TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE OPPOSITION AND SOUTH AFRICA.
TF we were inclined to be pessimists (which we are not), the debate on the political problem in South Africa might well be made the excuse for preaching the gospel of despair. There never was a time when sane and sensible criticism was more wanted from the Opposition in Parlia- ment. Yet instead of sane and sensible criticism we get the kind of stuff—with the exception of Mr. Asquith's speech— which was poured out in the House of Commons during the past week. To contemplate that flood of sickly declama- tion without nausea requires indeed a strong stomach. Fortunately we ourselves, and we believe most English- men, possess the required strength of stomach, and recog- nise that the party and Parliamentary system to which on the whole we owe so much, and which, in our opinion, is in no sense "played out," is bound, like all other things human, occasionally to give bad results in its working. We can understand, however, if we do not agree with, those who are indignant at speeches like those of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his more immediate followers last week and this week. Our chief complaint is of the atmosphere of humbug which pervades them throughout. The leader of the Opposition and his friends must at heart know perfectly well that in dealing with the political problem in South Africa the Government have no other aim or wish than, as soon as they can possibly do so with safety, to establish in the whole of our South African dominions those free, liberal, and independent institutions which exist in Cape Colony and Natal. There is not a member of the Government who will not welcome the day when South Africa as a whole can take the position of Canada or of Australia, and who does not mean to work for so excellent a result. And this fact is, of course, not concealed from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his friends. Yet to judge from their speeches and the innuendoes and suggestions and hints they let fall, one would imagine that they really believed that the Government were engaged in a dark conspiracy to reverse the whole of our traditional Colonial policy, and meant to establish a perfectly new form of government,—one under which the new Colonies in South Africa would be permanently governed as subject dependencies, like, say, Ceylon or the provinces of our Indian Empire. Of course, the Opposition speakers do not say this in so many words, but they employ a line of argument that suggests it ; and they imply that unless the Government pledge themselves to endow the Free State and the Transvaal instantly with complete self-government they are abandoning our old and well-tried system, and have ceased to agree that free- dom and self-government must be the permanent ground- principle of the Empire. Here, no doubt, people under- stand the game, and pay comparatively little attention to these rhetorical vagaries. The British people not only know that the Cabinet has, in fact, no such sinister inten- tions, hut know also that if it had it would be utterly unable to carry out so monstrous a revolution in our Colonial policy. But in South Africa, in Canada, and abroad such suggestions may do an infinity of mischief, and therefore these attempts on the part of the Opposition to gain a party point by the misrepresentation of the intentions of the Government deserve the strongest con- demnation by all who desire the welfare of the Empire.
If we turn from these unlovely exhibitions of party rhetoric at Westminster, a rhetoric at once timid and disingenuous, to the real points at issue, it is quite clear what will be the course of events in South Africa. While the war is still going on the Government cannot make any formal statement of their intentions, because to do so would certainly be represented by the Boers as a sign of weakness, as the beginning of that policy of surrender which the Boers have always been taught to look forward to,—a. policy which, in spite of everything, the ignorant farmers, misled by their intriguing guides in Europe or at the Cape, are still firmly convinced must come about. Any- thing that could be twisted by the ingenuity of the Boers and represented as a signal of distress from the British Government would add hundreds of recruits to the forces of De Wet and Botha. But the fact that the Government cannot speak yet will not make sensible and fair-minded people here imagine that the Government are unsound on the ultimate settlement. What the Government will do is quite certain. As soon as the war is really over, the present military rule will be superseded by civil rule of the Crown Colony form. That is not a proper form of permanent rule for parts of the Empire inhabited by white settlers, but it is by no means a harsh or illiberal system. Under it public opinion has a very great weight and complete personal liberty is guaranteed. There is no risk of a case like the Edgar case, or of any other of the acts of corruption and malad- ministration dangerous to individual freedom which prevailed in the Transvaal, occurring under the Crown Colony system. But the Crown Colony system is not meant to last, and will not last more than a few years. As soon as the great non-Dutch population which were so cruelly driven from their homes by the Boers at the beginning of the war have returned, and have had their numbers still further augmented, as is sure to be the case, the time for the establishment of Colonial self-government on the Australian model will have arrived. When, as before the war, the non-Boer popula- tion of the Transvaal is largely in excess of the Boer population, it will be safe to bestow self-government on the Transvaal. But when that self-government is granted it must be given, not, according to Boer ideas, to one race (even though that race will be in a majority and not, as the Dutch were, in a minority), but to all the white inhabitants of the country. There is only one other condition that must be fulfilled before the grant of self-government. It must be clear that the Boers have got on terms of sufficient goodwill with the men they formerly oppressed to make it unlikely that the British majority will deal harshly with the Boer minority.
Our general belief—one which we have expressed since the very beginning of the war—is, then, that when once the tide of immigration to the Transvaal has strongly set in, as it will set in as soon as peace is really restored, the Boers will become a negligible quantity. We believe that before the war the misgovernment of the Boers deterred a. very great number of persons who would otherwise have gone from going to the Transvaal. The reports sent home, especially in the case of English settlers, greatly dis- couraged immigration. Now, however, that the Briton will feel secure of good government at once and of self-govern- ment very shortly, the ratio of increase in the population will be much greater than formerly. It will, in our opinion, also be a permanent increase of population. At the very least the gold deposits are a seventy years' lease, and in all probability other mineral discoveries will follow, and so render the working out of the gold a matter of less importance. And quite apart from the gold, the develop- ment of railways, roads, and irrigation will prove a very great source of attraction as regards population. If, then, we only keep the peace firmly for the next five or six years, and maintain a fair and liberal system of Crown Colony government, we may be assured that in the Transvaal the natural course of events will completely solve for us the problem of British supremacy. Solvitur ambulanclo. The Free State may take a little longer to reach the self- governing state, but even it will feel the effects of the Transvaal prosperity and development. Again, it is to be hoped that in the Free State a large number of soldier- settlers will be planted by the State. Their presence will materially diminish the period of waiting for the estab- lishment of self-government. No one will want every Free State Boer to declare himself personally convinced of the benefits of his admission into the British Empire. It will be enough to arrive at a general understanding that the grant of self-government can be made without any danger of fresh trouble and unrest.
We are almost ashamed to publish what we have written on the course of policy which will be pursued in South Africa, for it cannot but have an air of sameness and triteness to our readers,—the thing which every one knows and is agreed about. Yet, though this is no doubt the case, and needs an apology, the Opposition pretend to ignore it, and are shouting themselves hoarse that that wicked man, Mr. Chamberlain, and his miserable accom- plices are bent on reversing the whole Colonial policy of Great Britain and setting up a tyranny in South Africa. We have felt compelled, therefore, to tread once again the well-worn road by way of protest. The pretence that the Government have other views is a pitiable piece of party tactics, but we suppose it must be borne in equanimity, and that we shall also have to endure the final scene, when Sir Henry Campbell-Baunerman and his followers will declare that the Government's wise and liberal adherence to our well-tried Colonial system is due entirely to their protests and arguments.
Previous page
