Mr. Knight to Mr. Uhl.
Cape Town, February 18, 1896. (Received March 16.)
Sir: In my previous dispatch on the subject of the recent political agitation in the South African Republic I dealt principally with the events of my mission to Pretoria and the position in which the reform committee prisoners, among whom are several American citizens [sic]; to which at the present writing I have little to add. The preliminary examination received a check through one of the witnesses (the secretary of a syndicate called the Development Syndicate) called by the State refusing to answer the State attorney as to what he thought were the objects and intentions of the syndicate, the directors of the syndicate being members of the reform committee, including Mr. J. H. Hammond. The judicial commissioner before whom the examination is being held ruled that the witness must answer, and on his still stating that he did not know what he thought of the matter the commissioner sent him to gaol for twelve hours. The witness appealed to the supreme court and the judge upheld the appeal and ordered his immediate release. The [Page 577] State attorney then asked for a postponement of the preliminary examination until such time as he could lay the question before the court of appeal, consisting of the whole judicial bench.
Mr. Hammond is better in health and is still allowed to occupy a cottage outside the gaol precincts, though under a guard both inside and outside the house. The Government has also relaxed the conditions of the bail bonds so far as to allow the prisoners (with the exception of four or five, who are still in prison, and Mr. Hammond) to return to Johannesburg until such time as the examination is resumed.
I propose now to state as concisely as possible the various disabilities under which American citizens, in common with all uitlanders, suffer at the hands of the Transvaal Government, and which led to the recent political crisis. It will be advisable to define the meaning attached by the Transvaal Government to the word “uitlander.” An uitlander means any person born outside the frontiers of the Transvaal other than the sons of naturalized Transvaal subjects or such as had taken the oath of allegiance (under the law of 1882, which required a five years’ residence and a certain property qualification). The children of other than naturalized Transvaal subjects, though born within the borders, are also considered uitlanders. The law of 1882 has, however, since been removed from the statute book, and one requiring a fourteen years’ residence before the rights of citizenship are granted substituted. The conditions of the uitlanders have changed for the worse of late years. In 1855 the difference between the European and the South African born was felt, and the European was given a year to become acquainted with the manners of the people, and so qualify for citizenship, then with very little ceremony incorporated into the State.
In 1882 the period was extended to five years, and all newcomers (including subjects of the neighboring Republic, the Orange Free State) were included. The reason for this was that feeling ran very high immediately after the English war, and the people of the country were afraid too easy concessions in this respect might endanger the independence of the country. They therefore adopted the American period of five years’ residence. Had this law been allowed to remain on the statute book the uitlanders of to-day would have had a kindly feeling toward the burgher and the State would have increased in greatness and prosperity. The parliament thought otherwise. It endeavored to create two classes of burghers, viz, the old burghers and their descendants, with full rights of citizenship, and the new burgher. It reduced the term of domicile for the latter from five years to two, and allowed him to take upon himself all the burdens of citizenship, but took away from him all its most important rights. Laws were passed almost every year to restrict the rights of the naturalized new burgher, until he found that he was saddled with all the disadvantages of citizenship and none of its advantages, and, with the exception of the Hollanders * * * very few uitlanders throw off their allegiance to their mother country to put on allegiance to the South African Republic—for why? An uitlander may not vote for a member of the Volksraad (parliament), although he possess the unfettered freedom to pay such taxes as the Volksraad may impose upon him (and they amount to more than nine-tenths of the whole revenue). He may not sit on a jury. An intelligent uitlander, with thousands at stake, is considered less likely to come to a true conclusion from a complex series of facts than a burgher who absolutely does not even understand the language of the presiding judge and whose education does not, in many cases, extend to the signing of his own name. He may not be an official, not even a district [Page 578] surgeon. He may not convene a public meeting without first going to some official and getting his permission. * * * Further, they have not only the rights of citizenship denied them, but are heavily taxed for educational purposes, from which their children can derive no benefit, as the Government insists on nothing but the Dutch of Holland being taught in their schools—a language almost as foreign from the South African Dutch patois as English. Municipal control is even denied them, taxation of the necessaries of life is iniquitous in its heaviness, * * *
I have, etc.,