CHAPTER XVI.
CONDITION OF THE COLONY.—NO. 2.
ON arriving at Pieter Maritzburg I put up for a day or two at the Royal Hotel which I found to be comfortable enough. I had been told that the Club was a good club but that it had not accommodation for sleeping. I arrived late on Saturday evening, and on the Sunday morning I went, of course, to hear Bishop Colonso preach. Whatever might be the Bishop’s doctrine, so much at any rate was due to his fame. The most innocent and the most trusting young believer in every letter of the Old Testament would have heard nothing on that occasion to disturb a cherished conviction or to shock a devotional feeling. The church itself was all that a church ought to be, pretty, sufficiently large and comfortable. It was, perhaps, not crowded, but was by no means deserted. I had expected that either nobody would have been there, or else that it would have been filled to inconvenience,—because of the Bishop’s alleged heresies. A stranger who had never heard of Bishop Colenso would have imagined that he had entered a simple church in which the service was pleasantly performed,—all completed including the sermon within an hour and a half,—and would have had his special attention only called to the two facts that one of the clergymen wore lawn sleeves, and that the other was so singularly like Charles Dickens as to make him expect to hear the tones of that wonderful voice whenever a verse of the Bible was commenced.
Pieter Maritzburg is a town covering a large area of ground but is nevertheless sufficiently built up and perfected to prevent that look of scattered failure which is so common to colonial embryo cities. I do not know that it contains anything that can be called a handsome building;—but the edifices whether public or private are neat, appropriate, and sufficient. The town is surrounded by hills, and is therefore, necessarily, pretty. The roadways of the street are good, and the shops have a look of established business. The first idea of Pieter Maritzburg on the mind of a visitor is that of success, and this idea remains with him to the last. It contains only a little more than 4,000 white inhabitants, whereas it would seem from the appearance of the place, and the breadth and length of the streets, and the size of the shops, and the number of churches of different denominations, to require more than double that number of persons to inhabit it. Observation in the streets, however, will show that the deficiency is made up by natives, who in fact do all the manual and domestic work of the place. Their number is given as 2,500; but I am disposed to think that a very large number come in from the country for their daily occupations in the town. The Zulu adherents to Pieter Maritzburg are so remarkable that I must speak separately of them in a separate chapter. The white man in the capital as in Durban is not the working man, but the master, or boss, who looks after the working man.
I liked Pieter Maritzburg very much,—perhaps the best of all South African towns. But whenever I would express such an opinion to a Pieter Maritzburger he would never quite agree with me. It is difficult to get a Colonist to assent to any opinion as to his own Colony. If you find fault, he is injured and almost insulted. The traveller soon learns that he had better abstain from all spoken criticism, even when that often repeated, that dreadful question is put to him,—which I was called upon to answer sometimes four or five times a day,—“Well, Mr. Trollope, what do you think of——,”—let us say for the moment, “South Africa?” But even praise is not accepted without contradiction, and the peculiar hardships of a Colonist’s life are insisted upon almost with indignation when colonial blessings are spoken of with admiration. The Government at home is doing everything that is cruel, and the Government in the Colony is doing everything that is foolish. With whatever interest the gentleman himself is concerned, that peculiar interest is peculiarly ill-managed by the existing powers. But for some fatuous maddening law he himself could make his own fortune and almost that of the Colony. In Pieter Maritzburg everybody seemed to me very comfortable, but everybody was ill-used. There was no labour,—though the streets were full of Zulus, who would do anything for a shilling and half anything for sixpence. There was no emigration from England provided for by the country. There were not half soldiers enough in Natal,—though Natal has luckily had no real use for soldiers since the Dutch went away. But perhaps the most popular source of complaint was that everything was so dear that nobody could afford to live. Nevertheless I did not hear that any great number of the inhabitants of the town were encumbered by debt, and everybody seemed to live comfortably enough.
“You must begin,” said one lady to me, “by computing that £400 a year in England means £200 a year here.” To this I demurred before the lady,—with very little effect, as of course she had the better of me in the argument. But I demur again here, with better chance of success, as I have not the lady by to contradict me.
The point is one on which it is very difficult to come to a direct and positive conclusion. The lady began by appealing to wages, rent, the price of tea and all such articles as must be imported, the price of clothes, the material of which must at least be imported, the price of butter and vegetables, the price of schooling, of medical assistance and of law, which must be regulated in accordance with the price of the articles which the schoolmaster, doctors, and lawyers consume,—and the price of washing. In all such arguments the price of washing is brought forward as a matter in which the Colonist suffers great hardships. It must be acknowledged that the washing is dear,—and bad, atrociously bad;—so bad that the coming home of one’s linen is a season for tears and wailing. Bread and meat she gave up to me. Bread might be about the same as in Europe, and meat no doubt in Pieter Maritzburg was to be had at about half the London prices. She defied me to name another article of consumption which was not cheaper at home than in the Colony.
I did not care to go through the list with her, though I think that a London butler costs more than a Zulu boy. I found the matter of wages paid to native servants to be so inexplicable as to defy my enquiries. A boy,—that is a Zulu man—would run almost anywhere for a shilling with a portmanteau on his head. I often heard of 7s. a month as the amount of wages paid by a farmer,—with a diet exclusively of mealies or of Kafir corn. And yet housekeepers have told me that they paid £5 and £6 a month wages for a man, and that they considered his diet to cost them 15s. a week. In the heat of argument exceptional circumstances are often taken to prove general statements. You will be assured that the Swiss are the tallest people in Europe because a Swiss has been found seven feet high. A man will teach himself to think that he pays a shilling each for the apples he eats, because he once gave a shilling for an apple in Covent Garden. The abnormally dear Zulu servants of whom I have heard have been I think like the giant Swiss and the shilling apple. Taking it all round I feel sure that Zulu service in Natal is very much cheaper than English service in England,—that it does not cost the half. I have no doubt that it is less regular,—but then it is more good humoured, and what it lacks in comfort is made up in freedom.
But I would not compare items with my friend; nor do I think that any true result can be reached by such comparison. Comfort in living depends not so much on the amount of good things which a man can afford to consume, but on the amount of good things which those with whom he lives will think that he ought to consume. It may be true,—nay, it certainly is true,—that for every square foot of house room which a householder enjoys he pays more in Pieter Maritzburg than a householder of the same rank and standing pays in London for the same space. But a professional man, a lawyer let us say, can afford to live, without being supposed to derogate from his position, in a much smaller house in Natal than he can in England. It may cost sixpence to wash a shirt in Natal, and only threepence in England; but if an Englishman be required by the exacting fastidiousness of his neighbours to put on a clean white shirt every day, whereas the Natalian can wear a flannel shirt for three days running, it will be found, I think, that the Natalian will wash his shirts a penny a day cheaper than the Englishman. A man with a family, living on £400 a year, cannot entertain his friends very often either in London or in Pieter Maritzburg;—but, of the two, hospitality is more within the reach of the latter because the Colonist who dines out expects much less than the Englishman. We clothe ourselves in broadcloth instead of fustian because we are afraid of our neighbours, but the obligation on us is imperative. In a country where it is less so, money spent in clothing will of course go further. I do not hesitate to say that a gentleman living with a wife and children on any income between £400 and £1,000 would feel less of the inconveniences of poverty in Natal than in England. That he would experience many drawbacks,—especially in regard to the education of his children,—is incidental to all colonial life.
I find the following given in a list of prices prevailing at Pieter Maritzburg in March 1876, and I quote from it as I have seen no list so general of later date. Meat 6d. per pound. Wheat 13s. per cwt. Turkeys from 8s. upwards. Fowls 2s. 4d. each. Ham Is. 1d. per lb. Bacon 8d. Butter, fresh, 1s. 2d. to 1s. 6d. This is an article which often becomes very much dearer, and is always too bad to be eaten. Coals £3 6s. 8d. per ton. Good coal could not be bought for this; but coal is never used in houses. Little fuel is needed except for cooking, and for that wood is used—quoted at 1s. 4d. per cwt. Potatoes 4s. to 6s. per cwt. Onions 16s. per cwt. A horse can be kept at livery at 17s. 6d. a week. The same clothes would be dearer in Pieter Maritzburg than in London, but the same clothes are not worn. I pay £2 2s. for a pair of trowsers in London. Before I left South Africa I found myself wearing garments that a liberal tradesman in the Orange Free State, six hundred miles away from the sea, had sold me for 16s.—although they had been brought ready made all the way from England. This purchase had not taken place when I was discussing the matter with the lady, or perhaps I might have been able to convince her. I bought a hat at the Diamond Fields cheaper than my friend Scott would sell it me at the corner of Bond Street.
While in Pieter Maritzburg a public dinner was given to which I had the honour of receiving an invitation. After dinner, as is usual on such occasions, a great many speeches were made,—which differed very much from such speeches as are usually spoken at public dinners in England, by being all worth hearing. I do not know that I ever heard so many good speeches made before on a so-called festive occasion. I think I may say that at home the two or three hours after the health of Her Majesty has been drunk are generally two or three hours of misery,—sometimes intensified to such a degree as to induce the unfortunate one to fly for support to the wine which is set before him. I have sometimes fancied that this has come, not so much from the inability of the speakers to make good speeches,—because as a rule able men are called upon on such occasions,—as from a feeling of shame on the part of the orators. They do not like to seem to wish to shine on an occasion so trivial. The “Nil admirari” school of sentiment prevails. To be in earnest about anything, except on a very rare occasion, would almost be to be ridiculous. Consequently man after man gets up and in a voice almost inaudible mumbles out a set of platitudes, which simply has the effect of preventing conversation. Here, at Pieter Maritzburg, I will not say that every speaker spoke his best. I do not know to what pitch of excellence they might have risen. But they spoke so that it was a pleasure to hear them. The health of the Chief Justice was given, and it is a pity that every word which he used in describing the manner in which he had endeavoured to do his duty to the public and the bar, and the pleasure which had pervaded his life because the public had been law-abiding, and the bar amenable, should not have been repeated in print. Judges at home have not so much to say about their offices. There was a tradesman called to his legs with reference to the commerce of Natal who poured forth such a flood of words about the trade of the Colony as to make me feel that he ought not to be a tradesman at all. Probably, however, he has made his fortune, which he might not have done had he become a member of Parliament. It was here that the gentleman protested against drinking the health of The Bar at Durban, to the infinite delight of his hearers. Napier Broome, who was known to many of us in London, is now Colonial Secretary at Natal. I don’t remember that he ever startled us by his eloquence at home; but on this occasion he made a speech which if made after a London public dinner would be a great relief. Everybody had something to say, and nobody was ashamed to say it.
I found 1,200 British soldiers in Pieter Maritzburg, for the due ordering of whom there was assembled there the rather large number of eight or nine Field Officers. But in Natal military matters have had a stir given to them by the necessity of marching troops up to Pretoria,—at a terrible cost, and now an additional stir by Zulu ambition. An Englishman in these parts, when he remembers the almost insuperable difficulty of getting a sufficient number of men in England to act as soldiers, when he tells himself what these soldiers cost by the time they reach their distant billets, and reminds himself that they are supported by taxes levied on a people who, man for man, are very much poorer than the Colonists themselves, that they are maintained in great part out of the beer and tobacco of rural labourers who cannot earn near as much as many a Kafir,—the Englishman as he thinks of all this is apt to question the propriety of their being there. He will say to himself that at any rate the Colony should pay for them. A part of the cost is paid for by the Colony, but only a small part. In 1876 £4,596 9s. 11d. was so expended, and in 1877 £2,318 2s. 7d.
Other countries, Spain most notoriously and Holland also, have held the idea that they should use their Colonies as a source of direct wealth to themselves,—that a portion of the Colonists’ earnings, or findings, should periodically be sent home to enrich the mother country. England has disavowed that idea and has thought that the Colonies should be for the Colonists. She has been contented with the advantage to her own trade which might come from the creating of new markets for her goods, and from the increase which accrued to her honour from the spreading of her language, her laws and her customs about the world. Up to a certain point she has had to manage the Colonies herself as a mother manages her child; and while this was going on she had imposed on her the necessary task of spending Colonial funds, and might spend them on soldiers or what not as seemed best to her. But when the Colonies have declared themselves able to manage themselves and have demanded the privilege of spending their own moneys, then she has withdrawn her soldiers. It has seemed monstrous to her to have to send those luxuries,—which of all luxuries are in England the most difficult to be had,—to Colonies which assume to be able to take care of themselves with their own funds. But the act of withdrawing them has been very unpopular. New South Wales has not yet quite forgiven it, nor Tasmania. For a time there was a question whether it might not drive New Zealand into rebellion. But the soldiers have been withdrawn,—from all parliamentary Colonies, I think, except the Cape. Natal is not a parliamentary Colony in the proper sense, and cannot therefore in this matter be put on quite the same footing as the Cape Colony. But she spends her own revenues and according to the theory which prevails on the subject, she should provide for her own defence.
Australia wants no soldiers, nor does New Zealand in spite of the unsubdued Maoris who are still resident within her borders. They fear no evil from aboriginal races against which their own strength will not suffice for them. At the Cape and in Natal it is very different. It has to be acknowledged, at any rate as to Natal, that an armed European force in addition to any that the Colony can supply for itself, has to be maintained for its protection against the black races. But who should pay the bill? I will not say that assuredly the Colony should do so,—or else not have the soldiers. What is absolutely necessary in the way of soldiers must be supplied, whoever pays for them. England will not let her Colonies be overcome by enemies, black or white, even though she herself must pay the bill. But it seems to me that a Colony should either pay its bill or else be ruled from home. I cannot admit that a Colony is in a position to levy, collect, and spend its own taxes, till it is in a position to pay for whatever it wants with those taxes. Were there many Colonies situated as are those of South Africa it would be impossible for England to continue to send her soldiers for their protection. In the mean time it is right to say that the Colony keeps a colonial force of 150 mounted police who are stationed at three different places in the Colony,—the Capital, Eastcourt, and Greyton. In these places there are barracks and stables, and the force as far as it goes is very serviceable.
The Colony is governed by a Lieutenant-Governor,—who however is not in truth Lieutenant to any one but simply bears that sobriquet, and an Executive Council consisting I think of an uncertain number. There is a Colonial Secretary, a Secretary for Native Affairs, a Treasurer, and an Attorney-General. The Commandant of the Forces is I think also called to the Council, and the Superintendent of Public Works. The Governor is impowered also to invite two members of the Legislative Council. They meet as often as is found necessary and in fact govern the Colony. Laws are of course passed by the Legislative Council of twenty-eight members, of which, as I have stated before, fifteen are elected and thirteen nominated. New laws are I think always initiated by the Government, and the action of the Council, if hostile to the Government, is confined to repudiating propositions made by the Government. But the essential difference between such a government as that of Natal, and parliamentary government such as prevails in Canada, the Australias, New Zealand and in the Cape Colony, consists in this—that the Prime Minister in these self-governing Colonies is the responsible head of affairs and goes in and out in accordance with a parliamentary majority, as do our Ministers at home; whereas in Natal the Ministers remain in,—or go out if they do go out,—at the dictation of the Crown. Though the fifteen elective members in Natal were to remain hostile to the Government on every point year after year, there would be no constitutional necessity to change a single Minister of the Colony. The Crown,—or Governor,—would still govern in accordance with its or his prevailing ideas. There might be a deadlock about money. There might be much that would be disagreeable. But the Governor would be responsible for the government, and no one would necessarily come in or go out. Such a state of things, however, is very improbable in a Colony in which the Crown nominates so great a minority as thirteen members out of a Chamber of twenty-eight. It is not probable that the fifteen elected members will combine themselves together to create a difficulty.
In 1876 the Revenue of the Colony was £265,551. In 1846 it was only £3,095. In 1876 the expenditure was £261,933. What was the expenditure in 1846 I do not know, but certainly more than the Revenue,—as has often been the case since. The Colony owes an old funded debt of £331,700, and it has now borrowed or is in the act of borrowing £1,200,000 for its railways. The borrowed money will no doubt all be expended on public works. When a country has but one harbour, and that harbour has such a sandbank as the bar at Durban, it has to spend a considerable sum of money before it can open the way for its commerce. Upon the whole it may be said that the financial affairs of the Colony are now in a good condition.
When I had been a day or two in the place the Governor was kind enough to ask me to his house and extended his hospitality by inviting me to join him in an excursion which he was about to make through that portion of his province which lies to the immediate North of Pieter Maritzburg, and thence, eastward, down the coast through the sugar districts to Durban. It was matter of regret to me that my arrangements were too far fixed to enable me to do all that he suggested; but I had a few days at my disposal and I was very glad to take the opportunity of seeing, under such auspices, as much as those few days would allow. An active Colonial Governor will be so often on the move as to see the whole of the territory confided to his care and to place himself in this way within the reach of almost every Colonist who may wish to pay his respects or may have ought of which to complain. This is so general that Governors are very often away from home, making semi-regal tours through their dominions, not always very much to their own comfort, but greatly to the satisfaction of the male Colonist who always likes to see the Governor,—very much indeed to the satisfaction of the lady Colonist who likes the Governor to call upon her.
Upon such occasions everything needed upon the road has to be carried, as, except in towns, no accommodation can be found for the Governor and his suite. In Natal for instance I imagine that Durban alone would be able to put the Governor up with all his followers. He lives as he goes under canvas, and about a dozen tents are necessary. Such at least was the case on this trip. Cooks, tentpitchers, butlers, guards, aides-de-camp, and private secretary are all necessary. The progress was commenced by the despatch of many waggons with innumerable oxen. Then there followed a mule waggon in which those men were supposed to sit who did not care to remain long on horseback. While I remained the mule waggon was I think presided over by the butler and tenanted by his satellites, the higher persons preferring the more animated life of the saddle. I had been provided with a remarkably strong little nag, named Toby Tub, who seemed to think nothing of sixteen stone for six or seven hours daily and who would canter along for ever if not pressed beyond eight miles an hour. The mode of our progress was thus;—as the slow oxen made their journeys of twelve or fourteen miles a day the Governor deviated hither and thither to the right and the left, to this village or to that church, or to pay a visit to some considerable farmer; and thus we would arrive at the end of our day’s journey by the time the tents were pitched,—or generally before. There was one young officer who used to shoot ahead about three in the afternoon, and it seemed that everything in the way of comfort depended on him. My own debt of gratitude to him was very great, as he let me have his own peculiar indiarubber tub every morning before he used it himself. Tubbing on such occasions is one of the difficulties, as the tents cannot be pitched quite close to the spruits, or streams, and the tubs have to be carried to the water instead of the water to the tubs. Bathing would be convenient, were it not that the bather is apt to get out of a South African spruit much more dirty than he went into it. I bathed in various rivers during my journey, but I did not generally find it satisfactory.
We rode up to many farms at which we were of course received with the welcome due to the Governor, and where in the course of the interview most of the material facts as to the farmer’s enterprise,—whether on the whole he had been successful or the reverse, and to what cause his success or failure had been owing,—would come out in conversation. An English farmer at home would at once resent the questionings which to a Colonial farmer are a matter of course. The latter is conscious that he has been trying an experiment and that any new comer will be anxious to know the result. He has no rent to pay and does not feel that his condition ought to remain a secret between him and his landlord alone. One man whom we saw had come from the East Riding of Yorkshire more than twenty years ago, and was now the owner of 1,200 acres,—which however in Natal is not a large farm. But he was well located as to land, and could have cultivated nearly the whole had labour been abundant enough, and cheap enough. He was living comfortably with a pleasant wife and well-to-do children, and regaled us with tea and custard. His house was comfortable, and everything no doubt was plentiful with him. But he complained of the state of things and would not admit himself to be well off. O fortunati nimium sua si bona norint Agricolæ. He had no rent to pay. That was true. But there were taxes,—abominable taxes. This was said with a side look at the Governor. And as for labour,—there was no making a Zulu labour. Now you could get a job done, and now you couldn’t. How was a man to grow wheat in such a state of things, and that, too, with the rust so prevalent? Yes;—he had English neighbours and a school for the children only a mile and a half off. And the land was not to say bad. But what with the taxes and what with the Zulus, there were troubles more than enough. The Governor asked, as I thought at the moment indiscreetly, but the result more than justified the question,—whether he had any special complaint to make. He had paid the dog tax on his dogs,—5s. a dog, I think it was;—whereas some of his neighbours had escaped the imposition! There was nothing more. And in the midst of all this the man’s prosperity and comfort were leaking out at every corner. The handsome grown-up daughter was telling me of the dancing parties around to which she went, and there were the pies and custards all prepared for the family use and brought out at a moment’s notice. There were the dining room and drawing room, well furnished and scrupulously clean,—and lived in, which is almost more to the purpose. There could be no doubt that our Yorkshire friend had done well with himself in spite of the Zulus and the dog tax.
An Englishman, especially an English farmer, will always complain, where a Dutchman or a German will express nothing but content. And yet the Englishman will probably have done much more to secure his comfort than any of his neighbours of another nationality. An English farmer in Natal almost always has a deal flooring to his living rooms; while a Dutchman will put up with the earth beneath his feet. The one is as sure to be the case as the other. But the Dutchman rarely grumbles,—or if he grumbles it is not at his farm. He only wants to be left alone, to live as he likes on his earthen floor as his fathers lived before him, and not to be interfered with or have advice given to him by any one.
In the course of our travels we came to a German village,—altogether German, and were taken by the Lutheran parson to see the Lutheran church and Lutheran school. They were both large and betokened a numerous congregation. That such a church should have been built and a clergyman supported was evidence of the possession of considerable district funds. I am not sure but that I myself was more impressed by the excellence of the Lutheran oranges, grown on the spot. It was very hot and the pastor gave us oranges just picked from his own garden to refresh us on our journey. I never ate better oranges. But an orange to be worth eating should always be just picked from the tree.
Afterwards as we went on we came to Hollanders, Germans, Dutchmen, and Englishmen, all of whom were doing well, though most of them complained that they could not grow corn as they would wish to do because the natives would not work. The Hollander and the Dutchman in South Africa are quite distinct persons. The Hollander is a newly arrived emigrant from Holland, and has none of the Boer peculiarities, of which I shall have to speak when I come to the Transvaal and the Free State. The Dutchman is the descendant of the old Dutch Colonist, and when living on his farm is called a Boer,—the word having the same signification as husbandman with us. It flavours altogether of the country and country pursuits, but would never be applied to any one who worked for wages. They are rare in the part of the country we were then visiting, having taken themselves off, as I have before explained, to avoid English rule. There is however a settlement of them still left in the northern part of the Colony, about the Klip River and in Weenen.
One Hollander whom we visited was very proud indeed of what he had done in the way of agriculture and gave us, not only his own home-grown oranges, but also his own home-grown cigars. I had abandoned smoking, perhaps in prophetical anticipation of some such treat as this. Others of the party took the cigars,—which, however, were not as good as the oranges. This man had planted many trees, and had done marvels with the land round his house. But the house itself was deficient,—especially in the article of flooring.
Then we came to a German farmer who had planted a large grove about his place, having put down some thousands of young trees. Nothing can be done more serviceable to the country at large than the planting of trees. Though there is coal in the Colony it is not yet accessible,—nor can be for many years because of the difficulty of transport. The land is not a forest-land,—like Australia. It is only on the courses of the streams that trees grow naturally and even then the growth is hardly more than that of shrubs. Firewood is consequently very dear, and all the timber used in building is imported. But young trees when planted almost always thrive. It has seemed to me that the Governments of South Africa should take the matter in hand,—as do the Governments of the Swiss Cantons and of the German Duchies, which are careful that timber shall be reproduced as it is cut down. In Natal it should be produced; and Nature, though she has not given the country trees, has manifestly given it the power of producing them. The German gentleman was full of the merits of the country, freely admitting his own success, and mitigating in some degree the general expressions against the offending Native. He could get Zulus to work—for a consideration. But he was of opinion that pastoral pursuits paid better than agriculture.
We came to another household of mixed Germans and Dutch, where we received exactly the same answers to our enquiries. Farming answered very well,—but cattle or sheep were the articles which paid. A man should only grow what corn he wanted for himself and his stock. A farmer with 6,000 acres, which is the ordinary size of a farm, should not plough at the most above 40 acres,—just the patches of land round his house. For simply agricultural purposes 6,000 acres would of course be unavailable. The farming capitalists in England who single-handed plough 6,000 acres might probably be counted on the ten fingers. In Nat