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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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7848.
10
No. 11.
UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.
طر
THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL.
(Sent 6.0 p.m., 15th February 1918.)
[Copy to Foreign Office, 18th February 1918, L.F.]
TELEGRAM.
Your telegram 12th February.* Should be glad if your Ministers would inform petitioners that His Majesty's Government fear that during war it is impossible to decide any question relating to future government of South West Africa Protectorate or of the Bastard Gebiet which forms part of it but that community may rest assured that their interests will be considered fully when the time arrives for a final settlement of these matters.-LONG.
9229
No. 12.
UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.
THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL to THE SECRETARY OF STATE, (Received 8.10 p.m., 20th February 1918.)
(Paraphrase.)
TELEGRAM.
In case it should not be quite clear, I may explain that my telegram of February 15th, regarding treatment of natives in South West Africa, contains the text of an official communication from Ministers.-Buxton.
13045
No. 13.
UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.
THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 14th March 1918.)
[The portion in [
(Secret.)
SIR,
was printed in No. 7 in [Cd. 9210].]
Governor-General's Office, Cape Town, 9th February 1918.
WITH reference to your secret telegram of the 4th January, I have the honour to transmit to you one copy of a reports prepared by the Administrator of the South-West Africa Protectorate on the subject of the treatment of the natives of that territory by the Germans, and the desires of the natives as to their future government.
I hope to be able to send you a further copy of the report by a subsequent mail.] 2. As requested in your telegram of 4th January, my Ministers are preparing
a summary of Mr. Gorges's report, and I shall telegraph this to you shortly.† content myself for the moment with inviting the special attention of His Majesty's Government to the report, which is a most complete and valuable document.
• No. 9.
No. 1.
I have, &c.,
BUXTON,
Governor-General.
† No. 6 in [Cd, 9210].
Published as [Cd. 9146].
No. C. 8/86.
SIR,
11
Enclosure in No. 13.
Protectorate of South-West Africa,
Administrator's Office, Windhuk,
21st January 1918. In compliance with the instructions contained in your personal and confi- dential telegram to me dated the 8th instant, I have the honour to transmit the accompanying report showing how the natives of South-West Africa have suffered under German rule and what their hopes and fears for the future are. The collection of material for a report of this nature was already in hand before your message reached me. Sir Thomas Watt had made a suggestion to me some time ago that evidence on the subject might perhaps be useful to the Imperial Govern- ment when peace terms came to be discussed, and acting thereon I made a beginning with the work as soon as, with the somewhat slender staff at my disposal, it was possible to do so.
With regard to your request that I should also prepare a statement giving reasons why, from our point of view, German South-West Africa should remain under British rule, I beg to offer the following remarks:-
1. For the past 30 years at least Germany has entertained hopes of securing a position of domination in South Africa. That much will be apparent even from some of the items which have been brought together for purposes of the report on the natives of South-West Africa, and the following examples occurring therein may be offered in proof of the assertion→
(A) the declaration of the German Colonial Company in May 1891, "that this meeting regards the Colony of South-West Africa as one of the most valuable German dependencies. Owing to its situation, that colony is destined to secure to German influence its decisive position in South Africa";
(B) the representations made to Berlin from South-West Africa at an earlier date" that Damaraland is a gate to South Africa which we should not let pass out of our hands "; and
(C) Leutwein's declaration that the Gobabis district of the Protectorate is "the key to the East" (ie., to British Bechuanaland and so to the Transvaal and Rhodesia).
2. Germany has never been an agreeable neighbour to the Union of South Africa. She maintained by means of tariffs a strong barrier against the products of the Union. In 1912, 81 37 per cent. of the imports into this country came from Germany, and only 12 20 per cent. from South Africa. By her land laws, mining laws, commercial laws, in fact in everything, the settler from the Union was dis- couraged from coming here, and if, notwithstanding, he did come he was placed at a serious disadvantage. The plight of the Dutch-Africander farmers who from time to time emigrated in small numbers from the north-western districts of the Cape of Good Hope to the southern districts of the Protectorate is well illustrated by recalling their difficulties with the German Administration over the question of education for their children. These people in 1911 erected a school, and were then denied the right to have them instructed in their mother-tongue. The orders of the German Government were that reading and writing in Dutch might be taught only during certain hours as special subjects. After demurring unsuccessfully against this condition, the parents expressed a desire to secure the services of a Cape Colonist able to teach both German and Dutch, but were again refused, and a German State teacher unacquainted with the Dutch language was appointed to the school on the Governor's orders.
3. A very clear idea is given in Chapter XXVI. of the report of the opinion of the natives of this country on the annexation of their land by Germany. They had looked with certainty to the protection or control of the British Government established at the Cape, a land which many of them, especially the Hottentots, regarded as their country of origin. Amongst the older men who have been interrogated on the subject, constant surprise is expressed at the attitude of Great Britain towards them in 1884-1885, in agreeing to the establishment of German influence.
4. On account of its geographical situation in relation to the rest of southern Africa, the development of this country should naturally fall to the Union, whose people have the requisite knowledge, bought of long experience in
areas with physical features and climate in every way similar to those here, to make a success
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