The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction

The farming prospects in the new colonies, even if stripped of all fanciful stuff, are sound and hopeful. There may come bad times for all. The ordinary market-gardener will for a certainty find himself poorly off five years hence; and all classes may have their periods of stress and despair. Such visitations are part of the primeval curse upon tillers of the soil. The New Zealand and Australian pastoralists had sunk very low before the discovery of cold storage saved the situation. The Ceylon planters, after the coffee blight, seemed on the brink of ruin, when the introduction of tea-growing more than restored their former prosperity. An immunity from farming risks can no more be guaranteed in the new colonies than in other countries. The real question is, Can they offer the settler no greater risks than he has to face elsewhere, and at least a fair chance of greater prosperity? On a reasonable survey of the case, I think it will be found that they can.

With this clearing of the ground we can turn with an open mind to the political question. The secular antithesis of town and country is as marked here as elsewhere, and the political problem varies accordingly. In the country we have to create in a large measure from the foundation; we have to meet and nullify the prevailing apathy, and undertake as a Government many tasks which would elsewhere be left to private enterprise. There the wounds of war gape more widely, and have to be healed by more cunning simples. People have spoken as if the towns were the sole factor in the case. Make the towns prosperous and wholly British, it has been said, and the land is ours. The towns are the loyal units; as they advance in prosperity the rural districts will sink out of account; and rightly, for their wealth is small, their population hostile, and their future barren. “Twenty years hence,” wrote in 1896 an observer as clear-sighted as he was hopeful, “the white population is likely to be composed in about equal proportions of urban and rural elements. The urban element will be mainly mining, gathered at one great centre on the Witwatersrand, and possibly at some smaller centres in other districts. The rural element, consisting of people who live in villages or solitary farmhouses, will remain comparatively backward, because little affected by the social forces which work swiftly and potently upon close-packed industrial communities, and it may find itself very different in tone, temper, and tendencies from its urban fellow-citizens.”27 So we find one class of mine-owners arguing that any attempt to settle the country districts is a work of supererogation, and urging the Government to concentrate all its efforts on the promotion of their own industry, declaring that from their prosperity every blessing will flow forth to the rural parts. It is impossible to contemplate with equanimity the result of merely letting things alone. No industrial development would ever compensate for it, for the unleavened Dutch rural districts would become centres to collect and focus and stereotype the old unfaltering dislike. A hard-and-fast division between town and country is always to be feared; but when the barrier is between white men, and is built up of race, wealth, and civilisation, it can only be a dire calamity. We cannot rear up for our children a race of helots, and by our very exclusiveness solidify for all time an irreconcilable race division. If we preserve such an enemy within our bounds, and just beyond our gates, the time may come when a few isolated townships will represent Britain in South Africa. To prevent this cleavage, urban and rural development should advance with equal steps. The two races will be joined not by any trivial sentimental devices, but by the partnership of Dutch and British farmers in the enlightened development of the land.

There is another and a profounder reason for this introduction of British blood. The day may come when the South African, splendid as has been his loyalty and many his sacrifices, may go the way of most colonists, and lose something of that close touch with the mother-country which is necessary in the interests of a federated empire. It is always the temptation of town-dwellers, with their busy life and their own engrossing interests, and the tremendous mixture of alien blood in the country may serve to hasten this result beyond the ordinary rate of colonial progress. But the country settler is a different person. He retains a longer and simpler affection for the country of his birth. An influx of such a class would consolidate South African sentiment, and, when self-government comes, protect imperial interests better than any constitutional guarantee. This is the class which has the true stake in the country, deriving its life from the nurture of the earth, striving with winds and weather, and slowly absorbing into the fibre of its being those influences which make for race and patriotism.

South African agriculture, as the shrewdest observers have long foreseen, could never be improved until there arose a political reason for its improvement. The reason for the experiment has arrived, and its basis is in existence. In the inheritance of Crown lands which remains from the mismanaged estate of the late Government, and in the long lists of ex-irregulars and others who sought land, there was the raw material of settlement. It is no case for flamboyant prophecies. The certain difficulties are as great as the probable advantages. But to shrink from those difficulties is to have towns where British ideas of government, can be realised and outside vast rural districts, suspicious, unfriendly, potentially dangerous; to neglect a golden opportunity of increasing the British element in South Africa; and to turn the back upon farming, which must always be the most permanent asset of any nation. The determinant fact in the case is that the alternative is so black that all risks must be faced rather than accept it. With such considerations in mind, the Government put forth a scheme of settlement, with the examination of which the remainder of this chapter is concerned. It is not my business to write the history of the Crown Colony administration, and therefore no time need be given to the many difficulties which faced the scheme, the mistakes made, and the hopeful results attained in certain cases. It is the problem itself which demands attention, and the adequacy or inadequacy of the policy which has been framed to meet it. Land settlement is from its very nature a slow business, with tardy fruits: twenty years hence we may be in a position to judge by results. But in the meantime it is possible, when the data are known, to ascertain whether a policy is on a priori grounds adapted to meet them.

The Crown lands of the Transvaal, as I have said, amount to upwards of 29 million acres, the Crown lands of the Orange River Colony to under 1½ million. So far as the latter colony is concerned, land settlement is rather in the nature of estate management. The lands are too small for any serious political purpose, nor would the most extended settlement make much impression upon the solid Dutch rural community. But in the Transvaal the Crown in several districts is by far the largest landowner, and in others it holds the key of the position. Take a Transvaal map coloured according to ownership, and red is easily the master colour. A solid block of it occupies the north-east corner; large islands of it appear in the western and eastern borders; and the centre is plentifully dotted. Save in the little known north-east those lands are generally pasture, and in too many cases dry and arid bush-veld. In the Standerton district, and in parts of Rustenburg, Potchefstroom, and Bloemhof, there are tracts of good irrigated or irrigable lands; while in Barberton, Lydenburg, Zoutpansberg, and Marico there are considerable districts well watered and well suited for tropical and sub-tropical products. Taken as a whole, however, only a small portion of the Crown holding is suitable for early settlement – say 2½ million acres within the next three years. But there is a wide hinterland for development, and in settlement, as in empire, a hinterland is a moral necessity. There must be an open country to which the sons of farmers, in whom the love of the life is born, can trek as pioneers, otherwise there is a futile division into smaller holdings, or a more futile exodus to the towns. Besides, there should be room for the townsman – the miner, the artisan, the trader – to feel that there is somewhere an open country where he can invest his savings if he has a mind for a simpler life. As railways spread out into new districts, land will become agricultural which is now pasture; and, as the pastoral industry develops and herds are formed and diseases are mastered, the ranchman will occupy large tracts of what is now the unused hunting-veld.

The Government scheme aims at making a beginning with this settlement – a beginning only, for no government has ever been able to reconstruct alone, and the bulk of the work must be done by private enterprise. If 2000 farmers from England and the colonies can be settled in the rural parts before the day of stress arrives, then the work has been fairly started. A nucleus will have been formed to which the years will add, an element which will both leaven the slow and suspicious rustic society and provide a make-weight against the parochialism of the great towns. A country party is wanted which can look beyond the dorp and the mine-head, and view South African interests broadly and soberly. Such a party must be common to both town and country, but it cannot be built up wholly from either. It must, in the first instance, be a British party; but if this British party is to become a South African party, it must stand for interests common to both races and to all classes. The formation of this leavening element cannot be left to time and chance, but must be aided by conscious effort. The land is largely unproved, and full of dangers to crops and stock. The new-comer must therefore be treated gently, and helped over the many stiles which confront him. He will usually be a man of small means, and his limited capital must be put to the best use, and eked out with judicious Government advances. He should have few payments to make during his early years, when payments will necessarily come out of capital. Above all, the acquirement of the full freehold in his land on reasonable terms, and within a reasonable time, should be kept constantly before him as an encouragement to thrift and industry, for the sense of freehold, as the voortrekkers used to say, “turns sand into gold.” Much of the Crown lands will never be suitable for any but the largest stockholders. These it is easy to deal with as a mere matter of estate-management; but the political purport of the scheme is concerned with intensive settlement, with the small holder and the mixed farmer of moderate means, who can provide a solid colony of mutually supporting and progressive Englishmen.

The Transvaal “Settlers’ Ordinance” of 1902 is based upon the mass of legislation which embodies the settlement schemes of the Australasian colonies. The usual method in such experiments has been to begin in desperate fear of the settler, tying him up with cast-iron rules, and ruining him in a very few years. Then the pendulum swings back, and settlement is made easy and profitable, the old safeguards are abolished, and the land becomes full of rich squatters and companies, who fatten on State munificence through the numerous dummy settlers in their pay. Finally, after long years a compromise is effected, and that shy creature, the bonâ-fide settler, is sought for far and near. By this time it is probable that the thing has got a bad name, and men whose fathers and grandfathers lost money under former schemes, are chary of trusting themselves again to the tender mercies of a land-owning State. This, or something like it, has been the experience of the Australasian colonies. Either land was given out indiscriminately and a valuable State asset cheaply parted with, or the conditions of tenure were such as to ruin the small holder and put everything in the hands of a few rich syndicates. The land laws of Australia and New Zealand form, therefore, a most valuable precedent. We have their experiments before our eyes, and can learn from their often disastrous experience.

Settlement in New South Wales, to take one instance, was begun partly as a Treasury expedient and partly as an election cry. Under the Act of 1867 a settler was allowed to peg off, as on a mining area, a claim not exceeding 320 acres, without any attempt at a previous valuation and survey. The result was a wild rush, where nobody benefited except the blackmailer, who seized the strategic points of the country, such as water-holes, and had to be bought out at a fancy price. It does not surprise one to learn that of settlers under this scheme not one in twenty remains to-day. By subsequent Acts the maximum acreage was increased; but in any case it was an arbitrary figure, and it was not till 1895 that it was left within the widest limits to the discretion of the Minister of Lands. Areas proved too small, since no provision could be made for the increase of stock and the necessary fall in prices which attended settlement. In valuation the extraordinary plan was adopted of giving a uniform capital value of £1 per acre to all land. The country being unproved, values were absolutely unknown, nor was any provision made for revaluation. The result was that the settler struggled along till he was ruined and his holding forfeited, when the holding lapsed to the State, which, being unable to find a new tenant, was compelled to let it remain vacant, having accomplished nothing but the needless ruin of the first man. The “Settlers’ Ordinance” has endeavoured to avoid laying down any rules which experience has not tried and tested. The determination of the size of any holding is left to the land officials, without defining any area limits. A holding which proves too small may be increased on appeal, and the boundaries are at all times made capable of adjustment. Holdings are first surveyed and valued, then gazetted for application, and finally publicly allotted, after full inquiry into the case of each applicant, by a Central Board. The division and valuation of farms, in the absence of reliable data, is a work of great nicety and difficulty. The country contains within its limits many districts which differ widely in soil, vegetation, and climate. It is therefore impossible, in deciding on the size of holdings, to follow any arbitrary rule; and to restrict survey to a maximum and minimum acreage would be fatal. The only method is to ascertain from local evidence the carrying and producing capacity of similar land, and so frame the boundaries of a farm as to provide on such figures a reasonably good living for the class of settler for whom it is intended. The danger of putting too high a price on land is not less great. If the current market price is taken it will in most instances be overvalued, and in any case it is a method without any justification in reason. The best solution is probably the plan at present in use. Schedules have been prepared for the different types of holding, in which the profits are calculated, using as a guide the present price of stock and imported produce at the coast to ensure against the inevitable fall in prices. Taking such estimated profits as a basis, the valuation is so fixed as to give the settler, after all living expenses, annual payments to Government, probable loss of stock, and depreciation of plant have been written off, a clear profit of 12 per cent on his original capital. From this figure some further deductions may fall to be made for such disadvantages as unhealthiness of climate and excessive distance from the conveniences of civilised life. In the absence of more scientific data this seems to form as fair a basis in valuation as any man can expect.

But if early Australasian legislation erred in rigour, it also erred in laxity. The settler was often the nominee of a syndicate or a large run-holder, and before the 1895 Act a class of professional selectors existed. This system of latifundia brought its own punishment. The run-holder ruined the small selector. To pay the instalments on his many selections he had recourse to the banks, which speedily ruined him and took over his holdings. The banks in their turn ruined themselves, chiefly through being obliged to pay instalments on land valued at £1 per acre, of which the actual value for stock was less than 5s. Again, the settler was compelled to improve the land at the rate of so many shillings per acre within a given time. This led to cheap fictitious improvements by which the letter of the law was satisfied and the spirit evaded. The “Settlers’ Ordinance” has certain stringent provisions to prevent such frustration of the true aims of settlement. Subletting or transfer of any sort, except with Government consent, is strictly forbidden till the tenant has acquired the freehold. Residence for at least eight months in the year, unless a special dispensation is granted, is required during the same period. The settler is compelled to build a satisfactory house and to fence his holding within a given time. He is compelled to occupy it solely for his own benefit, to cultivate according to the rules of good husbandry (whatever that may mean), and the decision of the local Land Commissioner is the test by which he is judged. He is encouraged to improve by the potent fact that the Government will advance pound for pound against his improvements. But there are certain elastic provisions to temper the rigour of such restrictions. The Commissioner of Lands is given a very wide dispensing power with regard to most conditions. Partnerships are allowed; settlers may reside together in a village community; and the residence conditions may be temporarily fulfilled by a wife or child, to allow a settler in hard times to make money by his labour elsewhere. Special relief is provided during periods of disease or drought by the cessation or diminution of the annual payments, and by advances in excess of the ordinary limits.

The Ordinance has been framed on experimental lines, leaving much to the discretion of local officials (subject to an appeal to the Central Board and thence to the High Court), and hesitating to dogmatise on details which are still unproved. But in spite of much which is empirical, one or two root principles are maintained. One is that a fair chance must be given to all to acquire the freehold, without which magic possibility the best men will not come forward. Another, and perhaps the most important of all, is that the payments to Government shall be so arranged as to be scarcely felt during the early years when they are paid out of capital, and to rise to any considerable sum only when the holding is producing a revenue. The two chief forms of tenure are leasehold and purchase by instalments over a period of thirty years. The common form of lease is for five years, with a possible extension for another two, and the rental may be at any rate (not exceeding 5 per cent) which the Commissioner of Lands thinks suitable. This method will enable back-country to be taken up, to start with, at a nominal rent; and it will also allow a settler on an unimproved stock-farm to devote the bulk of his capital to the necessary stocking and improvements. At the end of the lease, or without any preliminary lease, the settler can begin to purchase his holding on the instalments system. By a payment of £5, 15s. per cent per annum on the gazetted valuation, principal and interest (which is calculated at 4 per cent) will be wiped off in thirty years. But a settler is permitted any time after ten years from the date of his first occupation to pay up the balance and acquire the full freehold. In the case of preliminary leaseholders who take up a purchase licence, the licence, so far as the ten years’ period is concerned, is made retrospective so as to date from the first day of the lease.

Such is a rough outline of the Government proposals. They aim only at making a beginning, and it is to the large private owner and the land company that we must look for the completion of the work. South African agriculture can never be a Golconda like the Canadian wheat-lands of the West. But it is of inestimable value to the country in providing a background to the immense temporary mining development – a permanent asset, which will remain to South Africa’s credit when the gold-mines of the Rand are curiosities of history. In itself it is a sound investment, offering no glittering fortunes but a steady and reasonable livelihood. No people can afford to develop solely on industrial lines and remain a nation in the full sense of the word, for in every commonwealth there is need of the rural forces of persistence to counteract the urban forces of change. All settlement is necessarily a leap in the dark, but, so far as a proposal can be judged before it is put into practice, the present scheme offers good chances of success. There seems little doubt that it will receive full justice. The war spread the knowledge of the country to every cranny of the Empire. English and Scottish farmers’ sons, Australian bushmen, Indian planters, farmers from New Zealand and Ontario, having fought for three years on the veld, have fallen in love with it and are willing to make it their home. No more splendid chances for settlement have ever offered; for when the wastrels have been eliminated there remain many thousands of good men, from whom a sturdy country stock could be created. There can be no indiscriminate gifts of land as in some colonies. The land is too valuable, the political purpose too delicate and urgent, the need of nice discrimination in selection and careful fostering thereafter too imperative, to allow farms to be shaken up in a lucky-bag and distributed to the first comers. The best men must be attracted, and assisted with advice and loans to the measure of success which is possible. It is the soundest form of political speculation, if done with sober and clear-sighted purpose. The young men from home and the colonies, to whom South Africa is a memory that can never die, turn naturally towards it in search of a freer life and a larger prospect. On the model farms which are being established in each district the proverbial “younger sons of younger sons” will be given a chance of learning the requirements of the land, and so starting work on their own account with intelligence and economy. Some day – and may we all live to see it! – there will be little white homesteads among trees, and country villages and moorland farms; cattle and sheep on a thousand hills where now only the wild birds cry; wayside inns where the thirsty traveller can find refreshment; and country shows where John Smith and Johannes Smuts will compete amicably for the King’s premiums. And if any one thinks this an unfounded hope, let him turn to some such book as Ogilby’s ‘Itinerarium Angliæ,’ where he will find that in the closing years of the seventeenth century the arable and pastoral land in England scarcely amounted to half the area of the kingdom, and the most fruitful orchards of Gloucestershire and Warwick were mere heath and swamp, and, as it seemed to an acute observer, doomed to remain so.

Settlement, indeed, is but one, though the most important, of the land problems. An enlightened agricultural department, working in conjunction with local societies, can do much to unite the two races by conferring benefits which are common to both. The introduction of pedigree stock to grade up the existing herds is a necessity which any Boer farmer will admit. So, too, are stringent regulations for the prevention of disease, experiments in new crops, field trials of new machinery, and a provision for some form of agricultural training. Central creameries and tobacco-factories would work wonders in increasing the prosperity of certain districts. Something of that tireless vigilance and alert intelligence which has made the Agricultural Bureau of the United States famous, a spirit which brings into agriculture the procedure and the exact calculation of a great business house, is necessary to meet the not insuperable difficulties which now deter the timid, and to give farming a chance of development commensurate with its political importance. It is only another case in which a South African question stands on a razor-edge, a narrow line separating ample success from a melancholy failure.