President of South Africa

“ A flourishing South Africa involved in the rest of the world is in our interest.
President Mandela was right the other day when he called the transformation of his country an achievement of all humanity. The kind of peaceful development we're seeing in South Africa will inspire progress all around the world. Now South Africa is a model for building the open, tolerant societies that share our values. ”

“ In the history of South Africa the figure of the grim old President will loom large and striking—picturesque, as the figure of one who by his character and will made and held his people; magnificent, as one who in the face of the blackest fortune never wavered from his aim or faltered in his effort ”

“ In the two decades since the release of Madiba, our country has changed fundamentally. President Mandela united this country behind the goal of a non-sexist, non-racial, democratic and prosperous South Africa. As we celebrate Madiba’s release today, let us recommit ourselves to building a better future for all South Africans, black and white. Let us pursue the ideal for which Madiba has fought his entire life – the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. ”

“ Even President Brand, of the Orange Free State, referring to Lord Carnarvon's pet idea of a federated South Africa, said: "His great scheme is a united South Africa under the British Flag. He dreams of it and so do I; but under the flag of South Africa." Much in the same strain President Burgers, of the Transvaal Republic, when addressing a meeting of his countrymen in Holland, said: "In that far-off country the inhabitants dream of a future in which the people of Holland will recover their former greatness." ”

“ Try and persuade President Krüger to confer a benefit on the whole of South Africa by granting a broad measure of reform, and you will have done the best day's work any statesman ever did in South Africa. ”

“ Shortly after the proclamations were read, most of the officials assembled in the Volksraadszaal, where his Honor the President addressed them, in a state of great emotion, very nearly in the following words:
“Gentlemen, officials of the South African Republic: You are no strangers in the land. You also know what the government has 527resolved to do. We bow only to the superior power. We submit because we cannot successfully draw the sword against that superior power, because by doing so we would only plunge the country into deeper miseries and disasters. ”

“ If he could be the successor of his friend, Sir John Brand, it would be a happy arrangement for South Africa. The president's death at the present moment seems to be an almost irreparable misfortune; but there are not wanting men devoted to the British empire, who in the past worked with him, and who are ready to persevere in working for the principle which he laid down in a letter to the administrator of the Cape on the eve of the disasters of 1881, "To promote good-will and the cordial co-operation of all parts of South Africa for the general welfare." ”

“ Sir Theophilus Shepstone was sent by the English government to report on the condition of affairs in the Transvaal. He came to the conclusion that the continued existence of the republic was dangerous to the welfare of ‘her majesty's subjects and possessions in South Africa,’ and in virtue of the power given to him formally annexed the state in April 1877. No resistance to this measure was made by the Boers. The president, Mr. Burgers, ordered the people to be loyal to their new ruler, and directed the state secretary to hand over the keys of the government offices to Sir Theophilus Shepstone. ”

“ The president of the South African Republic, with all his uncouthness, is an extremely astute person, and the line taken by the Boer deputies at Pretoria has probably been forced upon him. It cannot he doubted that the death of President Brand will strengthen the hands of the retrograde party in the Transvaal, who will now look for support to the section in the Free State which was kept in order by his personal influence. The Dutch farmers in South Africa, especially those who live far from the coast, are as a body opposed to railways. ”

“ I should like to have said a word about the dynamite monopoly, but I fear I have already exhausted your patience. My sole object in writing is to preserve the peace of South Africa. There are, of course, many unreasonable demands; but the President's position will be strengthened, and, at all events, his conscience will be clear in case of war, if he has done everything that can reasonably be expected from him. I feel sure that, having used your influence to bring him and Sir Alfred together, you will also do your best to make your efforts in favour of peace successful. ”

“ Though there are few constitutions anywhere which give such unlimited power to the Legislature, the course of events—oft-recurring troubles of all sorts, native wars, internal dissensions, financial pressure, questions with the British Government—have made the President practically more important than the Legislature, and, in fact, the main force in the Republic. The Executive Council has exerted little power and commanded little deference, while the Volksraad has usually been guided by the President and has never taken the direction of affairs out of his hands. ”

“ It’s also fitting because South Africa’s struggle for freedom, and the courage and sacrifices of those who led it, continues to inspire people around the world. We know that in your nation, like ours, the long walk to freedom is unfinished. ”

“ But if, on the other hand, as we hope and profoundly believe, better days are in store for South Africa, if the words of President Brand, "All shall come right," are at length to be fulfilled, and if the near future should unfold to our eves a tranquil, prosperous, [66] consolidated Afrikander nation under the protecting ægis of the British Crown, then, the good also will not be confined to South Africa; then the cause of the poor and the weak all over the world will have been sustained ”

“ Finally, it’s fitting to set out our strategy here in South Africa because there is such a deep bond between our nations and people, and all we have in common as vibrant democracies whose diversity remains our greatest strength. ”

“ If South Africa is to stay in the Empire it will have to be because the Empire will be made such that neither South Africa nor any other of the dominions would wish to leave it. For this, much has already been done. The liberation of the Transvaal and Orange River from the thraldom of their Crown Colony Government, and the frank acceptance of the Union Constitution by the British Government are the first steps in this direction. Meantime that future of South Africa, as of all the Empire, lies behind a veil. ”

“ Let us stand manfully by one another. The danger has not yet disappeared; on the contrary, never has the necessity for a policy of a Colonial and Republican Union been greater; now the psychological moment has arrived; now our people have awakened all over South Africa; a new glow illuminates our hearts; let us now lay the foundation stone of a real United South Africa on the soil of a pure and all-comprehensive national sentiment. ”

“ The reader may suppose that if all these grounds of controversy, familiar to Europe, and some of them now unhappily familiar to the new democracies also, are absent, South Africa enjoys the political tranquillity of a country where there are no factions, and the only question is how to find the men best able to promote that economic development which all unite in desiring. ”

“ Unlike Sir Benjamin D'Urban, Sir Peregrine Maitland, Sir Harry Smith, Sir George Grey and Sir Bartle Frere, he has had the rich and rare privilege in South Africa of being endorsed and supported through all the tangled threads of a complicated situation by the Colonial Office, the Imperial Government, the British Parliament, and, eventually, the people of the Empire. Of this he will always have reason to be proud, whatever may be the arduous labors and responsibilities and perhaps changes of the hidden future. ”

“ The hour has struck which will decide whether South Africa, in jealously guarding its liberty, will enter upon a new phase of its history, or whether our existence as a people will come to an end, whether we shall be exterminated in the deadly struggle for that liberty which we have prized above all earthly treasures, and whether South Africa will be dominated by capitalists without conscience, acting in the name and under the protection of an unjust and hated Government 7,000 miles away from here. ”

“ The backveld Boers are learning to think for themselves, and to admit that, after all, it is no very desperate fate to live under a Government which respects their worldly goods, their language, and their religion, and has done a vast deal more for them besides than they ever really expected. Further than this it is impossible to go. But at least there is nothing to dissipate the hope that the two races, living for the first time on terms of perfect equality, will eventually join hands in a strong sentiment of affection and pride for South Africa. ”

“ But it has only come because British statesmen showed, firstly, in the war, their inflexible resolution to stamp out the policy of separation, and secondly, after the war, their devotion to the real welfare of South Africa in a policy of economic reconstruction, and in the establishment of those free and equal British institutions under which—by the final dying out of a spurious nationalism based on racial prejudice and garbled history—South Africa may become a real, living nation. ”

“ The tide of confederation, and corporate union is manifestly rising, the wave of extended British influence is flowing northwards, the various nationalities and states of this vast country are educating themselves by experience to see the folly and sterile weakness of isolation, and are learning to realise the inherent strength, and vitality of mutual co-operation, based on a self respecting, yet unselfish responsibility to South Africa as a whole. ”

“ The love of local independence is strong in South Africa, but might be deferred to and appeased, as is being done in Australia, by appropriate constitutional provisions. So far, no fatal obstacle stands in the way; but a difficulty has been thought to arise from the fact that whereas Cape Colony, Natal, and the other British territories are part of the dominions of the British Crown, the Orange Free State is an independent Republic, and the Transvaal may be so when federation becomes a practical issue. ”

“ The constitution creates for South Africa a union entirely different from that of the provinces of Canada or the States of the American Republic. The government is not federal, but unitary. The provinces become areas of local governments, with local elected councils to administer them, but the South-African Parliament reigns supreme. It is to know nothing of the nice division of jurisdiction set up by the American constitution and by the British North America Act. ”

“ The practical results of American influence in South Africa may now be observed only in the increasing exports to that country, but perhaps in another generation a greater and better demonstration will be found in a constitution which unites all the South African states under one independent government. ”

“ He seemed to see in imagination the future he was describing.
‘You have made out a very good case for your people as a nation, Steve, but what will you do with all the Englishmen in South Africa if it should become an Afrikander republic, as you seem to wish and hope? Will you drive them out of the country, or will you let them live an Uitlander race for ever here, as this Government is doing now? Will you exclude them from your future great South African nation?’
‘Decidedly not. We should be only too pleased to have them unite with us. ”

“ This week all of us watched with wonder as South Africa was reborn. Young men carried their elderly fathers on their backs to the polling booths; black voters came on crutches and in wheelchairs, traveling for miles and waiting for hours in this great march to freedom. The miracle of South Africa's rebirth as a nonracial democracy is an inspiring testament to the courage and vision of its citizens. ”

“ What, then, is the position of affairs in South Africa at the present moment, and what the prospects of the future? All is dark indeed. To be an Englishman, to have been loyal, to have believed in the word of the British Government—these are deep misfortunes to any man. ”

“ The spirit of nationalism is there, it is true. Unfortunately, it has been regarded as the monopoly till now of one particular section of the population, and that the section which is least of all concerned to construct out of local patriotism a coherent British Empire. 'A national party,' 'the national language,' 'education on national lines'—these phrases, harmless enough in themselves, have a special and sinister significance in South Africa. They are the chosen watchwords of a creed in which the Imperial connection has no place. ”

“ The politicians and the speculators have been the bane of South Africa. Ill-informed secretaries of the British Colonial Office might augment the list, but their stupidity in treating with colonial grievances is so proverbial as to admit them to the rank of natural or providential causes of dissension. Until the Boer Government came into the foreground, the politicians and speculators used South Africa as a huge chessboard, whereon they could manipulate the political and commercial affairs of hundreds of thousands of persons to suit their own fancies and convenience. ”