MR. MACKENZIE ON SOUTHERN AFRICA.* Tuts is the most important
of the many important books that have been published on South Africa, since the native question there became a burning one. It is important as putting the special "case " of its author, Mr. Mackenzie, before the British public in its entirety ; as the political manual of Bechuanaland, if not of South Africa ; as the text-book for those who hold that Great Britain cannot do justice to her civilising mission in that region, except by the beneficent though iron exercise of Imperial authority. Yet what the ordinary reader will most note in Austral Africa is the spirit of reverence which pervades it, as it pervades the South African romances of Mr. Rider Haggard, and so demonstrates the spiritual truthfulness of those won- derful creations. Does not this passage, in which Mr. Mackenzie embodies the aspirations of his book, read like "last words by Allan Quatermain"
" I see the time come when for loyalty, intelligence, and resource, Austral Africa will be held in honour throughout the Empire ; when, should Imperial need arise, Austral Africans will equal A.uetralasiaus in physique and in all soldierly qualities,—both vying successfully with the eons of the colder North, their fellow-subjects in Canada and the mother-country ; while the Bantu regiments from Austral Africa would be unsurpassed by any which could be brought into the field from among the millions of India. But, like every true vision of the future, mine ends in peace and not in war. Assuredly, as England has abolished duelling, and still retains her honour and her self-respect, em will the savage arbitrament of war be discredited and disused the world over, when the thoughts of the victorious Galilean shall have become the code of the world. Then the contests of men will consist in the noble emulations of literature, art, commerce, and industry ; in all of which Austral Africa will have its share. I see these things ith the eye of the soul; they will surely come to pass. I pray to be ermined to see some of them with the bodily eye also."
Mr. Mackenzie obviously belongs to the same class—or, rather, order—of men as General Gordon. In his eyes, as in Gordon's, the performance of duty and the promotion of civilisation mean the bringing of Christianity to bear on the solution of the problems by which, owing to circumstances, men find them- selves faced. Probably—and here also he resembles Gordon— his leading fault is impatience with those who do not see so quickly or so clearly where duty lies as he does.
Necessarily controversial in form, Mr. Mackenzie's work is historical and politico-didactic in essence. He fights over again his famous battles with Mr. Rhodes and Captain Bower, with
• Austral Africa: Losing ft, or Ruling It I Being Incident. and Experiences sn Bechuanaland, Cape Colony, and England. By Joha Mnokeesie. 2 Tole. London : Sampson Irsw, Manton, Searle, and RITIngtou. 1887. Van Niekirk and Van Pittius, of Stellaland and Goshen notoriety, and recounts his differences (they can scarcely be termed quarrels) with Sir Hercules Robinson. These brought about Sir Charles Warren's expedition into, and inquiry into the adminis- tration of, Bechuanaland, resulting in the expulsion of the Boer freebooters, the substantial justification of Mr. Mackenzie's conduct as Deputy-Commissioner in 1884-1885, and the estab- lishment of a genuine protectorate, which, however, should be extended formally to the Zambesi, as the natural frontier between Southern and Central Africa, and not confined to the region south of the Molopo River. But while Mr. Mackenzie fights his battles over again, be gives also a valuable amount of information as to the characters, customs, and wants of the Bechuanalanders as be goes along. His experiences as a missionary, first at Shoshong and next at Kuruman, both of which are in the country be subsequently administered, and the story of which he had told in part before he published this work, had given him qualifications for understanding and solving the Bechuana problem possessed by no ordinary soldier or civilian at the Cape, confused by the conflict of " ideas " there. We do not care to enter at length into Mr. Mackenzie's half-personal con- troversies, into the old stories of Van Pittius and Van Niekirk, of Honey and Bethell, although there can be no question what. ever that in his contentions he was at least nine-tenths in the right. To do so would serve little purpose now. Besides, it is quite possible that Mr. Mackenzie may have been on occasions a little sharp and unaccommodating—as was even the late Mr. W. E. Forster, as are most earnest men with a mission—with Dutch adventurers whose hearts were with the Transvaal Republicans, and that he preferred to the palm of persuasion the knuckles of what in flabby times is termed coercion. In any case, it is well that bygones of this kind should be bygones, provided always that they have their influence on policy in the future. And Mr. Mackenzie must admit that they had their influence. He may not have triumphed all along the line, but he has triumphed essentially. " The stream of tendency" is decidedly against the vacillating or zigzag policy pursued by the Colonial Office of late years towards South Africa, and in favour of the substitution for it of a resolute course of action, the keynote of which must be the administration of the native protectorates in accordance with Imperial ideas in Downing Street and St. Stephen's, and not with crude or fluid Colonial opinion. As a step towards this end, Mr. MIckenzie recommends the separation of the office of High Commissioner in South Africa from that of Governor of Cape Colony, and the making of the High Commissioner the representative of British authority, British justice—which is almost invariably tempered with mercy—and British funda- mental ideas on civilisation. Something of this sort must be done. To say the very least of it, while the Colonists are fight- ing out their racial and other battles, they have not the time, and are otherwise unfit, to grapple vigorously with the native problem. As for the political future of South Africa, Mr. Mackenzie has really little new to say. In the parts or South Africa that are under the British Crown, there are five people who speak English to six who speak Dutch, while in the independent States the ratio is one to six. In spite of this, Mr. Mackenzie says—and his opinion is especially valuable, because he has no reason to think well of politicians at the Cape- " Dutch, Danish, German, French, English, Irish, and Scottish— no race as such shall have the dominance in South Africa; but all Europeans will coalesce in friendliness and intelligent co- operation, and will do so without pressure or effort when they intelligently see that their objects and their interests are the same." But this heterogeneous community, even though it be pervaded by an enthusiasm for South Africa—not for "the Afrikanders," but for the South Africans, black as well as white—must require, at least for a time, light and leading of the Imperial kind which Amsterdam cannot give it. It would be preposterous to look for these in Berlin. They must be found in London, and not in Cape Town or Durban.
Mr. Mackenzie pronounces, like Mr. Baden Powell, in favour of a British colonisation of Bechuanaland, and speaks with the authority given him by a residence of sixteen years in North, and of about nine in South, Bechuanaland. He thinks the country is healthier than our own, and would be a welcome change to " thrifty and laborious people who are battling for dear life on some small holding in England or Scotland." He believes there are portions of Bechuanaland where a body of some hundreds of agricultural emigrants would, like the Scottish
settlers on Baviaan's River some sixty years ago, take root from the first and make for themselves homes. Mr. Mackenzie also suggests that such emigrants should not be mere agriculturists, but should follow both branches of farming, making a start with some sheep or Angora goats, and a few cows. There is room, too, for the energetic rancher, if he works hard, and does not put too much stock by his cigarettes. He would find a market for large transactions at Kimberley,—" And Kimberley being within little more than twenty days from England, why should not Bechuana- land meat, tinned ' at Kimberley, compete with Australian?" The practical as distinguished from the political, historical, or con- troversial lesson of this book, may be summed up—so far as enter- prising would-be emigrants with capital, and poor but deserving men crowded out here, are concerned—in : Apply, if possible, to Khame.' Khame is the great chief who asked through Sir Charles Warren for a British protectorate, and openly expressed hie belief in the superiority of British to Dutch farmers. He is an old pupil of Mr. Mackenzie, and evidently a remark. able man, of quiet manners, sincere and upright. He has freed the vassals of his tribe. He is exceedingly hostile to the introduction of intoxicating liquors into his country. During a time of scarcity, he devoted his personal savings to purchasing from white men food for his starving subjects. His words, in offering land to English settlers, point him out as a man of sagacity. "I propose that a certain country of known dimensions shall be mine and my people's for our cattle-stations, as I have shown in the map. Then I say, with reference to all the country which remains, I wish that the English people should come and live in it ; that they should turn it into their cultivated fields and cattle-stations." Yet Khame also stipulates "that my people must not be prevented from hunting in all the country except where the English shall have come to dwell." Kbame is the most remarkable South African chief who figures in Mr. Mackenzie's book, and we cannot but believe that his desire to be brought into closer con- nection with English settlers and English ways, will yet—in spite of a first repulse—be recognised by the Colonial Office, as well as be responded to (as we presume it may be) by individual English farmers who may wish to try their fortunes in the truly promising portions of Bechuanaland.
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