EX^LlBRISUNlVEKITfOFCALIFORNIA-'i t'fii JOHN HENRY NASH LIBRARY ^ SAN FRANCISCO PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ROBERT GORDON SPRQUL, PRESIDENT. Mr.andMrs.MILTON S.RAV CECILY, VIRGINIA AND ROSALYN RAY AND THE RAY OIL BURNEROOMPANY SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/boersuitlandersOOhammrich The Boers AND THE UlTLANDERS h Mrs. John Hays Hammond AN ADDRESS TO THE CENTURY CLUB OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., JANUARY 9, 1901 D. PAUL ELDER and MORGAN SHEPARD San Francisco 1901 Printed by the StanUy-tayUr Comfany Statistics of the Transvaal AREA: 119,139 square miles. (California, 156,000 square miles; Nevada, 109,000 square miles.) ELEVATION : Above sea, Johannesburg, 5,600 feet. POPULATION : State Almanac of 1898 gives population as follows : White 245»397 Blacks 748,759 Total 1,094,156 This makes the White population about as large as that of San Francisco in 1880, and about one -sixth as large as the present popula- tion of California. As the Uitlanders outnumbered the Boers in about the proportion of 3 to 2, the above total White population of 245,000 must have consisted of (approximately) : Boers in whole S. A. R... 100,000 Uitlanders in " ** ...145,000 Population of Johannesburg {\%f)(i)'. 102,- 315, consisting almost wholly of Uitlanders. Pretoria populatio n: 10,000. MI NES : Employees in Mmes (1898) were : Natives 88,000 Whites 10,000 Total production of gold to Nov.^ ^gg : $390,000,000. Production of i8gg was at rate of |ioo,ooo,- 000 per year or more than one third of the world's production of that year. More than nine-tenths of this came from the Rand. Total estimated gold capacity of Rand (up to limits of practical working) is ^300,000,000, about two-thirds of the total gold now in the world. ANNUAL REVENUE OF SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC : 188 1 1 315,000 (About }io per bead of Boer population) 1885 889,000 1888 4,422,000 1892 6,279,000 1895 14,618,000 1899 20,439,000 (About;^2io per head of Boer population) [Annual revenue of U. S. is about ^^9 per head. ] The Boers and the litlanders. [An Address to the Century Club, of San Francisco, Cal., January 9, 1901.] I have been wondering, ever since I received your kind invitation to speak before you, just which side of the big, complex subject of South Africa I should select as my theme ; and I have concluded that the human side of the subject is the proper one to choose. Of the international and political points at issue you have already heard much, — and probably care little; — for indeed, treaties, conventions, and questions of suzerainty do not strike home to our hearts as do the questions of humanity and human rights; and it is of these latter, therefore, that I propose to talk to-day. I shall try to tell you some- thing of the Boers, — who they were and how they came into the Transvaal ; then something of the coming in of the Uitlanders; — and lastly something about Mr. Kruger s government. The Boers and the Uitlanders, History of the Boers. —To under- stand the Transvaal Boer of to-day, it is necessary to remember his past ; for, like other primitive people, he shows with distinctness the marks of his mold. I shall begin, therefore, by reminding you of some of the salient points of the Boer's history. Cape Town was founded in 1652 by a colony of Dutch sailors under the leadership of a small, fiery tempered, ship's surgeon named Jan Van Riebeek. Their object was to make of this point a port of call for the fleet of ships be- longing to the Dutch East India Co., on their way to and from the East In- dies. That voyage was long, covering many months, and often ships would arrive at their ports with half of their crew dead for lack of vegetable food and good water. It was to supply these needs that Cape Town took its first form in a fort surrounded by vege- table gardens. These first settlers, who grew garden truck, and retired into the fortress by night for protection from the natives, were not of the Argonaut type, nor of pioneer courage ; they were of common stock, sea-faring men mostly, and of the class who drift out into new countries more from lack of home attach- ment than from a spirit of adventure; possibly also they were tempted by the free passage. The Boers and the Uitlanders. Thirty-seven years later, or in 1689, the first settlers were joined by a band of some 300 French Huguenots who had found a temporary refuge in Holland ; and from the blend of the two peo- ple sprang the Boer. In the process of this amalgamation, it was the sturdier Dutch characteristics which survived — the finer fiber of the French Huguenots rapidly disappearing. Even the mother language was lost to them — only traces of it now remaining in family names, such as Joubert, De Villiers, Cronje and others. The colonists thrived and increased in numbers, and spread from the orig- inal place of settlement into the neigh- boring country ; and this at once brought about a change in their occupations. South Africa is physically different from all other continents of the world, — for it is all edge and top. Essentially it is a vast plateau, or table land, from 3,000 to 6,000 feet above sea-level, with a mere edging of lowland along the South- ern and Eastern coasts. On the top of the plateau are no forests or rich val- leys, such as are found throughout other continents, — no steady rivers, no as- sured rainfall, — but dry and treeless rolls of upland, like the high plains of the Rocky Mountain slopes, stretching for some 1,500 miles, in successive ter- races, almost to the Zambesi River and The Boers and the Uitlanders, the tropics. In such a region the farm- ing which had been the support of the settlers at the Cape could not be carried on. So, when the early Colonists had fully occupied the narrow strip of fertile land along the coast, and moved up into the drier region beyond, they abandoned farming as a livelihood, and took to cattle grazing instead, — as the native blacks had done before them. The thin pasturage made vast stretches of ground necessary for the support of the Boer's herds ; while the varying rain seasons of the different regions caused him to move his flock from place to place, — following the freshening of the sparse grass ; and, long before the great Trek into the Transvaal, these wander- ing cattle -men had earned for them- selves the name of Trek - Boers, from their habit of trekking or wandering from place to place. From all this resulted a steady moving onward of the Boers, — a constant enlargement of the lands claimed or won by them. It was a lonely, hard and nomadic life, with recurrent conflicts with the hordes of natives whose territory they were invading and whose children they enslaved. The Boers soon lost all touch with the mother countries from which their first settlers had come, and lived on through their quiet days, **uncoveted by foreign nations." Until 1834 the 6 The Boers and the Uitlanders, history of the colony was dull and un- eventful. There were occasional forays against the natives to recover looted cattle, a gradual stretching out of the settlers further afield in quest of richer pasturage for their herds, but there was no spirit of the explorer in their homely breasts. In the great political game of the world the little colony was merely a pawn; and that it was shifted from Dutch to British rule three times within nineteen years affected the Boer less acutely than did his local troubles with the native Hottentots and Bushmen. Living in isolation on his lonely farm or pasture, sole master of his family, his slaves, and his herds, the Boer became more and more an autocrat, recognizing no laws save those of his own impulse. In many ways he grew despotic and degenerate. Of any control or government he has always been impatient. History has proven this to be the dominating fea- ture of his character. Once under the Dutch East India Company the people had revolted; and with the emancipa- tion of their slaves by Great Britain in 1834 the Boers again revolted, — I must admit with some justice on their side; for, although emancipation was un- doubtedly a rightful measure, there was much mismanagement in the payment 7 The Boers and the Uit landers, of the moneys awarded by Great Britain for the slaves who were set free. The natural disaffection of the Boer against any governing control became thus accentuated to a degree that brought open rupture, and the so-called ** Great Trek" was the result. Within two years from 6,000 to 10,000 people seceded from the colony. Selling in haste and at much sacrifice their homes, and possessions not easily transported, they gathered together their families and cattle and set forth in little bands, the women and children crowded into cumbrous, canvas-covered wagons drawn by oxen. With scant food and small supply of water, surrounded by hostile tribes, these dogged Vortrekkers pushed along through wastes of arid land, sweltering under a brazen sun by day, tented at night by a strange and silent sky. For more than twenty years they wandered on, in search of their land of Canaan, leaving solitary graves to mark their course; for privation, fever and native assegais claimed a heavy toll. In the gloom and loneliness of their surroundings, superstition grew and ig- norance deepened. In ceaseless fight against wild beasts and savages, the courage of the Trekkers became tinc- tured with cunning. Habits of cleanli- ness inherited from their Dutch fore- fathers, and the spirit of thrift which 8 The Boers and the Uitlanders, came from their French ancestry, were thrown aside as useless burdens on that long and painful march. The Transvaal Boer of to-day was evolved, — uncleanly, improvident, cruel to the weak, crafty with the strong, igno- rant, superstitious, strong in family affec- tion, but lacking attachment to any spe- cial locality. Honesty and truthfulness towards others were virtues unknown to him, for with others he had little or no dealings. In the district now known as the Orange Free State a part of the caravan branched off for Natal, a well- watered, fertile land to the East, which promised good grazing. But my talk to-day is of the Boers who settled across the Vaal River, and called their country the Transvaal. They went there following the summer rains, for rain in South Africa is the life giver as it is in our own Arizona and New Mexico. They fought their way into the Transvaal through opposing native tribes. They made their clearings, built their houses of sun-dried bricks, smear- ing the earthen floors with beefs blood to harden them, planted a few mealies and a little tobacco for home consump- tion, fenced in an enclosure to protect their cattle at night — and sat down to idleness and contentment, varied only by an occasional marauding expedition The Boers and the Uitlanders, against the natives, to avenge, or to indulge in cattle lifting. Such was a true picture of the early Transvaaler, and it is equally true of him to-day. He was and continues to be impatient of all laws, even those of his own peo- ple. He went into the wilderness not to be a pioneer of any government, but to secede from all governments; and he clings to his individual independence. He is a farmer only in name. There is no marketing or interchange of his pro- duce. Once in three or four months the Boer comes in to the nearest town, — receives the sacrament, does his crude bartering, and arranges matches for his daughters, — and goes back promptly to his herd and range. He co-operates with his fellows only in wars against natives or foreign armies — when immi- nent and personal danger make co- operation necessary. He lives by him- self — beyond eye-shot of his neighbor. These were the people among whom came the Uitlanders. The Incoming of the Uitlanders.— The discovery of diamonds in 1869 at what is now Kimberly, in Griqualand West, aroused an international interest in South Africa. From a political sop exchanged between countries whose chief holdings were elsewhere, it suddenly 10 The Boers and the Uitlanders, bloomed into a Land of Promise for the World's treasure seeker. In 1882 the discovery of gold in the Leydenburg district of the Transvaal augmented the influx of foreigners, or Uitlanders. There came in men of every nationality — English, French, Germans and Americans. Few women came with the first waves of immigration; but four years later, when the great Gold Reefs of the Wit- Waters- Rand had been opened and the tide of immigration had fairly set in, family-men sent back home for their wives and children. There was every inducement, in a salubrious climate and wide business opportunities, for home- making men to select this country for an abiding place. The Wit-Waters-Rand, or White Water Range, is a rocky ridge which runs along the high table-land of the Transvaal for a distance of 30 miles or more — a mother lode of rich gold de- posits in almost continuous series. How important the Rand was as a wealth producing region, you will appre- ciate when I tell you that in 1899 the Transvaal was producing gold at the rate of 100 millions of dollars per year, — more than one-third of the total product of the world; and that, of this Transvaal product, nine-tenths or more was from the Rand. II The Boers and the Uttlanders, Johannesburg grew up on the Rand as a necessary trade center and place of assembly. In 1896 it was a city of about 100,000 inhabitants, — as large as Los Angeles and nearly twice as large as Oakland. The mines march right through the heart of the town, and there is scarcely a point in it from which the tall stack of some mining mill is not visible. Those of us who lived there, lived with our pulses pitched to the throb of the mine batteries. When I left there, six months after the Jameson Raid, the mines were already being worked at great depths — some as deep as 2,000 feet. The further continuity of the ore reefs had been tested by deep borings far ahead of the actual workings, and the supply of ore had in this way been ascertained to be sufficient to last for many years to come, even at the tremendous rate of produc- tion then prevailing. The gold in the ground and still unmined was esti- mated, within the limits of practical working, to be 3,000 millions of dollars, which is about two-thirds of the total amount of gold in use to-day in the world. There was work ahead for generations of miners. You will see from this that the advent of the U it- landers was not a sudden or temporary scramble for treasures strewn upon the ground. 12 The Boers and the Uitlanders, The population of Johannesburg in- cluded all classes and conditions of men — a few capitalists, many mining engin- eers, doctors and other professional men, and a large number of clerks, book-keep- ers, store-keepers, carpenters, masons, mine-foremen, stable-men, skilled arti- zans, and the usual proportion of the vicious and disreputable. Between the Boers and the Uitlanders there was no ill feeling — their lines of life were too far separated for friction. The personal relations between the two were perfectly friendly; and the working of the new gold deposits was arranged between them without difficulty. Mining claims in the Transvaal are not subject to pre-emption by right of discovery (like our California mines), but were acquired wholly by purchase, in methods fixed by the Boer government. The Boer, with his inbred indolence, had no inclination to work the mines himself, and, indiffer- ent to the land upon which he lived, was glad to sell his farm to the Uitlander as a mining claim, and ready to move on to other pastures. The mining district, therefore, soon became populated almost exclusively by the Uitlanders and their native laborers. With the great influx of foreigners, the springing up of their town, the de- velopment of their mines, the impor- tation of machinery and coal, and the 13 The Boers and the Uitlanders, introduction by them of large masses of native labor, came many new duties to Mr. Kruger and his colleagues. They were confronted with the problem of devising a plan of government ade- quate to meet these new and untried conditions. The existing government was of a crude and patriarchal type, utterly un- suited to the new situation. In fact, of government up to that time, there had been practically none. The state was unable to collect its taxes, — for the Boers would not pay them; the Treasury was chronically empty; the few govern- ment officials did not receive their sal- aries ; — the pasturage of the country was scant and uncertain ; and the Boer farmers were ever ready to trek off to better pastures in the North and East and to leave the Transvaal officials to shift for themselves. Neither President Kruger nor his Boers had the education or experience which would enable them to work out the questions which arose when the Uitlanders came in. A very small percentage of the Boers could even read or write. Technical skill to formulate and run a plan of government was needed ; and, lacking this at home, Kruger looked abroad for tools that he might hire, and found them in Holland. You can readily understand that by this method he was 14 The Boers and the Uitlanders, not likely to secure men of patriotism, or even of worthy purpose. These Placemen, in fact, became the curse of the country. Their aim has ever been their own personal advancement and the maintenance of their own scheme of government; and to these they have sacrificed the welfare of the country they were serving. The problem facing Mr. Kruger and his assistants did not interest the mass of the Boers; they were off tending their herds of cattle on their new pasture grounds. Laws and government did not concern them; — they cared little for what the President and his associates might be doing with the purchasers of the gold fields, and felt small interest in the huge and bewildering mass of people and supplies which were coming in. This apathy of the Burghers made it easier for the few who were engineering the new government to steer in the direction which would bring the most pecuniary benefit to themselves and their favorites, — and Mr. Kruger and his councillors very soon yielded to the temptation which the situation brought. Where gold was so plenty, the temp- tation to absorp a part of it was beyond their power of resistance. 15 The Boers and the Uitlanders, Monopolies. — A system of levying tribute on the Uitlander class was in- augurated in the very beginning. Ex- clusive concessions were granted to men having close but secret connection with government officials; and to these was given control of the principal commod- ities of importance to the new popula- tion. The first of these grants was the Rail- road monopoly. Remember that with the growth of Johannesburg everything for its building, for the development of its mines and the maintenance of its people, had to be imported. The country around the town was a treeless one. There was no timber, — no grow- ing crops. Fruit and vegetables had to be brought in from Natal, — or from somewhere on the Coast. The place itself produced only minerals. Lumber for building, fodder for horses, food and clothing for the inhabitants, machinery and dynamite for the mines — everything had to be brought in from outside the State. It at once became evident to the favored few who controlled the govern- ment that heavy tolls might be levied on the transportation of all this material. There was no difficulty in getting the necessary laws passed. The Volksraad was almost under orders from the Presi- dent — would do anything that was wanted ; and there was accordingly i6 The Boers and the Uitlanders, passed a law granting to the Nether- lands Railway Company (a syndicate of Hollanders in close touch with the Government) the exclusive right to build and maintain railroads in the Transvaal. No one else but this company could build a railroad in any part of the State ; and the Netherlands Company, with the monopoly wholly in its hands, was able to charge what rates it chose, without tear of competition or control. For the sixty miles between Johannesburg and the Vaal River (which is the Southern bor- der of the State) rates were charged which were higher even than would have been the cost of transportation by ox-carts. The general railroad rate in the Transvaal was twenty-four cents per ton per mile, which was, I am told, from ten to fifteen times the rates which pre- vail in the United States, or $14.40 a ton between Johannesburg and the bor- der. You can imagine how such rates as these added to the cost of living and tended to paralyze the industry of the Rand. Hay was $65 per ton ; butter $1.75 a pound. Having once yielded to the tempter, the government found it easy to yield again. And there was plenty of tempta- tion to drag them down into the mire. Having done what they could with the great question of transportation, and 17 The Boers and the Uitlanders, fixed that so as to secure to the govern- ment favorites all that that system could squeeze out of the newcomers, they turned their attention to the Dynamite question. This was a serious question, at least to the miners. Every miner had to use dynamite. It was a large factor in all the mining work. The con- trol of the trade in it would mean much to the parties in power. Why should we not profit by it, said the government clique, if we can do so under the forms of law? They, therefore, did again what they had done in the railroad matter — they created a monopoly of the dyna- mite business, granting to a syndicate of German and Holland capitalists (friends of the Placemen who were running the government) the exclusive right to man- ufacture and sell dynamite within the State. They had, in decency, to give a plausible excuse for this, and accordingly said that their action was intended to protect home industry and promote the manufacture of dynamite within the country; but for years after the monopoly was created, indeed up to to-day, none of the dynamite sold down there has been manufactured within the country. It has all been imported in bulk from Germany and France by those who held the monopoly; for they found it cheaper to import dynamite from abroad than to erect works for its manufacture. i8 The Boers and the Uitlanders, The only effect of the grant of the mo- nopoly was that those who held it could charge what they pleased for their ex- plosives, of whatever quality. And they used their opportunities to the utmost. The Uitlanders paid $3,000,000 more per year for their explosives than they could otherwise have got them for. Kruger and other officials of the gov- ernment shared in the profit of this, as they did of the railroad monopoly. Taxes. — There were other monopolies besides the foregoing, which I need not dwell on here. But the granting of monopolies was not the only means available to Kruger & Co. for extort- ing from the Uitlanders a share of their possessions. There was also the opportunity of collecting taxes in the name of the State. Taxes were there- fore laid on everything — at increasing rates. In 1881 the total revenue of the government had been $315,000. In 1898, by use of an ingenious scheme of taxation, the revenues had risen to $20,- 000,000. California, with a population of one and a half millions, has a revenue of $6,000,000; while the Transvaal, with a white^ population of 250,000, collected as taxes $20,000,000. All of this, or at * The native blacks may properly be omitted here,— as they were neither cared for nor taxed. 19 The Boers and the Uitlanders. least 95 per cent, of it, came from the Uitlanders, not from the Burghers; for Mr. Kruger was careful that no part of the burden of his taxation should fall upon the Burghers whose arms he might need to keep the Uitlanders in subjection. Six millions of our $20,000,000 of tax money was used in increasing the salary- list of the government officials, a list which had required less than a quarter of a million dollars twelve years before. And what did we get in return for our tribute.*^ None of the things we had reason to demand. We were not even privileged to control the administration of the city which we had built, and in which no Boers resided excepting the government and railroad officials. Drain- age, policing, control of the liquor evil, schooling for our children, — everything that should have been provided to make life endurable was withheld from us. The city water supply was under the control of a company who supplied water impure in quality and scant in quantity. This was particularly severe on the poor who were unable to buy mineral wa- ters, — for to drink the town water was a sure cause of enteric trouble. Bitter complaint was made to the government, and an English and American company offered to bring in a supply of pure water for less expense, — but was refused the right. The original water company 20 The Boers and the Uitlanders. had been granted the monopoly by the government. Another cause of distress was the un- sanitation of the town ; Johannesburg was undrained. We had beautiful homes, but the ordinary decencies could not be obtained. Garbage was thrown into the open street, and a bucket system pre- vailed for private use. These buckets belonged to no particular house, were freely interchanged, and caused typhoid fever and other contagious diseases to sweep like wild fire through different dis- tricts of the city. Complaint was again made to the government ; but the bucket company was another official monopoly, and matters remained as they were. I n 1893 ^^ death rate of Johannesburg was 59 in 1000. At this rate the entire population would be dead in 16 years. This is appalling when you recollect that the people of Johannesburg were mostly men and women in the prime of life. Then there was the school question^ which sorely tried those of us who had children, especially the less well-to-do of the community. $3 1 5,cxx) was set apart by the government for the support of the public schools, and of this sum we contributed more than three-fourths. But no English was taught. Our chil- dren were obliged to learn their history, arithmetic and geography in Dutch, or do without schooling. 21 The Boers and the Uitlanders, The illicit sale of liquor to the natives was another source of trouble, and of danger as well. There were laws pro- hibiting the sale of liquor; but the favored Hollanders received licenses from the government and were permit- ted to sell their stuff in spite of the law. Frequent and fearful accidents were caused by the intoxication which re- sulted. Practically one-third of the Kaf- fir boys employed at the mines were, all the time, incapacitated from work by liquor; and, as there were 88,000 Kaffirs in the mines, this was equivalent to keeping 29,000 of them under pay in a constant state of intoxication, — involving an expense to the miners of about $5,000,000 per year. The Boys (as all male natives are called) were inflamed by the liquor to tribal battles, in which heads were broken and bodies dismem- bered; and there were also many per- sonal outrages committed by negroes, even in Johannesburg itself. Several of such cases came to my own knowledge during the three years of my life there. Inefficient policing of the town made this possible. Protests, etc. — It is not to be sup- posed that the active community of Uit- landers submitted to these extortions and hardships in silence. Complaints and protests from them to the govern- 22 The Boers and the Uitlanders. ment were frequent — almost constant. Delegation after delegation was sent to Pretoria to lay the matter before the Executive and to secure reform, but every effort was futile. The officials were unwilling to abandon the lucrative game they were playing, and showed an increasing irritation and petulance, not unnatural under the circumstances, as the successive delegations touched the quick of the disease. By his plundering of the Uitlanders, Krueger was naturally driven into trying to stifle their complaints; and laws to accomplish this were passed by his Volksraad as fast as he desired them. Free speech was practically prohibited, — and a law passed which gave to Krueger the power of suppressing any publication which he thought opposed to good morals or good order. It is needless to say that this power was exercised only against those newspapers which com- plained of Mr. Krueger's practices. By the Public Meeting Act, it was left dis- cretionary with the Boer policemen to suppress assemblages of any kind at their will. By another law (the Aliens Expulsion Act) it was provided that any Uitlander could be put over the border at the will of the President, — without the right of hearing in any court of jus- tice, — though no such arbitrary expul- sion could be exercised in the case of an offending Boer. 23 The Boers and the Uitlanders, The corruption which began at the headquarters of the Government spread throughout the officials. The chiefs could not scrutinize or control their subordinates, when all were playing the same unprincipled game. Personal profit was everywhere the sole induce- ment to official action. And it was not the English immigrants, particularly, by whom these grievances were felt, or to whom the oppressions were applied. French, Germans, Eng- lish and Americans — all alike were Uit- landers — even the Boer immigrant from Cape Colony. Even children born in the country had not, as they grew up, the rights of citizenship, unless they were born of Burgher parents, but would have to go through the same process of naturalization as their foreign born par- ents. Only the original trekkers, and those who had joined them before a cer- tain date, were Burghers and could vote. It was as if California had tried to limit its government to the Society of Pio- neers and their descendants. Franchise. — From all this it became evident to the Uitlanders that, if they were ever to be set free from the system that was oppressing them, a vote in the selection of the government officials was essential ; and this be- came, therefore, their main and central 24 The Boers and the Uitlanders, object. Kruger and his associates were shrewd enough, however, to understand that the enfranchisement of the Uit- landers, who outnumbered the Boers, would end the spoliation that was being practised ; and they were as cun- ning in preventing the enfranchisement as they had been in developing their scheme of extortion. It may interest you to hear how the law as to the fran- chise was shifted by Kruger from time to time, so as to enable him to "keep ahead of the game." Please keep in mind the fact that Kruger became Pres- ident in 1882, and has remained Presi- dent ever since. Up to i88iy residence of one year qualified any settler to full Burgher priv- ileges, with the right of voting. In 1882, when the first gold fields were discovered, five years' residence was required and the residence had to be proved by the Field Cornet's book ; and, as the Field Cornet rarely knew how to write and never kept a book, this proof was difficult to produce. In i8go a new franchise law was passed. By this time a considerable num- ber of Uitlanders who had come in with the development of the Rand in 1886 and 1887 had been nearly long enough in the country to have the qualifications which were required by the law of 1882. If they were to be kept from voting, a 25 The Boers and the Uitlanders, change in the law must be made. Ac- cordingly, by the law of 1890, 14 years of residence were required. The appli- cant had besides to be at least forty years old, a member of the Protestant church, and an owner of landed prop- erty in the Transvaal. In i8g4y further requirements were added. The major part of the Burghers of the applicant's ward had to signify their approval in writing. The personal good will of the President and Executive was also to be obtained. Then, all these conditions accepted, the would-be Burgher was called upon to renounce his allegiance to his own country five years before he could be enfranchised, and to float for these five years between the devil and the deep sea — a man with- out a country. Each of these changes was made to apply not only to those who might come into the country in the future, but to those who had come in before and who had become, by past residence, nearly qualified to receive the franchise under the law in force when they came in. Each change was designed to forestall applications which seemed imminent un- der the existing law. Having thus denied the Uitlanders the redress of their grievances when asked for by petition, and shut them off from the possibility of ending the op- 26 The Boers and the Uitlanders, pression by vote, Kruger had next to take precautions against their rising in rebellion against this tyranny. He had oppressed them beyond human endur- ance. He had cut them off from civil- ized methods of redress. He had now to keep them in forcible subjection. Accordingly, to keep the Uitlanders in a state of disarmament, he prohibited them by law from bearing or keeping arms, for any purpose whatsoever. In the United States, the right of the peo- ple to bear and keep arms is guaranteed to them by the Constitution, as the ulti- mate safeguard of the people against a military tyranny. Mr. Kruger prohibited this right to the people of his country because he knew his rule had become a tyranny, and that recourse to arms alone was left for those he was oppressing. He built forts commanding the town of Johannesburg; and he supplemented this by an official distribution of arms among the Boers, so that he might have an efficient constabulary with which to check any violent uprising. And to keep the Boer constabulary themselves content and obedient to his call — while the officials were reaping their golden harvest — their taxes were made nomi- nal, and Mr. Kruger amused them with homely parables. His government, in other words, had become an armed oligarchy. 27 The Boers and the Uitlanders, Summary. — I hope I have now made it clear to you what a make-believe Re- public this of Mr. Kruger's was. I do not mean that there was at first in Mr. Kruger's mind, or in anyone's mind, the full system of oppression which ulti- mately developed. Kruger slipped into that by degrees, as he yielded to suc- cessive temptations ; and he had finally to fight hard in support of the vicious system he had created, and against a community which at first had been his friends. For the Uitlanders had not come in uninvited by him, nor unwel- comed by the Boers. In 1884, when in London, Kruger had expressed his hope of a foreign immigration, with his prom- ise of equal treatment for all; and the Grondwet (the so-called Constitution of his State) in Article 6, declared the State to be "open for every foreigner who obeys the laws of the Republic." And the foreigners were welcomed by the mass of the Boers as well ; for their capital brought relief to an impoverished treasury, and their presence brought protection against attacks of the natives. For the incoming of the Uitlanders there was welcome enough. It was only after they had gone in there that a machinery of oppression was devised against them. And it was not the Boers that did this. It was Mr. Kruger and his coterie. 28 The Boers and the Uitlanders, I know that much sympathy with the Boers has been aroused in America, and probably amongst you, by their name of ** South African Republic"; but you probably now realize how little of a Republic they really had. They had happened on a catch word, when they chose the name of their State ; and they lost the last traces of Republicanism when their President joined hands with the mercenary officials he had imported. There was no equality — no personal freedom. There was heavy taxation, but no representation. The laws of the land were on a sliding scale, and were altered from time to time, not in good faith, but to sustain the game which the government clique was playing. There was no bill of rights, no Magna Charta in the English sense, no Constitution in our sense. Their so-called Constitution (or Grondwet) was as unstable as any other law of their country, and was al- tered, or even suspended, by a mere majority vote of their Volksraad, when- ever this was directed by Kruger and his colleagues."^ * The cases of Dr. Leyds and Judge Gregorowski serve as good instances. The Grondwet required all officials to be Burghers; but this provision was sus- pended when Kruger desired the appointment of Leyds (a Hollander) as Secretary of State, and again, when he imported Judge Gregorowski from the Orange Free State, to sit in trial upon the Uitlander leaders. 29 The Boers and the Uitlanders. Ultimately the judges of their courts (who with us are a bulwark to protect the people from intemperate and un- genuine laws) were whipped into line, and, when they ventured to declare one of Mr. Kruger's laws unconstitutional, as violating the fundamental principles of government, the Chief Justice was promptly ejected from office, and a new law passed making all the judgments of the Court subject to reversal by the Volksraad. His government violated every civil- ized principle — every human right. In struggling to maintain it, he was fight- ing against nature. An upheaval, a revolution, an inva- sion, a change in some way, was in- evitable. The structure Kruger had erected was bound to be overthrown. In his stubbornness he seems to have determined that, when it fell, his coun- try should fall with it. 30 SI'S' \<\ol m