Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  But if Johannesburg shows a certain unrest, she also reveals a curious solidarity — the strength of narrowness and exclusion, which is partly natural and due to the struggle for self-conscious existence, and partly accidental and based on a profound disappointment. Her citizens believed that the end of the war would begin a golden age of unprecedented prosperity. Money was to flow into her coffers, her population to grow by many thousands each year, and she herself was to stand out before an envious world as a type of virtue rewarded. She miscalculated the future, and the facts left her aghast. Conservative estimates, a few years back, put the value of the gold output in 1902 at between 20 and 30 millions: the actual figures during the first year of peace show little over 10 millions — a reduction on the output of 1898. Hence the almost hysterical concentration of interest on the one great industry. Men who in other matters are remarkable for their breadth of view, are to be found declaring that everything must be made subordinate to mining development, — not in the sense in which the saying is true, that the prosperity of the country depends in the first instance on the mines, but in the quite indefensible sense that any consideration of other things, even when there is no conflict between them and the mining interest, is a misapplication of energy which should go to the greater problem. It is fair to argue against a programme of public works which might draw native labour from the mines, because, unless we cherish the goose, there will be no golden eggs to pay for our programmes. But to condemn schemes of settlement which are no more a hindrance to the gold industry than to the planetary system, is to show a nervous blindness to graver questions, which is the ugliest product of the present strain and confusion. This trait, however, cannot be permanent; and we may look to see the gold industry in time, when its own crisis is past, become that enlightened force in politics which the ability of its leaders and the weight of its organisation entitle it to be. For the other form of narrowness, which consists in the limitation of citizenship, there is ample justification in present circumstances. A new city must begin by drawing in her skirts and showing herself, perhaps unwarrantably, jealous and sensitive. More especially a city which has hitherto been rather a fortuitous gathering of races than a compact community, is right in straining after such compactness, even at the cost of a little injustice. The only danger lies in the perpetuation of this attitude when its justification has gone.

  The fault of Johannesburg, to sum up, lies for the moment in a certain narrow hardness of view: her hope is in the possession of rich elements unknown in most new cities; while her greatest danger lies in the fact that she cannot yet honestly claim those elements as her own. She is apt to judge a question from a lower point of view than the question demands — to take up a parochial standpoint in municipal affairs, a municipal standpoint in national affairs, a national standpoint in imperial questions. In spite of her many splendid loyalties, she will find it hard to avoid the assertive contra mundum attitude which seems inseparable from flourishing colonial cities — a dogmatism natural, but unfortunate. On the other hand, her history and her present status give her a chance beyond other new cities. She starts on her civic career already rich, enterprising, the magnet for the first scientific talent of the world. A fortunate development might give her a cultivated class, true political instincts, and the self-restraint which springs from a high civilisation, without at the same time impairing that energy which she owes to her colonial parentage. The danger is that her ablest element may continue alien, treating the city as a caravanserai, and returning to Europe as soon as its ambition is satisfied. So far the intellect has not been with the men who have made the place their home, but, subject to a few remarkable exceptions, with the men who have never concealed their impatience to get away. If she fails to make this class her citizens, then, whatever her prosperity, as a city she will remain mediocre. Nothing can deprive her of her position as the foremost market; but if she is to be also the real capital of South Africa, she must absorb the men who are now her resident aliens. There are signs, indeed, that the process has begun in all seriousness. As she becomes a more pleasant dwelling-place, many who find in the future of the country the main interest of their lives will find in Johannesburg the best field of labour for the end they desire. And the growth of such a leisured class, who take part in public life for its own sake and for no commercial interests, will not only import into municipal politics a broader view and a healthier spirit, but will do much to secure that community of interest between town and country by which alone a united South Africa can be created.

  CHAPTER XVI. CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS.

  The constitutional requirements of a country are never determined solely by its political needs. Some account must be taken of its prior history, for theories of government are apt to sink deep into the mind of a people and to become unconsciously a part of its political outlook. No form of education is less conscious or more abiding in its effects. It may even happen that the fabric which such theories created has been deliberately overthrown with the popular consent, but none the less the theories are still there in some form or other to obtrude themselves in future experiments. It is always worth while, therefore, in any reconstruction to look at the ideas of government which held sway before, whether in the shape of a professed creed or in the practical form of institutions. The constitutional history of South Africa is not long, and it is not complex. In Natal and Cape Colony we possess two specimens of ordinary self-governing colonies. Natal, which began life as a Crown colony, subject to the Governor of the Cape, was granted substantive independence by charter in 1856, and in 1893 was given representative government. It possesses a nominated legislative council of nine members, and an elective legislative assembly of thirty-nine members, elected on an easy franchise. Cape Colony also began as a Crown colony, and followed nearly the same path. Her legislative council was created in 1850, and by an ordinance of this legislature in 1872, ratified by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, she obtained full representative institutions. Her council and her house of assembly are each elected and on the same franchise. In these two colonies we have, therefore, types of colonial autonomy — that is to say, an unfettered executive and freedom to legislate subject to the consent of the Governor and the Crown in Council, a limitation which is daily becoming more of a pious fiction. In Southern Rhodesia we have a specimen of that very modern experiment, government by a commercial company. It is a provisional form, and has been made to approximate as far as is reasonably possible to a Crown colony. The executive power is in the hands of the company’s officials, subject to an indirect control by the Imperial Resident Commissioner, the High Commissioner, and ultimately by the Crown. There is a legislative council, partly nominated by the company and partly elected, and all legislation is contingent upon the sanction of the imperial authorities. Lastly, there are the native states, the Crown colony of Basutoland, and the protectorates of Bechuanaland, North-West Rhodesia, and Swaziland, all of which are directly or indirectly under the authority of the High Commissioner. So far there is no constitutional novelty — Crown colonies advancing to an ordinary type of self-government, or remaining, provisionally or permanently, under full imperial control.

  There remain the late Governments of the Republics, which to the student of constitutional forms show certain interesting peculiarities. These constitutions were framed by men who had no tradition to fall back upon, if we exclude the Mosaic law, and no theories to give effect to — men who would have preferred to do without government, had it been possible, but who, once the need became apparent, brought to the work much shrewdness and good sense. The Natal emigrants in 1838 had established a Volksraad, but the chief feature in their scheme was the submission of all important matters to a primary public assembly, a Homeric gathering of warriors. By the time the Sand River and Bloemfontein Conventions were signed and the two republics became independent, the people were scattered over a wide expanse of country, and some form of representation was inevitable. At the same time, it had become necessar
y to provide for a military organisation coextensive with the civil. In the Transvaal transient republics had arisen and departed, like the changes in a kaleidoscope. Around both states there was a native population, actively hostile and potentially dangerous. Some central military and civil authority was needed to keep the country from anarchy. But if the farmers were without political theories, they had a very vigorous sense of personal independence; so the doctrinal basis of the new constitution lay in the axiom that one burgher in the State is as good as another, and that the people are the final repository of power. In this at least they were democratic, though from other traits of democracy they have ever held aloof.

  The Constitutie of the Orange Free State was rigid — that is, it could be altered only by methods different from those of ordinary legislation: in the Transvaal Grondwet, on the other hand, there was no provision for change at all, and reforms, when necessary, were made in the ordinary legislative manner. The Constitutie created one supreme legislature, the Volksraad, elected by the qualified white population. The President was elected by the whole people, though the Volksraad, like the Roman consuls, reserved the power to make nominations, which were generally accepted. The Volksraad had not only supreme legislative power, but, while formally independent of the President and the executive, it could reverse any executive Act, except the exercise of the President’s right of pardon and the declaration of martial law. It was limited only by its own charter, which forbade it to restrict the right of public meeting and petition (one of the few Bill of Rights elements in this constitution), and bound it to promote and support the Dutch Reformed Church. The Transvaal Grondwet began by making the Dutch Reformed Church an established national Church (a provision repealed later), and declaring that “the people will not tolerate any equality between coloured and white inhabitants in Church or State.” No man was eligible for a seat in the Volksraad unless he was a member of a Protestant Church. In the Transvaal, as in the Orange Free State, the Volksraad was the supreme legislative authority, but when any law was proposed the people were given the opportunity of expressing their opinion in a mild form of the referendum. The President was elected by the whole people and acted as chief of the executive, though responsible to the Volksraad, which could dismiss him or cancel his appointments. He could sit and speak in the Volksraad, but had no vote. The chief military authority was the Commandant General, who was elected by all the burghers, and under him there was a long hierarchy of district commandants and field-cornets. The local administrative officer for civil matters was the landdrost or district magistrate. It is unnecessary to consider the Second Volksraad, which was an ineffective advisory body elected on a wider franchise, a mere sop to the Cerberus whose hundred tongues were clamouring for representation. But there was one curious development of considerable historic interest. In cases of urgency the Volksraad could pass laws without reference to the people at large, but such an enactment was called a resolution (besluit) as contrasted with a law (wet), and was supposed to have only a provisional force. But the habit grew of calling most matters “specially urgent,” and allowing the old popular referendum to fall into desuetude.

  The common feature of both constitutions was the immense nominal powers of the legislatures. Nominally they had the right to make all appointments, to veto the President’s action, and to say the last word in all questions of revenue and expenditure. But certain facts wrought against this legislative supremacy. The members came from districts widely apart, and there was no serious attempt to form groups or parties; the President could sit and speak in the Volksraad, and he might be elected as often as he could persuade the people to elect him. The way was paved for the tyranny of a strong man. In the Orange Free State, that country of mild prosperity and simple problems, the system worked admirably; but in the Transvaal, when burning questions arose, the republican methods for all serious purposes broke down, and were replaced by a dictatorship. There remain, however, certain doctrines from the old régime which will have to be reckoned with under the new. The supremacy of the legislature is not one, for no Boer cared much for the dogma, and Mr Kruger ruled on the simple maxim, “L’état c’est moi.” But the democratic principle of equality among citizens is one cherished belief, and another is the absolute disqualification of all coloured races. The Boer is not a parliamentarian in the ordinary sense, and he did not grieve when his Volksraad was slighted and made impotent; but he likes his representative to go to Pretoria, as a sort of tribute to his importance, and, if he is to vote, he demands to vote on an equal basis with all. He was attached to his local administration with its landdrost system, and any change which bore no relation to the old plan might begin by confusing and end by souring him.

  We have therefore to face two existing constitutional traditions — among the British from the Cape or Natal or over-seas, the old love of colonial self-government; among the Boers, at least in the Transvaal, a kind of ingenuous republican independence, quite consistent with a patient tolerance of absolutism, but not so easy to adapt to the gradations of our representative system. Hence in many ways the Boer is far more likely to remain patient for years under a Crown colony Government than the English or colonial new-comer. He does not particularly want to vote or interfere in administration, so long as he has no personal grievance; but it might annoy him to see the franchise denied to him and given to his cousin who was a little richer or better educated, when he remembered the old Grondwet doctrines of equality, and it would certainly exasperate him to learn that any native had been granted a civic status beyond him.

  Such being the constitutional history, we may turn to the present. The term Crown colony is used so loosely that very few of its many critics could define the peculiar features of this form of government. “One of the greatest of all evils,” wrote Lord Durham in the famous Report which has become the charter of colonial policy, “arising from this system of irresponsible government, was the mystery in which the motives and actual purposes of their rulers were hid from the colonists themselves. The most important business of government was carried on, not in open discussions or public acts, but in a secret correspondence between the Governor and the Secretary of State.” This feature, more than any other, tends to dissatisfaction. The Crown colony system is necessarily a secret one. The newspapers, till blue-books are issued, are informed only as much or as little as the authorities may think good for them; and the natural critics of all administration have the somewhat barren pleasure of finding fault with a policy after it has become a fact. There is no safety-valve for the escape of grievances, no official channel even for sound local advice. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if it seems an intolerable burden to men full of anxiety about the methods by which they are governed.