TOPICS OF THE DAY- HOW TO TREAT THE SOUTH AFRICAN
REBELS.
THE problem of how to treat the South African rebels has been attracting a great deal of attention during the past week, and no wonder, for there is no question more important or more fraught with danger and difficulty. If we can handle the matter satisfactorily, we hold that there is not the slightest reason why South Africa should not now settle down, and why, even in ten years' time, the whole country should not, not merely acquiesce in being a portion of the British Empire, but should not be as proud of that position and as determined to maintain it as Canada or Australia. We must, then, be most careful not to take the wrong turn. As to the future of the Transvaal and the Free State the people of the British Empire are practically agreed. They will, as soon as the war is over, become as much part and parcel of the British Empire as New Zealand or Newfoundland. For a short and definitely fixed period—say for four, or perhaps five, years—they Will be administered directly by the Imperial authorities, and after that period they will have extended to them the fullest rights of self-government known to the Empire. That is simple enough. As we have said, the real difficulty is how to deal with the Cape Colony rebels. The crux Of the problem is to be found in the question,—Ought or ought they not to be treated as belligerents? We must approach the question by saying that no general answer can be given. Some of the rebels ought, in our opinion, to be treated as belligerents ; others do not deserve such treatment. For example, we would treat as belligerents men who have openly and frankly taken up arms against us, have joined the Boer forces, and regularly fought our troops. Those, however, who instead of openly join- ing the enemy, stayed at home, and then either helped the Boers with information or supplies, or committed secret hostile acts against the British troops or their genuinely loyal neighbours, come into a perfectly different category and deserve entirely different treatment. Again, there are the men of the districts in which practically the whole of the inhabitants rose and disclaimed their connection with the British Empire, and even if they did not join the Boer commandos, announced that they had become part of the Federal Republics. The inhabitants of these districts ought evidently to be placed in yet another category.
We readily admit that it is far easier to draw these distinctions than to say what is the best way of punishing the various forms of rebels. Directly you begin to take action you have, of course, to draw an indictment against an individual man, to allege specific acts, and to prove this indictment by evidence that will pass muster in a Court of Law. Finally, you have to con- vince a jury composed very likely of Boer sympathisers. In truth the task of punishing by process of law those rebels whom it is decided ought not to be treated as belligerents is one which must be admitted to be well nigh impracticable. The difficulties would be very great if all Cape Colony were anxious to see them punished. When half Cape Colony .is anxious to see them escape the obstacles are almost insuperable. But are we then to tell the loyalists at the Cape that no punishment is to fall on the disloyal, to admit that the men who succoured the Queen's enemies and harried their loyal neighbours are not to suffer at all, and that the rebels are to be allowed to go on exactly as if nothing had happened ? Surely that would be an encouragement to rebellion and a discouragement to loyalty which would be most unwise? What, then, is to be done ? One thing, at any rate, is absolutely certain. It would be a monstrous abuse to allow men who have been rebels to continue to govern those who have remained loyal. Whatever else is done it is impossible that the inhabitants of .districts which deliberately threw off their allegiance to the Empire and joined its enemies should be allowed to, send Members to Cape Town to help govern the Colony, to make its laws and appoint its rulers. The notion of men who a month or so before were firing on the British flag, and shooting Englishmen, Canadians, Australians, and loyal South Africans, sending representa- tives to take part in the work of governing the Cape is utterly nrenosterous. Of course, the absolutely fair thing would be to disfranchise only men who had been proved rebels. But, as we have said, this would practically be impossible. You could not work a, law of individual dis. franchisement. The only plan, then, is to disfranchise disloyal districts as a whole, and risk the inflicting of an injustice on a few loyal individuals. The mechanism of our proposal is as follows. The Crown should appoint a mixed Commission of soldiers and lawyers, among whom should be at least one Canadian, one Australian, and one New Zealand lawyer or soldier, to go through the northern portions of the Colony and report in what districts within an area previously defined, say two hundred miles deep from the old frontier, the majority of the inhabitants had been guilty of overt acts of disloyalty, or had given help and succour to the enemy. The Commission would, of course, not take note of mere disloyal talk or rumours of secret succour, but would judge broadly whether districts as a whole had joined the Boers, or had only been prevented from actually doing so by our armed intervention. The Commission would, in fact, be like an Election Com- mission sent down after a sensational bribery petition to inquire whether the constituency ought to be disfranchised. They would, that is, report such constituencies as had in their opinion forfeited for the time the right of sending representatives to govern the Colony. Of course it would be hopeless to expect the Cape Parliament as at present constituted to act on such a Report, but that by no means destroys the practicability of the proposal we are advo- cating. It is the Imperial Parliament, and not the Cape Parliament, which should deal with the matter. Under normal circumstances we are resolutely opposed to the slightest interference by the Imperial Parlia- ment in the affairs of any Colony. But when Imperial forces have been employed in a Colony and a state of war has existed, the legislative right of the Imperial Parliament revives, and with the assent of the Empire as a whole can rightly be employed. The Imperial Parlia- ment originally fixed the limits within which the Cape Parliament should rule. It circumscribed, that is, the area of the Colony, and given circumstances like those at present existing it can properly reduce or alter that area. If, then, a Commission were to report certain districts as having by rebellious acts forfeited the right to representa- tion, the Imperial Parliament might, it seems to us, very properly withdraw those districts from the area of Cape Colony, either indefinitely, or better, for a fixed term, say of ten or fifteen years. Meantime, the Imperial Government would provide for the government of the districts in question by the appointment of Imperial officers, or else by incorporating them with some other South African community. No doubt we shall be told that the other self- governing Colonies would be greatly alarmed and annoyed at the precedent thus created, and would be indignant at the notion of the Imperial Parliament legislating in this way. We do not believe it. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would be angry, and justly angry, at any attempt to legislate directly for them,-.-to pass a law, say, altering the Criminal Law in the Colony. But between such interference . and withdrawing, after a war sustained by troops from all parts of the Empire, a part of a Colony which had been in insurrection, there is a world of difference. Still, if the precedent should be thought undesirable, it might be possible to obtain the approval of the Governments of the self-governing Colonies, and then express in the preamble of the Act that such approval had been obtained. This would make a precedent for not withdrawing any districts from a Colonial Parliament unless the approval of the -other self-governing Colonies had been first obtained.
We have spoken as to the difficulty of punishing rebels by ordinary judicial procedure, and have deprecated any idea of relying on that in the districts in which hostilities actually took place. We admit that this attitude on our part may seem like acquiescence in the escape of many men who deserve punishment. Such, however, is not our intention. Though we dislike treason-mongering, and object very strongly to men like Mr. Hofmeyr or Mr. Schreiner being called rebels merely because they have strong Dutch sympathies, or because in the heat of the moment they have used violent and ill-judged language, we should like nothing better than to see real traitors caught and punished. If adequate evidence, and not mere rumour, can be produced against the smooth, pleasant-mannered gentlemen so eloquently described by Mr. Kipling in his " Sin of Witchcraft," by all means let them be punished. We may feel sure, indeed, that if there is anything to go upon, they will be prosecuted. The Imperial authorities have doubtless had all likely people watched, and doubtless also a great many secret docu- ments have been already discovered at Bloemfontein, and more will be discovered at Pretoria. Later also, as always after a &MA there will be plenty of men eager to make a clean breast of any treasonable communication between the Cape politicians and the Queen's enemies. If such evidence will stand examination, and is not of the Dreyfus case kind, we do not doubt that it will be employed at the proper time and in the proper way. There is no hurry for immediate action. At present the great thing is to get all the information possible, and to get. it sound and good, and not to trust to mere hearsay. Because we are reasonably lenient to the farmers in the rebel districts, there is no reason why we should be lenient to men in a higher position who have played a double part,—.provided always that we have facts to go upon, and not mere rumours of treason.
Let us recapitulate our suggestions for dealing with the problem of the Cape Colony rebels :—(1) We would treat bona fide belligerents just as if they were foreigners, and not technically British subjects. (2) Districts which have rebelled en masse or succoured the enemy we would withdraw from the Colony.—After such withdrawal, really bad cases of treason might be dealt with by means of for- feiture and fine levied to reimburse loyal sufferers.—(3) Clear cases of treachery in high places, if such exist, as dis- tinguished from open rebellion, we would proceed against in the Courts of Law wherever evidence was procurable.
Previous page
