PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
|ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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alone.. I do not know the political arguments for or against union or federation of the Self-C governing Colonies alone, excluding the terri- tories under the direct control of the Imperial Government : but, from the point of view of the uative question, it seems to be open to grave objections :-
:-
(i) It would in all probability emphasise even more than at present different handling of the natives by the Imperial and the Colonial Govern- ments, to which I have already referred and which is and must be an evil, an element of un- rest to white and coloured alike, and the very opposite of what we are aiming at, viz., some- thing approximating to a final settlement.
(ii) It would tend to stereotype the principle of native reserves, which, as I have tried to conteul, is not good as an ultimate solution but only as an interim measure. The whole of South Africa is and must be for white and coloured men alike and interspersed. It is im- possible to divide it up and assign one part to Moreover. white and another to coloured.
there might be, as I inter, a tendency, having further developed and emphasised the system of native reserves, to try and make a bargain with the basis that the Imperial Government on certain classes of natives might be transplanted to the reserves, leaving the remainder, even more than at present. a permanently subordinate non- citizen element to do unskilled labour under a dominant white community. Thus, instead of levelling up, of very gradually working towards general citizenship not based on colour, we shoul·1 have more separation than ever, and be further removed than ever from a final solution of some- thing like equality of races.
Assuming then that, in view of the native question, federation or union should be complete, fe., should include the whole of South Africa, the question arises, which would safeguard native interests better, union or federation ? Union means one law and one administration. What would be its basis? We have the two diame- trically opposite views. There is the traditional English view, so far as previous engagements and political exigencies have not hampered it, that colour shall not be a bar to citizenship, and that the goal to be aimed at is political equality of races.
This is also the traditional view of the Cape Colony, still outwardly upheld. On the other hand there is the view which appears bluntly in the Transvaal Grondwet of 1896:
The people will not permit any equalisation of colourél persons with white inhabitants." It cannot be doubted, I think, that union would be based on a compromise, and the compromise night well be such as is recommended" in the report of the South African Native Affairs Commission, viz, : that the Cape Colony should give up its attitude of political equality and that the natives in South Africa should be given race representation as in New Zealand.
I have already pointed out that in principle
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(as it seems to me) this is not defensible, except as a step to something further, and that the danger of it is that its adoption would probably be taken as final, as precluding anything further. There are two special points on which, though they are obvious, it is worth while insisting. The first is that any argument on this heul applier
to South Africa from, say, New Zealand or any other Self-governing Colony or group of colonies
ia misleading. Where the natives are a small minority and becoming relatively smaller year by year, race representation may work out fairly or even favourably to the natives. It is not so where the natives fill the place which they do in South Africa and have had the rights which in some parts of South Africa they have had for many years past. The mere fact that they have held their own and are holding their own numerically makes, to my mind, the con- clusion irresistible that, in the distant future, either they must become ordinary citizens or taey must become slaves. The second point is this. Looking at what was said (as I have quoted) 50 years ago on the subject of giving representative institutions to the Cape, and considering the present measures and feeling in the Self-governing Colonies, it seems to me that the attitude which
is now openly and very generally adopted towards the coloured races, as regards their political status in the lands where white men have made their homes, is, on the whole, much less liberal than it was. The objection to the entry of coloured men into lands into which white men came and which they now consider their own is, I suppose, largely economic, but it is also part and parcel of a general tendency to racial exclusiveness, It is only another step, in lands where the coloured men are at home and hold their own numerically, to keep them as a separate element in the community and to oppose their rise to citizenship.
It seems to me therefore that any compromise which avowedly goes back from "what I have called the traditional English standpoint, as long as we are free and unfettered to uphold it, is much to be deprecated. This makes against South African union.
It does not make to the same extent against South African federation. It would be possible
to federate, leaving the separate States to retain their separate laws as regards natives.*
In that
It should be noticed, however, that, even in the absence of either union or federation, the South African Native Affairs Commission recommend more or less uniform race representation. One of their resolutions on the subject (p. 70) runs-
That the extent of such representation, that is, the number of members to be granted to native constituencies, shall be settled by each Legislature, and that at least one such seat should be created in each of the Self-governing Colonies in South Africa now, and in each colony or possession as it becomes self-governing."
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