TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE BETTER OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA.
TT is most sincerely to be hoped that the belief that things are going better in South Africa will turn out to be well founded. On Thursday Mr. Chamberlain expressed a strong hope that "the new law" would prove a basis of settlement, and the general tone of his state- ment was distinctly favourable to peace. If on further knowledge this view, as we trust and believe it will be, is confirmed, and the latest concessions made by the Transvaal prove to be already adequate and acceptable, or can be rendered, so, there will be a very general feeling of relief throughout the country. That feeling of relief will be quite as strong and quite as genuine amongst the so-called bloodthirsty supporters of the Outlanders, as amongst those who hold that President Kruger should be allowed to do what he will with his own, and that we have no moral right to do more than offer him good advice coupled with the assurance that we should never dream of employing force to back up our advice. The task before the Government is perfectly clear. They have got to consider the details of the new proposals, and to determine whether they fulfil the essen- tial conditions already laid down. They must ask, that is, whether the new law will enfranchise at once a reason- able number of Outlanders, and also whether the men thus enfranchised will be accorded a number of repre- sentatives sufficient to give them, not, of course, a pre- ponderance in the Raad, but, at any rate, some voice in its proceedings. If these conditions are obtainable under the new scheme, we do not for a moment believe that the Government will prove unbending in regard to the seven years' proposal. Though, as Lord Ripon pointed out, and Mr. Schreiner admitted, five years is a very reasonable period of prior residence, there is nothing absolutely sacred in it. The difference might, for example, be split and six years adopted, or the seven years might quite properly be agreed to, provided that the enfranchisement that would result could be shown to be substantial. In regard to all such details, however, the Government must be trusted. They alone are in the possession of the full facts, and we may be quite certain, considering the tremendous induce- ments that they have to procure a peaceful solution of the problem, that they will not reject President Kruger's plan on any narrow or pedantic grounds. In our own belief, there are many conditions far more important than the question of seven or five years, and on these we trust that our Government will stand firm. The first of these conditions is that the enfranchisement when given shall be full and complete, and shall make the political status of the enfranchised man as good as that of any burgher. There must, that is, be an absolute equality of citizenship. To put the matter in a specific form, the vote given must be the vote for the Presidency as well as for the Raad, and the newly enfranchised man must not be told that he will be obliged to go through yet another period of probation before he is able to vote for the President. Next, it is essential that the Boer Execu- tive shall not be allowed to retain a dispensing power which will enable them to select from the whole body of Outlanders a certain number of persons whom they think favourable to their views, and to give them a ready-made vote for immediate use. If this were to be allowed the Executive might before any election manu- facture a body of new votes capable of turning the scale. The method of acquiring the vote must be the same for all. Again, the Imperial Government should not assent to any arrangement under which the acquisition of the vote shall be loaded with so many technicalities that objections and allegations of imperfect naturalisation will be numerous, and will have to be tried by an authority unfriendly to the Outlanders. We do not wish to be over-suspicious, but these questions must be looked full in the face. It would be no good to give the Out- landers the vote, and then to allow some form of Registra- tion Court or official to strike off names from the lists by the hundred because it was alleged that this or that notice had been improperly served or worded, or presented on the wrong day. In a word, the Imperial Government should not agree to any but a simple franchise law, which shall not be capable of being un- fairly manipulated at moments of political storm and stress. To sum up, then, we shall be greatly relieved if - the Government can find it possible to accept the seven years' proposal,—and we are sure they will accept it if they can. At the same time, we feel most strongly that no franchise scheme should be accepted which does not (1) include the vote for the Presidency, and so produce a real equality of citizenship ; (2) which does not forbid the introduction of specially favoured voters by a back door ; (3) which does not provide a simple form of franchise which cannot be manipulated in the interests of the present oligarchy. Very possibly the Boers have already given way on these points, and there- fore our warnings are happily beside the mark ; but if not, we feel certain that they should be insisted on.
There are two other points of importance which, though very different, deserve notice. The first of these is the question of devising some way of meeting the sentimental, but very natural, objection which is felt by Englishmen as to giving up their British citizenship. We do not in the least credit the talk about the Outlanders being merely birds of passage, but we do believe that most men who go to the Transvaal, like most of those who go to Australia, or Natal, or Canada, cherish the belief that some day, and after they have made a little money, they will go back to the Old Country and settle down "as gentlemen of independent means in Somersetshire, or Yorkshire, or Aberdeenshire, or the County Down. Of course, for the vast majority of emigrants this dream is never realised. They live and die in the new land. Nevertheless the sentiment is in the minds of practically all modern emigrants—the emigrant who deliberately said " good-bye " to the white cliffs for ever is a person of the past—and it is much disturbed by the notion of coming back, not as a British citizen, but as an alien. To meet this sentimental objection, for such it really is, we do not see why Parliament (we have made the proposal before) should not pass a short Act declaring that if a British subject becomes a citizen of a State standing towards the United Kingdom in the relation occupied by the Transvaal towards this country, and so loses his rights as a British subject, those rights shall fully revive if and when he becomes domiciled in any part of her Majesty's dominions. In order to make such a law fair all round, and provided the Transvaal did not object, it might indeed be enacted in the form that any burgher of the Transvaal, when he obtained a domicile in any part of the British dominions, should become, if he desired, a British subject. This would be a step towards that common citizenship for all South Africa which is so desirable. Men ought to be able to move freely about South Africa without having to do what Burke called "plodding with attorneys" in order to find out what are their legal rights and liabilities.
The other point to which we desire to draw attention is the unanimous support accorded by the Legislature of Natal to the policy of the Imperial Government as regards tbe Transvaal. We are constantly told by the supporters of the Boers, and in a sense quite rightly, that we must think of South African local opinion, and that we must not disregard the feelings of our fellow-subjects in South Africa. We agree, but it must be the opinion, not merely of a part of South Africa, but of the whole. We must not, that is, fix our attention on the Dutch Afri- kander in Cape Colony, and talk as if he, and he alone, had a right to speak for South Africa. By all means let us give his views the most careful and sympathetic con- sideration, but while doing so do not let us neglect the opinion of the people of Natal, and of the men of British blood and British proclivities at the Cape and in Rhodesia. We are most strongly in favour of consulting South African local feeling, but it must be the opinion of South Africa as a whole, and not merely of one part.
Previous page
