John Buchan - The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction

TO THE

HONOURABLE

HUGH ARCHIBALD WYNDHAM,

IN MEMORY OF

OUR AFRICAN HOUSEKEEPING.

"The greatest honour that ever belonged to the greatest
Monarkes was the inlarging their Dominions, and erecting
Commonweales."Captain JOHN SMITH.

On the last day of May 1902 the signature at Pretoria of theconditions of peace brought to an end a war which had lasted fornearly three years, and had among other things destroyed a government,dissolved a society, and laid waste a country. In those last months offighting some progress had been made with the reconstructionat leastwith that not unimportant branch of it which is concerned with themachinery of government. A working administration had been puttogether, new ordinances in the form of proclamations had been issued,departments had been created and the chief appointments made, the goldindustry was beginning to set its house in order, refugees werereturning, and already political theories were being mooted and futureparties foreshadowed. But it is from the conclusion of peace that thework of resettlement may fairly be taken to commence. Before that datethe restrictions of war limited all civil activity; not till theshackles were removed and the civil power left in sole possession doesa fair field appear either for approval or criticism.

It is not my purpose to write the history of the reconstruction. Thework is still in process, and a decade later it may be formallycompleted. Fifty years hence it may be possible to look back anddiscriminate on its success or failure. The history when it is writtenwill be an interesting book. It will among other matters deal with thework of repatriation, one of the most curious and quixotic burdensever borne by a nation, and one, I believe, to which no real parallelcan be found. It will concern itself with the slow and difficulttransference from military to civil government, the renascence of thecommon law, the first revival of trade and industry, the restitutionof prisoners, and the return of refugeesall matters of interest andnovel precedents in our history. It will recognise more clearly thanis at present possible the problems which faced South Africa at thetime, and it will be in the happy position of judging from the highstandpoint of accomplished fact. But in the meantime, when we haveseen barely eighteen months of reconstruction, history is out of thequestion. Yet even in the stress of work it is often sound policy fora man to halt for a moment and collect his thoughts. There must besome diagnosis of the problem before him, the end to which his work isdirected, the conditions under which he labours. While it is uselessto tell the story of a task before it is done, it is often politic tore-examine the difficulties and to get the mind clear as to what theobject of all this strife and expense of money and energy may be.Ideals are all very well in their way, but they are apt to becomevery dim lamps unless often replenished from the world of facts andtrimmed and adjusted by wholesome criticism.

Such a modest diagnosis is the aim of the present work. I have triedin the main to state as clearly as I could the outstanding problems ofSouth African politics as they appear to one observer. I say "in themain," because I am aware that I have been frequently led against myintention to express an opinion on more than one such problem, and inseveral cases to suggest a policy. I can only plead that it is almostimpossible to keep a statement of a case uncoloured by one's own viewof the solution, and that it is better to give frankly a judgment,however worthless, than to allow a bias to influence insensibly thepresentation of facts. For such views, which are my own, I claim novalue; for facts, in so far as they are facts, I hope I may beg somelittle attention. They are the fruit of first-hand, and, I trust,honest observation. Every statement of a case is, indeed, a personalone, representing the writer's own estimate rather than objectivetruth, but in all likelihood it is several degrees nearer the truththan the same writer's policies or prophecies. South Africa has beenin the world's eye for half a century, and in the last few years herproblems have been so complex that it has been difficult to separatethe permanent from the transitory, or to look beyond the mass of localdifficulties to the abiding needs of the sub-continent as a whole.Colonial opinion has been neglected at home; English opinion has beenmisunderstood in the colonies. It may be of interest to try toestimate her chief needs and to understand her thoughts, for it isonly thus that we can forecast that future which she and she alonemust make for herself.

Every one who approaches the consideration of the politics of acountry which is not his own, and in which he is at best a stranger,must feel a certain diffidence. On many matters it is impossible thathe should judge correctly. What seems to him a simple fact iscomplicated, it may be, by a thousand unseen local currents which noone can allow for except the old inhabitant. For this reason anoutside critic will be wrong in innumerable details, and even, it isprobable, in certain broad questions of principle. But aloofness mayhave the qualities of its defects. A critic on a neighbouring hill-topwill be a poor guide to the flora and fauna of the parish below; buthe may be a good authority on its contours, on the height of its hillsand the number of its rivers, and he may, perhaps, be a better judgeof the magnitude of a thunderstorm coming out of the west than theparishioner in his garden. The insistence of certain South Africanproblems, familiar to us all, has made any synthetic survey difficultfor the South African and impossible for the newspaper reader at home.We have forgotten that it is a country with a history, that it is aland where men can live as well as wrangle and fight, that it hassport, traditions, charm of scenery and weather; and in its politicswe are apt to see the problems under a few popular categories, ratheras a war of catchwords than the birth-pangs of a people. I haveattempted in the following pages to give this synthesis at theexpense, I am afraid, of completeness of detail. It is my hope thatsome few readers may find utility even in an imperfect general surveyas a corrective and a supplement to the many able expositions ofsingle problems.

The title begs a question which it is the aim of the later chapters toanswer. South Africa is in reality one colony, and it can only be amatter of years till this radical truth is formally recognised in afederation. But some explanation is necessary for the fact that mostof the book is occupied with a discussion of the new colonies and withproblems which, for the present, may seem to exist only for them. Atthis moment the settlement of the Transvaal and the Orange RiverColony is the most vital South African problem. On their success orfailure depends the whole future of the sub-continent. They show, notin embryo, but in the strongest light and the clearest and most matureform, every South African question. On them depends the future wealthof the country and any marked increase in its population. They will beforced by their position to be in the van of South African progress,and to give the lead in new methods of expansion and development. Weare therefore fortunate in possessing in the politics of thesecolonies an isolated and focussed observation-ground, a page where wecan read in large clear type what is elsewhere blurred and writtenover. I do not suppose that this fact would be denied by any of theneighbouring colonies; indeed the tendency in those states is tomanifest an undue interest in the affairs of the Transvaal, and to seeoften, in matters which are purely local, questions of far-reachingSouth African interest. On the ultimate dominance of the Transvaalopinion naturally differs, and indeed it is a point not worthinsisting on, save as a further argument for federation. If SouthAfrican interests are so inextricably intertwined, it is clearlydesirable to have a colony, whose future is obscure but whose wealthand power are at least potentially very great, brought formally into aunion where each colony will be one unit and no more, rather thanallow it to exist in isolation, unamenable to advice from sisterstates and wholly self-centred and unsympathetic. It is sufficientjustification for the method I have employed if it is admitted thatthe Transvaal question is the South African problem in its mostcomplete and characteristic form.