Native Life in South Africa
by Sol. T. Plaatje · English · Gutenberg #1452 · 812,932 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Native Life in South Africa
Author: Sol. T. Plaatje
Release date: September 1, 1998 [eBook #1452]
Most recently updated: April 2, 2015
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATIVE LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA ***
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This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light (alight@vnet.net, formerly
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Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since
the European War and the Boer Rebellion
By Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
[South African (ethnic Tswana) Editor, Author, Statesman. 1876?-1932.]
First Secretary-General of the South African Native National Congress
(forerunner of the ANC), 1912-1917. Author of "Mhudi",
generally considered the first novel written by a black South African.
[The two portraits are not available for this ASCII text. They are titled
"The Author." and "Mrs. S. T. Plaatje. Without whose loyal co-operation
this book would never have been written."]
[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED.
Some obvious errors have been corrected (see Notes).]
Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since
the European War and the Boer Rebellion
By Sol. T. Plaatje
Editor of `Tsala ea Batho', Kimberley, S.A.
Author of `Sechuana Proverbs and their European Equivalents'
Fourth Edition
Foreword (Native Life in South Africa electronic text):
Sol Plaatje began work on `Native Life in South Africa' in 1914,
while on his way to Britain to plead with the Imperial Government
against the Natives' Land Act of 1913, as part of a deputation
of the South African Native National Congress. The book was intended
as a means of reaching the British public with the deputation's message.
The method seemed sound enough -- it was quite similar in form
to the successful deputation which had pleaded to keep Bechuanaland
(modern Botswana) under direct Imperial control in 1895.
But circumstances were different in 1914 -- South Africa
had been granted self-government, and the First World War began
shortly after the deputation's arrival in England and distracted all parties.
This latter event also influenced the final form of the book,
as Plaatje played to the patriotic sentiment so strong in Britain at the time.
For all his appeals, Plaatje did not succeed: the Act went on to become
one of the first steps toward the system of Apartheid. For all that,
there is sometimes in defeat the seeds of victory -- these troubles
united black South Africans like nothing before, and Plaatje's successors,
in the form of the ANC, finally succeeded in the early 1990's.
The Natives' Land Act of 1913, which forbade natives to buy or rent land,
except in a few small reserves consisting largely of wasteland,
was finally overturned in 1991.
Thanks should be given to Neil Parsons, for his advice on this subject,
and for being so kind as to research and write the introduction that follows.
Alan R. Light
July, 1998.
Monroe, North Carolina (USA).
Introduction, by Neil Parsons
"Native Life in South Africa" is one of the most remarkable books on Africa,
by one of the continent's most remarkable writers. It was written
as a work of impassioned political propaganda, exposing the plight
of black South Africans under the whites-only government of newly unified
South Africa. It focuses on the effects of the 1913 Natives' Land Act
which introduced a uniform system of land segregation between the races.
It resulted, as Plaatje shows, in the immediate expulsion of blacks,
as "squatters", from their ancestral lands in the Orange Free State
now declared "white". But Native Life succeeds in being
much more than a work of propaganda. It is a vital social document
which captures the spirit of an age and shows the effects of rural segregation
on the everyday life of people.
Solomon Tshekeisho Plaatje was born in 1878 in the lands of
the Tswana-speaking people, south of Mafeking. His origins
were ordinary enough. What was remarkable was the aptitude he showed
for education and learning after a few years schooling under the tuition
of a remarkable liberal German Lutheran missionary, the Rev. Ludorf.
At the age of sixteen Plaatje (using the Dutch nickname of his grandfather
as a surname) joined the Post Office as a mail-carrier in Kimberley,
the diamond city in the north of Cape Colony. He subsequently passed
the highest clerical examination in the colony, beating every white candidate
in both Dutch and typing.
From Kimberley the young Plaatje went on to Mafeking, where he was
one of the key players in the great siege of 1899-1900.
As magistrate's interpreter he was the vital link between
the British civil authorities and the African majority
beleaguered inside the town's military perimeter. Plaatje's diaries
from this period, published long after his death, are a remarkable record
both of the siege and of his early prose experimentation --
mixing languages and idioms, and full of bright humour.
After the war Plaatje became a journalist, editor first
of one Tswana language newspaper at Mafeking and then of another at Kimberley.
Like other educated Africans he came out of the war optimistic that
the British would enfranchise all educated and propertied males
in the defeated Boer colonies (Transvaal and Orange Free State)
without regard to race. But in this he, and the others,
were soon sorely disappointed. The British gave a whites-only franchise
to the defeated Boers and thus conceded power to a Boer or white Afrikaner
parliamentary majority in the 1910 Union of South Africa
which brought together the two Boer colonies with Cape Colony and Natal.
Clinging to the old but diminished "colour blind" franchise of the Cape,
Plaatje remained one of the few Africans in South Africa
with a parliamentary vote.
Plaatje's aggravation with the British government can be seen
in an unpublished manuscript of 1908-09 titled "Sekgoma -- the Black Dreyfus".
In this booklet he castigated the British for denying legal rights
(specifically habeas corpus) to their African subjects
outside the Cape Colony.
Plaatje became politically active in the "native congress" movement
which represented the interests of educated and propertied Africans
all over South Africa. He was the first secretary-general
of the "South African Native National Congress", founded in 1912
(which renamed itself as the African National Congress or ANC
ten years later).
The first piece of major legislation presented to the whites-only
parliament of South Africa was the Natives' Land Act, eventually passed
in 1913, which was designed to entrench white power and property rights
in the countryside -- as well as to solve the "native problem" of
African peasant farmers working for themselves and denying their labour power
to white employers.
The main battle ground for the implementation of the new legislation
was the Orange Free State. White farmers took the cue from the Land Act
to begin expelling black peasants from their land as "squatters",
while the police began to rigorously enforce the pass-laws
which registered the employment of Africans and prescribed
their residence and movement rights.
The Free State became the cockpit of resistance by the newly formed SANNC.
Its womens' league demonstrated against pass law enforcement
in Free State towns. Its national executive sent a delegation to England,
icluding Plaatje, who set sail in mid-1914. The British crown retained
ultimate rights of sovereignty over the parliament and government
of South Africa, with an as yet unexercised power of veto over
South African legislation in the area of "native affairs".
The delegation received short shrift from the government in London which was,
after all, more than preoccupied with the coming of the Great War --
in which it feared for the loyalty of the recently defeated Afrikaners
and wished in no way to offend them. But, rather than return empty-handed
like the rest of the SANNC delegation, Plaatje decided
to stay in England to carry on the fight. He was determined to recuit,
through writing and lecturing, the liberal and humanitarian establishment
to his side -- so that it in turn might pressure the British government.
Thus it was that Plaatje resumed work on a manuscript he had begun
on the ship to England. "Native Life in South Africa".
The book was published in 1916 by P. S. King in London.
It was dedicated to Harriette Colenso, doughty woman camnpaigner
who had inherited from her father, Bishop Colenso, the mantle of advocate
to the British establishment of the rights of the Zulu nation in South Africa.
While in England Plaatje pursued his interests in language and linguistics
by collaborating with Professor Daniel Jones of the University of London --
inventor of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and prototype for
Professor Higgins in Shaw's "Pygmalion" and thus the musical "My Fair Lady".
In the same year as Native Life was published, 1916, Plaatje published
two other shorter books which brought together the European languages
(English, Dutch and German) he loved with the Tswana language.
"Sechuana Proverbs" was a listing of Tswana proverbs with
their European equivalents. "A Sechuana Reader" was co-authored with Jones,
using the IPA for Tswana orthography.
Plaatje returned to South Africa but went once again to England
after the war's end, to lead a second SANNC delegation keen to make its mark
on the peace negotiations in 1919. This time Plaatje managed to get
as far as the prime minister, Lloyd George, "the Welsh wizard".
Lloyd George was duly impressed with Plaatje and undertook
to present his case to General Jan Smuts in the South African government,
a supposedly liberal fellow-traveller. But Smuts, whose notions of liberalism
were patronizingly segregationist, fobbed off Lloyd George
with an ingenuous reply.
Disillusioned with the flabby friendship of British liberals,
Plaatje was increasingly drawn to the pan-Africanism of W. E. B. Du Bois,
president of the NAACP in the United States. In 1921 Plaatje sailed
for the United States on a lecture tour that took him through
half the country. He paid his own way by publishing and selling
18,000 copies of a booklet titled "The Mote and the Beam: an Epic
on Sex-Relationship 'twixt Black and White in British South Africa"
at 25 cents each. In the following year, after Plaatje had left,
this new edition of "Native Life in South Africa" was published,
by the NAACP newspaper "The Crisis" edited by Du Bois.
Plaatje returned home to Kimberley to find the SANNC a spent force,
despite its name change to ANC, overtaken by more radical forces.
At a time when white power was pushing ahead with an ever more intense
segregationist programme, based on anti-black legislation,
Plaatje became a lone voice for old black liberalism. He turned from politics
and devoted the rest of his life to literature. His passion for Shakespeare
resulted in mellifluous Tswana translations of five plays
from "Comedy of Errors" to "Merchant of Venice" and "Julius Caesar".
His passion for the history of his people, and of his family in particular,
resulted in a historical novel, "Mhudi (An Epic of South African Native Life
a Hundred Years Ago)", dedicated to his daughter Olive who had died
in the influenza epidemic while Plaatje was overseas --
described in the dedication as "one of the many victims of a settled system".
"Mhudi" was published by the missionary press at Lovedale in 1930,
in a somewhat bowdlerized version. It has since been republished
in more pristine form and is today considered not just the first
but one of the very best novels published by a black South African writer
in English.
Plaatje lived an extraordinary life but died a largely disappointed man.
His feats of political journalism had been largely forgotten
and his creative talents had hardly yet been recognised
-- except in the confined world of Tswana language readership.
But today Plaatje is regarded as a South African literary pioneer,
as a not insignificant political actor in his time,
and as a cogent commentator on his times. He was an explorer
in a fascinating world of cultural and linguistic interaction,
who was in retrospect truly a "renaissance man".
Related Reading:
Sol T. Plaatje (ed. John Comaroff with Brian Willan & Andrew Reed),
"Mafeking Diary: a Black Man's View of a White Man's War",
Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press & Cambridge Meridor Press, 1990.
(1st edn. London: Macmillan, 1973, publ. as The Boer War Diary
of Sol T. Plaatje).
Sol. T. Plaatje (ed. Tim Couzens), "Mhudi", Cape Town: Francolin, 1996;
definitive edition.
Brian Willan, "Sol Plaatje: South African Nationalist, 1876-1932",
London: Heinemann, 1984.
Brian Willan (ed. & comp.), "Sol Plaatje: Selected Writings",
Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1996.
Neil Parsons is a Professor of History at the University of Botswana.
He is author of "King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen",
which details the journey of the Batswana delegation to England of 1895,
and other books relating to the history of the region.
To
Miss Harriette E. Colenso,
"Nkosazana Matotoba ka So-Bantu",
Daughter of the late Rt. Rev. J. W. Colenso
(In his life-time Bishop of Natal and "Father of the Zulus").
In recognition of her unswerving loyalty to
the policy of her late distinguished father
and unselfish interest in the welfare of
the South African Natives,
This Book is Dedicated.
Contents
(A) Who is the Author?
(B) Prologue
Chapter I A Retrospect
Chapter II The Grim Struggle between Right and Wrong,
and the Latter Carries the Day
Chapter III The Natives' Land Act
Chapter IV One Night with the Fugitives
Chapter V Another Night with the Sufferers
Chapter VI Our Indebtedness to White Women
Chapter VII Persecution of Coloured Women in the Orange Free State
Chapter VIII At Thaba Ncho: A Secretarial Fiasco
Chapter IX The Fateful 13
Chapter X Dr. Abdurahman, President of the A.P.O. /
Dr. A. Abdurahman, M.P.C.
Chapter XI The Natives' Land Act in Cape Colony
Chapter XII The Passing of Cape Ideals
Chapter XIII Mr. Tengo-Jabavu, the Pioneer Native Pressman
Chapter XIV The Native Congress and the Union Government
Chapter XV The Kimberley Congress / The Kimberley Conference
Chapter XVI The Appeal for Imperial Protection
Chapter XVII The London Press and the Natives' Land Act
Chapter XVIII The P.S.A. and Brotherhoods
Chapter XIX Armed Natives in the South African War
Chapter XX The South African Races and the European War
Chapter XXI Coloured People's Help Rejected / The Offer of Assistance
by the South African Coloured Races Rejected
Chapter XXII The South African Boers and the European War
Chapter XXIII The Boer Rebellion
Chapter XXIV Piet Grobler
Epilogue
Report of the Lands Commission
-----------------------------
Native Life in South Africa
-----------------------------
(A) Who is the Author?
After wondering for some time how best to answer this question,
we decided to reply to it by using one of several personal references
in our possession. The next puzzle was: "Which one?"
We carefully examined each, but could not strike a happy decision
until some one who entered the room happened to make use
of the familiar phrase: "The long and the short of it".
That phrase solved the difficulty for us, and we at once made up our mind
to use two of these references, namely, the shortest and the longest.
The first one is from His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught,
and the second takes the form of a leading article in the `Pretoria News'.
==
Central South African Railways,
High Commissioner's Train.
On February 1, 1906, Mr. Sol Plaatje acted as Interpreter
when I visited the Barolong Native Stadt at Mafeking, and performed his duty
to my entire satisfaction.
(Signed) Arthur.
Mafeking,
February 1, 1906.
==
==
We commence to-day an experiment which will prove a success
if only we can persuade the more rabid negrophobes to adopt
a moderate and sensible attitude. We publish the first of a series of letters
from a native correspondent of considerable education and ability,
his name is Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje. Mr. Plaatje was born
in the district of Boshof, his parents being Barolongs,
coming originally from Thaba Ncho, and trekking eventually to Mafeking.
He attended the Lutheran Mission School at the Pniel Mission Station,
near Barkly West, as a boy, under the Rev. G. E. Westphal;
and at thirteen years he passed the fourth standard, which was as far
as the school could take him. For the next three years he acted
as pupil-teacher, receiving private lessons from the Rev. and Mrs. Westphal.
At the age of sixteen he joined the Cape Government service as letter-carrier
in the Kimberley Post Office. There he studied languages in his spare time,
and passed the Cape Civil Service examination in typewriting,
Dutch and native languages, heading the list of successful candidates
in each subject. Shortly before the war he was transferred to Mafeking
as interpreter, and during the siege was appointed Dutch interpreter
to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, presided over by Lord Edward Cecil.
The Magistrate's clerks having taken up arms, Mr. Plaatje became
confidential clerk to Mr. C. G. H. Bell, who administered Native affairs
during the siege. Mr. Plaatje drew up weekly reports on the Native situation,
which were greatly valued by the military authorities,
and in a letter written to a friend asserted with some sense of humour
that "this arrangement was so satisfactory that Mr. Bell was created a C.M.G.
at the end of the siege."
Had it not been for the colour bar, Mr. Plaatje, in all probability,
would have been holding an important position in the Department
of Native Affairs; as it was, he entered the ranks of journalism
as Editor, in the first place, of `Koranta ea Becoana', a weekly paper
in English and Sechuana, which was financed by the Chief Silas Molema
and existed for seven years very successfully. At the present moment
Mr. Plaatje is Editor of the `Tsala ea Batho' (The People's Friend)
at Kimberley, which is owned by a native syndicate, having its headquarters
in the Free State. Mr. Plaatje has acted as interpreter
for many distinguished visitors to South Africa, and holds autograph letters
from the Duke of Connaught, Mr. Chamberlain, and other notabilities.
He visited Mr. Abraham Fischer quite lately and obtained from him
a promise to introduce a Bill into Parliament ameliorating the position
of the Natives of the Orange River Colony, who are debarred by law
from receiving titles to landed property. Mr. Plaatje's articles
on native affairs have been marked by the robust common sense and moderation
so characteristic of Mr. Booker Washington. He realizes
the great debt which the Natives owe to the men who brought
civilization to South Africa. He is no agitator or firebrand,
no stirrer-up of bad feeling between black and white. He accepts
the position which the Natives occupy to-day in the body politic
as the natural result of their lack of education and civilization.
He is devoted to his own people, and notes with ever-increasing regret
the lack of understanding and knowledge of those people,
which is so palpable in the vast majority of the letters and leading articles
written on the native question. As an educated Native with liberal ideas
he rather resents the power and authority of the uneducated native chiefs
who govern by virtue of their birth alone, and he writes and speaks
for an entirely new school of native thought. The opinion of such a man
ought to carry weight when native affairs are being discussed.
We have fallen into the habit of discussing and legislating
for the Native without ever stopping for one moment to consider
what the Native himself thinks. No one but a fool will deny
the importance of knowing what the Native thinks before we legislate for him.
It is in the hope of enlightening an otherwise barren controversy
that we shall publish from time to time Mr. Plaatje's letters,
commending them always to the more thoughtful and practical of our readers.
-- `Pretoria News', September, 1910.
==
(The writer of this appreciation, the Editor of the Pretoria evening paper,
was Reuter's war correspondent in the siege of Mafeking.)
(B) Prologue
We have often read books, written by well-known scholars,
who disavow, on behalf of their works, any claim to literary perfection.
How much more necessary, then, that a South African native workingman,
who has never received any secondary training, should in attempting authorship
disclaim, on behalf of his work, any title to literary merit.
Mine is but a sincere narrative of a melancholy situation,
in which, with all its shortcomings, I have endeavoured to describe
the difficulties of the South African Natives under a very strange law,
so as most readily to be understood by the sympathetic reader.
The information contained in the following chapters is the result
of personal observations made by the author in certain districts of
the Transvaal, Orange "Free" State and the Province of the Cape of Good Hope.
In pursuance of this private inquiry, I reached Lady Brand
early in September, 1913, when, my financial resources being exhausted,
I decided to drop the inquiry and return home. But my friend,
Mr. W. Z. Fenyang, of the farm Rietfontein, in the "Free" State,
offered to convey me to the South of Moroka district,
where I saw much of the trouble, and further, he paid my railway fare
from Thaba Ncho back to Kimberley.
In the following November, it was felt that as Mr. Saul Msane,
the organizer for the South African Native National Congress,
was touring the eastern districts of the Transvaal,
and Mr. Dube, the President, was touring the northern districts and Natal,
and as the finances of the Congress did not permit an additional traveller,
no information would be forthcoming in regard to the operation
of the mischievous Act in the Cape Province. So Mr. J. M. Nyokong,
of the farm Maseru, offered to bear part of the expenses if I would undertake
a visit to the Cape. I must add that beyond spending six weeks
on the tour to the Cape, the visit did not cost me much,
for Mr. W. D. Soga, of King Williamstown, very generously
supplemented Mr. Nyokong's offer and accompanied me on a part of the journey.
Besides the information received and the hospitality enjoyed
from these and other friends, the author is indebted, for further information,
to Mr. Attorney Msimang, of Johannesburg. Mr. Msimang toured
some of the Districts, compiled a list of some of the sufferers
from the Natives' Land Act, and learnt the circumstances of their eviction.
His list, however, is not full, its compilation having been undertaken
in May, 1914, when the main exodus of the evicted tenants
to the cities and Protectorates had already taken place,
and when eyewitnesses of the evils of the Act had already fled the country.
But it is useful in showing that the persecution is still continuing,
for, according to this list, a good many families were evicted
a year after the Act was enforced, and many more were at that time
under notice to quit. Mr. Msimang, modestly states in an explanatory note,
that his pamphlet contains "comparatively few instances
of actual cases of hardship under the Natives' Land Act, 1913,
to vindicate the leaders of the South African Native National Congress
from the gross imputation, by the Native Affairs Department,
that they make general allegations of hardships without producing
any specific cases that can bear examination." Mr. Msimang,
who took a number of sworn statements from the sufferers,
adds that "in Natal, for example, all of these instances
have been reported to the Magistrates and the Chief Native Commissioner.
Every time they are told to find themselves other places,
or remain where they are under labour conditions. At Peters and Colworth,
seventy-nine and a hundred families respectively are being ejected
by the Government itself without providing land for them."
Some readers may perhaps think that I have taken the Colonial Parliament
rather severely to task. But to any reader who holds
with Bacon, that "the pencil hath laboured more in describing
the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon," I would say:
"Do, if we dare make the request, and place yourself in our shoes."
If, after a proper declaration of war, you found your kinsmen
driven from pillar to post in the manner that the South African Natives
have been harried and scurried by Act No. 27 of 1913, you would,
though aware that it is part of the fortunes of war, find it difficult
to suppress your hatred of the enemy. Similarly, if you see
your countrymen and countrywomen driven from home, their homes broken up,
with no hopes of redress, on the mandate of a Government
to which they had loyally paid taxation without representation --
driven from their homes, because they do not want to become servants;
and when you know that half of these homeless ones have perforce
submitted to the conditions and accepted service on terms
that are unprofitable to themselves; if you remember
that more would have submitted but for the fact that no master has any use
for a servant with forty head of cattle, or a hundred or more sheep;
and if you further bear in mind that many landowners are anxious
to live at peace with, and to keep your people as tenants,
but that they are debarred from doing so by your Government
which threatens them with a fine of 100 Pounds or six months' imprisonment,
you would, I think, likewise find it very difficult to maintain a level head
or wield a temperate pen.
For instance, let us say, the London County Council decrees
that no man shall rent a room, or hire a house, in the City of London
unless he be a servant in the employ of the landlord, adding that
there shall be a fine of one hundred pounds on any one who attempts
to sell a house to a non-householder; imagine such a thing and its effects,
then you have some approach to an accurate picture of the operation
of the South African Natives' Land Act of 1913. In conclusion,
let me ask the reader's support in our campaign for the repeal of such a law,
and in making this request I pray that none of my readers may live
to find themselves in a position so intolerable.
When the narrative of this book up to Chapter XVIII was completed,
it was felt that an account of life in South Africa,
without a reference to the war or the rebellion would be
but a story half told, and so Chapters XIX-XXV were added.
It will be observed that Chapters XX-XXIV, unlike the rest of the book,
are not the result of the writer's own observations.
The writer is indebted for much of the information in these five chapters
to the Native Press and some Dutch newspapers which his devoted wife
posted to him with every mail. These papers have been
a source of useful information. Of the Dutch newspapers
special thanks are due to `Het Westen' of Potchefstroom,
which has since March 1915 changed its name to `Het Volksblad'.
Most of the Dutch journals, especially in the northern Provinces, take up
the views of English-speaking Dutch townsmen (solicitors and Bank clerks),
and publish them as the opinion of the South African Dutch.
`Het Westen' (now `Het Volksblad'), on the other hand,
interprets the Dutch view, sound, bad or indifferent, exactly as we ourselves
have heard it expressed by Dutchmen at their own farms.
Translations of the Tipperary Chorus into some of the languages
which are spoken by the white and black inhabitants of South Africa
have been used here and there as mottoes; and as this book is a plea
in the main for help against the "South African war of extermination",
it is hoped that admirers of Tommy Atkins will sympathize with
the coloured sufferers, who also sing Tommy Atkins' war songs.
This appeal is not on behalf of the naked hordes of cannibals
who are represented in fantastic pictures displayed
in the shop-windows in Europe, most of them imaginary;
but it is on behalf of five million loyal British subjects who shoulder
"the black man's burden" every day, doing so without looking forward
to any decoration or thanks. "The black man's burden" includes
the faithful performance of all the unskilled and least paying labour
in South Africa, the payment of direct taxation to the various Municipalities,
at the rate of from 1s. to 5s. per mensum per capita (to develop and beautify
the white quarters of the towns while the black quarters remain unattended)
besides taxes to the Provincial and Central Government, varying from
12s. to 3 Pounds 12s. per annum, for the maintenance of Government Schools
from which native children are excluded. In addition to these
native duties and taxes, it is also part of "the black man's burden" to pay
all duties levied from the favoured race. With the increasing difficulty
of finding openings to earn the money for paying these multifarious taxes,
the dumb pack-ox, being inarticulate in the Councils of State,
has no means of making known to its "keeper" that the burden
is straining its back to breaking point.
When Sir John French appealed to the British people for more shells
during Easter week, the Governor-General of South Africa
addressing a fashionable crowd at the City Hall, Johannesburg,
most of whom had never seen the mouth of a mine, congratulated them
on the fact that "under the strain of war and rebellion
the gold industry had been maintained at full pitch,"
and he added that "every ounce of gold was worth many shells
to the Allies." But His Excellency had not a word of encouragement
for the 200,000 subterranean heroes who by day and by night,
for a mere pittance, lay down their limbs and their lives
to the familiar "fall of rock" and who, at deep levels ranging from
1,000 feet to 1,000 yards in the bowels of the earth, sacrifice their lungs
to the rock dust which develops miners' phthisis and pneumonia --
poor reward, but a sacrifice that enables the world's richest gold mines,
in the Johannesburg area alone, to maintain the credit of the Empire
with a weekly output of 750,000 Pounds worth of raw gold.
Surely the appeal of chattels who render service of such great value
deserves the attention of the British people.
Finally, I would say as Professor Du Bois says in his book
`The Souls of Black Folk', on the relations between
the sons of master and man, "I have not glossed over matters
for policy's sake, for I fear we have already gone too far
in that sort of thing. On the other hand I have sincerely sought
to let no unfair exaggerations creep in. I do not doubt
that in some communities conditions are better than those I have indicated;
while I am no less certain that in other communities they are far worse."
Chapter I A Retrospect
I am Black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar,
as the curtains of Solomon.
Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me:
my mother's children were angry with me; they made me
the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.
The Song of Songs.
Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African Native
found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.
The 4,500,000 black South Africans are domiciled as follows:
One and three-quarter millions in Locations and Reserves,
over half a million within municipalities or in urban areas,
and nearly a million as squatters on farms owned by Europeans.
The remainder are employed either on the public roads or railway lines,
or as servants by European farmers, qualifying, that is,
by hard work and saving to start farming on their own account.
A squatter in South Africa is a native who owns some livestock and,
having no land of his own, hires a farm or grazing and ploughing rights
from a landowner, to raise grain for his own use and feed his stock.
Hence, these squatters are hit very hard by an Act which
passed both Houses of Parliament during the session of 1913,
received the signature of the Governor-General on June 16,
was gazetted on June 19, and forthwith came into operation.
It may be here mentioned that on that day Lord Gladstone signed no fewer
than sixteen new Acts of Parliament -- some of them being rather voluminous --
while three days earlier, His Excellency signed another batch of eight,
of which the bulk was beyond the capability of any mortal to read and digest
in four days.
But the great revolutionary change thus wrought by a single stroke of the pen,
in the condition of the Native, was not realized by him
until about the end of June. As a rule many farm tenancies expire
at the end of the half-year, so that in June, 1913, not knowing
that it was impracticable to make fresh contracts, some Natives
unwittingly went to search for new places of abode, which some farmers,
ignorant of the law, quite as unwittingly accorded them.
It was only when they went to register the new tenancies
that the law officers of the Crown laid bare the cruel fact
that to provide a landless Native with accommodation was forbidden
under a penalty of 100 Pounds, or six months' imprisonment.
Then only was the situation realized.
Other Natives who had taken up fresh places on European farms
under verbal contracts, which needed no registration, actually founded
new homes in spite of the law, neither the white farmer nor the native tenant
being aware of the serious penalties they were exposed to
by their verbal contracts.
In justice to the Government, it must be stated that no police officers
scoured the country in search of lawbreakers, to prosecute them
under this law. Had this been done, many 100 Pound cheques
would have passed into the Government coffers during that black July,
the first month after Lord Gladstone affixed his signature
to the Natives' Land Act, No. 27 of 1913.
The complication of this cruel law is made manifest by the fact
that it was found necessary for a high officer of the Government
to tour the Provinces soon after the Act came into force,
with the object of "teaching" Magistrates how to administer it.
A Congress of Magistrates -- a most unusual thing -- was also called
in Pretoria to find a way for carrying out the King's writ
in the face of the difficulties arising from this tangle of the Act.
We may add that nearly all white lawyers in South Africa,
to whom we spoke about this measure, had either not seen the Act at all,
or had not read it carefully, so that in both cases they could not tell
exactly for whose benefit it had been passed. The study of this law
required a much longer time than the lawyers, unless specially briefed,
could devote to it, so that they hardly knew what all the trouble was about.
It was the Native in the four Provinces who knew all about it,
for he had not read it in books but had himself been through its mill,
which like an automatic machine ground him relentlessly
since the end of the month of June. Not the least but one of
the cruellest and most ironical phases -- and nearly every clause of this Act
teems with irony -- is the Schedule or appendix giving the so-called
Scheduled Native Areas; and what are these "Scheduled Native Areas"?
They are the Native Locations which were reserved for the exclusive use
of certain native clans. They are inalienable and cannot be bought or sold,
yet the Act says that in these "Scheduled Native Areas" Natives only
may buy land. The areas being inalienable, not even members of the clans,
for whose benefit the locations are held in trust, can buy land therein.
The areas could only be sold if the whole clan rebelled; in that case
the location would be confiscated. But as long as the clans of the location
remain loyal to the Government, nobody can buy any land within these areas.
Under the respective charters of these areas, not even a member of the clan
can get a separate title as owner in an area -- let alone a native outsider
who had grown up among white people and done all his farming
on white man's land.
If we exclude the arid tracts of Bechuanaland, these Locations
appear to have been granted on such a small scale that each of them
got so overcrowded that much of the population had to go out and settle
on the farms of white farmers through lack of space in the Locations.
Yet a majority of the legislators, although well aware of all
these limitations, and without remedying any of them, legislate,
shall we say, "with its tongue in its cheek" that only Natives may buy land
in Native Locations.
Again, the Locations form but one-eighteenth of the total area of the Union.
Theoretically, then, the 4,500,000 Natives may "buy" land in only
one-eighteenth part of the Union, leaving the remaining seventeen parts
for the one million whites. It is moreover true that, numerically,
the Act was passed by the consent of a majority of both Houses of Parliament,
but it is equally true that it was steam-rolled into the statute book
against the bitterest opposition of the best brains of both Houses.
A most curious aspect of this singular law is that even the Minister,
since deceased, who introduced it, subsequently declared himself against it,
adding that he only forced it through in order to stave off something worse.
Indeed, it is correct to say that Mr. Sauer, who introduced the Bill,
spoke against it repeatedly in the House; he deleted the milder provisions,
inserted more drastic amendments, spoke repeatedly against
his own amendments, then in conclusion he would combat
his own arguments by calling the ministerial steam-roller
to support the Government and vote for the drastic amendments.
The only explanation of the puzzle constituted as such by these
"hot-and-cold" methods is that Mr. Sauer was legislating for an electorate,
at the expense of another section of the population which was without
direct representation in Parliament. None of the non-European races
in the Provinces of Natal, Transvaal and the "Free" State
can exercise the franchise. They have no say in the selection of members
for the Union Parliament. That right is only limited to white men,
so that a large number of the members of Parliament who voted for this measure
have no responsibility towards the black races.
Before reproducing this tyrannical enactment it would perhaps be well
to recapitulate briefly the influences that led up to it.
When the Union of the South African Colonies became
an accomplished fact, a dread was expressed by ex-Republicans
that the liberal native policy of the Cape would supersede
the repressive policy of the old Republics, and they lost no time
in taking definite steps to force down the throats of the Union Legislature,
as it were, laws which the Dutch Presidents of pre-war days,
with the British suzerainty over their heads, did not dare enforce
against the Native people then under them. With the formation of the Union,
the Imperial Government, for reasons which have never been
satisfactorily explained, unreservedly handed over the Natives
to the colonists, and these colonists, as a rule, are dominated
by the Dutch Republican spirit. Thus the suzerainty of Great Britain,
which under the reign of Her late Majesty Victoria, of blessed memory,
was the Natives' only bulwark, has now apparently been withdrawn or relaxed,
and the Republicans, like a lot of bloodhounds long held in the leash,
use the free hand given by the Imperial Government not only to guard against
a possible supersession of Cape ideals of toleration, but to effectively
extend throughout the Union the drastic native policy pursued by the Province
which is misnamed "Free" State, and enforce it with the utmost rigour.
During the first year of the Union, it would seem that General Botha
made an honest attempt to live up to his London promises,
that are mentioned by Mr. Merriman in his speech (reproduced elsewhere)
on the second reading of the Bill in Parliament. It would seem
that General Botha endeavoured to allay British apprehensions and concern
for the welfare of the Native population. In pursuance of this policy
General Botha won the approbation of all Natives by appointing Hon. H. Burton,
a Cape Minister, to the portfolio of Native Affairs. That the appointment
was a happy one, from the native point of view, became manifest
when Mr. Burton signalized the ushering in of Union, by releasing
Chief Dinizulu-ka-Cetywayo, who at that time was undergoing
a sentence of imprisonment imposed by the Natal Supreme Court,
and by the restoration to Dinizulu of his pension of 500 Pounds a year.
Also, in deference to the wishes of the Native Congress,
Mr. Burton abrogated two particularly obnoxious Natal measures,
one legalizing the "Sibalo" system of forced labour, the other prohibiting
public meetings by Natives without the consent of the Government.
These abrogations placed the Natives of Natal in almost the same position
as the Cape Natives though without giving them the franchise.
So, too, when a drastic Squatters' Bill was gazetted early in 1912,
and the recently formed Native National Congress sent a deputation
to interview Mr. Burton in Capetown; after hearing the deputation,
he graciously consented to withdraw the proposed measure,
pending the allotment of new Locations in which Natives evicted
by such a measure could find an asylum. In further deference
to the representations of the Native Congress, in which they were supported
by Senators the Hon. W. P. Schreiner, Colonel Stanford, and Mr. Krogh,
the Union Government gazetted another Bill in January, 1911,
to amend an anomaly which, at that time, was peculiar to the "Free" State:
an anomaly under which a Native can neither purchase nor lease land,
and native landowners in the "Free" State could only sell their land
to the white people.
The gazetted Bill proposed to legalize only in one district
of the Orange "Free" State the sale of landed property by a Native
to another Native as well as to a white man, but it did not propose
to enable Natives to buy land from white men. The object of the Bill
was to remove a hardship, mentioned elsewhere in this sketch,
by which a "Free" State Native was by law debarred from inheriting
landed property left to him under his uncle's will. But against
such small attempts at reform, proposed or carried out by the Union Government
in the interest of the Natives, granted in small instalments of a teaspoonful
at a time -- reforms dictated solely by feelings of justice and equity --
ex-Republicans were furious.
From platform, Press, and pulpit it was suggested that
General Botha's administration was too pro-English and needed overhauling.
The Dutch peasants along the countryside were inflamed by hearing
that their gallant leader desired to Anglicize the country.
Nothing was more repellent to the ideas of the backveld Dutch,
and so at small meetings in the country districts resolutions were passed
stating that the Botha administration had outlived its usefulness.
These resolutions reaching the Press from day to day
had the effect of stirring up the Dutch voters against the Ministry,
and particularly against the head. At this time General Botha's sound policy
began to weaken. He transferred Hon. H. Burton, first Minister of Natives,
to the portfolio of Railways and Harbours, and appointed General Hertzog,
of all people in the world, to the portfolio of Native Affairs.
The good-humoured indulgence of some Dutch and English farmers towards
their native squatters, and the affectionate loyalty of some of these
native squatters in return, will cause a keen observer, arriving at
a South African farm, to be lost in admiration for this mutual good feeling.
He will wonder as to the meaning of the fabled bugbear anent the alleged
struggle between white and black, which in reality appears to exist
only in the fertile brain of the politician. Thus let the new arrival go
to one of the farms in the Bethlehem or Harrismith Districts for example,
and see how willingly the Native toils in the fields; see him
gathering in his crops and handing over the white farmer's share of the crop
to the owner of the land; watch the farmer receiving his tribute
from the native tenants, and see him deliver the first prize
to the native tenant who raised the largest crop during that season;
let him also see both the Natives and the landowning white farmers
following to perfection the give-and-take policy of "live and let live",
and he will conclude that it would be gross sacrilege to attempt to disturb
such harmonious relations between these people of different races and colours.
But with a ruthless hand the Natives' Land Act has succeeded
in remorselessly destroying those happy relations.
First of all, General Hertzog, the new Minister of Native Affairs,
travelled up and down the country lecturing farmers on their folly
in letting ground to the Natives; the racial extremists of his party
hailed him as the right man for the post, for, as his conduct showed them,
he would soon "fix up" the Natives. At one or two places
he was actually welcomed as the future Prime Minister of the Union.
On the other hand, General Botha, who at that time seemed
to have become visibly timid, endeavoured to ingratiate himself
with his discontented supporters by joining his lieutenant
in travelling to and fro, denouncing the Dutch farmers for not
expelling the Natives from their farms and replacing them with poor whites.
This became a regular Ministerial campaign against the Natives,
so that it seemed clear that if any Native could still find a place
in the land, it was not due to the action of the Government.
In his campaign the Premier said other unhappy things which were
diametrically opposed to his London speeches of two years before;
and while the Dutch colonists railed at him for trying to Anglicize
the country, English speakers and writers justly accused him of speaking
with two voices; cartoonists, too, caricatured him as having two heads --
one, they said, for London, and the second one for South Africa.
The uncertain tenure by which Englishmen in the public service
held their posts became the subject of debates in the Union Parliament,
and the employment of Government servants of colour was decidedly precarious.
They were swept out of the Railway and Postal Service
with a strong racial broom, in order to make room for poor whites,
mainly of Dutch descent. Concession after concession
was wrung from the Government by fanatical Dutch postulants for office,
for Government doles and other favours, who, like the daughters of
the horse-leech in the Proverbs of Solomon, continually cried, "Give, give."
By these events we had clearly turned the corner and were pacing backwards
to pre-Union days, going back, back, and still further backward,
to the conditions which prevailed in the old Republics,
and (if a check is not applied) we shall steadily drift back
to the days of the old Dutch East Indian administration.
The Bill which proposed to ameliorate the "Free" State cruelty,
to which reference has been made above, was dropped like a hot potato.
Ministers made some wild and undignified speeches, of which
the following spicy extract, from a speech by the Rt. Hon. Abraham Fischer
to his constituents at Bethlehem, is a typical sample --
"What is it you want?" he asked. "We have passed all the coolie* laws
and we have passed all the Kafir laws. The `Free' State
has been safeguarded and all her colour laws have been adopted by Parliament.
What more can the Government do for you?" And so the Union ship
in this reactionary sea sailed on and on and on, until she struck an iceberg
-- the sudden dismissal of General Hertzog.
--
* A contemptuous South African term for British Indians.
--
To the bitter sorrow of his admirers, General Hertzog,
who is the fearless exponent of Dutch ideals, was relieved of
his portfolios of Justice and Native Affairs -- it was whispered
as a result of a suggestion from London; and then the Dutch extremists,
in consequence of their favourite's dismissal, gave vent to their anger
in the most disagreeable manner. One could infer from their platform speeches
that, from their point of view, scarcely any one else had any rights
in South Africa, and least of all the man with a black skin.
In the face of this, the Government's timidity was almost unendurable.
They played up to the desires of the racial extremists, with the result that
a deadlock overtook the administration. Violent laws like the Immigration Law
(against British Indians and alien Asiatics) and the Natives' Land
were indecently hurried through Parliament to allay
the susceptibilities of "Free" State Republicans. No Minister found time
to undertake such useful legislation as the Coloured People's Occupation Bill,
the Native Disputes Bill, the Marriage Bill, the University Bill, etc., etc.
An apology was demanded from the High Commissioner in London
for delivering himself of sentiments which were felt to be too British
for the palates of his Dutch employers in South Africa, and the Prime Minister
had almost to apologize for having at times so far forgotten himself
as to act more like a Crown Minister than a simple Africander.
"Free" State demands became so persistent that Ministers seemed
to have forgotten the assurances they gave His Majesty's Government in London
regarding the safety of His Majesty's coloured subjects within the Union.
They trampled under foot their own election pledges, made during
the first Union General Election, guaranteeing justice and fair treatment
to the law-abiding Natives.
The campaign, to compass the elimination of the blacks
from the farms, was not at all popular with landowners,
who made huge profits out of the renting of their farms to Natives.
Platform speakers and newspaper writers coined an opprobrious phrase
which designated this letting of farms to Natives as "Kafir-farming",
and attempted to prove that it was almost as immoral as "baby-farming".
But landowners pocketed the annual rents, and showed no inclination
to substitute the less industrious "poor whites" for the more
industrious Natives. Old Baas M----, a typical Dutch landowner
of the "Free" State, having collected his share of the crop of 1912,
addressing a few words of encouragement to his native tenants,
on the subject of expelling the blacks from the farms, said in the Taal:
"How dare any number of men, wearing tall hats and frock coats,
living in Capetown hotels at the expense of other men, order me
to evict my Natives? This is my ground; it cost my money, not Parliament's,
and I will see them banged (barst) before I do it."
It then became evident that the authority of Parliament
would have to be sought to compel the obstinate landowners to
get rid of their Natives. And the compliance of Parliament with this demand
was the greatest Ministerial surrender to the Republican malcontents,
resulting in the introduction and passage of the Natives' Land Act of 1913,
inasmuch as the Act decreed, in the name of His Majesty the King,
that pending the adoption of a report to be made by a commission,
somewhere in the dim and unknown future, it shall be unlawful
for Natives to buy or lease land, except in scheduled native areas.
And under severe pains and penalties they were to be deprived
of the bare human rights of living on the land, except as servants
in the employ of the whites -- rights which were never seriously challenged
under the Republican regime, no matter how politicians raved
against the Natives.
Chapter II The Grim Struggle between Right and Wrong,
and the Latter Carries the Day
Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness
which they have prescribed;
To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the fruit
from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey,
and that they may rob the fatherless.
Isaiah.
On February 18, 1913, General L. Lemmer, member for Marico, Transvaal,
asked the Minister of Lands: -- (a) How many farms or portions of farms
in the Transvaal Province have during the last three years been registered
in the names of Natives; (b) what is the extent of the land so registered;
and (c) how much was paid for it?
The Minister of Lands replied: (a) 78 farms; (b) 144,416 morgen;
and (c) 94,907 Pounds.
Some very disturbing elements suggest themselves in this question
and in its prompt answer. A question of the kind should have taken
some time to reach Pretoria from the seat of Parliament; more time
to search for and compile the necessary information, and further time
to get the answer to the Table of the House of Assembly in Capetown.
For instance, on March 11 Mr. T. L. Schreiner called for an explanation
in connexion with the same return. He had to ask again on April 1,
the answer in each instance being that the required "information
had been telegraphed for and would be laid on the table when it is available"
(vide Union Hansard, pp. 777 and 1,175). It was only on May 13
-- two months and two days after -- that an answer to Mr. Schreiner's
question of March 11 could be furnished.
Again, on May 20 Mr. Schreiner called for a similar return,
embracing the four Provinces of the Union.* If it were so easy
for General Lemmer to get a reply in regard to the Transvaal,
where most of the registration took place, it should have been
relatively more easy to add the information from the Cape and Natal,
since no registration could have taken place in the Orange "Free" State,
where Natives cannot buy land. But strange to say, all that Mr. Schreiner
could get out of the Minister was a promise to furnish a reply
when it is available, and it does not appear to be on record
that it was ever furnished during that session. Therefore, a Native
cannot be blamed for suspecting that when General Lemmer asked his question,
the return was "cut and dried" and available to be laid on the table
as soon as it was called for.
--
* It does not appear to have occurred to any one to call for a return
showing transfers of land from blacks to whites.
--
Another significant point is that the questioner did not want to know
the extent of land bought by Natives, but of the land
"registered in their names" during the period; and Mr. Schreiner
was able to show later in the session by an analysis of the return
that it mainly comprised land awarded to Native tribes
by the Republican Government, some of it when they conquered the country.
They include farms bought or awarded to Natives as long ago
as the early 60's and 70's, but the owners were not able to obtain titles
as the late Republican Government did not allow Natives to register land
in their own names. They had been held in trust for them
by European friends or missionaries, and it was only during
the last three years that the owners claimed direct titles,
which right was restored to them since the British occupation.
But the Lemmer Return did its fell work. It scared every white man
in the country. They got alarmed to hear that Natives had
during the past three (!) years "bought" land to the extent of 50,000 morgen
per annum.
Thanks to Mr. Schreiner's questions, however, the misleading features
of the statistical scarecrow were revealed -- but, unfortunately too late.
Origin of the Trouble
On February 28, 1913, Mr. J. G. Keyter (a "Free" State member) moved:
That the Government be requested to submit to the House
DURING THE PRESENT SESSION a general Pass and Squatters Bill
to prohibit coloured people (1) from WANDERING ABOUT WITHOUT A PROPER PASS;
(2) from SQUATTING ON FARMS; and (3) from SOWING ON THE SHARE SYSTEM.
Mr. T. P. Brain,* another "Free" Stater, seconded the motion.
--
* This gentleman died during 1913.
--
Mr. P. G. W. Grobler,* a Transvaaler, moved (as an amendment)
to add at the end of the motion: "and further TO TAKE EFFECTIVE MEASURES
TO RESTRICT THE PURCHASE AND LEASE OF LAND BY NATIVES."
--
* Mr. Grobler forfeited his seat when he was convicted of complicity
in the recent rebellion.
--
Mr. Schreiner strongly protested against both the motion and the amendment.
The Minister for Native Affairs* spoke somewhat against Mr. Keyter's motion
but promised to comply with Mr. Grobler's amendment, which promise he redeemed
by introducing a Natives' Land Bill.
--
* Hon. J. W. Sauer, Minister of Native Affairs, died a month after the Bill
became law.
--
Before the Bill was introduced, the Minister made the unprecedented
announcement that the Governor-General had given his assurance
that the Royal Assent would not be withheld from the Natives' Land Bill.
Section 65 of the South African Constitution provides that the King
may disallow an Act of Parliament within twelve months
after the Governor-General signed it. And the abrogation of the Constitution,
as far as this Bill is concerned, literally gave licence
to the political libertines of South Africa; as, being thus freed
from all legislative restraint, they wasted no further time
listening to such trifles as reason and argument.
The following are extracts from the debates on the Natives' Land Bill
as reported in the Union Hansard of 1913.
==
The adjourned debate on the motion for the second reading
of the Natives Land Bill was resumed by
MR. J. X. MERRIMAN (Victoria West). It was with very great reluctance
(the right hon. gentleman said) that he rose to speak on this measure.
It would have been more convenient to have given a silent vote,
but he felt, and he was afraid, that after many years of devoted attention
to this question of the native policy of South Africa, he would not
be doing his duty if he did not give this House -- for what it was worth --
the result of his experience through these years.
He should like to emphasize a brighter side of the question,
and that was to point out that the Natives, if they were well managed,
were an invaluable asset to the people of this country. (Hear, hear.)
Let them take our trade figures and compare them with
the trade figures of the other large British Dominions.
Our figures were surprising when measured by the white population,
but if they took the richest Dominion that there was under the British Crown
outside South Africa, and took the trade value of those figures
per head of the white population, and multiply those figures
by our European population, then they might very well apply
any balance they had to our native population, and then they would see,
strangely enough, that upon that basis it worked out that
the actual trade of three Natives was worth about that of one white man.
That, of course, was a very imperfect way of looking at
the value of these people, because the trade value of some of these Natives
was far greater than the trade value of some of our white people.
He had merely indicated these trade figures to show what an enormous asset
we had in the Natives in that respect. Let them think
what the industry of the Natives had done for us. Who had built our railways,
who had dug our mines, and developed this country as far as it was developed?
Who had been the actual manual worker who had done that? The Native:
the coloured races of this country. We must never forget
that we owed them a debt in that respect -- a debt not often acknowledged
by what we did for them. Proceeding, he said that they ought to think
what they owed to the docility of the Natives, and the wonderfully easy way
in which they had been governed when treated properly. He also paid a tribute
to the honesty of the Natives.
What must strike any one was the fact that though this Bill was really,
to a certain extent, a beginning, or was thought to be in certain quarters,
of a revolution in their dealing with the native races,
it was not even mentioned in the speech of the Governor-General.
It fell upon them like a bolt from the blue. He remembered the afternoon.
They had heard a very impassioned and very heated speech
from the hon. member for Ficksburg on the enormous danger of squatting
in the Free State, and that was the occasion for introducing
a general statement of the policy of the Government towards the Natives
and the introduction of this Bill. He did not think that that was the way
they liked to see a thing of this magnitude approached.
They often heard demands for what was called a general declaration of policy
with regard to native affairs -- a policy which should be applied
to the highest civilized Native, the owner of a farm, and the naked barbarian.
They could not do it. People who demanded a general declaration of that kind
had not had the experience which some of them had had.
The hon. member who spoke before him said that he was in favour
of the underlying principle of the Bill. What was the underlying principle?
The underlying principle was what one read into the Bill.
One hon. member read into it that it was the separation of the two races.
That might have been done when the two races first came in contact
at the Fish River, but it could not be done now. Since then
they had been developing the country with the labour of these people.
They had been advancing by our aid. They had mixed themselves up
with these people in an inextricable fashion and then some said
"Haul your native policy out of the drawer and begin with
a policy of separation." He was sure that the hon. member
who had brought in the Bill had no idea of that sort in his mind.
Another person had the idea that they were going to set up a sort of pale --
a sort of kraal in which they were going to drive these people.
Then another gentleman sneered at the policy hitherto adopted,
and he said that one side said that the policy towards the Natives
should be firm and just, while the other side said that it should be
just and firm.
It seemed to him that they had not got sufficient information.
Beyond the bald statistics which were given by the Minister
in the course of his interesting and moderate speech, they had nothing.
They were going into a thing that would stir South Africa from end to end,
and which affected hundreds of thousands of both races.
They had no information as to what were the ideas of the Natives.
It was unfortunate that, owing to this lack of information,
wrong ideas had got about with regard to this Bill. It was difficult
to find out what the Native thought about these things; he doubted
whether anybody could say that he had got at the mind of the Native.
The only way, and he must say that he did not take it as a real indication,
was what they wrote in their newspapers. He was alarmed, but not surprised,
at some of the articles in their newspapers, because they took their views
from the heated speeches and writings in party newspapers
all over the country, and they were very much alarmed. He thought
that before a Bill of this sort was passed, there should be some attempt made
to get their views. As far as one section was concerned,
the Bill was going to set up a sort of pale -- that there was going to be
a sort of kraal in which all the Natives were to be driven,
and they were to be left to develop on their own lines. To allow them
to go on their own lines was merely to drive them back into barbarism;
their own lines meant barbarous lines; their own lines were cruel lines.
All along they had been bringing them away from their own lines.
It reminded him of what an English writer said about a similar policy
in Ireland, because when the English went to Ireland
they regarded the Native Irish in the way some extreme people here
regarded the Natives of South Africa. They thought they would root them out.
They treated them as dogs, and thought that they were dogs.
They set up a pale. They set the Irish within that pale,
to develop upon their own lines, but there were always Englishmen
living in that pale, just as in the same way they found Europeans
living among Natives. Sir George Davis in describing this policy wrote
that it was the intention of the Government to set up a separation
between English and Irish, intending in time that the English should
root out the Irish. If they changed the Irish for Natives they would see
how the illustration would apply. A policy more foredoomed to failure
in South Africa could not be initiated. It was a policy that
would keep South Africa back, perhaps for ever. (Hear, hear.)
What would be the effect of driving these civilized Natives
back into reserves? At the present time, every civilized man
-- if they treated him properly -- every civilized man
was becoming an owner of land outside native reserve, and therefore
he was an asset of strength to the country. He was a loyalist.
He was not going to risk losing his property. He was on
the side of the European. If they drove these people back into reserve
they became our bitterest enemies. Therefore, he viewed anything
that tended that way with the gravest suspicion. Again, in this Bill
there was not sufficient distinction between those Natives
who tried to educate themselves and the ordinary raw barbarian.
They were all classed under the word "Native".
He came now to what was the main object of the Bill, and that was:
to do away with the squatting evil. Why was there a squatting evil?
Was it the fault of the Native? (An hon. member: No.)
Was it the fault of the law? (No.) They had got the most stringent
laws concerning Natives of all the laws in the whole country,
in the Province of which his hon. friend (Mr. Keyter) was a member.
He did not think anything was more surprising than when they came to look
at the increases in the native population in the Orange Free State.
They had a huge native population in the Cape, and the increase
during the census periods from 1904 to 1911 -- he wanted hon. members
to pay some attention to this, because it showed the value of legislation --
the increase in the Cape Province during that period was 8.33 per cent.
In Natal, which had a huge -- in fact, an overwhelming -- native population,
curiously enough, the increase was the same, even to the actual
decimal figure, viz., 8.33 per cent.: but some allowance must be made,
because a large number of Natives were out at work in the mines.
Now, in the Transvaal -- and in taking the Transvaal figures
these did not apply as regarded squatting, because the increase was mainly due
to the number of Natives employed in the mines. In the Transvaal
the Natives increased by 30.1 per cent. Now, when they came
to his friend's little State, where the most stringent laws were made
to keep out the Natives, how much did they suppose the Natives increased
in the Free State? By no less than 44 per cent. (Opposition cheers.)
Was that the fault of the Natives? No, it was because
-- having the most stringent laws -- the people found it best
to evade those laws. (Hear, hear.) He hoped his hon. friend
would be a little tolerant. Do let him pick the mote out of his own eye
before he tried to pick the beam out of other people's. (Hear, hear.)
In the Free State these laws were very severe; for instance,
punishments -- amazing punishments -- were given, and yet the result
was the increase in five years by 44 per cent. of their native population.
This was something that they should take a warning by. They were going
to do away with the squatter in appearance, but he would still survive
as a labour tenant. They might do away with the labour tenant,
and he would still be surviving as a labour servant. How was the Government
to distinguish between these? They had in the Cape a law which stated
how many labour tenants a man should have upon his farm.
What they wanted in this country was administration and not more legislation,
and if they were to put the laws which they had into force in the Free State
at the present time he had no doubt that there would be a rebellion.
(Hear, hear.) They would have platforms swarming with people
who would say that they could not grow one bag of mealies without the Natives.
But they had the laws to do it. Now they went and tried in this Bill
to make a uniform law. Turning towards the Minister, Mr. Merriman said:
"My poor friend! that after all the years we had laboured together
he of all people should be the author of a uniform law on native matters!
(Laughter.) I say this more in sorrow than in anger -- (laughter) --
because the conditions were totally different in the four Provinces."
In the Free State, proceeded Mr. Merriman, the people had most excellent laws
from their point of view for keeping out the Natives --
stringent, Draconian, and violent laws, but they were not carried out,
and the Natives had flooded the country. All they wanted to do
was to turn the Native from a tenant to a labour tenant, and then salvation
would be at hand. He could not see very much difference between the two,
except that one was a contented advancing man and the other a discontented man
approaching very closely to the Russian serf -- he was a soul.
Shortly we should hear of a farm being up for sale with so many souls.
In the Transvaal the problem had been complicated by
the decisions of the Court and the curious way in which some ground
had been given out in the Zoutpansberg district, where, he was told,
farms had been given out on which the Natives had been living for years,
and these farms -- with the Natives on them -- had come into
the possession of companies and individuals, and now it was proposed
to turn the Natives off. That would not be an agreeable thing,
but he would not offer an opinion now as to the justice of it.
He would like to revert to the state of things which had grown up
under the Draconian laws of the Free State. According to
a very interesting Blue-book containing reports of magistrates,
one magistrate had reported that "the pernicious system of squatting
was detrimental to the working farmer, the Native reaping
the whole of the benefit." The man who worked generally reaped
the whole benefit in the long run. In the Harrismith district
there were some 40,000 Natives against some 8,000 Europeans.
How did they get there? Having been a Free State burgher
he knew that the Natives had not forced their way in.
These Natives ploughed on the half-shares, and he would like to know
whether they were labour tenants or squatters. If they were squatters
it would require very little dexterous management to convert them
into labour tenants. The Magistrate of Hoopstad, went on Mr. Merriman,
had referred to the pernicious system of native squatters.
But why did not the Free State magistrates do something and put the law
in force? That was the principal reason why the House was forced
to pass that Bill without information, and without giving
any opportunity to people who had the deepest interest in this matter
to have their views heard, or to let them know what the House was going to do
because the magistrates in the Free State would not enforce the law.
He did think that was rather hard. In conclusion Mr. Merriman said:
I dare say I may have said a great many things which may be distasteful
to my hon. friends, but I do claim their attention because at a time
when they were not in such a dominant position as they are now,
I pleaded for right and justice for them. Therefore, they should not
take it amiss from me, because now they are in a dominant position,
I plead also for justice, toleration, moderation, and delay in this matter.
MR. H. MENTZ (Zoutpansberg) said the right hon. gentleman
had earned their gratitude for the high tone in which he had carried
the debate. The speech which he had delivered was a most instructive one,
and although the speaker was not in entire agreement with him on all points,
he was in agreement on the point that the matter was one to be handled
with prudence, but it was to be regretted that under the Bill
a Commission was to be appointed. The Minister should not listen
to the request for a postponement of the question, by referring it
to a Select Committee. If they were to refer the Bill to a Select Committee,
it would never be passed this year.
MR. G. L. STEYTLER (Rouxville) expressed his thanks to the Government
for bringing forward the Bill. He said he felt that it was not
a complete solution of the whole question, but it was certainly
a step in the right direction.
MR. A. FAWCUS (Umlazi) said that as the representative of 70,000 Natives
in Natal, not one of whom so far as he knew had a vote, he should like,
on their behalf, to thank the right hon. member for Victoria West
for the manner in which he had handled this question.
In the course of his speech the right hon. gentleman asked,
what did the Natives think about this Bill before the House?
His (Mr. Fawcus') opinion was that the Natives did not think anything at all
about it. He should not think there was one Native in a thousand
in South Africa who was aware that this matter, so vitally affecting
their future, was at present at issue. The hon. member for Middelburg
had referred to the Natives as "schepsels".* He believed
the day was rapidly passing away when we should refer to Natives
as "schepsels". They were an easy-going folk, and they thought little
about title deeds and land laws. So great was the Native's attachment
to the land on which he lived, in many instances, that they could not
rackrent him off it. These were the people that the Bill wished
to dispossess and drive off the land. The figures placed before them
showed that THE LAND HELD BY EUROPEANS PER HEAD WAS FIFTY TIMES THE AMOUNT
HELD PER HEAD BY THE NATIVES. Surely there was no need at the present time
for legislation which would prevent Natives getting a little more land
than they now had. He did not think it could be put down
to the fault of the Native if he was willing to buy and live on land
rather than pay rent. The figures given in this connexion
were very instructive. EIGHT ACRES PER HEAD WERE HELD BY THE NATIVES
IN THE CAPE, SIX ACRES IN NATAL, ABOUT 1 1/2 ACRES in the Transvaal,
and about one-third of an acre in the Free State. He thought this Bill
was perhaps coming on a little before there was any necessity for it.
--
* Creatures.
--
MR. C. G. FICHARDT (Ladybrand) said he felt very much
that the Bill that was before the House did not carry out
all that should be carried out, and that was equality of justice.
IF THEY WERE TO DEAL FAIRLY WITH THE NATIVES OF THIS COUNTRY,
THEN ACCORDING TO POPULATION THEY SHOULD GIVE THEM FOUR-FIFTHS OF THE COUNTRY,
OR AT LEAST A HALF. How were they going to do that? As he said
in the earlier part of his remarks, he was prepared to accept the Bill
as something to go on with, but he hoped that in the future
it would not constitute a stumbling-block. He would much rather have seen
that the matter had been gone into more fully, and that some scheme
had been laid before them so that they might have more readily been able
to judge how the Bill would work. It was because of all these difficulties
that he felt that they could only accept the Bill if it laid down
that there was no intention of taking the country from the white people
and handing it over to the blacks.
MR. J. G. KEYTER (Ficksburg) said he wished to openly denounce, and most
emphatically so, that the people or the Government of the Orange Free State
had treated the coloured people unreasonably or unjustly,
or in any way oppressively. On the contrary, the O.F.S. had always treated
the coloured people with the greatest consideration and the utmost justice.
The O.F.S. had made what Mr. Merriman called stringent laws.
He (Mr. Keyter) called them just laws. They TOLD THE COLOURED PEOPLE PLAINLY
THAT THE O.F.S. WAS A WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY, AND THAT THEY INTENDED
TO KEEP IT SO. (Hear, hear.) THEY TOLD THE COLOURED PEOPLE
THAT THEY WERE NOT TO BE ALLOWED TO BUY OR HIRE LAND,
and that they were not going to tolerate an equality of whites and blacks;
and he said that they were not going to tolerate that in the future,
and if an attempt were made to force that on them, they would resist it
at any cost to the last,* for if they did tolerate it,
they would very soon find that they would be a bastard nation.
His experience was that the Native should be treated firmly,
kept in his place and treated honestly. They should not give him
a gun one day and fight him for it the next day. They should tell him,
as the Free State told him, that IT WAS A WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY,
THAT HE WAS NOT GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO BUY LAND THERE OR TO HIRE LAND THERE,
AND THAT IF HE WANTED TO BE THERE HE MUST BE IN SERVICE.
--
* By passing the Bill, the Government conceded all the extravagant demands
of the "Free" Staters; yet, a year later they took up arms
against the Government.
--
MR. J. A. P. VAN DER MERWE (Vredefort) deprecated sending the Bill
to a Select Committee, arguing that the House itself should decide it.
He referred to the difficulties experienced by farmers in the Free State.
If a farmer refused to allow a Native to farm on the share system
he simply refused to work. There were thousands of Natives on the farms there
who hired ground and did little work. The farmers had to keep their children
at home to do the work. Some of the Natives hired ground, did some sowing,
then went to work in Johannesburg, and paid the owner of the farm
half what he reaped from the harvest. That was not satisfactory.
He was pleased to see the provisions the Minister proposed to make
in this regard, and expressed the hope that the Native
would only be tolerated among the whites as a labourer. The Bill would meet
what he considered a great want, and, as it was an urgent matter,
he hoped the proposal for a Select Committee would not be agreed to.
Third Reading Debate.
SIR LIONEL PHILLIPS (Yeoville): But why should a Bill of this sort
be brought before them now? The Government in the past had not been bashful
in the appointing of Commissions, and one question he would ask was why,
in this important matter, the Government had not appointed a Commission
to take all the evidence and then come to the House with a measure which
the House would have to approve of. Instead of that, they were cancelling
the rights the Natives had in South Africa, and creating a very awkward hiatus
between the time the Commission would be appointed and the time the Commission
could define the areas which would be regarded as white areas and the areas
which would be regarded as native areas. That was the one serious blot
upon this measure.
He could see no justification, except that the hon. Minister,
yielding to pressure from a certain section on that side of the House,
had hastily brought on this measure. He thought from the speeches
made in the House it was the consensus of opinion that Natives
should not have farms in areas that were essentially white,
just as it was desirable that white men should not be found in areas
essentially native. And especially when they told the native population
that they were taking away from them a right they had to-day,
and they were going to substitute that right by appointing a Commission,
they were giving them very little justification for being satisfied
with this measure. He did not think they were going to gain anything
by putting the cart before the horse. He did not know
if Mr. Schreiner was accurate, but he told them that, roughly,
in the Transvaal, where the matter was most acute, the Native population
had bought something like 12,000 or 15,000 morgen of land in twelve years.
That, he thought, showed there was no extreme urgency for the measure.
To that extent he agreed entirely with the hon. member, and he believed
the Minister would be well advised to send the Bill to a Select Committee,
so that many of the details, which were extremely complicated and difficult,
might be thrashed out in that atmosphere, rather than on
the floor of the House. (Opposition cheers.)
MR. E. N. GROBLER (Edenburg) said: The present was one of the best measures
that the Government had so far brought forward, and it appeared clear
that they had a Government which truly represented the wishes of the public.
It was impossible to delay the solution of the Native problem,
and legislation on the subject had for a long time past been asked for.*
At the same time, he did not entirely agree with the methods,
proposed to be applied, and he did not like the system of allocating reserves
for Natives. When once those reserves had been allocated, would it not result
in injury to agriculture and cattle breeding? The farmers would suffer
from lack of labour, and that deficiency would be a growing one.
Neither could he agree to the principle of expropriation of land
belonging to whites in order to increase the size of the native reserves.
He considered the Bill was a complicated one. The matter should be settled
by way of taxation, in the following way. All Natives who
were in the service of whites should be exempted from taxation,
and treated as well as possible, and other Natives should be encouraged
to take similar service. There were enormous reserves where the Natives
could go and live,** and if they refused to go there they should be required
to pay a stiff tax. Then they would go and work for white people.
The hon. member for Tembuland had offered many objections to the Bill.
They should make that hon. member king of Tembuland.
In a country of the blind a man with one eye would be king.
--
* By a "solution of the Native problem", "Free" State farmers generally mean
the re-establishment of slavery.
** It will be observed that these and similar mythological disquisitions
subsequently formed General Botha's assurances to Mr. Harcourt.
See Chapter XVI. But some light is thrown on the subject
of these visionary Native Reserves by Mr. Fawcus' speech
based on official statistics (page 36 [above -- last Fawcus quote]).
--
MR. P. DUNCAN (Fordsburg) said he hoped the Minister would not take
the view of the last speaker. Under the Bill it would be possible
for farmers to accumulate on their land as many Natives as they could get,
so long as they could use them as servants. (Labour cheers.)
So far as he could see, even if it were carried out to the extent
that it was proposed to go, it would not very much reduce the social contact
which at present existed between whites and natives.
SIR W. B. BERRY (Queenstown) said he would like to know why the Minister
had run away from the Bill that had passed the second reading,
and now tabled another Bill in the shape of many amendments.
One would naturally complain that, seeing that they had in that House
a Native Affairs Committee, a non-party committee, specially chosen
to consider all matters relating to native affairs, that Bill,
which was a most important matter and dealt with native affairs from A to Z,
should have been referred to that committee. The same thing
happened last session in reference to a Bill the Minister of Native Affairs
kept on the paper until nearly the end of the session, and the House
had to take the very unusual step almost on the last day of moving
that committee proceedings on that Bill be taken that day six months.
He (Sir W. B. Berry) proposed to move a similar amendment
to the motion now before the House. In the remarks he addressed
when the Bill came up for second reading he had ventured to say
that there was no call for a bill of that nature at all;
there was no need for a Bill revolutionizing the attitude of the Union
with respect to the natives generally. The only clue they could get
to the reason why the Bill was introduced was that a few die-hards
on the other side of the House had given the Minister to understand that
unless he brought in a Bill of that kind, or of a similarly drastic nature,
the position of the Government was in danger. He hoped
some of these die-hards would come forward that evening
and tell them plainly and bluntly why they wanted that Bill,
why they were going to thrust it on the country without any notice,
and why they were calling on the House to revolutionize
the whole tenour and the whole order of things in regard to land matters
as far as the Natives were concerned. Proceeding, the hon. member said
the only justification that had been offered for this Bill was that
a large amount of land had been transferred from Europeans to Natives.
An analysis of the return, however, showed that only sixteen farms
in the Transvaal had been so transferred during the last three years.
Surely that was not any justification why the European people of the Union
should get into a panic and why the administration of the day
were seeking to place on the Statute Book this most drastic legislation.
Another reason why he objected to this Bill was that it purported to appoint
a Commission to investigate to what extent and in what parts and in what time
land should be selected by the Commission for the purpose of being reserved
as additional native areas within the Union. They were not given
any guarantee that the Commission was going to be appointed
nor any guarantee that it would ever report, but at the same time
whilst these indefinite assurances were attempted to be given to the House
there was no getting over this fact, that there was no time limit in the Bill
by which the real enacting clause in the Bill was to have any cessation.
When he spoke on this Bill before he supported it only on the understanding
that a time limit was to be put in, or that it should be an annual Bill.
He said unhesitatingly that the whole tendency of the Bill,
as it stood at the second reading, and more especially as it stood
with the amendments by the Minister on the notice paper,
was to drive the Native peasant off the land. The only refuge
that that Native had was the town.
The country had not been prepared in any way for a Bill of this kind.
A cry had been heard throughout the land against the iniquities
proposed in the Bill. If it had been found absolutely necessary
that legislation of this kind should be introduced, the least
that could be expected was that ample time should be given to the Natives
to thoroughly acquire a knowledge of the contents of the measure.
That opportunity had not been given them, and in this respect
there was a very serious grievance. For the good order and peace of the Union
there was a very great danger ahead. He had understood from those
well versed in native affairs that one of the greatest dangers
that could threaten us was to give the Natives anything
in the shape of a common grievance. Divide and rule had been
a wise precaution in the government of the Natives. When a common grievance
was found by four or five million people one could understand how great
that grievance must be. One amendment the Minister had put on the paper
must give serious pause. The late Minister of Native Affairs
issued to members last session a Squatters Bill. The greatest objection
to that measure, and one which he thought led to its withdrawal,
was that it proposed to remove thousands upon thousands of natives
from land which they had been in the occupation of for scores of years.
It was in consequence of the disturbance which that Bill caused
throughout the Union that it was withdrawn. In one of the amendments
on the paper the present Minister of Native Affairs brought back
in a somewhat clandestine manner the most objectionable feature of the Bill
that was withdrawn.
Mr. Speaker: The amendment is not yet before the House.
SIR W. B. BERRY: What Bill is it then that is to go into Committee?
(Hear, hear.) Is it the Bill which was read a second time
or the Bill comprised in the Minister's amendments? He moved that the House
go into committee on the Bill this day six months.
MR. T. L. SCHREINER (Tembuland), in seconding the amendment,
said that sufficient notice had not been given of the provisions of the Bill,
although the Natives, thanks to the time which had elapsed
since the second reading, were better acquainted with the measure
than they were a little while ago.
Mr. Schreiner proceeded to quote opinions from native newspapers on the Bill.
The `Tsala ea Batho', of Kimberley, said: "We are standing on the brink
of the precipice. We appealed to certain members of Parliament against
the suspension clause in Mr. Sauer's Land Bill, and the result of our appeal
has been an agreement between Sir Thomas Smartt and the Minister
to the effect that the first part of the Bill only be proceeded with.
The effect of this agreement is infinitely worse than the whole Bill.
In its entirety, there were certain saving clauses, one of them
practically excluding the Cape Province from the operation of the Bill.
Under the present agreement, all these clauses are dropped,
and section 1 of the Bill, which prohibits the sale of land
between Europeans and Natives (pending the report of a future Commission)
is applicable to all parts of the Union, including the Cape Province.
Now, then, if this suspension clause becomes law, what is going to happen?
It is simply this: That the whole land policy of the Union of South Africa
is the land policy of the Orange Free State, and it will be as difficult
to abrogate that suspension as it is difficult to recall a bullet,
once fired through some one's head, and resuscitate the victim.
Our object then should be to prevent the pistol being fired off,
as prevention is infinitely better than cure." One paper
that he was quoting from was (Mr. Schreiner went on to say) pleased,
because it believed that this Bill was going to Select Committee.
There was another native paper, published in Natal, which acknowledged
the efforts which the missionaries had made on behalf of the Natives
in regard to this Bill. There was a native paper, published at Dundee,
which said that, if the Bill were in the interests of the Natives,
and the Government were actuated by a sincere regard for them,
they would not have hesitated to publish it broadcast, instead of being
in such haste to push the matter through the House.*
--
* All efforts to induce the South African Government to circulate
translations of the Natives' Land Act among the Natives of the Union
have proved fruitless. -- Author.
--
Mr. Schreiner (continuing) referred to the resolution passed
by the Natal Missionary Conference, and the views expressed
by the Chairman of the Transvaal Missionary Conference in opposition
to the Bill. He mentioned that it had been decided in Johannesburg
to call a meeting of missionary societies throughout the Union,
to determine what action could be taken in case clause 1 was proceeded with.
He had also received a telegram from the Witwatersrand Church Council,
stating that a telegram had been sent to the Minister strongly protesting
against section 1 being enacted before the proposed Commission
had thoroughly investigated the whole question of alternative areas.
Mr. Schreiner urged that, if they proceeded with this Bill,
and passed clause 1 of the old Bill, and appointed a Commission,
these restrictions with regard to purchase and sale, which the Natives
had feared, and which the missionaries, on behalf of the Natives,
feared and protested against, would become a fact. For that reason,
he said they should rather put off the Bill.
Every one was feeling the pressure of their legislative duties. Was this
the time, therefore, for passing a measure of such a far-reaching character,
and where every clause demanded the most careful consideration and scrutiny?
Was it the right thing because he had a majority at his back
for the Minister to say that they must get this Bill through this session?
He held that this was not right. It was not fair to those who had
the solution of the question at heart. (Cheers.)
SIR E. H. WALTON (Port Elizabeth, Central) said he entirely supported
the amendment of the hon. member for Queen's Town. He had a telegram
from a mass meeting of Natives held in Port Elizabeth, in which they hoped
that the House would postpone decision on this question until the Commission
had sat and reported. That seemed to him an entirely reasonable request,
and it seemed all the more necessary that this should be done
on account of the very large alterations that it had been found necessary
to make in the Bill.
They had native protests from all parts of South Africa against this measure,
and when one saw what was proposed in this Act, they could not wonder
at these protests. (Hear, hear.) Therefore he put it that these protests
should receive fair consideration from members on all sides of the House.
Legislation of this kind was unfortunate from the point of view
of the Natives. The more intelligent of the Natives in this country
were asking for time. They said: "You are putting this thing upon us,
give us time to consider it. Allow this Commission to get to work,
allow this Commission to put before us the provisions you are going to make
for us, and when this is done we will submit to anything that is fair."
No man, and the Native was just a man like the rest of us,
liked the old arrangements to be disturbed, because it upset him,
and the Native might oppose it, because he was frightened.
They must admit that they had not given the native leaders and chiefs
an opportunity to come down to Cape Town and give their views.
It was unfortunate that this measure had been more or less rushed.
There was no mention of it in the Governor-General's speech, and therefore
the Natives were not prepared for the consideration of the question.
MR. M. ALEXANDER (Cape Town, Castle) said he was still of opinion
that a very dangerous principle was introduced in the Bill,
especially so far as the Cape was concerned. In the speech
delivered by the Governor-General at the opening of the session
there was not the slightest reference to the present measure,
which apparently had been brought in as an afterthought, and something
must have occurred after the Governor-General's speech was delivered,
otherwise one could not conceive of such an important Bill being omitted
from the speech. As it was the Bill would simply hang things up
until the Commission reported, and now the House would be legislating
in the dark. The vast majority of Natives had declared themselves
to be against the Bill. He had had no desire whatever that party capital
should be made out of the measure -- (hear, hear) -- but he desired
to see a measure which would bear the mark of statesmanship,
and not of panic and hurry. Their Commission could report
before next session, and then in the early stages of the session
a Bill could be introduced and be adopted on its merits.
In the interests of South Africa, in the interests of the Natives,
and in the interests of just legislation let the Government withdraw the Bill,
and appoint a Commission, and then justice and not injustice would be done.
(Hear, hear.)
DR. A. H. WATKINS (Barkly) said that there was a tacit understanding
that the Minister would refer this Bill, if he were not prepared
to accept a purely temporary measure, to a Select Committee.
During the three years of the Union Parliament every matter
practically dealing with Natives had been brought before
the Select Committee on Native Affairs and their opinion had been asked.
For some reason, which it was difficult for him to understand,
the Minister had not seen fit to carry out that course.
Sixteen days had elapsed since the second reading of this Bill was taken
on which the Select Committee could have sat morning after morning
and dealt with the Bill.
The necessity of passing only a temporary measure instead of appearing
to pass a measure which would permanently deal with this question,
was more evident to-night than when they took the second reading.
MR. H. M. MEYLER (Weenen) said that he would support
the motion of Sir Bisset Berry. He thought it would be
a great injustice to the Natives, and especially the Natives of Natal,
who really knew nothing of this measure, to force it through now.
Since the second reading, his attention had been drawn to certain provisions
in this Bill, which made it more dangerous still to hurry legislation,
because he found that, although there was an exemption in the Bill as regarded
agreements lawfully entered into, the vast majority of the agreements
at present in force amongst the Natives of Natal were not strictly lawful,
according to their Statute law. As they had no less than 380,000 Natives
squatting on private lands in Natal, according to the Minister's own figures,
it would be a fatal mistake to do anything to upset these people,
until they had something ready to provide for them instead.
The difficulty was that under the Natal law no oral contract was binding
for more than twelve months, and many of those squatters
had not got oral contracts, but were more or less on sufferance on the farms.
It would be a great danger to pass legislation which would lead to
the moving of a large portion of these people before they got an inch of land
provided for their use. He objected to legislation being brought forward
too hurriedly, and when they had got 4 1/2 millions of Natives, only an
infinitesimal portion of whom could possibly know the nature of the Bill,
and seeing that it affected them as well as the white population,
they had a perfect right to have it explained to them
by the Government officials and let their members of Parliament
for the divisions in which they lived give their opinions on the question.
That would take months, and it was impossible to get a proper
opinion of the Natives until hon. members had been away from the House
for some time. The Right Hon. the Prime Minister admitted
they should stand as the guardians of the Natives, and admitted
that they should go slowly, and he hoped the hon. Minister would be willing
to reconsider the Bill and allow it to be put off, and let them have
an interim report, at any rate, from the Commission, before they were asked
to pass legislation in that matter.
==
The Bill was contested at every stage and numerous divisions were challenged.
In each instance, the Speaker would put the Question, and the "steam-roller"
would go to work with the inevitable result. The division lists ranged
from 17 against 71 to 32 against 60, the majority in each case
being in favour of repression. It would be just as well
to give at least one of these division lists. The English names
in the majority are those of some Natal members (Ministerialists)
or representatives of purely Dutch constituencies: --
DIVISION
Dr. A. H. Watkins (Barkly) called for a division, which was taken
with the following result.
AYES -- 32.
Andrews, William Henry
Baxter, William Duncan
Berry, William Bisset
Blaine, George
Boydell, Thomas
Brown, Daniel Maclaren
Creswell, Frederic Hugh Page
Duncan, Patrick
Fawcus, Alfred
Fitzpatrick, James Percy
Henderson, James
Henwood, Charlie
Hunter, David
Jagger, John William
King, John Gavin
Long, Basil Kellett
Macaulay, Donald
Madeley, Walter Bayley
Meyler, Hugh Mowbray
Nathan, Emile
Oliver, Henry Alfred
Quinn, John William
Rockey, Willie
Runciman, William
Sampson, Henry William
Schreiner, Theophilus Lyndall
Searle, James
Smartt, Thomas William
Walton, Edgar Harris
Watkins, Arnold Hirst
Morris Alexander and J. Hewat tellers.
NOES -- 57.
Alberts, Johannes Joachim
Becker, Heinrich Christian
Bosman, Hendrik Johannes
Botha, Louis
Brain, Thomas Phillip
Burton, Henry
Clayton, Walter Frederick
Cronje, Frederik Reinhardt
Currey, Henry Latham
De Beer, Michiel Johannes
De Jager, Andries Lourens
De Waal, Hendrik
Du Toit, Gert Johan Wilhelm
Geldenhuys, Lourens
Graaff, David Pieter de Villiers
Griffin, William Henry
Grobler, Evert Nicolaas
Grobler, Pieter Gert Wessel
Joubert, Christiaan Johannes Jacobus
Joubert, Jozua Adriaan
Keyter, Jan Garhard
Kuhn, Pieter Gysbert
Lemmer, Lodewyk Arnoldus Slabbert
Maasdorp, Gysbert Henry
Malan, Francois Stephanus
Marais, Johannes Henoch
Marais, Pieter Gerhardus
Merriman, John Xavier
Meyer, Izaak Johannes
Myburgh, Marthinus Wilhelmus
Neethling, Andrew Murray
Neser, Johannes Adriaan
Nicholson, Richard Granville
Oothuisen, Ockert Almero
Orr, Thomas
Rademeyer, Jacobus Michael
Sauer, Jacobus Wilhelmus
Serfontein, Hendrik Philippus
Smuts, Jan Christiaan
Smuts, Tobias
Steyl, Johannes Petrus Gerhardus
Steytler, George Louis
Theron, Hendrik Schalk
Theron, Petrus Jacobus George
Van der Merwe, Johannes Adolph P.
Van der Walt, Jacobus
Van Eeden, Jacobus Willem
Van Heerden, Hercules Christian
Venter, Jan Abraham
Vermaas, Hendrik Cornelius Wilhelmus
Vintcent, Alwyn Ignatius
Vosloo, Johannes Arnoldus
Watt, Thomas
Wilcocks, Carl Theodorus Muller
Wiltshire, Henry
H. Mentz and G. A. Louw, tellers.
Chapter III The Natives' Land Act
I blush to think that His Majesty's representative signed a law like this,
and signed it in such circumstances.
Rev. Amos Burnet
(Chairman and General Superintendent of
the Transvaal and Swazieland District,
Wesleyan Methodist Church).
Up to now we have dealt with the history of the Land Act
from its commencement, and all the speeches and official documents
we have mentioned hitherto say nothing about restricting Europeans
in their ownership of land. And no matter what other principles
one might read into the Act, it would be found that the principles
underlying it were those of extending the "Free" State land laws
throughout the Union -- an extension by which Natives would be prohibited
from investing their earnings in land whereon they could end their days
in peace.
There seems to be good reason for believing that the Government were advised,
by the legal advisers of the Crown, that the Natives' Land Bill
would be class legislation of a kind that would never be allowed
by His Majesty's Government. The originators of the Bill, however,
were determined so to circumvent the constitutional quibble
raised by the legal advisers as to seal our doom; and by adroitly manipulating
its legal phrases, it seems that it was recasted in such a manner
as to give it a semblance of a paper restriction on European encroachment
on native rights. But class legislation the Act is, for whereas
in his travels about South Africa, since the passing of this Act,
the author has met many a native family with their stock,
turned out by the Act upon the roads, he never met one white man so hounded
by the same Act, and debarred from living where he pleased.
The squatters form a particular section of the community specifically affected
by the Land Act; and there is no such person in South Africa
as a white squatter. Although it is insistently affirmed that the law applies
both to Europeans and Natives, the conclusion cannot be avoided that
it is directed exclusively against the Native. This is the naked truth that
turns all other explanations of the fact into mere shuffling and juggling.
And the reader will find that in Section 11, at the end of the statute
which is here reproduced (whether the omission of Europeans
was a mistake of the Parliamentary draftsmen, or the printers, we know not),
it is expressly stated that "this Act may be cited for all purposes
as the NATIVES' Land Act, 1913." Who, then, will continue to argue
that it was intended for Europeans as well?
==
No. 27, 1913.]
ACT
TO
Make further provision as to the purchase and leasing of Land
by Natives and other Persons in the several parts of the Union and for
other purposes in connection with the ownership and occupation of Land
by Natives and other Persons.
Be it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty,
the Senate and the House of Assembly of the Union of South Africa,
as follows: --
1. (1) From and after the commencement of this Act,
land outside the scheduled native areas shall, until Parliament,
acting upon the report of the commission appointed under this Act,
shall have made other provision, be subjected to the following provisions,
that is to say: --
Except with the approval of the Governor-General --
(a) a native shall not enter into any agreement or transaction
for the purchase, hire, or other acquisition from a person
other than a native, of any such land or of any right thereto,
interest therein, or servitude thereover; and
(b) a person other than a native shall not enter into
any agreement or transaction for the purchase, hire,
or other acquisition from a native of any such land
or of any right thereto, interest therein, or servitude thereover.
(2) From and after the commencement of this Act, no person other than
a native shall purchase, hire or in any other manner whatever acquire any land
in a scheduled native area or enter into any agreement or transaction for
the purchase, hire or other acquisition, direct or indirect, of any such land
or of any right thereto or interest therein or servitude thereover,
except with the approval of the Governor-General.
(3) A statement showing the number of approvals granted
by the Governor-General under sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section
and giving the names and addresses of the persons to whom
such approvals were granted, the reasons for granting the same,
and the situation of the lands in respect of which they were granted,
shall, within six weeks after the commencement of each ordinary session
of Parliament, be laid upon the Tables of both Houses of Parliament.
(4) Every agreement or any other transaction whatever entered into
in contravention of this section shall be null and void ab initio.
2. (1) As soon as may be after the commencement of this Act
the Governor-General shall appoint a commission whose functions shall be
to inquire and report --
(a) what areas should be set apart as areas within which natives
shall not be permitted to acquire or hire land or interests in land;
(b) what areas should be set apart as areas within which
persons other than natives shall not be permitted to acquire or hire
land or interests in land.
The commission shall submit with any such report --
(i) descriptions of the boundaries of any area which it proposes
should be so set apart; and
(ii) a map or maps showing every such area.
(2) The commission shall proceed with and complete its inquiry
and present its reports and recommendations to the Minister
within two years after the commencement of this Act, and may present
INTERIM reports and recommendations: Provided that Parliament
may by resolution extend (if necessary) the time for the completion
of the commission's inquiry. All such reports and recommendations
shall be laid by the Minister, as soon as possible after the receipt thereof,
upon the Tables of both Houses of Parliament.
3. (1) The commission shall consist of not less than five persons,
and if any member of the commission die or resign or, owing to
absence or any other reason, is unable to act, his place shall be filled
by the Governor-General.
(2) The commission may delegate to any of its members
the carrying out of any part of an inquiry which under this Act
it is appointed to hold and may appoint persons to assist it or to act
as assessors thereto or with any members thereof delegated as aforesaid,
and may regulate its own procedure.
(3) The reports and recommendations of the majority of the commission
shall be deemed to be the reports and recommendations of the commission:
Provided that any recommendations of any member who dissents
from the majority of the commission shall, if signed by him,
be included in any such report aforesaid.
(4) The commission or any member thereof or any person acting
as assistant, or assessor, or secretary thereto may enter upon any land
for the purposes of its inquiries and obtain thereon the information necessary
to prosecute the inquiries. The commission shall without fee or other charge
have access to the records and registers relating to land in any public office
or in the office of any divisional council or other local authority.
4. (1) For the purposes of establishing any such area as is described
in section TWO, the Governor-General may, out of moneys which Parliament
may vote for the purpose, acquire any land or interest in land.
(2) In default of agreement with the owners of the land
or the holders of interests therein the provisions of the law in force
in the Province in which such land or interest in land is situate
relating to the expropriation of land for public purposes
shall apply and, if in any Province there be no such law,
the provisions of Proclamation No. 5 of 1902 of the Transvaal
and any amendment thereof shall mutatis mutandis apply.
5. (1) Any person who is a party to any attempted purchase,
sale, hire or lease, or to any agreement or transaction which
is in contravention of this Act or any regulation made thereunder
shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine
not exceeding one hundred pounds or, in default of payment, to imprisonment
with or without hard labour for a period not exceeding six months,
and if the act constituting the offence be a continuing one,
the offender shall be liable to a further fine not exceeding five pounds
for every day which that act continues.
(2) In the event of such an offence being committed by a company,
corporation, or other body of persons (not being a firm or partnership),
every director, secretary, or manager of such company, corporation, or body
who is within the Union shall be liable to prosecution and punishment and,
in the event of any such offence being committed by a firm or partnership,
every member of the firm or partnership who is within the Union
shall be liable to prosecution and punishment.
6. In so far as the occupation by natives of land outside
the scheduled native areas may be affected by this Act, the provisions thereof
shall be construed as being in addition to and not in substitution for any law
in force at the commencement thereof relating to such occupation;
but in the event of a conflict between the provisions of this Act
and the provisions of any such law, the provisions of this Act shall,
save as is specially provided therein, prevail:
Provided that --
(a) nothing in any such law or in this Act shall be construed
as restricting the number of natives who, as farm labourers,
may reside on any farm in the Transvaal;
(b) in any proceedings for a contravention of this Act
the burden of proving that a native is a farm labourer
shall be upon the accused;
(c) until Parliament, acting upon the report of the said commission,
has made other provision, no native resident on any farm
in the Transvaal or Natal shall be liable to penalties
or to be removed from such farm under any law,
if at the commencement of this Act he or the head of his family
is registered for taxation or other purposes
in the department of Native Affairs as being resident on such farm,
nor shall the owner of any such farm be liable to the penalties
imposed by section FIVE in respect of the occupation of the land
by such native; but nothing herein contained shall affect any right
possessed by law by an owner or lessee of a farm to remove
any native therefrom.
7. (1) Chapter XXXIV of the Orange Free State Law Book and Law No. 4 of 1895
of the Orange Free State shall remain of full force and effect,
subject to the modifications and interpretations in this section provided,
and sub-section (1) (a) of the next succeeding section shall not apply
to the Orange Free State.
(2) Those heads of families, with their families, who are described
in article TWENTY of Law No. 4 of 1895 of the Orange Free State
shall in the circumstances described in that article be deemed to fall under
the provisions of Ordinance No. 7 of 1904 of that Province or of any other law
hereafter enacted amending or substituted for that Ordinance.
(3) Whenever in Chapter XXXIV of the Orange Free State Law Book
the expressions "lease" and "leasing" are used, those expressions
shall be construed as including or referring to an agreement or arrangement
whereby a person, in consideration of his being permitted to occupy land,
renders or promises to render to any person a share of the produce thereof,
or any valuable consideration of any kind whatever other than
his own labour or services or the labour or services of any of his family.
8. (1) Nothing in this Act contained shall be construed as, --
(a) preventing the continuation or renewal (until Parliament
acting upon the report of the said commission has made
other provision) of any agreement or arrangement lawfully
entered into and in existence at the commencement of this Act
which is a hiring or leasing of land as defined in this Act; or
(b) invalidating or affecting in any manner whatever
any agreement or any other transaction for the purchase of land
lawfully entered into prior to the commencement of this Act,
or as prohibiting any person from purchasing at any sale
held by order of a competent court any land which was hypothecated
by a mortgage bond passed before the commencement of this Act; or
(c) prohibiting the acquisition at any time of land or interests in land
by devolution or succession on death, whether under
a will or on intestacy; or
(d) preventing the due registration in the proper deeds office
(whenever registration is necessary) of documents giving effect
to any such agreement, transaction, devolution or succession
as is in this section mentioned; or
(e) prohibiting any person from claiming, acquiring,
or holding any such servitude as under Chapter VII,
of the Irrigation and Conservation of Waters Act, 1912,
he is specially entitled to claim, acquire, or hold; or
(f) in any way altering the law in force at the commencement of this Act
relating to the acquisition of rights to minerals,
precious or base metals or precious stones; or
(g) applying to land within the limits in which a municipal council,
town council, town board, village management board,
or health committee or other local authority
exercises jurisdiction; or
(h) applying to land held at the commencement of the Act by any society
carrying on, with the approval of the Governor-General,
educational or missionary work amongst natives; or
(i) prohibiting the acquisition by natives from any person whatever
of land or interests in land in any township lawfully established
prior to the commencement of this Act, provided it is
a condition of the acquisition that no land or interest in land
in such township has at any time been or shall in future be,
transferred except to a native or coloured person; or
(j) permitting the alienation of land or its diversion from
the purposes for which it was set apart if, under section
ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN of the South African Act, 1909,
or any other law, such land could not be alienated or so diverted
except under the authority of an Act of Parliament; or
(k) in any way modifying the provisions of any law whereby
mortgages of or charges over land may be created
to secure advances out of public moneys for specific purposes
mentioned in such law and the interest of such advances,
or whereunder the mortgagee or person having the charge
may enter and take possession of the land so mortgaged or charged
except that in any sale of such land in accordance with such law
the provisions of this Act shall be observed.
(2) Nothing in this Act contained which imposes restrictions
upon the acquisition by any person of land or right thereto,
interests therein, or servitudes thereover, shall be in force
in the Province of the Cape of Good Hope, if and for so long
as such person would, by such restrictions, be prevented from
acquiring or holding a qualification whereunder he is or may become
entitled to be registered as a voter at parliamentary elections
in any electoral division in the said Province.
9. The Governor-General may make regulations for preventing
the overcrowding of huts and other dwellings in the stadts,
native villages and settlements and other places in which natives
are congregated in areas not under the jurisdiction of any local authority,
the sanitation of such places and for the maintenance of the health
of the inhabitants thereof.
10. In this Act, unless inconsistent with the context, --
"scheduled native area" shall mean any area described in the Schedule
to this Act;
"native" shall mean any person, male or female, who is a member of
an aboriginal race or tribe of Africa; and shall further include
any company or other body of persons, corporate or unincorporate,
if the persons who have a controlling interest therein are natives;
"interest in land" shall include, in addition to other interest in land,
the interest which a mortgagee of, or person having charge over, land acquires
under a mortgage bond or charge;
"Minister" shall mean the Minister of Native Affairs;
"farm labourer" shall mean a native who resides on a farm and is bona fide,
but not necessarily continuously employed by the owner or lessee thereof
in domestic service or in farming operations:
Provided that --
(a) if such native reside on one farm and is employed
on another farm of the same owner or lessee he shall be deemed
to have resided, and to have been employed, on one and the same farm;
(b) such native shall not be deemed to be bona fide employed
unless he renders ninety days' service at least
in one calendar year on the farm occupied by the owner or lessee
or on another farm of the owner or lessee and no rent is paid
or valuable consideration of any kind, other than service,
is given by him to the owner or lessee in respect of residence
on such farm or farms.
A person shall be deemed for the purposes of this Act
to hire land if, in consideration of his being permitted
to occupy that land or any portion thereof --
(a) he pays or promises to pay to any person a rent in money; or
(b) he renders or promises to render to any person a share of the produce
of that land, or any valuable consideration of any kind whatever
other than his own labour or services or the labour or services
of his family.
11. This Act may be cited for all purposes as the Natives' Land Act, 1913.
==
The foregoing result of a legislative jumble is "the law",
and this law, like Alexander the coppersmith, "hath done us much harm".
Mr. Sauer carried his Bill less by reason than by sheer force of numbers,
and partly by promises which he afterwards broke. Among these broken promises
was the definite assurance he gave Parliament that the Bill
would be referred to the Select Committee on Native Affairs,
so that the Natives, who are not represented in Parliament,
their European friends and the Missionary bodies on behalf of the Natives,
could be able at the proper time to appear before this committee and state
any objection which they might have to the Bill. But when that time came,
the Minister flatly refused to refer it to the committee.
This change of front is easily explained, because the weight of evidence
which could have been given before any Parliamentary committee
would have imperilled the passage of the Bill.
As might have been expected, the debate on the Bill created the greatest alarm
amongst the native population, for they had followed its course
with the keenest interest. Nothing short of a declaration of war against them
could have created a similar excitement, although the hope was entertained
in some quarters, that a body of men like the Ministerialists in Parliament
(a majority of whom are never happier than when attesting
the Christian character of their race) would in course of days
attend the Holy Communion, remember the 11th Commandment,
and do unto others as they would that men should do unto them.
Our people, in fact a number of them, said amongst themselves
that even Dutchmen sing Psalms -- all the Psalms, including the 24th;
and, believing as they did that Dutchmen could have no other religion
besides the one recommended in the New Testament and preached by
the predikants of the Dutch Reformed Church, were prepared
to commend their safety to the influence of that sweet and peaceable religion.
However, some other Natives, remembering what took place before
the South African war, took a different view of these religious incidents.
Those Natives, especially of the old Republics, knew that
the only dividing fence between the Transvaal Natives and complete slavery
was the London Convention; they, therefore, now that the London Convention
in fact had ceased to exist, had evil forebodings regarding
the average Republican's treatment of the Natives, which was seldom influenced
by religious scruples, and they did not hesitate to express their fears.
Personally we must say that if any one had told us at the beginning of 1913,
that a majority of members of the Union Parliament were capable of passing
a law like the Natives' Land Act, whose object is to prevent the Natives
from ever rising above the position of servants to the whites,
we would have regarded that person as a fit subject for the lunatic asylum.
But the passing of that Act and its operation have rudely
forced the fact upon us that the Union Parliament is capable of producing
any measure that is subversive of native interests; and that
the complete arrest of native progress is the object aimed at
in their efforts to include the Protectorates in their Union.
Thus we think that their sole reason for seeking to incorporate Basutoland,
Swaziland and Bechuanaland is that, when they have definitely eliminated
the Imperial factor from South Africa, as they are unmistakably trying to do,
they may have a million more slaves than if the Protectorates were excluded.
In this connexion, the realization of the prophecy of an old Basuto
became increasingly believable to us. It was to this effect, namely:
"That the Imperial Government, after conquering the Boers,
handed back to them their old Republics, and a nice little present
in the shape of the Cape Colony and Natal -- the two English Colonies.
That the Boers are now ousting the Englishmen from the public service,
and when they have finished with them, they will make a law
declaring it a crime for a Native to live in South Africa,
unless he is a servant in the employ of a Boer, and that from this
it will be just one step to complete slavery." This is being realized,
for to-day we have, extended throughout the Union of South Africa,
a "Free" State law which makes it illegal for Natives
to live on farms except as servants in the employ of Europeans.
There is another "Free" State law, under which no Native
may live in a municipal area or own property in urban localities.
He can only live in town as a servant in the employ of a European.
And if the followers of General Hertzog are permitted
to dragoon the Union Government into enforcing "Free" State ideals
against the Natives of the Union, as they have successfully done
under the Natives' Land Act, it will only be a matter of time
before we have a Natives' Urban Act enforced throughout South Africa.
Then we will have the banner of slavery fully unfurled (of course,
under another name) throughout the length and breadth of the land.
When the Natives' Land Bill was before Parliament, meetings were held
in many villages and locations in protest against the Ministerial surrender
to the Republicans, of which the Bill was the outcome.
At the end of March, 1913, the Native National Congress met in Johannesburg,
and there a deputation was appointed to go to Capetown
and point out to the Government some, at least, of the harm
that would follow legislation of the character mapped out in Parliament
on February 28 when the Land Act was first announced. They were to urge
that such a measure would be exploitation of the cruelest kind, that it
would not only interfere with the economic independence of the Natives,
but would reduce them for ever to a state of serfdom, and degrade them
as nothing has done since slavery was abolished at the Cape.
Missionaries also, and European friends of the Natives, did not sit still.
Resolution after resolution, telegraphic and other representations,
were made to Mr. Sauer, from meetings in various parts of the country,
counselling prudence. Even such societies as the Transvaal Landowners,
who had long been crying for a measure to separate whites from blacks,
and vice versa, urged that the Bill should not be passed during
the same session in which it was introduced, that the country should be given
an opportunity to digest it, in order, if necessary, to suggest amendments.
The Missionary bodies, too, represent a following of Natives
numbering hundreds of thousands of souls, on whose behalf
they pleaded for justice. These bodies urged that before passing a law,
prohibiting the sale and lease of land to Natives, and expelling squatters
from their homes, the Government should provide locations
to which the evicted Natives could go. But all these representations
made no impression upon the Government, who, instead, preferred to act
upon the recommendation of thirteen diminutive petitions
(signed in all by 304 Dutchmen in favour of the Bill)* than to be guided
by the overwhelming weight of public opinion that was against its passage.
Thus it became clear that the Native's position in his own country
was not an enviable one, for once a law was made prohibiting
the sale of landed property to Natives, it would be almost impossible
to get a South African Parliament to amend it.
--
* One of these thirteen petitions had only four signatures,
which was but one better than that of the Tooley Street tailors.
--
The Government, which at the beginning assured Parliament of their
humane intentions, proceeded to delete the mildest clauses of the measure
and to insert some very harsh ones; and almost each time
that the Bill came before the House, one or two fresh drastic clauses
were added. But it is comforting to note that even Parliament
was not entirely satisfied with this, its heroic piece of legislation.
Thus Mr. Meyler of Natal did, as only a lawyer could with a view
to recasting the Bill, some very useful work in pointing out
the possible harm with which the Bill was fraught. We wish that
his clever speeches and observations (much of which have come true),
might yet be sifted out of the big Parliamentary Reports,
and published in a concise little pamphlet.
Sir David Hunter, another member of Natal, expressed himself as follows: --
==
While every one seemed animated with a desire to do what was right and just
to the Natives, there was a feeling that certain of the details of the measure
required amendment. He was more than pleased when the Minister
closed the debate by a speech in which he seemed to be willing to meet
the wishes of those in the House who thought that amendment was required.
He could not have imagined that the Bill would develop into the shape
into which it had developed, and had he known that so great an alteration
would take place in the general effect of the measure
from what was foreshadowed by the hon. Minister when he had made
that interesting speech on the second reading he (the speaker)
could not have conscientiously voted for the second reading.
He would have been better pleased had a resolution been taken
not to bring in a Bill until the Commission had reported.
That was the position he had taken up all through and he would much rather now
that the matter should be dealt with in that way. If, however,
the Bill was to be pressed through there should be guarantees in it
which should allay all suspicion. Anything affecting the native people
required to be done gradually and should be placed before them
a long time before the change took place. He hoped there would yet be
some steps taken to give them a greater sense of security.
To give some idea of the feeling in the minds of the Natives
he read a letter from a gentleman in Natal, largely interested
in the Natives, which had expressed the opinion that the Natives
stood uncompromisingly against any change in their present status
until the Commission had reported. He hoped the hon. Minister
would even yet endeavour to do something to meet their views.
Mr. C. H. Haggar (Roodepoort) said that from the point of those
who had worked successfully in turning the uncivilized man
into the civilized man the Bill was bound to be a failure.
It was necessary not only to have legislation theoretically just,
but also practically right and good. But there were many who felt
that so far from the effect of that Bill being good it would be disastrous
to a very large extent. The great sin which they had been committing
was that they had always been legislating ahead of the people,
and there had not been sufficient preparation for the changes
which were proposed in that Bill; the Natives were not ready for it.
The hon. member for Victoria West had said that there was a disposition
in certain directions to repress the Natives. He (the speaker) believed
that there was a feeling that white men had some divine right
to the labour of the black, that the black people were to be
hewers of wood and drawers of water, and he wanted to say that while men
were obsessed with that feeling they would never be able to legislate fairly.
They had no more divine right to the labour of the black people
than they had to the labour of the white. To his mind the great point was,
should their policy be one of repression or a policy of inspiration?
They had inspired the Natives to a certain extent, but no sooner
had they created an appetite than they had told the Natives
they should go no further. Their policy was the policy of Tantalus.
That Bill would create a feeling of insecurity in the minds of the Natives.
There were those who said that if the Natives would not submit to dictation
they should be wiped out. But that should not be their policy.
They must cease the policy of repression and let it be
one of wide inspiration.
==
But alas! these and similar pleadings had about as much effect
upon the Ministerial steam-roller as the proverbial water on a duck's back.
With a rush the Natives' Land Bill was dispatched from the Lower House
to the Senate, adopted hurriedly by the Senate, returned to the Lower House,
and went at the same pace to Government House, and there receiving
the Governor-General's signature, it immediately became law.
As regards the Governor-General's signature, His Excellency,
if Ministers are to be believed, was ready to sign the Bill
(or rather signified his intention of doing so) long before it was introduced
into Parliament. This excited haste suggests grave misgivings
as to the character of the Bill. Why all the hurry and scurry,
and why the Governor-General's approval in advance? Other Bills
are passed and approved by the Governor, yet they do not come into operation
until some given day -- the beginning of the next calendar year,
or of the next financial year. But the Natives' Land Act
became law and was operating as soon as it could be promulgated.
After desperately protesting, with individual members of Parliament
and with Cabinet Ministers, and getting nothing for their pains,
the delegates from the Native Congress wrote Lord Gladstone,
from an office about two hundred yards distant from Government House,
requesting His Excellency to withhold his assent to the Natives' Land Bill
until the people mostly concerned (i.e. the Natives) had had a chance
of making known to His Majesty the King their objection to the measure.
His Excellency replied that such a course "was not within
his constitutional functions." Thereby the die was cast,
and the mandate went forth that the land laws of the Orange "Free" State,
which is commonly known as "the Only Slave State", shall be
the laws of the whole Union of South Africa. The worst feature in the case
is the fact that, even with the Governments of the late Republics,
the Presidents always had the power to exempt some Natives
from the operation of those laws, and that prerogative had been liberally used
by successive Presidents. Now, however, without a President,
and with the prerogative of the King (by the exercise of which
the evils of such a law could have been averted) disowned by
the King's own Ministers on the spot, God in the heavens alone
knows what will become of the hapless, because voteless, Natives,
who are without a President, "without a King", and with a Governor-General
without constitutional functions, under task-masters whose national traditions
are to enslave the dark races.
Chapter IV One Night with the Fugitives
Es ist unkoeniglich zu weinen -- ach,
Und hier nicht weinen ist unvaeterlich.
Schiller.
"Pray that your flight be not in winter," said Jesus Christ;
but it was only during the winter of 1913 that the full significance
of this New Testament passage was revealed to us. We left Kimberley
by the early morning train during the first week in July,
on a tour of observation regarding the operation of the Natives' Land Act;
and we arrived at Bloemhof, in Transvaal, at about noon.
On the River Diggings there were no actual cases representing
the effects of the Act, but traces of these effects were everywhere manifest.
Some fugitives of the Natives' Land Act had crossed the river in full flight.
The fact that they reached the diggings a fortnight before our visit
would seem to show that while the debates were proceeding in Parliament
some farmers already viewed with eager eyes the impending opportunity
for at once making slaves of their tenants and appropriating their stock;
for, acting on the powers conferred on them by an Act signed
by Lord Gladstone, so lately as June 16, they had during that very week
(probably a couple of days after, and in some cases, it would seem,
a couple of days before the actual signing of the Bill)
approached their tenants with stories about a new Act which makes it criminal
for any one to have black tenants and lawful to have black servants.
Few of these Natives, of course, would object to be servants,
especially if the white man is worth working for, but this is where
the shoe pinches: one of the conditions is that the black man's
(that is the servant's) cattle shall henceforth work for the landlord
free of charge. Then the Natives would decide to leave the farm
rather than make the landlord a present of all their life's savings,
and some of them had passed through the diggings in search of a place
in the Transvaal. But the higher up they went the more gloomy
was their prospect as the news about the new law was now penetrating
every part of the country.
One farmer met a wandering native family in the town of Bloemhof
a week before our visit. He was willing to employ the Native
and many more homeless families as follows: A monthly wage
of 2 Pounds 10s. for each such family, the husband working in the fields,
the wife in the house, with an additional 10s. a month for each son,
and 5s. for each daughter, but on condition that the Native's cattle
were also handed over to work for him. It must be clearly understood,
we are told that the Dutchman added, that occasionally the Native
would have to leave his family at work on the farm, and go out
with his wagon and his oxen to earn money whenever and wherever
he was told to go, in order that the master may be enabled to pay
the stipulated wage. The Natives were at first inclined to laugh at the idea
of working for a master with their families and goods and chattels,
and then to have the additional pleasure of paying their own small wages,
besides bringing money to pay the "Baas" for employing them.
But the Dutchman's serious demeanour told them that his suggestion
was "no joke". He himself had for some time been in need
of a native cattle owner, to assist him as transport rider
between Bloemhof, Mooifontein, London, and other diggings,
in return for the occupation and cultivation of some of his waste lands
in the district, but that was now illegal. He could only "employ" them;
but, as he had no money to pay wages, their cattle would have
to go out and earn it for him. Had they not heard of the law before?
he inquired. Of course they had; in fact that is why they left
the other place, but as they thought that it was but a "Free" State law,
they took the anomalous situation for one of the multifarious aspects
of the freedom of the "Free" State whence they came; they had scarcely thought
that the Transvaal was similarly afflicted.
Needless to say the Natives did not see their way to agree
with such a one-sided bargain. They moved up country, but only to find
the next farmer offering the same terms, however, with a good many more
disturbing details -- and the next farmer and the next --
so that after this native farmer had wandered from farm to farm,
occasionally getting into trouble for travelling with unknown stock,
"across my ground without my permission", and at times
escaping arrest for he knew not what, and further, being abused
for the crimes of having a black skin and no master, he sold some of his stock
along the way, beside losing many which died of cold and starvation;
and after thus having lost much of his substance, he eventually worked his way
back to Bloemhof with the remainder, sold them for anything they could fetch,
and went to work for a digger.
The experience of another native sufferer was similar to the above,
except that instead of working for a digger he sold his stock
for a mere bagatelle, and left with his family by the Johannesburg night train
for an unknown destination. More native families crossed the river
and went inland during the previous week, and as nothing had since
been heard of them, it would seem that they were still wandering somewhere,
and incidentally becoming well versed in the law that was responsible
for their compulsory unsettlement.
Well, we knew that this law was as harsh as its instigators were callous,
and we knew that it would, if passed, render many poor people homeless,
but it must be confessed that we were scarcely prepared
for such a rapid and widespread crash as it caused in the lives of the Natives
in this neighbourhood. We left our luggage the next morning
with the local Mission School teacher, and crossed the river
to find out some more about this wonderful law of extermination.
It was about 10 a.m. when we landed on the south bank of the Vaal River --
the picturesque Vaal River, upon whose banks a hundred miles farther west
we spent the best and happiest days of our boyhood. It was interesting
to walk on one portion of the banks of that beautiful river --
a portion which we had never traversed except as an infant in mother's arms
more than thirty years before. How the subsequent happy days at Barkly West,
so long past, came crowding upon our memory! -- days when
there were no railways, no bridges, and no system of irrigation.
In rainy seasons, which at that time were far more regular and certain,
the river used to overflow its high banks and flood the surrounding valleys
to such an extent, that no punt could carry the wagons across.
Thereby the transport service used to be hung up, and numbers of wagons
would congregate for weeks on both sides of the river
until the floods subsided. At such times the price of fresh milk
used to mount up to 1s. per pint. There being next to no competition,
we boys had a monopoly over the milk trade. We recalled
the number of haversacks full of bottles of milk we youngsters often carried
to those wagons, how we returned with empty bottles and with just
that number of shillings. Mother and our elder brothers
had leather bags full of gold and did not care for the "boy's money";
and unlike the boys of the neighbouring village, having no sisters of our own,
we gave away some of our money to fair cousins, and jingled the rest
in our pockets. We had been told from boyhood that sweets were injurious
to the teeth, and so spurning these delights we had hardly any use for money,
for all we wanted to eat, drink and wear was at hand in plenty.
We could then get six or eight shillings every morning
from the pastime of washing that number of bottles,
filling them with fresh milk and carrying them down to the wagons;
there was always such an abundance of the liquid that
our shepherd's hunting dog could not possibly miss what we took,
for while the flocks were feeding on the luscious buds of the haak-doorns
and the orange-coloured blossoms of the rich mimosa and other wild vegetation
that abounded on the banks of the Vaal River, the cows, similarly engaged,
were gathering more and more milk.
The gods are cruel, and one of their cruellest acts of omission
was that of giving us no hint that in very much less
than a quarter of a century all those hundreds of heads of cattle,
and sheep and horses belonging to the family would vanish
like a morning mist, and that we ourselves would live
to pay 30s. per month for a daily supply of this same precious fluid,
and in very limited quantities. They might have warned us
that Englishmen would agree with Dutchmen to make it unlawful
for black men to keep milch cows of their own on the banks of that river,
and gradually have prepared us for the shock.
Crossing the river from the Transvaal side brings one
into the Province of the Orange "Free" State, in which,
in the adjoining division of Boshof, we were born thirty-six years back.
We remember the name of the farm, but not having been
in this neighbourhood since infancy, we could not tell its whereabouts,
nor could we say whether the present owner was a Dutchman,
his lawyer, or a Hebrew merchant; one thing we do know, however:
it is that even if we had the money and the owner was willing to sell the spot
upon which we first saw the light of day and breathed the pure air of heaven,
the sale would be followed with a fine of one hundred pounds.
The law of the country forbids the sale of land to a Native.
Russia is one of the most abused countries in the world,
but it is extremely doubtful if the statute book of that Empire contains a law
debarring the peasant from purchasing the land whereon he was born,
or from building a home wherein he might end his days.
At this time we felt something rising from our heels along our back,
gripping us in a spasm, as we were cycling along; a needlelike pang, too,
pierced our heart with a sharp thrill. What was it? We remembered
feeling something nearly like it when our father died eighteen years ago;
but at that time our physical organs were fresh and grief was easily
thrown off in tears, but then we lived in a happy South Africa
that was full of pleasant anticipations, and now -- what changes for the worse
have we undergone! For to crown all our calamities, South Africa has by law
ceased to be the home of any of her native children whose skins are dyed
with a pigment that does not conform with the regulation hue.
We are told to forgive our enemies and not to let the sun go down
upon our wrath, so we breathe the prayer that peace may be to the white races,
and that they, including our present persecutors of the Union Parliament,
may never live to find themselves deprived of all occupation and
property rights in their native country as is now the case with the Native.
History does not tell us of any other continent where the Bantu lived
besides Africa, and if this systematic ill-treatment of the Natives
by the colonists is to be the guiding principle of Europe's scramble
for Africa, slavery is our only alternative; for now it is only as serfs
that the Natives are legally entitled to live here. Is it to be thought
that God is using the South African Parliament to hound us
out of our ancestral homes in order to quicken our pace heavenward?
But go from where to heaven? In the beginning, we are told,
God created heaven and earth, and peopled the earth,
for people do not shoot up to heaven from nowhere. They must have had
an earthly home. Enoch, Melchizedek, Elijah, and other saints,
came to heaven from earth. God did not say to the Israelites
in their bondage: "Cheer up, boys; bear it all in good part
for I have bright mansions on high awaiting you all." But he said:
"I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt,
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters;
for I know their sorrows, and I am come down to bring them
out of the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land
unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey."
And He used Moses to carry out the promise He made to their ancestor Abraham
in Canaan, that "unto thy seed will I give this land." It is to be hoped
that in the Boer churches, entrance to which is barred against coloured people
during divine service, they also read the Pentateuch.
It is doubtful if we ever thought so much on a single bicycle ride
as we did on this journey; however, the sight of a policeman ahead of us
disturbed these meditations and gave place to thoughts of quite another kind,
for -- we had no pass. Dutchmen, Englishmen, Jews, Germans,
and other foreigners may roam the "Free" State without permission --
but not Natives. To us it would mean a fine and imprisonment
to be without a pass. The "pass" law was first instituted
to check the movement of livestock over sparsely populated areas.
In a sense it was a wise provision, in that it served to identify
the livestock which one happened to be driving along the high road,
to prove the bona fides of the driver and his title to the stock.
Although white men still steal large droves of horses in Basutoland
and sell them in Natal or in East Griqualand, they, of course,
are not required to carry any passes. These white horse-thieves,
to escape the clutches of the police, employ Natives
to go and sell the stolen stock and write the passes for these Natives,
forging the names of Magistrates and Justices of the Peace.
Such native thieves in some instances ceasing to be hirelings
in the criminal business, trade on their own, but it is not clear
what purpose it is intended to serve by subjecting native pedestrians
to the degrading requirement of carrying passes when they are not
in charge of any stock.
In a few moments the policeman was before us and we alighted
in presence of the representative of the law, with our feet
on the accursed soil of the district in which we were born.
The policeman stopped. By his looks and his familiar "Dag jong"
we noticed that the policeman was Dutch, and the embodiment of affability.
He spoke and we were glad to notice that he had no intention
of dragging an innocent man to prison. We were many miles
from the nearest police station, and in such a case
one is generally able to gather the real views of the man on patrol,
as distinct from the written code of his office, but our friend
was becoming very companionable. Naturally we asked him about
the operation of the plague law. He was a Transvaaler, he said,
and he knew that Kafirs were inferior beings, but they had rights,
and were always left in undisturbed possession of their property
when Paul Kruger was alive. "The poor devils must be sorry now," he said,
"that they ever sang `God save the Queen' when the British troops
came into the Transvaal, for I have seen, in the course of my duties,
that a Kafir's life nowadays was not worth a ----, and I believe that no man
regretted the change of flags now more than the Kafirs of Transvaal."
This information was superfluous, for personal contact
with the Natives of Transvaal had convinced us of the fact.
They say it is only the criminal who has any reason to rejoice over
the presence of the Union Jack, because in his case the cat-o'-nine-tails,
except for very serious crimes, has been abolished.
"Some of the poor creatures," continued the policeman,
"I knew to be fairly comfortable, if not rich, and they enjoyed
the possession of their stock, living in many instances just like Dutchmen.
Many of these are now being forced to leave their homes.
Cycling along this road you will meet several of them in search of new homes,
and if ever there was a fool's errand, it is that of a Kafir
trying to find a new home for his stock and family just now."
"And what do you think, Baas Officer, must eventually be the lot of a people
under such unfortunate circumstances?" we asked.
"I think," said the policeman, "that it must serve them right.
They had no business to hanker after British rule, to cheat and plot
with the enemies of their Republic for the overthrow of their Government.
Why did they not assist the forces of their Republic during the war
instead of supplying the English with scouts and intelligence?
Oom Paul would not have died of a broken heart and he would still be there
to protect them. Serve them right, I say."
So saying he spurred his horse, which showed a clean pair of hoofs.
He left us rather abruptly, for we were about to ask
why we, too, of Natal and the Cape were suffering, for we,
being originally British subjects, never "cheated and plotted with
the enemies of our Colonies", but he was gone and left us still cogitating
by the roadside.
Proceeding on our journey we next came upon a native trek
and heard the same old story of prosperity on a Dutch farm:
they had raised an average 800 bags of grain each season,
which, with the increase of stock and sale of wool, gave a steady income
of about 150 Pounds per year after the farmer had taken his share.
There were gossipy rumours about somebody having met some one
who said that some one else had overheard a conversation
between the Baas and somebody else, to the effect that the Kafirs
were getting too rich on his property. This much involved tale
incidentally conveys the idea that the Baas was himself getting too rich
on his farm. For the Native provides his own seed, his own cattle,
his own labour for the ploughing, the weeding and the reaping,
and after bagging his grain he calls in the landlord to receive his share,
which is fifty per cent of the entire crop.
All had gone well till the previous week when the Baas came
to the native tenants with the story that a new law had been passed
under which "all my oxen and cows must belong to him, and my family to work
for 2 Pounds a month, failing which he gave me four days to leave the farm."
We passed several farm-houses along the road, where all
appeared pretty tranquil as we went along, until the evening
which we spent in the open country, somewhere near the boundaries
of the Hoopstad and Boshof districts; here a regular circus had gathered.
By a "circus" we mean the meeting of groups of families,
moving to every point of the compass, and all bivouacked at this point
in the open country where we were passing. It was heartrending
to listen to the tales of their cruel experiences derived from
the rigour of the Natives' Land Act. Some of their cattle had perished
on the journey, from poverty and lack of fodder, and the native owners
ran a serious risk of imprisonment for travelling with dying stock.
The experience of one of these evicted tenants is typical of the rest,
and illustrates the cases of several we met in other parts of the country.
Kgobadi, for instance, had received a message describing
the eviction of his father-in-law in the Transvaal Province, without notice,
because he had refused to place his stock, his family, and his person
at the disposal of his former landlord, who now refuses
to let him remain on his farm except on these conditions.
The father-in-law asked that Kgobadi should try and secure a place for him
in the much dreaded "Free" State as the Transvaal had suddenly
become uninhabitable to Natives who cannot become servants;
but "greedy folk hae lang airms", and Kgobadi himself
was proceeding with his family and his belongings in a wagon,
to inform his people-in-law of his own eviction, without notice,
in the "Free" State, for a similar reason to that which sent
his father-in-law adrift. The Baas had exacted from him
the services of himself, his wife and his oxen, for wages of 30s. a month,
whereas Kgobadi had been making over 100 Pounds a year, besides retaining
the services of his wife and of his cattle for himself.
When he refused the extortionate terms the Baas retaliated with a Dutch note,
dated the 30th day of June, 1913, which ordered him to "betake himself
from the farm of the undersigned, by sunset of the same day,
failing which his stock would be seized and impounded,
and himself handed over to the authorities for trespassing on the farm."
A drowning man catches at every straw, and so we were again and again
appealed to for advice by these sorely afflicted people.
To those who were not yet evicted we counselled patience and submission
to the absurd terms, pending an appeal to a higher authority
than the South African Parliament and finally to His Majesty the King who,
we believed, would certainly disapprove of all that we saw on that day
had it been brought to his notice. As for those who were already evicted,
as a Bechuana we could not help thanking God that Bechuanaland
(on the western boundary of this quasi-British Republic) was still
entirely British. In the early days it was the base of David Livingstone's
activities and peaceful mission against the Portuguese and Arab slave trade.
We suggested that they might negotiate the numerous restrictions
against the transfer of cattle from the Western Transvaal and seek an asylum
in Bechuanaland. We wondered what consolation we could give
to these roving wanderers if the whole of Bechuanaland were under
the jurisdiction of the relentless Union Parliament.
It was cold that afternoon as we cycled into the "Free" State from Transvaal,
and towards evening the southern winds rose. A cutting blizzard
raged during the night, and native mothers evicted from their homes
shivered with their babies by their sides. When we saw on that night
the teeth of the little children clattering through the cold,
we thought of our own little ones in their Kimberley home of an evening
after gambolling in their winter frocks with their schoolmates,
and we wondered what these little mites had done that a home should suddenly
become to them a thing of the past.
Kgobadi's goats had been to kid when he trekked from his farm;
but the kids, which in halcyon times represented the interest on his capital,
were now one by one dying as fast as they were born and left by the roadside
for the jackals and vultures to feast upon.
This visitation was not confined to Kgobadi's stock,
Mrs. Kgobadi carried a sick baby when the eviction took place,
and she had to transfer her darling from the cottage to the jolting ox-wagon
in which they left the farm. Two days out the little one began to sink
as the result of privation and exposure on the road, and the night
before we met them its little soul was released from its earthly bonds.
The death of the child added a fresh perplexity to the stricken parents.
They had no right or title to the farm lands through which they trekked:
they must keep to the public roads -- the only places in the country
open to the outcasts if they are possessed of a travelling permit.
The deceased child had to be buried, but where, when, and how?
This young wandering family decided to dig a grave under cover of the darkness
of that night, when no one was looking, and in that crude manner
the dead child was interred -- and interred amid fear and trembling,
as well as the throbs of a torturing anguish, in a stolen grave,
lest the proprietor of the spot, or any of his servants, should surprise them
in the act. Even criminals dropping straight from the gallows
have an undisputed claim to six feet of ground on which to rest
their criminal remains, but under the cruel operation of the Natives' Land Act
little children, whose only crime is that God did not make them white,
are sometimes denied that right in their ancestral home.
Numerous details narrated by these victims of an Act of Parliament
kept us awake all that night, and by next morning we were glad enough
to hear no more of the sickening procedure of extermination
voluntarily instituted by the South African Parliament.
We had spent a hideous night under a bitterly cold sky,
conditions to which hundreds of our unfortunate countrymen and countrywomen
in various parts of the country are condemned by the provisions
of this Parliamentary land plague. At five o'clock in the morning
the cold seemed to redouble its energies; and never before
did we so fully appreciate the Master's saying: "But pray ye that your flight
be not in the winter."
Chapter V Another Night with the Sufferers
Heureux ceux qui sont morts dans le calme des soirs,
Avant ces jours affreux de carnage et de haine!
Ils se sont endormis, le coeur rempli d'espoirs,
Dans un reve d'amour et de concorde humaine!
Ils n'ont pas entendu la sinistre remeur
Qui monte des hameaux consumes par la flamme,
Ni les cris des enfants et des vierges en pleurs,
Ni le gemissement des vieillards et des femmes!
Heureux les morts!
Maurice Kufferath.
We parted sadly from these unfortunate nomads of an ungrateful
and inhospitable country, after advising them to trek from the Union
into the arid deserts of Bechuanaland. In our advice we laid special stress
upon the costliness of such an expedition as theirs and upon
the many and varying regulations to be complied with, on such a trek,
through the Western Transvaal. But, cost whatever it may,
they, like ourselves, understood that as the law stood
they would be better off and safer beyond the boundaries of the Union.
From here we worked our way into the Hoopstad district. There we saw
some Natives who were, as it were, on pins and needles, their landlords
having given them a few days in which to consider the advisability
of either accepting the new conditions or leaving their houses.
Our advice to these tenants was to accept, for the time being,
any terms offered by their landlords, pending an appeal to His Majesty
the King; we also passed through a few farms where the white farmers were
visibly sympathetic towards the harried Natives. Some of the white farmers
were accepting Natives as tenants on their farms in defiance of the law.
We naturally thanked these for their humanity and went our way,
promising never to disclose their magnanimity to the Government officials.
"What has suddenly happened?" one of these landlords asked.
"We were living so nicely with your people, and why should the law
unsettle them in this manner?"
We may here mention that a fortnight later we were in General Botha's
constituency in the Transvaal. A few days before we arrived there
a meeting of white farmers was held at one of the Dutch farm-houses
at which it was resolved to take the fullest advantage of the new law,
which had placed the entire native population in the hands of the farmers.
It was further resolved that a Kafir who refused to become a servant
should at once be consigned to the road.
A similar resolution was passed at another meeting of landlords
at another place. Part of the proceedings of this meeting
was reported in some, though not all, of the Dutch newspapers.
Without breaking our promise not to disclose any names of landlords
who felt it a duty to resist injustice, even though it bears the garb of law,
we will mention Mr. X., a Boer farmer, of the farm ----, near Thingamejig,
between the town of ---- and the river ----. He protested at the meeting,
stating that the Transvaalers were not compelled to turn the Natives out,
and that they were only debarred from taking any new native tenants;
that it was wicked to expel a Kafir from the farm for no reason whatever,
and so make him homeless, since he could not, if evicted, go either
to another farm or back to his old place. For expressing his views so frankly
Mr. X. was threatened by his compatriots with physical violence!
His opponents also said that, if he continued to harbour Kafirs on his farm
as tenants, they would hold him responsible for any stock
that they might lose. The incidents of the meeting were related
to the Natives by Mr. X. himself. He told the Natives, further,
that he would go to the expense of fencing his farm with the Natives inside,
so that they may be out of the reach of his infuriated neighbours.
We spent the next night in some native huts on a farm
in the district of Hoopstad. On that occasion we met a man
who had had a month's notice to leave his farm, and was going
from farm to farm in search of a new place. He had heard
alarming stories about evictions wherever he went. During that evening
we were treated to some more pitiful stories concerning
the atrocities of the wretched land Act. Many native wanderers
had actually passed that farm during the preceding few days,
trudging aimlessly from place to place in search of some farmer
who might give them a shelter. At first they thought
the stories about a new law were inventions or exaggerations,
but their own desperate straits and the prevailing native dislocation
soon taught them otherwise.
The similarity in the experiences of the sufferers would make
monotonous reading if given individually, but there are instances
here and there which give variety to the painful record,
and these should yield the utmost satisfaction to the promoters of the Act,
in proving to them the fell measure of their achievement.
One example of these experiences was that of a white farmer
who had induced a thrifty Native in another district to come and farm
on his estate. The contract was duly executed about the end of May, 1913.
It was agreed that the Native should move over to the new place
after gathering his crops and sharing them with his old landlord,
which he did in the third week in June. On his arrival, however,
the new landlord's attitude towards him aroused his suspicions;
his suspicions were confirmed when, after some hesitation,
the landlord told him that their contract was illegal. Having already
left his old place the legal embargo was also against his return there,
and so his only course was to leave that place and wander about
with his stock and family. They went in the direction of Kroonstad,
and they have not been heard of since.
The next example is that of the oldest man in the "Free" State.
He had been evicted (so we were told during that evening on the farm)
along with his aged wife, his grey-headed children,
the children's children and grandchildren. We may here add that we read
a confirmation of this case in the English weekly newspaper of Harrismith.
The paper's reference to this case will also illustrate the easy manner
in which these outrageous evictions are reported in white newspapers.
There is no reference to the sinister undercurrent and hardships
attending these evictions. The paper in question, the `Harrismith Chronicle',
simply says: --
==
AN ANCIENT COUPLE
A venerable Native whose age is no less than 119 years,
accompanied by his wife, aged 98, and a son who is approaching 80,
left Harrismith on Tuesday by train for Volksrust. The old man
acquired some property in the Transvaal, and is leaving this district
to start a new home with as much interest in the venture
as if he were a stripling of twenty. The old lady had to be carried
to the train, but the old man walked fairly firmly. The aged couple
were the centre of much kindly attraction, and were made
as comfortable as possible for their journey by the railway officials.
It is difficult to realize in these days of rapid change
that in the departure from the "Free" State of this venerable party
we are losing from our midst a man who was born in 1794,
and has lived in no less than three centuries of time.
Good luck to them both; may they still live long and prosper!
==
Now, as a matter of fact, this "ancient couple" had not left the "Free" State
of their own free will. Their stock had been expelled from
their grazing areas, and they were told that they could only continue to graze
if the centenarian tenant agreed to supply a certain number of labourers
to work on the landowner's farm and with his sons ceased to do any ploughing
as tenants. This system of sharing the crops has been followed
ever since the Boers planted themselves in the "Free" State, and the family
had had no other means of support. Happily the aid of Providence
in the case of this "ancient couple" was speedy, as the old people
quickly found an asylum on the farm of Mr. P. ka I. Seme, a native solicitor
in the Transvaal.
At the same place on the same evening we were told of a conversation
between a well-known Dutchman and a Native. "The object of this law,"
said the Burgher, "is to goad the Natives into rebellion,
so that the Government may legally confiscate what little ground
was left to them, and hand over the dispossessed Kafirs and their families
to work for the farmers, just for their food." The policy of
goading the Natives into rebellion is not wholly foreign to Colonial policy;
but the horrible cruelty to which live stock is exposed under the new Act
is altogether a new departure. King Solomon says, "The righteous man
regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked
are cruel"; but there is a Government of professed Bible readers who,
in defiance of all Scriptural precepts, pass a law which penalizes
a section of the community along with their oxen, sheep, goats,
horses and donkeys on account of the colour of their owners.
The penalty clause (Section 5) imposes a fine of 100 Pounds on a landowner
who accommodates a Native on his farm; and if after the fine is paid
the Native leaves his stock on the farm to go and look for a fresh place,
there will be an additional fine of 5 Pounds for every day
that the Native's cattle remain on that farm. They must
take the road immediately and be kept moving day and night
until they die of starvation, or until the owner (who is debarred,
by Section 1, from purchasing a pasturage for his cattle) disposes of them
to a white man.
Such cruelty to dumb animals is as unwarranted as it is unprecedented.
It reads cruel enough on paper, but we wish that the reader had accompanied us
on one journey, say, during the cold snap in the first week in August,
when we travelled from Potchefstroom to Vereeniging,
and seen the flocks of those evicted Natives that we met.
We frequently met those roving pariahs, with their hungry cattle,
and wondered if the animals were not more deserving of pity than their owners.
It may be the cattle's misfortune that they have a black owner,
but it is certainly not their fault, for sheep have no choice
in the selection of a colour for their owners, and no cows or goats
are ever asked to decide if the black boy who milks them shall be their owner,
or but a herd in the employ of a white man; so why should they be starved
on account of the colour of their owners? We knew of a law to prevent cruelty
to animals, but had never thought that we should live to meet in one day
so many dumb creatures making silent appeals to Heaven for protection
against the law. "What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to see",
and oh! if those gifted Parliamentarians could have been mustered here
to witness the wretched results of one of their fine days' work
for a fine day's pay! But "they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne",
then draw their Parliamentary emoluments and retire to the quiet
of their comfortable homes, to enjoy more rest than is due to toilers
who have served both God and humanity.
During this same night in Hoopstad district we were also told of the visit
of a Dutch farmer in the middle of June, 1913, to his native tenants.
One of the Natives -- named Kgabale -- was rather old. His two sons are
delving in the gold mines of Johannesburg, and return home each spring time
to help the old man and their two young sisters to do the ploughing.
The daughters tend the fields and Kgabale looks after the stock.
By this means they have been enabled to lead a respectable life
and to pay the landowner fifty per cent. of the produce every year,
besides the taxes levied by the Government on Natives.
Three weeks before our visit, the farmer came to cancel
Kgabale's verbal contract with him and to turn the family
into unpaid servants, in return for the privilege of squatting on his farm.
As Kgabale himself was too old to work, the farmer demanded of him
that his two sons should return immediately from Johannesburg
to render manual service on his farm, failing which, the old man
should forthwith betake himself from the place. He gave Kgabale seven days
to deliver his two sons.
Naturally this decision came upon Kgabale and his daughters
like a bolt from the blue. The poor old man wandered from place to place,
trying to find some one -- and it took him two days to do so --
who could write, so as to dictate a letter to his sons in Johannesburg,
informing them of what had happened. The week expired before he could get
a reply from Johannesburg. The landlord, in a very abusive mood,
again demanded the instant arrival of his two sons from Johannesburg,
to commence work at the farm-house the very next morning.
Kgabale spent the whole night praying that at least one of his sons
might come. By daybreak next morning no answer had arrived,
and the Dutchman came and set fire to the old man's houses,
and ordered him then and there to quit the farm. It was a sad sight
to see the feeble old man, his aged wife and his daughters
driven in this way from a place which they had regarded as their home.
In the ordinary course, such a calamity could have been made more tolerable
by moving to the next farm and there await the arrival and advice of his sons;
but now, under the Natives' Land Act, no sympathetic landowner
would be permitted to shelter them for a single day. So Kgabale was said
to have gone in the direction of Klerksdorp.
One of the sons arrived a week after the catastrophe. He found
his old home in ruins, and that his aged parents and their children
had become victims of the turpitude of an Act of Parliament.
The son went in search of his relatives across the Vaal,
but it was not known if they succeeded in finding the refuge
which the law had made unlawful.
Among the squatters on the same farm as Kgabale was a widow named Maria.
Her husband in his lifetime had lived as a tenant on the farm,
ploughing in shares until his death. After his death
Maria kept on the contract and made a fair living. Her son and daughter,
aged fourteen and sixteen respectively, took turns at herding her cattle
and assisting the mother in other ways. During the ploughing season,
they hired assistance to till the fields, but they themselves
tended and reaped the harvest and delivered 50 per cent of the produce
to the landowner. Such were the conditions on which she was allowed
to live on the farm. Maria, being a widow, and her son being but a youth,
it was hoped that the landlord would propose reasonable terms for her;
but instead, his proposal was that she should dispose of her stock
and indenture her children to him. This sinister proposal makes it evident
that farmers not only expect Natives to render them free labour,
but they actually wish the Natives to breed slaves for them.
Maria found it difficult to comply with her landlord's demand,
and as she had no husband, from whom labour could be exacted,
the Dutchman ordered her to "clear out, and," he added with an oath,
"you must get another man before you reach your next place of abode,
as the law will not permit you to stay there till you have a man
to work for the Baas." Having given this counsel the landlord is said
to have set fire to Maria's thatched cottage, and as the chilly south-easter
blew the smoke of her burning home towards the north-west, Maria,
with her bedclothes on her head, and on the heads of her son and daughter,
and carrying her three-year-old boy tied to her back,
walked off from the farm, driving her cows before her.
In parting from the endeared associations of their late home,
for one blank and unknown, the children were weeping bitterly.
Nor has any news of the fate of this family been received
since they were forced out on this perilous adventure.
Chapter VI Our Indebtedness to White Women
O woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou.
Scott.
Some farmers (unfortunately too few) who had at first intended
to change the status of their native tenants, had been obliged
to abandon the idea owing to the determined opposition of their wives.
One such case was particularly interesting. Thus, at Dashfontein,
the wife of a Dutch farmer, a Mr. V., on whose property some native families
were squatting, got up, one morning, and found the kitchen-maid
very disagreeable. The morning coffee had been made right enough,
but the maid's "Morre, Nooi" (Good morning, ma'am) was rather sullen
and almost bordering on insolence. She did her scullery work as usual,
but did not seem to care, that morning, about wasting time inquiring
how baby slept, and if Nonnie had got rid of her neuralgia, and so on.
She spoke only when spoken to and answered mainly in monosyllables.
Mrs. V. was perplexed.
"What is the matter, Anna?" she asked.
"Nothing, Nooi," replied Anna curtly.
Mrs. V. tried some of her witty jokes, but they seemed to be wasted on Anna.
After jesting with the servant had failed, scolding was next tried,
but nothing seemed to bring back the girl's usual cheerfulness.
"Oh, Anna," said the mistress at length, "you make me think of the olden days,
when such disagreeable whims on the part of frowning maids
used to be cured by ----"
Anna was evidently not listening, and, if she had heard the mistress,
she did not care two straws (or one straw for that matter) what cures
Mrs. V.'s great-grandmother had prescribed for sullen servant girls.
In fact, Anna had become a wild Kafir, for though she went about her work
in silence, her face bore an expression which seemed to speak louder
than her mouth could have done. She was clearly engaged
in serious thought. The mistress tried to dismiss from her mind
the inexplicable attitude of her servant, but the frowning look on Anna's face
made the attempts unsuccessful. The fact that when Anna went home,
the previous night, she was happiness personified, did not decrease
Mrs. V.'s perplexity.
"There must be something wrong," Mrs. V. concluded, after vainly trying
ruse after ruse to get a smile out of her servant girl. "Something is amiss.
I wonder if one of those well-dressed Kafirs from Potchefstroom
had been prowling about the farm and instilling in Anna's simple mind
all kinds of silly notions, about town flirts and black dandies,
silk dresses in Potchefstroom and similar vuilgoed (rubbish).
And if a town Kafir is going to marry Anna, where on earth am I going to get
a reliable servant to whom I could securely entrust my home when I have
occasion to go to town or to the seaside on a shorter or longer vacation?
Who could cook and attend to my husband's and children's peculiar wants,
if Anna is going to leave us? It seems certain that Anna's heart
is not on the farm," she said to herself. "It was there right enough
when she went home last night, but it is clear that some one has stolen it
during the night. Anna is helplessly lovesick. I must find out who it is.
The swain must be found and induced to come and join, or supervise,
our squatters. We cannot let him take her away, for what will the homestead
be without Anna? I was looking forward to her marrying on the farm
and giving her a superior cottage so that other Kafir girls may see
how profitable it is to be good. Anna leaving the farm, O, nee wat! (Oh, no).
We must find out who it is; but wait, there is old Gert (her father) coming,
with old Jan (her uncle). I must find out from them who had been intruding
into the company of their daughters last night. I should warn them
to be on the alert lest Anna elopes to Potchefstroom with somebody,
probably to take the train and go farther -- to Johannesburg or Kimberley,
as did Klein Mietje, whom I had hoped to train as our housemaid ----"
"Good morning, Auta Gert, how is Mietje and the kleintjes (little ones)?"
Auta Gert's demeanour was a greater puzzle to Mrs. V. than his daughter's
when he replied, "So, so."
Mrs. V. (between horns of the same dilemma): "And you, Auta Jan?"
"Ja, Missus," replied Jan.
Mrs. V.'s perplexity was intense, for it became evident that the two Natives
were there as a deputation, charged with some grave mission.
Before she uttered another word the two Natives asked for an interview.
"Not to waste much time, Missus," began old Gert, "a thunderbolt has burst
on the native settlement on the farm, and Dashfontein is no longer
a home to us ----"
"No longer a home!" exclaimed Mrs. V. "I hope you idiotic Kafirs
are not going to be so foolhardy as to leave me, leave the Baas,
and leave the farm upon which your fathers and mothers lie buried.
Do not you know that during this very week numbers of Natives have been
calling on the Baas, asking him for places of abode, complaining that
they have been turned adrift, with their little ones and their hungry animals,
for refusing to become servants to farmers on whose property
they had been ploughing on shares? White men have suddenly
become brutes and have expelled Natives with whom they have lived
from childhood -- Natives whose labour made the white man wealthy
are turned away by people who should treat them with gratitude.
And are you going to leave your old home just when the Devil
appears to have possessed himself of the hearts of most farmers?
In your own interest, apart from my own and the Baas's, Auta Gert,
you should have left us long ago when you could find a place elsewhere.
Are you so deaf and blind as not to hear and see the change
which has come over the country of late? White men formerly punished a Kafir
who had done some wrong, now they worry him from sheer cussedness.
You must be mad, Auta Gert, to try and leave us. What is going
to become of your family and your beautiful cattle. No wonder that Anna
is so upset. I have been thinking that some rondlooper (vagabond)
from the towns had been trying to take her away."
As Mrs. V. spoke she was agreeably surprised to find the sobering effect
which her rebuke seemed to have upon her husband's native tenants.
She knew her influence over them, especially over the old native families,
but in all her dealings and close association with them she could not remember
an impromptu speech of hers that produced such immediate results.
The faces of the two Natives brightened up, and they kept
looking at one another as she spoke. At length she turned round
towards the stoep and there was Anna, for the first time that morning,
interested in and delighted by what she said. Usually it would have been
a serious breach of the rules of the house for Anna to listen
when the Missus was speaking about something that did not immediately concern
her scullery duties; but Mrs. V.'s satisfaction was unbounded
on seeing the bright look on her servant's face, which she had hitherto
vainly sought.
"Now, you see," said Anna to her father, "I told you it would never happen
if the Missus can help it."
At this, the men could scarcely suppress a laugh. The Missus
looked round again, and said:
"Anna, have you Kafirs plotted to fool me this morning? Because I take
such a deep interest in your welfare, you have so far forgotten yourselves
that you connived with your parents to come over to my house and fool me
on my own farm? What is the meaning of all this?"
Auta Gert unfolded his story. The Baas was at the native settlement
the previous day. He called a meeting of the native peasants and told them
of the new law, under which no Kafir can buy a farm or hire a farm.
He added that, according to this law, their former relations
of landlord and tenants have been made a criminal offence,
for which they could be fined a hundred pounds, and he gave them ten days
to decide whether they would become his servants or leave the farm.
"Go away, Auta Gert; you were dreaming, my husband would never talk
such nonsense. You have been with him from childhood,
long before I ever knew him, and yet you do not know that my husband
is incapable of uttering anything half so wicked?"
"He said it was the law, the new law."
"Of course you need some stringent measures against the useless,
sneaking and prowling loafers, but there is no fear that such laws
could apply to Natives like you and Mietje and your children."
"But, Nooi, the Baas told us to leave the farm as the law
did not permit him to ----"
"Get you gone, Auta Gert, he was joking. You must know that the law
did not buy this farm. The old Baas purchased it from Baas Philander.
I personally helped to add up the number of morgen and to calculate the money,
and there was not a penny piece from any Government. Go home, Auta Gert,
and leave everything to me, and do not let me hear you saying
Dashfontein is no longer your home."
"Well, Nooi," assented the Natives with some relief, "if you say
it is all right, then it must be so, and we will go back and reap our mealies
in peace, and if a policeman comes round demanding a hundred pounds
we will tell him to arrest us and take us to the Nooi of the farm.
Good-bye, Nooi."
"Good-bye, Auta Gert; good-bye, Auta Jan ---- Poor Anna, my dear little maid,
why did you not tell Nooi this morning that you were worried over this matter.
Really, Anna, I was thinking that you were lovesick. How did poor old Mietje
take it? Sadly, did she. Well, I will speak to the Baas about it.
He had no business to attempt to bring bad luck over us
by disturbing our peaceful Natives with such godless tidings.
Tell your mother that Nooi says it will be all right."
A few days later, Hendrik Prins, the farm manager in the employ of Mr. V.,
was due at the native settlement to see the steam sheller at work
and also to receive the landowner's share of the produce. Instead of Prins,
Mr. V. attended in person. Each Native regarded this unusual occurrence
as the signal for their impending eviction and thought that day would see
their last transaction with their old master and landlord.
Mr. V. counted the separate bags filled with mealies and Kafir corn
placed in groups around the sheller. He counted no fewer than 12,300 bags,
and knew that his share would total 6,150, representing about
3,000 Pounds gross. Could he ever succeed in getting so much,
with so little trouble, if poor whites tilled his lands
instead of these Natives? he thought. After all, his dear Johanna was right.
This law is blind and must be resisted. It gives more consideration
to the so-called poor whites (a respectable term for lazy whites),
than to the owners of the ground. He, there and then, resolved to resist it
and take the consequences.
The grain was all threshed; a number of native girls were busy
sewing up the bags, and the engine-driver ordered his men
to yoke his oxen and pull the machine away. Mr. V. ordered Auta Gert
to call all the `volk' together as he had something to tell them.
Auta Gert, knowing the determination of his mistress,
did so in confidence that they were about to receive some glad tidings.
But the other folks came forward with a grievous sense of wrong.
The fact that some Natives on the adjoining property
had been turned away three days before and sent homeless about the country,
their places being taken by others, who, tired of roaming about and losing
nearly everything, had come in as serfs did not allay their fears.
Auta Hans was already conjuring up visions of a Johannesburg speculator
literally "taking" his Cape shorthorns for a mere bagatelle,
as they did to William Ranco, another evicted squatter from Hoopstad.
Mr. V., the farmer, mounted a handy wagon hard by and commenced to address
the crowd of blacks who gathered around the wagon at the call of Gert.
"Attention! Listen," he said. "You will remember that I was here last month
and explained to you the new law. Well, I understand that that explanation
created the greatest amount of unrest amongst the Natives in the huts
on my farm. Personally, I am very sorry that it ever came to that,
but let me tell you that your Nooi, my wife, says it is not right
that the terms under which we have lived in the past should be disturbed.
I agree with her that it is unjust, and that the good Lord,
who has always blessed us, will turn His face from us
if people are unsettled and sent away from the farm in a discontented mood."
(Loud and continued applause, during which Mr. V. took out
his pouch of Magaliesburg tobacco and lit his pipe.) "The Nooi," he continued
after a few puffs, "says we must not obey this law: she even says,
if it comes to physical ejectment, or if they take me to prison,
she is prepared to go to Pretoria in person and interview General Botha."
(More cheers, during which the Natives dispersed to cart away their mealies
amidst general satisfaction.)
* * * * *
The writer visited Dashfontein in July, 1913, when the above narrative
was given him word for word by old Gert.
As old Gert narrated the story, Aunt Mietje, his wife,
who had had timely notice of the impending visit of the morulaganyi (editor)
from her husband (who slaughtered a sheep in honour of the occasion),
superintended with interesting expectations over frizzling items
in the frying-pan on her fireplace. Her bright eyes, beaming from
under her headkerchief, suggested how she must have been
the undisputed belle of her day. The rough wooden table was covered
with the best linen in the native settlement, and on it were laid
some clean plates, and the old yet shining cutlery reserved for
special occasions, besides other signs of an approaching evening meal.
Having learnt the art from an experienced housewife on whose farm
her people were squatting, and improved upon her teaching,
she was famous in the neighbourhood for the excellence of her cooking.
Her only worry in that department was her seeming lack of success
in training her daughters up to her elevation. She is usually sent for
when important visitors come to Dashfontein, and would then don
her best costume of coloured German print, and carry down with her
the spotless apron which Mrs. V. gave her the preceding New Year;
and in spite of her advancing years, she would cause Anna,
and every other upstart at the homestead, instinctively to play
second fiddle to her. And when we suggested that our wife
could measure swords (or, shall we say, forks) with her as a cook,
she giggled and remembered some white man's proverb about
the proof of the pudding being in the eating.
After the harrowing experience of the previous week, during which
we were forced to see our fellow-beings hounded out of their homes,
and the homes broken up; their lifelong earnings frittered away
by a law of the land, their only crime being the atrocious one of having
the same colour of skin as our own, and finding ourselves suddenly landed
on an oasis, the farm of a kind Dutchman and his noble wife,
on whose property, and by whose leave, little black piccaninnies
still played about in spite of the law, it can be readily understood
with what comfort we sat down and did justice to the good things
provided by Aunt Mietje. In the course of her preparation
every step of hers suggested that she entertained no sort of misprised opinion
about her superiority over her compeers; and nothing pleased her better
than when she dazzled her husband and family connexions
with deeds which proved her superiority over her contemporaries,
in everything that tends to make the virtuous and industrious house-wife.
She gave a dramatic ending to her husband's narrative when she said --
"Who would have thought that Hannetje, naughty little Hannetje,
who was so troublesome when my sister used to nurse her --
who would have thought that she would ever prove to be
the salvation of our people? Who ever anticipated that all the strong Boers,
on whom we had relied, would desert us when the fate of our whole tribe
hung in the balance? Natives have been moving from north to south,
and from south to north, all searching at the same time
for homes and grazing for their cattle. During the last few weeks
the roads were hidden in clouds of dust, sent up by
hundreds of hoofs of hundreds of cattle, their owners with them,
vainly seeking places of refuge; but in the case of Dashfontein,
we reclined on a veritable Mount Ararat, by grace of naughty little Hannetje,
whom God in His mysterious foresight had raised up to be Mrs. van V.,
proprietress of Dashfontein. If my prayers are of any value,
God will appoint in heaven a special place for her when she gets there,
though, for the sake of our people, I hope that time is very far distant.
However, I hope to be somewhere near: in truth, I should like
to accompany her, when Elijah's chariot comes for her soul,
so as to render her what little aid I can on board, when she soars
through unknown tracts of space to the spirit world on high,
so that if there be any uncomfortable questions about her maiden vagaries,
I may be there to attest that she has since atoned a hundred fold for each,
and thus accelerate her promotion. No no, Hannetje is not a Boer vrouw,
she is an angel."
Chapter VII Persecution of Coloured Women in the Orange Free State
Ripe persecution, like the plant
Whose nascence Mocha boasted,
Some bitter fruit produced, whose worth
Was never known till roasted.
When the Free State ex-Republicans made use of the South African Constitution
-- a Constitution which Lord Gladstone says is one after the Boer sentiment --
to ruin the coloured population, they should at least
have confined their persecution to the male portion of the blacks
(as is done in a milder manner in the other three Provinces), and have left
the women and children alone. According to this class legislation,
no native woman in the Province of the Orange "Free" State can reside
within a municipality (whether with or without her parents, or her husband)
unless she can produce a permit showing that she is a servant
in the employ of a white person, this permit being signed
by the Town Clerk. All repressive measures under the old Republic
(which, in matters of this kind, always showed a regard
for the suzerainty of Great Britain) were mildly applied.
Now, under the Union, the Republicans are told by the Imperial authorities
that since they are self-governing they have the utmost freedom of action,
including freedom to do wrong, without any fear of Imperial interference.
Of this licence the white inhabitants of the Union are making the fullest use.
Like a mastiff long held in the leash they are urging the application
of all the former stringent measures enacted against the blacks,
and the authorities, in obedience to their electoral supporters,
are enforcing these measures with the utmost rigour against the blacks
because they have no votes.
Hence, whereas the pass regulations were formerly never enforced by the Boers
against clergymen's wives or against the families of respectable
native inhabitants, now a minister's wife has not only to produce a pass
on demand, but, like every woman of colour, she has to pay a shilling
for a fresh pass at the end of the month, so that a family consisting of,
say, a mother and five daughters pay the municipality 6s. every month,
whether as a penalty for the colour of their skins or a penalty for their sex
it is not clear which.
There is some unexplained anomaly in this woman's pass business.
If the writer were to go and live in the "Free" State, he could
apply for and obtain letters of exemption from the ordinary pass laws;
but if his wife, who has had a better schooling and enjoyed
an older civilization than he, were to go and reside in the "Free" State
with her daughters, all of them would be forced to carry passes
on their persons, and be called upon to ransack their skirt pockets
at any time in the public streets at the behest of male policemen
in quest of their passes. Several white men are at present undergoing
long terms of imprisonment inflicted by the Orange "Free" State Circuit Courts
for criminally outraging coloured women whom the pass laws had placed
in the hollow of the hands of these ruffians. Still many more mothers
are smothering evidence of similar outrages upon innocent daughters --
cases that could never have happened under ordinary circumstances.
The Natives of the "Free" State have made all possible constitutional appeals
against these outrages. In reply to their petitions the Provincial Government
blames the municipalities. The latter blame the law and the Union Parliament,
and there the matter ends. We have read the "Free" State law
which empowers the municipalities to frame regulations
for the control of Natives, etc., but it must be confessed
that our limited intelligence could discern nothing in it
which could be construed as imposing any dire penalties
on municipalities which emancipate their coloured women
from the burden of the insidious pass law and tax. Hon. Mr. H. Burton,
as already stated, was Minister for Native Affairs before the Union Government
surrendered to the "Free" State reactionaries. A deputation
consisting of Mrs. A. S. Gabashane, Mrs. Kotsi and Mrs. Louw,
women from Bloemfontein -- the first-named being a clergyman's wife --
waited on him in Capetown on the subject of these grievances,
and he assured them that in response to representations made
by the Native Congress, he had already written to Dr. Ramsbottom,
the Provincial Administrator, asking him to persuade
the "Free" State municipalities to relieve the native women from this burden.
And if to relieve native women in the "Free" State from a burden
which obtains nowhere else in the Union were unlawful,
as the municipalities aver, Mr. Burton -- a K.C. -- would have been
the last person to ask them to break the law.
Subsequently the women petitioned Lady Gladstone for her intercession.
But we wonder if the petition was ever handed to Lady Gladstone
by the responsible authority who, in this instance, would have been
the Department of Native Affairs. Notwithstanding all these efforts,
native women in the "Free" State are still forced to buy passes
every month or go to prison, and they are still exposed
to the indecent provision of the law authorizing male constables
to insult them by day and by night, without distinction.
After exhausting all these constitutional means on behalf of their women,
and witnessing the spread of the trouble to the women and children
of the country districts under the Natives' Land Act, the male Natives
of the municipalities of the Province of the Orange "Free" State
saw their women folk throwing off their shawls and taking the "law"
into their own hands. A crowd of 600 women, in July, 1913,
marched to the Municipal Offices at Bloemfontein and asked
to see the Mayor. He was not in, so they called for the Town Clerk.
The Deputy-Mayor came out, and they deposited before him a bag
containing their passes of the previous month and politely signified
their intention not to buy any more passes. Then there occurred
what `John Bull' would call, "----l with the lid off".
At Jagersfontein there was a similar demonstration, led by
a jet-black Mozambique lady. She and a number of others
were arrested and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.
The sentences ranged from about three weeks to three months,
and the fines from 10s. to 3 Pounds. They all refused to pay the fines,
and said their little ones could be entrusted to the care of Providence
till their mothers and sisters have broken the shackles of oppression
by means of passive resistance. As the prison authorities
were scarcely prepared for such a sudden influx of prisoners
there was not sufficient accommodation for fifty-two women,
who were conveyed on donkey carts to the adjoining village of Fauresmith.
When this happened, Winburg, the old capital of the "Free" State,
also had a similar trouble. Eight hundred women marched
from the native location to the Town Hall, singing hymns,
and addressed the authorities. They were tired of making friendly appeals
which bore no fruit from year's end to year's end, so they had resolved,
they said, to carry no more passes, much less to pay a shilling each
per month, PER CAPITA, for passes. A procession of so many women
would attract attention even in Piccadilly, but in a "Free" State dorp
it was a stupendous event, and it made a striking impression.
The result was that many of the women were arrested and sent to prison,
but they all resolutely refused to pay their fines, and there was a rumour
that the Central Government had been appealed to for funds and for material
to fit out a new jail to cope with the difficulty.
This movement served to exasperate the authorities, who rigorously
enforced the law and sent them to jail. The first batch of prisoners
from Bloemfontein were conveyed south to Edenburg; and as further batches
came down from Bloemfontein they had to be retransferred north to Kroonstad.
In the course of our tour in connexion with the Natives' Land Act
in August, 1913, we spent a week-end with the Rev. A. P. Pitso,
of the last-named town. Thirty-four of the women passive resisters were still
incarcerated there, doing hard labour. Mrs. Pitso and Mrs.
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