8 



AFRICA, SOUTHERN, COLONIES IN. 



tures, 246,054; cotton goods, 116,677; woolens, 

 85,673 ; machinery, 306,035 ; wines and liquors, 

 166,741. Of the exports the chief articles in 

 value were wool for 565,479, hides and skins for 

 184,850, coal for 125,666, gold for 40,635, 

 mohair for 36,545, and bark for 30,929. 



Navigation. The number of vessels entered 

 during 1898 was 690, of 1,264,591 tons; cleared, 

 (is? \essels, of 1,264.591 tons. 



The shipping registered in the colony consisted 

 in 1898 of 14 steamers, of 2,495 tons, and 14 sail- 

 ing vessels, of 699 tons. 



Railroads. The railroads within the colony 

 have a total length of 505 miles, all belonging 

 to the Government. One joins at Harrismith a 

 railroad running through the Orange Free State, 

 :uid one runs from Durban through Pietermaritz- 

 burg to the Transvaal border, whence it extends 

 through Johannesburg to Pretoria, the total dis- 

 tance being 511 miles. The cost of the Natal 

 railroads was 6,950,621. The receipts for 1898 

 were 986,417: expenses, 589,815. 



Effects of the War. The colonists of Natal, 

 being mainly of English extraction, were most 

 eager for the war with the Boers, anticipating 

 a brilliant political and commercial future for their 

 colony in the event of victory by British arms, 

 because Natal is the natural outlet for both the 

 Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The Boers 

 on their part made the conquest of this land, 

 which was once theirs, and would give them ac- 

 cess to the sea, their first object, as in all their 

 history they have sought a seaport of their own 

 and railroad communications under their sole 

 control as the best guarantee for the political and 

 economic independence which they wanted. Thus 

 political rather than strategic considerations made 

 Natal the theater of the Transvaal war in its early 

 stages, and political hopes as well as patriotic and 

 racial feeling moved the colonists of British de- 

 scent to take an active part in the contest, while 

 those of Boer descent, the sons and grandsons of 

 the Dutch emigrants who first won the country 

 from the Zulus after a heroic campaign and then 

 had it wrested from them by a British armed 

 expedition, gave aid and comfort to the Boer in- 

 vaders. Refugees from Johannesburg flocked into 

 Maritzburg and Durban, and had to be fed by 

 charity except those who, with many young men 

 of Natal, were accepted as volunteers in the South 

 African corps, which the British commanders were 

 in the beginning reluctant to employ, but came to 

 depend upon more and more. Before the tide of 

 war turned Boer commandos marched through 

 Natal at will, threatening even Maritzburg; and 

 when British re-enforcements were poured in for 

 the relief of Ladysmith, the corner of Natal of 

 which the besieged town was the center became 

 the seat of military operations, and from there 

 down to the sea were stretched the British camps. 

 I'.odies of Boers rode through the parts of the 

 ninny that were unguarded and through Zulu- 

 land. They commandeered what they wanted 

 more harshly as the war became more bitter and 

 their necessities and perils grew greater. Still 

 Natal was not so great a sufferer from the vin- 

 dictive reprisals and barbarities of the war as 

 other parts of South Africa, where later phases of 

 the struggle were enacted. When the armies faced 

 each other on the Tugela not only were the fero- 

 cious pa--inns of warfare not yet aroused, but the 

 commanders on both sides were anxious to spare 

 the Xatalians as much as possible, the British 

 because they were generally loyal colonists who 

 sulVcrrd for their loyalty, the Boers because they 

 hoped to jrain the country for their own, and 

 British and Boers alike because they were vying 



with each other in affording to the world an ex- 

 ample of humane warfare. Nevertheless Natal, 

 being for the longest period the field of operations 

 and the camping ground for the main armies, 

 suffered as great loss and disturbance as the scenes 

 of the later and more desperate conflicts. Loyal 

 colonists were compelled to leave their homes and 

 abandon their property. Many of the volunteers 

 and police lost their lives in repelling Boer raids. 

 When the British generals began to select colonial 

 troops for the most difficult and dangerous duties 

 the casualties among them increased more rapidly 

 than the recognition that they won by their brav- 

 ery and intelligence. The Government suspended 

 all public works, and yet the revenue was far 

 from sufficient to defray the expenditure, which 

 necessarily increased in consequence of the war. 

 The ministers were compelled to apply to the 

 Imperial Government for temporary financial sup- 

 port, which was promptly rendered. An inquiry 

 into the financial condition of the colony is in 

 prospect, and after the conclusion of the war 

 Natal, which, owing to its peculiar labor con- 

 ditions and the great preponderance of the native 

 population and paucity of whites, has never re- 

 ceived the attention that is given to larger British 

 communities, expects an extension of boundaries 

 or an improvement in its political and financial 

 position to result from the determined and un- 

 swerving support the colony has afforded the Im- 

 perial Government during the war and the sacri- 

 fices suffered by the colonists. The parliamentary 

 session was opened on May 3. A bill for more 

 effectually dealing with persons accused of treason 

 was directed against the Boer colonists, who are 

 only numerous in the higher northwestern part of 

 the colony. Another bill was passed in order to 

 indemnify the Governor, the ministers, and the 

 military in respect of acts not protected by the 

 existing laws, but which were rendered necessary 

 through the enforcement of martial law and the 

 invasion of the colony. The Zulus were kept 

 quiet during the war by the admonitions they 

 received from both the British and the Republican 

 authorities. The Swazis. who are by race and 

 customs a branch of the Zulu nation, were handed 

 over to the administration of the South African 

 Repubjic in 1894, having previously been recog- 

 nized as independent in 1884 and in 1890 as under 

 a joint British and Boer tutelage, a committee 

 of Boers and British traders looking after the 

 interests of the whites, who numbered from 900 

 to 1,200, while of the natives there are from 40,000 

 to 50,000, occupying a country about 8,500 miles 

 in extent. Under Boer sovereignty the Swa/.is 

 still were governed by their native rulers accord- 

 ing to their own customs. When the Anglo-Boer 

 war broke out the burghers, who use their farms 

 in Swaziland for winter pasturage and generally 

 have their homes elsewhere, left the countrv to 

 go to the war. In October, 1899, Gen. Schalk 

 Burger went to the king's kraal and told him that 

 the Transvaal Government handed back the coun- 

 try to the natives to administer as the king 

 thought fit. A few days later the P.ritish consul 

 brought a message from the High Commissioner 

 admonishing the natives not to interfere in the 

 war nor to kill off one another, as they some- 

 times do in intestine feuds when the restraint 

 of white rule is not upon them. There was a 

 standing feud between the king and the old queen, 

 she having always been a partisan of British pre- 

 dominance and having lost power and prestijre by 

 the relinquishment of the country to the Trans- 

 vaal, while the king was a friend of the Boers. 

 The queen had her devoted followers in the nation, 

 but they were not strong enough to dispute the 



