Oom Paul's People Part 11

The uncertainty of the situation is increased by the doubtful stand which the native races are taking in the dispute. Neither England nor the Boers has the positive a.s.surance of support from any of the tribes, which outnumber the whites as ten to one; but it will not be an unwarranted opinion to place the majority of the native tribes on the side of the Boers. The native races are always eager to be the friends of the paramount power, and England's many defeats in South Africa during recent years have not a.s.sisted in gaining for it that prestige.

When England enters upon a war with the Transvaal the natives will probably follow the example of the Matabele natives, who rebelled against the English immediately after Jameson and his men were defeated by the Boers, because they believed a conquered nation could offer no resistance. The Boers, having won the last battle, are considered by the natives to be the paramount power, and it is always an easy matter to induce a subjected people to ally itself with a supposedly powerful one.

The Zulus, still stinging under the defeat which they received from the British less than twenty years ago, might gather their war parties and, with the thousands of guns they have been allowed to buy, attempt to secure revenge. The Basutos, east of the Orange Free State, now the most powerful and the only undefeated nation in the country, would hardly allow a war to be fought unless they partic.i.p.ated in it, even if only to demonstrate to the white man that they still retain their old-time courage and ability. The million and a half natives in Cape Colony, and the equal number in the Transvaal, have complained of so many alleged grievances at the hands of their respective governments that they might be presumed to rise against them, though it is never possible to determine the trend of the African negro's mind. What the various tribes would do in such an emergency can be answered only by the chiefs themselves, and they will not speak until the time for action is at hand. Perhaps when that time does arrive there may be a realization of the natives' dream--that a great leader will come from the north who will organize all the various tribes into one grand army and with it drive the hated white men into the sea.

It is impossible to secure accurate statistics in regard to the military strength of the various colonies, states, and tribes in the country, but the following table gives a fair idea of the number of men who are liable to military duty:

Dutch. English. Native.

Cape Colony 20,000 10,000 177,000 Natal 7,000 5,000 100,000 Orange Free State 10,000 ...... 30,000 Transvaal 30,000 20,000 140,000 Rhodesia ...... 2,000 25,000 Swaziland and Basutoland ...... ...... 30,000 ------ ------ ------- Total 67,000 37,000 570,000

To him who delights in forming possible coalitions and war situations this table offers vast opportunities. Probably no other country can offer such a vast number of possibilities for compacts between nations, races, and tribes as is presented in South Africa. There all the natives may unite against the whites, or a part of them against a part of the whites, while whites and natives may unite against a similar combination. The possibilities are boundless; the probabilities are uncertain.

The Pretorian Government has had an extensive secret service for several years, and this has been of inestimable value in securing the support of the natives as well as the friends.h.i.+p of many whites, both in South Africa and abroad. The several thousand Irishmen in South Africa have been organized into a secret compact, and have been and will continue to be of great value to the Boers. The head of the organization is a man who is one of President Kruger's best friends, and his lieutenants are working even as far away as America. The sympathy of the majority of the Americans in the Transvaal is with the Boer cause, and, although the American consul-general at Cape Town has cautioned them to remain neutral, they will not stand idly by and watch the defeat of a cause which they believe to be as just as that for which their forefathers fought at Bunker Hill and Lexington.

But the Boers do not rely upon external a.s.sistance to win their battles for them. When it becomes necessary to defend their liberty and their country they reverently place their trust in Providence and their rifles. Their forefathers' battles were won with such confidence, and the later generations have been similarly successful under like conditions. The rifle is the young Boer's primer and the grandfather's testament. It is the Boers' avenger of wrong and the upholder of right.

That their confidence in their rifles has not been misapplied has been demonstrated at Laing's Nek, Majuba Hill, Doornkop, and in battles with natives.

The natural opportunities provided by Nature which in former years were responsible for the confidence which the Boers reposed in their rifles may have disappeared with the approach of advancing civilization, but the Boer of to-day is as dangerous an adversary with a gun as his father was in the wars with the Zulus and the Matabeles half a century ago. The buck, rhinoceros, elephant, and hippopotamus are not as numerous now as then, but the Boer has devised other means by which he may perfect himself in marksmans.h.i.+p. Shooting is one of the main diversions of the Boer, and prizes are offered for the best results in contests. It is customary to mark out a ring, about two hundred and fifty feet in diameter, in the centre of which a small stuffed figure resembling a bird is attached to a pole. The marksmen stand on the outside of the circle and fire in turn at the target. A more curious target, and one that taxes the ability of the marksman, is in more general use throughout the country. A hole sufficiently deep to retain a turkey-c.o.c.k is dug in a level plot of ground, and over this is placed a piece of canvas which contains a small hole through which the bird can extend and withdraw its head. At a distance of three hundred feet the bird's head is a target by no means easily hit.

Military men are accustomed to sneer at the lack of generals.h.i.+p of the Boer forces, but in only one of the battles in which they have engaged the British forces have the trained military men and leaders been able to cope with them. In the battle of Boomplaats, fought in 1848, the English officers can claim their only victory over the Boers, who were armed with flintlocks, while the British forces had heavy artillery. In almost all the encounters that have taken place the Boer forces were not as large as those of the enemy, yet the records show that many more casualties were inflicted than received by them. In the chief engagements the appended statistics show that the Boers had only a small percentage of their men in the casualty list, while the British losses were much greater.

MEN ENGAGED. CASUALTIES.

BATTLES. British. Boer. British. Boer.

Laing's Nek 400 550 190 24 Ingogo 300 250 142 17 Majuba Hill 600 150 280 5 Bronkhorst 250 300 120 1 Jameson raid 600 400 100 5

It is hardly fair to a.s.sume that the Boers' advantages in these battles were gained without the a.s.sistance of capable generals when it is taken into consideration that there is a military axiom which places the value of an army relatively with the ability of its commanders. The Boers may exaggerate when they a.s.sert that one of their soldiers is the equal in fighting ability of five British soldiers, but the results of the various battles show that they have some slight foundation for their theory.

The regular British force in South Africa is comparatively small, but it would require less than a month to transport one hundred thousand trained soldiers from India and England and place them on the scene of action. Several regiments of trained soldiers are always stationed in different parts of the country near the Transvaal border, and at brief notice they could be placed on Boer territory. Charlestown, Ladysmith, and Pietermaritzburg, in Natal, have been British military headquarters for many years, and during the last three years they have been strengthened by the addition of several regular regiments. The British Colonial Office has been making preparations for several years for a conflict. Every point in the country has been strengthened, and all the foreign powers whose interests in the country might lead them to interfere in behalf of the Boers have been placated. Germany has been taken from the British zone of danger by favourable treaties; France is fearful to try interference alone; and Portugal, the only other nation interested, is too weak and too deeply in England's debt to raise her voice against anything that may be done.

By leasing the town of Lorenzo Marques from the Portuguese Government, Great Britain has acquired one of the best strategic points in South Africa. The lease, the terms of which are unannounced, was the culmination of much diplomatic d.i.c.kering, in which the interests of Germany and the South African Republic were arrayed against those of England and Portugal. There is no doubt that England made the lease only in order to gain an advantage over President Kruger, and to prevent him from further fortifying his country with munitions of war imported by way of Lorenzo Marques and Delagoa Bay. England gains a commercial advantage too, but it is hardly likely that she would care to add the worst fever-hole in Africa to her territory simply to please the few of her merchants who have business interests in the town. Since the Jameson raid the Boers have been purchasing vast quant.i.ties of guns and ammunition in Europe for the purpose of preparing themselves for any similar emergency. Delagoa Bay alone was an open port to the Transvaal, every other port in South Africa being under English dominion and consequently closed to the importation of war material. Lorenzo Marques, the natural port of the Transvaal, is only a short distance from the eastern border of that country, and is connected with Pretoria and Johannesburg by a railway. It was over this railway that the Boers were able to carry the guns and ammunition with which to fortify their country, and England could not raise a finger to prevent the little republic from doing as it pleased. Hardly a month has pa.s.sed since the raid that the Transvaal authorities did not receive a large consignment of guns and powder from Germany and France by way of Lorenzo Marques.

England could do nothing more than have several detectives at the docks to take an inventory of the munitions as they pa.s.sed in transit.

The transfer of Lorenzo Marques to the British will put an effectual bar to any further importation of guns into the Transvaal, and will practically prevent any foreign a.s.sistance from reaching the Boers in the event of another war. Both Germany and England tried for many years to induce Portugal to sell Delagoa Bay, but being the debtor of both to a great extent, the sale could not be made to one without arousing the enmity of the other. Eighteen or twenty years ago Portugal would have sold her sovereign right over the port to Mr. Gladstone's Government for sixty thousand dollars, but that was before Delagoa Bay had any commercial or political importance. Since then Germany became the political champion of the Transvaal, and blocked all the schemes of England to isolate the inland country by cutting off its only neutral connection with the sea. Recently, however, Germany has been disappointed by the Transvaal Republic, and one of the results is the present cordial relations between the Teutons and the Anglo-Saxons in South African affairs.

The English press and people in South Africa have always a.s.serted that by isolating the Transvaal from the sea the Boers could be starved into submission in case of a war. As soon as the lease becomes effective, Mr.

Kruger's country will be completely surrounded by English territory, at least in such a way that nothing can be taken into the Transvaal without first pa.s.sing through an English port, and no foreign power will be able to send forces to the aid of the Boers unless they are first landed on British soil. It is doubtful whether any nation would incur such a grave responsibility for the sake of securing Boer favour.

Both the Transvaal and England are fully prepared for war, and diplomacy only can postpone its coming. The Uitlanders' present demands may be conceded, but others that will follow may not fare so well. A coveted country will always be the object of attacks by a stronger power, and the aggressor generally succeeds in securing from the weaker victim whatever he desires. Whether British soldiers will be obliged to fight the Boers alone in order to gratify the wishes of their Government, or whether the enemy will be almost the entire white and black population of South Africa, will not be definitely known until the British troop s.h.i.+ps start for Cape Town and Durban.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cape Town and Table Mountain.]

Whichever enemy it will be, the British Government will attack, and will pursue in no half-hearted or half-prepared manner, as it has done in previous campaigns in the country. The Boers will be able to resist and to prolong the campaign to perhaps eight months or a year, but they will finally be obliterated from among the nations of the earth. It will cost the British Empire much treasure and many lives, but it will satisfy those who caused it--the politicians and speculators.

CHAPTER XI

AMERICAN INTERESTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

An idea of the nature and extent of American enterprise in South Africa might be deduced from the one example of a Boston book agent, who made a competency by selling alb.u.ms of United States scenery to the negroes along the sh.o.r.es of the Umkomaas River, near Zululand. The book agent is not an incongruity of the activity of Americans in that part of the continent, but an example rather of the diversified nature of the influences which owe their origin to the nation of Yankees ten thousand miles distant. The United States of America have had a deeper influence upon South Africa than that which pertains to commerce and trade. The progress, growth, and prosperity of the American States have instilled in the minds of the majority of South Africans a desire to be free from European control, and to be united under a single banner, which is to bear the insignia of the United States of South Africa.

In public, editors and speechmakers in Cape Colony, Natal, and the Transvaal spend hours in deploring the progress of Americanisms in South Africa, but in their clubs and libraries they study and discuss the causes which led to America's progress and pre-eminence, and form plans by which they may be able to attain the same desirable ends. The influence and example of the United States are not theoretical; they are political factors which are felt in the discussion of every public question and in the results of every election. The practical results of American influence in South Africa may now be observed only in the increasing exports to that country, but perhaps in another generation a greater and better demonstration will be found in a const.i.tution which unites all the South African states under one independent government.

If any corroboration of this sentiment were necessary, a statement made by the man who is leader of the ruling party in Cape Colony would be ample.

"If we want an example of the highest type of freedom," said W. P.

Schreiner, the present Premier of Cape Colony, "we must look to the United States of America."[#]

[#] Americans' Fourth of July Banquet, Cape Town, 1897.

American influences are felt in all phases of South African life, be they social, commercial, religious, political, or retrogressive.

Whether it be the American book agent on the banks of the Umkomaas, or the American consul-general in the governor's mansion at Cape Town, his indomitable energy, his breezy indifference to apparently insurmountable difficulties, and his boundless resources will always secure for him those material benefits for which men of other nationalities can do no more than hope. Some of his rivals call it perverseness, callousness, trickery, treachery, and what not; his admirers might ascribe his success to energy, pluck, modern methods, or to that quality best described by that Americanism--"hustling."

American commercial interests in South Africa are of such recent growth, and already of such great proportions, that the other nations who have been interested in the trade for many years are not only astounded, but are fearful that the United States will soon be the controlling spirit in the country's commercial affairs. The enterprise of American business firms, and their ability to undersell almost all the other firms represented in the country, have given an enormous impetus to the export trade with South African countries. Systematic efforts have been made by American firms to work the South African markets on an extensive scale, and so successful have the efforts been that the value of exports to that country has several times been more than doubled in a single year.

Five years ago America's share of the business of South Africa was practically infinitesimal; to-day the United States hold second place in the list of nations which have trade relations with that country, having outranked Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, and Italy. In several branches of trade America surpa.s.ses even England, which has always had all the trade advantages owing to the supremacy of her flag over the greater part of the country. That the British merchants are keenly alive to the situation which threatens to transfer the trade supremacy into American hands has been amply demonstrated by the efforts which they have made to check the inroads the Americans are making on their field, and by the appointment of committees to investigate the causes of the decline of British commerce.

American enterprise shows itself by the scores of representatives of American business houses who are constantly travelling through the country, either to secure orders or to investigate the field with a view of entering into compet.i.tion with the firms of other nations. Fifteen American commercial travellers, representing as many different firms, were registered at the Grand Hotel, Cape Town, at one time a year ago, and that all had secured exceptionally heavy orders indicated that the innovation in the method of working trade was successful.

The laws of the country are unfavourable in no slight degree to the foreign commercial travellers, who are obliged to pay heavy licenses before they are permitted to enter upon any business negotiations. The tax in the Transvaal and Natal is $48.66, and in the Orange Free State and Cape Colony it amounts to $121.66. If an American agent wishes to make a tour of all the states and colonies of the country, he is obliged to pay almost three hundred and fifty dollars in license fees.

The great superiority of certain American manufactured products is such that other nations are unable to compete in those lines after the American products have been introduced. Especially is this true of American machinery, which can not be equalled by that of any other country. Almost every one of the hundreds of extensive gold mines on the Randt is fitted out wholly or in part with American machinery, and, at the present rate of increase in the use of it, it will be less than ten years when none other than United States machinery will be sent to that district. In visiting the great mines the uninitiated American is astonished to find that engines, crus.h.i.+ng machinery, and even the electric lights which illuminate them, bear the name plates of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago firms.

The Kimberley diamond mines, which are among the most extensive and most elaborate underground works in the world, use American-made machinery almost exclusively, not only because it is much less costly, but because no other country can furnish apparatus that will give as good results.

Almost every pound of electrical machinery in use in the country was made in America and was inst.i.tuted by American workmen.

Instances of successful American electrical enterprises are afforded by the Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria street railways, almost every rail, wire, and car of which bears the marks of American manufacture. It is a marvellous revelation to find Philadelphia-made electric cars in the streets of Cape Town, condensing engines from New York State in Port Elizabeth, and Pittsburg generators and switchboards in the capital of the Transvaal, which less than fifty years ago was under the dominion of savages. Not only did Americans install the street railways, but they also secured the desirable concessions for operating the lines for a stated period. American electricians operate the plants, and in not a few instances have financially embarra.s.sed Americans received a new financial impetus by acting in the capacities of motormen and conductors.

One street car in Cape Town was for a long time distinguished because of its many American features. The Philadelphia-made car was propelled over Pittsburg tracks by means of the power pa.s.sing through Wilkesbarre wires, and the human agencies that controlled it were a Boston motorman and a San Francisco conductor. It might not be pursuing the subject too far to add that of the twelve pa.s.sengers in the car on a certain journey ten were Americans, representing eight different States.

One of the first railroads in South Africa--that which leads from Lorenzo Marques to the Transvaal border--was built by an American, a Mr.

Murdock, while American material entered largely into the construction of the more extensive roads from the coast to the interior. American rails are more quickly and more cheaply[#] obtainable in South Africa than those of English make, but the influence which is exerted against the use of other than British rails prevents their universal adoption.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the influential Englishmen to secure British manufactures wherever and whenever possible, American firms have recently secured the contracts for forty thousand tons of steel rails for the Cape Colony Railway system, and the prospects are that more orders of a similar nature will be forthcoming.

[#] "But the other day we gave an order for two hundred and fifty miles of rails. We had a large number of tenders, and the lowest tender, you may be sorry to hear, was sent by an American, Mr. Carnegie.

Fortunately, however, the tender was not in order, and we were therefore able to give the work to our own people. It may be said that this American tender was a question of workmen and strikes."--Cecil J.

Rhodes, at a meeting of the stockholders of the Cape-Cairo Railway, London, May 2, 1899.

It is not in the sale of steel rails alone that the American manufacturer is forging ahead of his compet.i.tors in South Africa.

American manufactured wares of all kinds are in demand, and in many instances they are leaders in the market. Especially true is this of American agricultural implements, which are so much more adaptable to the soil and much cheaper than any other make. Small stores in the farming communities of Natal and Cape Colony sell American ploughshares, spades, forks, rakes, and hoes almost exclusively, and it amazes the traveller to find that almost every plough and reaper used by the more progressive agriculturists bears the imprint "Made in the United States."