CHAPTER XI.
THE ORANGE FREE STATE.—PRESENT CONDITION.
SIR GEORGE GREY, who was at that time Governor of the Cape of Good Hope writing to Lord John Russell on 17th November 1855,—Lord John having then been Secretary of State for the Colonies,—expresses himself in the following glowing terms as to the region of which I am now writing. “The territory of the Orange Free State forms one of the finest pastoral countries I have ever seen. There is no district of country in Australia which I have visited which throughout so great an extent of territory affords so uniformly good a pastoral country.” A short time previous to this, Sir George Clerk, when he was about to deliver the State up to the Government of the Dutch, declared,—or at any rate is popularly reported to have declared,—that the land was a “howling wilderness.” I think that the one colonial authority was quite as far astray as the other. Sir George Grey had ever a way with him of contending for his point either by strong language or by strong action. He was at one time Governor of South Australia, but perhaps never travelled as far north as the Salt Bush country of that Colony. The Colony in his time was in its infancy and was not known as far north as the pastoral district in question. I do not know whether Sir George ever visited the Riverina in New South Wales, or the Darling Downs in Queensland. Had he done so,—and had he then become as well acquainted with the pastoral properties of land as he has since become,—he would hardly with all his energy have ventured upon such an assertion. It will be only necessary for any investigator to look at the prices of Australian and South African wool to enable him to form an opinion on the subject. The average price in London of medium Australian wool in 1877 was 1s. 6d. a pound, and that of South African wool of the same class 1s. 1d. a pound. In both countries it is common to hear that the land should be stocked at about the rate of 3 sheep to the acre; but in Australia patches of land which will bear heavier stocking occur much more numerously than in South Africa. The Orange Free State has not yet arrived at the ponderous glory of full statistics so that I cannot give the amount of the wool produced, nor can I divide her wool from that of the Cape Colony, through which it is sent to England without special record. But I feel sure that no one who knows the two countries will venture to compare the flocks of the Free State with those of either of the four great Australian Colonies, or with the flocks of New Zealand.
But if Sir George Grey spoke too loudly in one direction Sir George Clerk spoke very much too loudly in the other. He was probably struck by the desolate and unalluring appearance of the lands to the north of the Orange. They are not picturesque. They are not well-timbered. They are not even well-watered. If Sir George Clerk saw them in a drought, as I did, he certainly did not look upon a lovely country. But it is a country in which men may earn easy bread by pastoral and agricultural pursuits; in which with a certain amount of care,—which has to show itself mainly in irrigation,—the choicest fruits of the earth can be plenteously produced; in which the earth never refuses her increase if she be asked for it with many tears. A howling wilderness certainly it is not. But Sir George Clerk when he described the country was anxious to excuse the conduct of Great Britain in getting rid of it, while Sir George Grey was probably desirous of showing how wrong Great Britain had been on the occasion.
I do not know that I ever travelled across a less attractive country than the Orange Free State, or one in which there is less to gratify the visitor who goes to see things and not to see men and women. And the men and women are far between; for over an area presumed to include 70,000 square miles, a solid block of territory about 300 miles long by 120 miles broad, there are probably not more than 30,000 white people, and half that number of coloured people. The numbers I know are computed to be greater by the officials of the Free State itself,—but no census has been taken, and with customary patriotism they are perhaps disposed to overestimate their own strength. They, however, do not give much above half an inhabitant to every square mile. It must be remembered that in the Free State the land is all occupied;—but that it is occupied at the rate I have described. I altogether deny that the Free State is a howling wilderness, but I do not recommend English autumn tourists to devote their holydays to visiting the land, unless they have become very tired indeed of their usual resorts.
The farmer in the Orange Free State is generally a Dutch Boer,—but by no means always so. During my very short visit I came across various Englishmen who were holding or who had held land there,—Africanders perhaps, persons who had been born from British parents in the Gape Colony,—but altogether British as distinguished from Dutch. In the towns the shopkeepers are I think as generally English as the farmers are Dutch in the country. We hear of the Republic as an essentially Dutch country;—but I think that if a man about to live there had to choose the possession of but one of the two languages, English would be more serviceable to him of the two. In another twenty years it certainly will be so.
I travelled from the Diamond Fields to Bloemfontein and thence through Smithfield to the Orange River at Aliwal North. I also made a short excursion from Bloemfontein. In this way I did not see the best district of the country which is that which was taken from the Basutos,—where the town of Ladybrand now is,—which is good agricultural land, capable of being sown and reaped without artificial irrigation. The normal Dutch farmer of the Republic, such as I saw him, depends chiefly upon his flocks which are very small as compared with those in Australia,—three or four thousand sheep being a respectable pastoral undertaking for one man. He deals in agriculture also, not largely, but much more generally than his Australian brother. In Australia the squatter usually despises agriculture, looking upon it as the fitting employment for a little free-selector,—who is but a mean fellow in his estimation. He grows no more than he will use about his place for his own cattle. The flour to be consumed by himself and his men he buys. And as his horses are not often corn-fed a very few acres of ploughed land suffices for his purpose. The Dutch patriarch makes his own bread from the wheat he has himself produced. The bread is not white, but it is so sweet that I am inclined to say I have never eaten better. And he sells his produce,—anything which he can grow and does not eat himself. The Australian woolgrower sells nothing but wool. The Dutch Boer will send peas twenty miles to market, and will sell a bundle of forage,—hay made out of unripened oats or barley,—to any one who will call at his place and ask for it.
A strong Boer will probably have thirty, forty or perhaps fifty acres of cultivated land round his house,—including his garden. And he will assuredly have a dam for holding and husbanding his rain water. He would almost better be without a house than without a dam. Some spot is chosen as near to his homestead as may be,—towards which there is something, be it ever so slight, of a fall of ground. Here a curved wall or stoned bank is made underlying the fall of ground, and above it the earth is hollowed out,—as is done with a haha fence, only here it is on larger and broader dimensions,—and into this artificial pond when it is so made the rain water is led by slight watercourses along the ground above. From the dam, by other watercourses, the contents are led hither and thither on to the land and garden as required,—or into the house. It is the Boer’s great object thus to save enough water to last him through any period of drought that may come;—an object which he generally attains as far as his sheep, and cattle, and himself are concerned;—but in which he occasionally fails in reference to his ground. I saw more than one dam nearly dry as I passed through the country, and heard it asserted more than once that half a day’s rain would be worth a hundred pounds to the speaker.
The Boer’s house consists of a large middle chamber in which the family live and eat and work,—but do not cook. There is not usually even a fireplace in the room. It is very seldom floored. I do not know that I ever saw a Boer’s house floored in the Free State. As the planks would have had to be brought up four hundred miles by oxen, this is not wonderful. The Boer is contented with the natural hard earth as it has been made for him. The furniture of his room is good enough for all domestic purposes. There are probably two spacious tables, and settees along the walls of which the seats are made of ox-riems, and open cupboards in the corners filled not sparingly with crockery. And there is always a pile of books in a corner of the room,—among which there is never one not of a religious tendency. There is a large Dutch Bible, and generally half a dozen Dutch hymn-books, with a smaller Bible or two, and not improbably an English prayer-book and English hymn-book if any of the younger people are affecting the English language. The younger members of the family generally are learning English and seem to be very much better off in regard to education than are their relations in the Transvaal.
Opening out of the living room there are generally bedrooms to the right and left,—probably two at one end and one at the other,—of which the best will be surrendered to the use of any respectable stranger who may want such accommodation. It matters not who may be the normal occupant of the room. He or she,—or more probably they,—make way for the stranger, thinking no more of surrendering a bedroom than we do of giving up a chair. The bedroom is probably close and disagreeable, lacking fresh air, with dark suspicious corners of which the stranger would not on any account unravel the mysteries. Behind the centre chamber there is a kitchen to which the stranger does not probably penetrate. I have however been within the kitchen of a Dutch Boeress and have found that as I was to eat what came out of it, I had better not have penetrated so far. It will be understood that a Dutch Boer’s house never has an upper storey.
The young men are large strapping youths, and well made though awkward in their gait. The girls can hardly be said to be good-looking though there is often a healthy bloom about them. One would be inclined to say that they marry and have children too young were it not that they have so many children, and afterwards become such stout old matrons. Surely no people ever attended less to the fripperies and frivolities of dress. The old men wear strong loose brown clothes well bestained with work. The old women do the same. And so do the young men, and so do the young women. There seems to be extant among them no taste whatever for smartness. None at any rate is exhibited about their own homesteads. There are always coloured people about, living in adjacent huts,—very probably within the precincts of the same courtyard. For with the white children there are always to be seen black children playing. Nor does there seem to be any feeling of repugnance at such intercourse on the part of any one concerned. As such children grow up no doubt they are required to work, but I have never seen among the Dutch any instance of personal cruelty to a coloured person;—nor, during my travels in South Africa, did any story of such cruelty reach my ear. The Dutchman would I think fain have the black man for his slave,—and, could he have his way in this, would not probably be over tender. But the feeling that the black man is not to be personally ill-used has I think made its way so far, that at any rate in the Orange Free State such ill-usage is uncommon.
In regard to the question of work, I found that in the Free State as in all the other provinces and districts of the country so much of the work as is done for wages is invariably done by coloured people. On a farm I have seen four young men working together,—as far as I could see on equal terms,—and two have been white and two black; but the white lads were the Boer’s sons, while the others were his paid servants. Looking out of a window in a quiet dreary little town in the Free State I saw opposite to me two men engaged on the plastering of a wall. One was a Kafir and the other probably was a west coast Negro. Two or three passed by with loads on their shoulders. They were Bechuanas or Bastard Hottentots. I strolled out of the village to a country house where a Fingo was gardener and a Bushman was working under him. Out in the street the two men who had driven the coach were loafing round it. They were Cape Boys as they are called,—a coloured people who came from St. Helena and have white blood in their veins. I had dined lately and had been waited upon by a Coolie. Away in the square I could see bales of wool being handled by three Basutos. A couple of Korannas were pretending to drive oxen through the street but were apparently going where the oxen led them. Then came another Hottentot with a yoke and pair of buckets on his shoulder. I had little else to do and watched the while that I was there;—but I did not see a single white man at work. I heard their voices,—some Dutch, though chiefly English; but the voices were the voices of masters and not of men. Then I walked round the place with the object of seeing, and nowhere could I find a white man working as a labourer. And yet the Orange Free State is supposed to be the one South African territory from which the black man has been expelled. The independent black man who owned the land has been expelled,—but the working black man has taken his place, allured by wages and diet.
The Dutch Boer does not love to pay wages,—does not love to spend money in any way,—not believing in a return which is to come, or possibly may come, from an outlay of capital in that direction. He prefers to keep what he has and to do what can be done by family labour. He will, however, generally have a couple of black men about his place, whose services he secures at the lowest possible rate. Every shilling so paid is grudged. He has in his heart an idea that a nigger ought to be made to work without wages.
In the Free State as in the Transvaal I found every Boer with whom I came in contact, and every member of a Boer’s family, to be courteous and kind. I never entered a house at which my hand was not grasped at going in and coming out. This may be a bore, when there are a dozen in family all shaking hands on both occasions; but it is conclusive evidence that the Boer is not a churl. He admits freedoms which in more civilized countries would be at once resented. If you are hungry or thirsty you say so, and hurry on the dinner or the cup of tea. You require to be called at four in the morning and suggest that there shall be hot coffee at that hour. And he is equally familiar. He asks your age, and is very anxious to know how many children you have and what is their condition in the world. He generally boasts that he has more than you have,—and, if you yourself be so far advanced in age, that he has had grandchildren at a younger age than you. “You won’t have a baby born to you when you are 67 years old,” an old Boer said to me exulting. When I expressed a hope that I might be saved from such a fate, he chuckled and shook his head, clearly expressing an opinion that I would fain have a dozen children if Juno and the other celestials concerned would only be so good to me. His young wife sat by and laughed as it was all explained to her by the daughter of a former marriage who understood English. This was customary Boer pleasantness intended by the host for the delectation of his guest.
I was never more convinced of anything than that those people, the Dutch Boers of the Free State, are contented with their present condition and do not desire to place themselves again under the dominion of England. The question is one of considerable importance at the present moment as the permissive bill for the suggested Confederation of the South African districts has become law, and as that Confederation can hardly take place unless the Free State will accept it. The Free State is an isolated district in South Africa, now surrounded on all sides by British territory, by no means rich, not populous, in which the Dutch and English languages prevail perhaps equally, and also Dutch and English habits of life. It would appear therefore at first sight to be natural that the large English Colonies should swallow up and assimilate the little Dutch Republic. But a close view of the place and of the people,—and of the circumstances as they now exist and would exist under Dutch rule,—have tended to convince me that such a result is improbable for at any rate some years to come.
In the Orange Free State the Volksraad or Parliament is plenipotentiary,—more so if it be possible than our Parliament is with us because there is but one Chamber and because the President has no veto upon any decision to which that Chamber may come. The Volksraad is elected almost exclusively by the rural interest. There are 54 members, who are returned, one for each chief town in a district, and one for each Field-Cornetcy,—the Field-Cornetcies being the divisions into which the rural districts are divided for police and military purposes. Of these towns, such as they are, there are 13, and from them, if from any part of the State, would come a desire for English rule. But they, with the exception of the capital, can hardly be said to be more than rural villages. It is in the towns that the English language is taught and spoken,—that English tradesmen live, and that English modes of life prevail. The visitor to Bloemfontein, the capital, will no doubt feel that Bloemfontein is more English than Dutch. But Bloemfontein returns but one member to the Yolksraad. From the rural districts there are 41 members, all of whom are either Boers or have been returned by Boers. Were the question extended to the division even of the 13 town members I do not doubt but that the present state of things would be maintained,—so general is the feeling in favour of the independence of the Republic. But seeing that the question rests in truth with the country members, that the country is essentially a farmer’s country, a country which for all purposes is in the hands of the Dutch Boers, it seems to me to be quite out of the question that the change should be voted by the legislature of the country.
An Englishman, or an Africander with an English name and an English tongue, is under the constitution as capable of being elected as a Dutchman. A very large proportion of the wealth of the country is in English hands. The large shopkeepers are generally English; and I think that I am right in saying that the Banks are supported by English, or at any rate, by Colonial capital. And yet, looking through the names of the present Volksraad, I find but two that are English,—and the owner of one of them I believe to be a Dutchman. How can it be possible that such a House should vote away its own independence? It is so impossible that there can be no other way of even bringing the question before the House than that of calling upon it for a unanimous assertion of its will in answer to the demand, or request, or suggestion now made by Great Britain.
Nor can I conceive any reason why the Volksraad should consent to the proposed change. To a nationality labouring under debt, oppressed by external enemies, or unable to make the property of its citizens secure because of external disorders, the idea of annexing itself to a strong power might be acceptable. To have its debts paid, its frontiers defended, and its rebels controlled might be compensation for the loss of that self-rule which is as pleasant to communities as it is to individuals. Such I believe is felt to be the case by the most Dutch of the Dutch Boers in the Transvaal. But the Orange Free State does not owe a penny. Some years since it had been so impoverished by Basuto wars that it was reduced to the enforced use of paper money which sank to half its nominal value. Had England then talked of annexation the Boers might have listened to her offer. But the enormous trade produced by the sudden influx of population into the Diamond Fields created a wealth which has cured this evil. The bluebacks,—as the Orange Free State banknotes were called,—have been redeemed at par, and the Revenue of the country is amply sufficient for its modest wants. Enemies it has none, and from its position can have none,—unless it be England. Its own internal affairs are so quiet and easily regulated that it is hardly necessary to lock a door. No annexation could make a Boer more secure in the possession of his own land and his own chattels than he is at present.
It may of course be alleged that if the State were to join her lot with that of the Cape Colony or of a wide South African Confederation, she would increase her own wealth by sharing that of the larger nationality of which she would become a part,—and that the increase of national wealth would increase the means of the individuals forming the nation. This, however, is an argument which, even though it were believed, would have but little effect on the minds of a class of men who are peculiarly fond of self-government but are by no means desirous of a luxurious mode of life. It is often said that the Boer is fond of money. He is certainly averse to spending it and will grasp at it when it comes absolutely in his way; but he is the last man in the world to trust to its coming to him from a speculative measure of which he sees the certain immediate evil much more clearly than the possible future advantage.
There is one source of public wealth from which the Orange Free State is at present debarred by the peculiarity of its position, and of which it would enjoy its share were it annexed to the Cape Colony or joined in some federation with it. But I hope that no British or Colonial Statesman has trusted to force the Republic to sacrifice herself for the sake of obtaining justice in this respect. If, as I think, wrong is being done to the Orange Free State in this matter that wrong should be remedied for the sake of justice, and not maintained as a weapon to enforce the self-annihilation of a weak neighbour. On whatever produce from the world at large the Free State consumes, the Free State receives no Custom duties. The duties paid are levied by the Cape Colony, and are spent by it as a portion of its own revenues. The Free State has no seaboard and therefore no port.[13] Her sugar, and tea, and whisky come to her through Capetown, or Fort Elizabeth, or East London, and there the Custom duties are collected,—and retained. I need hardly point out to English readers that the Custom duties of a country form probably the greatest and perhaps the least objectionable portion of its revenue. It will be admitted, at any rate, that to such extent as a country chooses to subject its people to an increased price of goods by the addition of Custom duties to the cost of production, to that extent the revenue of the consuming country should be enriched. If I, an individual in England, have to pay a shilling on the bottle of French wine which I drink, as an Englishman I am entitled to my share of the public advantage coming from that shilling. But the Republican of the Orange Free State pays the shilling while the Colonist of the Cape has the spending of it. I hope, I say, that we on the south side of the Orange River do not cling to this prey with any notion that by doing so we can keep a whip hand over our little neighbour the Republic.
Two allegations are made in defence of the course pursued. It is said that the goods are brought to the ports of the Colony by Colonial merchants and are resold by them to the traders of the Orange Free State, so as to make it impossible for the Colony to know what is consumed within her own borders and what beyond. Goods could not therefore be passed through in bond even if the Cape Government would permit it. They go in broken parcels, and any duties collected must therefore be collected at the ports whence the goods are distributed. But this little difficulty has been got over in the intercourse between Victoria and New South Wales. A considerable portion of the latter Colony is supplied with its seaborne goods from Melbourne, which is the Capital and seaport of Victoria. Victoria collects the duties on those goods, and, having computed their annual amount, pays a certain lump sum to New South Wales in lieu of the actual duties collected. Why should not the Cape Colony settle with the Orange Republic in the same way?
The other reason put forward for withholding the amount strikes me as being—almost mean. I have heard it put forward only in conversation, and I am bringing no charge against any Statesman in the Cape Colony by saying this. I trust that the argument has had no weight with any Statesman at the Cape. The Cape Colony makes the roads over which the goods are carried up to the Free State. She does do so,—and the railroads. But she collects toll on the former, and charges for carriage on the latter. And she enjoys all the money made by the continued traffic through her territory. And she levies the port duties, which no one begrudges her. I felt it to be a new thing to be informed that a country was so impoverished by being made the vehicle for traffic from the sea to the interior that it found itself compelled to reimburse itself by filching Custom Duties.[14] England might just as well claim the customs of the Cape Colony because she protects the seas over which the goods are carried.
But the Orange Free State can carry on her little business even without the aid of Custom Duties, and will certainly not be driven back into the arms of the mother who once repudiated her by the want of them. She can pay her modest way; and while she can do so the Boer of the Volksraad will certainly not be induced to give up the natural delight which he takes in ruling his own country. The Free State might send perhaps six members to the central Congress of a South African Federation, where they would be called upon to hear debates, which they would be unable to share or even to understand because spoken in a foreign language. They would be far from their farms and compelled to live in a manner altogether uncomfortable to them. Is it probable that for this privilege they will rob themselves of the honour and joy they now have in their own Parliament? In his own Parliament the Boer is close, phlegmatic, by no means eloquent, but very firm. The two parliamentary ideas most prominent in his mind are that he will vote away neither his independence nor his money. It is very hard to get from him a sanction for any increased expenditure. It would I think be impossible to get from him sanction for a measure which would put all control over expenditure out of his own hands. “We will guard as our choicest privilege that independence which Her Majesty some years since was pleased to bestow upon us.” It is thus that the Boer declares himself,—somewhat sarcastically,—when he is asked whether he does not wish to avail himself of the benefit of British citizenship.
Somewhat sarcastically;—for he is well aware that when England repudiated him,—declaring that she would have nothing to do with him across the Orange River, she did so with contempt and almost with aversion. And he is as well aware that England now wants to get him back again. The double consciousness is of a nature likely to beget sarcasm. “You thought nothing of me when I came here a poor wanderer, daring all dangers in order that I might escape from your weaknesses, your absurdities, your mock philanthropies,—when I shook off from the sole of my foot the dust of a country in which the black Savage was preferred to the white Colonist; but now,—now that I have established myself successfully,—you would fain have me back again so that your broad borders may be extended, and your widened circle made complete. But, by the Providence of God, after many difficulties we are well as we are;—and therefore we are able to decline your offers.” That is the gist of what the Boer is saying when he tells us of the independence bestowed upon him by Her Majesty.
Thinking as I do that Great Britain was wrong when she repudiated the Orange Free State in 1854, believing that there was then a lack of patience at the Colonial Office and that we should have been better advised had we borne longer with the ways of the Dutch, I must still acknowledge here that they were a provoking people, and one hard to manage. Omitting small details and some few individual instances of misrule, I feel that when the Dutch complained of us they complained of what was good in our ways and not of what was evil. It was with this conviction that we repudiated both the Transvaal and the other younger but more stable Republic. Good excuses can be made for what we did,—not the worst of which is the fact that a people whom we desired to rule themselves, have ruled themselves well. But we did repudiate them, and I do not know with what face we can ask them to return to us. If the offer came from them of course we could assent; but that offer will hardly be made.
We could certainly annex the Republic by force,—as we have done the Transvaal. If we were to send a High Commissioner to Bloemfontein with thirty policemen and an order that the country should be given up to us, I do not know that President Brand and the Volksraad could do better than comply,—with such loudest remonstrance as they might make. “The Republic cannot fight Great Britain,” President Brand might say, as President Burgers said when he apologised for the easy surrender of his Republic. But there are things which a nation can not do and hold up its head, and this would be one of them. There could be no excuse for such spoliation. It is not easy to justify what we have done in the Transvaal. If there be any laws of right and wrong by which nations should govern themselves in their dealings with other nations it is hard to find the law in conformity with which that act was done. But for that act expediency can be pleaded. We have taken the Transvaal not that we might strengthen our own hands, not that we might round our own borders, not that we might thus be enabled to carry out the policy of our own Cabinet,—but because by doing so we have enabled Englishmen, Dutchmen! and natives to live one with another in comfort. There does seem to have been at any rate expedience to justify us in the Transvaal. But no such plea can be put forward in reference to the Free State. There a quiet people are being governed after their own fashion. There a modest people are contented with the fruition of their own moderate wealth. There a secure and well ordered people are able to live without fear. I cannot see any reason for annexing them;—or any other excuse beyond that spirit of spoliation which has so often armed the strong against the weak, but which England among the strong nations has surely repudiated.
The Legislature of the Orange Republic consists, as I have said, of a single House called the Volksraad, which is elected for four years, of which one half goes out at the end of every two years, so that th