The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction

But if Johannesburg shows a certain unrest, she also reveals a curious solidarity – the strength of narrowness and exclusion, which is partly natural and due to the struggle for self-conscious existence, and partly accidental and based on a profound disappointment. Her citizens believed that the end of the war would begin a golden age of unprecedented prosperity. Money was to flow into her coffers, her population to grow by many thousands each year, and she herself was to stand out before an envious world as a type of virtue rewarded. She miscalculated the future, and the facts left her aghast. Conservative estimates, a few years back, put the value of the gold output in 1902 at between 20 and 30 millions: the actual figures during the first year of peace show little over 10 millions – a reduction on the output of 1898. Hence the almost hysterical concentration of interest on the one great industry. Men who in other matters are remarkable for their breadth of view, are to be found declaring that everything must be made subordinate to mining development, – not in the sense in which the saying is true, that the prosperity of the country depends in the first instance on the mines, but in the quite indefensible sense that any consideration of other things, even when there is no conflict between them and the mining interest, is a misapplication of energy which should go to the greater problem. It is fair to argue against a programme of public works which might draw native labour from the mines, because, unless we cherish the goose, there will be no golden eggs to pay for our programmes. But to condemn schemes of settlement which are no more a hindrance to the gold industry than to the planetary system, is to show a nervous blindness to graver questions, which is the ugliest product of the present strain and confusion. This trait, however, cannot be permanent; and we may look to see the gold industry in time, when its own crisis is past, become that enlightened force in politics which the ability of its leaders and the weight of its organisation entitle it to be. For the other form of narrowness, which consists in the limitation of citizenship, there is ample justification in present circumstances. A new city must begin by drawing in her skirts and showing herself, perhaps unwarrantably, jealous and sensitive. More especially a city which has hitherto been rather a fortuitous gathering of races than a compact community, is right in straining after such compactness, even at the cost of a little injustice. The only danger lies in the perpetuation of this attitude when its justification has gone.

The fault of Johannesburg, to sum up, lies for the moment in a certain narrow hardness of view: her hope is in the possession of rich elements unknown in most new cities; while her greatest danger lies in the fact that she cannot yet honestly claim those elements as her own. She is apt to judge a question from a lower point of view than the question demands – to take up a parochial standpoint in municipal affairs, a municipal standpoint in national affairs, a national standpoint in imperial questions. In spite of her many splendid loyalties, she will find it hard to avoid the assertive contra mundum attitude which seems inseparable from flourishing colonial cities – a dogmatism natural, but unfortunate. On the other hand, her history and her present status give her a chance beyond other new cities. She starts on her civic career already rich, enterprising, the magnet for the first scientific talent of the world. A fortunate development might give her a cultivated class, true political instincts, and the self-restraint which springs from a high civilisation, without at the same time impairing that energy which she owes to her colonial parentage. The danger is that her ablest element may continue alien, treating the city as a caravanserai, and returning to Europe as soon as its ambition is satisfied. So far the intellect has not been with the men who have made the place their home, but, subject to a few remarkable exceptions, with the men who have never concealed their impatience to get away. If she fails to make this class her citizens, then, whatever her prosperity, as a city she will remain mediocre. Nothing can deprive her of her position as the foremost market; but if she is to be also the real capital of South Africa, she must absorb the men who are now her resident aliens. There are signs, indeed, that the process has begun in all seriousness. As she becomes a more pleasant dwelling-place, many who find in the future of the country the main interest of their lives will find in Johannesburg the best field of labour for the end they desire. And the growth of such a leisured class, who take part in public life for its own sake and for no commercial interests, will not only import into municipal politics a broader view and a healthier spirit, but will do much to secure that community of interest between town and country by which alone a united South Africa can be created.

CHAPTER XVI.
CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS

The constitutional requirements of a country are never determined solely by its political needs. Some account must be taken of its prior history, for theories of government are apt to sink deep into the mind of a people and to become unconsciously a part of its political outlook. No form of education is less conscious or more abiding in its effects. It may even happen that the fabric which such theories created has been deliberately overthrown with the popular consent, but none the less the theories are still there in some form or other to obtrude themselves in future experiments. It is always worth while, therefore, in any reconstruction to look at the ideas of government which held sway before, whether in the shape of a professed creed or in the practical form of institutions. The constitutional history of South Africa is not long, and it is not complex. In Natal and Cape Colony we possess two specimens of ordinary self-governing colonies. Natal, which began life as a Crown colony, subject to the Governor of the Cape, was granted substantive independence by charter in 1856, and in 1893 was given representative government. It possesses a nominated legislative council of nine members, and an elective legislative assembly of thirty-nine members, elected on an easy franchise. Cape Colony also began as a Crown colony, and followed nearly the same path. Her legislative council was created in 1850, and by an ordinance of this legislature in 1872, ratified by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, she obtained full representative institutions. Her council and her house of assembly are each elected and on the same franchise. In these two colonies we have, therefore, types of colonial autonomy – that is to say, an unfettered executive and freedom to legislate subject to the consent of the Governor and the Crown in Council, a limitation which is daily becoming more of a pious fiction. In Southern Rhodesia we have a specimen of that very modern experiment, government by a commercial company. It is a provisional form, and has been made to approximate as far as is reasonably possible to a Crown colony. The executive power is in the hands of the company’s officials, subject to an indirect control by the Imperial Resident Commissioner, the High Commissioner, and ultimately by the Crown. There is a legislative council, partly nominated by the company and partly elected, and all legislation is contingent upon the sanction of the imperial authorities. Lastly, there are the native states, the Crown colony of Basutoland, and the protectorates of Bechuanaland, North-West Rhodesia, and Swaziland, all of which are directly or indirectly under the authority of the High Commissioner. So far there is no constitutional novelty – Crown colonies advancing to an ordinary type of self-government, or remaining, provisionally or permanently, under full imperial control.

There remain the late Governments of the Republics, which to the student of constitutional forms show certain interesting peculiarities.³⁰ These constitutions were framed by men who had no tradition³¹ to fall back upon, if we exclude the Mosaic law, and no theories to give effect to – men who would have preferred to do without government, had it been possible, but who, once the need became apparent, brought to the work much shrewdness and good sense. The Natal emigrants in 1838 had established a Volksraad, but the chief feature in their scheme was the submission of all important matters to a primary public assembly, a Homeric gathering of warriors. By the time the Sand River and Bloemfontein Conventions were signed and the two republics became independent, the people were scattered over a wide expanse of country, and some form of representation was inevitable. At the same time, it had become necessary to provide for a military organisation coextensive with the civil. In the Transvaal transient republics had arisen and departed, like the changes in a kaleidoscope. Around both states there was a native population, actively hostile and potentially dangerous. Some central military and civil authority was needed to keep the country from anarchy. But if the farmers were without political theories, they had a very vigorous sense of personal independence; so the doctrinal basis of the new constitution lay in the axiom that one burgher in the State is as good as another, and that the people are the final repository of power. In this at least they were democratic, though from other traits of democracy they have ever held aloof.

The Constitutie of the Orange Free State was rigid – that is, it could be altered only by methods different from those of ordinary legislation: in the Transvaal Grondwet, on the other hand, there was no provision for change at all, and reforms, when necessary, were made in the ordinary legislative manner. The Constitutie created one supreme legislature, the Volksraad, elected by the qualified white population. The President was elected by the whole people, though the Volksraad, like the Roman consuls, reserved the power to make nominations, which were generally accepted. The Volksraad had not only supreme legislative power, but, while formally independent of the President and the executive, it could reverse any executive Act, except the exercise of the President’s right of pardon and the declaration of martial law. It was limited only by its own charter, which forbade it to restrict the right of public meeting and petition (one of the few Bill of Rights elements in this constitution), and bound it to promote and support the Dutch Reformed Church. The Transvaal Grondwet began by making the Dutch Reformed Church an established national Church (a provision repealed later), and declaring that “the people will not tolerate any equality between coloured and white inhabitants in Church or State.” No man was eligible for a seat in the Volksraad unless he was a member of a Protestant Church.³² In the Transvaal, as in the Orange Free State, the Volksraad was the supreme legislative authority, but when any law was proposed the people were given the opportunity of expressing their opinion in a mild form of the referendum. The President was elected by the whole people and acted as chief of the executive, though responsible to the Volksraad, which could dismiss him or cancel his appointments. He could sit and speak in the Volksraad, but had no vote. The chief military authority was the Commandant General, who was elected by all the burghers, and under him there was a long hierarchy of district commandants and field-cornets. The local administrative officer for civil matters was the landdrost or district magistrate. It is unnecessary to consider the Second Volksraad, which was an ineffective advisory body elected on a wider franchise, a mere sop to the Cerberus whose hundred tongues were clamouring for representation. But there was one curious development of considerable historic interest. In cases of urgency the Volksraad could pass laws without reference to the people at large, but such an enactment was called a resolution (besluit) as contrasted with a law (wet), and was supposed to have only a provisional force. But the habit grew of calling most matters “specially urgent,” and allowing the old popular referendum to fall into desuetude.

The common feature of both constitutions was the immense nominal powers of the legislatures. Nominally they had the right to make all appointments, to veto the President’s action, and to say the last word in all questions of revenue and expenditure. But certain facts wrought against this legislative supremacy. The members came from districts widely apart, and there was no serious attempt to form groups or parties; the President could sit and speak in the Volksraad, and he might be elected as often as he could persuade the people to elect him. The way was paved for the tyranny of a strong man. In the Orange Free State, that country of mild prosperity and simple problems, the system worked admirably; but in the Transvaal, when burning questions arose, the republican methods for all serious purposes broke down, and were replaced by a dictatorship. There remain, however, certain doctrines from the old régime which will have to be reckoned with under the new. The supremacy of the legislature is not one, for no Boer cared much for the dogma, and Mr Kruger ruled on the simple maxim, “L’état c’est moi.” But the democratic principle of equality among citizens is one cherished belief, and another is the absolute disqualification of all coloured races.³³ The Boer is not a parliamentarian in the ordinary sense, and he did not grieve when his Volksraad was slighted and made impotent; but he likes his representative to go to Pretoria, as a sort of tribute to his importance, and, if he is to vote, he demands to vote on an equal basis with all. He was attached to his local administration with its landdrost system, and any change which bore no relation to the old plan might begin by confusing and end by souring him.

We have therefore to face two existing constitutional traditions – among the British from the Cape or Natal or over-seas, the old love of colonial self-government; among the Boers, at least in the Transvaal, a kind of ingenuous republican independence, quite consistent with a patient tolerance of absolutism, but not so easy to adapt to the gradations of our representative system. Hence in many ways the Boer is far more likely to remain patient for years under a Crown colony Government than the English or colonial new-comer. He does not particularly want to vote or interfere in administration, so long as he has no personal grievance; but it might annoy him to see the franchise denied to him and given to his cousin who was a little richer or better educated, when he remembered the old Grondwet doctrines of equality, and it would certainly exasperate him to learn that any native had been granted a civic status beyond him.

Such being the constitutional history, we may turn to the present. The term Crown colony is used so loosely that very few of its many critics could define the peculiar features of this form of government. “One of the greatest of all evils,” wrote Lord Durham in the famous Report which has become the charter of colonial policy, “arising from this system of irresponsible government, was the mystery in which the motives and actual purposes of their rulers were hid from the colonists themselves. The most important business of government was carried on, not in open discussions or public acts, but in a secret correspondence between the Governor and the Secretary of State.” This feature, more than any other, tends to dissatisfaction. The Crown colony system is necessarily a secret one. The newspapers, till blue-books are issued, are informed only as much or as little as the authorities may think good for them; and the natural critics of all administration have the somewhat barren pleasure of finding fault with a policy after it has become a fact. There is no safety-valve for the escape of grievances, no official channel even for sound local advice. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if it seems an intolerable burden to men full of anxiety about the methods by which they are governed.

The Crown colony system is not new to Africa. It existed for years in the Cape and Natal; it still exists in its most rigid form over native states, and at its worst it does not spurn public opinion in the fashion of the Kruger régime– it simply neglects it. The name is really a misnomer, for it is no part of the English colonial system. The American Revolution is sometimes described as the revolt of an English people from Crown colony government, but in those days the thing was not in existence. It is fundamentally the method invented to govern a race which is incapable of free representative institutions, or to tide over a temporary difficulty. The Governor is absolute, subject to the conditions of his appointment and the instructions accompanying his letters-patent. He may be assisted by a council, but it is his privilege, on reasons shown, to override his council. He is the sole local fountain of executive and legislative power. But if he is absolute in one sense, he is strictly tied in another. The methods of his administration are subject to certain regulations issued by the Colonial Office. The Secretary of State must approve his appointments, and all important administrative acts, as well as all legislation. Further, in serious questions the Home Government exercises a general oversight of policy before the event, and the Governor in such matters is merely the mouthpiece of the Cabinet. It is in itself a rational system, and works well under certain conditions. In a serious crisis, when large imperial issues are involved, and when local policy is but a branch of a wider policy, it is highly important that this day-to-day supervision should exist; and in a case where speed is essential, Crown colony methods, though slow enough in all conscience, are rapidity itself compared with the cumbrous machinery of representative government.

The necessity of treating the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony temporarily as Crown colonies was beyond argument. Reconstruction began in the midst of war, when the material of self-government was wanting. It goes on amidst unsettled and dimly understood conditions, where certain facts of policy stand out in a strong light and all else is shadow. It involves many financial transactions in which the Home Government is deeply interested; and it is natural that a close administrative connection should be thought desirable. It comes at the end of a costly war, and it is right that England should have a direct say in securing herself against its repetition. The racial problem is still too delicate to submit to the arbitrament of popular bodies; and if it were settled out of hand there might remain an abiding cause of discontent. The time is not ripe for self-government, the country has not yet found herself, having but barely awakened from the torpor of war and begun to set her house in order. Again, there are factors to be borne in mind in re-creating the new colonies which extend far beyond their borders. It is impossible to imagine that due consideration could be given to them by the ablest elective body in the world, called together in the present ferment. Above all, what is to be done must be done quickly. The wants of the hour are too urgent for delays. There must be some authority, trusted by the British Cabinet, capable of determining the needs of the situation, and giving summary effect to his decision.

On this all thinking men in the new colonies are agreed. I do not suppose that any of the more serious critics of the expedient would be prepared to propose and defend an alternative. But irritation remains when reason has done its best, and it is not hard to see the causes. One is the natural disinclination of Englishmen to be ruled from above, a repulsion which they feel even when arguing in its favour. Another is the secrecy of Crown colony government, to which I have already referred. It is painful to find matters of vital importance to yourself decided without your knowledge, even when you have the fullest confidence in the deciding power. There is also, perhaps, a little distrust still left in South Africa of the British Government, – not of particular Ministers, but of the vague entity behind them – a distrust which has had in the past such ample justification that it is hard to blame it. The colonial mind, too, is averse to English officialdom, even when represented by the several highly competent men who have shared in the present administration. Red-tape, which in its place is most necessary and desirable, seems to lurk in the offices of men who are in reality trying hard to deal with facts in the simplest way. A certain amount of formal officialdom is necessary in all government. There must be people to keep an office in order, to make a fetich of etiquette, to insist on a stereotyped procedure, and to see the world dimly through a mist of “previous papers.” It is a useful, but not very valuable, type of man, and we cannot wonder that a South African, who imagines that such a one has, what he rarely has, an influence in grave decisions, should view with distrust the form of government which permits him. It is a mistake, but one based on an honest instinct.

Self-government is the goal to which all things hasten, and critics of the present administration check their complaints at the thought of that beneficent day. Meanwhile it is our business to set things in order so that the chosen of the people, when they enter into their inheritance, may find it swept and garnished. Representative institutions should not spring full grown from an Order in Council, like Athene from the brain of Zeus: if they do, there is apt to be a painful crudeness about their early history. The way should be prepared by gentle means, for, after all, it is a country in which the bulk of the residents have had no experience of governing themselves. The experiment has so far been tried in two ways. The municipalities represent the highest level of intelligence and political training; in municipal affairs, therefore, it is safe to begin at once with representation. The first town councils were for all practical purposes Government departments, nominated by Government and assisted on their difficult career by Government supervision. But a nominated town council is an anomaly even within a Crown colony, since a town council is not concerned with high politics but only with the administration of the area in which its citizens choose to dwell, and any owner of property has a right to a voice in determining the ways in which his property shall be safeguarded. The basis of any municipal franchise is the payment of rates, which imply the ownership of property; and questions of race, loyalty, even of education, have no logical place in what is simply a practical union for the protection of proprietary interests and the care of the amenities of civilised life. The question of elective municipalities is therefore a simple one, and as soon as a municipal law could be put together, the system was inaugurated. This is not the place to examine the type of municipal franchise adopted in the Transvaal, which is a skilful compendium of various colonial precedents. But on one matter, the coloured and alien vote, there was manifested a vigorous tendency to conservatism and exclusion. As I have said, this is a province where racial distinctions have no logical place. If a black man is a ratepayer he has the citizen’s right to vote. Nor can we on purely rational grounds confine this franchise to British subjects. But the country thought differently. As the municipal was her only form of representation, political considerations crept in unawares, and the result, while logically indefensible, has a certain practical justification. For in a time of reconstruction a community is apt rather to narrow than enlarge its boundaries, feeling above all things the need of a compact front against the unknown. In time, no doubt, the true theory of municipal franchise will reassert itself, and if, when the time comes, a constructive policy towards the subject races has also come into being, the delay will have been not in vain.

A more important step towards self-government was the creation of nominated legislative councils for both colonies, which held their first meetings in the early part of 1903. In the Transvaal there were sixteen official members representing the different Government departments, and fourteen non-official members selected from representative Englishmen and Boers in the country. In the Orange River Colony there were six official members and four non-official. Some of the new measures which concerned more deeply the people of the colonies were kept back on purpose for the opinion of the new councils. Such were the new gold and diamond laws, the municipal franchise law, and the ordinances governing the disposal of town lands. So far the expedient has promised well; an outlet has been created for public opinion, though for the present such opinion cannot carry with it practical force; and the procedure of Government has ceased to be a state secret, and is patent to any one who has the curiosity or the patience to attend the council’s debates. It is interesting to observe how the unofficial members already appear in a quasi-representative capacity, and are beginning to attach themselves to particular districts, for which, so far as airing grievances and obtaining information go, they perform most of the duties of an elected member. There is no reason why such members should not be elected instead of nominated, and in this way provide a trial for the form of franchise on which autonomy is to be based. There are many obvious difficulties in any franchise for the new colonies, and it would be well for such difficulties to be realised and faced while the whole matter is still mainly academic, and errors are not yet attended with practical disaster.

The franchise for the new colonies is the constitutional problem which is of the most immediate importance. It will not be wise to delay the era of self-government long, for between the most elastic Crown colony and the narrowest free colony there is an inseparable gulf, and though it may be said justly that with an elective legislature the colonies have something very like freedom, the one thing needful will still be lacking. It is not enough to put the oars into their hands; we must cut the painter before they are truly free. There is one postulate in all franchise discussions which is likely to be vigorously attacked. The franchise must be based in the first instance upon the principle of giving adequate representation to all districts and every interest; but, once this has been recognised, the second principle appears – of providing for the supremacy of the British population. That saying of Dogberry’s, “An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind,” is a primary law not only of equitation but of politics in the treatment of a conquered country. For conquered it is, and there is little use disguising it: we have not been fighting for the love of it or for fine sentiment, but to conquer the land and give our people the mastery. The last word in all matters must rest with us – that is, with the people of British blood and British sympathies. Both men must be on the horse, or, apart from parable, each race must have fair and ample representation. To deny this would be to sin against sound policy. But not to take measures to see that our own race has the casting vote is to be guilty of the commonest folly. “An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.”

Whoever denies this principle may spare himself the trouble of reading further, for it is proposed to treat it as axiomatic. The first type of franchise need not be permanent: a day may come when it will be needless to consider the distinction of Dutch and British. But as it was right and politic on the conclusion of war to disarm our opponents, so it is right and politic in the first franchise to put no weapon of offence into their hands. The primary adjustment of the franchise and the primary distribution of seats must be made with this clear end in view – to secure a working majority for the British people. It is obvious that the words “British population” are vague, and include many odd forms of nationality, but the thing itself is simple, the class whose interests and sentiment are on the British side, who seek progress on British lines. It does not follow that the majority of the Dutch will go into opposition, but it is ordinary prudence to keep on the safe side. Such a policy involves no distrust of the Dutch population, but is the common duty of those who for a certain period must, as conquerors, take the initiative in administration, and, as bearing the responsibility, preserve an adequate means of control.

The terms of the franchise are a more difficult matter. In Cape Colony citizenship and a low property qualification are the chief conditions. In Southern Rhodesia, whose franchise law is an especially clear and sensible code, an oath of loyalty is accepted in lieu of technical citizenship, and an easy educational test is demanded – the ability of a voter to sign his name and write his address and occupation. In Natal there is a sharp distinction drawn between Europeans and all others. To them the only tests are citizenship, and the ownership or occupation of property of a certain value, or the receipt of a certain amount of income. The native is practically disqualified by a law denying the franchise to any person subject to special courts or special laws, and though a means of escape is provided, the conditions are too complex even for more intelligent minds than the native. It is an ingenious but not wholly satisfactory device. Asiatics are excluded by the law which denies votes to natives, or descendants in the male line of natives, of any country which does not enjoy the blessings of representative government; and though in their case also there is a way of escape, it is almost equally difficult. The root distinction between types of franchise lies in the method employed to exclude an undesirable class, whether a direct one, by disqualifying in so many words, or an indirect, by setting one standard of qualification for all, to which, as a matter of fact, the undesirable class cannot attain. The balance of argument is, on the whole, on the side of the second method, which has been adopted in Cape Colony and Rhodesia, though, perhaps, with too low a standard. But the first method, if followed more frankly than in Natal, has something to be said for it. There is no reason why the better class of Indians should not vote, if their race is considered fit to mix on equal terms with English society elsewhere; but to my mind there is a very good reason why the native should not vote – at least, not for the present. The easy way of securing this result is the old method of the Transvaal Grondwet, which said shortly, “There shall be no equality between black and white.” It is the way, too, which, under the Conditions of Surrender, would have to be adopted in any trial franchise put into force before self-government. I am not sure whether it is not the most philosophic as well as the simplest way, for it denies the native the franchise not for a lack of property or educational qualification, but for radical mental dissimilarity. In any case it is a matter which must be left for the people of the colony to settle for themselves. But for all others, while the property basis of the franchise should be low, there are grounds for thinking that a reasonably high educational test should be added. The lower type of European and the back-veld Dutchman have in their present state no equitable right to the decision, which the franchise gives, on matters which they are unable to come within a measurable distance of understanding. The fact that the fool may have a vote at home is no reason for exalting him to the same level in a country which is not handicapped by a constitutional history. Some form of British citizenship, obtainable by a short and simple method, must also be demanded if the land is to remain a British colony.