THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC.* SOUTH African history does not offer

very pleasant reading to an English public, even when the historian is strictly im- partial. When, as in the present case, he hardly cares to conceal his prejudice against English people and English methods, the case against the latter is apt to take a very dark complexion indeed. And that is the chief fault that one can find with the otherwise admirable work of Mr. J. C. Voigt. Admitting, as one unfortunately must, that there is only too much truth in his account of the early relations between the English Government and the old Dutch settlers, one must yet protest that he paints the picture of English blundering and ill-faith too uniformly black ; and that, while he extols, not altogether unduly, the sturdy love of liberty and great heroism of the founders of the South African Republic, his criticism of their English opponents is far too sweeping sad too bitter to be just. Nevertheless, his work is one which, in spite of its want of impartiality—perhaps, even, on account of its one-sidedness—deserves to be carefully read and con- • Fifty Years of the History of as Republic i21 South Africa, 211114646. J. a Voigt. 2 vole. London : T. Fisher Unwin. [2bs.]

sidered in this country ; for of late years the English public has heard so much of the other side, the case against the descendants of the old Dutch pioneers, that it sometimes for- gets that the latter have a history and grievances of their own.

The half-century of history treated by Mr. Voigt begins with the first revolt against the Dutch home Government in 1795, and ends with the loss of Natal and the exodus across the Drakensberg Mountains before the English in 1845 ; in other words, the period of the struggle to occupy the country south of the Orange River. The first Republic was the work of the frontiersman, the man who was ever pushing or being pushed over the border of civilisation :—

" In the Colony, his old home, the land which his forefathers had developed and made habitable, the history of the Borderer for nearly an entire century (from 1700 to 1795) had been a constant struggle against the injustice and misrule of the East India Company and their Cape Town officials. Then, tired of remonstrance, weary of protest, and firmly resolved to manage his own affairs and himself to rule his own country in future, he had created his Republic, and brought about the downfall of the Government of the Chartered Company of Amsterdam merchants in South Africa. Then the British Government had appeared on the scene, called on the Frontiersman to give up his Republic, and ordered him to submit to the Government of King George. He had refused to do so. He had resisted in 1796, and only yielded when he found the British power too strong for him. But he had tried his strength again in 1799. Again he had to submit. His leaders had been captured and imprisoned and punished by England. He had taken up arms in 1801. Again he had submitted. Then the Republican Government had been restored to the Frontiersman. For a short while only, his country with the rest of South Africa had enjoyed the free and liberal institutions of the Batavian Commonwealth. Then British dominion and a Government of despotism had been imposed on all South Africa by force of arms. Once more the Frontiersman had risen in insurrection, in 1815. Then had followed the ter- rible punishment of Slachtersnek. In the land of his fathers, the frontier-pioneer had seen some of his leaders brought to the scaffold. Others had been sent into banishment. Once again the borderland was in subjection to a foreign rule. With the vacillating Native policy of England, the almost constant Kaffir wars, and the insecurity of life and property in the Eastern parts of the Colony, came the policy of the suppres- sion of the independence of the High Court of Justice, the abolition of the Burgher Senate, of the Courts of Landdrost and Heemraden, and of the official rights of the Dutch language in petitions and memorials to the Government and in the Law Courts of the land. Most of these measures affected West and East alike. Then there was also the repeal of the Vagrancy laws. There was the important alteration in the Land laws, under Sir John Cradock's Governorship. There were the confiscation of part of the paper currency in circula- tion, the events of the notorious Black circuit, and the bitter hostility of the so-called philanthropic societies which then influenced public opinion."

Thus does the author sum up the main causes of the emigra- tion to the north, the "Great Trek" which founded the South African Republics. It will be seen that the question of the emancipation of the slaves is left out of the list of grievances altogether. Elsewhere he discusses the emancipation of the slaves and the inadequate compensation received by the slave- owners, but he will not admit that the well-founded discontent caused by the measure had anything to do with the exodus northwards and the re-establishment of a self-governing Republic ; the fact being, apparently, that in common with many of his countrymen he dislikes the idea that a free Republic should owe its origin and birth to a desire to keep fellow-creatures in bondage. One cannot but respect the sentiment, but it is difficult to accept without protest the figures by which the author seeks to maintain his proposition that the slave question played no part in the determination of the emigrants to be free from British rule. Among the hundred individuals who comprised the first Trek, he says, there was none who owned a slave. Therefore, he argues, "it is fair to assume that all the 10,000 emigrants who left the

• Colony between the years 1833 and 1840 had not owned more than a hundred slaves at the outside." Putting the value of a slave at £80, lie asks whether it is likely that these thousands of colonists should have braved all the terrors and privations of the northern march on account of a grievance which mulcted them of 14s. a head. The assumption is rather a large one. In the first place, the original hundred emigrants left the Colony before the Emancipation Act, and it is quite possible that their "trekking" was due not a little to the fact

that they did not own slaves; in other words, to their poverty. The great rush of emigration took place after the emancipation, and it is very difficult not to believe that the undoubted

;hardship caused by the measure must have largely conduced to the resolve to quit the Colony. Putting aside, however, the (question of slave-holding, it is clear that, according to the

author's views, the main cause of discontent with British rule

lay in the native policy. The result of the native policy, dictated to the British Government by irresponsible and ignorant philanthropists at home, and carried out in a very vacillating fashion in the Colony itself, has been, he says, the

destruction of certain native races and the ruin of others. The Bushman has been absolutely exterminated, the Hottentot utterly degraded. British rule would not coerce the native for his good ; it would not impose legislative restrictions on vagrancy and laziness ; it would not sanction any form of forced labour ; it would-only allow the native to go his own way in freedom, and kill himself with drink. The moat that

it would do in the cause of prevention and improvement was to flog him whenever drink made him criminal :— " In spite of evidence to the contrary all over the world, the British Government in South Africa had assumed and taken it for granted that what was in reality an inferior race could be sufficiently protected and shielded from complete deterioration— and from extinction—by merely the ordinary application of the law. It obstinately refused to believe that in the struggle for existence between nations and races, as between individuals, the weakest goes to the wall ; it had further been guilty of neglecting its duty as a government, in refusing to protect the weak race ; it had failed or refused to see that civil equality for such a race meant destruction. Only the vices of civilisation were attractive to the savages. As crime increased among them, and imprisonment was found not to be a sufficient deterrent, the penalty of flogging came to be resorted to more and more frequently. The philanthropists failed to see that they were acting barbarously as well as unjustly."

At the same time, of course, this same policy made the whole question of native labour extremely difficult for the Dutch farmer, as it did also the question of self-defence against marauding tribes. Still there is no use in overstating a case, and Mr. Voigt is dis posed to lay much more blame upon our native policy than it really deserves. He is also

too discreetly silent about another feature of the question,—

namely, the occasional brutality and tyranny of the white settlers in the country. But if he is dissatisfied with the British treatment of the Bushman and Hottentot in the early days, he is yet more displeased with that meted out to the Kaffir race in more recent times :-

" Pondoland, Basutoland, Zululand, Bechuanaland, Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and other Kaffir countries were to receive the benefits of British rule at a much later date, when, towards the century's close, the strong pro-consuls and the Empire-extending financiers were to join hands ; when the map of Africa was to be painted red, and dotted over with battle-fields ; when the useless mask of sham philanthropy was-to be cast aside. Then, after a sham investiga- tion by an Imperial Commissioner, who subsequently confessed to not always being in the habit of speaking the whole truth, the seal of British official approval was to be set on a system of spoliation and slaughter of the natives more ruthless and cruel than that practised by Cortez in Mexico and by Pizarro in Peru—on a mode of warfare characterised by atrocities as barbarous as those which disgrace the annals of the gold-seeking Conquistadores of the Sixteenth century."

The words are bitter and unmeasured ; but we cannot afford to shut our eyes to the truth that underlies the accusation. Our native policy in South Africa in the past has not been a success as far as the welfare of the natives themselves was concerned. Nor can one say very much in favour of the present policy, if it is to be judged by its results. One might retort, perhaps, that in the main the native policy of the Dutch settlers has not been markedly more successful, and assuredly not more merciful ; but that fact, though it may be an answer to an over-hostile critic, hardly furnishes an excuse for ourselves. Moreover, Mr. Voigt, with all his angry prejudice against things British, is a critic whom one cannot help respecting. His indignation is at least genuine, as is also his enthusiasm when he recites the gallant deeds of the old pioneers. The story of the first settlers and their leaders, of Retief and Pretorius, is a stirring one, and is told by the author in a very stirring fashion. Special praise is also due to the admirable lucidity of the plans and maps with which the work is lavishly provided.