South Africa

“ The history of South Africa is, almost entirely, that of its colonization by European races, of their conflicts with, and influence over, its native inhabitants, and of the struggle for supremacy between the British and Dutch settlers. The little that is known concerning the doings of the natives before the appearance of the white man belongs to the domain of ethnology rather than of history. When the Portuguese first reached the southern part of Africa there was but one place in it where a civilized race held sway. ”

“ Though divided into two British Colonies, with several other pieces of British territory, and two Boer Republics, the habitable parts of South Africa form one community, all the parts of which must stand or fall together. The great plateau is crossed by no lines of physical demarcation all the way from the Zambesi to the Hex River (some fifty miles north-east of Cape Town) , and the coast regions are closely bound by economic ties to the plateau, which through them touches the outer world. Popular speech which talks of South Africa as one whole is scientifically right. ”

“ Soberly and solemnly men of all parties and of both races in South Africa are joining together to revive and to develop the prosperity of their own country. Grave difficulties, many dangers, long exertions lie before them; but the star of South Africa is already in the ascendant, and I look confidently forward to the time when it will take its place, united, federated, free, beside Canada and Australia, in the shining constellation of the British Empire. ”

“ Is it desirable that the Empire should be able to produce its own equipment within its own limits? South Africa offers a great mineral and agricultural and pastoral country, richer in metals than Australia, more favoured in climate than Canada. Is the command of the sea important, and the possession of harbours and dockyards in all parts of the world? South Africa holds the key of the Southern Ocean, and forms, after Egypt, the second line of communication with India and the East. ”

“ Herman Nel’s words leapt suddenly to his mind: “A country belongs to the people who live in it.” South Africa belonged to the South African. The British Empire could not, did not desire to, dispute that.
She turned aside and went to the window and stood there, her air a little drooping as though she were weary, her eyes travelling listlessly across the shining wonder of dew-drenched sunlit veld. ”

“ Now that we have our railway up to Kimberley, we have the British South African Company to take it in hand, and the object of the Government is to see that we have an extension line into these territories which will, in time to come, be recognised as portions of the Cape Colony. Gentlemen, I and my colleagues have come to the conclusion, that we cannot better advance the best interests of South Africa than by joining hand-in-hand to advance British interests westward of the Transvaal State, and right up to the Zambesi. ”

“ We may look for remarkable development in South Africa, whose promise is larger than that of any other part of the continent. Whatever may be said of some of the methods by which the British have enlarged their empire, their rule has blessed the barbarous peoples whose countries they have absorbed. The task of improving the few millions of blacks in South Africa, and of developing the large and in some respects wonderful resources of that region, will be greatly assisted by the incoming of hundreds of thousands of Europeans, bringing with them the arts and other blessings of civilization. ”

“ What a happy land in which to live South Africa would be if, instead of the present god of colour prejudice, we had some such confidence as is reposed in the blacks by the British authorities in East Africa and elsewhere. ”

“ To the English race in South Africa the acquisition of these regions, or at least of the parts south of the Zambesi, has been an immense political and economic advantage. It has established their predominance and provided a security against any serious attempt to dislodge them. A philosophic observer without predilections for any one state or people would, it is conceived, hold that the English race is more likely to serve what are termed the interests of civilization in this part of Africa than is any other race. The Portuguese have neither energy nor capital. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the last event, our hold on that continent in general and South Africa in particular depends upon character, especially the character of our ruling classes. The possibilities of this country in Africa are magnificent; but the problems to be solved, if these possibilities are to be realised, must appal and finally overcome all but the stoutest of heart. The world, and South Africa with it, will fall to the nation which breeds and sustains the best men. ”

“ The Germans, with energy and with capital, have not the requisite practice in independent colonization, nor perhaps the taste for it. The South African Dutch Boers, who have within the last seventeen years been more than once on the point of occupying the country, are, with all their good qualities, a backward people, who, had they prevailed, would have done little more than squat here and there over the country with their cattle, and carry on an incessant desultory war with the natives. ”

“ Though I must admit that South Africa, taken as a whole, offers far less to attract the lover of natural beauty than does Southern or Western Europe or the Pacific States of North America, there are two kinds of charm which it possesses in a high degree. One is that of colour. Monotonous as the landscapes often are, there is a warmth and richness of tone about them which fills and delights the eye. ”

“ If we wanted to maintain our rule in South Africa the Boers were the safest men with whom to be on good terms. What were the Boers ready to do? As he read the correspondence, they were ready to enter the area of the British Empire, but only upon terms. Surely our problem was to find terms honourable to us and to them, which would lead to South Africa becoming one of those great commonwealths connected with the Empire such as existed in Australia and Canada. He suggested that, in the first place, we should offer a full and absolute amnesty. ”

“ To those who have resided in South Africa during the last twenty years these names will recall many an anxious time to colonists, brought about, in my humble opinion, not by the desire of the colonists to do anything which was not legal and right—but in the first place by a want of tact in dealing with natives, and in the second from an uncontrollable infatuation seizing hold of one, spreading like an epidemic to all. ”

“ Variety of form, boldness of outline, the presence of water in lakes and running streams, and, above all, foliage and verdure, are the main elements of beauty in those landscapes; while if any one desires something of more imposing grandeur, he finds it in snow-capped mountains like the Alps or the Cascade Range, or in majestic crags such as those which tower over the fiords of Norway. But the scenery of South Africa is wholly unlike that of Europe or of most parts of America. ”

“ I am convinced that the majority of South Africans are anxious to see a ‘United South Africa,’ and I believe they will see it before long. I cannot, of course, speak for the Dutch; but I am sure that every ‘Britisher’ in Natal and in Rhodesia, and nine out of every ten ‘Britishers’ in the rest of South Africa, are in favour of federation. The great problems of South African development can only be completely solved by a central authority. ”

“ It is, of course, true that, roughly speaking, the general features of South African colonization resemble each other in all the five States of which that area is composed, but it is none the less a fact that, when it comes to practice, each Colony must be taken separately. ”

“ The South African Federation.In the end we won, and peace was signed in 1902; a ‘Federation’ of all the South African colonies with a central Parliament at Capetown has recently been concluded, and the hatred between British and Dutch is now almost a thing of the past. South Africa owes its recent prosperity more to the discovery of great gold and diamond mines than to agriculture; but almost anything can be grown there. ”

“ Our plan is, with God's help, to take all that is English in South Africa; so, in case you true Afrikanders wish to throw off the English yoke, now is the time to hoist the Vier-kleur in Capetown. You can rely on us; we will push through from sea to sea, and wave one flag over the whole of South Africa, under one Afrikander Government, if we can reckon on our Afrikander brethren. ”

“ It is no less true of South Africa than it is of the old countries of Europe that to understand the temper of the people, the working of their government, the nature of the political problems which they have to solve, one must know something of their history. ”

“ The Union of South Africa comprises the British provinces of Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State. This Union has two capitals. One is Cape Town, the chief port of South Africa, where the parliament meets, and the other is Pretoria, where the governor general resides.
The British also own Rhodesia and other regions in South Africa.
Sheep-raising is the chief occupation, and wool is exported. Diamonds and gold are found. Ostriches are raised.
6. The eastern coast is unhealthful like the western. Rubber, ivory, hides, copra, wax, and cloves are the chief exports. ”

“ The absence of continuous, wise, and statesmanlike policy, which has for the most part marked the tone of those, who have had the Imperial guidance and control of South African affairs in the past, has had the effect of sowing the seeds of enmity to the Government of the Mother Country, which it will require all the wisdom, and tact, and conciliatory sympathy possible to be displayed in the future, in dealing with this magnificent part of the Empire, to allay. It will demand the greatest skill to prevent the permanent alienation, andPg 130 estrangement of South Africa from Great Britain. ”

“ South Africa belongs to this third class of cases. The Dutch and the English find the country a good one and become fond of it. There is plenty of land for them. They enjoy the climate. They thrive and multiply. But they do not oust the natives, except sometimes from the best lands, and the contact does not reduce the number of the latter. ”

“ From the time when the settlers began to spread out from the coast into the dry lands of the interior a great change came upon them, and what we now call the distinctive South African type of character and habits began to appear. The first immigrants were not, like some of the English settlers in Virginia, men of good social position in their own country, attached to it by many ties, nor, like the English settlers in the New England colonies, men of good education and serious temper, seeking the freedom to worship God in their own way. ”

“ The note of South African life, the thing that strikes the traveller with increasing force as he visits one part of the country after another, is the paucity of inhabitants, and the isolated life which these inhabitants, except in six or seven towns, are forced to lead. ”

“ British agricultural settlers for the political, irrigation for the physical regeneration of South Africa—this was the essence of these two Reports.
"We desire to express our firm conviction," wrote the Land Settlement Commissioners, [303] "that a well-considered scheme of settlement in South Africa by men of British origin is of the most vital importance to the future prosperity of British South (p. 517) Africa. ”

“ Altogether apart from its recent troubles, South Africa is an interesting, and indeed fascinating subject of study. There are, of course, some things which one cannot expect to find in it. There has not yet been time to evolve institutions either novel or specially instructive, nor to produce new types of character (save that of the Transvaal Boer) or new forms of social life. There are no ancient buildings, except a few prehistoric ruins ”

“ A day will come when nothing will be left to tell the traveller of the industry which drew hundreds of thousands of men to a barren ridge, except the heaps of refuse whose ugliness few shrubs will, in that dry land, spring up to cover. But South Africa will still be a pastoral and agricultural country, and none the less happy because the gold is gone. ”

“ Although the facts we have been considering suggest the view that the white population of South Africa will be very small when compared with that of the North American or Australasian Colonies, they also suggest that the whites will in South Africa hold the position of an aristocracy, and may draw from that position some of the advantages which belong to those who are occupied only on the higher kinds of work, and have fuller opportunities for intellectual cultivation than the mass of manual labourers enjoy. ”