The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction

There is no argument so convincing as success, and a satisfactory federation in miniature would go far to prepare the way for the larger scheme. Fortunately we have one sphere where experiments towards federation can be given a fair trial. The Transvaal and the Orange River Colony are under one governor and the same system of government. Though they have many points of difference, they have also many common problems which are even now dealt with by one central authority. The South African Constabulary in the two colonies is one force under one Inspector-General. The Central South African railways, which control the whole railway system, are under one Railway Commissioner and one General Manager. Education is under one Director of Education. In addition to this departmental union, the two colonies are subject to one common debt, the Guaranteed Loan. The War Debt lies for the present wholly on the Transvaal;³⁷ but the loan for reconstruction is devoted to purposes common to both, and they are jointly and severally liable for its interest and redemption. If the Orange River Colony were to pay its fair share of the interest – having regard to the capital expenditure apportioned to it – it would be bankrupt to-morrow. It must either pay a great deal less than its due, or some arrangement must be arrived at by which there is no fixed apportionment of either interest or capital, but the whole debt is administered jointly, and charged upon certain common properties.

The method adopted has been fully explained in another chapter. Here it will be sufficient to point out the federal consequences of the arrangement. If the railways, the South African Constabulary, and all common services are to be charged to one common budget, and subjected to a common administration, then some kind of common council must be established with a share of both legislative and executive powers. It would be necessary to give this council, or some committee of it, the final decision in railway administration, to grant it power to operate upon railway profits, and to make grants for the services of the loan, and for other services placed under its authority, without reference to the councils of the separate colonies. Such powers have not been unknown in constitutional history, and Austro-Hungary furnishes an instructive precedent. There we find a common executive, not responsible to either of the two Parliaments, for such common interests as foreign affairs, the army, and imperial finance. On most matters connected with these common interests the separate Parliaments legislate; but the voting of money for common purposes and the control of the common executive is placed in the hands of the famous Delegations, which are appointed by the two Parliaments. The position is, therefore, that there is a common Ministry for Finance, War, and Foreign Affairs, controlled by the Delegations, and working on funds voted and appropriated by the Delegations. This power of appropriation without ratification by the separate colonies is the essence of the new council, which is thus, to continue the parallel, a compound of the Delegations and the Common Ministry of Austro-Hungary. Certain funds are ear-marked for its use, and its deficits, if any, will be met by contributions, in certain fixed proportions, from the treasuries of the two colonies; while its surplus, if it is ever fortunate enough to have one, will be divided, in whole or in part, between the two colonies, going as a matter of fact to assist in meeting the charges of the War Debt. It has an administrative control over all existing common services, and any other which may be subsequently put under its charge by the local legislatures.

Such a council obviously falls far short of a true federation. It is primarily a financial expedient to provide a simple and effective machinery for administering somewhat complicated finances. But it is a step, and a considerable step, in the right direction. Its executive functions are concerned with truly federal matters; and its powers of acting alone in questions of administration, and of voting and appropriating funds without reference to the separate legislatures, is a recognition of the central doctrine of federation. Indeed at the present moment the two new colonies have a de facto federal government. The grant to the new council of legislative powers on matters of common interest, and the corresponding limitation of the powers of the separate legislatures, would establish a complete de jure federation. There is no reason why this goal should not soon be reached. The two colonies are bound together by many ties, – above all, by that most stringent bond, a common debt. For three years they have been administered by one governor. Though there may be symptoms of local jealousy in both, there can be no real popular objection, as there is no logical reason, against their federation.

But while the new colonies present a simple problem, the extension of the policy to the self-governing colonies requires delicate and cautious handling. If the limited federation be a success, it will have the power of a good example, especially since there are many throughout South Africa to seize and emphasise the lesson. Meantime other agencies are at work for union. The Bloemfontein Conference of March 1903, which, in addition to settling a customs’ tariff and recommending a preferential policy for British goods, passed resolutions on certain questions, such as native affairs, of wide South African interest, is the type of that informal advisory union which may well come into being at once. The appointment, further, of a South African committee to investigate some of the more vexed and obscure details of native policy, is another step in the same direction. The new colonies, which contain the chief motive force for South Africa’s future, must give the lead. They hold in their hands the guide-ropes, for federation may be said to depend upon the development of two problems – the racial and the economic; and both reach their typical form in the new colonies. In these questions are involved the chief grounds of separation and the chief impulses towards union, and according as the new colonies settle them within their own bounds will arise the need and desire for a more comprehensive settlement.

The type of federation which South Africa may adopt will, no doubt, vary considerably from most historical precedents. It should in certain respects be more rigid, since, apart from a few outstanding troubles, there are no permanent differences between the parts. In certain respects, too, it should be more elastic, for a federated South Africa would be not only a substantive state, but a member of a greater system, and some of the old free colonial traditions which pertain to that system should be left to the federated units. It is a vain task at this stage to attempt the outlines of a scheme, since the foundations are not yet fully apparent. Needs which are now in embryo will be factors to be reckoned with when the time is ripe, and perhaps some of the forces which seem to us to-day to dominate all else will have disappeared or decreased in strength. There is a wealth of historical precedent for South African statesmen to follow; for, apart from the United States and sundry European parallels, there are two types of federation within the colonial system – the Dominion of Canada and the recently created Australian Commonwealth. Between them these two cases provide a most complete parallel for South Africa. In Canada there was a distinction of races not less marked than Dutch and English. There was, further, an imperfectly explored hinterland which the colonists looked to bring by degrees under the same constitution. In Australia there were grave intercolonial disputes on railways and customs and a wide divergence of economic interests. A keen jealousy was felt by the smaller for the larger states, and the scheme of federation had to be delicately framed to adjust state pride with federal requirements. On the whole, the difficulties which the framers of the federal constitution had to face in Canada and Australia were greater than we find in South Africa: in the United States, immeasurably greater. But often the probability of federation stands in inverse ratio to the ease with which it can be effected, and the very simplicity of this South African problem may delay its settlement. There are, however, forces which must between them hasten the end. One is the economic disparity, at least as great as in Australia and greater than in Canada, which makes itself felt so constantly in the daily life of the inland colonies, that they may find themselves compelled to push the matter in spite of the apathy of the coast. The other is the very real national sentiment which is growing to maturity in the country. The war has welded the English inhabitants into something approaching a nation. Having suffered so deeply, they are the less prone to local jealousies and the more attached to the ideal of imperial unity.

A scheme of South African federation, as has been said, will have to differ materially from any of the existing types. Though details are premature, certain principles may be accepted as essential. The first concerns the subjects relegated to the Federal Government. In the United States these are, roughly, foreign affairs, the army and navy, federal courts of justice, commerce, currency, the post office, certain general branches of commercial law, such as copyrights and patents, an oversight of the separate states to protect the inhabitants against any infringement of the fundamental rights granted by the constitution, and taxation for federal purposes. Several of these functions are needless in a federation of English colonies. Foreign affairs and army and navy questions assume a different form from what they present in a wholly separate community; and since there is no Grondwet known to English constitutional law, there is no need for an oversight of the separate states in case of its infringement. That is already provided for by the ultimate right of the British Crown to annul legislation which may conflict with the chartered rights or limitations of a colony. But there are certain powers, not referred to in the American scheme, which are essential to a modern system. Railways, telephones, and telegraphs should come under the purview of the national Government, as also all customs tariffs and all bounties which may be granted on production. Powers must be given to the national Government to take over the existing debts of the separate states, and in times of financial distress to come to their assistance. On judicial and legal questions – the nature of the federal courts, the mechanism of appeal, the branches of law which are suitable for federal jurisdiction – it is impossible to speak; as it is premature to attempt an outline of the constitution of the federal Government, the form of its legislation, the functions of its executive. Such questions require long and careful consideration on the part of the South African colonies, and may happily take their colour, when the time arrives, from some accepted scheme of imperial federation. Two points only may be noted as even now obvious desiderata of policy. In Canada the state governors are appointed by the federal Ministry; in Australia they are nominated by the Crown in the same way as the Governor-General. Experience has shown that the Australian method is the superior one, since it allows a state governor and his ministers to communicate directly with the imperial Government, and so preserve a formal independence which is at once harmless and grateful to state pride. It is impossible to doubt that the Australian precedent should be followed in South Africa. The second point concerns the method of effecting federation. The Canadian scheme was based on resolutions drafted by a conference of delegates at Quebec. They were approved by the legislatures of the provinces, embodied in a bill drafted by a committee of Canadian statesmen, and passed by the imperial Government. Federation was thus, as in the United States, the work of conferences and legislatures alone. Australia, recognising that this was a question which deeply concerned the population of the colonies, followed a better plan. The federal constitution, after passing through a long period of conferences and examinations by state legislatures, was submitted to a direct popular vote, and a certain majority was prescribed for it in each state. Such a federation, secured by the consent of a whole people, has a stability against future attacks and captious emendation which belongs to no scheme sanctioned only by a legislative body. For though popular representation is in theory a representation for all things, yet a matter so vital in its application and so far-reaching in its issues deserves to be made the subject of a special mandate.

I have said that foreign affairs and army and navy questions do not, under the ordinary practice of the colonial system, have much connection with colonial governments, and therefore may be left out of most federal proposals. But though the technical last word may never lie with the Federal Government, yet a South African federation would have genuine foreign interests, and would keep a watchful eye on the movements of the colonising Powers of Europe. Had there been a federation, there would have been no German acquisition of Damaraland, nor would we have found imperial authorities refusing the offer of Lourenço Marques for a trifling sum. No colonist can ever quite forgive those memorable blunders, which prevented British South Africa from having that geographical unity from the Zambesi to the Cape which its interests demand. Thirty years ago it would have been easy for Britain to proclaim a Monroe doctrine for South Africa – for that matter of it, for East Africa also. The opportunity has passed, but a strong national Government could still exercise great influence on foreign affairs, and prevent encroachment upon Portuguese territories by that Power which twenty years ago saw in Africa material for a new German Empire and has never forgotten its grandiose dreams, as well as keep an eye upon that dangerous mushroom growth, the Congo Free State, and check its glaring offences against civilisation. Army and navy questions belong, in their broadest sense, to schemes of imperial federation, a discussion of which here would be out of place; but since there is already in South Africa a large military force under one commander-in-chief, certain army questions arise which may find their proper answer only in federation, but which even now require a provisional settlement. According as we treat the matter, it may become a unifying or a violently disjunctive force, a step towards federation or a movement towards a wider disintegration. The bearing of the army question on South African policy is the subject of another chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ARMY AND SOUTH AFRICA

The foremost political lesson of the late war was the solidarity of military spirit throughout the Empire. But this cohesion is only in spirit, and the actual position of colonial forces is that of isolated units, connected in no system, and subject to no central direction. For a student of military law, or that branch of it which concerns the relation of military forces to the civil power, a survey of the British colonies has much curious interest. Speaking generally, since 1868 there have been no imperial forces in any self-governing colony, since we have acted on the principle that when a colony became autonomous the defence of its borders, except by sea, must be left to its own government. Colonial troops are, therefore, militia and volunteer, who take different forms according to the needs of the colony. In some the militia, or a part of it, is to all intents a regular force, performing garrison duty and acting as a school of instruction for the other auxiliary forces. In Canada, for example, there were in 1902 a troop of cavalry, a troop of mounted rifles, two batteries of field artillery, two companies of garrison artillery, and a battalion of infantry, in which the men were enlisted for three years’ continuous service. In New South Wales, to take one state of the Australian Commonwealth, provision was made for a permanent force, which included a half-squadron of cavalry, three companies of garrison artillery and one field battery, a company of infantry and various supplementary services, with men enlisted for five years. In New Zealand the enlistment for the permanent force, which consists of artillery and submarine miners, is for eight years, three of which may be passed in the reserve. Next comes the militia proper on the home model, where the men are partially paid and are subject to a certain amount of annual training. Lastly there is a wide volunteer organisation, stretching from fully organised companies of infantry and mounted rifles down to small local rifle clubs. In certain colonies where there is an aboriginal or unsettled population, such as Canada, Cape Colony, and Natal, there is also a permanently embodied police force, which may rank with the permanent militia as a sort of colonial regulars. All such forces are under the full control of the Colonial Governments, whether, as in the Australian Commonwealth and Canada, under the Federal Ministry of Defence, or, as in Cape Colony, under the department of the Prime Minister. An imperial officer may be lent, as in Canada and Australia to-day, for the command of the colonial force, but as soon as he enters upon his command he becomes a servant of the Colonial Government. To that Government alone belongs the power of raising new forces, of changing the status of existing troops, of ordering their distribution, of regulating their rates of pay, and of lending them for service beyond the colony. A strong general officer commanding may have great influence in all such decisions, but technically he is merely an adviser who receives his orders from the local authorities.

This is one chief type of the organisation of our over-sea imperial force. The other is furnished by India. There we have a native Indian army, and a large number of imperial troops, all of whom are under the authority of the commander-in-chief in India, who in turn is under the control of the Indian Government. When imperial troops are stationed in any other part of the Empire they are commanded by an officer who is directly subject to the War Office; but in India, as soon as a battalion lands it takes the status of the local forces and passes under the authority of the local government. The War Office retains certain powers, but for all practical purposes the Indian command is wholly decentralised.

South Africa affords the spectacle of a confusion of the two types. It is made up partly of Crown colonies and dependencies and partly of self-governing states. At this moment it is occupied by imperial troops whose numbers, for the purpose of this argument, may be put at 30,000. Such troops are stationed in Cape Colony and Natal as well as in the new colonies, and the command has been unified and vested in one commander-in-chief, who is subject only to the War Office and has no responsibility to the local governments. We have, therefore, the anomalous case of an autonomous colony occupied by imperial troops, a policy which is out of line with English practice. When self-government is given to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, the South African general will command what will be neither more nor less than an alien army of occupation. At the same time, wholly apart from the regular forces, there are police troops in Natal, Cape Colony, the new colonies, and Rhodesia; and a large number of volunteer regiments, who are directly under the control of the local governments. The South African military organisation is thus split in two by a deep gulf, and unless some method of union is found, we shall be confronted with a system alien to the tradition of our colonial policy and in itself clumsy and unworkable. But this question is intimately bound up with others – the desirability of the retention of imperial troops, the organisation of such troops in relation to the imperial army, indeed the whole question of that branch of imperial federation which is concerned with the defence of the Empire. It involves certain problems of military reform which are violently contested by good authorities. In this chapter it is proposed, as far as possible, to consider the matter of the South African army solely from the standpoint of South African politics, referring to the military aspect only in so far as may be necessary at points where South African politics are merged in wider schemes of imperial unity.

The first question concerns the policy of keeping imperial troops in South Africa at all. The size of the force depends, of course, on the duties which it is intended to perform, but for the retention of some troops there seems to be every justification. Few people believe that there is much likelihood of another outbreak, but after a war of the magnitude of that which we have recently gone through it would seem scarcely provident to leave the peace of the country solely to the care of the police. In a country, again, where British prestige is a plant of recent growth, it is well to provide the moral support of regular battalions. If useful for no other purpose, they serve as a memento of war, a constant reminder of the existence of an imperial power behind all local administration. We have also to face the fact that we have committed ourselves to some kind of occupation force by undertaking a large preliminary expenditure on cantonments, which will be money wasted if the scheme is dropped. For this purpose we have spent between two and three millions, and unless we are to be held guilty of causeless extravagance, we must abide by the plan to which this outlay has committed us.

The original scheme was for a garrison force. For this purpose 30,000 men are too many if our forecast be correct, and far too few if it be wrong. Half the number would be ample for any peace establishment, and we may be perfectly certain that as soon as self-government is declared in the new colonies there would be many attempts to cut down the number or do away with the force altogether. Alien garrison troops will be always unpopular, and, as has been said, they are foreign to British policy with regard to autonomous colonies. A force on the garrison basis would find itself with little to do, the general commanding would be exposed to the jealousy of the colonial troops, and involved in constant difficulties with the colonial governments, and, save in the unlikely event of a rebellion, would have no very obvious justification for the existence of his command.

If South Africa is to remain a station for any considerable number of imperial troops, some mode of co-operation must be discovered with the local governments. This co-operation would be possible between the colonial administration and a garrison force; but it would be infinitely more satisfactory if the whole status of the imperial troops were changed. For a garrison establishment makes it difficult, if not impossible, not only to bring the general commanding into touch with the governments, but to bring the local troops into line with the regular, and both unions must be accomplished before any satisfactory settlement can be given to the problem. The simplest solution was to treat the South African force, not as a garrison, but as part of the regular army on the home establishment, sent there for the purpose of training, and liable to be utilised at any moment for active service in any part of the Empire. There are certain objections to the scheme, plausible enough though not insuperable, from the military standpoint; but for the present we may limit our argument to those points which concern South Africa, and those difficulties which spring from the nature of the country – difficulties which are far more real to the soldiers who are directly concerned than the wider question of the present scheme of military organisation.

The advantages are sufficiently obvious. There are few finer manœuvring grounds in the world than the great Central South African tableland. There is sufficient cover to make scouting possible and not enough to make it easy, and the intense clearness of the air and its singular acoustic properties will train a man’s senses to a perfection unknown in other armies and impossible to acquire in the restricted areas of a populous country. The soldier will have to face the rudiments of war in a far more difficult country than he is likely to be used in. He will learn to shoot, or rather to judge ranges correctly under unwonted conditions, which is rarer and more vital than mere accurate marksmanship. He will learn the real roughness of campaigning in long manœuvres; and from the same cause regiments will acquire that elasticity and cohesion which come from constant working together. If we except enteric, caused by bad sanitation, which has been the curse of the war, but is not a speciality of the country, the veld is almost exempt from diseases. Life there will not only train the senses and the intelligence, but will give health and physical stamina. A year of such training will make a man of the young recruit from the slums of an English city. Physique is the final determinant in war, and with our present system of recruiting and training there is no guarantee for its existence. Lastly, our soldiers trained on the veld will become natural horse masters, which few even of the cavalry are at present. They will learn that care of their horses which every Boer has as a birthright, that simple veterinary skill and common-sense whose lack has cost us so many millions. South Africa is a natural horse-breeding country, and in co-operation with Government stud-farms a breed of remounts could be got which would unite the merits of the Afrikander pony with the weight and bone required for army work. Instead of having to ransack foreign countries for our horses, we should breed all we wanted for ourselves under the eye of our imperial officers, and breed them too in a place which is the best centre in the Empire for distribution to any possible seat of war.

The objections to the scheme are partly of sentiment and partly of technical difficulties. South African service, it is said, is at present unpopular. Our army has recently concluded a long and arduous war, fought under conditions of extreme discomfort. Small wonder if troops who have been kicking their heels for eighteen months in remote blockhouses should have little good to say of the pleasures of the life. For the officers there have been dismal quarters, a cheerless dusty country, heavy expenses, little sport, and no society; and the lot of the men, though relatively less hard, has been equally comfortless. The proper answer to such a contention is to ignore it. It is the objection of the non-professional officer, and cannot be entertained. The forces in South Africa are sent there for training, not for garrison life, and if the place is a good training-ground, the question of congenial society and interesting recreation has nothing to do with the matter.³⁸ But there is no reason why South African life for the future should be unattractive. An English society is rapidly arising, English sports are becoming popular, the cantonments can easily be made comfortable homes, and there are a thousand ways, such as the allotting to each soldier who desires it a small patch of land to cultivate, in which the men can be made to feel an interest in the country. For the officers there is a sporting hinterland as fine and as accessible as the Pamirs to the Indian sportsman. Living is undoubtedly more costly, and there will have to be special allowances for South African service; but with a proper canteen system, such as existed during the war, the cost of luxuries might be kept low enough for all. There is a future, too, for the reservist which he cannot look for at home. Even as an unskilled workman he can command wages which are unknown in England; and the men who, at the end of their three years’ service, would join the South African reserve, would be young enough to begin civil life in whatever walk they might choose.

The chief technical difficulties, exclusive of sea-transport, which is outside our review, are the extra cost, the difficulty of recruiting, and the delays in bringing reservists from home in case of active service. The last will be met in a little while by the creation of a South African reserve; but in the meantime there are many ways in which it might be surmounted. Battalions might be brought up to fighting strength by the inclusion of men from local forces. It would be an easy matter to introduce into the terms of enlistment of the South African Constabulary a condition of foreign service, and to keep from 1000 to 2000 men in readiness. It would be possible also to enlist 1000 men of the Transvaal volunteer force for special foreign service, paying to each man a bonus of £12 per annum. The real solution of this difficulty is bound up, as we shall see later, with the whole theory of a colonial army; but even on the present system it is easy to provide a working expedient. The question of extra cost – for each man would require an extra 6d. per day, or £9, 2s. 6d. per annum – is answered by pointing out that such a force being on the home establishment would do away with the necessity of linked battalions, and would effect a saving of twenty-four battalions and six regiments of cavalry, so that even if the extra cost were 50 per cent, the total saving would far outbalance it.³⁹ The recruiting difficulty is unlikely to be a serious one. We may lose to the army a little of the loose fringe of half-grown boys from the towns, – stuff which, as history has shown, can be transformed into excellent fighting men, but which at the same time does not represent the last word either in moral or physical qualities. But many of the best of our young men, whose thoughts turn naturally to the colonies, would gladly seize the chance of three years’ service there, in which they would gain experience of the new lands, and be able to judge, when their turn came for entering reserves, which line of life promised most. No Emigration Bureau or Settlement Board would be so effective an agency in bringing the right class to the country. But, further, such a system would throw open to us the vast recruiting-grounds of our colonies. It is difficult for one who has not been brought face to face with it to realise the military enthusiasm which the war has kindled not only among the more inflammable, but among the coolest and shrewdest of our younger colonists. They know – none better – the joints in our armour; but they have paid generous tribute to the solidarity of spirit, the gallantry of our leaders, the unbreakable constancy of our men. A few fanciful war correspondents have done a gross injustice to our colonial soldiers by painting them as a race of capable braggarts, who laughed at our incompetence in a game which they understood so vastly better. It is safe to say that in the better class there was no hint of such a spirit; and the way in which irregular horse, with fine records of service, have traced the source of victory in the last resort to the stamina of the British infantry, does credit both to their judgment and their chivalry. They have become keen critics of any organisation, looking at war not only with the eyes of fighting men but of professional soldiers. All the details of the profession are of interest to them, and an imperial force in South Africa could draw largely both for officers and men upon the local population. The benefit of such a result, both to the colonies and to ourselves, is difficult to over-estimate. A common profession would do much to smooth away the petty differences which are always apt to widen out gulfs. The army would become a vast nursery of the true imperial spirit, and a school to perpetuate the best of our English traditions; and would itself gain incalculably by the infusion of new and virile blood, and the weakening of prejudices, both of class and education, which at present are a grave menace to its efficiency.