TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA.
THE news that Mr. Chamberlain is goine.b to visit South Africa and see our new Colonies with his own eyes is a matter for hearty congratulation. As we have explained elsewhere, we do not admit that a statesman cannot have correct views as to the Empire unless he is a much- travelled man, for history affords material in abundance in contradiction of that view. Again, we do not think it would, as a rule, be at all to the advantage of the nation if its leading statesmen were always flying about the Empire. Their main business is to preside at the centre. The situation in South Africa after the war is, however, so entirely exceptional that we think the decision of the Cabinet to part with their colleague for three or four months in order that he may see things for himself and on the spot was a most wise one. It is emphatically a case for making an exception, and we have no doubt that the news of Mr. Chamberlain's visit is as welcome to elf South Africans who really care for the welfare of their country as it is to Lord Milner and the Governors of Cape Colony and Natal. Mr. Chamberlain is by mental temperament a man who is able to get a great deal of light out of even a flying visit to a new country. He is so quick and alert that there is no danger of his being unable to " orientate " himself in new sur- roundings, and so of being merely puzzled by an unwonted environment. He will pick up the local situation a week after he has landed. Another advantage which Mr. Chamberlain possesses in this context is his mental fear- lessness. He will not be in the least afraid of seeing freely and talking freely to even his most bitter opponents, for he does not belong to the class of man who is suspicious about himself, and afraid of being converted to views to which he has already expressed himself opposed. He is not like those timid theologians who are so terribly afraid of consorting with men of heterodox views lest by some dreadful chance they should get their minds "unsettled." He will be quite prepared to let any one convert him,— if he can. We may be sure, therefore, that though he is not likely to return with any change of mind on fundamental points, he will come back with a very full understanding of "the other side." He will not be "awed by rumour" either into retaining his old views or adopting new ones, and he will not be in the least alarmed at looking the facts full in the face.
The chief points upon which Mr. Chamberlain will have to make up his mind are six in number. He will have to consider (1) the attitude of the Imperial Government in regard to Cape Colony ; (2) the wisdom of hastening or pow poning the grant of self-government to the Transvaal and Orange Colonies ; (3) the amount and method of the payment of the contribution to be made by the mines to the expenses of the war ; (4) the best way of putting a, white British population into South Africa and of keeping it there ; (5) the native question as a whole ; (6) the policy of Confederation. Of these the first is perhaps the most difficult of all. Mr. 'Chamberlain by his general handling of Colonial problems, and by his wise decision against the suspension of the Cape Constitution, has shown clearly that he has no wish to depart from our well-marked policy in regard to the self-governing Colonies. He wants, that is, to leave the Colonies to govern themselves, and to let them remain free States in a free Empire. This desire will not, of course, prevent him insisting that the Dutch majority at the Cape can only be maintained in the rights of self- government if they are loyal to the Empire, and if they will acquiesce in the principle that British subjects who took up arms to fight against the Empire shall not be allowed now they have been beaten in the field to have another chance of injuring the Empire through their votes. Again, self-government for the Cape Dutch does not include the right to impose disabilities on the loyalists, or to maintain an electoral system which gives the loyalists less than their fair share of electoral power. If these safeguards cannot be had under the present system, some means must be pro- vided for obtaining them. The resources of Imperial legislation are equal in case of urgent need to providing against a hostile Cape Legislature without doing away altogether with the Constitution. The area which ig subject to the Cape Parliament has been altered several times in the last quarter of a century, and might be altered again. Personally, we do not believe that this will be necessary any more than suspension ; but it is as well to remember that suspension is not the only alter. native. As to the grant of self-government to the Trans- vaal, we cannot doubt that Mr. Chamberlain will be materially helped in making up his mind as to "sooner or later" by reviewing the situation on the spot. This point, and the problems of the contribution to the expenses of the war and of placing a large British population on the soil as quickly as possible, cannot but appeal to him with redoubled force on the spot. We most earnestly hope that the problem of " packing " South Africa—we use the phrase advisedly—with as large a British population as possible at as early a date as possible will receive the special attention of Mr. Chamberlain. On it, in our opinion, the whole future of British South Africa depends. If in the next ten years we can double the British white population, we are safe. If not, the future must be dark and precarious. Fortunately, we have the means for doing this at hand. Though we would use only a very small proportion of the proceeds of the mines to pay off War Debt, we would most emphatically use the wealth of the mines lavishly to bring white men into the Transvaal. We would, that is, tax the mines up to their full capacity, but we would use the income so derived to develop the home resources of the Transvaal in every possible way. The mines must be taxed, but the money must be spent, not solely on a huge war contribution, but on paying interest on loans for new railways, new roads, irriga- tion, and, last and most important, on attracting British immigrants. A very effectual way of doing this, in our belief, would be to insist on the mines as far as possible employ- ing white labour. This the mine-owners would object to, no doubt, not because white labour is really dear labour, but because white miners mean white voters ; and the mine-owners want to run the Transvaal politically, and do not want to share their power with thousands of whits working men. This may be natural, but it is surely not the business of the Imperial Government to attend to views. Granted, as we hold, and as Queensland's example allows we have a right to hold, that the greater part of the mining work now done by blacks can be as cheaply or more cheaply done by white men, it will be wise of the Imperial Government to do their best to promote the use of white labour in the mines. Nay, it becomes an impera- tive political duty to encourage its use. But this en- couragement of white labour could clearly be achieved by granting to mines employing chiefly white labour marked exemptions in the way of taxation. Again, other Government privileges might be reserved for those mines in which the proportion of white men em- ployed gave them the right to be regarded as white men's mines. The native question in its widest acceptance is sure to attract Mr. Chamberlain's most earnest attention when he comes in contact with it on the spot. In South Africa the black man is in so vast a majority that he can never be forgotten by the statesman. But though the land is so muoh a black man's land in the physical sense, the mine-owners are always clamouring for Government aid to help them to recruit blacks from outside, —i.e., from the Portuguese territories. The local supply is nothing like sufficient. These appeals are worth consider- ing in connection with the need of increasing the British white population. We cannot find space to deal with the last, and greatest of the problems that we have set down as likely to be considered by Mr. Chamberlain,—i.e., that of Confederation. Should he find some means of solving it, he will have conferred an incalculable benefit on the Empire and on South Africa, for Confederation is even more essential to the welfare of South Africa than it was to that of Canada and Australia. Yet though Confederation is so desirable per se, it cannot be forced on. It must rest 011 mutual agreement if it is to last. We have dwelt chiefly on the advantages which will accrue to the Secretary of State for the Colonies from studying South African affairs on the spot, but no less will be the advantages gained personally by the leading local politicians. Many of them have had Mr. Chamberlain's alleged crimes and misdoings so constantly dinned into their ears that they will 'expect to see a kind of monster. When, how- ever, they find him a man as• courteous and easy of approach as he is strong and clear in thought and action, and also a man willing to listen to straight talk and eager to learn, there is certain to be a very great reaction of feeling, and by this reaction Mr. Chamberlain will know how to profit. The Dutch schemers and intriguers will then find how much they over- reached themselves when they represented Mr. Chamber- lain as a sort of villain of melodrama. A first-hand acquaintance will show the Cape farmer that, after all, Mr. Chamberlain is very much like other people,—except that he is a good deal quicker than most people to understand a new fact and to catch a new idea.
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