Owen Thomas

“ As he fulfils his service, so will the Empire grow in virility, or slip gradually into a congeries of nations, whose people will cry, 'I am of Canada,' 'I of South Africa, 'I of England,' as the case may be, and none will be found to make answer, 'We are all of Britain.'
But though this Imperial aspect of land settlement, often somewhat overlooked, should form the foundation of all colonization schemes, nations are made up of individuals; the good of the whole includes the good of the units, and a building does not consist of foundations. ”

“ The emigrant breaks with his past, closes the volume of his British birth, with all of pride, honour, and love that it includes, and puts it from him altogether, or retains it only as the goal which he may hope to attain again for the comfort of his declining years. The emigrant, in a word, if he be a man of ordinary patriotism and good feeling, is to be pitied. ”

“ It is idle to deny that until more effective means are taken to eradicate, and then to protect efficiently against a recurrence of disease, Rhodesian stock-farming must remain risky. The process of clearing off the sick cattle, disinfecting the pasturage they occupied, and fencing the country will be a costly one, whether undertaken in its entirety by the Chartered Company to-day, or by a settlers' Government, responsible only to the Crown, presently; but it will have to be done, and then stock-farming will offer a magnificent opportunity to the British settler in Rhodesia. ”

“ When, from our overcrowded industrial centres, efforts are made to transfer fit persons to Canada, to Australia, to South Africa, it is fundamentally a mistake to call such movement 'emigration.' It ought to be considered not emigration—a 'going out of' the country—but rather a home-flitting to another part of the same land, where opportunities of labour are greater, the surroundings better adapted to the rearing of a healthy family, and the chance of serving the Empire a hundredfold increased. ”

“ Recent history has brought South Africa very vividly before the eyes of English people, and it might, therefore, very well seem as though, of all parts of the Empire, the sub-continent would, now that peace is re-established, be the particular spot towards which colonization should naturally flow. This supposition is the more natural in that, for political reasons, British population is peculiarly to be desired. The land settlement of South Africa may therefore be said at the present time to interest all Britons perhaps more than any other individual Imperial scheme. ”

“ Of all the Imperial problems in process of evolution—for solution cannot be named in this connection, since finality in Empire-building synchronizes with an era of deterioration—none can be reckoned of greater moment than that redistribution of population within the nation to which is given the name of settlement or colonization. ”

“ Cereal farming, though the land admits of it, would not be profitable for the settler, because the local market is too small to make it worth while, and until freight is enormously reduced, cultivation for export to the Motherland, though it may one day be profitable, could only be carried on now at a dead loss. Many critics, looking for that fine ideal—an Empire self-supporting in foodstuffs—comment adversely on present discouragement of wheat cultivation in Mashonaland where the conditions are favourable. But, after all, economic laws govern even the supply of food. ”

“ For this reason, coupled with the shortage and expense of labour—Natal Kaffirs are the most unwilling and incapable in the sub-continent—the Garden Colony does not lend itself to any extensive settlement schemes, such as could be financed and directed from England. The colonist stands to gain more in Rhodesia, for example, than in Natal, and so long as that is the case, all the chances in fruit and sugar which here offer, so to speak, from Nature itself, will not attract men who seek to do the best for themselves and their families. ”

“ But there can be no question that of all South Africa the Colony for the British settler is Rhodesia. Not only is land infinitely cheaper, but the area suitable for colonization is very considerable, and there is no Dutch element in the political sense to rub up racial sentiment.
Stock-rearing, specialized cropping, and ordinary agriculture are all feasible severally or in combination. The agricultural country within touch with the railway extends every year, so that twenty or thirty years hence every considerable area may expect to be reached. ”

“ It is worth noting, though, how extremely well one settlement in Natal turned out. Unfortunately, these immigrant farmers were not British, and foreigners can live in circumstances which do not commend themselves to English people. Economy was, however, in this case its own reward. Every penny gained in sale of produce was re-expended in the land—increasing its extent, fertilizing and renewing the soil, until many of the individual farmers started on their own, to become rich and prosperous agriculturists. ”

“ His national traditions unaltered, and his national affections unshaken, he goes forward, building his future on his past, changing the outward circumstances indeed, but only as normally happens to every man in the course of progression from the nursery, through kindergarten, school-days, and University or apprentice life, to the occupation of manhood. Migration from one part of the Empire to another should involve no greater uprooting, no further loss of English sentiment to a colonist, than the transference of residence from London to, say, the depth of a Hertfordshire village. ”

“ In certain parts of Cape Colony land may be obtained for fruit farming which ought to yield a profitable harvest for the capital expended in purchase. It must, however, be clearly premised that at the rates demanded only fruit cultivation, for which the soil is admirably suited, will pay. The uncertain returns on stock and cereal farming, the droughts and animal pests, make the price of these areas, not being the best land for such purposes, undesirable for ordinary crops or stock. ”

“ The children of these German settlers have risen to be among the most influential men in Natal, and they are all loyal to the British Crown. When similar settlements have been attempted by English farmers they have usually proved abortive, because men have drifted away into town and commercial life, where money may, with luck, be more quickly made.
Individual settlers selecting Natal for their South African venture would be well advised to take up sugar cultivation, should their farm be within the sugar zone; while fruit farming is of excellent promise in almost every part. ”

“ The best pastoral, like the best arable, land is already gone; but there are good areas capable of supporting all kinds of stock, including horses, and the cattle diseases, so prevalent in South Africa, are under better control than in any of the other four colonies, while the Government Veterinary Department is specially well directed and fully staffed. ”

“ Three hundred pounds in the fruit district would give a skilful, hard-working fruit farmer a good start, with prospects of sound ultimate profits, and from the Imperial standpoint it would be difficult to overrate the advantages in the direction of political stability and progress which would accrue to the Colony by an increase in the English settlement of the agricultural districts, which are largely swayed by Dutch influence and tradition of a particularly retrograde and pernicious order. ”

“ The Imperial Government, anxious to rear within the Empire all its own army beasts, offers encouragement to the breeder; and if a sufficient number of horses could be certainly relied upon annually, this encouragement will very properly take more definite and satisfactory shape. There can be no question that in cavalry, artillery, and service horses generally, our Empire, with its magnificent areas for breeding, should be entirely self-supporting. ”

“ Cotton, easily cultivated, and providing by its 'residue' admirable winter forage for stock, would form a specialized crop peculiarly suitable for the pastoralist with some arable land, and the cotton planter would enjoy the further knowledge that his labour, profitable to himself and advantageous to his new Homeland, was also actively sustaining a great British industry, entailing the employment of thousands of his kith and kin in England. ”

“ The large number of native land- and stock-owning neighbours with whom a white settler in any of the best districts would find himself surrounded must be accounted a serious drawback to colonization, for Kaffir morality is not of the most dependable and altruistic description, and in a land of few fences losses may arise in such circumstances which cannot very readily find correction. ”

“ This arrangement is intrinsically wrong; it reduces all colonization schemes to the level of a gamble in land, and it defeats its own ends. If a given area be auriferous, it has manifestly a considerable value to the miner and speculator, but none to the farmer, who buys with the object of cultivating or of stock-raising, and therefore, if he knew the property to be valuable mineralogically, he would prefer another area. ”

“ Cereal farming is quite possible, and may even yield from time to time a good harvest, though the violent storms, locusts, rust, and early frosts militate against the occurrence being frequent. But the cost of bringing the produce to market is so great, that to compete with the imported article means selling at a price which leaves little margin of profit even on a good harvest. Moreover, in the cereal districts the price of land is too high. ”

“ These animals, as they trekked inland from the coast, dropped ticks along the route across which numerous other herds roamed, their owners unconscious of danger, and then in a dozen different localities wide apart the disease broke out. It is true that many districts are still clean, but the stock-farmer in an unfenced country can never be certain that his droves may not happen on a piece of tick-infected veldt, over which, perhaps, months before, a few sick cattle passed. The mischief, once compassed, is irremediable. ”

“ The absolutely best pasturage—that of the midlands—is fully occupied by the wool and mohair farmers of Dutch extraction, for the most part prosperous and successful men. Skilled sheep-farmers, accustomed to preparing wool for the market, might find an opening on the Karoo, and in time pull up the South African wool trade by grading and classifying their produce so that it reaches the London market in equally good condition with the Australian article. ”

“ To belittle the devotion of the soldier is ingratitude and inappreciation beyond contempt; to underrate the Imperial service involved in colonization indicates lack of intelligence amounting to childishness. In these days of strenuous living and severe international competition we cannot afford to remain children. ”

“ It is idle to talk of 'Mother and Daughter Lands' so long as we persist in regarding the Colonies on the same footing as the foreign countries to which alone men of our race may 'emigrate.' If it is such an alarming and melancholy thing to move from Stepney to Rhodesia, from West Ham to Manitoba, then the sooner we give the relationship its true name, and call the Colonies England's step-children, the quicker we shall arrive at actual conditions. ”

“ Apart from the price of land, the want of water is a very serious drawback to the Karoo settler—the more so that here, in common with most of the Cape Colony, large farms are essential even for small flocks, because the absence of water necessitates the provision of far more pasturage than would be required were it possible to irrigate the thirsty soil. ”

“ Tobacco, however, needs a certain amount of specialized knowledge on the part of the cultivator, both as to selection of plants, preparation of the ground, and harvesting. Above all, it is essential that the most modern and scientific methods of drying and curing the leaf be acquired by the settler who proposes to make of his industry a good thing for himself and the country. Cooperation must here, again, come into play, for the provision of necessary plant would entail very heavy outlay on the individual if he had to bear it alone. ”

“ Native occupation (outside of the assigned territories and locations) is not nearly so much in evidence as in the Garden Colony, and would not greatly interfere with new colonists, though the tendency to leave the land to Kaffirs in the eastern districts and live on the rents is a very regrettable feature in the life of many old white residents. To allow natives to farm land once in white occupation and under modern tillage is distinctly to put the clock back. ”

“ Other specialized crops, on which there is not here space to dilate, offer equally favourable returns, and there is little doubt that for the Englishman of small capital, unable to prosper in the crowded Homeland, yet properly unwilling to go out from the British family, Rhodesia offers very exceptional opportunities in these directions. ”