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From the
RUSSELL E. TRAIN AFRICANA COLLECTION
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
ADVENTURES IN INTERVIEWING PEACE AND BUSINESS S. O. S:
America’s Miracle in France THE BUSINESS OF WAR THE REBIRTH OF RUSSIA THE WAR AFTER THE WAR LEONARD WOOD:
Prophet of Preparedness
KING ALBERT
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
BY
ISAAC F. MARCOSSON
AUTHOR OF “ADVENTURES IN INTERVIEWING,” ETC.
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD MCMXXI
COPYRIGHT -1921
BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT -I92I BY JOHN LANE COMPANY
THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD -MASS'D-S ‘A
To
THOMAS F. RYAN
WHO FIRST BEHELD THE VISION OF AMERICA IN THE CONGO
FOREWORD
FROM earliest boyhood when I read the works of Henry M. Stanley and books about Cecil Rhodes, Africa has called to me. It was not until I met General Smuts during the Great War, however, that I had a definite reason for going there.
After these late years of blood and battle America and Europe seemed tame. Besides, the economic war after the war developed into a struggle as bitter as the actual physical conflict. Discord and discon¬ tent became the portion of the civilized world. I wan¬ ted to get as far as possible from all this social unrest and financial dislocation.
So much interest was evinced in the magazine articles which first set forth the record of my jour¬ ney that I was prompted to expand them into this book. It may enable the reader to discover a section of the one-time Dark Continent without the hard¬ ships which I experienced.
I. F. M.
New York, April, 1921
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Smuts . .
II. “ Cape-to-Cairo ” . 57
III. Rhodes and Rhodesia . 103
IV. The Congo Today . 139
V. On the Congo River . 177
VI. America in the Congo . * £25
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
King Albert . Frontispiece
Groote Schuur . facing page 28
General J. C. Smuts . 44
Mr. Marcosson’s Route in Africa . 56
Cecil Rhodes . 76
The Premier Diamond Mine . 90
Victoria Falls . 102
Cultivating Citrus Land in Rhodesia . 110
The Grave of Cecil Rhodes . 132
A Katanga Copper Mine . 138
Lord Leverhulme . 144
Robert Williams . 144
On the Lualaba . 150
A View on the Kasai . 150
A Station Scene at Kongola . 156
A Native Market at Kindu . 162
Native Fish Traps at Stanley Falls . 168
The Massive Bangalas . 176
Congo Women in State Dress . 176
Central African Pygmies . 182
Women Making Pottery . 190
The Congo Pickaninny . 190
The Heart of the Equatorial Forest . 198
Natives Piling Wood . 204
A Wood Post on the Congo . 204
Residential Quarters at Alberta . 210
The Comte de Flandre . 210
A Typical Oil Palm Forest . 216
12 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Bringing in the Palm Fruit . facing page 216
A Specimen of Cicatrization . 220
A Sankuru Woman Playing Native Draughts . 220
The Belgian Congo . 224
Thomas F. Ryan . 228
Jean Jadot . 236
Emile Francqui . 242
A Belle of the Congo . 246
Women of the Batetelas . 246
Fishermen on the Sankuru . . . 254
The Falls of the Sankuru . . . 254
A Congo Diamond Mine . . . . . 260
How the Mines Are Worked . 260
Gravel Carriers at a Congo Mine . . . . . 266
Congo Natives Picking out Diamonds . 266
Washing out Gravel . 272
Donald Doyle and Mr. Marcosson . 272
The Park at Boma . 278
A Street in Matadi . 278
A General View of Matadi . 282
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
CHAPTER I — SMUTS
I
TURN the searchlight on the political and eco¬ nomic chaos that has followed the Great War and you find a surprising lack of real leader¬ ship. Out of the mists that enshroud the world welter only three commanding personalities emerge. In Eng¬ land Lloyd George survives amid the storm of party clash and Irish discord. Down in Greece Venizelos, despite defeat, remains an impressive figure of high ideals and uncompromising patriotism. Off in South Africa Smuts gives fresh evidence of his vision and authority.
Although he was Britain’s principal prop during the years of agony and disaster, Lloyd George is, in the last analysis, merely an eloquent and spectacular politician with the genius of opportunism. One reason why he holds his post is that there is no one to take his place, — another commentary on the paucity of great¬ ness. There is no visible heir to Venizelos. Besides, Greece is a small country without international touch and interest. Smuts, youngest of the trio, looms up as the most brilliant statesman of his day and his career has just entered upon a new phase.
He is the dominating actor in a drama that not only affects the destiny of the whole British Empire, but has
15
16
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
significance for every civilized nation. The quality of striking contrast has always been his. The one-time Boer General, who fought Roberts and Kitchener twenty years ago, is battling with equal tenacity for the integrity of the Imperial Union born of that war. Not in all history perhaps, is revealed a more picturesque situation than obtains in South Africa today. You have the whole Nationalist movement crystallized into a single compelling episode. In a word, it is contempo¬ rary Ireland duplicated without violence and ex¬ tremism.
I met General Smuts often during the Great War. He stood out as the most intellectually alert, and in some respects the most distinguished figure among the array of nation-guiders with whom I talked, and I in¬ terviewed them all. I saw him as he sat in the British War Cabinet when the German hosts were sweeping across the Western Front, and when the German sub¬ marines were making a shambles of the high seas. I heard him speak with persuasive force on public occa¬ sions and he was like a beacon in the gloom. He had come to England in 1917 as the representative of Gen¬ eral Botha, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, to attend the Imperial Conference and to re¬ main a comparatively short time. So great was the need of him that he did not go home until after the Peace had been signed. He signed the Treaty under protest because he believed it was uneconomic and it has developed into the irritant that he prophesied it would be.
In those war days when we foregathered, Smuts often talked of “the world that would be.” The real Father of the League of Nations idea, he believed that out of the immense travail would develop a larger fra-
osi
SMUTS
17
ternity, economically sound and without sentimentality. It was a great and yet a practical dream.
More than once he asked me to come to South Africa. I needed little urging. From my boyhood the land of Cecil Rhodes has always held a lure for me. Smuts invested it with fresh interest. So I went.
The Smuts that I found at close range on his native heath, wearing the mantle of the departed Botha, carry¬ ing on a Government with a minority, and with the shadow of an internecine war brooding on the horizon, was the same serene, clear-thinking strategist who had raised his voice in the Allied Councils. Then the enemy was the German and the task was to destroy the menace of militarism. Now it was his own unreconstructed Boer — blood of his blood, — and behind that Boer the larger problem of a rent and dissatisfied universe, waging peace as bitterly as it waged war. Smuts the dreamer was again Smuts the fighter, with the fight of his life on his hands.
Thus it came about that I found myself in Capetown. Everybody goes out to South Africa from England on those Union Castle boats so familiar to all readers of English novels. Like the P. & O. vessels that Kipling wrote about in his Indian stories, they are among the favorite first aids to the makers of fiction. Hosts of heroes in books — and some in real life — sail each year to their romantic fate aboard them.
It was the first day of the South African winter when I arrived, but back in America spring was in full bloom. I looked out on the same view that had thrilled the Portuguese adventurers of the fifteenth century when they swept for the first time into Table Bay. Be¬ hind the harbor rose Table Mountain and stretching from it downward to the sea was a land with verdure
18
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
clad and aglare with the African sun that was to scorch my paths for months to come.
Capetown nestles at the foot of a vast flat-topped mass of granite unique among the natural elevations of the world. She is another melting pot. Here mingle Kaffir and Boer, Basuto and Britisher, East Indian and Zulu. The hardy rancher and fortune-hunter from the North Country rub shoulders with the globe-trotter. In the bustling streets modern taxicabs vie for space with antiquated hansoms bearing names like “Never Say Die,” “Home Sweet Home,” or “Honeysuckle.” All the horse-drawn public vehicles have names.
You get a familiar feel of America in this South African country and especially in the Cape Colony, which is a place of fruits, flowers and sunshine re¬ sembling California. There is the sense of newness in the atmosphere, and something of the abandon that you encounter among the people of Australia and cer¬ tain parts of Canada. It comes from life spent in the open and the spirit of pioneering that within a com¬ paratively short time has wrested a huge domain from the savage.
What strikes the observer at once is the sharp con¬ flict of race, first, between black and white, and then, between Briton and Boer. South of the Zambesi River, — and this includes Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa, — the native outnumbers the white more than six to one and he is increasing at a much greater rate than the European. Hence you have an inevitable conflict. Race lies at the root of the South African trouble and the racial reconciliation that Rhodes and Botha set their hopes upon remains an elusive quantity.
I got a hint of what Smuts was up against the moment I arrived. I had cabled him of my coming and he sent
SMUTS
19
an orderly to the steamer with a note of welcome and inviting me to lunch with him at the House of Parlia¬ ment the next day. In the letter, among other things he said: “You will find this a really interesting country, full of curious problems.” How curious they were I was soon to find out.
I called for him at his modest book-lined office in a street behind the Parliament Buildings and we walked together to the House. Heretofore I had only seen him in the uniform of a Lieutenant General in the British Army. Now he wore a loose-fitting lounge suit and a slouch hat was jammed down on his head. In the change from khaki to mufti — and few men can stand up under this transition without losing some of the char¬ acter of their personal appearance, — he remained a striking figure. There is something wistful in his face — an indescribable look that projects itself not only through you but beyond. It is not exactly preoccupa¬ tion but a highly developed concentration. This look seemed to be enhanced by the ordeal through which he was then passing. In his springy walk was a suggestion of pugnacity. His whole manner was that of a man in action and who exults in it. Roosevelt had the same characteristic but he displayed it with much more anima¬ tion and strenuosity.
We sat down in the crowded dining room of the House of Parliament where the Prime Minister had invited a group of Cabinet Ministers and leading busi¬ ness men of Capetown. Around us seethed a noisy swirl which reflected the turmoil of the South African political situation. Parliament had just convened after an historic election in which the Nationalists, the bitter antagonists of Botha and Smuts, had elected a ma¬ jority of representatives for the first time. Smuts was
20
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
hanging on to the Premiership by his teeth. A sharp division of vote, likely at any moment, would have over¬ thrown the Government. It meant a regime hostile to Britain that carried with it secession and the remote possibility of civil war.
In that restaurant, as throughout the whole Union, Smuts was at that moment literally the observed of all observers. Far off in London the powers-that-be were praying that this blonde and bearded Boer could suc¬ cessfully man the imperial breach. Yet he sat there smiling and unafraid and the company that he had assembled discussed a variety of subjects that ranged from the fall in exchange to the possibilities of the wheat crop in America.
The luncheon was the first of various meetings with Smuts. Some were amid the tumult of debate or in the shadow of the legislative halls, others out in the country at Groote Schuur , the Prime Minister’s residence, where we walked amid the gardens that Cecil Rhodes loved, or sat in the rooms where the Colossus “thought in terms of continents.” It was a liberal education.
Before we can go into what Smuts said during these interviews it is important to know briefly the whole approach to the crowded hour that made the fullest test of his resource and statesmanship. Clearly to understand it you must first know something about the Boer and his long stubborn struggle for independence which ended, for a time at least, in the battle and blood of the Boer War.
Capetown, the melting pot, is merely a miniature of the larger boiling cauldron of race which is the Union of South Africa. In America we also have an astonish¬ ing mixture of bloods but with the exception of the Bol¬ shevists and other radical uplifters, our population is
SMUTS
21
loyally dedicated to the American flag and the institu¬ tions it represents. With us Latin, Slav, Celt, and Saxon have blended the strain that proved its mettle as “Americans All” under the Stars and Stripes in France. We have given succor and sanctuary to the oppressed of many lands and these foreign elements, in the main, have not only been grateful but have proved to be distinct assets in our national expansion. We are a merged people.
With South Africa the situation is somewhat differ¬ ent. The roots of civilization there were planted by the Dutch in the days of the Dutch East India Company when Holland was a world power. The Dutchman is a tenacious and stubborn person. Although the Hugue¬ nots emigrated to the Cape in considerable force in the seventeenth century and intermarried with the trans¬ planted Hollanders, the Dutch strain, and with it the Dutch characteristics predominated. They have shaped South African history ever since. This is why the Boer is still referred to in popular parlance as “a Dutchman.”
The Dutch have always been a proud and liberty- loving people, as the Duke of Alva and the Spaniard learned to their cost. This inherited desire for freedom has flamed in the hearts of the Boers. In the early African day they preferred to journey on to the wild and unknown places rather than sacrifice their inde¬ pendence. What is known as “The Great Trek” of the thirties, which opened up the Transvaal and subse¬ quently the Orange Free State and Natal, was due entirely to unrest among the Cape Boers. There is something of the epic in the narrative of those doughty, psalm-singing trekkers who, like the Mormons in the American West, went forth in their canvas-covered wagons with a rifle in one hand and the Bible in the
22
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
other. They fought the savage, endured untold hard¬ ships, and met fate with a grim smile on their lips. It took Britain nearly three costly years to subdue their descendants, an untrained army of farmers.
A revelation of the Boer character, therefore, is an index to the South African tangle. His enemies call the Boer “a combination of cunning and childishness.” As a matter of fact the Boer is distinct among in¬ dividualists. “Oom Paul” Kruger was a type. A fairly familiar story will concretely illustrate what lies within and behind the race. On one occasion his thumb was nearly severed in an accident. With his pocket- knife he cut off the finger, bound up the wound with a rag, and went about his business.
The old Boer — and the type survives — was a Puri¬ tan who loved his five-thousand-acre farm where he could neither see nor hear his neighbors, who read the Good Word three times a day, drank prodigious quan¬ tities of coffee, spoke “taal” the Dutch dialect, and reared a huge family. Botha, for example, was one of thirteen children, and his father lamented to his dying day that he had not done his full duty by his country !
Isolation was the Boer fetich. This instinct for aloof¬ ness, — principally racial, — animates the sincere wing of the Nationalist Party today. Men like Botha and Smuts and their followers adapted themselves to assimi¬ lation but there remained the “bitter-end” element that rebelled in arms against the constituted authority in 1914 and had to be put down with merciless hand. This element now seeks to achieve through more peaceful ends what it sought to do by force the moment Britain became involved in the Great War. The reason for the revolt of 1914, in a paragraph, was Britain’s far-flung
SMUTS
23
call to arms. The unreconstructed Boers refused to fight for the Power that humbled them in 1902. They seized the moment to make a try for what they called “emancipation.”
To go back for a moment, when the British conquered the Cape and thousands of Englishmen streamed out to Africa to make their fortunes, the Boer at once bristled with resentment. His isolation was menaced. He re¬ garded the Briton as an “ Uitlander " — an outsider — and treated him as an undesirable alien. In the Trans¬ vaal and the Orange Free State he was denied the rights that are accorded to law-abiding citizens in other coun¬ tries. Hence the Jameson Raid, which was an ill- starred protest against the narrow, copper-riveted Boer rule, and later the final and sanguinary show-down in the Boer War, which ended the dream of Boer in¬ dependence.
In 1910 was established the Union of South Africa, comprising the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Natal and the Cape Colony which obtained responsible govern¬ ment and which is to all intents and purposes a dominion as free as Australia or Canada. England sends out a Governor-General, usually a high-placed and titled person but he is a be-medalled figure-head, — an orna¬ mental feature of the landscape. His principal labours are to open fairs, attend funerals, preside at harmless gatherings, and bestow decorations upon worthy per¬ sons. First Botha, and later Smuts, have been the real rulers of the country.
The Union Constitution decreed that bi-lingualism must prevail. As a result every public notice, docu¬ ment, and time-table is printed in both English and Dutch. The tie of language is a strong one and this eternal and unuttered presence of the “ taal3 * has been
24
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
an asset for the Nationalists to exploit. It is a link with the days of independence.
Following the Boer War came a sharp cleavage among the Boers. That great farm-bred soldier and statesman, Louis Botha, accepted the verdict and be¬ came the leader of what might be called a reconciled reconstruction. Firm in the belief that the future of South Africa was greater than the smaller and selfish issue of racial pride and prejudice, he rallied his open- minded and far-seeing countrymen around him. Out of this group developed the South African Party which remains the party of the Dutch loyal to British rule. To quote the program of principles, “Its political object is the development of a South African spirit of national unity and self-reliance through the attainment of the lasting union of the various sections of the people.”
Botha was made Premier of the Transvaal as soon as the Colony was granted self-government and with the accomplishment of Union was named Prime Minister of the Federation. The first man that he called to the standard of the new order to become his Colonial Minister, or more technically, Minister of the Interior, was Smuts, who had left his law office in Johannesburg to fight the English in 1900 and who displayed the same consummate strategy in the field that he has since shown in Cabinet meeting and Legislative forum. With peace he returned to law but not for long. Now began his political career — he has held public office continuously ever since — that is a vital part of the modern history of South Africa.
In the years immediately following Union the genius of Botha had full play. He wrought a miracle of evolution. Under his influence the land which still bore the scars of war was turned to plenty. He was a farmer
SMUTS
25
and he bent his energy and leadership to the rebuilding of the shattered commonwealths. Their hope lay in the soil. His right arm was Smuts, who became succes¬ sively Minister of Finance and Minister of Public Defense.
The belief that reconciliation had dawned was rudely disturbed when the Great War crashed into civilization. The extreme Nationalists rebelled and it was Botha, aided by Smuts, who crushed them. Beyers, the ring¬ leader, was drowned while trying to escape across the Vaal River, DeWet was defeated in the field, De la Rey was accidentally shot, and Maritz became a fugi¬ tive. Botha then conquered the Germans in German South-West Africa and Smuts subsequently took over the command of the Allied Forces in German East Africa. When Botha died in 1919 Smuts not only assumed the Premiership of the Union but he also in¬ herited the bitter enmity that General J. B. M. Hertzog bore towards his lamented Chief.
Now we come to the crux of the whole business, past and present. Who is Hertzog and what does he stand for?
If you look at your history of the Boer War you will see that one of the first Dutch Generals to take the field and one of the last to leave it was Hertzog, an Orange Free State lawyer who had won distinction on the Bench. He helped to frame the Union Constitution and on the day he signed it, declared that it was a distinct epoch in his life. A Boer of the Boers, he seemed to catch for the moment, the contagion that radiated from Botha and spelled a Greater South Africa.
Botha made him Minister of Justice and all was well. But deep down in his heart Hertzog remained unre¬ pentant. When the question of South Africa’s contri-
26
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
bution to the Imperial Navy came up in 1912 he fought it tooth and nail. In fiery utterances attacking the Government he denounced Botha as a jingoist and an imperialist. Just about this time he made the famous speech in which he stated his ideal of South Africa. He declared that Briton and Boer were “two separate streams — two nationalities each flowing in a separate channel. The “two streams” slogan is now the Nation¬ alist battlecry.
Such procedure on the part of Hertzog demanded prompt action on the part of Botha, who called upon his colleague either to suppress his particular brand of anathema or resign. Hertzog not only built a bigger bonfire of denunciation but refused to resign.
Botha thereupon devised a unique method of ridding himself of his uncongenial Minister. He resigned, the Government fell, and the Cabinet dissolved automati¬ cally. Hertzog was left out in the cold. The Governor- General immediately re-appointed Botha Prime Min¬ ister and he reorganized his Cabinet without the un¬ desirable Hertzog.
Hertzog became the Stormy Petrel of South Africa, vowing vengeance against Botha and Britain. He galvanized the Nationalist Party, which up to this time had been merely a party of opposition, into what was rapidly becoming a flaming secession movement. The South African Party developed into the only really national party, while its opponent, although bearing the name of National, was solely and entirely racial.
The first real test of strength was in the election of 1915. The campaign was bitter and belligerent. The venom of the Nationalist Party was concentrated on Smuts. Many of his meetings became bloody riots. He was the target for rotten fruit and on one occasion an
SMUTS
27
attempt was made on his life. The combination of the Botha personality and the Smuts courage and reason won out and the South African Party remained in power.
Undaunted, Hertzog carried on the fight. He soon had the supreme advantage of having the field to him¬ self because Botha was off fighting the Germans and Smuts had gone to England to help mould the Allied fortunes. The Nationalist leader made hay while the red sun of war shone. Every South African who died on the battlefield was for him just another argument for separation from England.
When Ireland declared herself a “republic” Hertzog took the cue and counted his cause in with that of the “small nations” that needed self-determination. “Afrika for the Afrikans,” the old motto of the Afrikander Bond , was unfurled from the masthead and the sedition spread. It not only recruited the Boers who had an ancient grievance against Great Britain, but many others who secretly resented the Botha and Smuts inti¬ macy with “the conquerors.” Some were sons and grandsons of the old “ Vortrekkers ” who not only de¬ lighted to speak the utaal” exclusively but who had never surrendered the ideal of independence.
While the Dutch movement in South Africa strongly resembles the Irish rebellion there are also some marked differences. In South Africa there is no religious barrier and as a result there has been much intermarriage between Briton and Boer. The English in South Africa bear the same relation to the Nationalist movement there that the Ulsterites bear to the Sinn Feiners in Ireland. Instead of being segregated as are the fol¬ lowers of Sir Edward Carson, they are scattered throughout the country.
28
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
At the General Election held early in 1920, — general elections are held every five years, — the results were surprising. The Nationalists returned a majority of four over the South African Party in Parliament. It left Smuts to carry on his Government with a minority. To add to his troubles, the Labour Party, — always an uncertain proposition, — increased its repre¬ sentation from a mere handful to twenty-one, while the Unionists, who comprise the straight-out English- speaking Party, whose stronghold is Natal, suffered severe losses. Smuts could not very well count the latter among his open allies because it would have alienated the hard-shell Boers in the South African Party.
This was the situation that I found on my arrival in Capetown. On one hand was Smuts, still Prime Min¬ ister, taxing his every resource as parliamentarian and pacificator to maintain the Union and prevent a revolt from Britain — all in the face of a bitter and hostile majority. On the other hand was Hertzog, bent on secession and with a solid array of discontents behind him. The two former comrades of the firing line, as the heads of their respective groups, were locked in a momentous political life-and-death struggle the out- come of which may prove to be the precedent for Ireland, Egypt, and India.
Photograph Copyright South African Railways
II
YET SMUTS continued as Premier which means that he brought the life of Parliament to a close without a sharp division. More¬ over, he manoeuvered his forces into a position that saved the day for Union and himself. How did he do it?
I can demonstrate one way and with a rather per¬ sonal incident. During the week I spent in Capetown Smuts was an absorbed person as you may imagine. The House was in session day and night and there were endless demands on him. The best opportunities that we had for talk were at meal-time. One evening I dined with him in the House restaurant. When we sat down we thought that we had the place to ourselves. Suddenly Smuts cast his eye over the long room and saw a solitary man just commencing his dinner in the oppo¬ site corner. Turning to me he said :
“Do you know Cresswell?”
“I was introduced to him yesterday,” I replied. “Would you mind if I asked him to dine with us?” When I assured him that I would be delighted, the Prime Minister got up, walked over to Cress well and asked him to join us, which he did.
The significant part of this apparently simple per¬ formance, which had its important outcome, was this. Colonel F. H. P. Cresswell is the leader of the Labour Party in South Africa. Ev profession a mining en¬ gineer, he led the forces of revolt in the historic industrial upheaval in the Rand in what Smuts denounced as a
29
30
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
“Syndicalist Conspiracy/5 Riot, bloodshed, and con¬ fusion reigned for a considerable period at Johannes¬ burg and large bodies of troops had to be called out to restore order* At the very moment that we sat down to dine that night no one knew just what Cresswell and the Labourites with their new-won power would do. Smuts, as Minister of Finance, had deported some of Cresswell’s men and Cresswell himself narrowly es¬ caped drastic punishment.
When Smuts brought Cresswell over he said jokingly to me:
“Cresswell is a good fellow but I came near send¬ ing him to jail once.55
Cresswell beamed and the three of us amiably dis¬ cussed various topics until the gong sounded for the assembling of the House.
What was the result ? Before I left Capetown and when the first of the few occasions which tested the real voting strength of Parliament arose, Cresswell and some of his adherents voted with Smuts. I tell this little story to show that the man who today holds the destiny of South Africa in his hands is as skillful a diplomat as he is soldier and statesman.
It was at one of these quiet dinners with Smuts at the House that he first spoke about Nationalism. He said: “The war gave Nationalism its death blow. But as a matter of fact Nationalism committed suicide in the war.55
“But what is Nationalism?55 I asked him.
“A water-tight nation in a water-tight compartment,55 he replied. “It is a process of regimentation like the old Germany that will soon merge into a new Inter¬ nationalism. What seems to be at this moment an orgy of Nationalism in South Africa or elsewhere is merely
SMUTS
31
its death gasp. The New World will be a world of individualism dominated by Britain and America.
“What about the future?” I asked him. His answer was:
“The safety of the future depends upon Federation, upon a League of Nations that will develop along economic and not purely sentimental lines. The New Internationalism will not stop war but it can regulate exchange, and through this regulation can help to pre¬ vent war.
“I believe in an international currency which will be a sort of legal tender among all the nations. Why should the currency of the country depreciate or rise with the fortunes of war or with its industrial or other complications? Misfortune should not be penalized fiscally.”
I brought up the question of the lack of accord which then existed between Britain and America and suggested that perhaps the fall in exchange had something to do with it, whereupon he said: “Yes, I think it has. It merely illustrates the point that I have just made about an international currency.”
We came back to the subject of individualism, which led Smuts to say:
“The Great War was a striking illustration of the difference between individualism and nationalism. Hindenberg commanded the only army in the war. It was a product of nationalism. The individualism of the Anglo-Saxon is such that it becomes a mob but it is an intelligent mob. Haig and Pershing commanded such mobs.”
I tried to probe Smuts about Russia. He was in London when I returned from Petrograd in 1917 and I recall that he displayed the keenest interest in what
82
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
I told him about Kerensky and the new order that I had seen in the making. I heard him speak at a Russian Fair in London. The whole burden of his utterance was the hope that the Slav would achieve discipline and organization. At that time Russia redeemed from au¬ tocracy looked to be a bulwark of Allied victory. The night we talked about Russia at Capetown she had become the prey of red terror and the plaything of organized assassination.
Smuts looked rather wistful when he said:
“You cannot defeat Russia. Napoleon learned this to his cost and so will the rest of the world. I do not know whether Bolshevism is advancing or subsiding. There comes a time when the fiercest fires die down. But the best way to revive or rally all Russsia to the Soviet Government is to invade the country and to annex large slices of it.”
These utterances were made during those more or less hasty meals at the House of Parliament when the Premier’s mind was really in the Legislative Hall near¬ by where he was fighting for his administrative life. It was far different out at Groote Schuur, the home of the Prime Minister, located in Rondebosch, a suburb about nine miles from Capetown. In the open country that he loves, and in an environment that breathed the romance and performance of England’s greatest empire- builder, I caught something of the man’s kindling vision and realized his ripe grasp of international events.
Groote Schuur is one of the best-known estates in the world. Cecil Rhodes in his will left it to the Union as the permanent residence of the Prime Minister. Ever since I read the various lives of Rhodes I had had an impatient desire to see this shrine of achievement. Here Rhodes came to live upon bis accession to the Premier-
SMUTS
aa
ship of the Cape Colony; here he fashioned the British South Africa Company which did for Rhodesia what the East India Company did for India; here came prince and potentate to pay him honour ; here he dreamed his dreams of conquest looking out at mountain and sea; here lived Jameson and Kipling; here his remains lay in state when at forty-nine the fires of his restless ambition had ceased.
Groote Schuur, which in Dutch means “Great Granary,” was originally built as a residence and store¬ house for one of the early Dutch Governors of the Cape. It is a beautiful example of the Dutch architecture that you will find throughout the Colony and which is not surpassed in grace or comfort anywhere. When Rhodes acquired it in the eighties the grounds were compara¬ tively limited. As his power and fortune increased he bought up all the surrounding country until today you can ride for nine miles across the estate. You find no neat lawns and dainty flower-beds. On the place, as in the house itself, you get the sense of bigness and simplicity which were the keynotes of the Rhodes character.
One reason why Rhodes acquired Groote Schuur was that behind it rose the great bulk of Table Mountain. He loved it for its vastness and its solitude. On the back stoep , which is the Dutch word for porch, he sat for hours gazing at this mountain which like the man himself was invested with a spirit of immensity.
It was a memorable experience to be at Groote Schuur with Smuts, who has lived to see the realization of the hope of Union which thrilled always in the heart of Cecil Rhodes. I remember that on the first night I went out the Prime Minister took me through the house himself. It has been contended by Smuts5 enemies
34
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
that he was a “creature of Rhodes.” I discovered that Smuts, with the exception of having made a speech of welcome when Rhodes visited the school that he attended as a boy, had never even met the Englishman who left his impress upon a whole land.
Groote Schuur has been described so much that it is not necessary for me to dwell upon its charm and at¬ mosphere here. To see it is to get a fresh and intimate realization of the personality which made the establish¬ ment an unofficial Chancellery of the British Empire.
Two details, however, have poignant and dramatic interest. In the simple, massive, bed-room with its huge bay window opening on Table Mountain and a stretch of lovely countryside, hangs the small map of Africa that Rhodes marked with crimson ink and about which he made the famous utterance, “It must be all red.” Hanging on the wall in the billiard room is the flag with Crescent and Cape device that he had made to be carried by the first locomotive to travel from Cairo to the Cape. That flag has never been unfurled to the breeze but the vision that beheld it waving in the heart of the jungle is soon to become an accomplished fact.
It was on a night at Groote Schuur , as I walked with Smuts through the acres of hydrangeas and bougain¬ villea (Rhodes’ favorite flowers) , with a new moon peep¬ ing overhead that I got the real mood of the man. Point¬ ing to the faint silvery crescent in the sky I said: “Gen¬ eral, there’s a new moon over us and I’m sure it means good luck for you.”
“No,” he replied, “it’s the man that makes the luck.”
He had had a trying day in the House and was silent in the motor car that brought us out. The moment we reached the country and he sniffed the scent of the gar¬ dens the anxiety and preoccupation fell away. He al-
SMUTS
35
most became boyish. But when he began to discuss great problems the lightness vanished and he became the serious thinker.
We harked back to the days when I had first seen him in England. I asked him to tell me what he thought of the aftermath of the stupendous struggle. He said:
“The war was just a phase of world convulsion. It made the first rent in the universal structure. For years the trend of civilization was toward a super-Nationalism. It is easy to trace the stages. The Holy Roman Empire was a phase of Nationalism. That was Catholic. Then came the development of Nationalism, beginning with Napoleon. That was Protestant. Now began the build¬ ing of water-tight compartments, otherwise known as nations. Germany represented the most complete de¬ velopment.
“But that era of ‘my country,’ ‘my power,’ — it is all a form of national ego, — is gone. The four great empires, — Turkey, Germany, Russia and Austria, — have crumbled. The war jolted them from their high estate. It started the universal cataclysm. Centuries in the future some perspective can be had and the results appraised.
“Meanwhile, we can see the beginning. The world is one. Humanity is one and must be one. The war, at terrible cost, brought the peoples together. The League of Nations is a faint and far-away evidence of this solidarity. It merely points the way but it is something. It is not academic formulas that will unite the peoples of the world but intelligence.”
Smuts now turned his thought to a subject not with¬ out interest for America, for he said:
“The world has been brought together by the press, by wireless, indeed by all communication which represents
36
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
the last word in scientific development. Yet political institutions cling to old and archaic traditions. Take the Presidency of the United States. A man waits for four months before he is inaugurated. The incumbent may work untold mischief in the meantime. It is all due to the fact that in the days when the American Consti¬ tution was framed the stagecoach and the horse were the only means of conveyance. The world now travels by aeroplane and express train, yet the antiquated habits continue.
“So with political parties and peoples, the British Empire included. They need to be brought abreast of the times. The old pre-war British Empire, for example, is gone in the sense of colonies or subordinate nations clustering around one master nation. The British Empire itself is developing into a real League of Nations, — a group of partner peoples.”
“What of America and the future?” I asked him.
“America is the leaven of the future,” answered Smuts. “She is the life-blood of the League of Nations. Without her the League is stifled. America will give the League the peace temper. You Americans are a pacific people, slow to war but terrible and irresistible when you once get at it. The American is an individ¬ ualist and in that new and inevitable internationalism the individual will stand out, the American pre-eminently.”
Throughout this particular experience at Groote Schuur I could not help marvelling on the contrast that the man and the moment presented. We walked through a place of surpassing beauty. Ahead brooded the black mystery of the mountains and all around was a fragrant stillness broken only by the quick, almost passionate speech of this seer and thinker, animate with an inspiring ideal of public service, whose mind leaped
SMUTS
37
from the high places of poetry and philosophy on to the hiving battlefield of world event. It seemed almost impossible that nine miles away at Capetown raged the storm that almost within the hour would again claim him as its central figure.
The Smuts statements that I have quoted were made long before the Presidential election in America. I do not know just what Smuts thinks of the landslide that overwhelmed the Wilson administration and with it that well-known Article X, but I do know that he genuinely hopes that the United States somehow will have a share in the new international stewardship of the world. He would welcome any order that would enable us to play our part.
No one can have contact with Smuts without feeling at once his intense admiration for America. One of his ambitions is to come to the United States. It is char¬ acteristic of him that he has no desire to see skyscrapers and subways. His primary interest is in the great farms of the West. “Your people,” he once said to me, “have made farming a science and I wish that South Africa could emulate them. We have farms in vast area but we have not yet attained an adequate development.”
I was amazed at his knowledge of American litera¬ ture. He knows Hamilton backwards, has read dili¬ gently about the life and times of Washington, and is familiar with Irving, Poe, Hawthorne and Emerson. One reason why he admires the first American Presi¬ dent is because he was a farmer. Smuts knows as much about rotation of crops and successful chicken raising as he does about law and politics. He said:
“I am an eighty per cent farmer and a Boer, and most people think a Boer is a barbarian.”
Despite his scholarship he remains what he delights
38
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
to call himself, “a Boer.” He still likes the simple Boer things, as this story will show. During the war, while he was a member of the British War Cabinet and when Lloyd George leaned on him so heavily for a multitude of services, a young South African Major, fresh from the Transvaal, brought him a box of home delicacies. The principal feature of this package was a piece of what the Boers call “biltong,” which is dried venison. The Major gave the package to an imposing servant in livery at the Savoy Hotel, where the General lived, to be delivered to him. Smuts was just going out and en¬ countered the man carrying it in. When he learned that it was from home, he grabbed the box, saying: “I’ll take it up myself.” Before he reached his apart¬ ment he was chewing away vigorously on a mouthful of “biltong” and having the time of his life.
The contrast between Smuts and his predecessor Botha is striking. These two men, with the possible exception of Kruger, stand out in the annals of the Boer. Kruger was the dour, stolid, canny, provincial trader. The only time that his interest ever left the confines of the Transvaal was when he sought an alliance with William Hohenzollern, and that person, I might add, failed him at the critical moment.
Botha was the George Washington of South Africa. — the farmer who became Premier. He was big of body and of soul, — big enough to know when he was beaten and to rebuild out of the ruins. Even the Nation¬ alists trusted him and they do not trust Smuts. It is the old story of the prophet in his own country. There are many people in South Africa today who believe that if Botha were alive there would be no secession move¬ ment.
The Boers who oppose him politically call Smuts
SMUTS
39
“Slim Jannie.” The Dutch word “slim” means tricky and evasive. Not so very long ago Smuts was in a conference with some of his countrymen who were not altogether friendly to him. He had just remarked on the long drought that was prevailing. One of the men present went to the window and looked out. When asked the reason for this action he replied:
“Smuts says that there’s a drought. I looked out to see if it was raining.”
When you come to Smuts in this analogy you behold the Alexander Hamilton of his nation, the brilliant student, soldier, and advocate. Of all his Boer con¬ temporaries he is the most cosmopolitan. Nor is this due entirely to the fact that he went to Cambridge where he left a record for scholarship, and speaks Eng¬ lish with a decided accent. It is because he has what might be called world sense. His career, and more es¬ pecially his part at the Peace Conference and since, is a dramatization of it.
To the student of human interest Smuts is a fertile subject. His life has been a cinema romance shot through with sharp contrasts. Here is one of them. When leaders of the shattered Boer forces gathered in V ereeniging to discuss the Peace Terms with Kitchener in 1902, Smuts, who commanded a flying guerilla column, was besieging the little mining town of O’okiep. He received a summons from Botha to attend. It was accompanied by a safe-conduct pass signed “D. Haig, Colonel.” Later Haig and Smuts stood shoulder to shoulder in a common cause and helped to save civi¬ lization.
Smuts is more many-sided than any other contem¬ porary Prime Minister and for that matter, those that have gone into retirement, that is, men like Asquith in
40
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
England and Clemenceau in France. Among world statesmen the only mind comparable to his is that of Woodrow Wilson. They have in common a high in¬ tellectuality. But Wilson in his prime lacked the hard sense and the accurate knowledge of men and practical affairs which are among the chief Smuts assets.
Speaking of Premiers brings me to the inevitable comparison betwen Smuts and Lloyd George. I have seen them both in varying circumstances, both in public and in private and can attempt some appraisal.
Each has been, and remains, a pillar of Empire. Each has emulated the Admirable Crichton in the variety and multiplicity of public posts. Lloyd George has held five Cabinet posts in England and Smuts has duplicated the record in South Africa. Each man is an inspired orator who owes much of his advancement to eloquent tongue. Their platform manner is totally different. Lloyd George is fascinatingly magnetic in and out of the spotlight while Smuts is more coldly logi¬ cal. When you hear Lloyd George you are stirred and even exalted by his golden imagery. The sound of his voice falls on the ear like music. You admire the daring of his utterance but you do not always remember every¬ thing he says.
With Smuts you listen and you remember. He has no tricks of the spellbinder’s trade. He is forceful, con¬ vincing, persuasive, and what is more important, has the quality of permanency. Long after you have left his presence the words remain in your memory. If I had a case in court I would like to have Smuts try it. His specialty is pleading.
Lloyd George seldom reads a book. The only vol¬ umes I ever heard him say that he had read were Mr. Dooley and a collection of the Speeches of Abraham
SMUTS
41
Lincoln. He has books read for him and with a Roosevelt faculty for assimilation, gives you the impres¬ sion that he has spent his life in a library.
Smuts is one of the best-read men I have met. He seems to know something about everything. He ranges from Joseph Conrad to Kant, from Booker Washing¬ ton to Tolstoi. History, fiction, travel, biography, have all come within his ken. I told him I proposed to go from Capetown to the Congo and possibly to Angola. His face lighted up. “Ah, yes,” he said, “I have read all about those countries. I can see them before me in my mind’s eye.”
One night at dinner at Groote Schuur we had sweet potatoes. He asked me if they were common in America. I replied that down in Kentucky where I was born one of the favorite negro dishes was “ ’possum and sweet potatoes.” He took me up at once saying:
“Oh, yes, I have read about ‘ ’possum pie’ in Joel Chandler Harris’ books.” Then he proceeded to tell me what a great institution “Br’er Rabbit” was.
We touched on German poetry and I quoted two lines that I considered beautiful. When I remarked that I thought Heine was the author he corrected me by proving that they were written by Schiller.
Lloyd George could never carry on a conversation like this for the simple reason that he lacks familiarity with literature. He feels perhaps like the late Charles Frohman who, on being asked if he read the dramatic papers said: “Why should I read about the theatre. I make dramatic history.”
I asked Smuts what he was reading at the moment. He looked at me with some astonishment and answered, “Nothing except public documents. It’s a good thing that I was able to do some reading before I became Prime Minister. I certainly have no time now.”
42
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Take the matter of languages. Lloyd George has always professed that he did not know French, and on all his trips to France both during and since the war he carried a staff of interpreters. He understands a good deal more French than he professes. His widely proclaimed ignorance of the language has stood him in good stead because it has enabled him to hear a great many things that were not intended for his ears. It is part of his political astuteness. Smuts is an accom¬ plished linguist. It has been said of him that he “can be silent in more languages than any man in South Africa.”
Lloyd George is a clever politician with occasional inspired moments but he is not exactly a statesman as Disraeli and Gladstone were. Smuts has the unusual combination of statesmanship with a knowledge of every wrinkle in the political game.
Take his experience at the Paris Peace Conference. He was distinguished not so much for what he did, (and that was considerable), but for what he opposed. No man was better qualified to voice the sentiment of the “small nation.” Born of proud and liberty-loving people, — an infant among the giants — he was attuned to every aspiration of an hour that realized many a one¬ time forlorn national hope. Yet his statesmanship tem¬ pered sentimental impulse.
In that gallery of treaty-makers Lloyd George, Cle- menceau, and Wilson focussed the “fierce light” that beat about the proceedings. But it was Smuts, in the shadow, who contributed largely to the mental power- plant that drove the work. Lloyd George had to con¬ sider the chapter he wrote in the great instrument as something in the nature of a campaign document to be employed at home, while Clemenceau guided a steam¬ roller that stooped for nothing but France. The more
SMUTS
43
or less unsophisticated idealism of Woodrow Wilson foundered on these obstacles.
Smuts, with his uncanny sense of prophecy, foretold the economic consequences of the peace. Looking ahead he visualized a surly and unrepentant Germany, un¬ willing to pay the price of folly; a bitter and disap¬ pointed Austria gasping for economic breath; an aroused and indignant Italy raging with revolt — all the chaos that spells “peace” today. He saw the Treaty as a new declaration of war instead of an antidote for discord. His judgment, sadly enough, has been con¬ firmed. A deranged universe shot through with re¬ action and confusion, and with half a dozen wars sputter¬ ing on the horizon, is the answer. The sob and surge of tempest-born nations in the making are lost in the din of older ones threatened with decay and disintegra¬ tion. It is not a pleasing spectacle.
Smuts signed the Treaty but, as most people know, he filed a memorandum of protest and explanation. He believed the terms uneconomic and therefore unsound, but it was worth taking a chance on interpretation, a des¬ perate venture perhaps, but anything to stop the blare and bicker of the council table and start the work of reconstruction.
At Capetown he told me that for days he wrestled with the problem “to sign or not to sign.” Finally, on the day before the Day of Days in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, he took a long solitary walk in the Champs Elysee, loveliest of Paris parades. Returning to his hotel he said to his secretary, Captain E. F. C. Lane, “I have decided to sign, but I will tell the reason why.” He immediately sat down at his desk and in a hand¬ writing noted for its illegibility wrote the famous memo¬ randum.
Ill
WHAT of the personal side of Smuts? While he is intensely human it is difficult to con¬ nect anecdote with him. I heard one at Capetown, however, that I do not think has seen the light of print. It reveals his methods, too.
When the Germans ran amuck in 1914 Smuts was Minister of Defense of the Union of South Africa. The Nationalists immediately began to make life un¬ comfortable for him. Balked in their attempt to keep the Union out of the struggle they took another tack. After the Botha campaign in German South-West Africa was well under way, a member of the Opposition asked the Minister of Defense the following question in Parliament: “How much has South Africa paid for horses in the field and the Nationalists sought to make some political capital out of an expenditure that they remounts?” The Union forces employed thousands of called “waste.”
Smuts sent over to Army Headquarters to get the figures. He was told that it would take twenty clerks at least four weeks to compile the data.
“Never mind,” was his laconic comment. The next day happened to be Question Day in the House. As soon as the query about the remount charge came up Smuts calmly rose in his seat and replied:
“It was exactly eight million one hundred and sixty- nine thousand pounds, ten shillings and sixpence.” He then sat down without any further remark.
44
I - 1
Photograph Copyright by Harris 6‘ Ewing
GENERAL J. C. SMUTS
SMUTS
45
When one of his colleagues asked him where he got this information he said:
“I dug it out of my own mind. It will take the Nationalists a month to figure it out and by that time they will have forgotten all about it.” And it was forgotten.
Smuts not only has a keen sense of humor but is swift on the retort. While speaking at a party rally in his district not many years after the Boer War he was continually interrupted by an ex-soldier. He stopped his speech and asked the man to state his grievance. The heckler said:
“General de la Rey guaranteed the men fighting under him a living.”
Quick as a flash Smuts replied :
“Nonsense. What he guaranteed you was certain death.”
Like many men conspicuous in public life Smuts gets up early and has polished off a good day’s work before the average business man has settled down to his job. There is a big difference between his methods of work and those of Lloyd George. The British Prime Minister only goes to the House of Commons when he has to make a speech or when some important question is up for discussion. Smuts attends practically every session of Parliament, at least he did while I was in Capetown.
One reason was that on account of the extraordinary position in which he found himself, any moment might have produced a division carrying with it disastrous results for the Government. The crisis demanded that he remain literally on the job all the time. He left little to his lieutenants. Confident of his ability in de¬ bate he was always willing to risk a showdown but he had to be there when it came.
46
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
I watched him as he sat in the House. He occupied a front bench directly opposite Hertzog and where he could look his arch enemy squarely in the eyes all the time. I have seen him sit like a Sphinx for an hour without apparently moving a muscle. He has culti¬ vated that rarest of arts which is to be a good listener. He is one of the great concentrators. In this genius, for it is little less, lies one of the secrets of his success. During a lull in legislative proceedings he has a habit of taking a solitary walk out in the lobby. More than once I saw him pacing up and down, always with an ear cocked toward the Assembly Room so he could hear what was going on and rush to the rescue if necessary.
In the afternoon he would sometimes go into the members’ smoking room and drink a cup of coffee, the popular drink in South Africa. In the old Boer house¬ hold the coffee pot is constantly boiling. With a cup of coffee and a piece of “biltong” inside him a Boer could fight or trek all day. Coffee bears the same rela¬ tion to the South African that tea does to the English¬ man, save that it is consumed in much larger quantities. I might add that Smuts neither drinks liquor of any kind nor smokes, and he eats sparingly. He admits that his one dissipation is farming.
This comes naturally because he was born fifty years ago on a farm in what is known as the Western Province in the Karoo country. He did his share of the chores about the place until it was time for him to go to school. His father and his grandfather were farmers. Inbred in him, as in most Boers, is an ardent love of country life and especially an affection for the mountains. On more than one occasion he has climbed to the top of Table Mountain, which is no inconsiderable feat.
There are two ways of appraising Smuts. One is to
SMUTS
47
see him in action as I did at Capetown, while Parliament was in session. The other is to get him with the back¬ ground of his farm at Irene, a little way station about ten miles from Pretoria. Here, in a rambling one- story house surrounded by orchards, pastures, and gar¬ dens, he lives the simple life. In the western part of the Transvaal he owns a real farm. He showed his shrewd¬ ness in the acquisition of this property because he bought it at a time when the region was dubbed a “desert.” Now it is a garden spot.
Irene has various distinct advantages. For one thing it is his permanent home. Groote Schuur is the prop¬ erty of the Government and he owes his tenancy of it entirely to the fortunes of politics. At Irene is planted his hearthstone and around it is mobilized his consider¬ able family. There are six little Smutses. Smuts married the sweetheart of his youth who is a rarely congenial helpmate. It was once said of her that she “went about the house with a baby under one arm and a Greek dictionary under the other.”
Most people do not realize that the Union of South Africa has two capitals. Capetown with the House of Parliament is the center of legislation, while Pretoria, the ancient Kruger stronghold, with its magnificent new Union buildings atop a commanding eminence, is the fountain-head of administration. With Irene only ten miles away it is easy for Smuts to live with his family after the adjournment of Parliament, and go in to his office at Pretoria every day.
I have already given you a hint of the Smuts personal appearance. Let us now take a good look at him. His forehead is lofty, his nose arched, his mouth large. You know that his blonde beard veils a strong jaw. The eyes are reminiscent of those marvelous orbs of Marshal
48
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Foch only they are blue, haunting and at times inex¬ orable. Yet they can light up with humor and glow with friendliness.
Smuts is essentially an out-of-doors person and his body is wiry and rangy. He has the stride of a man seasoned to the long march and who is equally at home in the saddle. He speaks with vigour and at times not without emotion. The Boer is not a particularly demonstrative person and Smuts has some of the racial reserve. His personality betokens potential strength, — a suggestion of the unplumbed reserve that keeps people guessing. This applies to his mental as well as his physical capacity. Frankly cordial, he resents familiarity. You would never think of slapping him on the shoulder and saying, “Hello, Jan.” More than one blithe and buoyant person has been frozen into respectful silence in such a foolhardy undertaking.
His middle name is Christian and it does not belie a strong phase of his character. Without carrying his religious convictions on his coat-sleeve, he has neverthe¬ less a fine spiritual strain in his make-up. He is an all-round dependable person, with an adaptability to environment that is little short of amazing.
IV
NOW LET us turn to another and less conspicu¬ ous South African whose point of view, impe¬ rial, personal and patriotic, is the exact opposite of that of Smuts. Throughout this chapter has run the strain of Hertzog, first the Boer General fighting gal¬ lantly in the field with Smuts as youthful comrade; then the member of the Botha Cabinet; later the bitter insurgent, and now the implacable foe of the order that he helped to establish. What manner of man is he and what has he to say?
I talked to him one afternoon when he left the floor leadership to his chief lieutenant, a son of the late President Steyn of the Orange Free State. Like his father, who called himself “President” to the end of his life although his little republic had slipped away from him, he has never really yielded to English rule.
We adjourned to the smoking room where we had the inevitable cup of South African coffee. I was prepared to find a fanatic and fire-eater. Instead I faced a thin, undersized man who looked anything but a general and statesman. Put him against the background of a small New England town and you would take him for an American country lawyer. He resembles the student more than the soldier and, like many Boers, speaks English with a British accent. Nor is he without force. No man con play the role that he has played in South
49
50
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
tl
Africa those past twenty-five years without having substance in him.
When I asked him to state his case he said:
“The republican idea is as old as South Africa. There was a republic before the British arrived. The idea came from the American Revolution and the inspiration was Washington. The Great Trek of 1836 was a protest very much like the one we are making today.
“President Wilson articulated the Boer feeling with his gospel of self-determination. He also voiced the aspirations of Ireland, India and Egypt. It is a great world idea — a deep moral conviction of mankind, this right of the individual state, as of the individual for freedom.
“Never again will Transvaal and Orange Free State history be repeated. No matter how a nation covets another — and I refer to British covetousness, — if the nation coveted is able to govern itself it cannot and must not be assimilated. It is one result of the Great War.”
“What is the Nationalist ideal?” I asked.
“It is the right to self-rule,” replied Hertzog. “But there must be no conflict if it can be avoided. It must prevail by reason and education. At the present time I admit that the majority of South Africans do not want republicanism. The Nationalist mission today is to keep the torch lighted.”
“How does this idea fit into the spirit of the League of Nations?” I queried.
“It fits in perfectly,” was the response. “We Nation¬ alists favor the League as outlined by Wilson. But I fear that it will develop into a capitalistic, imperialistic empire dominating the world instead of a league of nations.”
SMUTS
51
I asked Hertzog how he reconciled acquiescence to Union to the present Nationalist revolt. The answer was:
“The Nationalists supported the Government because of their attachment to General Botha. Deep down in his heart Botha wanted to be free and independent.”
“How about Ireland?” I demanded.
The General smiled as he responded: “Our position is different. It does not require dynamite, but educa¬ tion. With us it is a simple matter of the will of the people. I do not think that conditions in South Africa will ever reach the state at which they have arrived in Ireland.”
Commenting on the Union and its relations to the British Empire Hertzog continued :
“The Union is not a failure but we could be better governed. The thing to which we take exception is that the British Government, through our connection with it, is in a position by which it gets an undue advantage directly and indirectly to influence legislation. For ex¬ ample, we were not asked to conquer German South- West Africa; it was a command.
“Very much against the feeling of the old population, that is the Dutch element, we were led into participation in the war. Today this old population feels as strongly as ever against South Africa being involved in Euro¬ pean politics. It feels that all this Empire movement only leads in that direction and involves us in world conflicts.
“One of the strongest reasons in favor of separation and the setting up of a South African republic is to get solidarity betwen the English and the Dutch. I cannot help feeling that our interests are being con¬ stantly subordinated to those of Great Britain. My firm
52
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
conviction is that the freer we are, and the more inde¬ pendent of Great Britian we become, the more we shall favor a close co-operation with her. We do not dislike the British as such but we do object to the Britisher coming out as a subject of Great Britain with a superior manner and looking upon the Dutchman as a dependent or a subordinate. There will be a conflict so long as they do not recognize our heroes, traditions and history. In short, we are determined to have a republic of South Africa and England must recognize it. To oppose it is fatal.”
“Will you fight for it?” I asked.
“I hardly think that it will come to force,” said the General. “It must prevail by reason and education. It may not come in one year but it will come before many years.”
Hertzog’s feeling is not shared, as he intimated, by the majority of South Africans and this includes many Dutchmen. An illuminating analysis of the N ationalist point of view was made for me by Sir Thomas Smartt, the leader of the Unionist Party and a virile force in South African politics. He brought the situation strikingly home to America when he said :
“The whole Nationalist movement is founded on race. Like the Old Guard, the Boer may die but it is hard for him to surrender. His heart still rankles with the out¬ come of the Boer War. Would the American South have responded to an appeal to arms in the common cause made by the North in 1876? Probably not. Be¬ fore your Civil War the South only had individual states. The Boers, on the other hand, had republics with completely organized and independent govern¬ ments. This is why it will take a long time before com-
SMUTS 53
plete assimilation is accomplished, A second Boer War is unthinkable.”
We can now return to Smuts and find out just how he achieved the miracle by which he not only retained the Premiership but spiked the guns of the opposition.
When I left Capetown he was in a corner. The Nationalist majority not only made his position pre¬ carious but menaced the integrity of Union, and through Union, the whole Empire. For five months, — the whole session of Parliament, — he held his ground. Every night when he went to bed at Groote Schuur he did not know what disaster the morrow would bring forth. It was a constant juggle with conflicting interests, ambitions and prejudices. He was like a lion with a pack snapping on all sides.
Now you can see why he sat in that front seat in the House morning, noon and night. He placated the Labourites, harmonized the Unionists, and flung down the gauntlet openly to the Nationalists. Throughout that historic session, and although much legislation was accomplished, he did not permit the consummation of a single decisive division. It was a triumph of parliamen¬ tary leadership.
When the session closed in July, — it is then mid¬ winter in Africa, — he was still up against it. The Nationalist majority was a phantom that dogged his official life and political fortunes. The problem now was to take out sane insurance against a repetition of the trial and uncertainty which he had undergone.
Fate in the shape of the Nationalist Party played into his hands. Under the stimulation of the Nation¬ alists a V ereeniging Congress was called at Bloenfontein late last September. The Dutch word V ereeniging means “reunion.” Hertzog and Tielman Roos, the co-
54
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
leader of the secessionists, believed that by bringing the leading representatives of the two leading parties to¬ gether the appeal to racial pride might carry the day. Smuts did not attend but various members of his Cabinet did.
Reunion did anything but reunite. The differences on the republican issues being fundamental were like¬ wise irreconcilable. The Nationalists stood pat on se¬ cession while the South African Party remained loyal to its principles of Imperial unity. The meeting ended in a deadlock.
Smuts, a field marshal of politics, at once saw that the hour of deliverance from his dilemma had arrived. The Nationalists had declared themselves unalterably for separation. He converted their battle-cry into coin for himself. He seized the moment to issue a call for a new Moderate Party that would represent a fusion of the South Africanists and the Unionists. In one of his finest documents he made a plea for the consolidation of these constructive elements.
In it he said :
Now that the Nationalist Party is firmly resolved to continue its propaganda of fanning the fires of secession and of driving the European races apart from each other and ultimately into conflict with each other, the moderate elements of our popula¬ tion have no other alternative but to draw closer to one another in order to fight that policy.
A new appeal must, therefore, be made to all right-minded South Africans, irrespective of party or race, to join the new Party, which will be strong enough to safeguard the permanent interests of the Union against the disruptive and destructive policy of the Nationalists. Such a central political party will not only continue our great work of the past, but is destined to play a weighty role in the future peaceable development of South Africa.
SMUTS
55
The end of October witnessed the ratification of this proposal by the Unionists. The action at once consoli¬ dated the Premier’s position. I doubt if in all political history you can uncover a series of events more paradox¬ ical or perplexing or find a solution arrived at with greater skill and strategy. It was a revelation of Smuts with his ripe statesmanship put to the test, and not found wanting.
At the election held four months later Smuts scored a brilliant triumph. The South African Party in¬ creased its representation by eighteen seats, while the Nationalists lost heavily. The Labour Party was al¬ most lost in the wreckage. The net result was that the Premier obtained a working majority of twenty-two, which guarantees a stable and loyal Government for at least five years.
It only remains to speculate on what the future holds for this remarkable man. South Africa has a tragic habit of prematurely destroying its big men. Rhodes was broken on the wheel at forty-nine, and Botha suc¬ cumbed in the prime of life. Will Smuts share the same fate?
No one need be told in the face of the Smuts per¬ formance that he is a world asset. The question is, how far will he go? A Cabinet Minister at twenty-eight, a General at thirty, a factor in international affairs before he was well into the forties, he unites those rare elements of greatness which seem to be so sparsely apportioned these disturbing days. That he will reconstruct South Africa there is no doubt. What larger responsibilities may devolve upon him can only be guessed.
Just before I sailed from England I talked with a high-placed British official. He is in the councils of
56
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Empire and he knows Smuts and South Africa. I asked him to indicate what in his opinion would be the next great milepost of Smuts’ progress. He replied:
‘The destiny of Smuts is interwoven with the destiny of the whole British Empire. The Great War bound the Colonies together with bonds of blood. Out of this common peril and sacrifice has been knit a closer Im¬ perial kinship. During the war we had an Imperial War Cabinet composed of overseas Premiers, which sat in London. Its logical successor will be a United British Empire, federated in policy but not in adminis¬ tration. Smuts will be the Prime Minister of these United States of Great Britian.”
It is the high goal of a high career.
C' CAMEROONS
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UNIOMfOF /w4“ f
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SOUTH
WEST
AFRICA
Scale of Miles
GENERAL DRAFTING CO. I NC./N.Y.
s
NIGERIA
ABYSSINIA
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l S /& Congo /fUGANDA> A?
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THE HEAVY LINE INDICATES MR. MARCOSSON’S ROUTE IN AFRICA
A
CHAPTER II — “CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
I
WHEN you take the train for the North at Capetown you start on the first lap of what is in many respects the most picturesque journey n the world. Other railways tunnel mighty mountains, cross seething rivers, traverse scorching deserts, and invade the clouds, but none has so romantic an interest or is bound up with such adventure and imagination as this. The reason is that at Capetown begins the southern end of the famous seven-thousand- mile Cape-to-Cairo Route, one of the greatest dreams of England’s prince of practical dreamers, Cecil Rhodes. Today, after thirty years of conflict with grudging Governments, the project is practically an accomplished fact.
Woven into its fabric is the story of a German con¬ spiracy that was as definite a cause of the Great War as the Balkan mess or any other phase of Teutonic inter¬ national meddling. Along its highway the American mining engineer has registered a little known evidence of his achievement abroad. The route taps civilization and crosses the last frontiers of progress. The South African end discloses an illuminating example of prof¬ itable nationalization. Over it still broods the person¬ ality of the man who conceived it and who left his im¬ press and his name on an empire. Attention has been directed anew to the enterprise from the fact that shortly before I reached Africa two aviators flew from Cairo to
57
58
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
the Cape and their actual flying time was exactly sixty- eight hours.
The unbroken iron spine that was to link North and South Africa and which Rhodes beheld in his vision of the future, will probably not be built for some years. Traffic in Central Africa at the moment does not justify it. Besides, the navigable rivers in the Belgian Congo, Egypt, and the Soudan lend themselves to the rail and water route which, with one short overland gap, now enables you to travel the whole way from Cape to Cairo.
The very inception of the Cape-to-Cairo project gives you a glimpse of the working of the Rhodes mind. He left the carrying out of details to subordinates. When he looked at the map of Africa, — and he was forever studying maps, — and ran that historic line through it from end to end and said, “It must be all red,” he took no cognizance of the extraordinary difficulties that lay in the way. He saw, but he did not heed, the rainbow of many national flags that spanned the continent. A little thing like millions of square miles of jungle, suc¬ cessions of great lakes, or wild and primitive regions peopled with cannibals, meant nothing. Money and energy were to him merely means to an end.
When General “Chinese” Gordon, for example, told him that he had refused a roomful of silver for his services in exterminating the Mongolian bandits Rhodes looked at him in surprise and said : “Why didn’t you take it? What is the earthly use of having ideas if you haven’t the money with which to carry them out?” Here you have the keynote of the whole Rhodes business policy. A project had to be carried through regardless of expense. It applied to the Cape-to-Cairo dream just as it applied to every other enterprise with which he was associated.
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
59
The all-rail route would cost billions upon billions, although now that German prestige in Africa is ended it would not be a physical and political impossibility. A modification of the original plan into a combination rail and river scheme permits the consummation of the vision of thirty years ago. The southern end is all-rail mainly because the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia are civilized and prosperous countries. I made the en¬ tire journey by train from Capetown to the rail-head at Bukama in the Belgian Congo, a distance of 2,700 miles, the longest continuous link in the whole scheme. This trip can be made, if desirable, in a through car in about nine days.
I then continued northward, down the Lualaba River, — Livingstone thought it was the Nile — then by rail, and again on the Lualaba through the posts of Kongolo, Kindu and Ponthierville to Stanleyville on the Congo River. This is the second stage of the Cape- to-Cairo Route and knocks off an additional 890 miles and another twelve days. Here I left the highway to Egypt and went down the Congo and my actual contact with the famous line ended. I could have gone on, how¬ ever, and reached Cairo, with luck, in less than eight weeks.
From Stanleyville you go to Mahagi, which is on the border beteween the Congo and Uganda. This is the only overland gap in the whole route. It covers roughly, — - and the name is no misnomer I am told, — 680 miles through the jungle and skirts the principal Congo gold fields. A road has been built and motor cars are available. The railway route from Stanleyville to Mahagi, which will link the Congo and the Nile, is surveyed and would have been finished by this time but for the outbreak of the Great War. The Belgian
60
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Minister of the Colonies, with whom I travelled in the Congo assured me that his Government would com¬ mence the construction within the next two years, thus enabling the traveller to forego any hiking on the long journey.
Mahagi is on the western side of Lake Albert and is destined to be the lake terminus of the projected Congo- Nile Railway which will be an extension of the Soudan Railways. Here you begin the journey that enlists both railways and steamers and which gives practically a straight ahead itinerary to Cairo. You journey on the Nile by way of Rejaf, Kodok, — (the Fashoda that was) — to Kosti, wiiere you reach the southern rail¬ head of the Soudan Railways. Thence it is compara¬ tively easy, as most travellers know, to push on through Khartum, Berber, Wady Haifa and Assuan to the Egyptian capital. The distance from Mahagi to Cairo is something like 2,700 miles while the total mileage from Capetown to Cairo, along the line that I have indicated, is 7,000 miles.
This, in brief, is the way you make the trip that Rhodes dreamed about, but not the way he planned it. There are various suggestions for alternate routes after you reach Bukama or, to be more exact, after you start down the first stage of the journey on the Lualaba. At Kabalo, where I stopped, a railroad runs eastward from the river to Albertville, on the shores of Lake Tan¬ ganyika. Rhodes wanted to use the 400-mile waterway that this body of water provides to connect the railway that came down from the North with the line that begins at the Cape. The idea was to employ train ferries. King Leopold of Belgium granted Rhodes the right to do this but Germany frustrated the scheme by refusing to recognize the cession of the strip of Congo terri-
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO” 61
tory between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu, which was an essential link.
This incident is one evidence of the many attempts that the Germans made to block the Cape-to-Cairo pro¬ ject. Germany knew that if Rhodes, and through Rhodes the British Empire, could establish through communication under the British flag, from one end of Africa to the other, it would put a crimp into the Teutonic scheme to dominate the whole continent. She went to every extreme to interfere with its advance.
This German opposition provided a reason why the consummation of the project was so long delayed. Another was, that except for the explorer and the big game hunter, there was no particular provocation for moving about in certain portions of Central Africa until recently. But Germany only afforded one obstacle. The British Government, after the fashion of govern¬ ments, turned a cold shoulder to the enterprise. His¬ tory was only repeating itself. If Disraeli had con¬ sulted his colleagues England would never have ac¬ quired the Suez Canal. So it goes.
Most of the Rhodesian links of the Cape-to-Cairo Route were built by Rhodes and the British South Africa Company, while the line from Broken Hill to the Congo border was due entirely to the courage and tenacity of Robert Williams, who is now constructing the so-called Renguella Railway from Lobito Bay in Portuguese Angola to Bukama. It will be a feeder to the Cape-to-Cairo road and constitute a sort of back door to Egypt. It will also provide a shorter outlet to Europe for the copper in the Katanga district of the Congo.
When you see equatorial Africa and more especially that part which lies between the rail-head at Bukama
62
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
and Mahagi, you understand why the all-rail route is not profitable at the moment. It is for the most part an un¬ cultivated area principally jungle, with scattered white settlements and hordes of untrained natives. The war set back the development of the Congo many years. Now that the world is beginning to understand the possi¬ bilities of Central Africa for palm oil, cotton, rubber, and coffee, the traffic to justify the connecting railways will eventually come.
II
SHORTLY after my return from Africa I was talking with a well-known American business man who, after making the usual inquiries about lions, cannibals and hair-breadth escapes, asked: “Is it dangerous to go about in South Africa ?” When I assured him that both my pocket-book and I were safer there than on Broadway in New York or State Street in Chicago, he was surprised. Yet his question is typi¬ cal of a widespread ignorance about all Africa and even its most developed area.
What people generally do not understand is that the lower part of that one-time Dark Continent is one of the most prosperous regions in the world, where the home currency is at a premium instead of a discount; where the high cost of living remains a stranger and where you get little suggestion of the commercial rack and ruin that are disturbing the rest of the universe. While the war-ravaged nations and their neighbors are feeling their dubious way towards economic reconstruc¬ tion, the Union of South Africa is on the wave of a striking expansion. It affords an impressive contrast to the demoralized productivity of Europe and for that matter the United States.
South Africa presents many economic features of dis¬ tinct and unique interest. A glance at its steam trans¬ portation discloses rich material. Fundamentally the railroads of any country are the real measures of its progress. In Africa particularly they are the mileposts
63
64
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
of civilization. In 1876 there were only 400 miles on the whole continent. Today there are over 30,000 miles. Of this network of rails exactly 11,478 miles are in the Union of South Africa and they comprise the second largest mileage in the world under one management.
More than this, they are Government owned and operated. Despite this usual handicap they pay. No particular love of Government control, — which is in¬ variably an invitation for political influence to do its worst, — animated the development of these railways. As in Australia, where private capital refused to build, it was a case of necessity. In South Africa there was practically no private enterprise to sidestep the obliga¬ tion that the need of adequate transportation imposed. The country was new, hostile savages still swarmed the frontiers, and the white man had to battle with Zulu and Kaffir for every area he opened. In the absence of navigable rivers — there are none in the Union — the steel rail had to do the pioneering. Besides, the Boers had a strong prejudice against the railroads and regarded the iron horse as a menace to their isolation.
The first steam road on the continent of Africa was constructed by private enterprise from the suburb of Durban in Natal into the town. It was a mile and three- quarters in length and was opened for traffic in 1860. Railway construction in the Cape Colony began about the same time. The Government ownership of the lines was inaugurated in 1873 and it has continued without interruption ever since. The real epoch of railway building in South Africa started with the great mineral discoveries. First came the uncovering of diamonds along the Orange River and the opening up of the Kimberley region, which added nearly 2,000 miles of railway. With the finding of gold in the Rand on what
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO” 65
became the site of Johannesburg, another 1,500 miles were added.
Since most nationalized railways do not pay it is interesting to take a look at the African balance sheet. Almost without exception the South African railways have been operated at a considerable net profit. These profits some years have been as high as £2,590,917. During the war, when there was a natural slump in traffic and when all soldiers and Government supplies were carried free of cost, they aggregated in 1915, for instance, £749,125.
One fiscal feature of these South African railroads is worth emphasizing. Under the act of Union “all profits, after providing for interest, depreciation and betterment, shall be utilized in the reduction of tariffs, due regard being had to the agricultural and industrial development within the Union and the promotion by means of cheap transport of the settlement of an agri¬ cultural population in the inland portions of the Union.” The result is that the rates on agricultural products, low-grade ores, and certain raw materials are possibly the lowest in the world. In other countries rates had to be increased during the war but in South Africa no change was made, so as not to interfere with the agri¬ cultural, mineral and industrial development of the country.
Nor is the Union behind in up-to-date transportation. A big program for electrification has been blocked out and a section is under conversion. Some of the power generated will be sold to the small manufacturer and thus production will be increased.
Stimulating the railway system of South Africa is a single personality which resembles the self-made Ameri¬ can wizard of transportation more than any other
66
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Britisher that I have met with the possible exception of Sir Eric Geddes, at present Minister of Transport of Great Britain and who left his impress on England’s conduct of the war. He is Sir William W. Hoy, whose official title is General Manager of the South African Railways and Ports. Big, vigorous, and forward-look¬ ing, he sits in a small office in the Railway Station at Capetown, with his finger literally on the pulse of nearly 12,000 miles of traffic. During the war Walker D. Hines, as Director General of the American Rail¬ ways, was steward of a vaster network of rails but his job was an emergency one and terminated when that emergency subsided. Sir William Hoy, on the other hand, is set to a task which is not equalled in extent, scope or responsibility by any other similar official.
Like James J. Hill and Daniel Willard he rose from the ranks. At Capetown he told me of his great admira¬ tion for American railways and their influence in the system he dominates. Among other things he said: “We are taking our whole cue for electrification from the railroads of your country and more especially the admirable precedent established by the Chicago, Mil¬ waukee & St. Paul Railway. I believe firmly in wide electrification of present-day steam transport. The great practical advantages are more uniform speed and the elimination of stops to take water. It also affords improved acceleration, greater reliability as to timing, especially on heavy grades, and stricter adherence to schedule. There are enormous advantages to single lines like ours in South Africa. Likewise, crossings and train movements can be arranged with greater accuracy, thereby reducing delays. Perhaps the greatest saving is in haulage, that is, in the employment of the heavy electric locomotive. It all tends toward a denser traffic.
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
67
“Behind this whole process of electrification lies the need, created by the Great War, for coal conservation and for a motive power that will speed up production of all kinds. We have abundant coal in the Union of South Africa and by consuming less of it on our rail¬ ways we will be in a stronger position to export it and thus strengthen our international position and keep the value of our money up.”
Since Sir William has touched upon the coal supply we at once get a link, — and a typical one — with the ramified resource of the Union of South Africa. No product, not even those precious stones that lie in the bosom of Kimberley, or the glittering golden ore im¬ bedded in the Rand, has a larger political or economic significance just now. Nor does any commodity figure quite so prominently in the march of world events.
In peace, as in war, coal spells life and power. It was the cudgel that the one-time proud and arrogant Germany held menacingly over the head of the unhappy neutral, and extorted special privilege. At the moment I write, coal is the storm center of controversy that ranges from the Ruhr Valley of Germany to the Welsh fields of Britain and affects the destinies of statesmen and of countries. We are not without fuel troubles, as our empty bins indicate. The nation, therefore, with cheap and abundant coal has a bargaining asset that insures industrial peace at home and trade prestige abroad.
South Africa not only has a low-priced and ample coal supply but it is in a convenient point for distribu¬ tion to the whole Southern hemisphere, — in fact Europe and other sections. On past production the Union ranked only eleventh in a list of coal-producing countries, the output being about 8,000,000 tons a year
08
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
before the war and something over 10,000,000 tons in 1919. This output, however, is no guide to the magni¬ tude of its fields. Until comparatively recent times they have been little exploited, not because of inferiority but because of the restricted output prior to the new movement to develop a bunker and export trade. With¬ out an adequate geological survey the investigations made during the last twelve months indicate a potential supply of over 60,000,000 tons and immense areas have not been touched at all.
The war changed the whole coal situation. Labour conflicts have reduced the British output; a huge part of Germany’s supply must go to France as an indem¬ nity, while our own fields are sadly under-worked, for a variety of causes. All these conditions operate in favor of the South African field, which is becoming increas¬ ingly important as a source of supply.
Despite her advantage the prices remain astonish¬ ingly low, when you compare them with those prevail¬ ing elsewhere. English coal, which in 1912 cost about nine shillings a ton at pithead, costs considerably more than thirty shillings today. The average pithead price of South African coal in 1915 was five shillings two¬ pence a ton and at the time of my visit to South Africa in 1919 was still under seven shillings a ton. Capetown and Durban, the two principal harbours of the Union, are coaling stations of Empire importance. There you can see the flags of a dozen nations flying from ships that have put in for fuel. Thanks to the war these ports are in the center of the world’s great trade routes and thus, geographically and economically their posi¬ tion is unique for bunkering and for export.
The price of bunker coal is a key to the increased overhead cost of world trade, as a result of the war. The
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
69
Belgian boat on which I travelled from the shores of the Congo to Antwerp coaled at Teneriffe, where the price per ton was seven pounds. It is interesting to compare this with the bunker price at Capetown of a little more than two pounds per ton, or at Durban where the rate is one pound ten shillings a ton. In the face of these figures you can readily see what an economic advantage is accruing to the Union of South Africa with reference to the whole vexing question of coal supply.
We can now go into the larger matter of South Africa’s business situation in the light of peace and world reconstruction. I have already shown how the war, and the social and industrial upheaval that followed in its wake have enlarged and fortified the coal situation in the Union. Practically all other interests are simi¬ larly affected. The outstanding factor in the prosperity of the Union has been the development of war-born self-sufficiency. I used to think during the conflict that shook the world, that this gospel of self -contain¬ ment would be one of the compensations that Britain would gain for the years of blood and slaughter. So far as Britain is concerned this hope has not been realized. When I was last in England huge quantities of Ger¬ man dyes were being dumped on her shores to the loss and dismay of a new coal-tar industry that had been developed during the war. German wares like toys and novelties were now pouring in. And yet England wondered why her exchange was down !
In South Africa the situation has been entirely dif¬ ferent. She alone of all the British dominions is assert¬ ing an almost pugnacious self-sufficiency. Cut off from outside supplies for over four years by the relentless submarine warfare, and the additional fact that nearly all the ships to and from the Cape had to carry war
70
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
supplies or essential products, she was forced to develop her internal resources. The consequence is an expan¬ sion of agriculture, industry and manufactures. In¬ stead of being as she was often called, “a country of samples,” she has become a domain of active produc¬ tion, as is attested by an industrial output valued at <£62,000,000 in 1918. Before the war the British and American manufacturer, — and there is a considerable market for American goods in the Cape Colony, — could undersell the South African article. That condi¬ tion is changed and the home-made article produced with much cheaper labour than obtains either in Europe or the United States, has the field.
Let me emphasize another striking fact in connection with this South African prosperity. During the war I had occasion to observe at first-hand the economic conditions in every neutral country in Europe. I was deeply impressed with the prosperity of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Holland, who made hay while their neighbors reaped the tares of war. Japan did likewise. These nations were largely profiteers who capitalized a colossal misfortune. They got much of the benefit and little of the horror of the upheaval.
Not so with South Africa. She played an active part in the war and at the same time brought about a legitimate expansion of her resources. One point in her favor is that while she sent tens of thousands of her sons to fight, her own territory escaped the scar and ravage of battle. All the fighting in Africa, so far as the Union was concerned, was in German South- West Africa and German East Africa. After my years in tempest-tossed Europe it was a pleasant change to catch the buoyant, confident, unwearied spirit of South Africa.
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
71
I have dwelt upon coal because it happens to be a significant economic asset. Coal is merely a phase of the South African resources. In 1919 the Union produced £35,000,000 in gold and <£7,200,000 in dia¬ monds. The total mining production was, roughly, £50,000,000. This mining treasure is surpassed by the agricultural output, of which nearly one-third is ex¬ ported. Land is the real measure of permanent wealth. The hoard of gold and diamonds in time becomes ex¬ hausted but the soil and its fruits go on forever.
The moment you touch South African agriculture you reach a real romance. 1ST owhere, not even in the winning of the American West by the Mormons, do you get a more dramatic spectacle of the triumph of the pioneer over combative conditions. The Mormons made the Utah desert bloom, and the Boers and their British col¬ leagues wrested riches from the bare veldt. The Mor¬ mons fought Indians and wrestled with drought, while the Dutch in Africa and their English comrades battled with Kaffirs, Hottentots and Zulus and endured a no less grilling exposure to sun.
The crops are diversified. One of the staples of South Africa, for example, is the mealie, which is nothing more or less than our own American corn, but not quite so good. It provides the principal food of the natives and is eaten extensively by the European as well. On a dish of mealie porridge the Kaffir can keep the human machine going for twenty-four hours. Its prototype in the Congo is manice flour. In the Union nearly five million acres are under maize cultivation, which is exactly double the area in 1911. The value of the maize crop last year was approximately a million six hundred thousand pounds. Similar expansion has been the order in tobacco, wheat, fruit, sugar and half a dozen other products.
72
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
South Africa is a huge cattle country. The Boers have always excelled in the care of live stock and it is particularly due to their efforts that the Union today has more than seven million head of cattle, which repre¬ sents another hundred per cent increase in less than ten years.
This matter of live stock leads me to one of the really picturesque industries of the Union which is the breed¬ ing of ostriches, “the birds with the golden feathers.” Ask any man who raises these ungainly birds and he will tell you that with luck they are far better than the pro¬ verbial goose who laid the eighteen-karat eggs. The combination of F’s — femininity, fashion and feathers — has been productive of many fortunes. The busi¬ ness is inclined to be fickle because it depends upon the female temperament. The ostrich feather, however, is always more or less in fashion. With the outbreak of the war there was a tremendous slump in feathers, ’which was keenly felt in South Africa. With peace, the plume again became the thing and the drooping industry expanded with get-rich-quick proportions.
Port Elizabeth in the Cape Colony is the center of the ostrich feather trade. It is the only place in the world, I believe, devoted entirely to plumage. Not long before I arrived in South Africa £85,000 of feathers were disposed of there in three days. It no uncommon thing for a pound of prime plumes to fetch £100. The demand has become so keen that 350,000 ostriches in the Union can scarcely keep pace with it. Before the war there were more than 800,000 of these birds but the depression in feathers coupled with drought, flood and other causes, thinned out the ranks. It takes three years for an ostrich chick to become a feather producer.
America has a considerable part in shaping the
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
73
ostrich feather market. As with diamonds, we are the largest consumers. You can go to Port Elizabeth any day and find a group of Yankees industriously bidding against each other. On one occasion two New York buyers started a competition that led to an eleven weeks orgy that registered a total net sale of more than £100,000 of feathers. They are still talking about it down there.
South Africa has not only expanded in output but her area is also enlarged. The Peace Conference gave her the mandate for German South-West Africa, which was the first section of the vanished Teutonic Empire in Africa. It occupies more than a quarter or the whole area of the continent south of the Zambesi River. While the word “mandate” as construed by the peace sharks at Paris is supposed to mean the amiable stewardship of a country, it really amounts to nothing more or less than an actual and benevolent assimilation. This assimila¬ tion is very much like the paternal interest that holding companies in the good old Wall Street days felt for small and competitive concerns. In other words, it is safe to assume that henceforth German South-West Africa will be a permanent part of the Union.
The Colony’s chief asset is comprised in the so-called German South-West African Diamond Fields, which, with the Congo Diamond Fields, provide a considerable portion of the small stones now on the market. These two fields are alike in that they are alluvial which means that the diamonds are easily gathered by a washing process. No shafts are sunk. It is precisely like gold washing.
The German South-West mines have an American interest. In the reoganization following the conquest of German South-West Africa by the South African
74
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Army under General Botha the control had to become Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-American Corporation which has extensive interests in South Africa and which is financed by London and New York capitalists, the latter including J. P. Morgan, Charles H. Sabin and W. B. Thompson, acquired these fields. It is an inter¬ esting commentary on post-war business readjustment to discover that there is still a German interest in these mines. It makes one wonder if the German will ever be eradicated from his world-wide contact with every point of commercial activity.
It is not surprising, therefore, that South Africa, in the light of all the facts that I have enumerated, should be prosperous. Take the money, always a test of na¬ tional economic health. At Capetown I used the first golden sovereign that I had seen since early in 1914. This was not only because the Union happens to be a great gold-producing country but because she has an excess of exports over imports. Her money, despite its intimate relation with that of Great Britain, which has so sadly depreciated, is at a premium.
I got expensive evidence of this when I went to the bank at Capetown to get some cash. I had a letter of credit in terms of English pounds. To my surprise, I only got seventeen shillings and sixpence in African money for every English pound, which is nominally worth twenty shillings. Six months after I left, this penalty had increased to three shillings. To such an extent has the proud English pound sterling declined and in a British dominion too!
South Africa has put an embargo on the export of sovereigns. One reason was that during the first three years of the war a steady stream of these golden coins went surreptitiously to East India, where an unusually
“CAPE~TO-CAIRO’9
75
high premium for gold rules, especially in the bazaars. The goldsmiths find difficulty in getting material. The inevitable smuggling has resulted. In order to put a check on illicit removal, all passengers now leaving the Union are searched before they board their ships. Nor is it a half-hearted procedure. It is as drastic as the war-time scrutiny on frontiers.
To sum up the whole business situation in the Union of South Africa is to find that the spirit of production, — the most sorely needed thing in the world today — is that of persistent advance. I dwell on this because it is in such sharp contrast with what is going on throughout the rest of a universe that staggers under sloth, and where the will -to- work has almost become a lost art. That older and more complacent order which is represented for example by France, Italy and Eng¬ land may well seek inspiration from this South African beehive.
Ill
"WITT’ITH this economic setting for the whole m/%/ African picture and a visualization
V ▼ of the Cape-to-Cairo Route let us start on the long journey that eventually took me to the heart of equatorial Africa. The immediate objectives, so far as this chapter is concerned, are Kimberley, Johannes¬ burg and Pretoria, names and towns that are synony¬ mous with thrilling chapters in the development of Africa and more especially the Union.
You depart from Capetown in the morning and for hours you remain in the friendly company of the moun¬ tains. Table Mountain has hovered over you during the whole stay at the capital and you regretfully watch this “Gray Father” fade away in the distance. In the even¬ ing you pass through the Hex River country where the canyon is reminiscent of Colorado. Soon there bursts upon you the famous Karoo country, so familiar to all readers of South African novels and more especially those of Olive Schreiner, Richard Dehan and Sir Percy Fitz Patrick. It is an almost treeless plain dotted here and there with Boer homesteads. Their isolation suggests battle with element and soil. The country immediately around Capetown is a paradise of fruit and flowers, but as you travel northward the whole character changes. There is less green and more
76
Photograph Copyright by W. 6* D. Downey
CECIL RHODES
■
y
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
77
brown. After the Karoo comes the equally famous veldt, studded with the kopjes that became a part of the world vocabulary with the Boer War. Behind these low, long hills, — they suggest flat, rocky hummocks — the South African burghers made many a desperate stand against the English.
When you see the kopjes you can readily understand why it took so long to conquer the Boers. The Dutch knew every inch of the land and every man was a crack shot from boyhood. In these hills a handful could hold a small army at bay. All through this region you en¬ counter places that have become part of history. You pass the ruins of Kitchener’s blockhouses, — they really ended the Boer War — and almost before you realize it, you cross the Modder River, where British military prestige got a bloody repulse. Instinctively there come to mind the struggles of Cronje, DeWet, Joubert, and the rest of those Boer leaders who made this region a small Valhalla.
Late in the afternoon of the second day you suddenly get a “feel” of industry. The veldt becomes populated and before long huge smokestacks loom against the sky. You are at Kimberly. The average man associates this place with a famous siege in the Boer War and the equally famous diamond mines. But it is much more for it is packed with romance and reality. Here came Cecil Rhodes in his early manhood and pulled off the biggest business deal of his life; here you find the first milepost that the American mining engineer set up in the mineral development of Africa: here is produced in greater quantities than in any other place in the world the glittering jewel that vanity and avarice set their heart upon.
Kimberley is one of the most unique of all the treas-
78
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
ure cities. It is practically built on a diamond mine in the same way that Johannesburg rests upon a gold excavation. When the great diamond rush of the seventies overwhelmed the Vaal and Orange River re¬ gions, what is now the Kimberley section was a rocky plain with a few Boer farms. The influx of fortune- hunters dotted the area with tents and diggings. Today a thriving city covers it and the wealth produced — the diamond output is ninety per cent of the world supply — exceeds in value that of a big manufacturing com¬ munity in the United States.
At Kimberley you touch the intimate life of Rhodes. He arrived in 1872 from Natal, where he had gone to retrieve his health on a farm. The moment he staked out a claim he began a remarkable career. In his early Kimberley days he did a characteristic thing. He left his claims each year to attend lectures at Oxford where he got his degree in 1881, after almost continuous com¬ muting between England and Africa. Hence the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford created by his remarkable will. History contains no more striking contrast per¬ haps than the spectacle of this tall, curly-haired boy with the Caesar-like face studying a Greek book while he managed a diamond- washing machine with his foot.
Rhodes developed the mines known as the DeBeers group. His great rival was Barney Bamato, who gave African finance the same erratic and picturesque tradi¬ tion that the Pittsburgh millionaires brought to Ameri¬ can finance. His real name was Barnett Isaacs. After kicking about the streets of the East End of London he became a music hall performer under the name by which he is known to business history. The diamond rush lured him to Kimberley, where he displayed the resource and ingenuity that led to his organization of
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
79
the Central mine interests which grouped around the Kimberley Mine.
A bitter competition developed between the Rhodes and Barnato groups. Kimberley alternated between boom and bankruptcy. The genius of diamond mining lies in tempering output to demand. Rhodes realized that indiscriminate production would ruin the market, so he framed up the deal that made him the diamond dictator. He made Barnato an offer which was refused. With the aid of the Rothschilds in London Rhodes secretly bought out the French interests in the Barnato holdings for $6,000,000, which got his foot, so to speak, in the doorway of the opposition. But even this did not give him a working wedge. He was angling with other big stockholders and required some weeks time to con¬ summate the deal. Meanwhile Barnato accumulated an immense stock of diamonds which he threatened to dump on the market and demoralize the price. The release of these stones before the completion of Rhodes’ nego¬ tiations would have upset his whole scheme and neutral¬ ized his work and expense.
He arranged a meeting with Barnato who confronted him with the pile of diamonds that he was about to throw on the market. Rhodes, so the story goes, took him by the arm and said: “Barney, have you ever seen a bucketful of diamonds? I never have. I’ll make a proposition to you. If these diamonds will fill a bucket, I’ll take them all from you at your own price.”
Without giving his rival time to answer, Rhodes swept the glittering fortune into a bucket which happened to be standing nearby. It also happened that the stones did not fill it. This incident shows the extent of the Rhodes resource, for a man at Kimberly told me that Rhodes knew beforehand exactly how many diamonds
80
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Barnato had and got the right sized bucket. Rhodes immediately strode from the room, got the time he wanted and consummated the consolidation which made the name DeBeers synonymous with the diamond out¬ put of the world. One trifling feature of this deal was the check for $26,000,000 which Rhodes gave for some of the Barnato interests acquired.
The deal with Barnato illustrated the practical oper¬ ation of one of the rules which guided Rhodes’ business life. He once said, ‘Never fight with a man if you can deal with him.” He lived up to this maxim even with the savage Matabeles from whom he wrested Rhodesia.
Not long after the organization of the diamond trust Rhodes gave another evidence of his business acumen. He saw that the disorganized marketing of the out¬ put would lead to instability of price. He therefore formed the Diamond Syndicate in London, composed of a small group of middlemen who distribute the whole Kimberley output. In this way the available supply is measured solely by the demand.
Rhodes had a peculiar affection for Kimberley. One reason perhaps was that it represented the cornerstone of his fortune. He always referred to the mines as his “bread and cheese.” He made and lost vast sums elsewhere and scattered his money about with a lavish hand. The diamond mines did not belie their name and gave him a constant meal-ticket.
In Kimberley he made some of the friendships that influenced his life. First and foremost among them was his association with Doctor, afterwards Sir, Starr Jameson, the hero of the famous Raid and a romantic character in African annals. J ameson came to Kimber¬ ley to practice medicine in 1878. No less intimate was Rhodes’ life-long attachment for Alfred Beit, who ar-
“CAPE~TO~CAXRO”
81
rived at the diamond fields from Hamburg in 1875 as an obscure buyer. He became a magnate whose opera¬ tions extended to three continents. Beit was the balance wheel in the Rhodes financial machine.
The diamond mines at Kimberley are familiar to most readers. They differ from the mines in German South-West Africa and the Congo in that they are deep level excavations. The Kimberley mine, for ex¬ ample, goes down 3,000 feet. To see this almost gro¬ tesque gash in the earth is to get the impression of a very small Grand Canyon of the Colorado. It is an awesome and terrifying spectacle for it is shot through with green and brown and purple, is more than a thou¬ sand feet wide at the top, and converges to a visible point a thousand feet below. You feel that out of this color and depth has emerged something that itself in¬ carnates lure and mystery. Even in its source the dia¬ mond is not without its element of elusiveness.
The diamonds at Kimberley are found in a blue earth, technically known as kimberlite and commonly called “blue ground.” This is exposed to sun and rain for six months, after which it is shaken down, run over a grease table where the vaseline catches the real dia¬ monds, and allows the other matter to escape. After a boiling process it is the “rough” diamond.
I spent a day in the Dutoitspan Mine where I saw thousands of Kaffirs digging away at the precious blue substance soon to be translated into the gleaming stone that would dangle on the bosom or shine from the finger of some woman ten thousand miles away. I got an evi¬ dence of American cinema enterprise on this occasion for I suddenly debouched on a wide level and under the flickering lights I saw a Yankee operator turning the crank of a motion picture camera. He was part of
82
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
a movie outfit getting travel pictures. A hundred naked Zulus stared with open-eyed wonder at the performance. When the flashlight was touched off they ran for their lives.
This leads me to the conspicuous part that Ameri¬ cans have played at Kimberley. Rhodes had great con¬ fidence in the Americans, and employed them in various capacities that ranged from introducing Cal¬ ifornia fruits into South Africa and Rhodesia to han¬ dling his most important mining interests. When some¬ one asked him why he engaged so many he answered, “They are so thorough.’’
First among the Americans that Rhodes brought to Kimberley was Gardner F. Williams, a Michigander who became General Manager of the DeBeers Company in 1887 and upon the consolidation, assumed the same post with the united interests. He developed the mechanical side of diamond production and for many years held what was perhaps the most conspicuous tech¬ nical and administrative post in the industry. He re¬ tired in favor of his son, Alpheus Williams, who is the present General Manager of all the diamond mines at Kimberley.
A little-known American had a vital part in the siege of Kimberley. Among the American engineers who rallied round Gardner Williams was George Labram. When the Boers invested the town they had the great advantage of speriority in weight of metal. Thanks to Britain’s lack of preparedness, Kimberley only had a few seven pounders, while the Boers had “Long Toms” that hurled hundred pounders. At Rhodes’ suggestion Labram manufactured a big gun capable of throwing a thirty-pound shell and it gave the besiegers a big and destructive surprise. This gun, which
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
83
was called “Long Cecil,” was built and booming in ex¬ actly twenty-eight days. Tragically enough, Labram was killed by a Boer shell while shaving in his room at the Grand Hotel exactly a week after the first dis¬ charge of his gun.
IV
THE PART that Americans had in the develop¬ ment of Kimberley is slight compared with their participation in the exploitation of the Rand gold mines. Not only were they the real pioneers in opening up this greatest of all gold fields but they loomed large in the drama of the Jameson Raid. One of their number, John Hays Hammond, the best-known of the group, was sentenced to death for his role in it. The entire technical fabric of the Rand was devised and established by men born, and who had the greater part of their experience, in the United States.
The capital of the Rand is Johannesburg. When you ride in a taxicab down its broad, well-paved streets or are whirled to the top floor of one of its skyscrapers, it is difficult to believe that thirty years ago this thriv¬ ing and metropolitan community was a rocky waste. We are accustomed to swift civic transformations in Amer¬ ica but Johannesburg surpasses any exhibit that we can offer in this line. Once called “a tin town with a gold cellar,” it has the atmosphere of a continuous cabaret with a jazz band going all the time.
No thoroughly acclimated person would ever think of calling Johannesburg by its full and proper name. Just as San Francisco is contracted into “ ’Frisco,” so is this animated joy town called “Joburg.” I made the mistake of dignifying the place with its geographical
84
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
85
title when I innocently remarked, “Johannesburg is a live place.” My companion looked at me with pity — it was almost sorrow, and replied,
“We think that ‘Joburg’ (strong emphasis on ‘Jo- burg’) is one of the hottest places in the world.”
The word Rand is Dutch for ridge or reef. Toward the middle of the eighties the first mine was discovered on what is the present site of Johannesburg. The origi¬ nal excavation was on the historic place known as Witwatersrand , which means White Water Reef. Kim¬ berley history repeated itself for the gold rush to the Transvaal was as noisy and picturesque as the dash on the diamond fields. It exceeded the Klondike move¬ ment because for one thing it was more accessible and in the second place there were no really adverse cli¬ matic conditions. Thousands died in the snow and ice of the Yukon trail while only a few hundred succumbed to fever, exposure to rain, and inadequate food on the Rand. It resembled the gold rush to California in 1849 more than any other similar event.
The Rand gold fields, which in 1920 produced half of the world’s gold, are embodied in a reef about fifty miles long and twenty miles wide. All the mines im¬ mediately in and about Johannesburg are practically exhausted. The large development today is in the east¬ ern section. People do everything but eat gold; in Johannesburg. Cooks, maids, waiters, bootblacks — indeed the whole population — are interested, or at some time have had an interest in a gold mine. Some his¬ toric shoestrings have become golden cables. J. B. Robinson, for example, one of the well-known magnates, and his associates converted an original interest of £12,000 into £18,000,000. This Rand history sounds like an Aladdin fairy tale.
86
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
What concerns us principally, however, is the Ameri¬ can end of the whole show. Hardly were the first Rand mines uncovered than they felt the influence of the American technical touch. Among the first of our engineers to go out were three unusual men, Hennen Jennings, H. C. Perkins and Captain Thomas Mein. Together with Hamilton Smith, another noted Ameri¬ can engineer who joined them later, they had all worked in the famous El Callao gold mine in Venezuela. Subse¬ quently came John Hays Hammond, Charles Butters, Victor M. Clement, J. S. Curtis, T. H. Leggett, Pope Yeatman, Fred Heilman, George Webber, H. H. Webb, and Louis Seymour. These men were the big fellows. They marshalled hundreds of subordinate en¬ gineers, mechanics, electricians, mine managers and others until there were more than a thousand in the field.
This was the group contemporaneous and identified with the Jameson Raid. After the Boer War came what might be called the second generation of American engineers, which included Sidney Jennings, a brother of Hennen, W. L. Honnold, Samuel Thomson, Ruel C. Warriner, W. W. Mein, the son of Capt. Thomas Mein, and H. C. Behr.
Why this American invasion? The reason was simple. The American mining engineer of the eighties and the nineties stood in a class by himself. Through the gold development of California we were the only people who had produced gold mining engineers of large and varied practical experience. When Rhodes and Barnato (they were both among the early nine mine- owners in the Rand) cast about for capable men they naturally picked out Americans. Hammond, for ex¬ ample, was brought to South America in 1893 by Bar-
“CAPE-TQ-CAIRO”
87
nato and after six months with him went over to Rhodes, with whom he was associated both in the Rand and Rhodesia until 1900.
Not only did Americans create the whole technical machine but one of them — Hennen Jennings — really saved the field. The first mines were “outcrop,” that is, the ore literally cropped out at the surface. This out¬ crop is oxidized, and being free, is easily amalgamated with mercury. Deeper down in the earth comes the un¬ oxidized zone which continues indefinitely. The iron pyrites found here are not oxidized. They hold the gold so tenaciously that they are not amalgamable. They must therefore be abstracted by some other process than with mercury. At the time that the outcrop in the Rand become exhausted, what is today known as the “cyanide process” had never been used in that part of the world. The mine-owners became discouraged and a slump followed. Jennings had heard of the cyanide operation, insisted upon its introduction, and it not only retrieved the situation but has become an accepted adjunct of gold mining the world over. In the same way Hammond inaugurated deep-level mining when many of the owners thought the field was ex¬ hausted because the outcrop indications had disap¬ peared.
These Americans in the Rand made the mines and they also made history as their part in the Jameson Raid showed. Perhaps a word about the Reform move¬ ment which ended in the Raid is permissible here. It grew out of the oppression of the Uitlander — the alien — by the Transvaal Government animated by Kruger, the President. Although these outsiders, principally English and Americans, outnumbered the Boers three to one, they were deprived of the rights of citizenship.
88
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
The Reformers organized an armed campaign to cap¬ ture Kruger and hold him as a hostage until they could obtain their rights. The guns and ammunition were smuggled in from Kimberley as “hardware” under the supervision of Gardner Williams. It was easy to bring the munitions as far as Kimberley. The Boers set up such a careful watch on the Transvaal border, how¬ ever, that every subterfuge had to be employed to get them across.
Dr. Jameson, who at that time was Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, had a force of Rhodesian police on the Transvaal border ready to come to the assistance of the Committee if necessary. The understanding was that Jameson should not invade the Transvaal until he was needed. His impetuosity spoiled the scheme. In¬ stead of waiting until the Committee was properly armed and had seized Kruger, he suddenly crossed the border with his forces. The Raid was a fizzle and the commander and all his men were captured by the Boers. This abortive attempt was the real prelude to the Boer War, which came four years later.
Most Americans who have read about this episode believe that John Hays Hammond was the only coun¬ tryman of theirs in it. This was because he had a leading and spectacular part and was one of the four ringlead¬ ers sentenced to death. He afterwards escaped by the payment of a fine of $125,000. As a matter of fact, four other prominent American mining engineers were up to their necks in the reform movement and got long terms in prison. They were Capt. Thomas Mein, J. S. Curtis, Victor M. Clement and Charles Butters. They obtained their freedom by the payment of fines of $10,000 each. This whole enterprise netted Kruger something like $2,000,000 in cash.
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
89
The Jameson Raid did more than enrich old Kruger’s coffers and bring the American engineers in the Rand to the fore. Indirectly it blocked a German scheme that might have played havoc in Africa the moment the inevitable Great War broke. If the Boer War had not developed in 1899 it is altogether likely that, judg¬ ing from her whole campaign of world-wide interfer¬ ence, Germany would have arranged so that it should break out in 1914. In this unhappy event she could have struck a death blow at England in South Africa because in the years between the Boer War and 1914 she created close-knit colonial organizations in South- West and Eeast Africa; built stragetic railways; armed and drilled thousands of natives, and could have in¬ vaded the Cape Colony and the Transvaal.
In connection with the Jameson Raid is a story not without interest. Jameson and Rudyard Kipling hap¬ pened to be together when the news of Roosevelt’s coup in Panama was published. The author read it first and handed the paper to his friend with the question : “What do you think of it?”
Jameson glanced at the article and then replied somewhat sadly, “This makes the Raid look like thirty cents.”
I cannot leave the Rand section of the Union of South Africa without a word in passing about Pretoria, the administrative capital, which is only an hour’s jour¬ ney from Johannesburg. Here you still see the old house where Kruger lived. It was the throne of a copper- riveted autocracy. No modern head of a country ever wielded such a despotic rule as this psalm-singing old Boer whose favorite hour for receiving visitors was at five o’clock in the morning, when he had his first cup
90
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
of strong coffee, a beverage which he continued to con¬ sume throughout the day.
The most striking feature of the country around Pretoria is the Premier diamond mine, twenty-five miles east of the town and the world’s greatest single treasure- trove. The mines at Kimberley together constitute the largest of all diamond fields but the Premier Mine is the biggest single mine anywhere. It produces as much as the four largest Kimberley mines combined, and contributes eighteen per cent of the yearly output allotted to the Diamond Syndicate.
It was discovered by Thomas M. Cullinan, who bought the site from a Boer farmer for $250,000. The land originally cost this farmer $2,500. The mine has already produced more than five hundred times what Cullinan paid for it and the surface has scarcely been scraped. You can see the natives working in its two huge holes which are not more than six hundred feet deep. It is still an open mine. In the Premier Mine was found the Cullinan diamond, the largest ever dis¬ covered and which made the Koh-i-noor and all other fabled gems look like small pebbles. It weighed 3,200 karats and was insured for $2,500,000 when it was sent to England to be presented to King Edward. The Koh-i-noor, by the way, which was found in India only weighs 186 karats.
THE PREMIER DIAMOND MINE
y
NO ATTEMPT at an analysis of South Africa would be complete without some reference to the native problem, the one discordant note in the economic and productive scheme. The race question, as the Smuts dilemma showed, lies at the root of all South African trouble. But the racial conflict between Briton and Boer is almost entirely political and in no way threatens the commercial integrity. Both the Dutchman and the Englishman agree on the whole larger proposition and the necessity of settling once and for all a trouble that carries with it the danger of sporadic outbreak or worse. Now we come to the whole irritating labor trouble which has neither color, caste, nor creed, or geographical line.
First let me bring the South African color problem home to America. In the United States the whites out¬ number the blacks roughly ten to one. Our coloured population represents the evolution of the one-time Afri¬ can slave through various generations into a peaceful, law-abiding, and useful social unit. The Southern “out¬ rage” is the rare exception. We have produced a Fred¬ erick Douglass and a Booker Washington. Our Negro is a Christian, fills high posts, and invades the pro¬ fessions.
In South Africa the reverse is true. To begin with, the natives outnumber the whites four and one-half to
91
92
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
one - — in Rhodesia they are twenty to one — and they are increasing at a much greater rate than the Euro¬ peans. Moreover, the native population draws on half a dozen races, including the Zulus, Kaffirs, Hottentots and Basutos. These Negroes represent an almost primi¬ tive stage of development. They are mainly heathens and a prey to savagery and superstition. The Cape Colony is the only one that permits the black man to go to school or become a skilled artisan. Elsewhere the white retains his monopoly on the crafts and at the same time refuses to do any labour that a Negro can perform. Hence the great need of white immigration into the Union. The big task, therefore, is to secure adequate work for the Negro without permitting him to gain an advantage through it.
It follows that the moment the Kaffir becomes effi¬ cient and picks up a smattering of education he begins to think about his position and unrest is fomented. It makes him unstable as an employee, as the constant desertions from work show. The only way that the gold and diamond mines keep their thousands of recruited native workers is to confine them in compounds. The ordinary labourer has no such restrictions and he is here today and gone tomorrow.
It is not surprising to discover that in a country teeming with blacks there are really no good servants, a condition with which the American housewife can heartily sympathize. Before I went to Africa nearly every woman I knew asked me to bring her back a diamond and a cook. They were much more concerned about the cook than the diamond. Had I kept every promise that I made affecting this human jewel, I would have had to charter a ship to convey them. The only decent servant I had in Africa was a near-savage
“CAPE-TO-CAXRO” 93
in the Congo, a sad commentary on domestic service conditions.
The one class of stable servants in the Colony are the “Cape Boys,” as they are called. They are the coloured offspring of a European and a Hottentot or a Malay and are of all shades, from a darkish brown to a mere tinge. They dislike being called “niggers.” The first time I saw these Cape Boys was in France dur¬ ing the war. South Africa sent over thousands of them to recruit the labour battalions and they did excellent work as teamsters and in other capacities. The Cape Boy, however, is the exception to the native rule throughout the Union, which means that most native labour is unstable and discontented.
Not only is the South African native a menace to economic expansion but he is likewise something of a physical danger. In towns like Pretoria and Johannes¬ burg there is a considerable feeling of insecurity. Women shrink from being left alone with their ser¬ vants and are filled with apprehension while their little ones are out under black custodianship. The one native servant, aside from some of the Cape Boys, who has demonstrated absolute fidelity, is the Zulu whom you see in largest numbers in Natal. He is still a proud and kingly-looking person and he carried with him a hint of the vanished greatness of his race. Perhaps one reason why he is safe and sane reposes in his recollec¬ tion of the repeated bitter and bloody defeats at the hands of the white men. Yet the Zulu was in armed insurrection in Natal in the nineties.
South Africa enjoys no guarantee of immunity from black uprising even now in the twentieth century when the world uses the aeroplane and the wireless. During the past thirty years there have been outbreaks through-
94
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
out the African continent. As recently as 1915 a fanati¬ cal form of Ethiopianism broke out in Nyassaland which lies north-east of Rhodesia, under the sponsorship of John Chilembwe, a negro preacher who had been edu¬ cated in the United States. The natives rose, killed a number of white men and carried off the women. Of course, it was summarily put down and the leaders executed. But the incident was significant.
Prester John, whose story is familiar to readers of J ohn Buchan’s fine romance of the same name, still has disciples. Like Chilembwe he was a preacher who had acquired so-called European civilization. He dreamed of an Africa for the blacks and took his inspiration from the old kings of Abyssinia. He too met the fate of all his kind but his spirit goes marching on. In 1919 a Pan- African Congress was held in Paris to discuss some plan for what might be called Pan-Ethiopianism. The following year a negro convention in New York City advocated that all Africa should be converted into a black republic.
One example of African native unrest was brought strikingly to my personal attention. At Capetown I met one of the heads of a large Cape Colony school for Negroes which is conducted under religious auspices. The occasion was a dinner given by J. X. Merriman, the Grand Old Man of the Cape Colony. This par¬ ticular educator spoke with glowing enthusiasm about this institution and dwelt particularly upon the evolu¬ tion that was being accomplished. He gave me a press¬ ing invitation to visit it. He happened to be on the train that I took to Kimberley, which was also the first stage of his journey home and he talked some more about the great work the school was doing.
When I reached Kimberley the first item of news
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
95
that I read in the local paper was an account of an up¬ rising in the school. Hundreds of native students re¬ belled at the quality of food they were getting and went on the rampage. They destroyed the power-plant and wrecked several of the buildings. The constabulary had to be called out to restore order.
In many respects most Central and South African Negroes never really lose the primitive in them despite the claims of uplifters and sentimentalists. Actual con¬ tact is a disillusioning thing. I heard of a concrete case when I was in the Belgian Congo. A Belgian judge at a post up the Kasai River acquired an intelli¬ gent Baluba boy. All personal servants in Africa are called “boys.” This particular native learned French, acquired European clothes and became a model ser¬ vant. When the judge went home to Belgium on leave he took the boy along. He decided to stay longer than he expected and sent the negro back to the Congo. No sooner did the boy get back to his native heath than he sold his European clothes, put on a loin cloth, and squatted on the ground when he ate, precisely like his savage brethren. It is a typical case, and merely shows that a great deal of so-called black-acquired civi¬ lization in Africa falls away with the garb of civili¬ zation.
The only African blacks who have really assimilated the civilizing influence so far as my personal observa¬ tion goes are those of the West Coast. Some of the inhabitants of Sierra Leone will illustrate what I mean. Scores have gone to Oxford and Cambridge and have become doctors, lawyers and competent civil servants. They resemble the American Negro more than any others in Africa. This parallel even goes to their fond¬ ness for using big words. I saw hundreds of them hold-
98
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
ing down important clerical positions in the Belgian Congo where they are known as “Coast-men,” because they come from the West Coast.
I had an amusing experience with one when I was on my way out of the Congo jungle. I sent a message by him to the captain of the little steamboat that took me up and down the Kasai River. In this message I asked that the vessel be made ready for immediate de¬ parture. The Coast-man, whose name was Wilson — they all have English names and speak English fluently — came back and said :
“I have conveyed your expressed desire to leave im¬ mediately to the captain of your boat. He only returns a verbal acquiescence but I assure you that he will leave nothing undone to facilitate your speedy departure.”
He said all this with such a solemn and sober face that you would have thought the whole destiny of the British Empire depended upon the elaborateness of his ut¬ terance.
To return to the matter of unrest, all the concrete happenings that I have related show that the authority of the white man in Africa is still resented by the natives. It serves to emphasize what Mr. Lothrop Stoddard, an eminent authority on this subject, so aptly calls “the rising tide of colour.” We white people seldom stop to realize how overwhelmingly we are outnumbered. Out of the world population of approximately 1,700,- 000,000 persons (I am using Mr. Stoddard’s figures), only 550,000,000 are white.
A colour conflict is improbable but by no means im¬ possible. We have only to look at our own troubles with the Japanese to get an intimate glimpse of what might lurk in a yellow tidal wave. The yellow man humbled Russia in the Russo-Japanese War and he
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
97
smashed the Germans at Kiao Chow in the Great War. The fact that he was permitted to fight shoulder to shoulder with the white man has only added to his cocki¬ ness as we have discovered in California.
Remember too that the Germans stirred up all Islam in their mad attempt to conquer the world. The Mo¬ hammedan has not forgotten what the Teutonic propa¬ gandists told him when they laid the cunning train of bad feeling that precipitated Turkey into the Great War. These seeds of discord are bearing fruit in many Near Eastern quarters. One result is that a British army is fighting in Mesopotamia now. A Holy War is merely the full brother of the possible War of Colour. In East Africa the Germans used thousands of native troops against the British and Belgians. The blacks got a taste, figuratively, of the white man’s blood and it did his system no good.
Throughout the globe there are 150,000,000 blacks and all but 30,000,000 of them are south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. They lack the high mental develop¬ ment of the yellow man as expressed in the Japanese, but even brute force is not to be despised, especially where it outnumbers the whites to the extent that they do in South Africa. I am no alarmist and I do not presume to say that there will be serious trouble. I merely present these facts to show that certainly so far as affecting production and economic security in gen¬ eral is concerned, the native still provides a vexing and irritating problem, not without danger.
The Union of South Africa is keenly alive to this perplexing native situation. Its policy is what might be called the Direct Rule, in which the whole administra¬ tion of the country is in the hands of the Europeans and which is the opposite of the Indirect Rule of India, for
98
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
example, which recognizes Rajahs and other potentates and which permits the brown man to hold a variety of public posts.
The Government of the Cape Colony is becoming convinced that Booker Washington’s idea is the sole salvation of the race. That great leader maintained that the hope for the Negro in the United States and elsewhere lay in the training of his hands. Once those hands were skilled they could be kept out of mischief. I recall having discussed this theory one night with General Smuts at Capetown and he expressed his hearty approval of it.
The lamented Botha died before he could put into operation a plan which held out the promise of still another kind of solution. It lay in the soil. He con¬ tended that an area of forty million acres should be set aside for the natives, where many could work out their destinies themselves. While this plan offered the oppor¬ tunity for the establishment of a compact and perhaps dangerous black entity, his feeling was that by the avoidance of friction with the whites the possibility of trouble would be minimized. This scheme is likely to be carried out by Smuts.
Since the Union of South Africa profited by the whirligig of war to the extent of acquiring German South-West Africa it only remains to speak of the new map of Africa, made possible by the Great Conflict. Despite the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France one fails to see concrete evidence of Germany’s defeat in Europe. Her people are still cocky and defiant. There is no mistake about her altered condition in Africa. Her flag there has gone into the discard along with the wreck of militarism. The immense territory that she acquired principally by browbeating is lost, down to the last square mile.
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
99
Up to 1884 Germany did not own an inch of African soil. Within two years she was mistress of more than a million square miles. Analyze her whole performance on the continent and a definite cause of the World War is discovered. It is part of an international conspiracy studded with astonishing details.
Africa was a definite means to world conquest. Ger¬ many knew of her vast undeveloped wealth. It is now no secret that her plan was to annex the greater part of French, Belgian, Italian and Portuguese Africa in the event that she won. The Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway would have hitched up the late Teutonic Empire with the Near East and made it easy to link the African domain with this intermediary through the Turkish do¬ minions. Here was an imposing program with many advantages. For one thing it would have given Ger¬ many an untold store of raw materials and it would also have put her into a position to dictate to Southern Asia and even South America.
The methods that Germany adopted to acquire her African possessions were peculiarly typical. Like the madness that plunged her into a struggle with civiliza¬ tion they were her own undoing. Into a continent whose middle name, so far as colonization goes, is in¬ trigue she fitted perfectly. Practically every German colony in Africa represented the triumph of “butting in” or intimidation. The Kaiser That Was regarded himself as the mentor, and sought to recast continents in the same grand way that he lectured his minions.
The first German colony in Africa was German South-West, as it was called for short, and grew out of a deal made between a Bremen merchant and a native chief. On the strength of this Bismarck pinched out an area almost as big as British East Africa. Before
100
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
twelve months had passed the German flag flew over what came to be known as German East Africa, and also over Togoland and the The Cameroons on the West Coast.
Germany really had no right to invade any of this country but she was developing into a strong military power and rather than have trouble, the other nations acquiesced. Once intrenched, she started her usual in¬ terference. The prize mischief-maker of the universe, she began to stir up trouble in every quarter. She em¬ broiled the French at Agadir and got into a snarl with Portugal over Angola.
The Kaiser’s experience with Kruger is typical. When the Jameson Raid petered out William Hohen- zollern sent the dictator of the Transvaal a telegram of congratulation. The old Boer immediately regarded him as an ally and counted on his aid when the Boer War started. Instead, he got the double-cross after he had sent his ultimatum to England. At that time the Kaiser warily side-stepped an entanglement with Britain for the reason that she was too useful.
It is now evident that a large part of the Congo atroc¬ ity was a German scheme. The head and front of the expose movement was Sir Roger Casement of London. He sought to foment a German-financed revolution in Ireland and was hanged as a traitor in the Tower.
Behind this atrocity crusade was just another evi¬ dence of the German desire to control Africa. By rousing the world against Belgium, Germany expected to bring auother Berlin Congress, which would be ex¬ pected to give her the stewardship of the Belgian Congo. The result would have been a German belt across Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic Oceans. She could thus have had England and France at a disad-
“CAPE-TO-CAIRO”
101
vantage on the north, and England and Portugal where she wanted them, to the south. Hence the Great War was not so much a matter of German meddling in the Balkans as it was her persistent manipulation of other nations’ affairs in Africa. She was playing “freeze- out” on a stupendous scale. You can see why Germany was so much opposed to the Cape-to-Cairo Route. It interfered with her ambitions and provided a constant irritant to her “benevolent” plans.
So much for the war end. Turn to the peace aspect. With Germany eliminated from the African scheme the whole region can enter upon a harmonious development. More than this, the fact that she is now deprived of colonies prevents her from recovering the world- wide economic authority she commanded before the war. A congested population allows her no more elbow room at home. Before she went mad her whole hope of the future lay in a colonization where her flag could fly in public, and in a penetration which cunningly masked the German hand. The world is now wise to the latter pro¬ cedure.
The new colour scheme of the African map may now be disclosed. The Union of South Africa, as you have seen, has taken over German South-West Africa; Great Britain has assumed the control of all German East Africa with the exception of Ruanda and Urundu, which have become part of the Belian Congo. Togoland is divided between France and Britain, while the greater part of The Cameroons is merged into the Lower French West African possessions of which the French Congo is the principal one. Britain gets the Cameroon Moun¬ tains.
The one-time Dark Continent remains dark only for Germany.
Photograph Copyright British South Africa Co.
Ill — RHODES AND RHODESIA
I
FOR fifty-eight hours the train from Johannes¬ burg had travelled steadily northward, past Mafeking and on through the apparently end¬ less stretches of Bechuanaland. Alternately frozen and baked, I had swallowed enough dust to stock a small¬ sized desert. Dawn of the third day broke and with it came a sharp rap on my compartment door. I had been dreaming of a warm bath and a joltless life when I was rudely restored to reality. The car was stationary and a blanketed Matabele, his teeth chattering with the cold, peered in at the window.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You are in Rhodesia and I want to know who you are,” boomed a voice out in the corridor.
I opened the door and a tall, rangy, bronzed man — the immigration inspector — stepped inside. He looked like a cross between an Arizona cowboy and an Aus¬ tralian overseas soldier. When I proved to his satis¬ faction that I was neither Bolshevik nor Boche he de¬ parted with the remark: ‘We’ve got to keep a watch on the people who come into this country.”
Such was my introduction to Rhodesia, where the limousine and the ox-team compete for right of way on the veldt and the ’rickshaw yields to the motor-cycle in
103
104
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
the town streets. Nowhere in the world can you find a region that combines to such vivid and picturesque ex¬ tent the romance and hardship of the pioneer age with the push and practicality of today. Here existed the “King Solomon’s Mines” of Rider Haggard’s fancy: here the modern gold-seekers of fact sought the treasures of Ophir; here Nature gives an awesome manifestation of her power in the Victoria Falls.
It is the only country where a great business corpo¬ ration rules, not by might of money but by chartered authority. Linked with that rule is the story of a con¬ flict between share-holder and settler that is unique in the history of colonization. It is the now-familiar and well-nigh universal struggle for self-determination waged in this instance between all-British elements and without violence.
All the way from Capetown I had followed the trail of Cecil Rhodes, which like the man himself, is distinct. It is not the succession of useless and conventional monu¬ ments reared by a grateful posterity. Rather it is ex¬ pressed in terms of cities and a permanent industrial and agricultural advance. “Living he was the land,” and dead, his imperious and constructive spirit goes marching on. The Rhodes impress is everywhere. Now I had arrived at the cap-stone of it all, the domain that bears his name and which he added to the British Empire.
Less than two hours after the immigration inspector had given me the once-over on the frontier I was in Bulawayo, metropolis of Rhodesia, which sprawls over the veldt just like a bustling Kansas community spreads out over the prairie. It is definitely American in energy and atmosphere. Save for the near-naked blacks you could almost imagine yourself in Idaho or Montana back in the days when our West was young.
RHODES AND RHODESIA
105
Before that first day ended I had lunched and dined in a club that would do credit to Capetown or J ohannes- burg; had met women who wore French frocks, and had heard the possibilities of the section acclaimed by a dozen enthusiasts. Everyone in Rhodesia is a born booster. Again you get the parallel with our own kind.
To the average American reader Rhodesia is merely a name, associated with the midnight raid of stealthy savage and all the terror and tragedy of the white man’s burden amid the wild confines. All this happened, to be sure, but it is part of the past. While South Africa still wrestles with a serious native problem, Rhodesia has settled it once and for all. It would be impossible to find a milder lot than the survivors and sons of the cruel and war-like Lobengula who once ruled here like a despot of old. His tribesmen — the Matabeles - — were put in their place by a strong hand and they re¬ main put.
Bulawayo was the capital of Lobengula’s kingdom. The word means “Place of Slaughter,” and it did not belie the name. You can still see the tree under which the portly potentate sat and daily dispensed sanguinary judgment. His method was quite simple. If anyone irritated or displeased him he was haled up “under the greenwood” and sentenced to death. If gout or rheu¬ matism racked the royal frame the chief executed the first passerby and then considered the source of the trouble removed. The only thing that really departed was the head of the innocent victim. Lobengula had sixty-eight wives, which may account for some of his eccentricities. Chaka, the famous king of the Zulus, whose favourite sport was murdering his sons (he feared a rival to the throne), was an amateur in crime along¬ side the dusky monarch whom the British suppressed,
106 AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
and thereby gained what is now the most prosperous part of Southern Rhodesia.
The occupation and development of Rhodesia are so comparatively recent— (Rhodes and Dr. Jameson were fighting the Matabeles at Bulawayo in 1896) — that any account of the country must at the outset in¬ clude a brief historical approach to the time of my visit last May. Probe into the beginnings of any African colony and you immediately uncover intrigue and mili¬ tant imperialism. Rhodesia is no exception.
For ages the huge continent of which it is part was veiled behind mystery and darkness. The northern and southern extremes early came into the ken of the ex¬ plorer and after him the builder. So too with most of the coast. But the vast central belt, skirted by the arid reaches of Sahara on one side and unknown territory on the other, defied civilization until Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, and Grant blazed the way. Then began the scramble for colonies.
Early in the eighties more than one European power cast covetous glances at what might be called the South Central area. Thanks to the economic foresight of King Leopold, Belgium had secured the Congo. Be¬ tween this region which was then a Free State, and the Transvaal, was an immense and unappropriated coun¬ try, — a sort of no man’s land, rich with minerals, teem¬ ing with forests and peopled by savages. Two territories, Matabeleland, ruled by Lobengula, and Mashonaland, inhabited by the Mashonas, who were to all intents and purposes vassals to Lobengula, were the prize portions. Another immense area — the present British protectorate of Bechuanaland — was immedi¬ ately south and touched the Cape Colony and the Trans¬ vaal. Portuguese East Africa lay to the east but the
RHODES AND RHODESIA
107
backbone of Africa south of the Congo line lay ready to be plucked by venturesome hands.
Nor were the hands lacking for the enterprise. Ger¬ many started to strengthen the network of conspiracy that had already yielded her a million square miles of African soil and she was reaching out for more. Con¬ trol of Africa meant for her a big step toward world conquest. Paul Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic, which touched the southern edge of this un¬ claimed domain, saw in it the logical extension of his dominions.
Down at Capetown was Rhodes, dreaming of a Greater Britain and determined to block the Kaiser and Kruger. It was largely due to his efforts while a mem¬ ber of the Cape Parliament that Britain was persuaded to annex Bechuanaland as a Crown Colony. Fore¬ stalled here, Kruger was determined to get the rest of the country beyond Bechuanaland and reaching to the southern border of the Congo. His emissaries began to dicker with chiefs and he organized an expedition to invade the territory. Once more Rhodes beat him to it, this time in history-making fashion.
Following his theory that it is better to deal with a man than fight him, he sent C. D. Rudd, Rochfort Maguire, and F. R. (“Matabele”) Thompson up to deal directly with Lobengula. They were ideal envoys for Thompson in particular knew every inch of the country and spoke the native languages. From the crafty chief¬ tain they obtained a blanket concession for all the min¬ eral and trading rights in Matabeleland for £1,200 a year and one thousand rifles. Rhodes now converted this concession into a commercial and colonizing achieve¬ ment without precedent or parallel. It became the Magna Charta of the great British South Africa Com-
108
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
pany, which did for Africa what the East India Com¬ pany did for India. Counting in Bechuanaland, it added more than 700,000 square miles to the British Empire.
Like the historic document so inseparably associated with the glories of Clive and Hastings, its Charter shaped the destiny of the empire and is associated with battle, blood, and the eventual triumph of the Anglo- Saxon over the man of colour. Other chartered com¬ panies have wielded autocratic power over millions of natives but the royal right to exist and operate, bestowed by Queen Victoria upon the British South Africa Com¬ pany — the Chartered Company as it is commonly known — was the first that ever gave a corporation the administrative authority over a politically active country with a white population. The record of its rule is therefore distinct in the annals of Big Business.
It was in 1899 that Rhodes got the Charter. In his conception of the Rhodesia that was to be — (it was first called Zambesia) — he had two distinct purposes in view. One was the larger political motive which was to widen the Empire and keep the Germans and Boers from annexing territory that he believed should be British. This was Rhodes the imperialist at work. The other aspect was the purely commercial side and re¬ vealed the same shrewdness that had registered so suc¬ cessfully in the creation of the Diamond Trust at Kim¬ berley. This was Rhodes the business man on the job.
The Charter itself was a visualization of the Rhodes mind and it matched the Cape-to-Cairo project in big¬ ness of vision. It gave the Company the right to acquire and develop land everywhere, to engage in shipping, to build railway, telegraph and telephone lines, to establish banks, to operate mines and irrigation undertakings and
RHODES AND RHODESIA
109
to promote commerce and manufacture of all kinds. Nothing was overlooked. It meant the union of busi¬ ness and statesmanship.
Under the Charter the Company was given adminis¬ trative control of an area larger than that of Great Britain, France and Prussia. It divided up into North¬ ern and Southern Rhodesia with the Zambesi River as the separating line. Northern Rhodesia remains a sparsely settled country — there are only 2,000 white inhabitants to 850,000 natives — and the only industry of importance is the lead and zinc development at Broken Hill. Southern Rhodesia, where there are 35,000 white persons and 800,000 natives, has been the stronghold of Chartered interests and the battleground of the struggle to throw off corporate control. It is the Rhodesia to be referred to henceforth in this chapter without prefix.
The Charter is perpetual but it contained a provision that at the end of twenty-five years, (1914) and at the end of each succeeding ten years, the Imperial Govern¬ ment has the power to alter, amend or rescind the instru¬ ment so far as the administration of Rhodesia is con¬ cerned. No vital change in the original document has been made so far, but by the time the next cycle expires in 1924 it is certain that the Company control will have ended and Rhodesia will either be a part of the Union of South Africa or a self-determining Colony.
The Company is directed by a Board of Directors in London, but no director resides in the country itself. Thus at the beginning the fundamental mistake was made in attempting to run an immense area at long range. With the approval of the Foreign Office the Company names an Administrator, — the present one is Sir Drummond Chaplin, — who, like the average
110
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Governor- General, has little to say. The Company has exercised a copper-riveted control and this rigid rule led to its undoing, as you will see later on.
The original capitalization was £1,000,000, — it was afterwards increased to £9,000,000, — but it is only a part of the stream of pounds sterling that has been poured into the country. In all the years of its existence the company has never paid a dividend. It is only since 1914 that the revenue has balanced expenditures. More than 40,000 shareholders have invested in the enter¬ prise. Today the fate of the country rests practically on the issue between the interests of these shareholders on one hand and the 35,000 inhabitants on the other. Once more you get the spectacle, so common to Ameri¬ can financial history, of a strongly intrenched vested interest with the real exploiter or the consumer arrayed against it. The Company rule has not been harsh but it has been animated by a desire to make a profit. The homesteaders want liberty of movement without handi¬ cap or restraint. An irrenconcilable conflict ensued.
CULTIVATING CITRUS LAND IN RHODESIA
II
WE can now go into the story of the occupa¬ tion of Rhodesia, which not only unfolds a stirring drama of development but discloses something of an epic of adventure. With most corpora¬ tions it is an easy matter to get down to business once a charter is granted . It is only necessary to subscribe stock and then enter upon active operations, whether they produce soap, razors or automobiles. The market is established for the product.
With the British South Africa Company it was a far different and infinitely more difficult performance, to translate the license to operate into action. Matabele- land and Mashonaland were wild regions where war-like tribes roamed or fought at will. There were no roads. The only white men who had ventured there were hunt¬ ers, traders, and concession seekers. Occupation pre¬ ceded exploitation. A white man’s civilization had to be set up first. The rifle and the hoe went in together.
In June, 1890, the Pioneer Column entered. Head¬ ing it were two men who left an impress upon African romance. One was Dr. Jameson, hero of the Raid and Rhodes’ most intimate friend. The first time I met him I marvelled that this slight, bald, mild little man should have been the central figure in so many heroic exploits. The other was the famous hunter, F. C. Selous, who was Roosevelt’s companion in British East • Africa. Under them were less than two hundred white men, including Captain Heany, an American, who now
in
312
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
invaded a country where Lobengula had an army of 20,000 trained fighters, organized into impis — (regi- ments) - — after the Zulu fashion and in every respect a formidable force. Although the old chief had granted the concession, no one trusted him and Jameson and Selous had to feel their way, sleep under arms every night, and build highways as they went.
Upon Lobengula’s suggestion it was decided to occupy Mashonaland first. This was achieved without any trouble and the British flag was raised on what is now the site of Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia. Most of the members of the expedition re¬ mained as settlers, and farms sprang up on the veldt. The Company had to organize a police force to patrol the land and keep off predatory natives. But this was purely incidental to the larger troubles that now crowded thick and fast. In the South the Boers launched an expedition to occupy Matabeleland by force and it had to be headed off. To the east rose friction with the Portuguese and a Rhodesian contingent was com¬ pelled to occupy part of Portuguese East Africa until the boundary line was adjusted.
In 1893 came the first of the events that made Rhodesia a storm center. A Matabele regiment raided the new town of Victoria and killed some of the Com¬ pany’s native servants. The Matabeles then went on the warpath and Dr. Jameson took the field against them. For five weeks a bitter struggle raged. It ended with the defeat and disappearance of Lobengula and the occupation of Bulawayo by the Company forces. This brought the whole of Matabeleland under the direct authority of the British South Africa Company. The campaign cost the Company $500,000.
Three years of peace and progress followed. Rail-
RHODES AND RHODESIA
113
way construction started in two directions. One line was headed from the south through Bechuanaland to¬ ward Bulawayo and another from Beira, the Indian Ocean port in Portuguese East Africa, westward to¬ ward Salisbury. Gold mines were opened and farms extended. At the end of 1895 came the Jameson Raid. Practically the entire force under the many-sided Doc¬ tor was recruited from the Rhodesian police and they were all captured by the Boers. Rhodesia was left defenceless.
The Matabeles seized this moment to strike again. Ever since the defeat of 1893 they had been restless and discontented. Various other causes contributed to the uprising. One is peculiarly typical of the African savage. An outbreak of rinderpest, a disease hitherto unknown in Southern Africa, came down from the North and ravaged the cattle herds. In order to check the advance of the pest the Government established a clear belt by shooting all the cattle in a certain area. It was impossible for the Matabeles to understand the wis¬ dom of this procedure. They only saw it as an outrage committed by the white men on their property for they were extensive cattle owners. In addition many died after eating infected meat and they also held the settlers responsible. The net result of it all was a sudden descent upon the white settlements and scores of white men, women and children were slaughtered.
This time the operations against them were on a large scale. The present Lord Plumer, who commanded the Fourth British Army in France against the Germans, — he was then a Lieutenant Colonel — came up with eight hundred soldiers and drove the Matabeles into the fast¬ nesses of the Matopos, — a range of hills fifty miles long and more than twenty wide. Here the savages took refuge in caves and could not be driven out.
114
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
You now reach one of the remarkable feats in the life of Cecil Rhodes. The moment that the second Matabele war began he hastened northward to the country that bore his name. As soon as the Matabeles took refuge in the Matopos he boldly went out to parley with them. With three unarmed companions, one of them an inter¬ preter, he set up a camp in the wilds and sent emissaries to the syndicate of the chiefs who had succeeded Loben- gula. He had become Premier of the Cape Colony, was head of the great DeBeers Diamond Syndicate, and had other immense interests. He was also Managing Direc¬ tor of the British South Africa Company and the big¬ gest stockholder. He was determined to protect his interests and at the same time preserve the integrity of the country that he loved so well.
He exposed himself every night to raids by the most blood-thirsty savages in all Africa. Plumer’s com¬ mand was camped nearly five miles away but Rhodes refused a guard.
Rhodes waited patiently and his perseverance was eventually rewarded. One by one the chiefs came down from the hills and succumbed to the persuasiveness and personality of this remarkable man who could deal with wild and naked warriors as successfully as he could dic¬ tate to a group of hard-headed business men. After two months of negotiating the Matabeles were appeased and permanent peace, so far as the natives were concerned, dawned in Rhodesia. After his feat in the Matopos the Matabeles called Rhodes “The Man Who Separated the Fighting Bulls.” It was during this period in Rhodesia that Rhodes discovered the place which he called “The View of the World,” and where his remains now lie in lonely grandeur.
At Groote Schuur, the Rhodes house near Capetown,
RHODES AND RHODESIA
115
which he left as the permanent residence of the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, I saw a prized souvenir of the Matopos conferences with the Matabeles. On the wall in Rhodes’ bedroom hangs the faded picture of an old and shriveled Matabele woman. When I asked General Smuts to tell me who she was he replied : “That is the woman who acted as the chief negotiator between Rhodes and the rebels.” I afterwards found out that she was one of the wives of Umziligazi, father of Lobengula, and a noted Zulu chieftain. Rhodes never forgot the service she rendered him and caused the photograph of her to be taken.
Following the last Matabele insurrection the Imperial Government which is represented in Rhodesia by a Resi¬ dent Commissioner assumed control of the natives. The Crown was possibly guided by the precedent of Natal, where a premature Responsible Government was fol¬ lowed by two Zulu wars which well-nigh wrecked the province. It has become the policy of the Home Gov¬ ernment not to permit a relatively small white popula¬ tion to rule the natives. Whatever the influence, Rhodesia has had no trouble with the natives since Rhodes made the peace up in the hills of the Matopos.
The moment that the war of force ended, another and bloodless war of words began and it has continued ever since. I mean the fight for self-government that the settlers have waged against the Chartered Company. This brings us to a contest that contributes a significant and little-known chapter to the whole narrative of self- determination among the small peoples.
Through its Charter the British South Africa Com¬ pany was able to fasten a copper-rivetted rule on Rhodesia. Most of the Directors in London, with the exception of men like Dr. Jameson, knew very little
110
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
about the country. There was no resident Director in Africa and the members of the Board only came out just before the elections. The Administrator was always a Company man and until 1899 his administra¬ tive associates in the field were the members of an Executive Council nominated by the Company. Mean¬ while thousands of men had invested their fortunes in the land and the inevitable time came when they believed that they should have a voice in the conduct of its affairs.
This sentiment became so widespread that in 1899 the country was given a Legislative Council which for the first time enabled the Rhodesians to elect some of their own people to office. At first they were only allowed three members, while the Company nominated six others. This always gave the Chartered interests a majority. Subsequently, as the clamour for popular representation grew, the number of elected representa¬ tives was increased to thirteen, while those nominated by Charter remained the same. To get a majority under the new deal it was only necessary for the Com¬ pany to get the support of four elected members and on account of its relatively vast commercial interest it was usually easy to do this.
It would be difficult to find an exact parallel to this situation. In America we have had many conflicts with what our campaign orators call “Special Privilege,” an institution which thrived before the searchlight of publicity was turned on corporate control and prior to the time when fangs were put into the stewardship of railways. These contestants were sometimes decided at the polls with varying degrees of success. Perhaps the nearest approach to the Rhodesian line-up was the strug¬ gle of the California wheat growers against the Southern
RHODES AND RHODESIA
117
Pacific Railway, which Frank Norris dramatized in his book, “The Octopus.”
All the while the feeling for Responsible Government in Rhodesia grew. A strong group which opposed the Chartered regime sprang up. At the beginning of the struggle the line was sharply drawn between the Charter adherents on one side and unorganized opponents on the other. By 1914 the issue was sharply defined. The first twenty-five years of the Charter were about to end and the insurgents realized that it was an opportune moment for a show of strength. The opposition had three plans. Some advocated the conversion of Rho¬ desia into a Crown Colony, others strongly urged admis¬ sion to the Union of South Africa, while still another wing stood for Responsible Government. It was de¬ cided to unite on a common platform of Responsible Government.
For the first time the Company realized that it had a fight on its hands and Dr. Jameson, who had become president of the corporation, went out to Rhodesia and made speeches urging loyalty to the Charter. His appearance stirred memories of the pioneer days and almost without exception the old guard rallied round him. A red-hot campaign ensued with the result that the whole pro-Charter ticket, with one exception, was elected, although the antis polled 45 per cent of the total vote.
Out of this defeat came a partial victory for the Pro¬ gressives. The Imperial Government saw the hand¬ writing on the wall and acting within its powers, which permitted an administrative change in the Charter at the end of every ten years, granted a Supplemental Charter which provided that the Legislative Council could by an absolute majority of all its members pass a
118
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
resolution “praying the Crown to establish in Southern Rhodesia the form of Government known as Responsi¬ ble Government,” provided that it could financially support this procedure. It gave the insurgents fresh hope and it made the Company realize that sooner or later its authority must end.
Then the Great War broke. Every available man that could possibly be spared went to the Front and the life of the Council was extended until 1920, when a con¬ clusive election was to be held. Meanwhile the Com¬ pany, realizing that it must sooner or later bow to the people’s will, got busy with an attempt to realize on its assets. Chief among them were the millions of acres of so-called “unalienated” or Crown land in Southern Rhodesia. The Chartered Company claimed this land as a private asset. The settlers alleged that it belonged to them. The Government said it was an imperial possession. The Privy Council in London upheld the latter contention. Thereupon the Company filed a claim for $35,000,000.00 against the Government to cover the value of this land and its losses throughout the years of administration.
Yielding to pressure the Legislative Council in 1919 asked the British Government to declare itself on the question of replacing the Charter with some form of Government suited to the needs of the country. Lord Milner, the Colonial Secretary, answered in what came to be known as the “Milner Despatch.” In it he said that he did not believe the territory “in its present stage of development was equal to the financial burden of Re¬ sponsible Government.” Lie mildly suggested repre¬ sentative government under the Crown.
The general expectation throughout Rhodesia was that no election would be held until a Government Com-
RHODES AND RHODESIA
119
mission then sitting, had inquired into the validity of the Company’s immense claim for damages. Early in March 1920, however, the Legislative Council gave no¬ tice that the election was set for April 30th. It proved to be the most exciting ever held in Rhodesia. The Char¬ tered Company made no fight. The contest was really waged between the two wings of the anti-Charter crowd. One favored Responsible Government and the other, admission to the Union of South Africa.
The arguments for Responsible Government briefly were these : That under the Supplemental Charter it was the only constitutional change possible; that the finan¬ cial burden was not too heavy; that the native question was no bar ; that the Imperial Government would never saddle the country with the huge debt of the Company ; that under the Uuion a hateful bi-lingualism would be introduced; that taxation would not be excessive, and that finally, the right of self-determination as to Govern¬ ment was the birthright of the British people.
The adherents of Union contended that the original idea of Cecil Rhodes was to make Rhodesia a part of the Union of South Africa; that by this procedure the vexing problem of customs with the Union would be solved; that the system of self-government in South Africa meets every requirement of self-determination. Moreover, the point was made that by becoming a part of the Union the whole railway question would be settled. At present the Rhodesian railways have three ends, one in South Africa at Vrvburg, another on the Belgian border, and a third at the sea at Beira. It was claimed that through the Union, Rhodesia would benefit by becoming a part of the nationalized railway system there and get the advantage of a British port at the Cape instead of Beira, which is Portuguese. In other words,
120 AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Union meant stability of credit, politics, finance and industry.
The outcome of the election was that twelve Respon¬ sible Government candidates, one of them a woman, were elected. Women voted for the first time in Rho¬ desia and they solidly opposed the union with South Africa. The thirteenth member elected stood for the conversion of the country into a Crown Colony under representative government. Throughout the campaign the Chartered Company remained neutral, although it was obviously opposed to Responsible Government. The feeling throughout Rhodesia is that it favors Union because it could dispose of its assets to better advantage.
I arrived in Rhodesia immediately after the election. The country still sizzled with excitement. Curiously enough, the head, brains and front of the fight for union with South Africa was a former American, now a British subject and who has been a ranchman in Rho¬ desia for some years. Fie prefers to be nameless.
In the light of the landslide at the polls it naturally followed that the new Legislative Council at its first meeting passed a resolution declaring for Responsible Government. The vote was twelve to five. Since this was not an absolute majority, as required by the Sup¬ plementary Charter, it is expected that the Imperial Government will decide against granting this form of government just now. The next procedure will prob¬ ably be a request for representative government under the Crown or some modification of the Charter, and for an Imperial loan. Rhodesia has no borrowing power and the country needs money just as much as its needs men. The adherents of Union claim that on a straight show-down between Crown Colony or Union at the next election, Union will win. From what I gathered in
RHODES AND RHODESIA
121
conversation with the leaders of both factions, there would have been a bigger vote, possibly victory for Union, but for the Nationalist movement in South Africa, which I described in a previous chapter. The Rhodesians want no racial entanglements.
Northern Rhodesia has no part in the fight against the Charter. It is only a question of time, however, when she will be merged into Southern Rhodesia for, with the passing of the Company, her destiny becomes identical with that of her sister territory. Northern Rhodesia’s chief complaint against the Company was that it did not spend any money within her borders. After reading the story of the crusade for Responsible Government you can understand the reason why.
Whatever happens, Charter rule in Rhodesia is doomed and the great Company, born of the vision and imperialism of Cecil Rhodes, and which battled with the wild man in the wilderness, will eventually vanish from the category of corporations. But Rhodesia remains a thriving part of the British Empire and the dream of the founder is realized.
Ill
RHODESIA produces much more than trouble for the Chartered Company. She is pre¬ eminently a land of ranches and farms. Here you get still another parallel with the United States because it is no uncommon thing to find a farm of 50,000 acres or more.
I doubt if any other new region in the world contains a finer or sturdier manhood than Rhodesia. Like the land itself it is a stronghold of youth. Likewise, no other colony, and for that matter, no other matured country exercises such a rigid censorship upon settlers. Until the high cost of living disorganized all economic standards, no one could establish himself in Rhodesia without a minimum capital of £1,000. So far as farm¬ ing is concerned, this is now increased to £2,000. There¬ fore, you do not see the signs of failure which so often dot the semi-virgin landscape. Knowing this, you can understand why the immigration inspector gives the incoming travellers a rigid cross-examination at the frontier.
Also it is simon-pure Rritish, and more like Natal in this respect than any other territory under the Union- jack. I had a convincing demonstration in a personal experience. I made a speech at the Bulawayo Club. The notice was short but I was surprised to find more than a hundred men assembled after dinner, many in evening
122
RHODES AND RHODESIA
123
clothes. Some had travelled all day on horseback or in buckboards to get there, others had come hundreds of miles by motor car.
I never addressed a more responsive audience. What impressed me was the kindling spirit of affection they manifested for the Mother Country. In conversation with many of them afterwards it was interesting to hear the sons of settlers referring to the England that they had never seen, as “home.” That night I realized as never before, — not even amid the agony and sacrifice of the Somme or the Ancre in France, — one reason why the British Empire is great and why, despite all muddling, it carries on. It lies in the feeling of imperial kinship far out at the frontiers of civilization. The colonial is in many respects a more devoted loyalist than the man at home.
Wherever I went I found the Rhodesian agriculturist
— and he constitutes the bulk of the white population,
— essentially modern in his methods. He reminds me more of the Kansas farmer than any other alien agri¬ culturists that I have met. He uses tractors and does things in a big way. There is a trail of gasoline all over the country. Motorcycles have become an ordinary means of transport for district officials and engineers, who fly about over the native paths that are often the merest tracks. You find these machines in the remotest regions. The light motor car is also beginning to be looked upon as a necessary part of the outfit of the farmer.
There was a time when the average Rhodesian be¬ lieved that gold was the salvation of the country. Repeated “booms” and the inevitable losses have brought the people to agree with the opinion of one of the pioneers, that “the true wealth of the country lies
124
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
in the top twelve inches of the soil.” Agriculture is surpassing mining as the principal industry.
The staple agricultural product is maize, which is corn in the American phraseology. Until a few years ago the bulk of it was consumed at home. Recently, however, on account of the farm expansion, there is an increasing surplus for export to the Union of South Africa, the Belgian Congo, and even to Europe.
The facts about maize are worth considering, Every year 200,000,000 bags, each weighing 200 pounds, are consumed throughout the world. Heretofore the prin¬ cipal sources of supply have been the Argentine and the United States. We have come to the time, however, when we absorb practically our whole crop. Formerly we exported about 10,000,000 bags. There is no de¬ crease in corn consumption despite prohibition. Hence Rhodesia is bound to loom large in the situation. Last year she produced more than a million bags. Maize is a crop that revels in sunshine and in Rhodesia the sun shines brilliantly throughout the year practically without variation. This enables the product to be sun-dried.
Other important crops are tobacco, beans, peanuts (which are invariably called monkey nuts in that part of the universe), wheat and oranges. Under irrigation, citrus fruits, oats and barley do well.
Cattle are a bulwark of Rhodesian prosperity. The immense pasturage areas are reminiscent of Texas and Montana. For a hundred years before the white settlers came, the Matabeles and the Mashonas raised live stock, The natives still own about 700,000 head, nearly as many as the whites. I was interested to find that the British South Africa Company has imported a number of Texas ranchmen to act as cattle experts and advise the ranchers generally. This is due to a desire to begin
RHODES AND RHODESIA
125
a competition with the Argentine and the United States in chilled and frozen meats. One of the greatest British manufactures of beef extracts owns half a dozen ranches in Rhodesia and it is not unlikely that American meat men will follow. Mr. J. Ogden Armour is said to be keenly interested in the country with the view of expand¬ ing the resources of the Chicago packers. This is one result of the World War, which has caused the producer of food everywhere to bestir himself and insure future supplies.
In connection with Rhodesian farming and cattle¬ raising is a situation well worthy of emphasis. There is no labour problem. You find, for example, that miracle of miracles which is embodied in a native at work. It is in sharp contrast with South Africa and the Congo, where, with millions of coloured people it is almost impossible to get help. The Rhodesian black still remains outside the leisure class. Whether it is due to his fear of the whites or otherwise, he is an active member of the productive order.
The native will work for the white man but, save to raise enough maize for himself, he will not become an agriculturist. I heard a typical story about Lewaniki, Chief of the Barotses, who once ruled a large part of what is now Northern Rhodesia. Someone asked him to get his people to raise cotton. His answer was :
“What is the use? They cannot eat it.”
In Africa the native’s world never extends beyond his stomach. I was soon to find costly evidence of this in the Congo.
The African native is quite a character. He is not only a born actor but has a quaint humor. In the center of the main street at Bulawayo is a bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes, bareheaded, and with his face turned
126
AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
toward the North. Just as soon as it was unveiled the Matabeles expressed considerable astonishment over it. They could not understand why the figure never moved. Shortly afterwards a great drought came. A native chief went to see the Resident Commissioner and sol¬ emnly told him that he was quite certain that there would be no rain “until they put a hat on Mr. Rhodes’ head.”
The Lewaniki anecdote reminds me of an admirable epigram that was produced in Rhodesia. Out there food is commonly known as “skoff,” just as “chop” is the equivalent in the Congo. A former Resident Com¬ missioner, noted for the keenness of his wit, once asked a travelling missionary to dine with him. After the meal the guest insisted upon holding a religious service at the table. In speaking of the performance the Commissioner said : “My guest came to ‘skoff’ and remained to pray.”
Whenever you visit a new land you almost invariably discover mental alertness and progressiveness that often put the older civilizations to shame. Let me illustrate. Go to England or France today and you touch the really tragic aftermath of the war. You see thousands of demobilized officers and men vainly searching for work. Many are reduced to the extremity of begging. It has become an acute and poignant problem, that i^ not without its echo over here.
Rhodesia, through the British South Africa Com¬ pany, is doing its bit toward solution. It has set aside 500,000 acres which are being allotted free of charge to approved soldier and sailor settlers from overseas. Not only are they being given the land but they are provided with expert advice and supervision. The former ser¬ vice men who are unable to borrow capital with which
RHODES AND RHODESIA
127
to exploit the land, are merged into a scheme by which they serve an apprenticeship for pay on the established farms and ranches until they are able to shift for themselves.
The Chartered Company, despite its political ma¬ chine, has developed Rhodesia “on its own,” and in rather striking fashion. It operates dairies, gold mines, citrus estates, nurseries, ranches, tobacco warehouses, abattoirs, cold storage plants and dams, which insures adequate water supply in various sections. It is a profitable example of constructive paternalism whose results will be increasingly evident long after the famous Charter has passed into history.
No phase of the Company’s activities is more im¬ portant than its construction of the Rhodesian railways. They represent a double-barrelled private ownership in that they were built and are operated by the Com¬ pany. There are nearly