Native Life in South Africa [78]
bit into white hands. Hitherto the right to live on, and to cultivate, lands which thus formerly belonged to them was never challenged, but all that is now changed. Naturally the ingratitude meted out to these people by the authorities in return for services consistently rendered by three successive generations of them will be a blow, not only to the economic independence of a loyal and patriotic people, but to the belief in British sense of justice.
Chapter XII The Passing of Cape Ideals
Naboth was right to hold on to his home. There were garnered memories that all the wealth of Ahab could not buy. Ward Beecher.
From the great meeting place -- Sheshegu -- we went through the Alice district. In this district we met several men who would get no crops -- their annual income -- the next year, as the law had placed an embargo on their ordinary avocation. King Williamstown was also visited, and there at a meeting held in the Baptist Church, which was kindly lent for the purpose by the Rev. Mr. Pierce, it was unanimously resolved to appeal to His Majesty the King against the Natives' Land Act. Mr. W. Sebe presided over this meeting of representative Natives, and Mr. Bassie translated the Act.
At Queenstown a similar resolution was passed by practically the whole meeting. Beyond answering questions at each of these meetings, the writer said little else besides reading the Act, which told its own tale. Many Natives who had never seen a copy of the Act before, but who had heard its praises sung by interested parties and had believed the false teachers, attended the meetings to oppose any undue interference with "the law". But these men were appalled when the law was read to them, sentence by sentence, and translated by their own teachers in their own tongue. Then a discussion would follow, invariably ending with the query: "Can a Parliament capable of passing such a law still be trusted by the community concerned?"
The Queenstown meeting, which was held in the Native Baptist School kindly lent by Messrs. Damane and Koti, was more interesting than the others because it is the only one of the many native meetings we attended where there was any dissent. There were four dissentients at Queenstown, and we take this opportunity of congratulating all genuine enemies of native welfare on the fact that they had four staunch protagonists of colour, who showed more manliness than Mr. Tengo-Jabavu because they attended the meeting. Still, if the courage of these opponents was admirable, we confess we did not like the gross callousness, and what seemed to us an indecent disregard of native suffering that was manifest in their conduct: when the story of the hardships of unfortunate victims of the Land Act was narrated they laughed, and repeated the newspaper excuse that the evictions were not directly due to the Act.
We agree with them that evictions have always taken place, since the first human couple was sent out of the Garden of Eden, yet they must admit that until the Union Parliament passed the Natives' Land Act there never was a law saying to the native population of South Africa, "You must not settle anywhere, under a penalty of 100 Pounds, unless you are a servant." These unsympathetic Natives made no effort to defend the Act itself, but attempted to bluff the meeting with the supposed danger of "reprisals by spiteful Boers, who, they said, will be more vindictive if Natives dared to appeal to the King, over the heads of the Boer Government." But the meeting would not be bluffed. One speaker especially remarked that the Act embodied the very worst form of vindictiveness, and the sooner the whole world understood the Union Parliament's attitude towards the blacks the better it would be. The meeting agreed that no slavery could be worse than to be outlawed in your own homes, and the motion was carried against the said four dissentients.
We interviewed a number of the Natives passing through Queenstown, and the result showed that many and varied
Chapter XII The Passing of Cape Ideals
Naboth was right to hold on to his home. There were garnered memories that all the wealth of Ahab could not buy. Ward Beecher.
From the great meeting place -- Sheshegu -- we went through the Alice district. In this district we met several men who would get no crops -- their annual income -- the next year, as the law had placed an embargo on their ordinary avocation. King Williamstown was also visited, and there at a meeting held in the Baptist Church, which was kindly lent for the purpose by the Rev. Mr. Pierce, it was unanimously resolved to appeal to His Majesty the King against the Natives' Land Act. Mr. W. Sebe presided over this meeting of representative Natives, and Mr. Bassie translated the Act.
At Queenstown a similar resolution was passed by practically the whole meeting. Beyond answering questions at each of these meetings, the writer said little else besides reading the Act, which told its own tale. Many Natives who had never seen a copy of the Act before, but who had heard its praises sung by interested parties and had believed the false teachers, attended the meetings to oppose any undue interference with "the law". But these men were appalled when the law was read to them, sentence by sentence, and translated by their own teachers in their own tongue. Then a discussion would follow, invariably ending with the query: "Can a Parliament capable of passing such a law still be trusted by the community concerned?"
The Queenstown meeting, which was held in the Native Baptist School kindly lent by Messrs. Damane and Koti, was more interesting than the others because it is the only one of the many native meetings we attended where there was any dissent. There were four dissentients at Queenstown, and we take this opportunity of congratulating all genuine enemies of native welfare on the fact that they had four staunch protagonists of colour, who showed more manliness than Mr. Tengo-Jabavu because they attended the meeting. Still, if the courage of these opponents was admirable, we confess we did not like the gross callousness, and what seemed to us an indecent disregard of native suffering that was manifest in their conduct: when the story of the hardships of unfortunate victims of the Land Act was narrated they laughed, and repeated the newspaper excuse that the evictions were not directly due to the Act.
We agree with them that evictions have always taken place, since the first human couple was sent out of the Garden of Eden, yet they must admit that until the Union Parliament passed the Natives' Land Act there never was a law saying to the native population of South Africa, "You must not settle anywhere, under a penalty of 100 Pounds, unless you are a servant." These unsympathetic Natives made no effort to defend the Act itself, but attempted to bluff the meeting with the supposed danger of "reprisals by spiteful Boers, who, they said, will be more vindictive if Natives dared to appeal to the King, over the heads of the Boer Government." But the meeting would not be bluffed. One speaker especially remarked that the Act embodied the very worst form of vindictiveness, and the sooner the whole world understood the Union Parliament's attitude towards the blacks the better it would be. The meeting agreed that no slavery could be worse than to be outlawed in your own homes, and the motion was carried against the said four dissentients.
We interviewed a number of the Natives passing through Queenstown, and the result showed that many and varied