when mr. lyttelton said that flogging must cease, flogging ceased on the rand, and the oriental methods of torture were adopted instead.
but even this penal system—reminding one so strongly of the days of stephen, when the wretched, tortured peasantry openly said that christ and his saints slept, for pity had veiled her face and mercy had forgotten—had to be practised with great secrecy owing to the force of public opinion at home.
these methods were, however, unavailing to check the growing insolence and insubordination of the chinese slaves. no better idea of the condition of the rand during the last few months can be gathered than from the new ordinance, which was drafted at the beginning of last october. this ordinance took the power of punishing the chinese coolies from the hands of the resident magistrates and placed it in the hands of the inspectors, thereby giving the welfare of the chinese slaves solely and entirely into the mercy of the rand lords. before, an attempt had been made[pg 78] to cloak the slave ordinance with a pretence of law and justice as conceived by the british public. but the draft ordinance of august put an end to this piece of hypocrisy. the superintendents and the inspectors of the chinese, for all practical purposes the servants of the mine owners, were to be not only the judge and the jury, but the plaintiff. it conferred on the superintendents and inspectors jurisdiction, in respect of offences against the ordinance, of a resident magistrate.
clause i states—"this power will be granted provided such offences are committed under the ordinance and within the area of any mine or mine compound where such labourer resides. the fines to be inflicted in the case of conviction will be the same as those imposed by the magistrates under the existing laws, and on conviction the labourer's employer will be notified, and the amount of the fine will be deducted from the labourer's wages and paid over for the benefit of the colonial treasury."
another clause states that—"for the purpose of confining prisoners awaiting trial, it is provided that the employers of labourers shall erect a lock-up on their properties, which lock-up shall be deemed to be a jail."
again, in the event of labourers on the mines organizing a conspiracy, refusing to work, creating a disturbance, intimidating or molesting any person on the mine, the superintendent or inspector is empowered to impose a collective fine on the labourers.
[pg 79]
insomuch as this new ordinance once and for all destroys the myth with which rand lords endeavoured to surround their slave-owning ideals, i consider it to be a decided improvement upon the original ordinance, with its innumerable pleasures and pretences for the moral and spiritual welfare of the chinamen.
that unfortunate and much-deluded man the colonial secretary, once declared in the house of commons that the chinaman would have just as free access to a court of justice as any british subject. he certainly now-a-days possesses free access to a court, if not to a court of justice. access is so easy to it that the court actually follows him wherever he goes, watches him while he works in the mine, watches him while he is in the compound, and is ready to punish and fine him, or to lock him up in the compound prison, without any of those old-fashioned formalities which, while they may embody the machinery of justice, are at least guarantees of its purity and disinterestedness.
it would of course be very interesting to know how many of these fines have ever reached the colonial treasury. armed with such extraordinary powers as these, it is highly probable that the rand lords imposed through their superintendents and inspectors unlimited fines which, instead of benefiting the colonial revenue, merely reduced the wage bill.
the last clause which i have quoted contains the phrase "organizing a conspiracy." a conspiracy, of course, is anything in the nature of a trade union.
[pg 80]
i don't say that this new ordinance was not justified. i think it was fully justified. no efficiency can be obtained by half measures. the ablest political trimmers are incapable of serving both god and mammon. if god is out of the question, a whole-hearted worship of mammon is really better. in short, it would have been far more in the interests of the transvaal if the rand lords had from the first gone the whole hog and insisted on having chinese slaves in name as well as in fact.
the state of affairs in august last wanted extraordinary legislation. but, of course, this must not be held to justify chinese labour. that was criminal. but once the principle of chinese labour had been accepted by the government on behalf of an unwilling and protesting nation, i fail to see how the unfortunate remnants of british subjects in the transvaal could be properly protected without these measures. i don't see how, when once the chinese had been brought into the country, the brutalities that have been committed could have been avoided. i think the superintendent and the inspector and the overseer should have the right to shoot men down in cold blood. i think the compounds should be surrounded by artillery. i think all the ideals of russian autocratic rule should be brought to bear upon these men. the awful brutality with which they have been treated is justified. the superintendent, the inspector and the overseer should be forced to make a special study of the methods adopted by hawkins[pg 81] and magree. the british government wanted chinese labour to be introduced into the transvaal, and if they had been efficient and sensible they should have accumulated in their ordinance the wisdom of all the slave-owning traditions of centuries.
but from an unbiassed perusal of the rand press one would have imagined that all these extraordinary measures were unjustified.
the statements that the chinese were committing outrages, were insolent, were bestial, which have from time to time appeared in the british press, were referred to by the rand press as "more chinese lies," "chinese canards," and such headings. they persistently impressed upon their readers that the chinese were leading an industrious, idyllic life, that they were treated with kindness and humanity by the overseers, that no happier community ever existed on the face of the earth than the 40,000 odd chinamen in their compounds on the rand.
of course, they only kept up this pretence for a time. it was impossible for long to pretend to be a newspaper at all and yet deny facts which were personally known to the majority of their readers.
the object of this extraordinary legislation was, of course, that the chinese preferred to go to prison rather than pay fines.
at the beginning of august there were more than one thousand chinamen in jail undergoing various terms of imprisonment, rather than[pg 82] deduct from their shilling a day, the amounts they were called upon to pay for disobeying the laws laid down in the ordinance.
the amended ordinance now forced them to pay by withholding from them a portion of their wage equal to the amount of the fine. it has been found useless, in fact, to pretend that other than a reign of terror pertains in the transvaal. the chinamen have broken loose, and only their prompt deportation can prevent a very grave crisis. neither fines nor floggings have any terror for them, and from their earliest years they have been accustomed to regard death without a semblance of fear.
i will relate some of the more notorious instances in which these yellow slaves have figured in the last year. the list includes, murder, rape, robbery with violence, and that class of criminal assault with which we deal in england under the criminal law amendment act.
while working in the mines the chinaman does exactly what he pleases. the overseers dare not interfere. their policy of putting the black man on to the yellow man has resulted in murder. the chinaman has a short way with any white or black man who tries to interfere with his sense of liberty. he kills the man. every chinaman belongs to a secret society, and when he has determined to kill a white or a black man he reports his decision to the society. he knows that the deed which he meditates will be rewarded by his own death:[pg 83] but for this he cares nothing. all his preparations are made beforehand. his secret society probably consists of from four to five thousand members. all these members contribute something like sixpence a-piece to make up a sum, say of ￡100. when this amount is collected, it is sent over to his wife and family in china. having thus made all the necessary provision for his wife and children, the chinaman perpetrates the deed. he is then arrested, sentenced and hanged. and he meets his end with a stoical indifference, quite content that he has secured his revenge and set his worldly affairs in order.
in the face of such sentiments compulsion is futile.
on wednesday, september 13, a gang of chinese coolies working at the geldenhuis deep mine decided to take a holiday. the management of the mine were instructed to offer them extra pay if they would work. they refused, and took their holiday. they promised, however, that they would start their first shift at midnight on the following sunday, september 17. when midnight on sunday, september 17, arrived, they determined to keep their holiday up. the compound manager endeavoured to use force. the chinese met force by force. the police were called in. the riot at that juncture had reached a most alarming state. the police were ordered to fire: they obeyed, killing one chinaman and wounding another; but not before the [pg 84]compound manager had been attacked and somewhat seriously injured. finally the chinamen were driven to their work.
on the same sunday the utter uselessness of the compound system was proved. one hundred chinamen bolted from the french rand mine. somebody, it is supposed, had spread among them the report that the boers were enlisting coolies at ￡4 a month to fight the english. in vain has the number of police in the witwatersrand district been increased. gangs of deserters are wandering about the country murdering and looting.
"last night," wrote a young south african policeman to his parents in england, "i captured six chinamen who had run away from the mines. they are giving a lot of trouble—5000 of them started rioting last week, and 100 foot police and 200 south african constabulary had to go to stop them, and a nice old job we had. they threw broken bottles and stones when we charged them. some of our fellows were very badly cut. the chinamen also made dynamite bombs and threw them at us, and we had to shoot into the crowd to drive them back. we aimed low and wounded a good many of them. they are nasty devils to tackle, and always show fight when there are a lot of them together. the six i captured were trekking across the veld. i chased them on horseback and they ran on top of a kopje and commenced to roll rocks down. i managed to get a shot at one with my revolver: the bullet[pg 85] struck him on the wrist. then they all put up their hands and surrendered. i managed to get some niggers working in the mealie patch to escort them back to our camp. the niggers were very proud of themselves. when they passed through the other native kraals i think if i had not been there the kaffirs would have assegaied them. they hate the chinamen like poison."
these are the sort of incidents that occur daily. all the measures taken by the government and the mine owners to prevent desertion have proved ineffective. the country around the witwatersrand mines has taken upon itself the aspect of the whole of the colony during the late war. mounted constables with loaded revolvers organize drives. the whole district is patrolled, and every effort is made to bring back the deserters to the compounds. but as soon as one lot has returned another escapes. every day you may see a mounted policeman riding down towards the law courts, followed by a string of chinese deserters.
the johannesburger lives in a daily state of terror. he rarely meets a chinaman without immediately seeking the protection of the police and insisting on an inquiry being held then and there, as to whether the man has a permit to be at large in the golden city.
writing on october 2, the johannesburg correspondent—one l. e. n.—of a london morning paper gives a graphic account of the wonderful city of gold at that date. "gold of[pg 86] the value of over ￡20,000,000 a year," he says, "is extracted from that stretch of dusty upland called the reef.... but look closer. the white workers on the mines carry revolvers; the police are armed with ball cartridge and bayonet; camped yonder at auckland park is a mobile column of mounted men ready to move against an enemy at a moment's notice; the country folk on the other side of the swelling rise are armed to the teeth, and live at night in barricaded and fortified houses." what a beautiful commentary on life as it is lived—under the british flag—in the commercial and political hub of the great sub-continent!
the boers, who through their political organization the het volk have refused to take any active part in the management of the country, determined with a sort of grim humour, since the british sought to destroy the corrupt government of their late president, they shall be allowed to mismanage the country as they will, have been led to break their political silence to petition the government for more protection. at a meeting held at krugersdoorp at the beginning of october, they decided to forward a resolution to the imperial government requesting that the importation of chinese coolies should be discontinued, and those already in the country should be repatriated. regret was further expressed at the danger to life and property, and it was pointed out that the policy of not allowing the boers to carry firearms prevented them from properly protecting the lives of their families.
[pg 87]
good sport
good sport.
[pg 89]
general botha did not exaggerate the dangers which resulted from the importation of chinamen, and he voiced the common sentiment of boer and briton when he asked that a commission should be appointed to investigate the treatment of the chinese coolies, and ascertain the cause of the disturbances.
the mine owners' press informed the public that there are very few cases of desertion; that when any number of chinamen do desert the south african constabulary deal with them efficiently. they are hunted down, rounded up, and brought in by their pigtails for trial. at the trial they are convicted, or were before the amendment of the ordinance in august last, and locked up.
any one going through the transvaal will see hundreds of these chinese convicts working in large batches on the roads. white men are placed in charge of these convicts, and when the repairing and macadamizing of the roads is not done to their liking, the chinamen are flogged, and flogged in the open. they are subjected to every kind of brutal treatment; and it is probable that almost as many desert from the convict prisons as desert from the slave compounds.
in "c" court, johannesburg, on october 3 (or 4, i am not sure of the exact date), before mr. schuurman, several chinese labourers were prosecuted for wandering from the mines in[pg 90] which they were employed, without possessing the necessary permission. they all pleaded guilty, and were fined ￡1 each. when asked what excuse they had to offer, three of them said they were homesick, and were on their way to china; two others stated that they had only gone for a short walk, and were close to the mine when arrested. the policeman, however, declared they were twenty-five miles from the mine. a few of the accused stated that they were ill-treated, and consequently deserted. the magistrate sapiently advised them that in such a case, instead of absconding, they should complain to the representative of the labour importation association when he called at the mine.
under the new regulations, sixty-five chinamen, including an alleged professional robber, were arrested on october 18. a johannesburg correspondent describes them as "a band of 450 coolies of bad character." what has lieut.-colonel w. dalrymple, the rand mining man who lately at tunbridge wells denounced the "infamous lies" which were circulated in this country about the chinese labour question—what, i repeat, has lieut.-colonel dalrymple to say to that?
from the same telegram i learn that the measures which are now being taken to prevent desertions are proving effective. the roll-call of october 8—i am now quoting the immaculate reuter—"showed 278 absentees, and during the following week 245 were captured and brought back to work. last night," adds[pg 91] the correspondent, meaning the night of october 17, "nine coolies attempted to raid a homestead in the krugersdoorp district. the farmer fired through a window, and shot one chinaman dead; the others fled." i commend these statements, together with those quoted hereafter, to the earnest attention of the editor of a certain yellow-covered weekly journal, devoted to the interests of south africa—the organ of the rand lords in london—which persistently pooh-poohs the "yellow slavery" cry.
meanwhile gangs of escaped chinamen are wandering over the country spreading terror everywhere. the boer farmer goes to bed at night in his lonely farmhouse on the veld as if he were still at war with great britain. long hidden rifles are brought out from the hay-ricks and other hiding-places and got ready. windows are boarded up, doors are double locked. every preparation is made to warn off the ever expected attack of the yellow desperadoes.
at the beginning of october two homesteads in the boksburg district were attacked by a party of chinese, who attempted to gain an entrance by breaking in the back doors and windows. in both cases, however, the farmers had made every preparation for such an attack, and fired on the marauders, one of whom was wounded in the chest and another in the abdomen. the remainder made off.
a similar outrage occurred in the middle of november. a lonely farmhouse near [pg 92]germiston, occupied by an englishman and his wife, was attacked by a band of chinese, who were armed with crowbars and stones. the farmer opened fire, seriously wounding one of the chinamen in the jaw, and the rest decamped without entering. the injured man was captured, but the whereabouts and identity of the others were not discovered.
in johannesburg the talk is of nothing but murders and assaults by gangs of ten or fourteen escaped labourers. house after house away on the veld has been broken into and looted, and the inhabitants murdered if they showed any signs of resistance; they have indeed in some cases been murdered without showing any sign of resistance at all.
quite recently the legislative council of the transvaal has re-amended for about the tenth time the ordinance. it has proposed to offer ￡1 a head for the recapture of these yellow hooligans, an amendment which would have placed the very much-bepatched ordinance on a level with the laws that prevailed in the southern states of america before the abolition of slavery. it is charged, however, with that strange spirit of hypocrisy which has characterized all the proceedings of the rand lords into a reimbursement to the capturer of his out-of-pocket expenses. this of course is only another way of offering ￡1 for every recaptured chinaman, for it may be taken for granted that the capturer's expenses will always include the wear and tear of horseflesh and[pg 93] moral damages and other matters which can only be estimated in the abstract. according to the schedule of fees payable in respect of the capture of chinese deserters, which was published early in october, they ranged from 1s. per mile for one or two arrests to 3s. for eight or more.
here is a letter from another member of the south african constabulary to his people at home which emphasizes the state of affairs which exist at present on the rand.
"the chinese have been causing a lot of trouble. there was a whole family murdered about a month ago. several places have been broken into. last sunday there was a storekeeper murdered about ten miles from where i am staying. we have orders on no account to go out on patrol without a revolver. the people are seeking police protection, and are frightened out of their wits. i believe it is as much as a south african constabulary man's life is worth to be seen at some places on the rand in uniform. i am determined that if i meet any chinamen, and they show fight, i will shoot the first one dead."
this is the spirit abroad—a spirit which every right-minded man must regard as the inevitable result of the criminal action of the government in sanctioning the chinese labour ordinance.
here is another case which has never been reported in the press:—
at germiston railway station twelve [pg 94]chinamen were waiting on the platform for a train. a white woman happened to pass by, and as she passed the chinamen hurled some bestial insult at her. one of the railway officials immediately called a policeman, who tried to take the offending chinaman into custody. he was promptly knocked down. three more policemen were hurried to the scene. these met with like treatment, and even when two other comrades came to their assistance they were utterly unable to effect the arrest. after twenty minutes' violent fighting, during which the gang of chinamen were absolutely unhurt, six policemen were taken on stretchers to the hospital.
here are two or three more instances taken at random from the "butcher's bill" of a johannesburg correspondent, whose letter appeared in the daily mail a few weeks ago:—
"sept. 5.—chinese attack kaffirs in the lancaster mine. they throw one kaffir in front of a train of ore, so that he is cut to pieces. a second kaffir dies of his injuries.
"sept. 8.—homestead at rand klipfontein attacked and looted, and ￡150 in money taken. the chinese try to fire the house by throwing a fire-ball through the window.
"sept. 16.—band of chinese rush a kaffir kraal at wilgespruit, on the west rand. native woman's head nearly severed. chinese armed with knives 2 feet 6 inches long, made by a sheffield firm.
[pg 95]
"sept. 18.—riot geldenhuis deep. compound manager assaulted. mounted police attacked by 1500 coolies armed with drills, stones, bottles, etc., and forced to fire their revolvers. one chinaman killed and a number wounded."
and so on and so forth. one more instance to show to what length the chinamen will go. a gang of the breed employed at the van ryn mine, where there had previously been a number of disturbances, struck work and attacked the whites underground. a white man pulled the signal cord, and police, galloping up, descended the shaft and saved the whites. the ringleaders were arrested, and, adds the correspondent somewhat ingenuously—"this phase of attacks underground is disquieting." from the adjacent colony of natal, too, come words of complaint about chinese stragglers; and it is significant in this connection that "over a thousand rifles" were issued to the farmers in the transvaal at the end of september last. these are facts which mr. reyersbach, of messrs. h. eckstein & co., would be well advised to put in his pipe and ponder.
of course the immediate cause which leads to the chinese committing the above-recorded acts of violence is the result of bad treatment.
the murder of mr. joubert in the bronkhorst spruit mine—for which, on november 20, four chinamen were executed in pretoria jail—who received some fifty stabs before[pg 96] succumbing, was due to starvation. the men wanted to find food. they were not allowed to eat apparently, and so, maddened by ill-treatment, overwork, and starvation, they committed murder. perhaps the most tragic part of the whole business is that one cannot completely blame them for such an awful act. they have grown to hate the white man. it is small wonder.
there are now nearly 50,000 chinamen on the rand, and in the breasts of all these men there seems to have been imbued a hatred and detestation of the white man. it seems almost as if these slaves considered it fair game to commit any outrage, however brutal, on white men and white women whenever the opportunity occurs. they are treated outrageously themselves. they get little justice from magistrates, so it is small wonder that they are indulging themselves in a sort of blood carnival of revenge.
discussing this question the other day with a representative of the london journal south africa, dr. corstorphine seriously declared that the difficulties attendant on the chinese labour question had been magnified out of all proportion to the main facts. "we must expect to find a few black sheep amongst the chinese," sagely observed the doctor. ye gods!—a few. it would be interesting to know what constitutes a "few" in the mind of the worthy geologist. dr. corstorphine would probably indignantly deny the existence of yellow slavery[pg 97] on the rand. but possibly he would admit its existence under another name, just as sir edward grey did at alnwick the other night. addressing his constituents, sir edward said he had never said that the working of the mines by the chinese in south africa was slavery; but the question he would put to those who said it was not, would be—"was it freedom?" that is a question that i would put to dr. corstorphine, mr. fricker, mr. e. p. mathers, and others of their kidney. if chinese labour on the rand isn't slavery, what is it—is it freedom? i pause for a reply.
