THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMITTEE.
DISAPPOINTMENT and annoyance have been ex- pressed in certain quarters at the tone of Mr. Chamberlain's speech on the South African Committee. We by no means share that sense of disappointment and annoyance. To us he appears to have performed a most diffi- cult and delicate task with extraordinary tact and prudence, —to have exhibited, in a word, his characteristic sense of statesmanship. The task before him was by no means an easy one. He had to induce the House of Commons to assent to an inquiry which probably the majority of every party in the House regarded with dislike and disfavour. The majority of the Unionists were, we fear, quite of Mr. Maclean's and Sir John Lubbock's opinion, and would have been delighted to see the Committee dropped. If not a very large majority of the English Home-rulers, at any. rate something very like it, were of the same opinion ; while. in each group of the Nationalists the preponderating voice was against an investigation. Hence the House would have been only too glad to find some way of getting out_of -the inquiry to which it was committed last Session. If Mr. Chamberlain had given it any excuse for not re- appointing the Committee the House would have seized it with avidity. The mischievous talk about not tearing open old sores, washing dirty linen in public, and making fresh trouble in South Africa, had for the moment carried everything before it, and Members would. have been only too delighted to stop the inquiry. If, then, Mr. Chamberlain had made a speech of a heated. character, one which could have been represented. as too strong, or as unfair, or as one-sided, there is no telling what would have been the consequences. But Mr. Chamberlain gave no possible excuse for an outburst of wild and impulsive feeling on the part of a. House half frightened, half confused by suggestions as to the terrible things that might happen if this persecution of the most popular Englishman in South Africa were pressed to the full. He made the Committee inevitable by the moderate and conciliatory nature of his speech. After that speech no one could say that the fate of South Africa and of the Company was in rash and reckless hands. Mr. Chamberlain has been called a great House of Commons' orator but not a great manager of the House of Commons. Those who have been inclined. to agree with this verdict must, after last Friday, modify their view. Lord Palmerston himself could not have more dexterously and potently forced. the House to do what it so very much disliked doing, and what, if left to _itself, it would never have done.
Mr. Chamberlain at the very outset of his speech laid. down his essential and guiding principle in the present crisis. It is to do everything that will promote good feeling and a sense of unity between the Dutch and the British elements in South Africa. This is. indeed, the one thing needful, and we fully agree with Mr. Chamber- lain's claim that it has been, is, and will be his policy. If only the Colonial Office can succeed in reconciling Dutch and British feeling the game is won. The rest of the problems may be tiresome and difficult and perplexed, but not one of them will prove beyond solution. Every ques- tion, then, that arises in South Africa must for the present be governed by the consideration of how the decision will affect the relations of the two races. It is for this reason, if for no other, that it was necessary to proceed with the inquiry. Had the Committee not been reappointed, the effect upon Afrikander opinion would have been most disastrous. The hushing-up of the matters now to be inquired into would have seemed like a gross act of partiality on the part of the British Government. Mr. Chamberlain's speech showed that the inquiries of the Committee will be directed towards three points. The first is the Raid, the second the manner in which the Company has fulfilled the trust placed in its hands by the British Government, and the third is the grievances of the Outlanders in Johannesburg. In regard to- the Raid it is not necessary to speak, except to say that we presume the Committee will chiefly occupy itself with how far the Chartered Company is or is not implicated in the matter. That Mr. Chamberlain should have specially named the grievances of the Outlanders, and should have left the consideration of how far these grievances justified the Reform movement in Johannesburg to the Committee, appears to us a subject for congratulation. We have always felt those grievances to be a matter of great importance, and we hold most distinctly that they ought to be examined and considered. There remains what is to us the substantial part of the inquiry, or rather the part of the inquiry out of which most good is likely to come,— that concerned with the behaviour of the Chartered Company since its establishment. And here it may be worth while to put forth certain of the points which most specially require elucidation. In our opinion the most important of these is the question of the treatment of the natives. How has the Company discharged its trust in regard to the natives ? We are not, as our readers know, in the least inclined to be negro- phile in feeling, nor do we believe the black man to be equal to the white. Again, we hold that a country cannot be closed. against whites, even if it can be proved that the blacks would be the happier if left to themselves. At the same time we hold most strongly that it is the prime duty of England to see that no black man or yellow man under the British flag is enslaved either formally or by any system of forced labour, or is otherwise treated with cruelty or unfairness. Justice and equal freedom are the antiseptics of Empire, and only by persevering in their practice can we hope that our rule will continue. If once we adopt the attitude and methods of Portugal and Spain towards the inferior races, our place in the world is forfeited and our doom is at hand. Now it is. alleged that the Chartered Company, in its eagerness to supply labour to the gold- mines, has been guilty of violating the rights of the natives, and generally of cruel and oppressive con- duct towards them,—conduct which has no parallel in the records of the British Empire for the past two generations. It may be that these allegations are quite unfounded. If so, no one will rejoice more than we shall. There is, however, enough primal facie evidence to make the matter one which will require the closest attention from the Committee. Some of this evidence is collected in a pamphlet published this week, entitled " Matabeleland and the Chartered Company," published by Messrs. King and Son, of King Street, Westminster, and written by Mr. Fox Bourne. If the facts given in this pamphlet are correctly stated—the pamphlet, it may be mentioned, chiefly consists of quotations from Blue- books, official reports of the Company's officers, and ex- tracts from newspapers published in Rhodesia—it would appear that the Chartered Company has practically created a system of forced labour. In other words, while we have been boasting, and rightly boasting, that we have abolished the corve'e in Egypt, we, or rather our agents behind our backs, have been setting up a new corvie at the other end of Africa. In our simplicity we had always imagined when we read about Native Commissioners that these persons were occupied in the work of protecting the natives, and in seeing that they were not unfairly or oppres- sively treated. If, however, the pamphlet before us is to be trusted, the Native Commissioners have instead been used first to whip up black labour for the mines, and next to 'keep them at work when once engaged. Take the following extract describing the work of the Native Commissioners, which, according to the pamphlet, appeared in the Bula- wayo Chronicle on February 22nd, 1896 :—" The Native Commissioners have done good work in procuring native labour. During the months of October, November, and December they supplied to the mining and other indus- tries in Matabeleland no less than 9,000 boys. The moment labour deserters are reported, the Commissioner sends the Native Police in pursuit, and a message is despatched to the kraal of the offender, informing the induna of his desertion. The difficulty in capturing the deserter is added to by the fact that he seldom returns direct to his kraal, being far more likely to go for a time to a distant part of the country." A letter from Chief Native Commissioner Taylor to the Bulawayo Chamber of Mines, read at its meeting on February 27th, 1896, may be com- pared with this statement. "The number of natives supplied for labour to the mines and for other purposes from the different districts in Matabeleland," he wrote, " totals 9,102. It is estimated that the approximate number of boys who have not been supplied by the Native Depart- ment, but who have gone voluntarily to work, is 4,500." The contrast thus made between the boys supplied by the Department and those " who have gone volun- tarily to work " is most significant. We shall, how- ever, make no comment except to ask that the labour regulations of the Company be inquired into most strictly, and to quote again from the pamphlet an excerpt from Mr. Selous's book, " Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia " :— " On this subject Mr. Selous throws very important light. ' Grievances of course they had,' he says of the natives, 'the chief of which was doubtless the loss of their independence as a nation, and the fact that they found themselves treated as a conquered people lately engaged in hostilities, who had only been permitted to return to the country from the time of the first war under certain conditions, one of which was that the indunas should, through the medium of the Native Commissioners, supply miners and farmers with native labour, all the able-bodied young men in the country being required to work for a certain number of months per annum at a fixed rate of pay Owing to the ex- cessive indolence of the people, however, there can be no doubt that the labour regulations were most irksome to them. The -indunas grew more and more disinclined to exert their authority in the matter of inducing their people to work when applications were made to them, with the result that native policemen were sent to their kraals to insist on the labour regulations being carried out, and these policemen, I fear, sometimes exceeded their duties, and used their position to tyrannise over the people.
I myself complained to the Acting Administrator, Mr. Duncan, concerning the inconsiderate manner in which it appeared to me that the labour regulations were carried out."
The compiler of the pamphlet, Mr. Fox Bourne, tells us that there is no official confirmation of these arrangements, but adds that it is not likely that Mr. Selous would have stated them without good ground. If they are true, then the Chartered. Company has been doing what the British people never dreamt of its doing,—establishing a system of forced labour which differs very little from slavery. Nay, more, they have established this forced labour in the very teeth of an agreement made with the Government in May, 1894 :— -" That Agreement provides in its Clause 23 that natives shall not be subjected to any exceptional legislation, save as regards liquor, arms and ammunition, and as regards the title and occu- pation of land as hereinafter referred to in Clause 27, and as regards any other matter which the Administrator in Council may, with the approval of the High Commissioner aid the assent of the Secretary of State, and subsequently by regulation, define, provided that nothing herein contained shall prevent a but tax being imposed by legislative authority in respect of the occupa- tion of huts by natives.' Clause 27 provides that ' the Land Commission shall assign to the natives land sufficient and suitable for their agricultural and grazing requirements, and cattle sufficient for their needs ; ' and Clause 30 that no removal of natives from any kraal or from any portion of land assigned by the Land Commission shall take place to another locality, except after due inquiry made upon the spot, and with the authority of the said Commission ; ' and Clause 33 that natives shall have the right to acquire and hold and dispose of landed property in the same manner as persons who are not natives.' " If this agreement means anything, it means that the natives are not to be subjected to forced labour,—for how can forced labour be created in an English community except by exceptional legislation ? It is possible, however, that Mr. Selous, the writer of the pamphlet, and the Native Commissioner who draws the distinction between voluntary labourers and those collected by the Department, are all mistaken, and that there has been no forced labour. In that case the Company will have no difficulty in proving the fact before the Committee, and Mr. Fox Bourne will be altogether discomfited. If, however, it is proved that a system of forced labour has been carried out by the Company, then it will be necessary to con- sider whether such a gross and patent breach of trust does not constitute a case for the cancelling of the Charter, or, at any rate, for the permanent and absolute withdrawal of all the governing powers from the Company, —subject, of course, to a rearrangement of its mineral and other trading privileges. That, however, is not a matter for us to decide, but only for the respon- sible advisers of the Crown. At present, all that it is necessary to press for is the fullest possible inquiry in regard to the Company's administration. When we know the facts and have got the verdict it will be time enough to think about the judgment. That policy as well as punishment will have to find a place in that judgment, should it perchan ce go againstthe Company, we do not doubt. It might, that is, turn out, in the event we have supposed, to be more convenient to control the Company than to destroy it. In any case, it is premature to consider the matter further now. At present, what we want and what we must have is " The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
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