ANARCHY IN RHODESIA. T HE Matabele are wiser than we are.
They have chosen a King to lead them in battle, while the whites endure a dual, or rather a multiplex, control, and military officers under the Crown, civil administrators responsible to the Chartered Company and its shareholders, bands of volunteer settlers responsible to nobody but themselves, and so-called "private individuals" like Mr. Rhodes, sway Rhodesia with a hubbub of committees. Look at the result of choosing a single supreme individual to direct. There is no reason to suppose that the new Matabele King is a person of any special power or capacity, yet his assumption of supreme command has at once put heart into the natives, and they have begun to oppose the whites with quite a new sense of vigour. The action with Colonel Plumer's column was by far the most severely contested of the rebellion, and from every quarter comes evidence that the blacks are fighting with fresh courage. Unless we mean to run the risk of a great disaster we must imitate them and put Rhodesia and Ma.shonaland into the hands of a single capable man, whose word will be supreme and who will be able to brush aside the welter of conflicting authorities which now cumber the ground. We have nothing to say individually against most of the present wielders of power in the Chartered Com- pany's dominions. The men are brave and capable per se, but there is no supreme central authority recognised and -obeyed by all, and unless and until this is obtained there will be no real solution of the present difficulties. What is wanted is a dictator who will be able to speak in the name of the Queen, and whose mandate from the British Government will be absolutely complete and transcendent. But the only way to obtain this is to suspend the Chartered Company from the exercise of all government functions whatsoever for a definite term—say three years—to make Charterland a Crown Colony by pro- claiming the direct authority of the Queen, and finally to name as Governor of that Crown Colony, with supreme power, the ablest administrator of native dependencies to be found in the Empire. Let the Governor so named be supported by a British regiment, and given a free hand in the matter of resettlement and pacification, and there is some chance of the Matabele and Mashona rebellion being brought to an end. It is not for a newspaper to dictate to her Majesty's Government who is the proper man to send as dictator into the Chartered Company's territory, but for the sake of illustration we will name Sir H. H. Johnston. His strength of will, his courage, his ad- ministrative ability, and lastly, his power of under- standing native feeling, make him the ideal person for discharging the duties we have named. Or if he is not available the Government will be able to find some other official capable of the task. There are half-a-dozen men equal to the work within the Empire, and the Colonial Office, if once the policy is decided on, will, we doubt not, have no difficulty in filling the post promptly and adequately. All that is necessary is for the Government to realise that the time for action has come, and that what is wanted in Rhodesia is a single directing brain backed. up by the whole authority of the British Empire. That, and that alone, will stop the administrative anarchy which paralyses the white popula- tion in their terrible struggle against the natives. No doubt it will be objected that to do what we advocate is to interfere with the rights of the Chartered Company, and the powerful knot of capitalists who support the Com- pany, and who demand that it shall have its pound of flesh and gold whatever happens, will be up in arms at any notion of suspending the functions of the Company. If, however, the Cabinet are wise they will not regard either the complaints or the menaces that come from such quarters. They have a perfect right, moral and legal, to suspend the operation of the Charter pending inquiry into the Company's conduct, and all arguments of ex- pediency and right demand that they should act at once. They have admitted that inquiry must be made into the Company's actions. Pending that inquiry, it is obviously wise to suspend the administrative functions granted by the Charter. That would be a sound argument were Rhodesia in a condition of profound peace. How much more potent is it when the dual government, which exists because of the existence of the Company's powers, is helping to spread administrative anarchy and impotence throughout Matabeleland and Mashonaland.
To prove that we are not exaggerating the condition of things in the Company's dominions, we have only to cite the telegrams from Salisbury and Bulawayo published in Thursday's Daily Telegraph. Take the one from Salis- bury. "The camp," says the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph," is a mass of seething discontent. The officers disagree with the methods of defence adopted, and the official members of the town committee are resigning. The military authorities are exacting the severest discipline, which is unnecessary in most cases, and is creating a bad feeling all round. The system of dual control must end." No doubt something must be allowed for the excitement of a correspondent writing from a beleaguered town, but it is impossible to doubt that "dual control" of Com- pany's officers and Queen's officers is having a paralysing effect upon the conduct of affairs. The news that comes from Bulawayo is almost as bad. Even Mr. Rhodes's lavish promises of compensation to everybody seem to be losing their effect. It used to be common form to add to all telegrams," Inhabitants feel greatest confidence in Mr. Rhodes." Now the Daily Telegraph ominously reports, on the authority of a settler fresh from Bulawayo, that "opinion is very much divided with regard to him,"—i.e., Mr. Rhodes. It is clear, too, from the Bulawayo tele- grams that there is great discontent among the volunteer troopers, and that quarrelling is going on over the dis- bandment announced some few days ago. Here is another telegram from Thursday's Daily Telegraph:—" The Afrikander corps now disbanded refuse to join the new force. They are very dissatisfied on account of the non- fulfilment of Mr. Rhodes's promise made to the Salisbury column in reference to grants of land and service. It is feared that the sudden disbandment of the forces was a great error." But there is no need to labour the point. It will, we think, be generally admitted that there is no supreme guiding brain in Charterland, no single individual to whom all classes and interests can look for help and direction.
It is impossible to deal with the anarchy in Rhodesia, and not refer to the evidence that the blacks are being treated with a dangerous and inexpedient cruelty. We are not supporters of the Exeter Hall view of "our brethren in ebony," hold that a white is an infinitely superior being to a. black, and can make every allowance' for the intensity of rage that possesses those who have seen the charred and mutilated corpses of white men and women. But though we can make every allowance for the revengefulness of a small minority of whites surrounded by thousands of blacks, we view with consternation the folly of making the Matabele believe that there is to be no quarter for them. When once they are made to realise that, they will naturally fight with tenfold barbarity and fury. The only quick way of putting an end to the rebellion is to make them understand that if they fight they will be beaten, but that if they "come in" they will be forgiven. That is common-sense, yet look at what a Central News telegram from Cape Town describes as "an official notice" in regard to the treatment of the natives who have joined the rebellion :—" Cape Town, Tuesday.—An official notice is promulgated here to-day decreeing outlawry against the rebels in Rhodesia, and declaring that all natives remaining under arms shall suffer the punishment of death." Here is surely an example of how the interests of Rhodesia suffer by the administrative anarchy now prevailing. One may be quite sure that if there were a. Governor of Sir H. H. Johnston's calibre at Bulawayo this is an official notice which would never have seen the light. It is just the sort of blunder that is made when any one and every one is acting in a panic, and when there is no clear leadership. If instead of an autocrat like Lord Canning India had been ruled during the Mutiny by a director of the East India Company, and a military officer responsible to the Crown alone, an ex- director who held a large portion of the Company's stock, and a Committee of planters and merchants, we should have had plenty of such official notices. As it was, we had one-man rule, and as far as might be the wild folly of unintelligent revenge was kept in control. If, then, for no other reason, we want an able dictator to stop the suicidal policy of giving no quarter to the natives. We want him, too, when the rebellion is over to force the settlers into behaving better to the natives. We fear that the rebellion was in no small measure due to the improper treatment of the blacks by the settlers. This is no mere guess-work on our part. Lord Grey is naturally very anxious not to exaggerate the evil done in the Company's dominions, and would if he could defend rather than attack the conduct of the settlers in regard to the blacks. Yet he clearly holds that the rebellion was to some extent caused by white excesses. Here is what he said on the subject in a speech at the dinner given to him at Bulawayo which is cited in a letter to Thursday's Daily Chronicle :— " Lord Grey at a banquet in Bulawayo on May 18th set - forth what he considered would be the great advantages accruing to Rhodesia out of this war.' For one thing, he said, 'we shall have the opportunity of placing the native question upon a sounder basis than it has hitherto occupied. That will tend to do something towards securing a more regular and continuous supply of labour to the settlers, but at the same time it will give the natives a larger measure of protection against such ill- treatment as, I am afraid, they have too often experienced in the past, and which, I am informed, has been not the • least potent of the causes of the present rebellion.'" That is a very serious indictment of the settlers' action, but we fear that it is unimpeachable. We can only say once more that the only cure for these and all the other evils of that unhappy land, which the millionaires thought they had conquered so easily, and out of which they dreamt that a race of contented black serfs would hew them untold gold, is the abolition of the present administrative anarchy. But administrative anarchy in a savage land ravaged by war will only give way to an orderly dictatorship. But., again, an orderly dictatorship means the suspension of the powers conferred by the Charter and the proclamation of a Crown Colony, and the appointment of a competent Governor. If the Government will only act on these lines all may yet go well. Why should they not ? They have only Mr. Rhodes, the Chartered shareholders, and the Times newspaper to dread, and after all these forces are not invincible. Besides, the Times, the most formidable of these powers, is already nearly as hostile to the Government as it can be, and therefore little more is to be feared from it. Then, too, firm action in regard to • the Company will bring them plenty of support from other sources. It will rally to them on this question all the best and most independent elements in our public life. In a word, the suspension of the Charter is the paying policy. We do not want the Government to adopt it merely because of this reason, but the fact remains that here as elsewhere clear, straightforward, unflinching action will be the action - that will prove a source of strength and safety.
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