Part 10

'Then may I ask, did you not fight for these people? You had surely got a rifle,' said my host, turning right round on me.

'My dear, you forget Mr. Mackenzie has been a Missionary,' said his wife. 'You yourself, as a Director of the London Missionary Society, would have had him cashiered if he had done anything of the kind.'

'Nonsense, you don't see the thing. I assure you I could not have endured such meanness and injustice. I should have broken such confounded laws. I should have shouldered a rifle, I know,' said the indignant man as he paced his room.

'My dear, you would have got shot, you know,' said his wife.

'Shot! yes, certainty, why not?' said my host; and added gravely, 'A fellow would know why he was shot. Is it true, Mr. Mackenzie, that those blacks were kind to our people who fled to them from the Transvaal, and that they there protected them?'

'Quite true,' I rejoined.

'Then by heaven,' said Mr.----, raising his voice--

'Let us go to supper,' broke in the gentle wife, 'you are only wearying Mr. Mackenzie by your constant wishes to hang some one.'

"I trust my friends will forgive me for recalling this conversation, which vividly pictures the state of people's mind concerning South Africa in 1882. I found that most people were incredulous as to the facts being known at the Colonial Office, and there was a uniform persuasion that Mr. Gladstone was ignorant that such things were going on."

I have given these interviews (much abridged) because they illustrate in a rather humourous way a state of mind which unhappily has long existed and exists to some degree to this day in England--an impatience of responsibility for anything concerning interests lying beyond the shores of our own Island, a certain superciliousness, and a habit of expressing and adhering to suddenly formed and violent opinions without sufficient study of the matters in question,--such opinions being often influenced by the bias of party politics. Our countrymen are now waking up to a graver and deeper consideration of the tremendous interests at stake in our Colonies and Dependencies, and to a greater readiness to accept responsibilities which once undertaken it is cowardice to reject or even to complain of.

At the request of the London Missionary Society, Mr. Mackenzie drew up an extended account of the Bechuanaland question, which had a wide circulation. He did not enter into party politics, but merely gave evidence as to matters of fact. There was surprise and indignation expressed wherever the matter was carefully studied and understood. Many resolutions were transmitted to the Colonial Secretary from public meetings; one which came from a meeting in the Town Hall of Birmingham was as, follows:--

"This meeting earnestly trusts that the British Government will firmly discharge the responsibilities which they have undertaken in protection of the native races on the Transvaal border."

Among the people who took up warmly the cause of the South African natives were Dr. Conder, Mr. Baines, and Mr. Yates of Leeds (who addressed themselves directly to Mr. Gladstone), Dr. Campbell and Dr. Duff of Edinburgh, the Rev. Arnold Thomas and Mr. Chorlton of Bristol, Mr. Howard of Ashton-under-Lyne, Mr. Thomas Rigby of Chester, and others.

A Resolution was sent to the Colonial Office by the Secretary of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, which had been passed unanimously at a meeting of that body in Bristol:--

"That the Assembly of the Congregational Union, recognising with devout thankfulness the precious and substantial results of the labours of two generations of Congregational Christian Missionaries in Bechuanaland, learns with grief and alarm that the lawless incursions of certain Boers from the Transvaal threaten the utter ruin of peace, civilization, and Christianity in that land. This Assembly therefore respectfully and most urgently entreats Her Majesty's Government, in accordance with the express provision of the Convention by which Self-Government was granted to the Boers, to take such steps as shall eventually put a stop to a state of things as inconsistent with the pledged word of England as with the progress of the Bechuanaland nations." Signed at Bristol, Oct. 1882.

"These," says Mr. Mackenzie, "were not words of war, but of peace; they were not the words of enemies, but of friends of the Transvaal, many of whom had been prominent previously in agitating for the Boers getting back their independence. They felt that this was the just complement of that action; the Boers were to have freedom within the Transvaal, but not licence to turn Bechuanaland (and other neighbouring native states) into a pandemonium."

There was a closer contact in Edinburgh with South Africa than elsewhere, owing to the constant presence at that University of a large number of students from South Africa. A public meeting was held in Edinburgh, among the speakers whereat were Bishop Cotterill, who had lived many years in South Africa; Mr. Gifford, who had been a long time in Natal; Professor Calderwood, and Dr. Blaikie, biographer of Dr. Livingstone. The Venerable Mr. Cullen, the first missionary traveller in Bechuanaland, who had often entertained Dr. Moffat and Dr. Livingstone in his house, was present to express his interest in that country. There were the kindest expressions used towards our Dutch fellow-subjects; but grave condemnation was expressed of the Transvaal policy towards the coloured people in making it a fundamental law that they were not to be equal to the whites either in Church or State.

A South African Committee was formed in London from which a largely supported address was presented to Mr. Gladstone.

The High Commissioner for Bechuanaland gave his impressions at several different times during that and the preceding year on the subject of the constant illegal passing of the Western Boundary line of the Transvaal by the Boers. Readers will remember that the delimitation of the western boundary of the Transvaal was a fixed condition of the Convention of 1881, a Convention which was continually violated by the Boers. No rest was permitted for the poor natives of the different tribes on that side, the Boers' land-hunger continuing to be one of their strongest passions. The High Commissioner wrote, "If Montsioa and Mankoroane were now absorbed, Banokwani, Makobi and Bareki would soon share the same fate. Haseitsiwe and Sechele would come next. So long as there were native cattle to be stolen and native lands to be taken possession of, the absorbing process would be repeated. Tribe after tribe would be pushed back and back upon other tribes or would perish in the process until an uninhabitable desert or the sea were reached as the ultimate boundary of the Transvaal State."

The Manifesto presented by the Transvaal delegates to the English people convinced no one, and its tone was calculated rather to beget suspicion. The following is an extract from that document:

"The horrible misdeeds committed by Spain in America, by the Dutch in the Indian Archipelago, by England in India, and by the Southern planters in the United States, constitute an humiliating portion of the history of mankind, over which we as Christians may well blush, confessing with a contrite heart our common guiltiness."

"The labours of the Anti-slavery and Protection of Aborigines Societies which have been the means of arousing the public conscience to the high importance of this matter cannot be, according to our opinion, sufficiently lauded and encouraged."

The manifesto then goes on to meet the charges concerning slavery and ill-treatment of natives brought against the Transvaal by a flat denial. "They may be true," they say, "as to actions done long ago, and they humbly pray to the Lord God to forgive them the sins that may have been committed in hidden corners. Believe us, therefore, Gentlemen, when we say that the opposition to our Government is caused by prejudice, and fed by misunderstanding. If you leave us untrammelled, we hope to God that before a new generation has passed, a considerable portion of our natives in the Transvaal will be converted to Christianity; at least our Government is preparing arrangements for a more thorough Christian mission among them."

A public Meeting was held at the Mansion House, called by the Lord Mayor, Sir R. Fowler, at which the Right Hon. W.E. Forster, referring to the Sand River and the other Conventions said: "can anything be more grossly unfair and unjust than on the one hand, to hand over these native people to the Transvaal Government, and on the other hand to do our utmost to prevent them from defending themselves when their rights are attacked? I cannot conceive any provision more contrary to that principle of which we are so proud--British fair play."

Speaking of the treatment of the Bechuanaland people by the Boers he said: "The story of these men is a very sad one; I would rather never allude to it again." He then referred to "the settlement of the western boundary of the Transvaal by Governor Keate, and the immediate repudiation of it by the Transvaal Rulers. Then came the Pretoria Convention only two years ago which added a large block of native land to the Transvaal. That was not enough. Freebooters came over, mostly from the Transvaal, and afterwards from other parts of the country. Representations and remonstrances were made to the Transvaal Government. There was a non possumus reply. 'We cannot stop them;' We seem to have good ground for believing that the freebooters were stimulated by the officers of the Transvaal Government. The result was that the native Chiefs of the people lost by far the larger portion of their land. They appealed to our Government, and we did nothing; there came again and again despairing appeals to England, and how were they met? I can only believe it was through ignorance of the question that it was possible to meet them as we did. It was proposed to meet them by a miserable compensation in money or in land, not to the people but to the few Chiefs, who to their credit, as a lesson to us, a great Christian Country said: 'We will not desert our people even if you desert us.' Then there followed utter disorder and disorganisation in Bechuanaland. Then came in the Transvaal Government and virtually said: 'Give us the country and we will maintain order; if owners of the land object we will put them down as rebels; we will take their land as we have taken Mapoch's, and apprentice their children. You have got tired of these quarrels, leave them to us; we will put a stop to them by protecting the robbers who have taken the land.'

"That practically is the demand. Are you prepared to grant it? I for my part say, that rather than grant it I would (a voice in the meeting--'fight!') yes, if necessary, fight; but I will do my utmost to persuade my fellow countrymen to make the declaration that, if necessary, force will be used, which, if it was believed in, would make it unnecessary to fight.

"The Transvaal Boers know our power, and the Delegates know our power. It is our will that they doubt. If I could not persuade my fellow countrymen that they meant to show that they would never grant such demands as these, I would rather do--what I should otherwise oppose with all my might,--withdraw from South Africa altogether. I am not so proud of our extended Empire as to wish to preserve it at the cost of England refusing to discharge her duties. If we have obligations we must meet them, and if we have duties we must fulfil them; and I have confidence in the English people that first or last they will make our Government fulfil its obligations. But there is much difference between first and last; last is much more difficult than first, and more costly than first. The cost increases with more than geometrical progression. There are people who say, (but the British nation will not say it;) 'leave us alone, let these Colonists and Boers and Natives whom we are tired of, fight it out as best they can; let us declare by our deeds, or rather by our non deeds that we will not keep our promise nor fulfil our duty.' Such a course as that would be as extravagantly costly as it would be shamefully wrong. This laissez faire policy tends to make things go from bad to worse until at last by a great and most costly effort, and perhaps by a really bloody and destructive war, we shall be obliged to do in the end at a greater cost, and in a worse way, that which we could do now. It is not impossible to do it now. A gentleman in the meeting said it was a question of fighting. I do not believe this; but though born a Quaker, I must admit that if there be no other way by which we can protect our allies and prevent the ungrateful desertion of those who helped us in the time of need, than by the exercise of force, I say force must be exercised."

Readers will remark how extraordinarily prophetic are these words of Mr. Forster, spoken in 1883.