IsiXhosa Intellectual Traditions (IsiXIT) Digital Archive

WE are requested by a Committee member of the Agricultural Society to correct the statement in our last issue which would appear to have created an impression that Natives were not allowed to compete for prizes at the Show. The Show is a puplic institution, and Natives fulfilling the conditions are as free to exhibit as any European. We state this with great pleasure ; but we may say we granted it when we made our comments last week. The fact, however, remains that the Executive Committee of the Show impliedly ignored Native products by omitting to give them an invitation to exhibit through our own paper just as well as they did with the English speak¬ing portion of the community. THE attack of the Cape Argus on General Warren, on what appears to residents on the Frontier and Eastern districts a matter of little or no moment—the alleged breach by the General of a doubtful engagement between the Stellalanders and Mr. Rhodes—these attacks, we say, have been persistent and virulent, so much that readers of that paper have been a little mixed up in their minds as to 'whether the object of Sir C. Warren's mission were still worthy of support or not. The opinion of the country on the matter would seem to be that Sir Charles may have been right or wrong in slighting the Bower-Rhodes agreement, but this matter should be classed with the very many which come under the hackneyed phrase, ' In armis leges silent.' Wehave been religious readers of the Cape Argus for many years, but we do not remember that it ever took as unpatriotic and weak a side as it has in harassing and hampering the General commanding in the ill-fated districts of Stellaland and Land Goshen for having, in its judgement, erred in distinguishing between tweedledum and tweedledee—the treatment of Stellalanders and Goshenites. Graham's Town, Port Elizabeth, and Kimberley have held meetings to strengthen the hands of the General, and we agree with those who think that this can be done without the least abuse of Mr. Rhodes and those who think with him on this matter. WITHIN a very short time, shorter, perhaps, than most people expected, the position of the paramount Power in South Africa has changed. Not a few public men would have been, three years ago, horrified to find the question of the annex- ation of Bechuanaland, Zululand, and strips of country extended to the Zambesi considered as practical questions. Yet so they are. A meeting of Graham's Town citizens recorded its conviction last week that Imperial authority should at once be extended over Zululand and the entire coast line between East London and Delagoa Bay. The Zulus when they found the fabric of their own rude yet stable government broken, never ceased to ask the Home Government to take them over for fear that they might find themselves in the cruel mercies of the Dutch and other powers, not recognizing any rights as belonging to subject races. With painful stolidity Lord Derby has spurned these prayers. We now have a small Dutch Republic in Zululand with its rising town called, as if in mockery, Vryheid (Freedom). It is, as usual, not until some harm has been done, vested interests created, and, above all, Germany is in search of fresh fields that Lord Derby is beginning to move, as it is clear he is doing so from the subjoined communication in reply to a petition from Natal:— [Copy.] ' Colonial Secretary's Office, Natal, April 7th, 1885. SIR,—With reference to your letter of the 2nd February last, forwarding a petition signed by 2,300 inhabitants of this Colony praying that British jurisdiction should be extended over the whole of Zululand, or that the country should be annexed to Natal, I have the honour, by direction of the Governor, to request that you will inform the petitioners that the Right Hon. the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in acknowledging the receipt of Sir Henry Bulwer's despatch of the 3rd February last transmitting the petition to his lordship, has desired his Excellency to cause the petitioners to be informed that their petition has been duly received, and that the matter referred to will receive the attentive consideration of Her Majesty's Government Your obedient servant, F. S. HADEN, Assistant Colonial Secretary. Robt. Topham, Esq., Maritzburg.' After this we are compelled to think that after all the Colonial Office at Downing Street is nothing more nor less than a weather-guage of the state of opinion out here. IT must be clear to the natives that there is just now a scramble for them or their lands going on among powerful nations, and the choice lies between affecting a modus vivendi with the English Government or complete swamping by Germans or Dutch. There can be no doubt that our people will prefer England's Hag which represents the views of colonization which have been thus given expression to by England's greatest statesman of the past and present generation—Mr. Gladstone, who, recently speaking of Germany's pro- jects at colonizing, observed :—' A limitation is dictated, not by the law of nations, but by the law of humanity and justice, and also that they shall be con- ducted with due and full regard to the interests and the rights of all aboriginal nations. If Germany is to become a colonizing Power, all I say is God speed her. She becomes our ally and partner in the execution of the great purposes of Providence for the advantage of mankind. I hail her in entering upon that course, and glad will be to find her associating with us in carrying the light of civilization and the blessings that depend upon it to the more backward and less significant regions of the world THAT Natives are possessors of a talent for singing is now admitted on all hands, and that they have not as yet followed the example of their brethren in America, whose gifts in the same direction are marked by the Jubilee Hall of Fisk University, is perhaps due to a want of enter- prise. We have before us the accounts of two musical entertainments by Natives— one at Kimberley and another at Port Elizabeth—which have been patronized by influential inhabitants of the towns in which they have been held. Of the Kim- berley one, conducted by Mr. Pelem, we read in the Independent that ' among those present were Mr. G. G. Wolf, M.L.A.,Mr. Justice Jones, Mr. Bottomley, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Fletham, Mr. Calder- wood. &c.' The Mayor of Kimberley presided. At the close the Mayor con- gratulated Mr. Pelem upon the successful manner in which he had conducted the concert. The fault in the arrangements, however, was the length of the Pro- gramme, which was, nevertheless, religi- ously carried through. The Port Elizabeth one was, judged from the enthusiastic report, a complete success. The chair was occupied by the ex-Mayor, Mr. James Brister. The News says ' the choir sang with great precision, and it is evident that Mr. Paul Xiniwe (who acted as conductor) knew how to keep the dusky songsters under control. It goes on to say: ' One native lady, Miss Balia by name, possesses a voice of sweetness and power, and her singing of ' Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep' and 'Wings' was characterised both by expression and feeling, and she was deservedly encored. Mrs. Pritchard (wife of the respected pastor of the Church) tastefully rendered ' the Chorister.' During the evening, Mr. Isaac Wauchope (who was facetiously announced by Mr. Brister as 'Mr. Walk- up ') delivered a lecture on ' The Christianisation of the Natives.' A vote of thanks was accorded to almost everybody at the conclusion of the affair.'. So enjoyed was the singing that we under- stand some of the Europeans have given an invitation to the Native singers to take part at an entertainment which will take place in the Town Hall next month. IN justice to our courteous Traffic Manager we take the following from the East London Dispatch: ' Native Opinion has noticed the letter in a recent Dispatch stating that all natives travelling by rail- way must ' show a certificate from some competent person that they are free from small-pox ' and that ' the doctors charge 2s. 6d. fon these certificates, which the native has to pay.' With regard to this we find that the Traffic Manager does not demand a doctor's certificate, but merely a voucher from any householder or other person who is able to state that the native desiring to travel has not been in an infected place within so many days. This being so, there is no such hardship as would at first appear.' ' THE same paper,' the Dispatch says, ' devotes a leading article to the subject of Mr. Hay's retirement from the Cape Mercury, and suggests something in the shape of a testimonial to the ' noble editor ' from the natives. Such a recog¬nition of the way in which Mr. Hay has written on behalf of the natives would undoubtedly be graceful. But Native Opinion should not describe the principles of Sir Bartle Frere as those of ' blood and thunder,' or think that Mr. Hay is immaculate and that Sir Bartle was the vilest of the vile. In losing Sir Bartle Frere the natives los t a friend such as they may probably never see again, if they could only be made to understandit. But he was never allowed his opportunity.' Perhaps to meet the taste of our contem- porary we should have said the carry- ing out of Sir Bartle Frere's principles was signalized by blood and thunder.