Imperialism in South Africa

AT the present moment we are witnessing a sorry spectacle for a Christian nation-that of a whole people hemmed in in one corner of Eastern Africa, waiting to be swept off the face of the earth by the finest soldiers and the most scientific instruments of murder England has at her command. Their crime has been that in defending their native soil from the tread of the foe, they annihilated an English regiment, and for such an act there is no hope of pardon, in this world at least. From every corner of the land, from the pulpit and the Press, from the hut of the peasant and the palace of the prince, from the cad of the music-hall and the statesman of Downing Street, there has risen a cry for revenge; and that we shall take a full and fierce revenge there can be no doubt. Already in England and in Africa the blood-stained demon of war has sown her seed and reaps her harvest; already there have been bitter tears shed over hundreds of fallen heroes in desolated homes, and women wail and children vainly cry for loved ones whose bones now bleach the distant plain of Isandula. And there will be sadder and darker tragedies yet to come if the wild instincts of the people are to be gratified and the Zulu Kaffirs are to be exterminated. They are now represented as savage hordes, whose existence is incompatible with English rule. Let me plead that they are not such as they are represented, and that it is better that we make them friends. Cetewayo, by not crossing the Tugela and sweeping with fire and slaughter through Natal when that colony lay stricken and terrified at his feet, has set us an example of forbearance which it were wise to imitate. If we fail to do so, the blood feud between us and his people can know no end. They in their turn will nurse a spirit of revenge, and the Kaffir wars of the future will be fiercer and more cruel than any we have hitherto known.

There is much in the Kaffirs that should make them friendly with the English people if fairly treated. One well-known writer states that they are keen observers of character, and have great contempt for a man who gets drunk, or who does not keep his word. Kaffirs should be treated with kindness, fairness, and firmness. They have an accurate idea of justice, and appreciate the administration of just legislation, wrote Mr. Wilson, late a resident magistrate in Natal. In their wild state they are innocent, quiet, unoffending, and hospitable, and it is only when they live close to a European town that they acquire the bad habits of the white race, and with the cunning instincts natural to them become dangerous to the community. Said another colonist, at a conference recently held at the African section of the Society of Arts, mentally they were equal to white men. Dr. Mann, who has lived twenty-five years in Natal, and who has written a large work on that colony, declares that the Kaffirs had great ability, and, even without education, seemed a much higher race intellectually than the lower class of the agricultural population in England. In fact, he would rather go to a Kaffir for a response to an appeal to his reason than to an English labourer. Twenty years ago, said Mr. Richardes, they brought comparatively nothing, but now they were great customers to the British merchant. As a further proof of how a Zulu Kaffir could rise in the world, Dr. Mann mentions the case of one he knew who could not read, who borrowed on his own credit £500 to buy a sugar mill, and obtained a further loan from the Government to get it to work, and who, in three years, paid off the loan, and became a prosperous manufacturer. It seems a pity to kill off such people-a people by nature intended to be our customers and allies and friends.