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32X

THE BOER WAR

Its Causes^ and
its Interest to
Canadians i^-^-

With a Glossary of Cape Dutch,
and Kafir Terms

By E. B. BIGGAR.

BIGGAR, SAMUEL & CO.

TORONTO AND MONTREAL

1899

Price, 10 Cents

'I'J^!!^^':^:':,

"iM-

r^jii

THE

BOER WAR

ITS CAUSES.

AND ITS INTEREST TO

CANADIANS

WITH A

GLOSSARY OF CAPE DUTCH

AND

KAFIR TERMS

BY E. B. BIGGAR

BIGGAR. SAMUEL & CO.
Toronto and Montreal
1899

t-^-.-imfif

/^^^,

PREFATORY NOTE

As the average Canadian has not had the opportunity of
studying the history of South Africa and the causes which have
led to the present Boer war, and many are desirous of knowing
the facts, the brief sketch here presented may serve a useful pur-
pose. The writer spent five years in South Africa, and since
his return to Canada has followed events there with close atten-
tion. As a believer in the future greatness of both countries, he
states his reasons why Canadians should have a personal interest
in the struggle now going on in South Africa.

The term Boer is used throughout the sketch to designate
the Dutch inhabitants of the Transvaal, and — except when it is
specifically applied — does not refer to the Dutch of the Free
State, or our fellow colonists of Dutch origin in the Cape
Colony, who are a much more progressive, enlightened and
generally well educated people. While reports of the disaffection
of the Dutch on the frontier were being circulated the writer
could not help being impressed with the meaning of ^'n 'tern in
a Cape paper just to hand, which records the departure from
Capetown of a batch of young Colonists, all having Dutch
names, who were going to England to finish their university
education.

Even, of the Transvaal Boers perhaps the worst that will be
said, after the passions of the war have subsided, is that they
have been shamefully misled by their too well trusted ruler,

Toronto, November ist, 1899.

^*^

•»H,„,:,

,*»...

The Boer War'

ThQ obduracy of the Transvaal Boers and their
president in refusing to concede the common rights of
man to citizens not of their own race, is tu-ning the at-
tention of the civilized world to South Africa and its
people, That quarter of the world possesses unusual in-
terest to Canadians, not only from the standpoint of im-
perial politics, but from its commercial development
and its possibilities as a field for Canadian trade.

The Cape of Good Hope was discovered by
Diaz, a Portuguese navigator, six years before Colum-
bus landed in America, but though used as a port of
call by the Portuguese for a century afterwards, it re-
mained for two English captains, in the employ of the
East India Company — Shillinge and Fitz^ierbert — to
make formal claim of sovereignty in the name of Eng-
land in 1620. After some rivalry between the English
and the Dutch East India companies, the latter, realiz-
ing the salubrity of the climate and the fine soil, sent
out an expedition under Jan Van Riebeek — in whose
honor the Hon. Cecil Rhodes has recently had a statue
erected in Capetown — to make a permanent settlement,
and thus began in 1652 the Dutch occupation of the
Cape. Little by little the settlements extended back
from the Castle on Table Bay, but the life of the set-
tlers was the life of white slaves. They were not al-
lowed to sell their produce to visiting ships, but could
only sell to the company at prices fixed by the company
On the other hand, they were not permitted to purchase
goods except from the company and at prices fixed, of

*Tbese Papers are now appearing in the Canadian Engineer,

^^■'

4 THE BOER WAR.

course, by the company. They and the artisans of the
town were, moreover, bled at every turn by the com-
pany's officials, and if they attempted to complain to
headquarters in Holland their complaints were either
suppressed altogether, or the complainants wer^ im-
prisoned as treasonable persons or otherwise utarked
out for persecution. The farmers had no title to the
lands they brought under cultivation, and were often
ejected after working a lifetime upon their lands. They
were plainly told that they held their property by grace
of the company. Offences, which now would scarcely
come under the criminal code, were visited with death
in its most fiendish forms. Crucifixion was a common
mode of capital punishment, and another was the tying
of the victim with his back on a wheel, where his
body was broken, and he was left "a prey to the birds
of heaven," The rack and the gallows were the com-
mon means of punishing slaves. It is not to be won-
dered at that the Dutch settlers sought to escape this
tyranny, and from time to time, in spite of threats and
the company's claim of jurisdiction, many got beyond
the reach of the company, risking the enmity of the
natives in their migpration. Thus began the "trekking"
of the Boers, which dates back to 1670, and has been a
peculiar characteristic of Dutch colonization down to
the present day.

During the upheavals of the French revolution,
England felt the necessity of possessing the Cape to
save her East Indian trade, and after a feeble resistance
the Castle capitulated to Sir James Craig in 1795. At
the peace of Anii«:ns m 1803 the Cape was restored to
the Dutch, but was imally taken in 1806 by Sir David
Baird. The first ta.'le of individual liberty and reason-
able goverm.ient t'li joyed by the Cape Dutch was given
to them by Great Biitain. With the advent of Britain
at the Cape, the Dutch farmers got their first clear titles to
land, they get d-«iirict conns-, wher justice was for the
first time adniinl&tered with fairness and without the
corruption which had made their masters so odious.

'*?te^^.-«

"'"liliiii 1 1111(1 f*"*!*^;!^-

■taaMilH

THE DOER WAR.

The people got their first regular school system, and
their first postal system from their new British rulers,
who also did away with the system of punishing
offenders by the cross, the wheel, and the rack, those
brutal instruments of torture being destroyed at the
very outset of the British regime.

Such, in a few words, was the contrast between
British and Dutch rule at the Cape. It is not to be
denied that between the Home Government and the
colonial rulers many mistakes have been made in the
subsequent history of British rule in Sout^ Africa; but
more often than otherwise these errors were made
through mistaken leniency or mistaken philanthropy
towards Boer and native alternately. Perhaps the most
unpardonable grievance nursed by the Boers in the
present century was the emancipation of the slaves in
the Cape Colony in 1834. Many Boers to the present
day believe with apparent honesty that a Kafir has no
soul, and class him with the wild beasts of the veldt.
While other nations besides the United States have
freed the slaves without compensation to the slave
owners. Great Britain voted to the slave holders of the
Cape £1,247,000. This was only half the amount of the
appraisement, but it must be remembered that the slaves
of the West Indies and other parts of the empire had
to be freed at the same time at a total cost of £20,000,000
— an enormous sum for those days, and the sublimest
exhibition of the awakening of national conscience ever
recorded in the history of nations. Though the Boers
must have known from the agitation that had been go-
ing on in England for the preceding thirty years that
the emancipation of slaves must come, there was a
great outcry when the amount of compensation was an-
nounced, and, to make matters worse, from their stand-
point, a horde of self-appointed agents, working on the
circumstance that the money had to be paid in London,
bought up the claims of the farmers for a mere song
in many cases, and the enraged slave-owning farmers
trekked into the interior to the number of several

6 THB BOER WAR.

thousand, founding what is now the Orange Free State,
the Transvaal, and a portion of Natal. British settlers
had anticipated them in Natal, and after some bloodshed
and a few years' hesitancy on the part of the Home
Government, British sovereignty was proclaimed over
Natal in 1843. Although the British Government had
warned the emigrant Boers that they were still British
subjects, those who settled in the Free State and the
Transvaal were allowed to rule themselves. The Free
State was indeed taken under British rule for a number
of years, but that rule was withdrawn under the protest of
a large minority of the inhabitants, and the State was
left an independent Republic in 1854. Under the wise
and common-sense rule of the late Sir John Brand,
who was president for twenty -five years, the Free
State has had till now the best relations, almost unin-
terruptedly, with Great Britain and with her colonial
neighbors. There was but one serious difficulty and
that arose out of the discovery of the diamond fields on
the borders of the State in 1867. The land had been
owned and was still claimed by a Griqua chief, named
Waterboer, and the British Government having bought
up his rights, proclaimed the diamond fields British
territory in 187 1. The Free State, which had claimed a
part of these fields, withdrew under protest, but what-
ever the merits of its claims they were generously com-
pensated by a payment of £90,000, with which the little
State was well satisfied, and with which it built its first
railway — a road that stands to-day as the best asset
possessed by the State. While the Dutch in thp Free
State and Natal, as well as in the Cape, have settled
down to a fairly general friendliness towards the British,
the history of the Transvaal Boers has been marred by
a strong and persistent hatred of British Government
;md people. Peopled largely by the irreconcileables, who
had left Natal and the Free State on the advent of the
British, and utterly unable or unwilling to understand
the British idea of government of the Kafir tribes, they
have become the Ishmaels of South African civilization

THE BOBR WAR. J

— their liand forever against the Kafirs on the one side
and against the British on the other. They have so far
failed to see the advantages of the golden rule, or to
read the signs of the times, that they have perpetuated
the same ideas of lordship as those under which their
ancestors groaned in the 17th century. In 1877, when
the country was in a state of bankruptcy. Sir Thco-
philus Shepstone annexed the Transvaal to the British
Empire, without active opposition. Whatever may be
thought of this step, it was taken with the best inten-
tions, and with the desire to save the Boers from the
destruction which would have been their fate at the
hands of the Zulu King Cctyvvayo. The step once
taken, it is now generally realized that a terrible mis-
take was made in giving the country back to what has
proved a monstrous system of misrule. The British
Government, however, gave the Boers just ground of
complaint when it left the Transvaal tor three years
without any representative institutions, and permitted
during that time a military oligarchy, composed of men
who gave no consideration to the susceptibilities of the
Dutch inhabitants, a large part of whom would have
been fairly contented under a system which gave them
a voice in the affairs of the country. It was unfortunate
that just when the British Government began to be
awake to the seriousness of Boer discontent, and were
actually considering the constitution framed by Sir
Bartle Frere, the flames of rebellion broke out, with the
result that the British were defeated in three engage-
ments, through the guerilla tactics of the Boer sharp-
shooters, and then the Gladstone Government restored
the republic under that "suzerainty," which has been
ever since a source of misapprehension to the Boers.

Before alluding, in the next section, to the present
condition of affairs in South Africa, it is worth whj"e to
remember this teaching of the past, that wherever the
British and Dutch have co-operated either in coloni-
zation, in politics or commerce, they have both pros-
pered. The British possession of the diamond fields

THE BOER WAR.

was the financial salvation of the Free State; and the
British operation of the Transvaal gold fields has lifted
that republic from commercial nothingness to a state
that has become at once the chief power and the chief
danger to the neighboring states and colonies.

As there exists a g'^eat deal of misconception about
the causes of the present war, we shall endeavor to re-
view the main facts.

What led to the annexation of the Transvaal? It
was not lust of gold, for only small alluvial diggings
had been found as yet, and the great gold reefs of
Johannesburg were then as little dreamt of as the Klon-
dyke of Canada. It was because the Republic was bank-
rupt, 'the Boers in many districts having refused to pay
any more taxes, the country reduced to a state of
anarchy by the incapacity of its administrators, by fac-
tions bitterly antagonistic to each other, and
threatening civil war, and the failure of the
Boer commandos to subjugate the native Chief
Sckukuni, who was bringing other native tribes
down upon the territory, the principal danger being
threatened by the Zulus, under Cetywayo. This re-
nowned Zulu King was anxious to pay oflf old scores
with the Boers, who had constantly encroached on his
territory, and frequently captured and enslaved his peo-
ple and robbed them of their cattle and lands. The British
Government might have allowed the Boer Republic to
find its own way out of its financial difficulties, but when
it came to their relations with the natives there was
danger that once the Zulu King had overrun the Trans-
vaal, with his 40,000 warriors, he could not restrain his
army at that achievement, but it would then turn upon
the British colony of Natal, which was neighbor to

♦The Government £1 notes or " blue backs " then sold at a shilling/or'say five
cents on the dollar; vsrhile the salaries of the civil servants were three months In

arrears.

^Hm

ttmrn

THE BOER WAR.

both, and which then had a white population of only
30,000, against a native population of 300,000. Under
these circumstances, and considering that ? petition for
British intervention had already been signed by 3,000
out of 8,000 of the voters of the country. Sir
Theophilus Shepstone, who had been authorized by the
Home Government to act as he thought wise,
annexed the country, without any force other
than a personal >.'scort of twenty-five mounted police-
men. The British then took in hand the conquest of
Sekukuni, which the Boers had failed to achieve, and
then had to deal with Cetywayo, who, robbed of his
revenge upon the Boers, now turned sullen towards the
British. The next act in the drama was the great Zulu
war, which was fought with no help from the
Boers, except that given by a single family,
riot Uys, and his sons. These people, for-
getting their rescue from certain destruction
at the hands of the Zulus, no sooner
found this dreadful menace removed, than they began
to agitate against British rule. As stated betore,
they had one real grievance in the dilatoriness
of the Imperial Government in granting them a local
legislature; but this at last was being framed when re-
bellion was brought about through the enforcement of
taxes, which the Boers refused more obstinately to the
British than they had done to their own authorities.

In this rebellion they were led by a man, who,
when the history of that land comes to be written, will
be set down as the evil genius of the Dutch race in
South Africa — Paul Kruger. This man, who was born
a British subject in the Cape Colony, first came into
prominence among his countrymen as a hunter and
fighter — a fighter first against the Kafirs and then
against his own people, as well as the English, whom
he hates as cordially as the British sailor of Nelson's
day did the French and Spaniards. It seems curious
that a man of Kruger's pretenses to piety should be so

THE BOER WAR.

tenacious of liberty and natural rights for himself and
his fellow-Boers, and yet refuse the most elementary
rights to British people in, his country; and that he,
should see nothing but iniquity in Dr. Jameson's
quixotic dash to rescue the Outlanders from misgovern-
ment, and yet see no wrong in his own invasion of a
friendly State with no better motive than a lust of power.
Some forty years ago, at a time when the Transvaal
and the Orange Free State (a neigliboring Republic,
composed of his own fellow-countrymen), were at peace,
Paul Kruger formed a plot with M. W. Pretorius, an-
other Boer leader, to overthrow the governmrnt of the
Free State. While Kruger invaded the country, at the
head of a commando, inciting the Free State Boers to
rise, as he proceeded, Pretorius was set to instigate
the Free State natives to revolt. The Free State forces
were, however, brought together in much quicker time
than he anticipated, and when Kruger saw himself con-
fronted with double the number of cannon his own force
had, he discreetly withdrew.

That Kruger's intrigues during the days of the first
Republic were a cause of the country's troubles is shown
by the statement of' the last President, Thomas Burgers,*
who, referring to the events that led up to the an-
nexation, said: "Fruitlessly did I press upon him
(Kruger), the fact that by showing how our danger lay
in want of unity, the British Government would have
cause to step in, on the ground of humanity, to avert

* In the course of his last address to his Volksraad, President Burgers said : "I
would rather be a poli'-eman under a strong government than the President of such
a state. ♦ * You i.uve ill-treated the natives, you have shot them down, you have
sold them into slavery, and now you have to pay the penalty. * * The fourth point
which we have to take into account affects our relations with our English neighbors.
It is asked, what have they to do with our position ? I tell you as much as we have to
do with that of our Kahr neighbors. As little as we can allow barbarities among the
Kafirson our borders, as little can they allow that in a state on their I- >rders anarchy
and rebellion should prevail. ♦ * To-Hay a bill for jf r,ioo was laid before me for
signatun-, but I would sooner have cut oft my liaht hand than siisn that paper, for I
have not the slightest ground to expect that when that bill becomes due there will be
a penny to pay it with." President Burgers— who left the Transvaal broken henrted,
not because of the annexation, but bi-cause of thei.urigning which brought about the
condition of things rendering that step inevitable— just before he died left a statement
'-♦■ the case for the benefit of posterity, in which he shows how Kruger plotted with
the anntxation faction in order to oust Burgers and get the presidency for himself.
Kruger ->verdid his part, but thnugh his ambition was balked for the time bj the an-
nexation which he did not count upon, he continued his intrigues against the British
with the result which history tells.

riMH

MMl

THE BOER WAR.

civil war, and to present a general rising of the natives.
* * He would not hear of retiring. Had I not
endured in silence, had I not borne patiently all the
vile accusations, but out of selfishness or fear, told the
plain truth of the case, the Transvaal would never have
had the consideration it has now received from the
British Government. However unjust the annexation
was, my self-justification would have exposed the Boers
to such an extent, and the state of the country in such
a way, that it would have been deprived both of the
sympathy of the world, and the consideration of Englisli
politicians."

After the annexation, he was appointed held
cornet (a position corresponding to our sheriff, but
including also the duties of tax collector and other func-
tions), of his district, at a salary of i200, which in those
days was a good income. By false representations, how-
ever, he drew £300, or what came to the same thing, with-
held tax moneys to that amount over his salary. The ad-
ninistration called upon liim to make g"ood the amount.
but he did not do so then, or since. He
only met the Government's request by demand-
ing an increase of salary! The correspondence
in the case is on record. How much the consciousness
of this fraud had to do with the intrigues he engaged
in against the British Government, it is hard to say. At
all events, while holding an office under the British
Government, he was engaged in agitations against it,
and became the leader in the armed rebellion that fol-
lowed. After the Britsh defeats in the skirmishes at
Laing's Nek, Majuba Hill and Ingogo, and while
British reinforcements, to the number of 10,000 men,
were gathered, the Gladstone Government stayed the
sword-arm that was ready to strike back, and an armis-
tice was arranged, followed by the convention of t88t,
by which the Republic was restored, subject to the
suzerainty of the Queen. By this instrument, the
right of internal self-government was given to "the in-
habitants" of the Transvaal, without prejudice as to

THE BOER WAR

nationality, and in the discussions by which the intent
of its provisions was explained, Mr. Kruger distinctly
declared that all would be put on an equality, as re-
garded the franchise and other rights. These discus-
sions were taken down at the time, and form part of
<the records in the colonial office. At that time the
Beers were in a large majority, and it is possible
Kruger might have kept faith had the population re-
mained thus, but Englishmen began to come to the
country in greater numbers, and in 1886 the discovery of
the now celebrated VVitwatersrand gold fields brought
people from all quarters of the globe, until the alien or
outlander population, which of course included English-
men, outnumbered the Boers. Kruger had from the
first aimed to keep all power in the hands of the Dutch,
and hence began the evasions and trickery by which
the plain intentions of the negotiators of the original
convention were to be thwarted. His ambition did not
stop here. He purposed the formation of a great mili-
tary state, which would centralize the Dutch influence
in South Africa, and establish a Dutch republic extend-
ing from the Cape to the Zambesi, with Pretoria as the
capital. For a long time this ambition, though steadily
pursued, was concealed, and even now there are many
well-informed public men in England and America
who have either not grasped the situation or refused
to believe the designs so steadily pursued by this cun-
ning trickster. The people of the Orange Free State,
under the misguiding influence of their present head,
President Steyn — a third-rate attorney, possessed of
none of the commonsense statesmanship of the late Sir
John Brand, who so wisely guided the little State for
twenty-five years previously — were easily led into these
designs, and in the Cape Colony, the widespread rami-
fications of the AlFrikander Bond — a sort of granger or-
ganization, having for its rrotto: "Africa for the
Afrikanders" — afforded good ground to work upon, as
its membership was almost exclusively Dutch. The
plan, as regarded Cape Colony, was to overturn British

THE BOER WAR.

authority gradually, allowing Britain to retain the
naval station at Simon's Bay, and a certain "suzerainty,"
which could be strained to the breaking-point as time
went on. Steyn, the Free State president, with his
usual lack of diplomacy, gave a plain statement of these
designs in a speech just a year ago, and anyone ,vho
studies the wording of most of Kruger's recent
despatches and his replies to the enquiries of American
and other newspapers, will see how he claims to act as
champion of the whole of South Africa, though the
difficulty is supposed to be with the Transvaal only. It
was made plain to the British element in South Africa,
and to the Home Government, that Britain must either
make good her claim of paramountcy or give over the
rule of South Africa to the Boers. As one of the Boers
put it, there could not be two "bosses" in South Africa,
and it became a question, which was it to be, Boer or
Briton?

In pursuance of his policy of Napoleonizing South
Africa, President Kruger, at the head of a delegation of
three, went to London in 1884 to attempt to get a re-
lease from all semblance of British control, and to get
a formal confirmation of the encroachments he had been
making on independent native tribes since the conven-
tion of 1 88 1. He represented to Lord Derby, the
Secretary of State for the colonies, that his burghers
were discontented under the existing convention, which
they felt implied interference with their internal aflfairs.
The deputation drew up a draft of a new convention,
i:i which the name of the Transvaal was changed to the
"South African Republic," and in which the British
suzerainty was expressly abolished. In discussing this
draft. Lord Derby politely, but firmly, informed the
deputation that "neither in form nor in substance was
it such as Her Majesty's Government could agree to;"
but that as the paramountcy of Great Britain was an
obvious fact, and did not require a document to estab-
lish it, he had no objection to satisfying the suscepti-
bilities of the Boers by accepting the change of name.

THE BOER WAR.

and by omitting any specific use of the word
"suzerainty," which Kruger had said was offensive to
them. And so, clinging to the letter of this change,
Kruger built up his claim that the Transvaal was now
a "Sovereign International State," though the new con-
vention of 1884 distinctly prevents the Transvaal from
making any treaty with a foreign power without the
consent of Great Britain. Without trying to define the
term "suzerainty," plain men will question the "sover-
eign independence " of a country whose autonomy was
given as an act of grace, and which could 3t make
its own treaties. But even if there were no suzerainty,
the conduct of the Boer Government had rendered it
liable to h^t called to account in a dozen ways under
common international law.

Some people ask, was not the Boer Governmetit
justified in its recent policy; by the Jameson raid^ Ihe
answer to that question is that the Jameson raid was
the result of Boer tyranny and misrule, and not the
cause of it. Had Kruger treated the Uillanders as
white men with natural rights, and had he not laid on
burden after burden, and taken away right after ight,
with studied hostility towards British subjects in par-
ticular, there would have been no Jameson raid. The
educational restrictions, the arming and fort building,
the prohibition of public meetings, and the iniquitous
press law, and other grievances, all preceded the Jame-
sonraid. The people of Johannesburg and other Uitlander
centres began to despair of any action from the
British Government, and yet, while agitating persistently
for their rights, the majority of the members of the
"National Union," formed at the time to obtain redress
for the people's grievances, publicly and privately as-
sured the President that they had no desire to upset the
republican form of government. And there is com-
plete evidence that these sentiments were genuine with

THE BOER WAR.

the Uitlanders at that time. Dr. Jameson's brave, but
quixotic raid, as it was carried out, put the people of
Johannesburg in a false position, and they have been
unjustly charged with cowardice. It is not denied by
the National Union leaders that an agreement was
made with him to come to their aid. But after smug-
gling in 3,000 rifles, the leaders found that more hud
to be done to make the rising a success — for it was in-
tended to seize Pretoria, whose forts, then under re-
pair, were exposed and ill-garrisoned — and so they sent
word to Jameson to wait on the Bechuanaland border
till they notified him. Their object was not merely to
become better equipped for the struggle, but to declare
to the world that the struggle was their own, and not
brought about through an invasion. They proposed to
have a Jiew flag, so that there should be no question
of the independence of the movement. Dr. Jameson,
however, became impatient, and appears to have disre-
garded either the requests of the committee or the warn-
ings of the Imperial Government, who wired him as
soon as they heard of his intention. The reader will
remember how his force of 400 or 500 men were .caught
by a Boer force of three times his number before he
reached Johannesburg, and compelled to surrender, the
leaders in the movement at Johannesburg being un-
aware of his approach till too late to do anything. These
leaders were arrested, and, as we know, heavily fined,
the fines aggregating over a million pounds, and were
bound over for three years not to take any part in the
politics of the Transvaal. Their tongues were, there-
fore, tied, and hence the false impression that has been
current regarding this afifair. With his characteristic
cunning, Kruger sent, as mediators, three men in whom
the Johannesburgers had faith, and by promises of re-
form, made on his behalf through them, but which he
had no intention of keeping, the people were induced
to lay down their arms, hoping for redress at last. The
President saw that the reformers had lost the sympathy
of the outside world, through Dr. Jameson's mistake.

THE BOER WAR.

and he took the fullest advantage of the fact. He at
first pleaded for delay in the execution of the reforms
till the excitement of his burghers should be allayed,
and when this plea was somewhat worn by time, he re-
pudiated the promises made to the mediators. An
ever-increasing revenue, squeezed fiom the gold fields,
enabled him to add to his forts and armaments, and the
Jameson raid furnished the excuse that had been want-
ing before. In the case of Pretoria, the capital and
centre of Dutch influence, the gims were mounted point-
ing outward; in the case of Johannesburg, the Uitlander
city, they were placed so as to bear upon the town it-
self. Taking advantage of the sympathy naturally
aroused in the Orange Free State, he drew that re-
public into a formal alliance by which it bound itself
to join the Transvaal in any war that might arise. Be-
fore the Jameson raid, official Boerdom was insolent
enough in its dealings with aliens, but after the raid,
matters grew worse.

■^^i

To give an idea of all that has been suffered by
the Uitlander population of the Transvaal would be
impossible in so brief a sketch as this, but a few of
the grievances may be stated. First stands the fran-
chise. As already mentioned, when the internal inde-
pendence of the country was granted in 1881, it was,
of course, believed that all white races would be treated
alike, and Kruger, in the most distinct manner, promised
this. The franchise was at first to be given on a pro-
perty qualification or upon one year's residence; but in
order to cut ofif those who came in after the annexation,
the Volksraad (Parliament) afterwards changed this to
five years, and then when time passed by and the rive
years" citizens looked to the time of enfranchisement,
the law was again amended so that a man had to bei
a constant resident in the country for fourteen years.

THE BOER WAR.

When the co ditions were looked into, it was seen that
even when the fourteen years should have elapsed, the
Uitlander would not get his vote, because the claim
had to be based on the field cornet's records, and in
nine cases out of ten, there were no records of the re-
gistration. In many cases the field cornet could not read
or write, and in cases where he could, there was a temp-
tation to neglect the duty. In a majority of cases he
collected the taxes without making any returns, so that
the omission of the names gave no record of the fraud,
thus serving the double purix)se of concealing his
stealings atnd depriving the Uitlander of his vote. But
even if this were honestly carried out, the Uitlander was
further discouraged by the provision that he should first
have to renounce allegiance to his own country, remain-
ing a political eunuch for these fourteen years, and then
when this time expired, he would have to get the re-
commendation of a majority of the burghers of his dis-
trict (whom he knows to be hostile), and still after
that his application is liable to the veto of the President
and Executive. We see the pitfalls so artfully prepared,
in order that a man would certainly fall in one if he
escaped another. Can it be wondered at that the High
Commissioner and the British Government wanted to
make sure of the details of the recent proposals made
by Kruger at and since the Bloemfontein conference?
As President Kruger is a great reader of the Bible, it
would be curious to know what he would have to say
to the franchise provisions laid down in the 47th chapter
of Ezekiel, verses 21 to 23? The Montreal "Witness,"
in pointing out this principle of Old Testament law, re-
marks that "the most curious thing in Boer legislation
is that they should by special enactment exjQlude from
participation in the land and liberty they enjoy, the very
people to whom they are indebted for the Scriptures
they prize so highly, and who, even before the Baby-
lonian captivity, extended to the stranger, who came
among them, the benefit of the ancient ordinances. This
instance, however, only goes to confirm the estimate

THE BOER WAR.

made of the Boers by Dr. Livingstone, who described
them as narrow, stupid and cruel."

The Boer Government not only excludes both
Jews and Roman Catholics from the franchise, but even
from working in the civil service. If it is found out
that a railway, post office, or other civil servant is a
Jew or Catholic, he is quietly but speedily dismissed, and
a Boer, Hollander, or German appointed to take his
place. The Germans and Hollanders would, however,
not be called in if it were not that very few Boers are
sufficiently educated to fill these places.

By the trickery and breach of faith before described,
the voting-power was kept, as before, in the hands of
the Dutch br/ghers. As not one out of a thousand of
the Boers of the rural districts had enough educar
tion to fill civic offices of responsibility, many English-
men held public posts for a time after 1881, but one by
one these were dismissed and Hollanders and Germans
imported to take their places, until British subjects
were almost as completely shut out from all share in the
civic life of the country, as they were from political in-
fluence. One of the first fruits of this oligarchic rule
was the system of plunder by concession. Each session
of the Volksraad brought a horde of speculators, who
purchased by bribery the sole right to manufacture or
sell this or that article in the Transvaal. These mono-
polies, or "concessions," were secured chiefly by Hol-
landers and Germans, and hence, we see one mainspring
of the active sympathy of Hollanders and Germans in
the present contest, for between the fat salaries of the
imported officials, and the dividends from the operation
of the monopolies, a good stream of money has been
flowing into Holland and Germany for some years past.
When we consider this, and the extortions of the
Netherlands Zuid Afrikan Railway Co., owned and
managed by a group of Hollanders, and when we con-
sider that by every device possible, British trade is
hampered and Dutch and German imports favored, we

THE BOER WAR.

sec why the cause of the Boer should be so warmly
espoused in Holland and by sections of the German
press, even if race affinity were not a factor in the case.
We may add to this the work of the Transvaal political
agent in Europe, Dr. Leyds — a Dutch pocket edition of
Talleyrand — who has been supplied with means to make
the agency a nest of intrigue against Great Britain ever
since his appointment. The Netherlands Railway Co.
has practically controlled the finances and legislation of
the State. It has been able to levy the outrageous
freight rate, averaging 8>^d., say 17 cents per ton per
mile, as compared with 6 cents per ton per mile on the
Cape and Natal railways, which themselves return a
good dividend to their governments. Yet, when some
of Kruger's own friends protested against these extor-
tions, he said he considered his contract a matter of
high policy, and would not even hear the subject dis-
cussed.

The art by which the combined Boer and Hollander
legislators framed laws, which, while appearing to the
outside world to be quite fair, yet could be made to
work out to the particular disadvantage of the Uit-
lander, amounts to a positive genius. For instance,
the school laws, while apparently giving a show to Eng-
lish children, are so worked as to school hours, etc.,
that in practice English children can neither get a
chance to learn English or Dutch, while the school tax
is so artfully fixed that the English parent, whose child
is robbed of its chance of education, has to pay i7
against the Boers' £$. A law, to forcibly suppress all
English private schools even, was proposed in the Volks-
raad, and, only defeated by two votes. The school law
is so beautifully arranged, in the case of Johannesburg,
that the grand sum of £650 a year is spent on the chil-
dren of Uitlanders, who have to pay nine-tenths of the
£63,000 spent on education there. Then there is a tax
of £20 recently levied on farms. Here the unsuspecting
foreigner would see a tax levied on the Boer element

•o

THE DOER WAR.

entirely. KruRcr cannot be so unfair after all. But
look at it a little closer, and you will notice that farms
on which the proprietor lives are exempt; look still
closer and you sec that it applies to farms owned by
companies only. Now the Boer never buys stocks or
bonds, and never goes into partnership, so you see it hits
the Uitlander, who has bought up a Boer farm at five
or ten times its agricultural value, on the chance of
minerals being found on it. Another example of Boer
"slimness'': A poll-tax was recently introduced. It was
to be levied on all male inhabitants, and there was no
distinction or discrimination. Surely this was fair to all?
Time answered the question in the same old way, when
it became known that the tax of i8s. 6d. was faithfully
collected from all Uitlanders, but not one Boer or Hol-
lander has ever been made to pay. These are just a few
samples of Krugerite equity.

We are familiar with the press law, by which
Kruger has imprisoned and brought financial ruin on
editors who have had the courage to run up against
him. Of the same brand is the law giving it into the dis-
cretion of a policeman to break up a meeting, in the
open air, of more than seven persons.

If the torture and degradation of thousands of
Englishmen, Americans, Australians, and other peoples,
accustomed to free institutions, were not in question,
it would be amusing to those knowing the facts, to ob-
serve the injured innocence which glowed in the official
despatches of the Boer Government right up to the time
of the ultimatum. "If these people," said one of these
despatches dealing with the petition of 40,000 Uit-
landers made direct to the Queen, "instead of complam-
ing to the British authorities had only come to this Gov-
ernment direct, their complaints would have had atten-
tion." What had they been doing all these years but
complaining to a Government which treated their en-
treaties with scorn and contempt and only changed the

THE BOSK WAR.

K
<

chastisements by whips for those of scorpions? In
1893, a petition for the redress of grievances, signed by
13,000 Uitlanders, was presented to the Raad, and was
received with a general laugh of derision. In 1894,
another petition, praying for reforms, and signed by over
35,000 adult male inhabitants, was presented,
and received more seriously, and it is due to some of
the Dutch members that they made a stand for fair
play; but the only response from Kruger, who moulded
the Executive at his will, was new restrictions on the
Uitlandcr's liberty, and new burdens on his industry.
When the vote was taken on this petition, one of the
Boer members was heard to say: "Nothing can settle
this but fighting, and there is only one end to the fight.
Kruger and his Hollanders have taken away our inde-
pendence more surely than Shepstone ever did." It is
only fair to say that many members of the Raad, who
might be called progressive, by comparison, saw what
Kruger's policy was leading to, and urged concessions
to the Uitlandcr element. These were supported by a
slowly-growing minority of burghers, who were almost
as jealous of the Hollander faction as they were of
British. But Kruger had his will; and when he found
occasions arising where he could not carry his point by
straight legislation, he went past the Volksraad and did
it illegally, as head of the Executive. On several occa-
sions he upset the decisions of the High Court, and
ended by forcing the resignation of Chief Justice Kotze,
who refused to prostitute the courts and make it the
tool of the Executive. A more pliant man was put in
his place, and Chief Justice Kotze was deposed with-
out a pension or other allowance or support to his old
age. A sample of the direct and easy way in which
the Government overrode the decisions of the courts
was furnished by the Doms case, among others. A
man named Doms sued the State, but while the case
was pending, tne Government passed a resolution de-
claring that Doms had no right to sue! And so Doms
was thrown out of court, lost his property, and is now

THE BOER WAR.

a cab driver in Pretoria. When the Government wished
to defeat the ends of justice, even in the High Court,
all it had to do was to declare itself by resolution, and
it was done whether the resolution conflicted with the
grondwet (constitution), or not. It is scarcely to be
wondered at that the Uitlanders lost all hope of fair
play when such things could be done.

The foregoing were a few out of many political
grievances. On the top of these the people of Johannes-
bv'-o- in particular had their local or municipal griev-
ances no less trying. The condition of Johannesburg
has, like other ma::ters in the Transvaal, been much mis-
understood by outsiders. The Boer newspapers and
public men have sought to make it appear that Johan-
nesburg is made up of the offscourings of the earth, to
whom it would be dangerous to give rights of self-gov-
ernment. In the early days, it is true, a great many
adventurers came from all parts, but the town passed
through that phase of life as all mining communities
do ; and for some years past it is no better and no worse
than the average city of its size. It is not an alluvial
mining diggings where men of every stamp can work
their own claims, but a settled industry carried on by
rock-crushing, as in the Kootenay, and necessitating ex-
pensive machinery and expert hands. Indeed, the min-
ing machinery of the Witwatersrand is the most
modern, as well as the most extensive in the world,
many of the large companies having their own
machine shops and operating large steam and electrical
plants, with large staffs of the most skilled workmen.
The manual labor is done chiefly by natives, but the
mining and commercial business — the former having
the cleverest mining engineers and experts in the world,
and the latter, including branches of the most reputable
firms of England, Germany, the United States, etc. —
are carried on by white people, among whom there are

THE BOER WAR.

2,3

practically no Dutch. Wher.; there is so much gold
production (the output last year was $75,000,000), there
must be a large number of banks and financial corpor-
ations, which of necessity must have trustworthy em-
ployees, and so it must be said of business firms. Are
the owners of these big mining plants, banks and finan-
cial houses likely to put their affairs into the hands
of ruffians, drunkards, and thieves? If this question
cannot be answered by a moment's reflection, the doubt-
ful reader can satisfy himself by examining a copy of a
recent Directory of Johannesburg, and read down the
names and occupations. The same directory will show
how unfounded is the statement that this agitation is
purely a capitalistic one. Now imagine such a city of
80,000 * progressive and energetic inhabitants being
governed by thirty farmers; and imagine the represen-
tative financial and mining body of the city (the cham-
ber of mines) being refused an ordinary charter of in-
corporation, on the ground that it would be creating
"a State within a State." At first, English-speaking
men were chosen to the town council, but to cut them
off from self-government, even in municipal matters,
President Kruger decreed that only Dutch should be
spoken in the council, and so the Anglo-Saxon was de-
barred there. And the Burgomaster (Mayor) is not
elected by the voters, but appointed by the Government.
The drainage of the city flows along the streets in
open gutters, exhaling poisonous vapors, as was the
case in the early days of Capetown, and the people are
compelled to drink dangerously unwholesome water,
with no power to alter the condition of things. Drunken
zarps (policemen) swagger about brandishing revolvers,
occasionally shooting down poor natives for some
trifle, and insulting Uitlanders (who are not allowed
to carry arms), whenever an excuse offers. The killing
of Edgar by a squad of zarps, who broke into his house

♦Resides the white pep ilatlon there were at the beginiiiriK of this year 90,000
blacks.

ttm

24 THE BOER WAR.

and murdered him in cold blood, as he was sitting on
his bed talking to his wife, is a notorious example. The
murderers were arrested, tried, acquitted, and some of
them promoted. Such was the municipal condition of
Johannesburg up to the present crisis.

The Boer Government of the Transvaal stands con-
demned by the liquor trafific. In theory, no Uquor is
sold to the natives, but in the large mining centres, par-
ticularly Johannesburg, the native laborers, who are
heided in enclosures like cattle, are supplied with the
vilest of intoxicating drinks, in such quantities that
scarcely a day passes without one or more murders,
brought about through drunken natives engaging
in "faction fights." It is estimated that one-third of tht
total native labor supply is rendered non-etfective, week
in and week out, through natives being incapacitated
by drink, while the damage to goods and machinery,
through the same cause, is a serious item. So great did
this scandal become that the Boer Church was shamed
into strong representations against it last year, but
though Kruger is himself an abstainer, he sided with
the liquor dealers, and would do nothing, on the ground
that if this trafific were stopped, a number of honest
men would be put out of employment.

The operation of the liquor law in Johannesburg is
thus described by a brother of the Rev. Chas. T. Cocking,
of King, Ont., writing lately from the Transvaal: "Take
the case of the liquor law, which prohibits sale of liquor
to natives. Every Sunday one can see hundreds of
natives wandering about the mines and suburbs of the
town almost mad with drink. Kafir eating-houses are
filled with natives drinking, and from which they stag-
ger with sacks full of liquor to be swilled on the open
veldt by fraternal groups. A special liquor detective
department exists, and yet for twelve months this has
gone on. Result? For two or three days following the
debauch, hundreds of natives are unable to do their

■■■

THE BOER WAR.

work, and remain sleeping off their carouse in the mine
compounds to the dead loss of the mining companies.
Cause? An immensely wealthy liquor syndicate, which,
by bribery, etc., prevents the law being effective. The
Governnient is so inconsistent as to absolutely prohibit
natives from drinking, but a treaty with Portugal must
allow the importation of Kafir liquors and spirits
through the port at Delagoa Bay, and from the duty on
which they obtain a handsome increase in the revenue."

A word as to the commercial situation. In the
year 1884 the revenue of the Transvaal was £161,596,
and the expenditure, £184,820. The population at that
time was about 45,000, of whom 35,000 to 37,000 were
Dutch. That was the year when Kruger went to Eng-
land to obtain the new convention. The finances of his
country were in bad shape, and remembering what
England and Englishmen had done to rehabilitate the
country financially during the three years of British
administration, he had a letter published in the London
papers inv'*ing British capitalists, miners and merchants
to come and settle in the Transvaal. Thev accepted
the invitation, and in 1885 — 86 the De Kaap and Wit-
watersr^d fields were discovered, with the result that
the revenue for 1898 was £3,329,958, practically all of
which is derived from the energies of the Uitlander.
In the face of this, Kruger now asks, and the prO-Boer
organs throughout the world echo the question: "If
the Uitlander does not like the treatment he gets, why
does he not stay away?" The Uii mder, upon Kruger'!»
invitation, came to the country, dijcovered the gold,
and built up the industry. Should he be robbed o* the
business he has created^ And if prior occupation is
urged by the Boer, how about the Kafirs, whom he
has dispossessed of their lands? But while an unneces-
sary revenue, such as this, is squeezed from one element
of the population, the expenditure has gone on to keep
pace with it. Last year the expenses of government

THE BOER WAR.

were £3,476,844, or sufficient to give every Boer in the
country £400 a year. A large part of this, as stated,
goes to build up a military power to overawe and op-
press the very people whose exertions provide the
money; much of it, according to Cecil Rhodes, has gone
as a bribery fund to influence elections in the Cape
Colony, and carry on the propaganda for seducing the
Cape Dutch from their allegiance to Britain. A huge
secret service fund is used largely for political purposes
in Europe to the same end; while a large but unknown
sum is given by the President himself, as "doles," to
Boers in the back districts, ostensibly to help farmers
in distressed circumstances, but in reaHty to keep
l^urghers loyal to him. The various monopolies also
yield large bribery funds. The dynamite monopoly, by
which the sole right tb make or sell dynamite was given
to one man (afterwards a syndicate), who was permitted
to charge 200 per cent, over what the article would cost
in the open market, filches from the Witwatersrand
mines alone £600,000 a year. Space forbids reference
here to the other monopolies, but it may be noted that
these monopolies are given to Kruger's favorites on
articles that are chiefly imported from Great Britain,
or are used chiefly by British subjects. This is one of
the numerous violations of the conventions, wlflch pro-
vided that the taxation should be equal to all classes.
It may also be noted that President Kruger has not
only defended these monopolists under all circum-
stances, but in the numerous cases in which boodling
schemes have been unearthed, and scandals exposed
— sometimes by honest men in his own party — he has
invariably shielded the boodlers and not infrequently
promoted them or given them fresh opportunities.

A great deal might be said on the external relations
of the Transvaal. The convention of 1884 fixed the
boundaries of the Transvaal exactly, and the republic
undertook solemnly to respect the independence of

THE BOER WAR.

native chiefs outside its territory. Scr.rcely a year has
passed without the violation, of the convention in this re-
spect. One of Kruger's first acts vvras to invade part of
the British Protectorate and proclaim it a portion of
the Republic, following up the operations of some of
his free hooters. And he only withdrew because of Mr.
Rhodes' protest and the Warren expedition, which cost
the British Government over £1,250,000. Then the
Boer Government turned its attention to Zululand,
which, after an intrigue with Dinizulu against the
other chiefs, it invaded and attempted to upset the set-
tlement made by Lord Wolseley. Next they invaded
the country of the Matabele whom they had driven
out of the Transvaal originally, and who were now
under British protection, and they were only turned
back by the tact and firmness of Dr. Jameson. Again
they tried to lay hands on Tongaland, but the Queen
Regent would have nothing to do with any country but
England, whose protection she had sought. The in-
vasion and spoliation of Swaziland was another Boer
outrage, which Great Britain, from a mistaken notion
of keeping peace with the Boers, condoned.

Such are a few of the features of Krugerism in
South Africa, and the reader can judge whether they
are such as to justify the interference of Great Britain.

It is a subject of wonder to many that the Boers
persist in a course which a large number of them must
know to be wrong, and stand out against the whole
might of the British Empire in so doing. It must be
remembered, however, that the vast majority, who
never read a newspaper, or a book, except the Bible, are
as ignorant of the outside world as the Hudson Bay
Indians. Perhaps not ten of the whole body of
burghers ever saw a man-of-war or visited England or
Europe. Even Kruger and the other members of the
Volksraad, who visited England, saw little of its re-

THE BOER WAR.

sources; and it must be admitted of Kruger, who is a
man absolutely without fear, that if he had the clearest
realization of Britain's power, it would make no differ-
ence with his policy, so' convinced is he that the Boers
are the only favored nation of Heaven. What can be
done with a man who believes (as Kruger argued with
Dr. Hertz, and a deputation of Johannesburg Jews,
who came last year to plead for educational freedom),
that the Boers are the direct descendants of Isaac, and
the Jews the descendants of Ishmael, and that, therefore,
it would be against the Scriptures for both people to
inherit the land together! It must also be understood
that, whatever the Boer leaders know, the Roers them-
selves are convinced that when the Gladstone Govern-
ment gave back the country in 1881, it was through
fear, and that the profession of generosity or justice
was merely a cloak for this fear. And they point, in
confirmation, to the fact that when Mr. Gladstone, after
denouncing the annexation, in his Midlothian speeches
in Opposition, came into power, he refused all along
to restore the Boer Government until he had the ex-
perience of Majuba Hill. The leniency with which the
British Government treated the Transvaal in its re-
peated violations of the two conventions, and the way
in which they were allowed to despoil the Swazi tribe,
were to the Boer mind only so much accumulating
evidence of this fear, apparent to him as the years went
on. Perhaps Kruger himself thought the Transvaal
was a match for Britain, as J. P. Fitzpatrick relates the
following, in his "Transvaal from Within:" "The late
W. Y, Campbell, as spokesman of a deputation from
Johannesburg, addressing President Kruger, stated in
the course of his remarks that the people of Johannes-
burg 'protested' against a certain measure. The Presi-
dent jumped up in one of his characteristic moods, and
said: 'Protest! Protest! What is the good of protest-
ing? You have not got the guns! I have.' And Mr.
Campbell, in reporting this in Johannesburg, remarked:
That man is sensible; he knows the position. I claim

THE BOER WAR.

to be sensible, also, and I know he is right; you can
take my name off any other deputations, for we'll get
nothing by asking.' "

We have evidence that several members of the
Raad would have given the Uitlanders, not all. but some
of the rights they vainly sought, but Kruger had be-
come too powerful an autocrat, and they were no match
for him either in diplomacy or determination. But
though the Boers were ignorant, they were not so
ignorant as to fail to realize that if the franchise was
granted to Uitlanders, and a clean, honest administra-
tion inaugurated, these "doles" to burghers would cease,
and they would no longer be able to live in ease at the
expense of the hard-working alien. Hence, their deter-
mination to do what would otherwise appear insane — to
risk the destruction of the Republic itself rather than
to do justice at the cost of giving up control.

When the question of sending a Canadian regi-
ment to help Britain in South Africa was discussed
lately, one of our politicians asked, "Why should we en-
tangle ourselves in Great Britain's foreign wars, and
why should we spend our money and blood in those
far-away places?" In the first place, this is not a for-
eign war. From an Imperial standpoint it is very much
a domestic war. It is not merely a matter of the ill-
treatment of our fellow-subjects in the Transvaal, but
whether we are to abandon our fellow-colonists in the
Cape and Natal to a misrule comparable only to that
of the Turks in Armenia — whether, in short, we are to
lose or hold our Empire in South Africa. The Cape, be
it remembered, is the halfwa- house to India, to our
possessions in China, to Austi«.iasia, and to the smaller
islands of the Eastern Hemisphere. If it had not been
for the possession of the Cape and the ability of Great
Britain to send reinforcements thence to India, during
the great mutiny, she would have lost her Indian

3°

THE BOER WAR.

Empire then. If it was vital to Britain then, the Cape
is doubly so now, when Australia has become a daughter
nation, and other Eastern lands have increasing claims
upon her. South Africa is, in fact, the key of tHe
Empire in the Eastern, as Canada is in the Western,
Hemisphere.

To descend to a lower plane, Canada has a strong
commercial reason for seeing British ideas prevail in
South Africa. Our manufacturers are now beginning
to seek foreign markets, and under the rational rule of
Great Britain, a large trade development awaits Canada
there. South Africa is the counterpart of Canada. We
consume large quantities of goods she has to sell, such as
merino wool, hides, and sub-tropical products, while she
imports largely of manufactured goods, such as furni-
ture, boots and shoes, textile fabrics, stoves, hardware,
machinery, and other manufactures, which we wish to
sell. South Africa is essentially a non-manufacturing
country, and the United States, having studied the
conditions there through its consular agents, has al-
ready built up a big and rapidly-increasing trade. Not
many years ago the exports of the United States to
Africa amounted to but a few thousand dollars
annually. In 1898, the shipment of United States
goods to British and Portuguese South Africa alone,
amounted to over $16,000,000, the increase over 1897
being a growth of over $1,480,000, or at the rate of
nine per cent. These exports consisted of foodstuffs,
books, cotton goods, leather goods, and a long list of
manufactured articles, such as agricultural implements,
bicycles, hardware, sewing machines, typewriters, car-
riages, furniture, canned goods, lumber, etc. In almost
every one of these lines, Canada is able to compete with
the United States. Here and there, it is true, some
Canadian manufacturer has already entered the market,
but, as a rule, the Canadian exporter is still asleep to
the possibilities of that land. It is time we woke up to
tliis, for the trade connections ought to be as close as

THE BOER WAR.

the political fraternity, and the sending of the Canadian
regiment will tend to strengthen the bonds, both in a
commercial and political sense. Further reference to
the trade of South Africa will be found in the section
of "miscellaneous facts."

As for our duty to Great Britain, as citizens of
Canada, when we reflect that in the past twenty years
the Mother Country has spent over $55,000,000, accord-
ing to J. Castell Hopkins, on the defences of Canada,
we owe it to our own self-respect to see that at least
some of this is repaid. As citizens of the Empire, does
it not seem a duty to defend it when any vital part of
that Empire is threatened?

What will be the outcome of the war? In all pro-
bability the union of the present colonies and states
in a confederation, in principle like that of Canada,
but differing in details, to accord with the varying con-
ditions. When the British and Dutch have got to-
gether, after the present conflict, they will see, by a
study of their past history, that the policy of mutual
hate, distrust and intolerance, is a policy that must
mark their land with ruin; but the policy of good-will
among the white races will make South Africa what its
climate and latent resources fit it to become — one of the
most delightful in the world. This much is certain,
that in the settlement to be made, the British Govern-
ment will not revisit upon the Boers the injustice
under which the Uitlander population has groaned for
the past eighteen years, but will see that there shall be
absolute equality of rights among the white races, and
fair, just treatment of black and white from the Cape
tO' the confines of British Central Africa.

Miscellaneous facts relating to South Africa.

The following miscellaneous information, relating
to South Africa, will be of interest to the reader in
studying the present conditions:

Mr. Garrett, a well-informed Capetown journalist,
estimates the white population as follows, distinguish-
ing the Dutch from the British in the same table:

Total
White
Dutch. British. Population

Cape Colony and Bcchuanaland.2(j5,20O 194,800 460,000

Basutoland 300 350 650

Orange Free State 78,100 15,600 93,700

Nat'.i and Zululand 6,500 45.500 52,000

Transvaal 80,000 123,650 203,650

Rhodesia 1,500 8,500 10,000

Total 431.600 388,400 820,000

John Noble's "Handbook of the Cape and South
Africa for 1893," gave the area and white and colored
population of South Africa, as follows:

Area White Colored

sq. miles, population, population

Cape 221,311 376,987 1,150,237

Natal 20,461 42,759 512,817

Pondoland 3,869 100 200,000

Zululanvl 8,900 548 145,336

Amatongaland 5,300 80,000

Basutoland 10,293 578 218,324

British Bechuanaland ........ 6o,yy7 5,284 55, 122

. Bechuanaland Protectorate ....386.200 500 iio.oco

Brit. Mashonaland (Rhodesia) . 150,000 2,500 250,000

Orange Free State 48.326 77.716 129,787

Transvaal 113,642 160,000* 649,560

Swa;^iland 8,000 500 63,000

1.037,079 667,472 3.564.183

* A white population of 300,000 was generally credited to
the Transvaal up to the time of the recent troubles, of which from
70,000 to 90,000 was accorded to Johannesburg.

THE BOER WAK. 33

For the trade tables which follow, the writer is in-
debted to the "British and South African Export
Gazette," an ably conducted paper, published in Lon-
don in the interest of South African connnerce.

llic agyrcgato trade, buth imports and exports, of South
Africa in the past five years, amounted to about £220,000,000
stcrUng. This includes an approximate calculation of the 1898
figures. Of this total, the imports of oversea goods represented
a sum equal to £108,855,340, and these were imported into
South Africa through its several ports in the following pro-,
portions:

Ports of Cape Colony £ 77,623,922

Ports of Natal 21,348,222

Ports of Delagoa Bay 9,883,196

Quinquennial total £ 108,855,340

Of this handsome total Great Britain's share in the export of
purely British and Irish goods and manufactures was repre-,
stnted by £62,801,203, and that of the British possessions by
£5^99783. or together £68,600,986, the balance, in round num-
bers, of £31,000,000, being the contribution of all other coun-
tries. The progres«;ive yearly accretions by which these totals
have been reached are shown by the following tabulations;
GREAT Britain's quinquennial share of south African

TRADE.

1894 £ 8,766,828

189s 11,167,995

1896 14,798,430

1897 14.648,162

1898 (approximate) 13,419,848

Quinquennial total £6^,801,223

quinquennial share of BRITISH POSSESSIONS.

1894 £ 605,561

189s 997.558

1896 1,261,504

1897 1,235,160

1898 (approximate) 1,700,000

Quinquennial total £5.799,783

QUINQUL.T'TTAL SHARE OF FIVE PRINCIPAL FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

1894 £ 1,414,56s

i8q5 2,188,247

1896 4,432,428

1897 4-503.366

1898 (appi oximate) 5,500,000

Quinquennia! total £ 18,028,606

THE DOER WAR.

Tile relatively large proportion of a little over one-third of
the total trade of South Africa which falls to foreign countries
is explained by the fact of the heavy imports in recent years of
grain, foodstufTs, and live and dead meat, necessitated by the
drouglit and rinderpest and the devastations of locusts, which
have afflicted her agricultural and herding industries for several
years past. The extent of this huge oversea buying of British
and foreign goods would manifestly be impossible unless South
Africa possessed purchasing "media" for their acquisition.
These are furnished her by her rich and practically inexhaust-
ible stores of native gold, diamonds and other minerals, wool
and other raw products. Without this extraordinary natural
wealth, the tale and total of htr imports, as of her exports,
would be far other than they are. As it is, despite temporary
depressions, deficits, exports of specie, etc, her movement of
trade represents in the aggregate a tangible, actual and lasting
progress and prosperity, the rills and broad streams of which
beneficially water the utmost confines of \. >. sub-continent.

The imports into the Cape Colony amounted approximately
to £16,845,955 at the end of 1898, having made an average ad-
vance of over £5,000,000 since 1894 — •" ^^ct, if compared with
the figures for 1897, an actual advance of £7,000,000. In the
same quinquennium Natal's imports showed progress from
£2,316,596 to approximately £5,127,887, or an enVancement at
the handsome rate of 121 per cent. This was even 1 lore than the
relative progress of either the South African Republic or the
Cape Colony, the latter gaining only 49 per cent., and the
former 61 per cent, on the earliest year. It is noteworthy that
the former's total — £54,332,227 — is nearly exactly half of the
aggregate of South African imports, and shows the over-
weighting factor the Republic forms in the commercial ex-
pansion of the sub-continent. A modest contributor ?t present
to the general trade budget — but one which may possibly in the
future dispute the leading place with the last named — is Rho-
desia. Quinquennial totals are not available in its case, but its
last two years' trade returns are significant of its future import-
ance. In the twelve months up to the end of June, 1897, they
amounted to £245,923, and to the end of June, 1898, to £574.184,
or an increase of 94 per cent. The appended comparison of the
percentages of progress of the trade of the past quinquennium of
India, Canada, Australia and the colonies of the Cape Colony,
Natal, and Rhodesia, and the South African Republic is given
bv The Gazette:

THB UOUR WAR. 35

gUlNVfUENNlAI. I'KOliHKSS OF UTIIKR BRITISH rosSESSIONS
AS COMI'AHKD WITH SOUTH AKRICA.

Kate of
South Africa— Quin(|ucniiial Progress.

Natal 1 21.0 percent.

Rliodesia 'MO P<-'r cent. .

South African Republic 61.0 i)cr cent.

Cape Colony 49.0 per cent.

Other British i'ossessions —

.Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Fiji.. 40.0 per cent. .

Dominion of Canada Ho per cent.

India (including Hurmah, Straits Settle- per cent,

ments, and Ceylon) o.^ per cent.

Average for South Africa 71.0 per cent.

Average for other British Possessions.... 16.0 per cent.

The ratio of progress in imports alone of South Africa com-
pared with those of our chief colonics and dependencies — India,
Australia and Canada — is not less instructive. As against a total
for South Africa of £108,000,000, Canada has only an import
volume of £26,000,000 to show, and Australia of ,£97,000,000;
while the vast continent of India only surpasses South Africa by
her £157,000,000 of imports in the five years.

W. Blclocli, in a paper recently read before the
Gcolopfical Society of Soutli Africa, confirms the theory
first propounded by Dr. F. G. Becker, of the United
States Geological Survey, that the Witwatersrand gold-
bearing rocks are due to the formation of a scries of
sub-shore deposits banked up by ocean currents and
waves against a sloping shore. At first sight this is
only of interest to geologists and mining experts. If,
however, it should be confirmed by subsequent tests,
it will have far-reaching effects upon the Rand gold
mining industry, and equally upon commerce. For
instance, payable reefs, should exist under the major
portion of Johannesburg itself, whilst the Main Reef
series would be found underlying the overlaps of more
recent beds from Vlakfontein to Venterspost, thereby
opening up an enormous area of country for mining
purposes, and extending the life of the Rand as a gold
producing centre far beyond the loo or more years al-
ready predicted for it by the world's leading experts. It

,<«»

o6 THE BOER VVAK.

is estimated by Frederick H. Hatch, in the "Engineer-
ing Magazine," of New York, that within the next five
years the number of stamps in the gold mining district
of the Witwatersrand will be increased to over 12,000.
The average duty of a stamp here is ",500 tons per year,
or a total of 18,000,000 tons, which, at the present grade
of 9 to 10 dwts. of fine gold, or 40s. per ton, would
give £36,000,000 sterling per annum.

The coal deposits of the Transvaal are estimated at
235,000,000,000 tons, or 37,000,000,000 tons over those
of the coal beds of Great Britain.

tUti

l ifc i M

Glossary of Cape Dutch and Kafir Terms.

Baaken — Landmark.

Banket — The conglomerate reef peculiar to the Witwatersrand.

Bewaarplaatzen — Areas granted for the conservation of water,

or for depositing the residue of ores.
Berg — Mountain, as Tafelberg (table mountain), Drakensberg

(Dragon's mountain), etc.
Besluit — Resolution, order-in-council.
Boer — Farmer; applied by the English to the Dutch of the

country districts.
Bosch — Thicket or bush.
Burg — Town.
Burgher — Voter, elector. Applied by the Dutch to their own

citizens as distinguished Irom aliens.
Commandeer — To call out for military service.
Commar.vlo — A military force. The word conveys no meaning

as to numbers. A commando may consist of a hundred men,

or a thousand or more.
Donga — Ravine.
Dorp — Village.
Drift— Ford.

Droogeveld — Dry pasture country.
Duin or Dune — Sandhill.
Fontein — Fountain or spring, as Bloemfontein (fountain ot

flowers).
Heuvel — Height, or hill.
Hoek — Corner, or secluded valley.
Hoogte — Height; Hoogteveld, the high ground.
Inspan — To harness up. Outspan or uitspan, "to unharness or

untether.
Karroo — Desert land covered with scrubby plants.
Klip— Rock.

Kloof — Mountain pass; or gully.
Kop — (Literally a head), hence an isolated hill.
Kopjie— Little hill.

Kraal — Collection of native huts; also a cattle enclosure:
Krantz— ClifT.

Laagte — Low land or valley, as Elandslaagte (Eland valley).
Nachtmaal— (Literally night meal), the quarterly communion

service.
Nek — Neck, applied to a depression between two <■ ountains.
Raad — An assembly; the legislature.

,#»!»'**'■

ja^?**^-*"-

THE BOER WAR.

Rand — Highland; as Witwatersrand (the White-water-high-
lands).

Slim — Cute, cunning.

Sluit — An artificial water course.

Spruit — Creek.

Trek — To travel; to move; hence voortrekkers (literally fore-
runners), pioneers.

Uitlander — (Pronounced as nearly as possible ate-lont-er), out-
sider; alien.

Vlei — Shallow pan or valley, sometimes covered with water.

Veld or Veldt — (Literally a field), an extent of country.

Veldtschoen — Sort of moccasin.

Volksraad — The national council, or parliament.

Witwatersrand — See Rand.

Zarp — Policeman. •

In Cape Dutch, which is a patois, aa has the sound of aw.
Example, raad (rawd). V has the sound of f, and w the sound of
v; ji has tiie sound of ye, as for example Kopjie (Kop-ye); and
ei the power of a long i, as for example Bloemfontein (Bloom-
fon-tyne, though this is pronounced by some, Bloom-fon-tane).
It is accented on the last syllable. Kruger is usually pronounced
by the Boers — Kreeger.

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/AETAL TRADES JOURNAL ^

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THE CANADIAN ENGINEER was first issued ii
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th^ following shows the steady
progress of its circulation:

August, 1895

2,200

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- 3,450

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4,400

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August, 1899

5,004

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