MEMORANDA AND LETTERS 
 
 WRITTEN AT VARIOUS TIMES BY 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. SIR BARTLE FRERE. 
 
 Printed for Private Circulation only. 
 
MEMORANDUM ON THE BLOEMHOF AND CHRIS¬ 
 TIANA DISTRICTS, AND KEATE AWARD, 
 TRANSVAAL AND GRIQUALAND WEST. 
 
 ( Written in September, 1879.) 
 
 The following remarks relate to the territory between the Vaal 
 and the Hart Rivers, west of the Makwasi Spruit, and north of 
 Griqualand Westboundary. The greater part of the territory 
 is known as the “ Keate Award,” or Christiana District of the 
 Transvaal. 
 
 When I visited Pretoria my attention was particularly 
 directed by Mr. Justice Kotze to the legal question of juris¬ 
 diction over that territory. 
 
 The position of this question will be best understood by a 
 brief sketch of the history of the territory. Little certain is 
 known about it till less than fifty years ago. Previous to that 
 time it is said to have had no inhabitants, save a few wander¬ 
 ing Bushmen. When Moselikatze destroyed or absorbed the 
 tribes in the northern side of the Vaal Basin, many Korannas 
 and other broken clans fled to this district, but kept chiefly to 
 good hiding-ground on the river borders, and appear to have 
 seldom shown themselves on the open country between the 
 rivers which was one of Moselikatze’s chief hunting-grounds up 
 to the time about 1836-7, when Captain (afterwards Sir 
 William) Harris, visited him north of the Vaal. 
 
 When the Voortrekker Boers came, they appear to have 
 found few fixed inhabitants, and the country being good for 
 sheep and cattle, many of the Boers settled there, and seem 
 to have made the first titles to their lands by occupation, and 
 building farmhouses. Title-deeds were subsequently given out 
 in the usual rough manner, after the Boer republics were esta¬ 
 blished, and a Landdrost was appointed first at Bloemhof, but 
 the office was subsequently transferred to Christiana, so named 
 after the daughter of Mr. Pretorius, the then President. 
 
 As the country became settled, population increased, and 
 the land became valuable, disputes arose between the Boers and 
 native headmen ; the cause of the former was taken up by the 
 
Transvaal Republic, that of the latter by the Government of 
 Griqnaland West. 
 
 Commissioners were appointed by each Government to 
 define the boundary between the Transvaal in this direction 
 and the independent native tribes. Each Commissioner 
 reported in favour of the view taken by liis own Government. 
 The question w 7 as by consent .referred for arbitration to Mr. 
 Keate, then Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, who decided in 
 favour of the line traced by the English Commissioner, and so 
 gave all the territory to the native tribes. 
 
 Mr. Keate’s decision is a simple verdict, giving no reasons, 
 and delivered in Natal, 400 miles from the district, of which 
 he knew nothing personally, and whence he could have had no 
 evidence but what the two Commissioners laid before him. It 
 is not therefore the sort of decision which could be expected 
 to terminate disputes in a district where there could be no 
 naturally valid legal or diplomatic title, save occupation and 
 use for about half a generation, succeeding ages of unmitigated 
 law of the strongest. It attempted no adjustment of coniiict- 
 ing private claims. It simply determined national sovereignty, 
 and as such it was sufficient, and legally binding on the 
 Transvaal Government. 
 
 But it did not satisfy the Transvaal people, who were in¬ 
 terested in the territory being assigned to the Transvaal, and 
 they had sufficient influence in the Transvaal Volksraad to 
 overbear and defy the authority of the President Mr. M. Pre- 
 torius, and to repudiate his acts. This led, I believe, not 
 remotely, to his resignation. Had the state of the Transvaal 
 not been at the time so unsettled, the consequences as between 
 the British Government and the Transvaal Republic might 
 have been much more serious. As it was, the Transvaal func¬ 
 tionaries were never withdrawn from the territory, and they 
 are there still,* exercising the only visible ruling authority 
 under orders from the Transvaal Government. 
 
 Colonel Lanyon and Mr. Justice Kotze represented to me 
 that it was absolutely necessary for the due administration 
 of justice in the Keate Award to have legal authority for 
 any exercise of the jurisdiction of the High Court of the 
 Transvaal. 
 
 There can be no legal doubt of the right of the British Go¬ 
 vernment to legislate for the district, whether as protector of 
 the native tribes (the capacity in which the Keate Award was 
 made, and would have been enforced by the Griqnaland West 
 Government, had the Transvaal Republic continued to exist), 
 or as successor to, and representative of, the late Republic 
 
 * September, 1879. 
 
3 
 
 (the other claimant of the territory). The right of the British 
 Crown to legislate seems unquestionable. 
 
 But Mr. justice Kotze represented that the authority of his 
 Court, however valid within the boundaries of Transvaal 
 proper, is liable to be questioned in the Christiana district, or 
 anywhere outside the limits fixed for the Transvaal by the 
 Iveate Award. He expressed himself as quite satisfied if juris¬ 
 diction were given to his Court by a proclamation of the High 
 Commissioner declaring the district to be annexed to, and to 
 be a part of, the Transvaal. 
 
 Before issuing such a proclamation, however, Mr. Justice 
 Kotze and Colonel Lanyon agreed with me that we should 
 hear what could be said on the other side by those interested 
 in the enforcement of the Keate Award, viz. the Government 
 of Griqualand West, representing the British Government 
 as protectors of the native tribes, Korannas and others, who 
 dispute the ownership of the land with the Transvaal Boers. 
 
 AVe therefore decided to suspend action till Colonel Lanyon 
 and I had traversed the district on our way to Kimberley, till 
 we had met Colonel Warren, the present acting Administrator, 
 and seen and heard on the spot the parties on both sides. The 
 complete execution of this plan was interrupted by Colonel 
 Lanyon being obliged to turn back from Potchefstroom, in 
 order to meet Lord Chelmsford at Utrecht. But in company 
 with Colonel Warren I saw most of the leading men interested, 
 natives as well as Europeans, and had ample opportunity of 
 forming a better opinion than could be formed from the mere 
 perusal of documents on record 
 
 Colonel Warren had, previous to his appointment to act for 
 Colonel Lanyon as Administrator at Kimberley, been charged 
 to inquire and report on the land question in the Keate 
 Award in the same manner as he had done in Griqualand 
 West, with a view to a settlement of individual titles to the 
 land. His appointment as Administrator had interrupted this 
 work, but he had made a good commencement, and I saw at 
 Christiana his assistant, Mr. Eaton, and examined his records 
 sufficiently to satisfy myself that the necessary preliminary 
 inquiries were proceeding in a.very thorough manner 
 
 Had Colonel Warren been able to finish this work the 
 result would have afforded an ample basis for deciding as to 
 the future management of this territory. On his satisfying 
 me that it is impossible for him to continue the work in con¬ 
 junction with his current duties as Administrator of Griqualand 
 West, I applied to the Commander of the Forces for the 
 services of Major Moysey, R.E., and have reason to hope we 
 may obtain them. 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 All progress in this direction lias been for the time sus¬ 
 pended in consequence of the change made in the government 
 of the Transvaal by Sir Garnet Wolseley’s appointment. In 
 the hope that his Excellency will soon be able to give his 
 attention to the subject, and that I may aid him in disposing 
 of it satisfactorily, I have given the above details more at 
 length than might otherwise be necessary, and I will now 
 describe the manner in which I intended to deal with the 
 question, had it]been left in my hands. Nothing, I think, can 
 be finally decided as to property in the land, or jurisdiction of 
 Civil and Criminal Courts, till such an inquiry and settle¬ 
 ment as Colonel Warren made in Griqualand West has been 
 made, reported to and confirmed by Her Majesty’s Govern¬ 
 ment. This, therefore, should be pressed on as quickly as is 
 consistent with accuracy and completeness. In the meantime 
 we must make the best temporary arrangements we can. 
 
 The most pressing question is the criminal jurisdiction. If 
 a murder is committed, where shall it be tried ? and by what 
 court ? 
 
 This question has already been raised, and may be again 
 raised any day. 
 
 The question where shall civil suits be decided is hardly less 
 pressing. 
 
 But until some settlement can be made which shall give a 
 sort of “ Parliamentary title ” to land, questions regarding 
 land cannot be safely left to a Civil Court, guided by the 
 ordinary rules of regular tribunals under either English or 
 IJutch-Boman law. 
 
 The materials for the decision of such a court cannot exist 
 where there were hardly any human beings save wandering 
 Bushmen within living memory, and where history goes no 
 further back than the memory of the oldest inhabitant. 
 
 As regards the wishes of the present inhabitants, I received 
 urgent and well-drawn-up memorials, as well as verbal repre¬ 
 sentations innumerable, from both European and native 
 inhabitants, some representing that, by right and usage, as 
 well as by inclination, they belong to the Transvaal, and 
 begging that they might be allowed so to remain; others that 
 on similar grounds the Iveate Award should be carried out, 
 and that they should be placed under Griqualand West. I 
 ' soon found that personal predilection for this or that official 
 was generally at the bottom of the wishes thus expressed. 
 
 The native requests generally pointed to Griqualand West 
 as the government most likely to do them justice, and to 
 which therefore they desired to be annexed. 
 
 Probably, if assured that equal justice would be done them 
 
5 
 
 by either government, and no favour shown to white or black, 
 the inclination of the people would point to whichever of the 
 two markets, Kimberley or Potchefstroom, was the more con¬ 
 venient for them, and the district would be divided by a north 
 and south line somewhere near Bloemhof, the east portion 
 going to the Transvaal, the west to Griqualand West. 
 
 To ascertain the wishes of the people in this respect by open 
 discussion and direct voting would not be possible with any 
 useful result till the questions affecting land titles have been 
 finally decided. 
 
 It must not then be forgotten how strong a feeling exists 
 among the Transvaal Boers that, as the integrity of the 
 Transvaal was promised to them in the Annexation Proclama¬ 
 tion, the transfer of any portion of the district of Griqualand 
 West would be a violation of such promise. 
 
 This view was very strongly stated to me by a leading 
 member of the Boer’s Committee, who said, half in joke, but 
 with some emphasis, “ if you make over a single farm in the 
 Christiana District to Griqualand West we shall all be ready 
 to shoot.” He did not, however, meet the argument that if 
 the Keate Award was to be upheld, the district formed no 
 legal part of the Transvaal Territory, nor my assurance that 
 many Boers to the southward had begged to be transferred to 
 Kimberley on the ground that, now all were under the same 
 British Government, Kimberley was a more convenient centre 
 for them than either Pretoria or Potchefstroom. I proposed to 
 meet all present difficulties by the following arrangements. 
 
 That a Proclamation be issued by both Governments, Trans- 
 
 3t, and confirmed on all requisite 
 Majesty in Council to the following 
 
 That the territory, which was the subject of the Keate 
 Award, and all included between the Yaal and Hart Rivers to 
 the south-east and north-west, the Griqualand West boundary 
 to the south-west, and the Makwasi Spruit to the north-east, 
 is and remains British territory, and all the inhabitants are 
 under British protection. 
 
 That the affairs of the territory shall be administered by a 
 Special Commission of British officers under Her Majesty’s 
 authority, as represented by the High Commissioner (the 
 Governor of the Transvaal or of the Cape Colony, as may be 
 determined). 
 
 That Major Moysey, R.E., be appointed to take charge of 
 the duties lately entrusted to Colonel Warren, R.E., C.M.G., 
 as Settlement Officer, to inquire and report on the possession 
 and title to lands in the said territory as Special Commissioner 
 
 vaal and Griqualand We 
 points by an Order of Her 
 effect:— 
 
fi 
 
 for land settlements under the Government of Griqualand 
 West. 
 
 That whilst so employed he is vested with the powers of a 
 Civil Commissioner, and Resident Magistrate and Justice of 
 the Peace in Griqualand West, of a Field Commandant, and 
 a Landdrost in the Transvaal (for all which offices separate 
 warrants should be given him from both Administrations), and 
 is placed in charge of all police and magisterial duties within 
 the said territory of the Keate Award. The Landdrost of 
 Christiana, Field-Cornets, and all other Government officials 
 in the said territory being subject to his authority, and acting 
 under his orders in the same manner as if he were Administrator 
 of the province to which the territory was annexed. 
 
 That in case of any offender being brought before him and 
 charged with any offence requiring in his judgment a heavier 
 punishment than he as magistrate was authorized to inflict, 
 he should be empowered to commit the prisoner for trial before 
 either the Transvaal or Griqualand West High Court, as 
 might be most convenient for witnesses, &c., and that those 
 Courts should be authorized to deal with the case as if it had 
 occurred within the boundaries of their own colony or territory. 
 
 That all moneys paid to the State under existing laws in the 
 Transvaal should be received till further orders of Her 
 Majesty’s Government, on account of the Transvaal, and after 
 defraying the current charges of the district, including the 
 expenses of the Settlement Commissioner’s salary, the balance 
 should be accounted for to the Transvaal Government, on 
 whose treasury the Settlement Commissioner should draw for 
 any sum required to make up his own salary and the expenses 
 of his office. That the district shall' continue to be ad¬ 
 ministered as a part of the Transvaal till the Settlement has 
 been completed; and that on its completion the Settlement 
 Officer should report on the arrangements which, with reference 
 to the convenience of the inhabitants and other circumstances, 
 he thinks best for the permanent administration of the district, 
 (I may here note that hereafter it may be found advisable to 
 combine the management of this territory of the Keate Award 
 with that of the territory west of the Hart River, which is the 
 subject of a separate correspondence, but it is well for the 
 present, to keep the two questions distinct, since, in the 
 case of the Keate Award, there is no question of sovereignty, 
 nor of the responsibility of the British Government for 
 deciding the other questions as to how and by whom the 
 British Government shall be represented in the administration 
 of the territory, and to whom the individual rights in the 
 land shall belong). 
 
7 
 
 The following is the scale of salaries which, after consulta¬ 
 tion with Colonel Warren, I think should be allowed to the 
 Special Settlement Commissioner and his establishment. 
 
 Special Commissioner, the same as drawn by Colonel Warren 
 as Settlement Officer in Griqualand West. Secretary, £450, 
 and ordinary Civil Service allowance when travelling. 
 
 Clerk, 12s. per diem ; messenger, 5s. per diem ; servant, 5s. per 
 diem; translators and interpreters when required, say, £60 per 
 mensem. Colonel Warren estimated that at these rates the 
 cost of inspection and settlement of the district would not 
 exceed about £1000, with perhaps £100 additional for office 
 expenses, printing, &c. 
 
 But whatever the costs of settlement, they may, and I 
 think they should, be assessed on the properties settled, and 
 paid for either by a lump sum on each farm or holding, or by 
 a small addition to the quitrent. The advantages of settle¬ 
 ment will be so great that there will be no difficulty as to the 
 payment of a far larger sum than the settlement is likely to 
 cost. 
 
 The Commissioner’s proceedings would be much facilitated if 
 a few good men of the sappers, accustomed to survey work, 
 could be attached to him for a few months. 
 
 In the Keate Award, as elsewhere throughout these parts, 
 the Government official is met by claims founded on grants by 
 former Governments or chiefs, often enormous in extent and 
 preposterous in terms, but formal enough in the written 
 grants on which the grantee relies. These claims involve 
 political questions of great importance, which cannot be 
 investigated or decided except on the spot. They arise from 
 the fact that as soon as land began to become valuable, and 
 some sort of government to be established in the Transvaal 
 and Orange Free State, there was, in this thinly-inhabited 
 border territory of the Keate Award, no lack of claimants, to 
 represent whichever of the adjoining powers might be most 
 convenient. I have been assured by a respected member of 
 the Griqualand West Legislature that when he first went to 
 the Diamond Fields, soon after their discovery, it was a common 
 amusement of the diggers and their friends, when they met 
 for their weekly holiday on the banks of the Yaal, to invent 
 and discuss, in a sort of extempore congress or parliament, not 
 only local rules and ordinances for the better regulation of 
 the diggings, but projects of constitutions and treaty cessions, 
 which were debated with much formality by self-constituted 
 representatives of the surrounding powers, such as the re¬ 
 publics of liustemberg, Pretoria, or Potchefstroom of the 
 Orange Free State, of various Koranna, Griqua, Batlapin and 
 Bechuana chiefs, and even of the British Government. 
 
8 
 
 At one of these meetings a serious proposition was made by 
 a Transvaal visitor, to annex the country to the Transvaal, 
 and he produced from a newspaper parcel a Transvaal flag, 
 which he proposed to hoist and salute; but a majority of the 
 delegates present being of a different opinion, he and his flag 
 were tied to a ferryman’s rope and towed through the river. 
 The Union Jack was then hoisted; but the British representa¬ 
 tive declined the office of president of the new territory, on 
 the ground that he could not swim, and he might be drowned 
 if the Opposition repeated on him the operation of hauling 
 him through the river, whereupon he was, with all due for¬ 
 mality, promised protection and support by brethren diggers, 
 one of whom produced a forma] commission as commander-in¬ 
 chief of the army of a Koranna chief, supported by another 
 who was commissioned with equal formality as commander of 
 the chiefs artillery. 
 
 Probably this sort of semi-jocular travesty of the proceed¬ 
 ings of regular and old-settled Governments might find 
 parallel in the history of all young communities of settlers, 
 under similar conditions. But I mention it here partly 
 because it illustrates the injustice of much of the criticism on 
 the proceedings of my predecessors, and of the English 
 Government at that time stepping in to secure order and 
 regular government where no security for either previously 
 existed ; partly also as an instance of what has gone on, and 
 is now going on, and must continue to go on, wherever the 
 irregular advanced guard of civilization, in the shape of 
 traders, travellers or diggers, or even of missionary enterprise, 
 comes in contact with such native government as depends 
 mainly on personal power and influence. But I mention the 
 state of things at that time, more especially as accounting for 
 the present existence of numerous claims to large extents of 
 ground, which involve political questions, more or less, of 
 national right, and must be disposed of before any settlement 
 of individual farms or holdings can be attempted. 
 
 Amongst these claims enumerated to me by Colonel Warren 
 are the following :— 
 
 (a.) A claim of Mr. David Arnot to about 840 square miles 
 of land. 
 
 ( b .) A claim by the Lynx Korannas to the whole of the 
 Bloemhof District. 
 
 (c.) A similar claim to the whole district by the Chief 
 Mankoroane. 
 
 (cl.) A claim of Botlasitsi tribe to a large district. 
 
 ( e .) A similar claim of the Taaibosch Korannas. 
 
 (f.) Besides claims of certain grantep^ t 1 ™-™ +T ir . 
 
9 
 
 Government, claiming for public services said to have 
 been rendered, large tracts of country, including 
 many farms beyond the usual limit of 6000 acres. 
 
 All these several classes of claims must be decided on, 
 before even a commencement can be made in settlement, 
 either of individual farms or of tribal locations. Each claim 
 probably can find some sort of proof in ample documentary 
 evidence, drawn up in the usual legal form, supported by 
 trained law agents and advocates, who have no lack of 
 professional ability, though their professional antecedents 
 do not always entitle them to practice in the Courts of the 
 Colony. 
 
 The claims, in fact, are of a kind which, on paper and at a 
 distance, may appear fair enough, but will not bear the test 
 of open local inquiry in the face of men resident in the 
 country and knowing its history. Some of them, especially 
 the native claims, may have a substratum of justice, and be 
 merely extravagant in extent, admitting of reasonable com¬ 
 promise ; others must be investigated and disposed of whilst 
 living evidence is at hand to prove or disprove them. But 
 all must be investigated, and finally decided, before there can 
 be either peace or justice and recognised legal rights in the 
 country. 
 
 Meantime, it must not be supposed that the country is a 
 wilderness. It is an undulating prairie of fine pasture lands, 
 with numerous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, bales of 
 whose wool, piled at the trader’s stores, or on waggons along 
 the road, prove its importance as an article of export. Such 
 cultivation as exists from dams or water furrows shows the 
 great fertility of the soil, and the Yaal Biver along the whole 
 length of the district offers infinite capacity for irrigation. A 
 mail waggon twice in the week carries passengers to Kimberley 
 or Potchefstroom. 
 
 Hotels and accommodation houses of the usual colonial type 
 are to be found at each stage. The traders’ stores and farm¬ 
 houses are often large and substantial, and many of the 
 farmers and traders are men of wealth as well as enterprise. 
 But there is nothing certain about either law or jurisdiction. 
 The landholder holds as much by the strong hand as by legal 
 tenure, and the stronger his hand the larger his possessions, 
 and the firmer his hold on them. 
 
 No man can tell with any certainty to what province or 
 jurisdiction he belongs, or whether he holds legally under the 
 Chief Bot-lasitsi or Mankoroane, under grant from the Trans¬ 
 vaal Kepublic or from Her Majesty Queen Victoria; whether 
 
10 
 
 he is subject to English or Roman-Dutch law, or to the 
 “ Raad ” of Councillors of some half or whole-caste Batlapin, 
 Griqua, or Kora nn a, chieftain, who may be either an educated 
 man with a respectable trader or missionary as his adviser, or 
 he may be the besotted victim of some outlawed law agent or 
 trader. We had an instance of the consequences of this state 
 of doubt when Colonel Warren came to meet us as we entered 
 the district. A meeting of Boers was held, at which I was 
 told it was generally debated in what capacity Colonel Warren 
 came, and how he should be received. As Administrator of 
 Griqualand West, some said he had no business in the 
 Transvaal territory ; he came probably to advocate the claims 
 of the native chiefs to have the Keate Award carried into 
 execution. On the other hand it was agreed that he was 
 favourably known as a military leader against rebel Griquas 
 and Korannas, and some of the men present had served as 
 volunteers under him in the late operations beyond the 
 Griqualand Border. 
 
 Finally, a leading malcontent of much local influence under 
 the Transvaal Government reminded them that they must 
 either make common cause with their brethren in the Trans¬ 
 vaal, put the Administrator over the border, and perhaps shoot 
 him ; or they must receive him with proper respect, and fire 
 a feu de joie in his honour. No one volunteered to under¬ 
 take the former task; it was unanimously resolved to adopt 
 the latter, and the gentleman who had proposed the alter¬ 
 native, himself led the procession to welcome the Administrator, 
 and escort him to meet me. 
 
 It was also in this district that a landdrost and a considerable 
 landed proprietor found it necessary to explain to me the 
 groundlessness of a charge that he had been active in pulling 
 down and forbidding the display of the Union Jack. It will 
 be seen from these instances that the doubts as to jurisdiction 
 are not confined to the Administrator of the Transvaal, or the 
 Chief Justice, and that they are founded on something more 
 than legal subtleties, and cannot too soon be set at rest. 
 
 As regard the mode of proceeding to be followed in the 
 inquiry and settlement, I do not think any better can be 
 prescribed than that adopted by Colonel Warren in his settle¬ 
 ments in Griqualand West. After all the documentary 
 evidence had been recorded and classified, any oral evidence 
 tendered was taken verbally in open court or on oath, the 
 Commissioner making an official note of the testimony given. 
 Affidavits were admitted of parties at a distance; claimants 
 were allowed to employ advocates, attorneys or agents, to state 
 their case if they desired it. Each claim as decided was 
 
11 
 
 plotted on a map which will he a valuable record when com¬ 
 pleted. Much anxiety was expressed on all sides, and it is 
 certainly desirable that there should be a power of appeal 
 from the decision of the Settlement Commissioner. It will 
 not do to have an appeal to any ordinary legal tribunal, 
 because, from the nature of the claims, the materials for any 
 strictly judicial decision do not as yet exist. The object is to 
 create the foundation for a legal title, and till this is done, 
 legal tribunals have not the first requisite for any decision 
 which can satisfy either legal or hquitable requirements. I 
 think all reasonable demands will be met by allowing an 
 appeal to a tribunal composed of the Administrators of the 
 Transvaal and of Griqualand West and the Settlement Com¬ 
 missioner. The Administrators will be aide to obtain any 
 legal advice they may require from their respective Attorney- 
 Generals, and if one of them concurs in a doubtful case with 
 the Settlement Commissioner, it may be concluded that the 
 best has been done under a choice of difficulties. There will 
 be, at least, an end of strife, which, after all, is the utmost that 
 can be reasonably expected in such a case. 
 
 As in the Griqualand West Court, it is proposed that all 
 claims to farms allowed by the Court should be confirmed by 
 lapse of time (three months), and that if no appeal is entered 
 within that period the decision shall be final. 
 
 A period of, say two months, should be fixed from the date of 
 notification, beyond which no public claim can be filed. 
 
 H. B. E. FEE RE, 
 
 Governor and High Commissioner. 
 
 Cape Town, 
 
 September Si h, 1879. 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL QUESTION. 
 
 Repriv ted from the ‘ Times' of March 29, 1883. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘ TIMES.’ 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I would ask you to allow me to offer a few remarks 
 on the questions at issue between the Bechuana tribes and 
 their neighbours in the Transvaal. 
 
 Reference has been made to pledges said to have been given 
 
12 
 
 by myself and by the late Sir George Colley, as though the 
 claims of the Bechuanas to assistance from the British Govern¬ 
 ment in protecting them from disturbance in the peaceful 
 possession of their lands rested on some promises of mine or 
 Bis. But, as far as I know, in my own case at least, no such 
 promises were made, beyond general exhortations to loyalty 
 and those assurances as to the finality of the annexation of the 
 Transvaal which I made in the exact terms conveyed to me by 
 Her Majesty’s Government for communication to all concerned. 
 
 After I was superseded in the conduct of affairs in the Trans¬ 
 vaal, similar assurances as to the finality of the annexation 
 were repeated in yet more emphatic terms by Sir Garnet (now 
 Lord) Wolseley, and by Her Majesty’s present Ministers in 
 various speeches, published despatches, and utterances, notably 
 in the words inserted in the Speech from the Throne at the 
 opening of the Session which followed the outbreak of the 
 Boer rebellion. 
 
 But none of these utterances can have more than an indirect 
 bearing on the question raised in the Transvaal debate, which 
 is, not what the Bechuanas may have expected before the 
 Convention of August, 1881, but what they had a right to 
 expect then and since. 
 
 The cost and risk of now acting up to the terms of the 
 Pretoria Convention may be small or great. That is an after 
 question. The immediate issue raised by the debate is whether, 
 having made a Convention with the Boers in August, 1881— 
 a Convention which, if observed, would effectually protect the 
 native races—we are now bound to insist on the Transvaal 
 obligations in that Convention being carried out ? or whether 
 we are at liberty to decline so to insist, basing our refusal on 
 the plea that, however imperative on us may be the enforce¬ 
 ment of the Convention, we think the performance of our duty 
 will be costly or troublesome ? 
 
 All Mr. Gladstone’s arguments against honestly carrying out 
 the Convention may, or may not, be perfectly sound. But, if 
 sound, the question becomes yet more obvious, Why was the 
 Convention made ? Mr. Gladstone does not plead imperfect 
 knowledge of the difficulties and dangers. On the contrary, 
 he states that he knew them very thoroughly many years ago. 
 Had he forgotten them when he made the Convention ? If not, 
 what has happened since to make him wish to evade obliga¬ 
 tions so deliberately and so recently undertaken by Her 
 Majesty’s present Government when, less than two years ago, 
 he made the Convention as a part of the conditions of peace 
 to induce the victorious Boers to withdraw from the British 
 territory of Natal, where they had successfully defied the 
 
13 
 
 sovereignty of England after three times repulsing the British 
 troops and killing the Queen’s representative ? 
 
 Whether any answer which can be given to this question 
 will, or will not, be satisfactory to the people of England I do 
 not pretend to anticipate. But I would offer a few remarks on 
 the pleas hitherto advanced, as excuses for not enforcing the 
 terms of the Convention as regards the Bechuana people, who 
 are neighbours of our own to the north of Griqualand, as well 
 as neighbours of the Transvaal. Let me first say that Mr. 
 Forster’s admirable speech on the 16th of March anticipates 
 much which I might have wished to observe regarding this 
 Bechuana question, and I can, from personal knowledge, 
 testify to the truth of the most important facts stated by 
 him. 
 
 I do not propose to dwell on the case of the natives within 
 the present Transvaal boundary, strong as were the obligations 
 voluntarily undertaken by Her Majesty’s Government towards 
 them. The plea now urged against present interference by 
 the British Government in behalf of natives inhabiting the 
 Transvaal within the boundaries of that Bepublic, and legally 
 its subjects, is the state of the country and of the Transvaal 
 administration generally. I will not now go into the questions, 
 How far this plea is valid ? or, whether a powerful Government 
 like England was justified in handing over the lives and pro¬ 
 perty of 700,000 human beings to another authority without 
 ascertaining beforehand whether that authority was strong 
 enough to enforce laws for their future protection and well¬ 
 being ? Let us also pass over for the present, as falling within 
 the newly-settled Transvaal frontier, the specially strong claims 
 the natHes in the “ Keate Award ” territory have'Oil us for 
 protection against ill-treatment by the Transvaal Government. 
 Whatever may be said in bar of the British Government 
 interfering to protect natives within the Tranvaal boundary as 
 fixed eighteen months ago, none of the arguments seem to me 
 to apply to British intervention for the protection of Bechuanas 
 who live altogether outside the Transvaal boundary so recently 
 fixed and agreed on, and whose claims on us for protection 
 date, not only from the Convention of 1881. but from a date 
 long anterior to the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. 
 
 The case of the Bechuanas generally is stated by Mr. Forster 
 with equal force and truth; and still more fully by the Kev. 
 John Mackenzie in a paper entitled “ Beckuanaland, the Trans¬ 
 vaal, and England,” and printed for the London Missionary 
 Society—a paper which every one who wishes to know the 
 rights of this question would do well to study carefully. 
 
 Sixty years ago these Bechuanas were described by English 
 
14 
 
 travellers as a nation of peaceful natives, no longer nomads, 
 but settled in an open prairie country, akin to the Basuto 
 Kaffirs in race and language, but habitually abstaining from 
 aggressions on their neighbours, and much more advanced 
 than the other Kaffir races in civilization and many industrial 
 arts. More than fifty years ago, and before the Trek Boers 
 arrived north of the Vaal, the London Missionary Society 
 established missionaries in Bechuanaland. Moffat and Living¬ 
 stone laboured there, and the missions at all the Bechuana 
 chief towns have been remarkably successful, not only in 
 making converts, but in gradually and permanently civilizing 
 the people. Their settled habits have been confirmed; they 
 have steadily advanced in civilization and in the arts of in¬ 
 dustry and peace; they are clothed and often educated as 
 well as the ordinary white traders, and have separate property 
 in land as well as in cattle. Mr. Forster, in his speech, de¬ 
 scribes how Sir George Grey, as Governor of the Cape about 
 twenty-five years ago, intervened to put an end to frontier 
 disturbances between the Bechuanas and the advancing Trek 
 Boers. Since that time the Bechuanas have been little dis¬ 
 turbed, and have given no just cause of complaint to their 
 Transvaal neighbours. Sometimes the chief has headed his 
 people in their progress toward civilization, like Kama, the 
 chief of Baniangwato, who administers the affairs of his people 
 as w r ell as any European magistrate, and to the complete 
 satisfaction of numerous Europeans, missionaries, and traders, 
 Dutch as well as English, who live in security and comfort at 
 his chief town, Shoshong. He helps to build churches and 
 schools, which are looked after by himself and his wife, and I 
 never heard a w'ord against him implying any doubt of his - 
 good faith, or loyalty to his engagements, or duties to his 
 people, to the English Government, or to his neighbours the 
 Boers. 
 
 But in other cases a petty chief has adhered to his old 
 uncivilized ways, while the most active and progressive of his 
 family and people have followed the leading of the mission¬ 
 aries and other European teachers. Gradually, in such cases, 
 the feudal power of the chief decayed, and though there was 
 peace and progress in Bechuanaland, mainly through mis¬ 
 sionary influence, and much prosperity owing to the develop¬ 
 ment of the neighbouring Diamond Fields, the chiefs lost 
 power to meet emergencies requiring extraordinary energy 
 or vigour. Such an emergency occurred in 1878, when a 
 wave of native discontent swept, through South Africa, broke 
 out in the Gaika and Galeka war, and in native risings in 
 Griqualand East and West. The Griqualand West rebels, 
 
defeated by the energetic action of the Administration— 
 Colonel (now Sir Owen) Lanyon and Colonel Warren—retired 
 into Bechuanaland. The loyal chiefs were unable to resist 
 them. Some who were disaffected joined them, but, as a rule, 
 the Bechuana people give practical proof of the good results of 
 their missionary teaching by aiding to uphold law and order 
 as symbolized by the supremacy of the neighbouring British 
 Government. 
 
 Everywhere, however, the decay of the old tribal authority 
 of the chiefs became evident, and several of those of Southern 
 Bechuanaland formally resigned their authority, and begged 
 that the British Government would undertake their protecto¬ 
 rate. But neither the Cape Government nor Her Majesty’s 
 Government assented to assume the responsibility. 
 
 I had received from those who knew the country best the 
 materials for providing an administration, through native 
 agency, under a competent European political agent, on the 
 system which answers so well in the less civilized portions of 
 India. But before I could obtain the sanction of the home 
 authorities to the plan, which I believe chiefs and people, 
 missionaries and traders, would all have approved, I was super¬ 
 seded, and the idea of permitting a British protectorate in 
 Bechuanaland was, for the time, abandoned. (Since then the 
 revolt of the Transvaal and our retirement have left the 
 Bechuanas face to face with Boer aggression, just as they were 
 when Sir George Grey first intervened in 1858. The practical 
 question now is, Shall we maintain or shall we abandon the. 
 policy of Sir George Grey, which for a quarter of a century 
 has been so successful ? Shall we require the Transvaal rulers 
 to observe their solemn obligations entered into less than two 
 years ago, and assist them in doing so ? Or shall we fold our 
 hands and allow the Bechuanas to be “ eaten up ” by filibusters 
 from the Transvaal ? 
 
 I say “ filibusters from the Transvaal,” because though the 
 Transvaal Government might have done much to check, if not 
 to prevent, the aggressions now complained of, the outrages 
 are said to be for the most part the work of filibusters, not of 
 the recognised agents of the Transvaal Government, and I 
 believe are disapproved of by a great proportion of the respect¬ 
 able Boers, and might be checked if the central government 
 were better able to restrain the lawless. There are, I know,, 
 among the Boers some as upright and honourable as any 
 English gentleman can be ; and I feel sure that if they had 
 to deal with an English agent, whom they trusted and respected, 
 and on whose word they relied, he would not fail to receive 
 much moral support from their influence. But they suffer 
 
16 
 
 from the power assumed by the lawless and unscrupulous 
 portion of the population as much as we suffer from their want 
 of confidence in our courage, constancy, and good faith. 
 
 What can England now do ? To regain the confidence we 
 have lost is an arduous but not, I think, an impossible task. 
 
 Whatever difficulties may beset any interference in the 
 internal affairs of the Transvaal, we are, it seems to me, bound 
 at least to do all we can to perform our obligations outside the 
 limits we have recognised as bounding the authority of the 
 Transvaal Government. Let us leave for the moment the 
 consideration of onr obligations on the eastern frontier towards 
 Natal, the Swazies, and the Zulus, as well as those in the 
 Keate Award, and consider only those on the western frontier 
 towards Bechuanaland proper. The government of the Trans¬ 
 vaal can claim no sort of right to protect filibusters who invade 
 the country west of the boundary as defined in August, 1881. 
 Let them keep strictly to that line, and, while we see that no 
 native west of it commits aggressions in the Transvaal, let us 
 insist that the native population outside that boundary is pro¬ 
 tected from causeless aggression from the east. Much is said 
 of the immense and indefinite responsibilities of any such 
 protectorate; but nothing can be further from the truth than 
 the estimates of those responsibilities which I have seen put 
 forward. The first essential is trustworthy information on 
 which Her Majesty’s Government can safely rely for the facts 
 on which it is to act; and for this purpose a single competent 
 English officer, chosen for such qualities as are successful in 
 winning the confidence alike of natives and Europeans, is not 
 difficult to select. Let him be charged, first of all, to report 
 what he finds has really happened west of the boundary line, 
 and then what he can recommend as a system to prevent 
 aggressions on either side in the future. Let him be appointed 
 by and held responsible to the Governor of the Cape and the 
 High Commissioner, and report to him, and let him be as free 
 as possible from race prejudice or bias. All this can easily be 
 effected without any dispatch of English troops. It was effected 
 by Colonels Sir Owen Lanyon and Warren in 1878-80 with no 
 materials save such as can be found on the spot. Volunteers 
 of the Diamond Fields did all that was wanted imder far more 
 difficult circumstances than the present, witnomany assistance 
 from Her Majesty’s regular forces. Nothing can be more 
 unfounded than the fear that this need lead us into indefinite 
 responsibilities or great expense. The area of the political 
 agent’s action would be the Bechuana country, with well- 
 defined borders—viz. to the south, the British colonial territory 
 of Griqualand AA^est; the Molopo river and the waterless 
 
17 
 
 Kalahari desert to the north and west; and the well-defined 
 Transvaal boundary as settled in August, 1881, to the east. 
 His duties would he confined to the chiefs of the Bechuana 
 tribes. The political agent would be bound to assist the 
 Transvaal farmers in recovering stolen cattle and in settling 
 any frontier disputes, and there can be no doubt that any 
 statements he might send to the Kesident at Pretoria would 
 command more respect from the Transvaal Government than 
 the reports now received from unofficial sources. 
 
 It has been said that our protectorate fails to protect the 
 natives intended to be protected, and that it does them more 
 harm than good. The Bechuanas certainly do not think so, 
 and in their case, at least, it is a choice between protection, or 
 destruction by a process of slow extinction and expulsion. 
 
 The expense, again, is spoken of as a difficulty ; but the 
 Government can easily calculate the cost of a house, such as 
 the missionaries have at Kuruman or Shoshong, a mule waggon 
 and horses such as a trading traveller uses, and pay such as 
 befits a military officer so employed, with a few mounted 
 orderlies as messengers and personal escort. 
 
 This would be the sole expense of the first steps necessary 
 to enable us to discharge a portion of the duties which Her 
 Majesty’s Government voluntarily undertook by the Treaty 
 and Convention of August, 1881. 
 
 So far from being offensive to the settled and respectable 
 Dutch population in the neighbourhood of the frontier, I feel 
 assured that the appointment of such an officer would be wel¬ 
 comed by those Boers who have the best claim to patriotism. 
 No doubt there would be some attempt at an outcry from the 
 advocates of disorder, and the outcry might pretend to be an 
 expression of colonial feeling ; but 1 believe it is nothing short 
 of injustice to the respectable inhabitants of the Transvaal and 
 Orange Free State, as well as the Cape Colony, to suppose that 
 they approve of filibustering expeditions like those of which 
 we now hear or that they would not welcome some one with 
 authority to prevent the frontier disturbances which they fell 
 to be no more creditable to the Transvaal Government than 
 to us. Let us give them the credit for being as anxious to do 
 their duty, when they see it clearly, as we are. 
 
 It is said that the Bechuana chiefs have only themselves to 
 blame for giving occasion to filibustering interference through 
 their own quarrels and aggressions on the Boers. Nothing can 
 be more unjust and true than the misrepresentations with 
 which these assertions are supported. 
 
 The internal dissensions which can be quoted among the 
 Bechuanas are generally simply disputed claims to chieftain- 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 ship. It is, of course, always possible to dispute in Bechuana- 
 land (as of old in the Highlands of Scotland) who has the best 
 right to be considered chief of the clan; but unless fomented 
 by external interference, such disputes would be easily settled, 
 without bloodshed, by reference to the Political Agent and his 
 council of native headmen, and could never inconvenience a 
 neighbouring State like the Transvaal. As for aggressions by 
 Bechuanas on the Transvaal, I can find no official evidence of 
 anything of the kind, and I doubt whether, if fairly sifted, any¬ 
 thing could be quoted as justifying interference. On these 
 points there are unexceptionable witnesses at hand, not only 
 the Rev. John Mackenzie and many other missionaries, whose 
 statements of fact may be implicitly relied on, but officers like 
 Sir Owen Lanyon, Colonel Warren, and Captain Barrel, and 
 gentlemen like the Hon. Cfuy Dawnay, the member for the 
 North Riding, who has travelled over the district in question, 
 and would be accepted alike by Boers and Bechuanas as an un¬ 
 exceptionable witness. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone observed that the hon. member for the North 
 Riding “ apparently spoke without the slightest consciousness 
 that South Africa had a historybut Mr. Gladstone must 
 surely have forgotten one of the clearest facts established by 
 all South African history when he lamented the absence of any 
 paramount chief in Bechuanaland, and spoke as though the ex¬ 
 istence of such a chief in Zululand had been a safeguard 
 against misgovernment and aggression on neighbours. 
 
 If there is one fact which comes out more clearly than any 
 other in the history of all our dealings with the natives in 
 South Africa it is this—that no paramount chief, whether 
 raised to power by his own force of character, or selected and 
 fostered by us, has ever been anything but a curse to his 
 people, anti the most serious obstacle to their civilization and 
 to peace between them and their neighbours. It might be 
 otherwise if the paramount chief had been placed under the 
 strict control of a British political agent—a system which we 
 have never tried, with any attempt at perseverance, in South 
 Africa, though it has been so invariably successful in India. 
 The history of Gaika, from the Hutch Governor Jansen’s first 
 treaty with him, of Chaka, Dingaan, and Cetywayo, of Sandili, 
 of Hintza, of Kreli—of Pondos, of Basutos, and Zulus, all point 
 to the same moral. 
 
 A paramount chief in South Africa obtains his power by 
 superior force and the suppression of all law and right other 
 than his own supreme will. His power is the force of bar¬ 
 barism. He cannot be created by our selection for any bene¬ 
 ficent purpose; he cannot be maintained by help from us, 
 
19 
 
 without danger to the lives and liberties of all around him, 
 for the invariable use he makes of our support is to aggrandise 
 his own power of uncontrolled self-will, and of the oppression, 
 cruelty, and bloodshed which satisfy that will. This is the 
 true picture of a paramount chief in South Africa, if we look 
 for it in history, instead of drawing it from imagination. The 
 only paramount authority which we can create or support, 
 without inflicting innumerable evils on the people and their 
 neighbours, is an English official entrusted with sufficient 
 powers, and charged to do right, and execute justice accord¬ 
 ing to English ideas, but through native machinery of admin¬ 
 istration, and to give security of life and property to the 
 people, as well as to the petty chiefs, as long as the latter 
 make no pretensions to irresponsible paramount authority. 
 In such case the force which supports the chief is the force of 
 civilization, of law, and of order, and is itself under the control 
 of law. 
 
 Much has been said of the indefinite expense into which 
 such a system as I advocate might lead us. 
 
 I agree with Mr. Forster in believing that if the English 
 Government were known to be in earnest, no expense need be 
 incurred beyond that of a Resident in Bechuanaland, and a 
 very small body of border police, the cost of which might, I 
 am satisfied, be met by a voluntary hut tax, which the Bechu- 
 anas would be only too glad to pay for protection in the 
 peaceful possession of their country, as do the Zulus in Natal. 
 At any rate, if we once knew the real facts, on unquestionable 
 evidence, such as a British Resident’s Report would afford us, 
 there need be no thought of military expeditions till there 
 had been ample time to count the cost of doing whatever the 
 Resident’s report showed it was necessary to do. 
 
 How much it may be worth while to spend in keeping such 
 solemn and deliberate engagements as we have made in the 
 Convention of 1881 is a problem I cannot pretend to solve, 
 and which few Englishmen, I should hope, would wish to 
 calculate. But it is easy for any one to count a part, though 
 it can only be a small part, of the cost of breaking our 
 promises. 
 
 What will be the expense of now folding our arms and doing 
 nothing ? 
 
 No one, I suppose, doubts now that we have, to some extent 
 at least, lost character by entering into the Convention of 
 August, 1881. When that Convention was made, and we 
 evacuated the Transvaal, there were, roughly speaking, 700,000 
 of the older inhabitants of the country who wished us to stay 
 and rule them, and 45,000, at the outside, of new comers, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 every man of whom had arrived there within living memory, 
 and of whom it was said that a majority—but certainly not 
 the whole—wished us to go. After a series of military defeats 
 we broke one set of very solemn engagements to those who 
 wished us to stay, and we evacuated the country, leaving 
 700,000 original inhabitants to be ruled by the nominal ma¬ 
 jority of the 45,000; but hoping, as was then pleaded, that 
 our motives of self-denial in declining the trouble and expense 
 of doing our duty and keeping our promises would be appre¬ 
 ciated, and would secure the good treatment of the 700,000 by 
 the 45,000; and, further, to ensure such good treatment for 
 them, we made the Convention of August, 1881. 
 
 Can any one suppose, in the face of the Blue-book revela¬ 
 tions, that such good treatment has been secured, or that the 
 Convention has obtained for us the respect of either Boers or 
 natives ? 
 
 The Convention, we know well, has not been observed. The 
 question now arises, Shall we say we intend to insist on its 
 observance, and say it with earnestness, as men who mean what 
 they say ? 
 
 What will be the effect of our now deliberately telling the 
 people of South Africa that we find the task we undertook in 
 1881, of holding the Boers to their engagements in favour of 
 the natives, too onerous for us to attempt to perform it ?—that 
 for the second time, and more deliberately, and without any 
 excuse of change of the Queen’s advisers iu England, we must 
 decline to perform our engagements ? 
 
 Must not the effect inevitably be to increase the Boers’ dis¬ 
 trust of our word; to confirm their belief that we are not to 
 be trusted; and that, whenever it is our interest, we shall 
 break our engagements with them as readily, for any selfish 
 considerations, as we have done our engagements in favour of 
 the natives ? 
 
 It is easy to say that the good or bad opinion of the Boers 
 need not concern us; but any low estimate of our power or 
 will to perform our engagements must affect very seriously our 
 position in South Africa. 
 
 First, there can be no doubt that the British hold on Griqua- 
 land West, as a portion of the British Colony of the Cape of 
 Good Hope, would be seriously imperilled. Many unruly 
 spirits in the Transvaal and Orange Free State cast longing 
 eyes at the Diamond Fields. The prize to them is worth 
 striving for; even iu unsettled times more than £4,000,000 
 sterling in value of rough diamonds have been annually dug 
 from the barren wastes of Griqualand West, and the greater 
 portion has gone to enrich Europeans. 
 
21 
 
 Filibusters, once successful in Bechuanaland, would, beyond 
 doubt, say, “ If the British Government could be terrified, first 
 into relaxing its former hold on the Transvaal, and next into 
 repudiating the protection of the Bechuanas, why should they 
 not be amenable to the reasoning of unprovoked violence, and 
 be induced to withdraw from the Diamond Fields in the Cape 
 Colony ? 
 
 These are no imaginary speculations, as any one who reads 
 the South African newspapers may soon see. The regular 
 governments of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal 
 might, and I believe would, disapprove of any attempt to carry 
 out such a programme, but they would find the temptation to 
 the lawless section of their subjects far greater than any yet 
 offered, and they may plead as we do, the difficulty and 
 expense of doing right, and that they are not bound to defend 
 our border if we cannot defend it for ourselves. 
 
 But a considerable section of advanced politicians in England 
 are in the habit of saying, “ Perish British South Africa, what 
 interest have we in it, except as a troublesome appendage to 
 the Cape peninsula? Let us turn that into a Gibraltar, and 
 leave colonists and natives of all nationalities to fight out the 
 battle for supremacy among themselves, and trust to our new 
 doctrine of ‘ survival of the fittest.’ ” 
 
 Let us count the cost of this mode of cutting the Gordian 
 knot. 
 
 At present in ordinary times, with our command of the 
 ocean and our sovereignty over the Cape Colony and Natal, to 
 hold the Cape requires one regiment at Cape Town, and a 
 couple more, with a proportion of artillery, in Natal and else¬ 
 where. In time of war we might always rely on a large force 
 of colonial volunteers, to supplement any reinforcements we 
 might have to send. But to convert the Cape peninsula into 
 a Gibraltar, with a hostile or neutral continent behind it, 
 would require in time of peace as well as in time of war two or 
 three times the garrison which would be needed to hold 
 Gibraltar. 
 
 I need not enter into details to prove this. Let any one 
 with a good map before him study the history of the two 
 occupations of the Cape by British troops in the great revolu¬ 
 tionary war in 1795 and 1806, and any military critic will see 
 that I have understated the case. 
 
 The Cape is not, as of old, the only or principal key to all 
 our Indian and China trade, but it is a great safeguard for 
 more than half that trade, and very essential to our best alter¬ 
 native route should the Suez Canal ever be threatened or 
 
22 
 
 stopped up. It is essential also to the protection of all the 
 Atlantic Ocean trade to Australia and South America, which 
 hardly existed when the possession of the Cape was the great 
 object of colonial contest between Great Britain and the con¬ 
 federated naval Powers of Continental Europe. 
 
 Our commercial rivals are well aware that no single blow 
 could be inflicted which would injure our shipowners and our 
 seaborne commerce so much as the loss of the Cape, and any 
 repudiation of our engagements to the Bechuana tribes would 
 bring us perilously near the necessity for increasing the 
 garrison and fortifications of the Cape peninsula, till they cost 
 us more than the present charge for Gibraltar, and infinitely 
 more than the whole present cost of South Africa. 
 
 There is, then, no economy, present or prospective, in repudi¬ 
 ating our engagements to the Bechuanas. 
 
 Let me add a few words on the apprehensions which have 
 been expressed that in doing our duty to the Bechuanas we 
 might aggravate a hostile feeling between Dutch and English 
 in South Africa. 
 
 I speak with some confidence when I say that any anti- 
 English feeling which existed among the European population 
 in Cape Colony and Natal thirty years ago had been gradually 
 decreasing up to the time I left the Cape. The grant of 
 representative institutions, increased mercantile and mining 
 prosperity, and other causes had aided this result. Any change 
 which has since taken place is clearly traceable to the suc¬ 
 cessful Boer outbreak and to our want of perseverance and 
 success in putting it down; but the present anti-English 
 feeling is not, if I may judge from what I hear and read, the 
 old soreness of national jealousies, but a new-born feeling of 
 mingled anger, shame and contempt for the English Govern¬ 
 ment, to which the English-born section of colonists, angry 
 and ashamed at the part we have played m the Transvaal, 
 have contributed as much if not more than those of other 
 lineage. But this feeling seemed for some months past to be 
 passing away. It may well be revived by the tone now 
 adopted by Ministerial speeches in late debates. But I feel 
 sure that if Her Majesty’s Government would adopt a different 
 tone, would state decidedly that they meant to uphold the 
 Convention of August, 1881, in its integrity, do their duty to 
 the utmost of their power in respecting, and causing to be 
 respected, their engagements to both natives and Europeans, 
 and give to the Government of the Transvaal credit at least 
 for good intentions, assisting them to give effect to those 
 intentions, they might gradually regain the respect they have 
 
23 
 
 lost, and restore that feeling of attachment to Her Majesty’s 
 Government which I found actuated the best and most in¬ 
 fluential portion of colonial society, whether of English or 
 Hutch origin, when I lived among them. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 H. B. E. FRERE. 
 
 March 26th, 1883. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘ TIMES.’ 
 
 Written to the ‘ Times,' April 9th, 1883.* 
 
 Sir, 
 
 The importance of the subject induces me again to 
 ask room for a few observations on matters of fact connected 
 with the Bechuanaland question. 
 
 As regards a general but very erroneous impression, that 
 “ Bechuanaland lies far beyond our borders, and is of little 
 interest to us, either politically or commercially,” I would 
 observe that reference to any map of South Africa shows, on 
 the contrary, that Bechuanaland bounds the Cape Colony to 
 the north for several hundred miles. The frontier is not more 
 than sixty or seventy miles from Kimberley, the capital of the 
 Diamond Fields in the Cape Colony, which draws a great 
 portion of its daily supplies of cattle, sheep, firewood, grain, 
 forage, and vegetables from Bechuanaland, besides large quan¬ 
 tities of wool for export to England. 
 
 When I was at Kimberley in 1879 I used to see numbers of 
 Bechuana dealers daily in the market which supplies the town. 
 They are not “ red blanket ” savages, like many of the Kaffir 
 races; but well dressed in European clothing, and well spoken 
 of by the intelligent European population as satisfactory 
 people to deal with. 
 
 Kimberley, besides its annual exports to England of more 
 than £4,000,000 in value of diamonds, is a centre of consider¬ 
 able and growing English trade, with all parts of the interior 
 of South Africa ; and I am sure no trader in Kimberley, Cape 
 Town, Port Elizabeth, or Natal would consider the fate of 
 Bechuanaland a matter of indifference, either politically or 
 commercially. 
 
 In a price current in a London newspaper I lately noted 
 thirty companies, whose places of business are in Kimberley, 
 
 * Extracts published in the ‘ Times,’ December 5th, 1884. 
 
24 
 
 but whose shares are bought and sold in London, and many of 
 the recipients of whose dividends and earnings live and pay 
 rates and taxes in this country. The fluctuations of trade in 
 Kimberley vitally affect every commercial centre in South 
 Africa, and are sensibly felt in our manufacturing towns and 
 workmen’s cottages here in England. 
 
 What do our mercantile authorities say on this subject ? In 
 the ‘ Economist,’ of March 24, is a thoughtful article on “ The 
 Financial Aspect of the South African Question.” The ‘Eco¬ 
 nomist ’ observes, that there can be very little doubt indeed 
 “ that at present the commercial and financial welfare of South 
 Africa has been checked by the want of harmony subsisting 
 between the Dutch and English. The great bound made by 
 the Cape Colony subsequent to the diamond discoveries has 
 been followed by an ominous pause. The national revenue has 
 been decreasing, trade is depressed, there are disputes of a 
 fiscal character with the Dutch Republic, to check commercial 
 intercourse, and certainly, if banking profits are any guide to 
 prosperity, the reaction must be considerable.” 
 
 After giving instances of banking depression, the ‘ Econo¬ 
 mist ’ continues: “ All our commercial advices from South 
 Africa are of the same gloomy character,” and concludes as 
 follows :— 
 
 “ Time and judicious handling have, however, cooled down 
 many and yet more burning questions, and we have sufficient 
 belief in the ultimate good sense of the Boer population not to 
 provoke us too far. In wishing to live in harmony with them, 
 we desire their advancement as well as our own; and they 
 must sooner or later learn the lesson that, as neither the Eng¬ 
 lish nor the natives can be removed from South Africa, their 
 present intolerance will have to be abated.” 
 
 In a yet more recent article (March 31st) the ‘Economist’ 
 draws attention to the fact that while the 4 per cent, loans of 
 other colonies stand at from 99^ to 103 (the price of Canadian 
 4 per cents.) the 4 per cent, loans of the Cape and Natal 
 Colonies stand at only 95, and explains the difference by 
 observing that “ unlike the English, Dutch, and blacks in 
 Southern Africa ” the English, French, and Indians of the 
 Dominion of Canada, and the English and blacks of the West 
 Indies, “ are content to work harmoniously together in the 
 interests of their common country.” Every newspaper and 
 every letter I have seen dealing with this subject, from the 
 South African point of view, confirms what the ‘ Economist ’ 
 says, and the ablest and best informed usually attribute the 
 greater part of the present commercial depression to political 
 causes, and notably to the course taken by Her Majesty’s 
 
2.5 
 
 Government here in England in abdicating their position as 
 arbiters between rival aspirants for power in South Africa. 
 
 In face of such facts, can it be truly said that this question 
 of Bechuanaland is of no interest to ns, politically or commer¬ 
 cially ? 
 
 Much has been said of the difficulties of doing our duty in 
 Bechuanaland, owing to the distance and expense of enforcing 
 our authority; but such excuses will not avail in face of the 
 fact that eight years ago, when the Diamond Fields were 
 in precisely the same state of disorder from the very same 
 causes which afflict Bechuanaland now (that is, from the lawless 
 proceedings of unauthorized intruders, who set aside the native 
 chiefs and tried to set up governments of their own, with a 
 pretence of independence), Sir Henry Barkly, then Governor 
 of the Cape Colony, sent a small force, well chosen and well- 
 equipped, under an able and experienced officer, Sir Arthur 
 Cunynghame, and the republics, self-constituted by foreign 
 intruders, disappeared, and order was restored at very small 
 expense (I think £10,000, which was repaid by the colony) 
 without, I believe, the loss of a single life, and the district has 
 since been a mine of wealth, contributing in a most remarkable 
 degree to the commercial prosperity not only of all South Africa 
 but of this country also. 
 
 Again, there is the fact that when all South Africa was 
 disturbed by native risings and wars, and Bechuanaland was 
 invaded by rebels from the English colony five years ago, 
 order was restored by Colonels Lanyon and Warren, with 
 scarcely the aid of a .single regular soldier. 
 
 Nothing can be more opposed to fact than the statement 
 that the Bechuanas are to blame for their present difficulties. 
 It is not even alleged that they have given any cause of 
 offence, just or unjust, to the Transvaal Government, or to any 
 of their neighbours. 
 
 They have a country which, under missionary teaching, they 
 have rendered valuable to themselves, to their neighbours, and 
 especially to Kimberley, a centre of British trade and enter¬ 
 prise. 
 
 Foreign adventurers from a distance, without a shadow of 
 claim to right, want to take that country from them; the 
 Bechuanas are weak, and we refuse them the aid which has 
 been afforded to their aggressors in supplies of guns and 
 ammunition. 
 
 This refusal would be quite right if we did our own duty, 
 as just arbiters, in a dispute which affects our own interests, 
 as well as the rights of others; but if we mean to hold aloof 
 
26 
 
 and pretend to neutrality, the aid given to the invaders of 
 Bechuanaland is difficult to explain or defend. 
 
 Meantime, whilst we are ignoring the geographical position 
 of Bechuanaland, and discussing imaginary difficulties, as 
 excuses for not doing what our duty, as well as our interest, 
 requires and demands, the freebooters, colonial and foreign, 
 including, we are told, some sixty deserters from the British 
 army, are acting. A recent instance is better than a mere 
 opinion. 
 
 In the ‘ Times ’ of March 26 was a telegram from the 
 ‘Times’ correspondent at Durban, Natal, stating that “the 
 Pretoria newspapers contain a favourable account of Stella- 
 land, the new territory in the south west, where farmers are 
 settling in large numbers, and a duly constituted Government 
 has established itself.” 
 
 Do our Government, or your readers, the British public, 
 recognise what and where this “ Stellaland ” is ? 
 
 Having never before heard of such a region, I made inquiry, 
 and found that “ Stellaland ” is the name given by the 
 marauding invaders to the land of which they have, during 
 the last few weeks, possessed themselves in Bechuanaland, and 
 which they have called “ Stellaland,” from the “ Star ” on the 
 flag which they carried in their marauding expeditions. 
 
 I was referred for further information to the ‘ Scotsman ’ of 
 the 8th of last month (March), in which it is stated that the 
 Boers and European adventurers who have hitherto figured as 
 “Volunteers,” assisting this chief or that, have so far com¬ 
 pleted the conquest of the country, that they have marked out 
 as their own a territory they now claim, extending westward 
 from the Transvaal boundary to the Ka-la-hari desert, and 
 unauthorised by us, by the rightful native owners, by the 
 Transvaal, or by any other recognised Government, they have 
 seized on a slice of territory, dividing Bechuanaland in two, 
 and cutting off one of the best and most direct roads from 
 Kimberley into the interior. 
 
 How many readers of the ‘ Times ’ telegram of March 26th 
 can have understood that the “ Stellaland ” they read of was 
 really a portion of the friendly and peaceful native territory 
 of Bechuanaland, thus forcibly appropriated by marauders ? 
 The ‘ Scotsman ’ adds, that the name of Volunteers has now 
 been dropped, the authority of the chiefs has long been set 
 aside. A newspaper published in Kimberley, is the medium 
 through which this band of adventurers now address themselves 
 to the outside world. One column is headed “ Stellaland 
 Government Gazette Notices.” The Notices are signed “G. J. 
 
27 
 
 Van Niekerk, Chairman of the Committee of Management,” and 
 are dated from “ Vryburg (Free Town), Stellaland.” 
 
 The ‘ Scotsman ’ then quotes from this Government Gazette 
 some of these “ Notices.” 
 
 1. “That the lotteries of the Volunteers’ farms will take 
 place on the 23rd of February, 1883 ” (which means apparently 
 that the lands, which these marauders have occupied, will be 
 then divided by lot amongst themselves). 
 
 2. “ That the Land Commission will show owners of farms 
 their ‘ beacons ’ (i.e. their boundaries) gratis, during a period 
 of one month, after which the charge will be £1 10s. per beacon.” 
 (These so-called “ owners ” are apparently to be the fortunate 
 drawers in the lottery.) 
 
 3. “ Tariff of Licenses. Shop licenses in town £12 ; liquor 
 licenses, bottle and glass, £25 ; liquor licenses, wholesale in 
 town, £15; traders’ licenses for three months for 3000 lbs. or 
 less, £7 10s.; traders’ licenses for three months for 3000 lbs. or 
 less, with liquor, £15; traders entering township for fifteen 
 days, £3.” 
 
 4. “ That new ‘ intrekkers ’ (immigrants) intending to reside 
 in this territory, shall, within eight days of their arrival, 
 report themselves to the nearest Field Cornet, and within 
 fifteen days, swear the oath of allegiance to this State.” 
 
 The ‘ Scotsman ’ adds : “ Attention has been repeatedly called 
 in these columns to the movements of these freebooters, whose 
 numbers are said to be swelled by desertions from our own 
 army, and who have devastated a country adjacent to the Cape 
 Colony.” 
 
 The ‘ Scotsman ’ further refers to the warning given by Her 
 Majesty’s Government to the Transvaal Government that its 
 boundary must not be extended westwards, and to the fact 
 that “ Stellaland ” does extend across our right of way north¬ 
 ward into the interior of the South African continent, a right 
 hitherto conceded to our traders by all the native chiefs. It 
 calls attention to the vexatious tariff established by these 
 freebooters, which must seriously interfere with legitimate 
 trade on that route ; and, above all, its calls attention “ to the 
 abominable liquor traffic ”—the promotion of which seems the 
 main principle of the tariff—(traffic in liquor, I may observe, 
 is strictly forbidden by Kama and others of the native chiefs. 
 
 I am told that there is a second so called “ Kepublic ”—that 
 of “ Goshen ”—set up by these marauders, and, like “ Stella¬ 
 land,” assuming all the airs of a regularly constituted govern¬ 
 ment. 
 
 Aggressions of this kind are nothing new. They have been 
 frequently attempted before. Cases of the kind were brought 
 
28 
 
 to my notice when I was at Kimberley in 1879, but they were 
 promptly and effectually checked, without resistance or blood¬ 
 shed, by small parties of Griqualand police, who had been 
 stationed in the Bechuana country by Colonel Warren, R.E. 
 (then administering the government of Griqualand West), for 
 the preservation of order in those disturbed times. 
 
 But I would ask my countrymen whether it is to a self- 
 appointed government like that of “ Stellaland ” or “ Goshen,” 
 that they are prepared to surrender the results of the labours 
 of Livingstone and Moffat, and of all who have laboured as 
 they did to civilize and elevate by the teaching of Christianity 
 the people of Bechuanaland. 
 
 Can it be said that the usurpation of a portion of Bechuana¬ 
 land and the establishment of such a filibustering State as 
 “Stellaland,” within three score miles of Kimberley—about 
 as far as London is from Portsmouth or Dover—can be a 
 subject of little interest to those who have commercial relations 
 with Kimberley, or with the chief marts of South Africa, to 
 whose commerce the destinies of Kimberley are of very vital im¬ 
 portance ? What is the position of the Transvaal in the matter ? 
 Even if we are to give every weight to any excuses which can 
 be made for the Transvaal Government, and to any reasons 
 for our not now interfering, as Suzerain, or in any other 
 capacity, with the internal affairs of the Transvaal, we cannot 
 shut our eyes to the fact that these Bechuanaland proceedings 
 are clearly outside the limits assigned to the Transvaal by the 
 Convention of August, 1881; and supposing the Transvaal 
 people to be acting in good faith, they are as much interested 
 as we are in checking marauding on their borders. They 
 cannot reasonably object to our appointing a Resident to repre¬ 
 sent the English Government as protecting Bechuanaland—to 
 restrain the Bechuanas from molesting the Transvaal subjects; 
 or trespassing over the Border, as well as to represent accu¬ 
 rately, and with authority, to the Transvaal Government any 
 wrongs the the Bechuanas may suffer from Transvaal subjects, 
 to maintain, in fact, an efficient Border police, for the preven¬ 
 tion of trespassing and cattle-thieving on either side the 
 frontier, in an open country, where the character of the popula¬ 
 tion does not require any display of much force to maintain 
 order. 
 
 A complete and practical scheme for carrying out such a 
 protectorate was included in a Report submitted by Captain 
 Darrel to Her Majesty’s Government in 1880. In it detailed 
 statistics were given of the territory whose chiefs had asked to 
 be taken under British protection, and to be ruled, through 
 European agents, responsible to the High Commissioner at 
 
29 
 
 the Cape. The whole cost was to have been met by local 
 taxation, as in Natal, and no charge need fall on Imperial or 
 Cape Colonial revenues, when once the plan is in operation. 
 
 For reasons with which I need not now trouble you, such a 
 plan would be far easier to carry out now, than it would have 
 been at the time it was submitted. 
 
 Reference has been made to an idea put forward by minis¬ 
 terial apologists, that the aggrieved Bechuanas may be trans¬ 
 planted. No one who knows the country could entertain the 
 slightest hope of such a plan succeeding. Even if the chiefs 
 could be transplanted, how could their people be moved ? and 
 where could they be placed safe from a repetition of “ Stella- 
 land” aggressions? The only practical plan of preserving 
 them from extermination is to protect them where they are, 
 and where, unlike all other Kaffir tribes, they have been since 
 the earliest travellers first heard of them. 
 
 Mr. Forster truly said that force was not likely to be needed 
 “ if we were known to be in earnest.” He was met by the 
 taunt that “ being in earnest ” meant being prepared to sup¬ 
 port right by force. But is not this true of the enforcement of 
 every right, and of every law ? What else has the policeman 
 to enforce his authority but the conviction that he is in earnest, 
 and so is the Government and society behind him, and that 
 they will, if necessary, use force to support him ? 
 
 Why does Her Majesty’s Government hesitate to act ? I 
 trust I have already shown how flimsy is the excuse that the 
 region of Bechuanaland is too remote to concern us; whether 
 we have, or have not, any moral obligations, it is clear we have 
 very important material interests at stake there. 
 
 It has been said, as an excuse for inaction, that the Conven¬ 
 tion of 1881 “ gave us only a right, but not an obligation to 
 interfere.” 
 
 Can any reasoning be more calculated to create distrust in 
 the Boer mind ? Whether the Boers agree or not with us in 
 our notions of obligation, they must feel that to keep a right 
 of this kind suspended over their heads, but never exercised, 
 is as dangerous for them, as it is discreditable for us, if it is 
 avowedly a right of interference, whose exercise depends, not 
 on obligations of humanity or good faith, but of unalloyed 
 self-interest. In such case the conclusion is inevitable, that, 
 whenever our self-interest is in favour of interference, we shall 
 exercise our reserved right against them for our own profit. 
 
 Yet more provocative of colonial mistrust and hostility is 
 the excuse given for our non-interference that “ the Bechuanas 
 are quite able to protect themselves, if they would give up their 
 tribal feuds, and combine to resist the freebooting invaders.” 
 
30 
 
 I do not myself believe in the native power to do so. I 
 believe such combination to be impossible, to any extent which 
 could resist the onward pressure of European invasion. A 
 native combination may occasion infinite bloodshed and misery, 
 but it must ultimately fail to resist a pressure, which is, I am 
 convinced, irresistible by any native force. It only rests with 
 us to choose, whether this pressure shall be that of a civilizing, 
 protecting, elevating sovereignty—like that which, under the 
 British flag, educates the Cape Colonial Kaffirs, and qualifies 
 them to be citizens of a free, civilized, self-governing state— 
 or the pressure of an enslaving power, using such auxiliaries as 
 the ‘ Stellaland Government Gazette ’ enumerates, to weaken 
 opposition. 
 
 The Trek Boers themselves do not believe in the efficacy of 
 native combinations. Experience teaches them that, espe¬ 
 cially in an open country like Bechuanaland, native combi¬ 
 nations only accelerate and render more fatal the ultimate 
 certainty of native defeat. 
 
 But they also know, by bitter personal experience, that 
 such defeat of a native combination has always been pre¬ 
 ceded by a period of native license and atrocity. What 
 will they, therefore, think of the suggestion and recommen¬ 
 dation by our Government of such native combination ? 
 
 The Boers do not share Mr. Gladstone’s admiration of 
 paramount chiefs. There are men, and women too, among 
 the Boers who have detailed to me their personal recollections 
 of such paramount chiefs as Chaka, Dingaan, and Moselekatze ; 
 and any one who recollects, as I do, the stories he has heard 
 from those who themselves helped to defend their “laagers,” 
 when the fight was for dear life, and when all knew that, in 
 case of failure to hold out, no quarter would be shown to 
 age or sex, may well shudder to think of the effect on Boer 
 feeling of any suggestion from our Government that the 
 natives “ should combine and defend themselves.” 
 
 Instead of thus pitting race against race, let us recognise 
 the truth, pointed out in the remarks I have quoted from the 
 ‘ Economist,’ that there are three races in South Africa, and 
 that, until they learn to live in harmony, there can be no 
 permanent peace or prosperity in those regions. 
 
 But how live in harmony ? One of the three must guide 
 the others. There is a proverbial difficulty in two men 
 riding the same horse, unless one of them consent to sit 
 behind. The difficulty is not lessened when there are three 
 men to ride one steed. One must direct and guide the others. 
 In this case which of the three shall it be ? 
 
 The native system has its advocates. They would have us 
 
31 
 
 respect, and re-establish, where it has been broken down, such 
 a rule as that of Cetywayo; they would make barbarism 
 supreme, and trust to some as yet unobserved process of 
 natural evolution, to produce results different from those 
 shown by the experience of all Africa during thousands of 
 years past. 
 
 Whatever may be the merits of this system, it will clearly 
 not suit either the Dutch or the English. It can only succeed 
 when both races have been driven from South Africa. History, 
 however, proves the white races to be stronger than the black, 
 and any attempt to make the black races rule the white will 
 surely fail, and will not, in the meantime, tend to that harmony 
 of races, which the ‘ Economist ’ desires as necessary to peace 
 and commercial prosperity in Africa as everywhere else. 
 
 The Dutch system has advocates, yet more numerous and 
 sanguine, and with better reason. That system is seen at its 
 best—not in the rough Border life of the states in South 
 Africa, but in Java and other Dutch colonies. It is founded 
 on views like those prevalent in England in Queen Anne’s 
 time, or in the Southern States of America before the late 
 war. It regards the native races as Helots, or serfs, to be 
 humanely treated, but not by nature capable of being placed 
 on any sort of practical equality with the white races. It 
 consequently does little to educate or raise the natives from 
 their existing condition of barbarism ; and, if it does not 
 actually discourage missionary enterprise, it neither favours it 
 nor expects any practically useful result from it. It might, 
 however, produce a certain amount of superficial peace, and 
 material prosperity, if the English with their views of native 
 improvement could be expelled, and the more refractory of 
 the native races be destroyed or driven out. 
 
 Lastly, we have the English system, on which we have 
 acted most completely and successfully in India, and more par¬ 
 tially in the Cape Colony. It recognises the essential legal 
 equality of all races before the law, and their indefinite capa¬ 
 cities for improvement—moral, social, and political—for which 
 it is the duty of the State to afford free scope. The problem 
 of how best to make the good and civilizing government of 
 such races as the Kaffirs self-supporting in a financial point of 
 view has been best solved by Natal, whilst to the Cape Colony 
 belongs the honour of establishing a Constitution which recog¬ 
 nises no special privileges nor disabilities of race or colour, 
 and opens to the native African, as well as to the European 
 and Alricander, every political franchise, as the direct reward 
 of industry and ability. 
 
 On these general lines we have, for two generations past. 
 
32 
 
 with more or less uniformity and success, dealt with the native 
 races in South Africa, and our Colonies have steadily grown 
 to the proportions of a great Dominion. We have never 
 failed of success, save when we deviated from our own prin¬ 
 ciples, and attempted to combine two incompatible systems— 
 either to patronize barbarism and rule on Kaffir principles, or 
 to act on the sterner and exclusive system of our Dutch 
 predecessors. 
 
 So far for colonial policy within the colonial borders. But 
 the question now is, on which of these three classes of prin¬ 
 ciples shall we rule or use our inevitable governing influence, 
 over those who are beyond the pale of our colonial laws, and 
 whose machinery of administration must be native, though 
 the moving spirit may be either native barbarian or Dutch, or 
 English ? 
 
 Shall we leave our native proteges to their native ways and 
 native destinies ? In that case, whatever of European spirit 
 has been infused by missionary teaching will be soon crushed 
 out, and the native races, swept from the lands they have 
 hitherto held, must be reduced, by the superior force of the 
 white races, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for 
 the European intruders of some “ Stellaland ” or “ Goshen ” 
 Republic, who will supplant the natives, and will rule them, 
 when subdued, on the Dutch system. 
 
 Viewing these results as inevitable, it seems to me that we 
 are under very positive and explicit obligations of humanity— 
 good faith, self interest, and sound policy—to extend our 
 protectorate over the Bechuanas, and to rule them through 
 their own headmen, on the principles, not of the barbarism 
 from which they have emerged, nor of the Dutch colonial 
 system with which they are now threatened, but of our own 
 English administration, in India, in Canada, and in the old 
 settled provinces of the Cape Colony and Natal. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 H. B. E. FREBE. 
 
 April 9th, 1883. 
 
33 
 
 ENGLAND’S DUTY IN BECHUANALAND. 
 
 Reprinted from the ‘ Pall Mall Gaz tte' of November 26, 1883. 
 
 The ‘ Pall Mall Gazette ’ of tlie 7th of November gives a brief 
 resume of the arguments which the Rev. John McKenzie has 
 so ably stated since his return to England. He recommends 
 that Bechuanaland should be taken formally under the pro¬ 
 tection of England, and governed by an English official, sub¬ 
 ject to Her Majesty’s High Commissioner in South Africa, but 
 using for administrative purposes such local materials, of 
 native chiefs and headmen and colonial Europeans, as he finds 
 on the spot. The ‘ Times ’ of the 8th states that one of the 
 objects of the visit of the Transvaal delegates to England is to 
 obtain the removal of the boundary which limits Transvaal 
 extension and dominion in the direction of Bechuanaland, and 
 intimates that it is probable such a request made by the 
 delegates would be granted by the Cabinet, and that Bechuana¬ 
 land would be left for the Transvaal Government to deal with 
 as it might think proper. It would be well if, before the 
 decision of the Cabinet is irrevocably taken, the arguments 
 for and against either plan could be impartially weighed. 
 
 In favour of the course foreshadowed in the ‘ Times,’ the 
 only argument that can be urged is that the Trausvaal dele¬ 
 gates ask for it. It is not pretended that the Transvaal has 
 any right to Bechuanaland. They have received no provoca¬ 
 tion from the Bechuanas ; no Transvaal rights have been 
 infringed or threatened. The sole argument is that the 
 Bechuanas have some things—lands, pasturage, roads, and 
 water privileges—which the Transvaal may desire to have, 
 and has the power to take, unless England exercises the 
 power given by the Convention of 1881 to forbid Transvaal 
 interference. 
 
 On the other hand, what are the arguments against this 
 course ? Eirst, there are the rights of the Bechuanas, a people 
 more than half reclaimed from utter barbarism by more than 
 half a century of English missionary labour. They have 
 surely some claim on English good offices and protection. 
 No one can say, with any approach to truth, that they will be 
 better off or more content under the Transvaal or under the 
 Stellaland or Goshen Republics than they have been under 
 the practical protectorate of the British Government from 
 1840 to 1880. It may be said, “ Let them tight for their own 
 rights and defend themselves.” Whatever may be urged in 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 favour of such a course, let it be clearly understood that it is 
 a new departure, at variance with our policy for many years 
 past, and that it is a breach of the reasonable expectations 
 which the Bechuanas have founded on that policy. In Sir 
 George Grey’s time, in Sir Philip Wodehouse’s time, in Sir 
 Henry Barkly’s time, and up to the date of the Pretoria Con¬ 
 vention, the Transvaal was clearly informed that England 
 would not permit extensions of Transvaal frontier in the direc¬ 
 tion of Bechuanaland. When the boundary was doubtful or 
 disputed, it was laid down by arbitration, the arbitrator chosen 
 being an English official. All objections to the boundary so 
 laid down were heard before the Pretoria Convention was 
 signed, modifications were made in the Transvaal interest, and 
 the boundary was finally fixed only two years and three months 
 ago. If, then, we now withdraw and leave the Bechuanas to 
 fight it out with the Transvaal Boers, let it be clearly under¬ 
 stood that our doing so is a new policy, entirely opposed to 
 our past practice and to our implied pledges under all 
 Governments, Liberal as well as Conservative, during the past 
 fifty years. 
 
 A second argument against the abandonment of Bechuana¬ 
 land is grounded on the interests of the Cape Colony. A 
 glance at the map is sufficient to show that it can never be 
 for the interest of the Cape to allow any foreign power to 
 extend itself from the Yaal westward to the Kalahari Desert, 
 to intersect roads hitherto free from impost into the interior, 
 and to possess the power of impeding trade by Custom-houses 
 with a tariff which may be intentionally hostile, with a view 
 to drive commerce into other channels. Every port from 
 Cape Town to St. John’s River carries on a large and increas¬ 
 ing trade with the countries north of Bechuanaland; and 
 every merchant in those ports knows that the apprehensions I 
 have alluded to are not fanciful. I believe few of those 
 merchants would deny that the best prospects for their own 
 trade with the interior rest on the Bechuanaland routes into 
 the interior remaining under British protection, free from 
 foreign Custom-houses. Again, Bechuanaland and the native 
 states beyond it to the north and north-east are among the 
 best sources of labour supply to the Diamond Eields of the 
 Cape Colony. The supply may at any time be cut off, or 
 subjected to heavy taxation by the Transvaal, if the Transvaal 
 commands the routes by which the labourers pass to and from 
 their homes. Much stress has been laid on the argument that, 
 it' the Cape objects to the Transvaal extending its dominions 
 over Bechuanaland, the Cape should itself undertake the pro¬ 
 tection of Bechuanaland against Transvaal aggression. But a 
 
35 
 
 very little consideration of the facts will show the injustice 
 and absurdity of this argument. Although the Cape is much 
 interested in the freedom of routes through Bechuanaland, it 
 does not follow that in the most prosperous times the Cape 
 people would be willing to defend the Bechuanas against 
 foreign aggression. The present happens to be a period of 
 extreme depression of commerce and industry in all South 
 Africa, but especially in the Cape Colony. The Cape people 
 are seeking to be relieved from the responsibility of ruling 
 Basutoland and the Transkei districts of Kaffraria. It is little 
 less than mockery, at such a time, to ask the Cape to under¬ 
 take fresh and distant reponsibilities. Nothing can be more 
 erroneous than the prevalent notion that the Cape people are 
 always anxious for an extension of their colony. Whatever 
 may have been the case in former days, since I have known 
 them they have always been most unwilling to assume the 
 responsibilities of any extension of the Colonial limits. In 
 the case of the Diamond Fields, Basutoland, and the Transkei 
 Kaffraria, whilst always recognising the value of English as 
 opposed to foreign rule, the Cape Parliament never willingly 
 accepted the distant frontier province as an accession to their 
 own colony, and in this the Parliament only reflected the 
 general cautious feeling of the colony. 
 
 It may seem absurd to urge, as a third argument against an 
 abandonment of Bechuanaland, that it would be very much 
 against the true interest of the Transvaal itself to remove the 
 border line and its restrictions, as defined by the Pretoria 
 Convention; but I am convinced that every true friend of the 
 Transvaal will soon agree with me, even if we should differ at 
 present, on this point. Amid all its defects, the Convention 
 of 1881 had, at least, this one undoubted merit—it defined the 
 Transvaal boundaries, and in defining them gave the Transvaal 
 one characteristic of every settled and civilized State which 
 before was wanting. There can be no doubt that the clearly 
 defined boundaries of the Orange Free State have been one 
 important element in the steady growth of that thriving 
 Republic, and that with undefined frontiers, and unlimited 
 power of expansion, not all the sagacity of President Sir John 
 Brand could have kept the Republic together. I believe that 
 no more fatal gift could be bestowed on the Transvaal than an 
 unlimited power of expansion, which would tempt some of the 
 most active elements of Colonial life to exchange the steady 
 industry of the old farm for the gambling enterprises of the 
 filibuster. Extension of Transvaal rule westward up to the 
 Kalahari desert might give farms to many Transvaal subjects 
 who have them not at present, but would add nothing to the 
 
real strength of the State. It would in many ways multiply 
 the difficulties which beset its government. It would per¬ 
 petuate and aggravate all the controversies arising from the 
 different view of native rights and capacities which the people 
 of the Transvaal generally take as compared with English 
 philanthropists of the present day. The difference is not 
 much greater than between our own views and those of our 
 grandfathers on the same subject; but if any enemy of the 
 Transvaal wishes to prevent a large and respected portion of 
 the English people from from ever doing justice to the Trans¬ 
 vaal Voortrekkers, he could not, in my opinion, desire a better 
 means of effecting his purpose than by removing the frontier 
 lines, and restrictions on frontier extension, provided by the 
 Convention of 1881. 
 
 I should hope that the objections to an abandonment of 
 Bechuanaland which I have already stated, on the grounds of 
 justice, humanity, and sound policy, would outweigh all other 
 considerations ; but I cannot omit noticing, fourthly and lastly, 
 the grave objections founded on the injury which such aban¬ 
 donment must inflict on our national interests. To rescind 
 the restrictions which the Convention of 1881 imposes on 
 indefinite expansion of Transvaal boundaries at the expense of 
 neighbouring native States, must carry with it in effect, if not 
 in terms, our abdication of the position we have hitherto prac¬ 
 tically held, as the paramount Power in South Africa. In such 
 cases as have arisen during the last forty years between the 
 Transvaal and the Bechuanas, England has hitherto held 
 practically the position of arbiter,—not by treaty but by 
 common consent, founded on the logic of facts and on the pos¬ 
 session of power. To evade performance of the duties of 
 arbiter, as we have done during the last two years, must weaken 
 our power; but the rescission of a solemn act like the Con¬ 
 vention of 1881, which gave formal expression to the rights 
 and duties of arbiter, would be a formal abdication and renun¬ 
 ciation of power. The concession so made to the Transvaal, 
 leaving its subjects free to take as much as they please and all 
 they can from their native neighbours, could not be withheld 
 from the subjects of other Powers, nor, indeed, from our own; 
 for when the paramount Power had disappeared by abdication, 
 any one, whether British subject or foreigner, would only have 
 to cross beyond our colonial border, occupy another man’s farm, 
 and assume independence; he would at once enter the region 
 where might is right, and could not logically be restrained 
 from acts, however piratical they might be, which we should 
 thus have formally declared we would not restrain when done 
 by the descendants of those Voortrekkers who left the Cape 
 
37 
 
 Colony only forty years before the more recent filibuster. But 
 a country like South Africa, comprising so many diverse and 
 ill-assimilated races, cannot long subsist without some para¬ 
 mount authority. If that authority is abandoned by England, 
 it will inevitably be assumed by some other Power. It seems 
 to me less likely that the paramount Power to take our place 
 will be African or Africander than European. There is at 
 least one such Power, competent, and probably not unwilling, 
 to undertake the task. Commercial Germany has long wished 
 for a South African colony of its own; and, but for the wise 
 self-restraint imposed by Prince Bismarck, would have possessed 
 one ere now. But there are symptoms that this restraint is 
 being relaxed. Experience only can show our Africander 
 fellow-subjects what is the thickness of the little finger of 
 German administration as compared with the thigh of the 
 English Colonial Office ; but one thing is certain, that at any 
 port or on any frontier under the German flag our merchants 
 and manufacturers may find a tariff, not necessarily hostile, but 
 differential; and no one need tell them what difference even 
 5 per cent, in a Customs duty will make to those striving in 
 the arduous race of mercantile competition. If we maintain 
 our present position on the Bechuanaland border, there is at 
 least one commercial road open into the interior. If we 
 abandon that position, as defined by the Convention of 1881, 
 that road may be any day closed by a foreign Customs line, 
 and the market of the interior may be effectually cut off. 
 
 Such are briefly the reasons why it seems to me that the 
 abrogation of the Pretoria Convention, as far as concerns the 
 definition of the western boundary of the Transvaal, and the 
 restrictions on Transvaal extension into Bechuanaland, can be 
 good, neither for the people of the Transvaal, nor for the 
 Bechuanas, nor for the Cape colonists, nor for the British 
 people. On the other hand, I cannot find a single valid objec¬ 
 tion to the course proposed by the Rev. John Mackenzie, of 
 extending an effectual British protectorate ov6r Bechuanaland. 
 Such a protectorate would meet the legitimate wants and 
 wishes of the Bechuanas—a point which surely deserves some 
 weight in deciding what is to be done—and would secure them 
 against extinction, expulsion, or reduction to a condition of 
 serfage. The Transvaal could offer no objection to Mr. Mac¬ 
 kenzie’s plan, save such as is founded on a kind of Munroe 
 doctrine—that the English have no right to interfere north of 
 the Vaal. Mr. Mackenzie’s plan is simply a formal and 
 efficient resumption of what was our principle and practice 
 from the time we first came in contact with the Bechuanas and 
 their Transvaal neighbours up to the date of the Convention 
 
38 
 
 of 1881. It cannot be truly said that the plan would be diffi¬ 
 cult of execution, or would involve England in great or expen¬ 
 sive responsibilities ; for the fact is before us that the English 
 protectorate—though never embodied in diplomatic forms— 
 was efficient from 1840, especially through all the troubled 
 years from 1877 to 1881, and that the Queen’s authority was 
 maintained, and when rebels from Griqualand West invaded 
 Bechuanaland, peace and lawful order were restored by the 
 Administrators, Colonels Lanyon and Warren, who had none 
 but volunteer^.^ rce^. raised from the territory north of the 
 Orange Liver, w w Emit calling in a single British soldier. No 
 one who has had practical experience of Bechuanaland doubts 
 that taxation by hut-tax or otherwise would be readily borne 
 by Bechuanas to pay for such protection, and would be as 
 effectual, as in Natal, to meet all necessary expenses of admi¬ 
 nistration. 
 
 In this, as in all other questions affecting the Transvaal, I 
 would allow no thought of bitterness connected with the past 
 to influence our action for the future. We have, whether for 
 good or for evil, recognized the right of the Transvaal people 
 to govern themselves, according to their own views, as long as 
 they do not interfere with their neighbours. Let us frankly 
 accept the new obligations we took on ourselves by the Con¬ 
 vention of 1881, and let us abstain from all attempts to filch 
 back the right of controlling the internal administration of the 
 country which we then formally renounced. Let us go further, 
 and honestly and cordially assist by every legitimate means 
 the men in whose favour we then renounced the rights we pre¬ 
 viously claimed. Let us aid them to organize self-government 
 on a permanent and prosperous footing, but do not let us at¬ 
 tempt to conciliate them by allowing them to encroach on the 
 rights of others. Do not let us now abrogate the restrictions 
 which were imposed on such encroachments by the same instru¬ 
 ment which surrendered our claims to regulate the internal 
 government of the Transvaal. 
 
 j 
 
39 
 
 NOTE ON BECHUANALAND. 
 
 {November, 1883.) 
 
 The Reverend J. Mackenzie now acting as Mankoarane’s 
 representative, in England, belongs to the London Missionary 
 Society Missions in Bechnanaland, including the estates of 
 many chiefs besides Mankoarane, who, being on the Transvaal 
 frontier, has been the first to suffer from filibusters. 
 
 Paramount Chiefs in Bechuanaland are an invention or fiction 
 of our own. The Bechuanas have always been divided into 
 many tribes, large and small; each claiming independence. 
 
 The chiefs were and are like Highland chiefs of three 
 centuries ago ; many pretend to sovereign rights over their 
 weaker neighbours, and if very rich, or able, or powerful, may 
 exercise for a time some sort of sovereignty; but this was 
 never recognised by any one strong enough to refuse recogni¬ 
 tion. 
 
 At this moment, if there were any one to listen to them, 
 there are dozens of chiefs in Bechuanaland who would say they 
 were quite independent of Mankoarane, that they acknow¬ 
 ledged no one who had a right to command them save Queen 
 Victoria—but that they quite agreed with Mankoarane in his 
 remonstrances against filibusters, and prayed that the Queen 
 would protect them. 
 
 In a country so divided, missionaries like Livingstone, 
 Dr. Moffat, and Mr. Mackenzie (who is an excellent man of the 
 same type as Livingstone) soon acquire, unconsciously, enor¬ 
 mous power. Most of whatever intelligent energy may exist 
 in the country soon gravitates to the teachers of the new 
 doctrine—the chiefs themselves are more or less influenced— 
 and if of naturally good dispositions, soon find that their own 
 power is greatly increased by taking the Bible for their guide, 
 and a good missionary as their habitual adviser and advocate. 
 Such a chief is Kama, the powerful ruler of Bamangwato, far to 
 the north of Mankoarane. He has hitherto successfully resisted 
 filibusters, and has sixteen European families of missionaries 
 and traders settled at his capital. But he used to write to me 
 of his distrust of the Boers, and Mr. Mackenzie can speak for 
 him as being quite as much interested in the Bechuanaland 
 question as Mankoarane, though he has not yet suffered in a 
 way to entitle him to ask for protection. 
 
 Kama’s case is, however, exceptional. The great majority of 
 
40 
 
 chiefs, in and near Bechuanaland, are weak sensualists; and 
 after a generation of missionary teaching among their people, 
 they find that real power has slipped from their hands—that 
 the industrious law-abiding men, who follow the missionary’s 
 advice, are richer and more influential than themselves, and 
 that they are powerless to resist European filibusters, unless 
 they subsidize the same class of Europeans, who must be paid 
 in cattle or farms, for fighting as mercenaries. 
 
 The missionary has the greater part of the chiefs old power, 
 and much more; but his calling prevents the missionary from 
 exercising his power in political questions. 
 
 Any recognised agent of the English Government has, like 
 the missionary, without seeking it, much ruling power forced 
 on him by circumstances. Up to 1880 this power was often 
 used by English officials in the interests of peace. Since 
 1880 this has been forbidden, and the result is the present 
 anarchy. 
 
 In what I wrote in the ‘ Pall Mall,’ I simply advocated our 
 resuming the exercise of this power, which, whether we wish 
 for it or not, is the inevitable result of our position in South 
 Africa. 
 
 I believe that if this power were exercised as it used to be 
 by myself and my predecessors, it would be ample and secure 
 peace, and security for life and property in Bechuanaland. 
 
 The filibustering process is nothing new. Attempts to 
 “jump” farms in Bechuanaland were made during our troubles 
 in Zululand, and they were checked, without resort to armed 
 force, simply by a few policemen meeting the filibusters, and 
 telling them that filibustering would not be allowed. 
 
 This was effectual then, why should it not be so now ? 
 
 Our abandonment of the Transvaal has, in one respect, 
 weakened the policeman’s power, but in other ways it has 
 strengthened it; for, whereas in 1880 the present Transvaal 
 rulers would gladly have supported the filibusters in worrying 
 us or our subjects—they have now strong motives for, osten¬ 
 sibly at least, withholding support from any lawless pro¬ 
 ceedings. 
 
 I do not think the Transvaal Government is strong enough 
 to prevent filibusters going from the Transvaal into Bechuana¬ 
 land ; but I do not think they have either the wish or the 
 power to support them actively in wrong-doing. 
 
 The difficulty and cost of protecting the Bechuanas from 
 aggression have been greatly exaggerated. 
 
 Why should they be more than in 1877 to 1880, when 
 Colonels Lanyon and Warren kept the peace, after putting 
 down actual rebellion, with no other force than police and 
 
41 
 
 volunteers? They never called in a single English a s ldio p y 
 and what is wanted now is, not 10,000 or even 100 English 
 soldiers, hut two or three English officers, who will do what 
 Lanyon and Warren did—organize and direct the local forces 
 for self-defence, and be just and considerate to the Transvaal 
 and to all men. 
 
 At first, no doubt, their proceedings might be unpopular in 
 the Transvaal, and in the Orange Free State, and even among 
 the Dutch at the Cape. But I am quite sure we may, in the 
 long run, rely on the good sense and respect for law which 
 actuates the majority of the Dutch population, and which will 
 support us in doing what we can clearly show is a duty. 
 
 Even under the Sand River Convention the filibustering 
 proceedings in Bechuanaland would have been illegal, and we 
 should have been justified in opposing them. The Boers, if 
 we are just and considerate to them in other matters, will soon 
 recognise the justice of our protecting the Bechuanas. 
 
 As regards the possibility or probability of interference by 
 other European nations, there can I think be no doubt, if 
 England stands aloof. Before the Franco-German war there 
 was much pressure put on the German Government by in¬ 
 fluential commercial bodies in Frankfort, Bremen, and Ham¬ 
 burgh, to acquire a German Colony in some temperate climate. 
 A scientific expedition was sent out to South and Eastern 
 Africa to report on it, with a view to colonization. Resident 
 burghers of the Transvaal were in favour of the project, but the 
 report of the scientific men sent out from Germany was not so 
 favourable as to overcome the objections of Prince Bismarck. 
 He approved of the idea on general grounds, but considered 
 that Germany had then, as the objection was expressed to me, 
 “ too much hay on her fork ” to make any large scheme of 
 colonization prudent. 
 
 Latterly the commercial agitation in favour of a German 
 colony has been revived, and permission has been given to 
 hoist the German flag at Angra Pequina, a small port on the 
 West Coast north of the Orange River, heretofore held to be 
 British territory. Whatever we may think of it here, this step 
 is regarded at the Cape as important and significant. There 
 are Berlin missionaries in Eastern Bechuanaland who, four 
 years ago, threatened Colonel Warren with the displeasure of 
 the German Government if he did not respect their claim to 
 independence of his control within the limits of their own 
 mission. German traders will not be slow to follow the ex¬ 
 ample thus set, if we withdraw from the paramount position 
 we have hitherto held in those regions. 
 
 Why should we gratuitously open the door to such trouble 
 
 E 
 
42 
 
 by abandoning the Bechuanas, who for fifty years have been 
 considered as under our protection ? 
 
 I do not think the plan for constituting Bechuanaland an 
 “ African Belgium ” (i.e. an independent state, guaranteed by 
 the surrounding powers—the Transvaal, the Orange Free 
 State, and the Cape Colony, as well as by the English G-overn- 
 ment) will work. It will only hamper us with impotent or 
 unwilling colleagues, and prevent anything effectual being 
 done to check lawless encroachment. It might content the 
 Aborigines Protection Society, without offending the Extreme 
 Badical Left, but it will not protect Bechuanaland against 
 filibusters. 
 
 England can and ought to do the work by her own fiat, and 
 to call in colleagues who cannot or will not work in aiding 
 you, is thereby to court weakness and ensure failure. 
 
 (Signed) H. B. E. FRERE. 
 
 November 15 th, 1883. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.