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Page 28
much on the varying quantities of gold present in samples from
different localities. On the whole, the utilisation of science in
the service of man, especially in relation to metals, coal, and
water supply, if systematically carried out, will, I believe, be an
element of future prosperity to Cape Colony, and enable the Colony
to minister to the welfare of adjacent lands.
Mr. J.X. MERRIMAN: I am sure South Africans are very grateful
indeed to the amiable and kindly critic in the person of Sir
Frederick Young. It is no new thing to Colonists to owe him a debt.
All those present will acknowledge the great things he has done for
the Colonies in connection with the Royal Colonial Institute. Sir
Frederick Young is a man who has been content to look after small
things, and the result is this Institute has been worked up by the
individual efforts of Colonists and others to its present
flourishing condition. I hope the Institute will long flourish,
and never be absorbed by anything under more magnificent
auspices--in other words, that you will "paddle your own canoe." It
is good sometimes to have a plain statement from a plain man. South
Africa suffers under a plague of experts who, after spending a few
weeks there, tell us exactly what we ought to do; and we don't like
it. I wish I could speak to you as a sort of amiable critic, but I
have the misfortune to belong to that much-despised class the local
politician, and I notice that, when anybody says anything about the
Colonies in England, all unite in kicking the local politician. In
order not to sail under false colours, I state frankly that I
belong to that class. Of course, South Africa is creating a deal of
interest at the present time. People who come to fortunes usually
do excite a great deal of interest among relations who may in times
gone by have given them the cold shoulder. There can be no doubt as
to the material prosperity of South Africa at the present time, and
still less doubt as to the future. The gold fields of Witwatersrand
are unique in the world. This is not my own statement, but the
statement of eminent mining engineers from America. For thirty
miles and more you have a continuous stretch of reef, which gives
throughout a uniform yield per ton, and which has been proved to
the depth of some hundred feet, and may--there is every reason to
believe--go to unknown depths. The reefs are now being worked in
the most economical manner. When proper appliances for mining are
used, and when we get the stock-jobbers off our backs, I believe a
career of prosperity will open of which few people dream. From
another point of view, to those who love the country and make their
home there, there cannot but be a seamy side to the picture. Great
wealth brings other things in its train. It has brought into South
Africa a great spirit of gambling. People neglect the honest
industries of the country: they leave their farm work, and rush off
to make fortunes in a minute. Everybody--from the king to the
beggar--is gambling in gold shares. Everybody neglects his
business, and talks about nothing else. I ask whether this is a
wholesome state of society? Is it not a state of society to which
we may look with some degree of apprehension? I believe myself that
things will work round, but, undoubtedly, the state of affairs is
serious. After all, there is something which goes to build up a
country besides material wealth, and I am not sure that gambling in
gold shares is exactly the thing which is wanted. Of course, there
have been other countries where these vast increases of material
wealth have occurred--California and Australia--but there the
conditions were different. They were new countries, which attracted
large numbers of white men, and, when they found the gold fields
did not pay, they made homes for themselves on the land.
Unfortunately, that state of affairs does not exist at the present
time in South Africa, and that brings us face to face with the
great problem on which Sir Frederick Young has touched--the great
problem which we have always before us--viz., how two races utterly
alien to each other, the black and the white, are to live and
increase side by side. South Africa is the only country in the
world where that problem exists, excepting the Southern States of
North America. This is a great question, on which the future of
South Africa depends. Unfortunately, the white men do not work in a
country where the black race flourishes. If the white man does not
become a "boss," he sinks to the level of a mean white man. The
difficulty is to get a state of society in which the white race
shall flourish side by side with the black; and when people talk
about the "local politicians," the "average Cape politician," and
the like, they should remember we have to deal with this enormous
problem--that we are anxious to do justice to the "black," and at
the same time we are naturally anxious to see the European
population flourish. I believe the gold fields will attract a
large European population. The wages are enormous. There are 20,000
black men, without a stitch upon them, earning as much as eighteen
shillings a week a-piece, and getting as much food as they can eat,
in the mines of Johannesburg. People talk about the treatment of
the blacks. Nobody dares to treat them badly, because they would
run away. There is a competition for them, and the black man has an
uncommonly rosy time of it. The white men naturally won't work
under the same conditions as the blacks. I saw a letter from an
operative cautioning his fellow artisans against going out. He
says, "We get thirty shillings a day, but it is a dreadful place to
live in." I ask the operatives in England to mistrust that
statement. ("What is the cost of living?") You can live at the club
very well indeed for �10 a month--the club, mind you, where the
aristocracy live. It is idle to tell me the honest artisan cannot
live. In addition to the black and white population, there is
another problem, and that is, the influx of Arabs, who creep down
the East Coast through the door of Natal. They are gradually
ousting the English retail trader. You may go to up-country towns,
and in whole streets you will see these yellow fellows, sitting
there in their muslin dresses, where formerly there were English
traders. In places where we want to cultivate the English
population, that is a very serious thing. Our yellow friends come
under the garb of British subjects from Bombay, and are making
nests in the Transvaal and elsewhere by ousting the English retail
trader. Sir Frederick Young has alluded to State colonisation. I am
sorry to differ from so amiable a critic of our ways, but, as one
who has had a little experience, I can tell him that you may send
Colonists out, but you cannot as easily make them stay there. If
they make their fortunes, they come home to England to spend them.
If they are poor, and bad times come, the black man crowds them
out, and off they go to Australia. You can depend on a German
peasant settling, but bring an Englishman or a Scotchman, and he
wants to better himself. In that he is quite right, but he does not
see his way on a small plot of ground, and off he goes down a mine,
or something of that sort. There are great difficulties in the way
of State-aided emigration. We do not want the riff-raff; we don't
want the "surplus population." It is one of the greatest
difficulties to get decent, steady Englishmen to settle on the
land. It is the people who settle on the land who make a country,
and if Sir Frederick Young can give us a receipt for making English
people settle there he will confer one of the greatest possible
benefits on South Africa. Sir Frederick Young departed from the
usual custom on such occasions by touching on politics. I am glad
he did, because more interest is given to the discussion, and there
is nothing like good, healthy controversy. Sir Frederick Young is
greatly concerned that there should be a settled policy for South
Africa. All I can say is, in Heaven's name, don't listen to a syren
voice of that kind. So surely as you have a settled policy--some
great and grand scheme--so surely will follow disaster and
disgrace. The people of South Africa may be very stupid, but they
are very much like other people--determined to make their policy
themselves, and the policy of South Africa is not going to be
framed in Downing Street. I cannot help thinking Sir Frederick
Young did injustice to some of my friends who have been at the head
of affairs. "The mournful mismanagement of South African affairs,"
he says, "during the last twenty-five years, and most especially
during the last decade, has been truly lamentable, and cannot fail
to awaken the saddest feelings on the part of every loyal Briton
and true-hearted patriot." But have affairs been mismanaged for the
last twenty-five years? The revenue twenty-five years ago was
�500,000. It is now nearly �4,000,000. For twenty-five years, under
the beneficent rule of Downing Street, we had not a mile of
railway. Now we have 2,000 miles. Twenty-five years ago there was
no national feeling at all. Now there is a strong South African
feeling, which is destined to grow and build up a South African
policy. As to the talk about a settled and firm policy, Sir Philip
Wodehouse was the last Governor who had a grand scheme from Downing
Street. A more honest, conscientious, and able man did not exist;
but his policy was a failure. Then came my friend Sir Henry Barkly.
His policy was distinctly opposite. It was a true policy for South
Africa. It was a policy of _laissez-faire_. The result was, things
went on as merrily as a marriage bell, Dutch and English drew
together, the natives were quiet, South Africa was prosperous, and
everything went on as happily as possible till Mr. Froude and Lord
Carnarvon hit on the grand scheme of uniting South Africa. From
that day our misfortunes began. One of the most able, courteous,
and high-minded gentlemen in the British service--Sir Bartle
Frere--was sent to carry out this firm policy. What was the result?
Failure. I will say nothing more about it. Then Sir Hercules
Robinson reverted to the _laissez-faire_ policy. South Africa was
under a shade--nobody would look at us. But now we are gradually
righting ourselves, and getting into a prosperous condition. Now
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