MR. RUTRERFOORD HARRIS'S THREAT.
WE are entirely in favour of justice being secured for the Outlanders of the Transvaal, if it can be secured by peaceful pressure upon the Boer oligarchy ; but we are also entirely opposed to securing it by any breach of the national faith, and most of all opposed to committing that breach under fear of such threats as those put forward by Mr. F. Rutherfoord Harris, the secretary to the Chartered Company of South Africa. That gentleman, in his extremely readable article in the New Review, declares that the Transvaal is the wealthiest, and will be the most populous, of the States of South Africa; that South Africa will federate itself ; and that the whole future of our relation to the vast Dominion will depend upon our present treatment of the Outlanders. If we secure them justice at once, and, as we understand Mr. Harris, by using at least a menace of force, South Africa may remain attached to the Empire as a vast federated Dominion resembling Canada in loyalty, though far exceeding Canada in importance and in wealth. If, on the other hand, we allow the grievances of the Out- landers to continue, then South Africa will either become an independent Republic most hostile to Great Britain, or will accept protection from the Germans, who are eagerly intriguing for that end, who have close relations with the Dutch of the Transvaal, and who would have seized the vast expanses of Rhodesia had not Mr. Rhodes, taking advantage of their agent's illness, anticipated Count Pfeil's design. Mr. Rhodes, says Mr. Rutherfoord Harris, over- threw Lobengula to thwart the German Emperor's designs.
We object, we say, entirely to this style of argu- ment. It is political blackmailing, and nothing better. The Empire is not to pursue its policy in freedom, not to set good faith before it as its peremptory law, not even to consider its general foreign interests, but to take its orders from a few settlers in the Transvaal, that ie, in reality, from their employers, a group of capitalists, mostly Jews, under penalty of losing a great slice of its possessions. Deliver the Outlanders, or deliver up your goods,—those are the alternatives placed before us. We mistake Englishmen altogether if language of this kind moves them in the least, or creates any impression except that the Outlanders' case must be very weak, or they would not, while Mr. Chamberlain is doing all in his power to forward such of their views as he deems just, resort to such undisguised political bullying. Mr. Rather- foord Harris might have learned wisdom from a recent incident. The German Emperor, who controls a people a good deal stronger than the Colonists of South Africa, used language which, though undoubtedly menacing, con- tained no such formal challenge as this, and its only effect was to cause an outburst of popular anger and defiance such as took not only Germans, but the most experienced Englishmen, greatly by surprise. After that threat and its reception, to threaten this Empire with the displeasure of South Africa is a super- fluity of folly. It would be such even if no moral question were involved, and there is a moral question. Mr. Rutherfoord Harris, like the capitalists of the Rand who summoned Dr. Jameson, appears to overlook the fact that, whether the Boer oligarchy is bad or good, we gave those who compose it, by treaty, autonomy as regards all internal affairs. They have not broken the Convention, openly at least, and until they break it we have no more right to alter their internal government by force than we have to alter the internal administration of Portugal or Holland. If the immigrants can alter it for themselves, either by remonstrance or by voting or by armed rising, that is an internal affair, and no business of ours, but to compel such alteration by the use of external force would be a breach of faith which no consideration for "the fate of South Africa" could justify, and which would be most injurious to our Imperial interests. We govern a world-wide Empire through a big Fleet and a little Army, we are perpetually giving umbrage to first-class Powers, and if we are to avoid incessant war, it is essential that the word of the British Government should be con- sidered absolutely trustworthy. We cannot have all earth watching us always as if we were wolves about to spring, or brigands lying in wait in order to rush the bank.
If we narrow down the outlook to South African affairs only, the obligation of good faith is still as peremptory. We dismiss the idea of German intervention as introduced only to strengthen the menaces so injudiciously employed. The South Africans, whether British or Dutch, will never voluntarily place themselves under German officials—that would be exchanging King Log for King Stork with a vengeance—and Germany cannot transport her millions of soldiers, or any section of them, to South Africa without British permission. She must destroy our Fleet before her soldiers land. The Germans, though anxious for Colonies, are not anxious to colonise; and Germany, we feel confident, will not embark upon so mad an adventure. The people we have to think of are the Colonists, one-half of whom, or more, are of Dutch descent ; yet we are for- sooth to conciliate them by breaking a written engagement in order to overthrow a Dutch Republic so nearly indepen- dent, that it puts its President's head, and not the Queen's head, upon its coinage. What could be the effect of such a policy except to leave in the mind of every Dutch Colonist a sense of bitter resentment which would, when the Dominion was formed, entirely prevent the develop- ment of any feeling of loyalty to the Empire ? Our business, if we are statesmen, is to fuse all the different classes of white men in South Africa so completely, that even if they retain any of their racial prejudices they can act together under our protection against all outsiders as frankly as the English and French Colonists do in Canada, or the Americans and Germans do in the United States. To this end it is essential that we should not even be suspected of hostility to the foreign element, or at all events, if we are suspected, it should be felt to be as impossible that we should violate an agreement as that we shculd wilfully fail to pay the interest on Consols. Nobody imagines that We shall be guilty of the latter offence, and that is the reason why the British Treasury is the most powerful in the world. Mr. Rutherfoord Harris makes much of President Kruger's bad faith in trying to extend the Transvaal and to acquire Delagoa Bay, and to form secret relations with the German Emperor ; but he does not see that if that imputation tells so heavily against President Kruger, it would tell much more heavily against the British Government. Mr. Kruger is only an individual ruling a wild patch of the interior of Africa settled by an ignorant population ; but the British Government is a civilised Power bound by long traditions, and with a reputation to maintain all over the globe. If it breaks faith, it will do so with the fullest perception of the guilt of its proceedings.
Mr. Rutherfoord Harris will allege in reply that he is not asking the British Government either to violate the Con- vention or to use force, and we admit that he abstains from overplainness of speech, but then what is he asking for ? It is not he only—though his position in relation to the Chartered Company gives his view special importance—it is a whole group of persons who are endeavouring, in all kinds of ways, to " bustle " Mr. Chamberlain into doing something or other for the immediate benefit of the Out- landers. If they do not mean that he is to use force or threaten force, what do they mean ? Mr. Chamberlain is giving the Boers the clearest advice in the Outlanders' own sense. He is employing all the resources of diplo- macy. He is pointing out in a way most unusual in diplomacy, that whether Mr. Kruger likes it or not, the grievances of the Outlanders must ultimately be redressed, and that if they are not removed quickly, consequences will ensue most dangerous not only to the Transvaal but to all South Africa. What is there remaining except to employ force—as the Forward party at least certainly would prefer—or, as all cooler spirits recommend, to wait a little while until the question is settled without war by the mere operation of time ? Mr. Rutherfoord. Harris says himself that in a few years the British will be ten to one of the Boers in number, will own the whole Transvaal, and will pay all the taie3, and must there- fore in the end possess all power. Why should we not wait for that consummation, which we desire quite as earnestly as Mr. R ord Harris does, though we will not purchase it by any breach of a national engagement ? Because, we shall be told, Mr. Kruger is importing Krupp guns and tons of cartndges and scores of German policemen. What does it matter what he imports if the right to use his imports passes away from him and his followers ? Does Mr. Rutherfoord Harris think Mr. Kruger can make himself strong enough to declare war on the British Government, or does he seriously believe that in the twentieth century a minute oligarchy will be able to hold down a white population tenfold its own in number by the direct use of force ? The case of the Outlanders hardly needs arguing, it is so clear ; but if it could be destroyed, it would be by arguments like those of Mr. Rutherfoord Harris, which imply, if they mean anything, that unless the British Government, in violation of its agreements, intervenes at once, everything will go precisely as the Boers wish it to go. In other words, they have only to hold out, relying on the Convention, and they will win ; their countrymen or their allies reigning in South Africa. We wonder if the essayist believes his own arguments, or if he only thinks that if Englishmen believe them, they will think Dr. Jameson's raid the result of a patriotic fear ?
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