A MISSIONARY STATESMAN.* Jowl MACKENZIE is described as a "statesman"
by his biographer, and the title is no exaggeration of filial piety. There never was a man who deserved it better. If any one would see a practical exposition of how the statesman differs from the politician, let him compare Mackenzie's career with that of the successful partisan who has made his way to either of the Front Benches in the House of Commons. John Mackenzie went out to South Africa in obedience to what he conceived to be an irresistible command to preach the Gospel to the heathen. While he pursued this object under difficulties and dangers of no common kind, he began to find—and it is evident that from the beginning he was prepared to find—that the spiritual and the secular cannot be absolutely divided. The missionary might decline to carry a rifle even when there was some righteous cause in urgent need of his help ; but he could not decline to give his counsel when it was asked for. He could not but lift a voice of warning when he saw the authorities neglecting or misconceiving their duty ; he could not but protest when he saw the people among whom he was working oppressed and robbed, whether by his own countrymen or by other white men. The calls to which he could not shut his ears became more frequent; the work which this sense of duty imposed became more laborious. in 1878, just twenty years after his
• John 3rar.1.rr!ie, South African Missionary and S'-'esman. By W. Deagias Mackenzie. M.A. London Dodder and Ste aghten. [7s. 6d.3
landing at Cape Town, he became what his son calls an "Un- paid Administrator." He still carried on his missionary work
—he was tutor at the Kuruman .College—and probably
laboured as hard as any man has ever done in this world. And then for less than a year be was a paid Commissioner, at a salary which only a political failure would condescend to accept. Any life more absolutely free from self-seeking it is simply impossible to conceive. This is the kind of man to whom the country should look for clear political judgments. Pure in heart, he sees where truth and righteous- ness lie. That be should be set aside by professional politicians ; by the deliberately venal adventurer, always ready to charge others with venality, who chooses his party by the probabilities of advancement or wealth; or by the more honest but more mischievous doctrinaire, is a national mis- fortune, and one from which we have suffered in every region of the Empire,—in South Africa more conspicuously, perhaps, than elsewhere. Yet men such as John Mackenzie do not live in vain. He died, it is true, baffled and disappointed, but his convictions have a firmer hold on his countrymen to-day than they ever had before. The men who belittled and thwarted him are not a little discredited in the eyes of the nation. This record of his life and work will do much to complete so desirable a result.
John Mackenzie's first experiences of missionary work were disastrous, but they served to bring out the clear-sightedness and courage of the man. An expedition to the Zambesi had been planned. It seems to have been -pushed on with ha. prudent haste. One of the party declared that "he would begin his journey at once and take his family with him" —imagine explorers with a train of women and children!— " and this vigorous action of course determined the move- ments of the rest." Happily Mackenzie was constrained by circumstances to stay behind. Nine of the party died between March 2nd and April 22nd.
In the following year (1863) Mackenzie found himself at Shoshong, the chief town of the Bamangwato tribe,- a place where he was to spend many years of his life, learn many useful lessons, and do much admirable work. One of his first experiences there was an attack on the place by the Matabele. We have the. story told in a letter to the secretary, of the Missionary Society at home. It was a notable day in South African history, for it checked the tide of Matabele conquest. The hero of it was certainly Khama, the eldest son of the then reigning chief Sekhome, who showed on that day a -promise which he has more than fulfilled. There is a curious reminiscence of our own Alfred in the young chief warning his father, who was busy with divining the issue of the battle, that "he was taking up too much time with these things; that as for himself he wanted to fight and have done with it." Fight he did, and to excellent purpose, though he narrowly escaped with his life, his men deserting him on the field of battle. It was to the Matabele themselves that Mackenzie made his next journey. In 1864 he returned to Shoshong. and here he spent twelve years, interrupted by a visit to his home, where, as his biographer puts it, he" speedily plunged into that strange form of recreation which the Christian world affords to its wearied missionaries, and which is known as deputation work." During these twelve years he was thinking deeply on South African problems. He had large views of what England ought to do. He saw an irresistible movement of white men northwards. It was England's opportunity and duty to regulate it, to make it work for the general good, to ensure that the Pax Britannica should follow hard upon its steps. Of course he had adverse influences to contend with. There was the adventurer element anxious to exploit the wealth of the country without hindrance from Imperial control. Then there were the "Little England" doctrinaires, who were even then conspicuous advocates of the policy of cutting South Africa adrift. And there was the Dutch population, with its aspirations after an Empire of its own. It has been freely asserted by Radical politicians and journalists that these aspirations had no existence, but were the invention of politicians and adventurers who sought thereby to justify an unrighteous war. When the Boer delegates came to England to obtain some modification of the Pretoria Convention, Mackenzie wrote thus—it is worth while to quote the letter as it stands— "It is commonly supposed it is 'freedom' which the dear Dutchmen want. I'll tell you what it is. It is not self-govern- ment; that they have had, and have. There has been no real interference by England with their internal affairs since the Con- vention. It is not independence (like the Free State). But, in order to meet them, this might be given them, and Mr. Hudson removed from the Transvaal, and Bechuanaland administered by Cape Colony and England. But what they want is the supreme political position in South Africa, to be the Empire State among its States, the highway into the interior, to have native policy of the Future, etc., etc., all in their hands."
This was written in 1883. It was the deliberate opinion of one who had had every opportunity of seeing the truth, and who was absolutely free of all personal and party self-seeking.
It is difficult to suppose that there can be any one with a better right to speak. This superior authority will hardly be found among partisan leaders, or scribes who write as the
wzot d'ordre commands.
The story of how Mackenzie struggled against hostile forces, against indifference in high places and interested opposition elsewhere, is painful to read. Yet there are compensations to be observed. We have at least taken care that Khama, and his people should not be swallowed up by English money. seekers or Dutch slaveholders. We have vindicated, though at a tremendous cost, the Imperial supremacy which it was the passion of Mackenzie's life to assert. He did not live to
see these things. He died less than a year before the out- break of the Boer War, "taken from the evil to come." But he had 'the satisfaction of seeing that two men whom he trusted—Mr. Chamberlain and Alfred Milner—would have something to do with the course of events. Of the first be wrote:—" There is no first-class statesman who has so identi- fied himself with my views as Mr. Chamberlain has done " ; of the second :—" The Governor has gone North saying every- where the same healthy sound things." We must let his biographer, who has done his work admirably, give the
summing-up :—
"But be would be short-sighted indeed and ignorant of the Christian valuation of life and a life's work, who would pronounce this varied career anything less than nobly successful. There is another side. To have moulded the life of a Whole tribe directly and through its great chief, as Mackenzie moulded the Bamang- wato; to have exercised the wide educational and spiritual ihfluence over all Bechuanaland which he did from Kuruman ; to have been the man who first forced Great Britain to face her God- given task of controlling the destinies of the entire region from the Cape to the Zambesi; to have set forth from platform and pulpit, in magazine and volume, in newspaper and blue-book, the true principles of British policy in relation to all the races of that vast region; to have gone back and done, his best for one .community, small though it was, in Hankey, while yet helping is be did to inspire the religious enthusiasm of the members of his own denomination throughout the country; - with all :Md. through all these great tasks to have maintained his own inner life of fellowship• with God, unhindered, unstained ; and finally, under this influence to have ripened into a noble, beautiful character whom so many loved, and from whom so many lives received their purest impulses, their 'strongest faith—surely this deserves to have spoken over all its pages from first to last, even from the lips of man, that kindly judgment' which he hoped to hear (and hears, we trust) from the lips of his Master, Well done!"
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