children ; and if some of the stories which have come out in the German Parliament are true, there may be hatred and dread of white men handed down through the villages from generation to generation. There are higher arguments yet to be produced if Christianity is to be the basis of European action ; but the development of hatred throughout a continent can never be the interest even of those who would cynically allege that profit—great profit quickly made—must be the motive-power of the white man's rush into the forests and mountains where the black man has for two thousand years hidden himself from what be still regards as a dangerous intrusion. We Europeans will not rule Africa if the Mussultnan missionaries, already thousands in number, can say with truth : "Where the Christian is, there is the habitation of cruelty."
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