TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE PEACE.
THE terms of peace are worthy of the British people, but they can afford no surprise to those who have watched the temper of the nation during the war, or who have studied our moral and political history in the past. As we have pointed out elsewhere, they give the Boers no more than we should have given them had they laid down their arms without any conditions whatever or had the Boers to the last man been captured in the field. We never intended to be vindictive to the Boers, but always meant to do our best to get them to be co-operators with its in the resettlement of the country. Therefore it was inevitable that we should grant them help and money to get back to the land. A gain, we have no use in our free Empire for communities of men of European blood and language who are not either self-governing or else being prepared for a condition of self-government. Therefore, terms or no terms, we should in any case have gradually introduced—and with a graduation as rapid as was wise and reasonable—the representative element, and have developed it till South Africa as a whole became one of the free nations of the Empire. We were not going to reverse our whole Imperial system because we had had a passage of arms with the Boers, and while the action of Canada and Australia, Nev Zealand and Natal, stood witness of the absolute success of that system. Take again the language problem. There never was any question among responsible people of persecuting Dutch, of with- standing the wishes of parents who desired Dutch to be taught to their children in public schools, or of impairing the efficiency of the Courts by not allow- ing its use when necessary in legal proceedings. Lastly, it was obvious that we should never, when peace was de- clared, exact our pound of flesh as regards the crime of re- bellion, or do more than punish the ringleaders and prevent the ex-rebel from ruling over the loyal man by the exer- cise of the right to vote, which the rebel had deliberately cast away. The Boers, judging by their own Draconian code in such matters, may have imagined that we intended when the war was over to hold a kind of Bloody Assize, but no such notion ever entered the head of Mr. Chamber- lain or of any of his colleagues, or, indeed, of any other recognised leader of public opinion. The Boers may think that they secured the lives of their helpers in the Colony by placing them within the terms, but as a matter of fact their position as far as the British Government were concerned would have been no worse had there beenno terms. We could not then, any more than we can now, have forcibly interfered in a free Colony like Natal to alter the administration of justice, but our representations would certainly not have been less active to prevent extreme penalties being inflicted. In a word, the Boers have extorted nothing from us by their continued fighting which they could not always have had, for the very good reason that our political traditions, and our Imperial system generally, forbade the makingof any other settlement. To say that the Boers would have come in a year and more ago if we had offered them then what we have offered them now is absurd. The Boers did not come in then because they were still determined that they would take nothing less than complete independence.
But though peace has been concluded, and though we do not think that there is any risk of a fresh outbreak on the part of the Boers either now or when the prisoners have been sent back, we fully admit that there are many rocks ahead in South Africa, and that for the next five or six years the country will need strong and steady guidance under a wise and experienced ruler. The first of these rocks ahead is the treatment of the loyalists. We are not in the least afraid of the Boers not receiving the just and generous treatment which we admit they should receive, because persecution of the vanquished is not a fault with British administrators. Their " snare " is in the other direction,—that of over-petting a former enemy. What we are afraid of is a tendency to neglect the loyalists in our anxiety to behave well to the Boers. Now we have not, it is needless to say, the slightest wish to advocate the setting up of a permanent privileged and pampered loyalist caste in South Africa. There must be absolute equality, not only before the law but before the Adminis- tration. We hold, however, that in the matter of material consideration in the work of resettlement, wherever possible the loyalists must be given the preference. Loyalists as well as Boers have had their lands wasted and their businesses destroyed by the war, and when a just case for compensation has been made out, we hold that the com- pensation awarded the loyalists should be on a somewhat higher scale. We must not furnish any valid excuse for the statement that the Boers who fought against us for nearly three years have come better out of the struggle than those who fought on our side. The loyalists were not, we fully realise, loyal to the flag because they thought it would pay them best, but since they have been loyal they must not be allowed to feel that it would have been quite as well for them to have made no sacrifices on the British side. Had we been harsh to the Boers we might have been indifferent to our own side. Our tenderness to the Boers necessitates an even more anxious care for the loyalists. But by loyalists we do not, of course, mean every man who is now shouting for the winning side, or whose lovalism only became apparent when the tide had clearly turned. By loyalists we mean the men who stood fairly by us through both good and evil report, and who showed that their loyalty was real and not merely skin-deep. Such men, and there were many of them, must not be for- gotten in the settlement. If they were forgotten, or even if we appeared to forget them, we should leave an evil legacy to South Africa. However, the country has every ground for believing that they will not be neglected, for, happily, Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Milner are neither of them men likely to forget their duty in this respect. They are not the men who desert those who have worked for them. Better still, for few men are intentionally un- grateful, they do not neglect matters of detail, they know what they are about, and do not let grave matters drift out of mere forgetfulness.
Another rock ahead, though one in regard to which Lord Milner is no doubt on the look-out, is the native question. All countries in which the majority of the inhabitants are black men only one or two stages removed from pure savages are liable to sudden outbreaks. These outbreaks often take place owing to no special cause, but simply because the natives have reached a certain point of effervescence. Such a point is often reached at the end of any great struggle or social convulsion. We do not know whether it is so in fact, but we should not be at all surprised to learn that the natives in South Africa were at this moment in a condition which would render careful handling of them very necessary. They cannot but have been perturbed by the sight of a three years' war, by the wasting of the country, by the cruelties of the Boers, and by the sternness with which we rightly punished their acts of retaliation on the Boers. Logically, no doubt, the natives should not choose the close of the war to make any hostile movement. But then natives are not logical, and if they show any signs of restlessness it will not be because they see an opportunity, but simply because they are the victims of a certain excitement. Remember, we do not in the least suggest that any movement hostile to the whites will, in fact, break out, or that if it did it could not be easily con- trolled. The most we wish to say is that the present is an occasion when the natives will want cautious scrutiny and when the condition of the great black population should be most carefully watched. It may be, of course, that even this surmise is wrong, and that the natives just now want no special attention and watchfulness ; but if it is, then the results which usually follow a great war have not taken place in the present case.
Before we leave the subject of the effects of the peace, we must say a word as to suggestions that have been made in regard to the suspension of self-government in Cape Colony. Our own feeling is strongly against any such action unless it can be shown absolutely that the present Ministry cannot remain in office, and that the first effect of the assembling of Parliament would be to place the loyal part of the Colony under the disloyal. But according to the Cape Premier there is 'no fear of this. Sir Gordon Sprigg tells us that the Ministry is secure till the elections, that they must result in a victory for the loyalists, and that then a Redistribution Bill can be introduced which will secure British ascen- dency. If this is so there can be no need to suspend the Constitution. Apart from that, however, Sir Gordon Sprigg's speech raises the question of "gerrymandering." Would it be right to manipulate the distribution of seats in order to secure a British victory ? Certainly not, say the friends of the Boers. We agree ; but those who take this line must surely admit that if it is wrong to " aerrymander " for the British side, it must also be wrong to maintain a system like the present, which was the result of a " gerrymander " in favour of the Boers. What is Wanted is a numerically fair system of redistribution which will give no disproportionate weight to the up-country districts as compared to the coast towns. Given perfect justice in the matter of redistribution, we believe that the Cape Parliament would be controlled by, we will not say a British, but a sincerely loyal majority. Remember that a just system of redistribution will be supplemented by the exclusion from the vote of all active rebels. If, however, it should be shown that even after the application of a fair system of representation and the disfranchisement of rebels the Cape Parliament would still be controlled by rebel sympathisers, then we hold that certain districts by an amendment of the Acts conferring self-government should be temporarily withdrawn from the Cape and placed for a time under the Orange Colony Administration. We believe it to be most important that the greater part of Cape Colony should remain, in word and deed, fully self-governing. But it is also necessary that this self-governing community should be loyal in feeling. If, then, the present Colony is not loyal or capable of being made loyal, the right of self-government must be withdrawn from the disloyal districts. That seems, no doubt, at first sight a harsh, or even cynical, proposal, but if it is carefully considered it will, we believe, be recognised as one fully justified by the war. To sum up, we hold that everything possible should be done to prevent the abolition of self- government, at any rate in the major part of Cape Colony. We want to keep the flag of self-government flying in South Africa, both in the Colony and in Natal, in order that when the time for federating the whole of South Africa arrives, we shall be able to approach the task with the help of popularly elected representatives in at least half the country.
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