Review of Reviews, W/S/06. 



Topics of the Month. 



259 



" So we have this paradox, that to give the Trans- 

 vaal responsible government is to establish the 

 ascendenc)' of Johannesburg. To deny it is to give 

 the pull to the Bc^rs."' 



'• I should rather say the ascendency of the British 

 in the towns. Several of these towns are not even 

 on the Rand, and all the towns are very jealous of 

 Johannesburg. But what 'do you propose to do?" 



" To send out a Commission to inquire into and 

 to report upon this vexed question." 



" That means," said he, " that we should have two 

 years more Crown Colony government, and you 

 w'ould have no responsible body on whose shoulders 

 you could shuffle off the responsibility of the Chin- 

 ese question." 



" I don't agree with you," I replied. " What we 

 ought to do is to send out a commission at once ; but 

 T would allow the representative system to get itself 

 into operation while the Commission was pursuing 

 its inquiries. I would redress the balance against 

 the Boers by instructing the nominated members to 

 vote so as to give the Boers fair play. If the Com- 

 mission reported ui favour of altering the electoral 

 basis, I would alter it afterwards. But w-hat about 

 compensation and the thirty millions?" 



" 1 would advise you," said my friend, " to avoid 

 throwing the responsibility of paying your war debts 

 upon the new assembly. Your plan for waiving 

 claim to the thirtv millions on condition that the new 

 assembly wo-uld defray the outstanding balance of 

 your war obligations and compensation, would light 

 up a verv intense racial dispute. You had much 

 better stick to your thirty millions if you can get 

 them, and then pay out of the thirty millions what- 

 ever compensation your Commission decides is still 

 justlv due to the sufferers from the war." 

 '■Now as to Chinese labour?"" 

 " As to Chinese labour," said " a Radical," " I have 

 only this to say, that if your white people, if your 

 English workmen who are howling against Chinese 

 labour, will only come out to South Africa and work 

 in our mines with the same industry that they work 

 in your mines at home, we should b- very glad to 

 pay them good wages and send all the Chinamen 

 home. The root difficulty of the whole question is 

 that no white men remain six months in South Africa 

 before they discover that it is not white men's work 

 to labour hard with the hands. Chinese labour is 

 not cheap. Chinese labour is dear, much dearer 

 than high-i)riced labour. If English labourers would 

 only labour — but that is just the worst of it, they 

 won't. We have the same difficulty in the Natal 

 plantations ; and until \ ou get over that we have got 

 to have Chinese labour." 



" Then what do you think about our sending out 

 a commission to ascertain what changes would be 

 made in the conditions under which the Chinese are 

 employed ?"' 



" Send out your Commission by all means, but 

 pray remember you run a risk. Your Commission 



may report in favour of making changes which the , 

 responsible government you are attempting to estab- 

 lish will not have at any price. You will then be 

 face to face Avith a very difficult question." 



" I admit that ; but we have got to do something, 

 and it seems that this is the line of least resistance. 

 But don't you think the Boers will be in favour of 

 turning the Chinese out?" 



My friend laughed. " My brother Radicals in this 

 country are under a great delusion. They champion 

 the Boer, little knowing that the Boer is about the 

 stoutest anti-Socialist, stick-in-the-mud Conservative 

 that you will find on this planet. He is a man who 

 stands for the rights of property. Every Boer is 

 hampered by lack of labour. Every Boer thinks 

 there may be a gold mine en his farm. The Boers, 

 you may be quite certain, will not cut the throat of 

 the mining industrj^ by voting against the Chinese." 



" Really." I said, as my friend rose to go, " what 

 puzzles me is why the Chamljer of Mines don t make 

 a deal with the Boers ; they must be a much better 

 people to get on with than the semi-Socialist, hu- 

 manitarian, Exeter Hall-y British." 



" There is something in that," he said ; " but we 

 want to be sure that they will be true to the flag." 



" That depends upon us," I replied. " They will 

 be true to us if we are true to them. But if we 

 refuse to pay our debts and keep our word, why then 

 — we shall reap as we have sown," 



II.— MR. H. W. MASSINGHAM. 



I wanted to obtain from General Smuts the view 

 of the Boers, but to this General Smuts demurred. 

 I therefore turned to Mr. H. W. Massingham, who 

 has just returned from South Africa. 



Mr. Massingham needs no introduction to our 

 readers. For years past he has been recognised as 

 the most brilliant, incisive, and fearless of ad\ocates 

 of justice to South Africa. During his vist to the 

 country he had the opportunity of meeting men of 

 all parties, from Lord Selborne to General Botha. 

 He went over the compounds, and he was afforded 

 e\'erv facilitv for investigating the actual condition 

 of affairs by the Government, and he has come back 

 with very definite opinions on many subjects, some of 

 which he was good enough to communicate to me in 

 response to my questions. 



" 1 am afraid," said Mr. Massingham. " I am 

 rather hopeless about the whole thing. The attempt 

 to govern a country by a financial syndicate has in- 

 volved us in such a coil of difficulties that it is hard 

 to see a way out of it. Indeed, I am not by any 

 means sure whether the Boers would be wisely ad- 

 vised if they were to undertake, in response to ar 

 appeal from us, the government of the country." 



" To what do you attribute this ?" 



" Not to wickedness or malevolence, or to anything 

 excepting the blindness of money-making, and the 

 want of political capacity. How can you goverri 

 a country if you don't know anything about th^ 



