Transcribed from the 1879 James Clarke & Co. edition byDavid Price,
IMPERIALISM
IN
SOUTH AFRICA.
J. EWING RITCHIE.
London:
JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET.
1879.
Price Sixpence.
p.5IMPERIALISM IN SOUTH AFRICA.
ANNEXATION OF THE TRANSVAAL.
It is vain to dispute the fact thatthose Puritan Fathers—who, upon one occasion, held ameeting, and resolved first that the earth was the Lord’s,and the fulness thereof; secondly, that it was the heritage ofthe saints; and that thirdly, they were the saints, and were,therefore, justified in depriving the natives of their grounds,and in taking possession of them themselves—had a fullshare of that English faculty of appropriation which has madeEngland the mistress of the seas, and for a while, almost, theruler of the world; and, as Englishmen, we cannot say that on thewhole that wholesale system, which has planted the British flagin every quarter of the globe, has been disastrous to thecommunities ruled over, or dishonourable to the nationitself. In some cases undoubtedly we have acted unjustly;in some cases the lives and happiness of millions have beenplaced in incompetent hands; in some cases we have had selfishrulers and incapable officers; but India and Canada and the WestIndian Islands and Australia and New Zealand are the better forour rule. An Englishman may well be proud of what hiscountrymen have done, and it becomes us to review the past in nonarrow, carping, and censorious spirit. We have spent moneyby millions, but then we are rich, and the expenditure has notbeen an unproductive one. We have sacrificed valuablelives, but the men who have fallen have been embalmed in thenation’s memory, and the story of their heroism will mouldthe character and fire the ambition and arouse the sympathies ofour children’s children, as they did those of our fathersin days gone by; and yet there is a danger lest we undertakeresponsibilities beyond our means, and find ourselves engaged incontests utterly needless in the circumstances of the case, andcertain to result in a vain effusion of blood and expenditure ofmoney. As far as South Africa is concerned, this isemphatically the case. Originally the Cape Settlement wasbut a fort for the p.6the coast. The country is subject to drought, andseems chiefly to be inhabited by diamond diggers, ostrichfarmers, and wool growers. Its great agricultural resourcesare undeveloped, because labour is dear, and all carriage to thecoast is expensive. The English never stop in the colonies,but return to England as soon as they have made a fortune. Living is quite as dear as in England, and in many partsdearer. In the Cape Colony, the chief amusements of allclasses are riding, driving, shooting, and billiards. Inthe interior there are fine views to be seen, and in somequarters an abundance of game. The thunderstorms arefrightful, the rivers, dry in summer, are torrents inwinter. The droughts, the snakes, the red soil dust, andthe Kaffirs, are a perpetual nuisance to all decent people. “Although South Africa is a rising colony,” writesSir Arthur Cunynghame, “I h