258 



The Review of Reviews. 



ENGUSH INTERVIEWS. 



March SO, 1900. 



LXXm.— WHAT SHOULD BE DONE WITH SOUTH AFRICA? 



I.-A RADICAL FROM JOHANNESBURG. 



The South African (juestion must be divided into 

 thit-e other questions — ist, The payment of our just 

 debts to the Boers and of comi)ensation tor private 

 property destroyed in war. 2nd, The fulfilment of 

 our treatv obligations for the establishment of res- 

 ponsible self-government. 3rd, The ijuestion of 

 Chinese labour. 



There is always a difficulty in obtaining interviews 

 for publication with leading representatives on either 

 side in a controversy at the time of crisis, but usually 

 such authorities have no objection to be interviewed 

 anonymously. T therefore publish, in the first jdace, 

 a statement of the views of ^he section which has 

 the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines as its central 

 citadel, which I had from Ihe gentleman who prefers 

 to conceal his identity under the title of " A Radical 

 from Johannesburg." 



" What we want to know " said he. 



"Stop," said 1, "who are 'we'?" 



" We," said he, " are the whole of the British 

 pojHilation of the Transvaal, which is in a majority, 

 notwithstanding what Mr. Abe Bailey said as to the 

 results of the census returns." 



" Mr. Abe Bailey said, that the census showed 

 there were fourteen Boers to ten Britishers in the 

 Transvaal." 



" That is not so," replied " a Radical ' ; " the cen- 

 sus was incorrect, and we have a majority of the 

 population. What we want to know is whether the 

 new Go\ernment in London is going to gerrymander 

 the constituencies in order to secure the minority of 

 the population a majority in the representative as- 

 sembly." 



" And what we want to know," I replied, " is 

 whether you consider it reasonable and fair that the 

 whole of the Transvaal should be put under the heel 

 of the Chamloer of Mines at Johannesburg?" 



" Xo\v," replied my friend, "you must discriminate. 

 When I said that ' we ' meant the British population 

 of the Transvaal I should have explained that the 

 Transvaal British are divided into two camps — one, 

 much the larger and more powerful, is the Progres- 

 sive Party, that which you associate with the Cham- 

 ber of Mines. The other section is the Responsible 

 Government • Party, represented by Mr. Solomon 

 and, until recently, Mr. Quinn, who are progressive 

 Britons, independent of the Chamber of Mines, 

 and have made a concordat with the Boers upon 

 certain questions. But whether they belong to the 

 Progressive or to the Solomon section, all Britishers 

 are as a unit in favour of the electoral basis of the 

 existing constitution. That basis distributes political 



vote one value, and no representation for mere 

 acres." 



" But what do the Boers want ?" I asked. 



" The Boers say they want representation based 

 not upon the voters, but upon population, knowing 

 that as they have large families, and many of the 

 British are unmarried, this would give them an ad- 

 vantage." 



" Surely," I replied, " it is an advantage they are 

 entitled to. The only true ultimate principle upon 

 which the franchise should rest is that of i)ersons, 

 and every iivmg soul shall have a vote, including 

 babies in arms. The mother should vote for her 

 daughters and the father for the sons during min- 

 ority. Only by this means can the family secure its 

 due representation in the State." 



" You may l>e right • but the Boers don't go as far 

 as that. They only ask that the seats should lie dis- 

 tributed according to the numb^er of white residents 

 of all ages instead of white voters who have qualified 

 to come on to the register. The qualification does 

 not exclude any Boers worth speaking of. They 

 don't complain on that score, but they say that a 

 bachelor who has no stake in the country, and who 

 has no intention of making it his home, ought not 

 to l>e given as much say in the Legislature as a Boer 

 with a wife, a family of a dozen children, and a 

 whole country-side depenrling upon him. Person- 

 allv," said "a Johannesburg Radical," "I have no 

 objection to basing representation on population. I 

 think it would tell more in favour of the British 

 than f-f the Dutch, because it is so difficult to get 

 Britishers on the register. There must be six 

 months" residence, and certain formalities must be 

 gone through which our people very often neglect. 

 Whether it is population or \-oters 1 don"t care ; all 

 thiit I i)rotest against — and in this every Britisher 

 in the Transvaal is at my back — is any attempt by 

 artificial means to bolster up the Boer minority so as 

 to enable it to dominate the British majority." 



"Well, what do you say will happen? Are you 

 for responsible government ?" 



" Now I am, because C.B. has come into office, 

 If Mr. Balfour had remained in Downing-street, I 

 would have been against it. The difference between 

 responsible and re])resentative go\-ernment is that 

 under responsible go\ernment all the members of the 

 assembly would be elected. Under representative 

 government the balance of power would be held 

 by the nominated executive. If Mr. Balfour had 

 remained in power the executive would ha\e been on 

 our side. Now that vou are in power, the executive 



power according to the number of \oters, which we members would probably be instructed to throw their 

 maintain is the only fair method to apportion it ; one weight on the side of the Boers." 



