South Africa; vol II. by Anthony Trollope - HTML preview

CHAPTER V.
 THE TRANSVAAL: ITS CONDITION AND PRODUCTS.

AMONG the products of the Transvaal gold must be reckoned first, because gold in itself is so precious and so important a commodity, that it will ever force itself into the first rank,—and because notice was first attracted to the Transvaal in Europe, or at any rate in England, by the discovery of gold in the country and by the establishment of gold fields. But I believe that the gold which has hitherto been extracted from the auriferous deposits of the country has been far from paying the expenses incurred in finding them and bringing them into the market. Gold is a product of the earth which will be greedily sought, even when the seeker lose by his labour. I doubt even whether the Australian gold would be found to have paid for itself if an accurate calculation were made. I know that the promoters of Australian gold enterprises and the shareholders in Australian Gold Companies would attempt to cover me with ridicule for expressing such an opinion were I to discuss the matter with them. But these enterprising and occasionally successful people hardly look at the question all round. Before it can be answered with accuracy account must be taken not only of all the money lost, but of the time lost also in unsuccessful search,—and of such failures the world takes no record. Be that as it may gold has done very much to make the fortune of the Australian Colonies. This has not been done by the wealth of the gold-finders. It is only now and then,—and I may say that the nows and thens are rare,—that we find a gold-seeker who has retired into a settled condition of wealth as the result of his labours among the Gold Fields. But great towns have sprung up, and tradesmen have become wealthy, and communities have grown into compact forms, by the expenditure which the gold-seekers have created. Melbourne is a great city and Ballarat is a great city, not because the Victorian gold-diggers have been rich and successful;—but because the trade of gold-finding creates a great outlay. If the gold-diggers themselves have not been rich they have enriched the bankers and the wine-merchants and the grocers and the butchers and the inn-keepers who have waited upon them. While one gold-digger starves or lives upon his little capital, another drinks champagne. Even the first contributes something to the building up of a country, but the champagne-drinker contributes a great deal. There is no better customer to the tradesman, no more potent consumer, than the man who is finding gold from day to day. Gold becomes common to him, and silver contemptible.

I say this for the purpose of showing that though the gold trade of the Transvaal has not as yet been remunerative,—though it may perhaps never be truly remunerative to the gold-seekers,—it may nevertheless help to bring a population to the country which will build it up, and make it prosperous. It will do so in the teeth of the despair and ruin which unsuccessful speculations create. There is a charm and a power about gold which is so seductive and inebriating that judgment and calculation are ignored by its votaries. If there be gold in a country men will seek it though it has been sought there for years with disastrous effects. It creates a sanguine confidence which teaches the gold-dreamer to believe that he will succeed where hundreds have failed. It despises climate, and reconciles the harshness of manual labour to those who have been soft of hand and luxurious of habit. I am not now intending to warn the covetous against the Gold Fields of South Africa;—but am simply expressing an opinion that though these gold regions have hitherto created no wealth, though henceforth they should not be the source of fortune to the speculators, they will certainly serve to bring white inhabitants into the country.

Gold as a modern discovery in South Africa was first found at Tatin in 1867. That there had been gold up north, near the Eastern coast, within the tropics, there can be little doubt. There are those who are perfectly satisfied that Ophir was here situated and that the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon’s court from these realms. As I once wrote a chapter to prove that the Queen of Sheba reigned in the Isle of Ceylon and that Ophir was Point de Galle, I will not now go into that subject. It has no special interest for the Transvaal which as a gold country must sink or swim by its own resources. But Tatin though not within the Transvaal, is only just without it, being to the north of the Limpopo river which is the boundary of our Colony in that direction.

The Limpopo is an unfortunate river as much of its valley with a considerable district on each side of it is subjected by nature to an abominable curse,—which population and cultivation will in the course of years probably remove but which at present is almost fatal to European efforts at work within the region affected. There is a fly,—called the Tsetse fly,—which destroys all horses and cattle which come within the regions which it selects for its own purposes. Why it should be destructive to a party of horses or to a team of oxen and not to men has I believe to be yet found out. But as men cannot carry themselves and their tools into these districts without horses or oxen, the evil is almost overpowering. The courses of the fly are so well known as to have, enabled geographers to mark out on the maps the limits of the Tsetse country. The valley of the Limpopo river may be taken as giving a general idea of the district so afflicted, the distance of the fly-invested region varying from half a dozen to 60 and 80 miles from the river. But towards the East it runs down across the Portuguese possessions never quite touching the sea but just reaching Zululand.

Tatin is to the north west of this region, and though the place itself is not within the fly boundary, all ingress and egress must have been much impeded by the nuisance. The first discovery there of gold is said to have been made by Mauch. There has been heavy work carried on in the district and a quartz-crushing machine was used there. When I was in the Transvaal these works had been abandoned, but of the existence of gold in the country around there can be no doubt. In 1868 the same explorer, Mauch, found gold at a spot considerably to the south east of this,—south of the Limpopo and the Tsetse district, just north of the Olifant’s river and in the Transvaal. Then in 1871 Mr. Button found gold at Marabas Stad, not far to the west of Mauch’s discovery, in the neighbourhood of which the mines at Eesteling are now being worked by an English Company. On the Marabas-Stad gold fields a printed report was made by Captain Elton in 1872, and a considerable sum of money must have been spent. The Eesteling reef is the only one at present worked in the neighbourhood. Captain Elton’s report seems to promise much on the condition that a sufficient sum of money be raised to enable the district to be thoroughly “prospected” by an able body of fifty gold-miners for a period of six months. Captain Elton no doubt understood his subject, but the adequate means for the search suggested by him have not yet been raised. And, indeed, it is not thus that gold fields have been opened. The chances of success are too small for men in cold blood to subscribe money at a distance. The work has to be done by the gambling energy of men who rush to the spot trusting that they may individually grasp the gold, fill their pockets with the gold, and thus have in a few months, perhaps in a few days or hours, a superabundance of that which they have ever been desiring but which has always been so hard to get! The great Australian and Californian enterprises have always been commenced by rushes of individual miners to some favoured spot, and not by companies floated by subscription. The companies have come afterwards, but individual enterprise has done the pioneering work.

In 1873 gold was found in the Lydenburg district which is south of the Olifant’s river. Here are the diggings called Pilgrim’s Rest, and here the search for gold is still carried on,—not as I am told with altogether favourable results. One nugget has been found weighing nearly 18 pounds. Had there been a few more such treasures brought to light the Lydenburg gold fields would have been famous. There are two crushing machines now at work, and skilled European miners are earning from 10s. to 12s. a day. The place is healthy, and though tropical is not within the tropics. A considerable number of Kafirs are employed at low rates of wages, but they have not as yet obtained a reputation as good miners. The white employer of black labour in South Africa does not allow that the Kafir does anything well.

Among other difficulties and drawbacks to gold mining in South Africa the want of fuel for steam is one. Wood of course is used, but I am told that wood is already becoming scarce and dear. And then the great distance from the coast, the badness of the roads, and the lack of the means of carriage exaggerates all the other difficulties. Machinery, provisions, and the very men themselves have to be brought into the country at a cost which very materially interferes with the chances of a final satisfactory result. If there be a railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay,—as at some not very remote date there probably will be,—then that railway will pass either through or very near to the Lydenburg district, and in that case the Lydenburg gold fields will become all alive with mining life.

Attempts are always made to show what gold fields have done in the way of produce by Government records of the gold exported. In the second great exhibition of London we saw an enormous yellow pyramid near the door, and were told that the gold taken out of Victoria would if collected make a pyramid of just that size. To enable the makers of the pyramid to arrive at that result it was necessary that they should know how much gold had been taken from Victoria. I presume that the records of the Colony did tell of so much,—but if so the gold found must have been considerably more. For gold is portable and can be carried away in a man’s pocket without any record. And as that which was recorded was taxed, it is probable that very much was taken away, untaxed, in some private fashion. As to the Transvaal gold a record of that supposed to be exported has been kept at the Custom House in Natal, which shows but very poor results. It is as follows:—

This sum can have done but little more than paid for the necessary transport of the machinery and other matters which have been carried up from the coast. It certainly cannot also have paid for the machinery itself. The bulk of the gold found has, however, been probably carried down to the coast at Fort Elizabeth or Capetown without any record.

Such is all that I have to say respecting the Gold Fields of the Transvaal,—and it is very little. I did not visit them, and had I done so I do not know that I could have said much more. I conscientiously inspected many Gold mines in Australia, going down into the bowels of the earth 500 feet here and 600 feet there at much personal inconvenience, and some danger to one altogether unused to mining operations; but I do not know that I did any good by this exercise of valour and conscience. A man should be a mineralogist to be able to take advantage of such inspections. Had I visited Pilgrim Rest I could have said how the men looked who were there working, and might have attempted to guess whether they were contented with their lot;—but I could have said nothing as to the success of the place with more accuracy than I do now.

The Transvaal is said, and I believe correctly, to be very rich in other minerals besides gold;—but the travellers in new countries are always startled by sanguine descriptions of wealth which is not in view. Lead and cobalt are certainly being worked. Coal is found in beds all along the eastern boundary of the country, and will probably some day be the most valuable product of the country. Did I not myself see it burning at Stander’s Drift? Iron is said to be plentiful in almost every district of the Colony and has been long used by the natives in making weapons and ornaments. Copper also has been worked by the natives and is now found in old pits, where it has been dug to the depth of from 30 to 40 feet. A variety of copper ornaments are worn by the Kafirs of the northern parts of the Transvaal who have known how to extract the metal from the mineral and to smelt it into pure ore. No mining operations in search of copper have, as I believe, yet been carried on by white men in the country. At an Agricultural Show which was held in 1876 at Potchefstroom, the chief town in the southern part of the Transvaal, prizes were awarded for specimens of the following minerals found in the country itself. Gold-bearing quartz, alluvial gold, copper, tin, lead, iron, plumbago, cobalt, and coal. The following is an extract from a report of the Show, which I borrow from Messrs. Silver’s South African Guide Book. “We believe there is no other country in the whole world that could have presented to the public gaze such a variety of minerals as were seen in the room set apart for their exhibition and which upon first entering reminded one of a charming museum; and all these minerals and earthy substances, we are informed, were the products of this country. We saw gold both quartz and alluvial,—not in small quantities but pounds in weight; coal by the ton,—silver, iron, lead. We do not know what to say about this last mineral; but there it was, not in small lumps, as previously exhibited, but immense quantities of ore, and molten bars by the hundred.”

This is somewhat flowery, but I believe the statements to be substantially true. The metals are all there, but I do not know whether any of them have yet been so worked as to pay for expenses and to give a profit. All the good things in the Transvaal seem to be so hard to come at, that it is like looking and longing for grapes, hanging high above our reach. But when grapes are really good and plentiful, ladders are at last procured, and so it will be with the grapes of the Transvaal.

The ladder which is especially wanted is of course a Railway. President Burgers among his other high schemes was fully aware of this and made a journey to Europe during the days of his power with the view of raising funds for this purpose. Like all his schemes it was unsuccessful, but he did raise in Holland a sum of £90,958 for this purpose, which has been expended on railway materials, or perhaps tendered to the Republic in that shape. These are now lying at Delagoa Bay, and the sum above named is part of the responsibility which England has assumed in annexing the Republic.

The question of a Railway is of all the most vital to the new Colony. The Transvaal has no seaboard, and no navigable rivers, and no available outlet for its produce. Pretoria is about 450 miles from Durban, which at present is the seaport it uses, and the road to Durban is but half made and unbridged. The traffic is by oxen, and oxen cannot travel in dry weather because there is no grass for them to eat. They often cannot travel in wet weather because the rivers are impassable and the mud is overwhelming. If any country ever wanted a Railway it is the Transvaal.

But whence shall the money come? Pretoria is about 300 miles distant from the excellent Portuguese harbour at Delagoa Bay, and it was to this outlet that President Burgers looked. But an undertaking to construct a railway through an unsurveyed country at the rate of £1,000 a mile was manifestly a castle in the air. If the absolute money could have been obtained, hard cash in hand, the thing could not have been half done. But President Burgers was one of those men who believe that if you can only set an enterprise well on foot the gods themselves will look after its accomplishment,—that if you can expend money on an object other money will come to look after that which has been expended. But here, in the Transvaal, he could not get his enterprise on foot; and I fear that certain railway materials lying at Delagoa Bay, and more or less suited for the purpose, are all that England has to show for the debt she has taken upon her shoulders.

I am not very anxious to offer an opinion as to the best route for a railway out from the Transvaal to the sea. Ne sutor ultra crepidam;—and the proper answering of such a question is, I fear, beyond the reach of my skill. But the reasons I have heard for the Delagoa Bay seem to me to be strong,—and those against it to be weak. The harbour at the Bay is very good,—perhaps the only thoroughly good harbour in South Africa, whereas that at Durban is at present very bad. Expensive operations may improve it, but little or nothing has as yet been done to lessen the inconvenience occasioned by its sand-bar. Durban is 450 miles from the capital of the Transvaal, whereas Delagoa Bay is only two-thirds of that distance. The land falls gradually from Pretoria to the Bay, whereas in going to Durban the line would twice have to be raised to high levels. And then the route to the Bay would run by the Gold Fields, whereas the other line would go through a district less likely to be productive of traffic. It is alleged on the other hand that as Delagoa Bay belongs to the Portuguese, and as the Portuguese will probably be unwilling to part with the possession, the making of a railway into their territory would be inexpedient. I cannot see that there is anything in this argument. The Americans of the United States made a railway across the Isthmus of Panama with excellent financial results, and in Europe each railway enterprise has not been stopped by the bounds of the country which it has occupied. The Portuguese have offered to take some share in the construction, and by doing so would lessen the effort which the Colony will be obliged to make. It is also alleged that Lorenço Marques, the Portuguese town at Delagoa Bay, is very unhealthy. I believe that it is so. Tropical towns on the sea board are apt to be unhealthy, and Lorenço Marques though not within the tropics is tropical. But so is Aspenwall, the terminus of the Panama Railway, unhealthy, being peculiarly subject to the Chagres fever. But in the pursuit of wealth men will endure bad climate. That at Delagoa Bay is by no means so bad as to frighten passengers, though it will probably be injurious to the construction of the railway. To the ordinary traffic of a constructed railway it will hardly be injurious at all.

If the Natal Colony would join the Transvaal in the cost, making the railway up to its own boundary, then the Natal line would no doubt be the best. The people of the Transvaal would compensate themselves for the bad harbour at Durban by the lessening of their own expenditure, and the line as a whole would be better for British interests in general than that to the Portuguese coast. But there is but little probability of this. Natal wants a line from its capital to its coast, and will have such a line almost by the time that these words are published. But it cares comparatively little for a line through 175 miles of its country up to its boundary at Newcastle, over which the traffic would be for the benefit of the Transvaal rather than for that of Natal. Estcourt and Newcastle which are in Natal would no doubt be pleased, but Natal will not spend its money for the sake of Estcourt and Newcastle.

But when the route for the railway shall have been decided, whence shall the money come? No one looking at the position of the country will be slow to say that a railway is so necessary for the purposes of the Colony that it must expend its first and its greatest energies in achieving that object. It is as would be the possession of a corkscrew to a man having a bottle of wine in the desert. There is no getting at the imprisoned treasure without it. The farms will not be cultivated, the mines will not be worked, the towns will not be built, the people will not come without it. President Burgers, prone as he was to build castles in the air, saw at any rate, when he planned the railway, where the foundations should be laid for a true and serviceable edifice. But then we must return to the question,—whence shall the money come?

Well-to-do Colonies find no difficulty in borrowing money for their own purposes at a moderate rate of interest,—say 4 per cent. Victoria and New South Wales have made their railways most successfully, and New Zealand has shown what a Colony can do in borrowing. But the Transvaal is not as yet a well-to-do Colony, and certainly could not go into the money market with any hope of success with the mere offer of her own security,—such as that security is at this moment. This is so manifestly the case that no one proposes to do so. Mr. Burgers went home for the purpose and succeeded only in getting a quantity of material,—for which, in the end, the British Government will have to pay probably more than twice the value.

I think I am justified in saying that the idea among those who are now managing the Colony is to induce the Government at home to guarantee a loan,—which means that the Transvaal should be enabled to borrow on the best security that the world has yet produced, that namely of the British nation. And perhaps there is something to warrant this expectation on their part. The annexation, distasteful as the idea is at home of a measure so high-handed and so apparently unwarrantable, has been well received. It has been approved by our Secretary of State, who is himself approved of in what he has caused to be done by Parliament and the nation. The Secretary of State must feel a tenderness for the Transvaal, as we all do for any belonging of our own which has turned out better than we expected. The annexation has turned out so well that they who are now concerned with its affairs seem to expect that the British Government and the British Parliament will assent to the giving of such security. It may be that they are right. Writing when and where I am now I have no means of knowing how far the need for such a loan and the undoubted utility of such a railway may induce those who have the power in their hands to depart from what I believe to be now the established usage of the mother country in regard to its Colonies,—viz., that of sanctioning loans only when they can be floated on the security of the Colony itself.

If I may venture to express an opinion on the subject, I think that that usage should be followed in this case. No doubt the making of the railway would be postponed in this way,—or rather would be accelerated if the British name and British credit were to be pawned for Transvaal purpose; but I doubt the justice of risking British money in such a cause. The Transvaal colonist in making such an application would in fact be asking for the use of capital at British rates of interest with the object of making colonial profits. The risk would attach wholly to the mother country. The profits, if profits should come, would belong wholly to the Colony.

Money, too, with nations and with colonies is valued and used on the same principles as with individuals. When it has been easily got, without personal labour, proffered lightly without requirement of responsibility or demand for security, it is spent as easily and too often is used foolishly. Lend a man money on security and he will know that every shilling that he spends must come at last out of his own pocket. If money for the purpose required were at once thrown into the Transvaal,—as might be the case to-morrow if the British Government were to secure the loan,—there would immediately arise a feeling that wealth was being scattered about broadcast, and that a halcyon time had come in which parsimony and prudence were no longer needed. The thing would have been too easy,—and easy things are seldom useful and are never valued.

At the present moment Great Britain is paying the Transvaal bill. The marching to and fro of the soldiers, the salaries of the Governors and other officials, the debts of the late Government, the interests on loans already made, the sums necessary for the gradual redemption of loans, I fear even a pension for the late President, are provided or are to be provided out of British taxes. The country was annexed on 12th April. On 8th June a letter was written from the Colonial Office to the Treasury, showing that we had annexed an existing debt of £217,158 for which we were responsible, and that we had expended £25,000 in marching troops up to the Transvaal for the sake of giving safety to the inhabitants and their property. The report then goes on to its natural purpose. “Lord Carnarvon is of opinion that it may be possible to meet the more immediate requirements of the moment if their Lordships will make an advance of £100,000 in aid of the revenues of the Transvaal, to be repaid as soon as practicable. Unless aid is given at once the new province would be obliged to endeavour to borrow at a ruinously high rate of interest.” I doubt whether the idea of repayment has taken so strong a hold of the people in the Transvaal, as it has of the officials in Downing Street. In a former paragraph of the report the Secretary of State thus excuses himself for making the application. “It is with great unwillingness that Lord Carnarvon feels himself compelled to have recourse to the assistance of the Imperial Treasury in this matter, but he is satisfied that the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury will readily acknowledge that in this most difficult case he has had no alternative. The annexation of the Transvaal with all its consequent liabilities, political as well as financial, has been neither coveted nor sought by him;”—the italics here and above are my own;—“and it is only a sincere conviction that this step was necessary in order to prevent most serious danger to Her Majesty’s Colonies in South Africa which has persuaded him to approve the late action of Sir T. Shepstone.”

The £100,000 was advanced, if not without a scruple at least without a doubt, whatever might be the expectations of the Treasury as to speedy repayment; and there can be little doubt, I fear, that further advances will be needed and made before the resources of the country in the shape of collected taxes will suffice to pay the expenses of the country, including the gradual redemption of the Dutch loans. But if the country cannot do this soon the annexation will certainly have been a failure. Great as is the parliamentary strength of the present Ministry, Parliament would hardly endure the idea of paying permanently for the stability and security of a Dutch population out of the British pocket. I do believe myself that the country will be able to pay its way in the course of some years;—but I do not believe that the influx of a large loan on easy terms, the expenditure of which must to a great measure be entrusted to the Colony, would hasten the coming of this desirable condition. There would be a feeling engendered,—if that can be said to be engendered which to some extent already exists,—that “nunky pays for all.” Neither for Colony nor for Mother Country can it be well that nunky should either pay or be supposed to pay through the nose.

When it shall once be known that the Transvaal is paying its own bill, governing itself and protecting itself out of its own revenues, then the raising of a sufficient loan for its railway on its own security will not be difficult. It may even then,—when that day comes,—have to pay a percentage something higher than it would have to give under a British guarantee; but the money will be its own, brought into use on its own security, and will then be treated with respect and used with care. The Transvaal no doubt wants a railway sorely, but it has no right to expect that a railway shall be raised for it, as by a magician’s wand. Like other people, and other countries the Transvaal should struggle hard to get what it wants, and if it struggles honestly no doubt will have its railway and will enjoy it when it has it.

“The Transvaal may in truth be called the ‘corn chamber’ of South Eastern Africa, for no other Colony or State in this part of the world produces wheat of such superior quality or offers so many and varied advantages to farming pursuits.” This is extracted from Mr. Jeppe’s excellent Transvaal Directory. The words are again somewhat flowery, as is always the nature of national self-praise as expressed in national literature. But the capability of the Transvaal for producing wheat is undoubted; as are also the facts that it has for years past fed itself,—with casual exceptions which amount to nothing,—and that it has done something towards feeding the great influx of population which has been made into the Diamond Fields. It has also continually sent a certain amount of flour and corn into Natal and over its northern and western borders for the use of those wandering Europeans, who are seeking their fortunes among the distant tribes of South Africa. In estimating the wheat produce of the country these are I know but idle words. A great deal of wheat,—when the words are written and printed,—means nothing. It is like saying that a horse is a very good horse when the owner desires to sell him. The vendor should produce his statistics as to the horse in the shape of an opinion from a veterinary surgeon. If Mr. Jeppe had given statistics as to the wheat-produce of the Transvaal during the last few years it would have been better. Statistics are generally believed and always look like evidence. But unless Mr. Jeppe had created them himself, he could not produce them,—for there are none. I think I may say that a very large portion of the country,—all of it indeed which does not come under tropical influences, with the exception of regions which are mountainous or stoney,—is certainly capable of bearing wheat; but I have no means whatever of telling the reader what wheat it has already produced.

It is certain, however, that the cereal produce of the country is curtailed by most pernicious circumstances against which the very best of governments though joined by the very best of climates can only operate slowly. One of these circumstances is the enormous size of the existing farms. That great colonial quidnunc and speculator in colonial matters, Gibbon Wakefield, enunciated one great truth when he declared that all land in new countries should be sold to the new comers at a price. By this he meant that let the price be what it might land should not be given away, but should be parted with in such a manner as to induce in the mind of the incoming proprietor a feeling that he had paid for it its proper price, and that he should value the land accordingly. The thing given is never valued as is the thing bought,—as is the