Natal Colony

“ The Natal people have the matter now entirely in their own hands; and I have so great confidence in their energy, that I feel assured that steamers will be running, before two years are over, between Natal and Aden, calling at Iniack Island (in Delagoa Bay) , the mouths of the Zambesi, Mozambique, Zanzibar, and one of the outlets for the commerce of North Eastern Africa; throwing a brilliant ray of light to illumine the darkness of East Ethiopia; an advancement in civilization which the world will owe to the energy of the young and enterprising British Colony of Natal. ”

“ There is no more right, there is no more reason, for us to be annexed to the Cape Colony to-day than there would be for Natal to be annexed to-morrow, which colony is simply nowhere in wealth and public enterprise as compared with this. ”

“ There would be no objection on the part of the Indian community to such educational qualifications being imposed or property qualifications being increased in Natal. This Colony contains an area of 276,320 square miles and a total population of about 1,800,000 persons, of whom not more than 400,000 are Europeans. The Indian population of the Colony would be roughly 10,000, consisting of traders, hawkers and labourers. ”

“ There is some rivalry with Cape Colony, owing to the latter's annexation of Griqualand East and Pondoland which Natal had hoped to acquire, and also, in some measure, to the railway competition of the richer and stronger Colony. But Natal has been allowed to absorb Zululand and Tongaland on its eastern border, and to thus reach up to Portuguese territory. The people have also led an easy and tranquil life, and are as a rule comfortably off. ”

“ Natal, like Cape Colony and the Transvaal, can no longer be called heathen Africa, as so many of the natives are civilized. The large cities of white people are built in modern style, with all the latest improvements, [146] electric lights, street cars, telephones, and the like, and since then automobiles. There are also many white farmers, as well as small towns of white people, throughout the country. Missionaries of many societies are here in this densely-populated and easily-accessible district of Natal. ”

“ The Colony of Natal which boasts of its being the most British Colony in South Africa, has acquired the power to deprive the Indian traders abruptly of the right of trading, and has attempted and threatens to exercise that power. ”

“ The future prospects of the district of Natal as a colony, depend very materially, if not exclusively, upon the filling up of the unoccupied intervals of the district with emigrants from the United Kingdom, and the efficient management and control of the native population within it. Its general capabilities, as we have already represented, are of the highest class, either for agricultural or grazing purposes. ”

“ In Natal there are half a million of natives who look to the white man as the child looks to his father, and as a matter of fair dealing, to put the matter in its mildest aspect, we must safeguard, as far as possible, the rights of the natives of Natal, as the legitimate labourers of the Colony. Then, there are Indians already in the Colony. We brought most of them here, and it is only our duty to see that they are not subjected to the disabilities and disadvantages that would follow on such an influx of their countrymen as would make it a difficult matter for them to make an honest living. ”

“ The second rank of colonists here do not seem to me to be drawn from so respectable and self-respecting a class as those I came across in New Zealand and Australia. Perhaps it is demoralizing to them to find themselves, as it were, over the black population whom they affect to despise and yet cannot do without. They do not seem to desire contact with the larger world outside, nor to receive or welcome the idea of progress which is the life-blood of a young colony. Natal resembles an overgrown child with very bad manners and a magnificent ignorance of its own shortcomings. ”

“ There was scarcely an attempt to copy the policy, deliberately adopted in Cape Colony, of educating and civilizing the black man. Neither was Natal faced with the Cape problem of a large half-caste population. The Natal natives were left very much in the state in which they were before the advent of the white men. While this opportunity of educating and training a docile people was in the main neglected, savage abuse of power by their chiefs was prevented. ”

“ The thousands of free Indians, apart from the indentured, who have developed the large estates in Natal and given them a value, and turned them from jungles into productive soil, I am sure you will not call an evil to the Colony. They have not ousted any Europeans; on the contrary, they have brought them prosperity and considerably increased the general wealth of the Colony. Will the Europeans—can they? —perform the work done by those Indians? Have not the Indians very much helped to make this the Garden Colony of South Africa? ”

“ The Colonists in Natal say that, if such disabilities can be placed on Indians in a Crown Colony, a responsibly governed Colony such as Natal should be allowed to do what it liked with regard to the Indians. Our position in Zululand is no better than in the Free State. It is so dangerous to go to Zululand that the one or two who ventured to go there had to return back. ”

“ Natal at present is under a separate Governor of its own and a separate form of government. There is not a Parliament in our sense of the word, but a Legislative Council. The Executive Officers are responsible to the Governor and not to the Council. Natal is therefore a Crown Colony, and is not yet afflicted with any danger from voting natives. I can understand that it should be brought into a Confederation with other Colonies or Territories under the same flag without any alteration in its own Constitution,—but in doing so it must consent to take a very subordinate part. ”

“ The only suggestion that I have yet seen as regards the arrangements for the future defence of the colony should it become independent, is a somewhat ominous one, namely:—that Natal should enter into a close alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. But, as the advocates of “freedom” would soon find, the Orange Free State (for even if willing to help them, the Transvaal will for some years have enough to do with its own affairs) will not come forward for nothing. ”

“ The primary disruptive force is economic. The interests, the material interests, of the population of each colony are widely different. In Cape Colony, on the whole, the farming interest predominates, though there, again, there is an internal distinction between the aims of the vine-growing and agricultural south-west and the pastoral north and east. Natal, so far as it is not a huge forwarding agency, is also based on agriculture. The Orange River Colony, though it has a respectable mining interest, is, and will doubtless remain, pre-eminently a pastoral state. ”

“ Held quarterly by the Boers, who congregate from different parts to partake of it together.
Natal.—Terra Natalis, or Christmas land, was so named by its discoverer, Vasco da Gama, on the 25th of December 1497. Population 900,000, a tenth of whom are whites. Natal became a British Colony in 1843, and in 1856 was made independent of Cape Colony. The total area of New Natal is 35,000 square miles. Pietermaritzburg is the capital, and its most flourishing seaport is Durban. ”

“ But we all know how impossible it is that any number of whites, however small, should be ruled by any number of blacks, however great. In dealing with such a population we are bound to think of Ceylon or British Guiana, or of India,—and not of Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. At present the franchise in Natal is only given to such Natives as have lived for seven years in conformity with European laws and{262} customs,—having exempted themselves in that time from native law,—and who shall have obtained from the Governor of the Colony permission to vote on these grounds. ”

“ All that they ask, he added, in the Transvaal is for the old Indian residents to be allowed to live peaceably, as in Cape Colony for instance, without being treated like habitual criminals, and for men of education and position to be allowed to come in, so that they may have teachers, ministers of religion, and doctors for themselves and their people. In Natal they ask for the maintenance of the rights and privileges they have had for years and years. ”

“ His Majesty's Government has to formally place on record that the colonists of Natal and the Cape Colony who have been engaged in fighting and who now surrender shall, on their return, be dealt with by the Colonial Governments in accordance with the laws of the Colonies, and that all British subjects who have joined the enemy shall be liable to be tried under the law of that part of the British Empire to which they belong. ”

“ We the undersigned inhabitants of the Colony of Natal do hereby most respectfully petition the Government to adopt measures which would prevent the influx of Asiatic races into this Colony: ‘ (1) The older and richer British Colonies of Australia and New Zealand have found that this class of immigrant is detrimental to the best interests of inhabitants, and have passed laws having as their object the total exclusion of Asiatics. (2) The disproportion between white and black races is already so great in this Colony that it appears highly injudicious to further increase this disproportion. ”

“ This had been followed by an intimation from the governor of the Cape (Major-General Sir George Napier) inviting the emigrants to return to the colony, and stating that whenever he thought it desirable he should take military possession of the port. In sanctioning the occupation of the port the British government of the day had no intention of making Natal a British colony, but wished to prevent the Boers establishing an independent republic upon the coast with a harbour through which access to the interior could be gained. ”

“ But it does not, therefore, at all follow that the European criminals, desperadoes and prostitutes, of whom Johannesburg may be said to have a fair number, could not go to Natal. Not only was the Colony open to them, but special arrangements were made for their reception—relief committees were formed, and everything that could be done to make them comfortable in their distress was naturally and justly done by the people of this Colony.
The Indians alone could not and must not come. They appealed to the Government with a view to obtain some relief. ”

“ I have described the franchise of the Cape Colony. I am well aware that Confederation would not compel one State to adopt the same franchise as another. But Natal will never willingly put herself into the same boat with a Colony in which the negro vote may in a few years become predominant over the white. In Natal there are 320,000 coloured people to 20,000 white. She might still exclude the coloured man from her own hustings as she does now ”

“ The Indians in virtue of the Immigration Law cannot enter Natal, except a few who are able to read and write English, though they may go to the Transvaal without any hindrance. The hawkers may not get licences to hawk in Natal, though they can get them as of right in the Transvaal. Under such circumstances, your Petitioners venture to trust that, if nothing else is done, Indian immigration to Natal would be stopped, and a great anomaly, i.e., the fact that Natal gets all the advantage of the presence of the Indian in the Colony while she would give none, removed. ”

“ Meanwhile what of the South African Colonies? Seldom in history has there been such a spontaneous response to the call to arms as in Natal and Cape Colony; never has there been a more fervent belief in the righteousness of their cause than amongst the first and greatest sufferers from the inevitable agonies of war. The fleeing Uitlanders, almost to a man, volunteered; and by the middle of January little Natal, with its English population of about 40,000, had the following list of troops in active service:
Natal Naval Volunteers . ”

“ Besides Durban and Maritzburg only three other places in Natal — Verulam, Ladysmith, and Newcastle — were of sufficient importance in 1886 to constitute themselves municipal towns. Admi nistration. — Finance. Natal has not yet risen to the dignity of an autonomous colony enjoying self- government, naming its own ministers and providing for its own defence. It is etill a " crown colony," directly dependent on the British Government, although already possessing a certain degree of independence. ”

“ The population is homogeneous as respects material interests, for it is wholly agricultural and pastoral, except a few merchants and artisans in the seaports, and a few miners at Kimberley and in Namaqualand. Four-fifths of it are practically rural, for the interests of the small towns are identical with those of the surrounding country.
The population is not only rural, but scattered more thinly over a vast area than in any other British Colony, except north-western Canada, and parts of Australasia. In Natal there are only two white men to the square mile, and in Cape Colony less than two. ”

“ The intending emigrant from Europe does not, it is true, understand the ins and outs of the Natal native question, but he does now that it is a place where there are wars and rumours of wars, and where he might possibly be killed, and the result is that he wisely goes to some other colony, that has equal advantages to offer and no Kafirs. ”