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The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy Joan M.
Ferrante Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Joan M. Ferrante
ISBN(s): 9781400853991, 1400853990
Edition: Course Book
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THE POLITICAL VISION OF THE
DIVINE COMEDY
The Political Vision
of the
Divine Comedy

Joan M. Ferrante

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

 Copyright © 1984 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom:
Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be

found on the last printed page of this book

ISBN 0-691-06603-5
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from
the Paul Mellon Fund of Princeton University Press

This book has been composed in Sabon

Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books

are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are
chosen for strength and durability

Printed in the United States of America by

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
 FOR MY PARENTS,
who taught me to love Dante
and to honor his long struggle
 Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ix

INTRODUCTION
Political Theory and Controversy
3

ONE
City and Empire in the Comedy
44

TWO
Church and State in the Comedy
76

THREE
The Corrupt Society: Hell
132

FOUR
Society in Transition: Purgatory
198

FIVE
The Ideal Society: Paradise
253

SIX
Exchange and Communication,
Commerce and Language in the Comedy
311

INDEX
381

Vll
 Acknowledgments

I WOULD like to thank my friends and colleagues, John W.

Baldwin, Edward P. Mahoney, John H. Mundy, Edward M.
Peters, and Robert Somerville, for reading parts of the manu-
script and for making very helpful suggestions and criticisms
at various stages of this work, and particularly Teodolinda
Barolini, for commenting on the whole and for encourage-
ment at every stage. Elizabeth A. R. Brown and Charles T.
Davis generously supplied needed texts. The readers of the
manuscript for Princeton offered extensive and valuable criti-
cism for the final revision. The National Endowment for the
Humanities provided the grant that helped me complete the
research and write the first draft.
All citations of the Comedy in this study are from the
Petrocchi text as presented by Charles S. Singleton, The Divine
Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970-75); the
translations are mine.

IX
THE POLITICAL VISION OF THE
DIVINE COMEDY

1
 INTRODUCTION

Political Theory and

Controversy

THE Divine Comedy purports to be a description of the state

of souls after death. So Dante describes it in his dedicatory let-
ter to Can Grande. But this refers only to its literal sense; alle-
gorically, the subject is man as he, by the exercise of his free
will, merits reward or punishment. Dante's focus is on men's
actions and their responsibility for them. Thus, though the set-
ting of the poem is the three realms of the other-world, and
though almost all the characters are dead, there is a persistent
concern throughout the work with what is going on on earth,
not because of the punishments that might result in the next
life, but because of the disruption being caused in this one. The
most violent attacks are directed against corruption in the
church and the secular state, and they are voiced through the
highest regions of heaven. Far more attention is given to public
issues and their effects on society than to personal moral ques-
tions, the assumption being that personal morality is virtually
impossible within a corrupt society. It is obvious from the
poem that Dante, whose political career was cut off by false
accusations and condemnation to death, who was forced into
exile from his own city but not from the political situation
which had troubled it, continues to be concerned with political
issues throughout his life and throughout his works.
The political issues of primary concern to Dante fall into
three large categories: the individual and society, city and
empire, the church and the secular state. These were major
topics for philosophical discussion and political controversy in
his time, and they occupied him in one form or another in the
Convivio, the Monarchy, the letters, and the Comedy. Like

3
 POLITICAL THEORY

the Monarchy, the Comedy is a political tract, although it is

also much more, and both occupy, or should, a position in the
church-state polemic of the early fourteenth century. The pur­
pose of this study is to analyze the political concepts expressed
in the Comedy in relation to contemporary history and theory,
and to define the political message(s) of the poem. This is
offered as one perspective on an unusually complex and mul-
tifaceted work. It is not meant to deny the importance of other
aspects—religious, aesthetic, philosophical, cultural, allegori­
cal—but rather to emphasize one that was far more important
to Dante than it has been to many modern critics.
Among those writers who do discuss the political side of the
Comedy, there is some disagreement about its relation to
Dante's other political works. Some critics see a change from
the Monarchy toward a more religious orientation in the
Comedy, though they do not deny the political side of the
poem. A. P. d'Entreves says that Dante deliberately subordi­
nates politics to religion in the Comedy, that Rome's mission
was to provide the seat for the church; but he also notes that
the Comedy is as much a political as a religious poem, and that
for Dante religion involved changing this world.1 Jacques
Goudet states uncompromisingly that the politics of the Com­
edy does not continue from the Monarchy, that Dante's rea­
sons for being a monarchist are quite different, and that the
Comedy has a fundamental religious orientation; but since the
shift lies in the empire's taking on the reformation of

Ά . P. d'Entreves, Dante as a Political Thinker (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952),

62-66. Paolo Brezzi, in "II Pensiero politico di Dante," Dante, ed. Umberto
Parricchi (Rome: De Luca, 1965), 149-58, notes that Dante gives greater
importance to the church and ecclesiastical problems in the Comedy than he
had in the Monarchy, but also that he did not give up the empire as the guar­
antor of justice in the world, or the independence of the two powers and the
parallelism of the two ends of man. A. Chiavacci-Leonardi believes that the
earthly end is clearly subordinate to "the other" in the Comedy, but the theses
of the Comedy are the same as those of the Monarchy, perhaps because in
order to achieve the perfect earthly order, one has to base it on something
absolute beyond the earth, "La Monarchia di Dante alia luce della Comme-
dia," Studi medievali 18 (1977), 147-83, particularly 157-58, 164.

4
 POLITICAL THEORY

the church, in its assuming an active part in the economy of

salvation, one could say that this mission gives the empire even
greater scope than it had in the Monarchy.2 Charles Davis does
not take a position on the question in Dante and the Idea of
Rome, though he notes that there is no contradiction between
attitudes in the Convivio and Monarchy and those of the
Comedy, even if there is a development, a difference in empha-
sis depending on a difference in subject. In a recent article,
however, he argues for the essential connection between eccle-
siastical poverty and the restoration of empire in the Comedy?
Most critics who concern themselves with the subject
emphasize the similarities in Dante's political views through-
out his works. Francesco Mazzoni, in his introduction to an
edition of the Monarchy and the political letters, proves the
connections by juxtaposing specific passages in the Convivio,
the letters, the Monarchy, and the Comedy* Like Mazzoni,
Felice Battaglia draws on all of Dante's political works to
make his points, assuming a continuity of vision in them.5
Arrigo Solmi says quite explicitly that there is nothing new in
the Comedy, that Dante's political program, from his acts as a
council member and his philosophical works, to his concep-

2
Jacques Goudet, Dante et la Politique (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1969), 8-
9, 147.
3
Charles T. Davis, "Poverty and Eschatology in the Commedia," Yearbook
of Italian Studies 4 (1980), 59-86. In Dante and the Idea of Rome (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1957), Davis emphasizes the unity in Dante's ideas of Rome, the
ancient city, the Christian empire, and the papal see. In "Dante's Vision of
History," Dante Studies 93 (1975), 143-60, Davis traces Dante's belief in the
providential pattern through history, and suggests that the veltro of the Com-
edy is to be a secular ruler, a precursor of Christ's second coming, as Augustus
was of the first.
4
Francesco Mazzoni, "Teoresi e prassi in Dante politico," in Dante Alighie-
ri, Monorchia, Epistole politiche, ed. Francesco Mazzoni (Turin: ERI, 1966).
Mazzoni dates the Monarchy 1314, after the deaths of Henry and Clement,
which allows greater scope in interpreting the political prophecies of the Com-
edy; if the Monarchy was completed after Henry's death, Dante must still have
believed in the possibility of, or at least need for, a secular leader.
5
Felice Battaglia, lmpero, Chiesa, e Stati particolari nel pensiero di Dante
(Bologna: Zanichelli, 1944).

5
 POLITICAL T H E O R Y

tion of the Comedy or the Monarchy, are one "compact struc­

ture." 6 Recently, George Holmes has written, "The main polit­
ical conclusions of Monarchia—the necessity for a universal
Roman Empire and a Church without money or jurisdiction—
are entirely in agreement with the views expressed in the
Comtnedia.'*7
Etienne Gilson does not address the question directly, but he
points out that even in the Convivio, Dante derives imperial
authority immediately from God and secularizes the church's
ideal of universal Christendom, though the state, however
independent of the church, is never independent of God. Gil-
son also notes that the Christian God of Dante is interested at
least as much in protecting the empire from the church as the
church from the empire.8 Similarly, Ernst Kantorowicz, as he
demonstrates the working out in the Earthly Paradise of the
goals posited in the last chapter of the Monarchy, and the
man-centered concept of kingship throughout the Comedy,
argues implicitly for the continuity of thought between the
two works. 9 A number of other critics primarily concerned
with the Comedy rather than with the strictly political works
'Arrigo Solmi, "Stato e Chiesa nel pensiero di Dante," Arcbivio Storico Ital-
iano s. 6, 79 (1921), 59: "Sicche il programma politico delPAlighieri, dagli atti
della sua vita civile come membro dei consigli e deH'amministrazione della sua
patria, alia sua prima opera filosofica, alia concezione della Comtnedia ο della
Monarchia, si presenta come una compatta struttura."
'George Holmes, "Dante and the Popes," The 'World of Dante, ed. Cecil
Grayson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980). He goes on to say: "The Dominican
defender of the papacy, Guido Vernani, who wrote a rebuttal of Monarchia
about 1330, was entirely justified in saying that Dante undermined orthodox
views not only by that book but also by the 'poetic figments and fantasies' and
the 'sweet siren songs' of the Comtnedia."
"Etienne Gilson, Dante and Philosophy, trans. David Moore (1949; reprint,
New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 147, 166, 301, 307. Gilson does say that
the essential postulate of Dante's thesis is simply "that natural reason is per­
fectly competent to confer on man earthly felicity in the sphere of action. This
sphere of action is the sphere of politics, together with its sine qua non, the
sphere of ethics. I cannot see that Dante ever said anything else: he hardly
stopped repeating this between the beginning of the Banquet and the Divine
Comedy" (304).
'Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies (Princeton: Princeton Uni­
versity, 1957), chapter 8.

6
 POLITICAL THEORY

emphasize Dante's concerns for this world in the poem: Erich

Auerbach, Allan Gilbert, Dorothy Sayers, Marjorie Reeves,
Karl Maurer, and most recently, E. L. Fortin.10
I hope to show in the course of this study that the political
views of the Comedy are indeed consistent with those of the
Monarchy, but that by expressing them in poetry rather than
in discursive prose, Dante is able to put them far more force-
fully. As Antonio de Angelis puts it, "the Comedy is to the
Monarchy what the proof is to the doctoral thesis."11 Before
'"Erich Auerbach, Dante, Poet of the Secular World, trans. Ralph Manheim
(1929; reprint, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1961; Allan Gilbert, Dante and
his Comedy (New York: New York University, 1963). Dorothy Sayers, Intro-
ductory Papers on Dante (London: Methuen, 1954), describes Hell as Dante's
picture of human society in a state of sin and corruption, Purgatory as the res-
toration of society that must come from within, and Paradise as the projection
of the regenerate world (112 £f.). Marjorie Reeves, "Dante and the Prophetic
View of History," The World of Dante, ed. Cecil Grayson (Oxford: Clarendon,
1980) focuses on the prophecies in the Comedy, which point to a secular savior:
"I take the view that the Commedia is in many ways a this-worldly poem, still
concerned with all that hinders the realization of the earthly beatitude, as well
as with the soul's pilgrimage towards the heavenly beatitude" (51). Karl
Maurer, "Dante als politischer Dichter," Poetica 7 (1975) 158-88, commenting
on the Comedy, says there is no doubt that Dante looks for the victory of a
strong German emperor or his vicar, the return of the pope to Rome, the sepa-
ration of church and state, and the union of Italian cities under the empire (179).
E. L. Fortin, Dissidence et philosophic au moyen age, Cahiers d'etudes medi-
evales, no. 6 (Montreal: Bellarmin, 1981), suggests that the political message of
the Comedy is paramount, that Dante exalts the empire and philosophy over
the church and religion, but that the message is hidden and can only be reached
through acrostics and complex allegorical interpretations.
"Antonio de Angelis, II concetto d'Imperium e la comunitd soprannazion-
ale in Dante (Milan: Giuffre, 1965), 183. Cf. U. Limentani, "Dante's Political
Thought," The Mind of Dante (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1965),
where Limentani suggests the Monarchy deals scientifically with one aspect of
mankind's pilgrimage on earth, the Comedy deals poetically with the whole
(130). Limentani also says that Dante does not alter his views in the Comedy,
that the Monarchy focuses on the regeneration of the empire, the Comedy on
the regeneration of the empire and the church (129). Bruno Nardi, who
thought the Monarchy was written before the Inferno, comments that the pas-
sion which pervaded the Monarchy erupts in an impetuous torrent of poetry
in the Comedy, which transforms it into a lucid prophetic vision, "11 concetto
dell' Impero nello svolgimento del pensiero dantesco," Saggi di filosofia dan-
tesca (1930; 2nd rev. ed., Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1967), 274.

7
 POLITICAL THEORY

turning to the Comedy, however, I would like to trace briefly

the major political issues of concern to Dante as they were
treated by more or less contemporary writers whose ideas he
most probably knew. Dante's views of government reflect both
the influence of Aristotle's Politics on thirteenth-century phi-
losophers and the contemporary political situation in northern
Italy and western Europe. The practical reality Dante saw was
the independent city-state, torn by factions within, pressed by
papal and imperial claims from without, but nonetheless an
economic and political force to be reckoned with. The theory
he learned in his studies presented the state as a natural exten-
sion of the individual, a necessity not only for survival, but for
peace and well-being. The basic political unit, in reality as well
as in theory, was the city. The problem was to find a way to
preserve the city as the essential unit and, at the same time, to
ensure peace and prosperity to all citizens. This could be
accomplished only by placing the smaller unit under the pro-
tective jurisdiction of a ruler who could mediate between war-
ring parties and control them; for Dante that was the emperor,
for papalists, the pope. Dante does not really discuss the prob-
lem of independent kingdoms, which had more practical
power in his time than the empire; theoretically for him they
are simply larger forms of the city-state, vulnerable to the same
destructive forces and therefore in need of the same universal
protector.
In the Monarchy, 1.5 and 6, Dante says that kingdoms and
cities have the same ends, though the kingdom has a stronger
bond of peace, and therefore the same need for a governing
authority; but all cities and kingdoms must be subordinate to
the rule of the single monarch, the emperor, in order for man-
kind as a whole to achieve its goal. In the Comedy, Dante does
mention specific kings and kingdoms, but only to criticize par-
ticular abuses of power (see chapter one).12 The papacy, of
12
B. H. Sumner, "Dante and the Regnum Italicum," Medium Aevum 1
(1932), 2-23, notes that Dante rarely speaks about the regnum, never uses reg-
num italicum in his writings, and frequently attacks the regnum he knew best,
the French.

8
 POLITICAL THEORY

course, claimed universal jurisdiction by virtue of the unity of

Christendom, a claim that was opposed both by the empire and
by the French monarchy, which also contested the supremacy
of the empire in the secular sphere. Although Dante's sympa-
thies are entirely with the empire—indeed, for him the French
monarchy presents as serious a threat to peace as the church
and is as fiercely condemned in the Comedy—the arguments
put forth by the French apologists are probably more influen-
tial in his thinking than imperial propaganda, but he twists
them to support the empire as the only secular authority with
a claim to universal jurisdiction. The Comedy can in fact be
seen as Dante's final word on the controversy between the
papacy and the secular powers, where all the arguments and
analogies of the historical conflict are translated into potent
poetic images (see chapter two).
The positive attitude towards the secular state, prevalent
among political theorists of Dante's period, is a significant
shift from the earlier Augustinian view that secular authority
was based on force and that government was a remedy for and
necessitated by man's fallen state. Moerbecke's translation of
Aristotle's Politics (c. 1259) made available to western Europe
a very different position, much more congenial to the expand-
ing states of the north Italian cities and western European
kingdoms. Although, as Gaines Post has shown, there are indi-
cations that society and the state are natural institutions for
twelfth-century writers, particularly John of Salisbury, and
these views were available in Latin writers such as Cicero, in
Chalcidius's version of the Timaeus, and in Roman law, it is
nonetheless Aristotle's Politics which gives the solid theoreti-
cal support to secular government as a moral entity and an
essential part of human life.13 Aristotle emphasized the social-
political nature of man: that he, alone among animals, has
speech means he is supposed to communicate, to associate with
his fellows; he is related to them as a part to the whole, and
"Gaines Post, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity, 1964), particularly 291, 301, 496-519. For the use of the word "state"
in the medieval context, see below, fn. 21.

9
 POLITICAL THEORY

the whole can offer him the best setting for a happy life. It can
provide him with both necessities and knowledge, which will
enable him to pursue virtue, the basis of happiness. In return,
he owes the community his support, his obedience and vir-
tuous action. In other words, it is natural to man as a human
being, not as a sinful creature, to live in society with others,
and it is advantageous to him to do so, not just physically but
morally. The state is a community that exists for the good of
its citizens, to maintain order and administer justice.
Thomas Aquinas, a central figure in Dante's Paradise, is
probably the most important Christian disciple of Aristotle for
Dante.14 Thomas makes it clear that man is intended by his
very nature to depend on his fellows: if he were meant to live
alone, reason would suffice for his needs as instinct does for
animals, but it does not. What nature gave other animals (cov-
ering, defense), man has to procure by his reason (clothing,
weapons), which he cannot do entirely for himself; man there-
fore needs the help and knowledge of others, not only for his
physical needs, but for stimulation to good and restraint from
evil.15 Man needs the help of other men in order to attain his
14
Albertus Magnus, Thomas's teacher, whom Dante places next to Thomas
in the circle of the sun, also commented on the Politics, and Siger, who appears
on the other side of Thomas, was believed to have written on it as well, though
no evidence of the work remains. See Martin Grabmann, "Die mittelalter-
lichen Kommentare zur Politik des Aristoteles,"\SifzK»gsi>eri£fcfe der Bayer-
iscben Akademte der Wissenschaften, Munich (19412), 24. Jeremy Catto,
"Ideas and Experience in the Political Thought of Aquinas," Past and Present
71 (1976), 3-21, suggests that Albert's teaching on friendship and on societies
had political implications which Thomas drew out.
15
These remarks are based on the De regno and the Summa contra Gentiles,
henceforth cited as ScG; the Summa Theologiae will be cited as ST in the text.
On man's need for the help of his fellows, see Thomas's commentary on the
Nicomachean Ethics (In decern libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum
exposttio, ed. Angelo Pirotta [Taurini: Marietti, 1934]); the needs that the indi-
vidual cannot furnish for himself he must get as part of a group, the necessities
of life from the domestic group, the necessities of living well from the civic
group. I used the Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII (Rome, 1882-
1979) for the major Latin texts and consulted the following translations: for
the De Regno, "On Kingship to the King of Cyprus," trans. Gerald B. Phelan,
rev. Thomas Eschmann (1949; reprint, Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1967); for

10
Other documents randomly have
different content
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 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 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.
 GOOD SPORT.
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 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 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 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
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 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.
"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 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 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.
 CHAPTER V
THE YELLOW TRAIL

The mark of the yellow man is upon the Rand. He has set his seal
upon the country, and it is to be seen in a hundred things.
Johannesburg was never an exactly heavenly place. A gold centre
attracts all the evil passions of men—draws to it, like the lodestone
draws the needle—every species of adventurer and world vagabond.
President Kruger knew how to deal with the cosmopolitan hordes
that thronged the streets of the "Gold-Reef City." He put a check
upon the importation of undesirables, and always remembered
before all things that the Transvaal belonged to the Boer people and
not to the cosmopolitan. The British Government might well have
taken a leaf from his book. But they have failed to do so. Instead of
making the interests of the Briton paramount, they have deliberately
allowed the Rand to be overrun by every type of Continental
adventurer.
So Johannesburg, up to the summer of 1904, was never exactly
peopled by a moral, law-abiding population.
The fierceness of competition, the keenness to make money rapidly,
seems to electrify the sunny atmosphere of the Rand, and to
produce a community that knows no law.
But since the summer of 1904 the Rand has suffered a change which
at one time was thought impossible; it has changed for the worse.
To the wild life in the mining city has been added the degrading
vices of the Orient. The Chinaman has brought with him all the
worst vices of life in a treaty port. Opium dens and gambling hells, in
spite of the most careful police surveillance, have sprung up. The
yellow man has made his name a terror. He has murdered, raped,
robbed, and committed every offence against law and morality. He
has literally terrorized—and still terrorizes—the Rand. The plutocrat
Jew walks the familiar streets in a state of trepidation; the Boer
farmer sleeps with a rifle by his side, and his farm house is
surrounded by spring guns and alarums. The life of no white man is
safe, and the honour of no white woman.
"The Chinese reign of terror continues on the Rand," cabled the
Durban correspondent of the Daily Chronicle on November 1. "The
latest outrage is that perpetrated by a gang of coolies, who attacked
a house at Benoni, injuring its occupant, Mr. Vaughan, and wounding
his wife with a razor. They ransacked the house and stole the plate."
These are some of the men whose praises were sung by Sir George
Farrar at a political meeting at the Nigel—and whose work as miners,
he declared, had proved "a great success." A "great success,"
perhaps, for the Rand lords, but at what a terrible cost to the
community of the Witwatersrand!
The South African News of Cape Town has rendered yeoman service
to the cause of those who are opposed—and their name is legion!—
to the Chinese labour question. The ridiculous contentions of the
Rand lords have been exposed again and again by the Cape Town
journal, whose fearlessness in grappling with the subject has been in
marked contrast to the majority of its contemporaries in the sub-
continent, and has earned, as it has deserved, the thanks of the
thinking portion of the community. Commenting on October 4 on the
continuance of the reign of terror on the Rand, "as it was bound to
continue," the South African News puts the case with unmistakable
plainness;—"Unless the Chinese are confined in such a way as the
mine-owners themselves consider fairly describable as slavery, they
are a menace to the public. Probably slavery would mean further
outrages; it is clear that torture of various kinds has been allowed on
the Rand, and it is far less clear that this is not the real cause of
some of the excesses which have shocked South Africa. Either we
must have slavery and exasperation, or we must have our people
exposed to the danger of murder, outrage and robbery; or we must
demand the expulsion of the Chinese, and the turning down of a
disgraceful page in South African and English history which has
brought good to no one, and only serves as another indication of the
strength to which avarice will lead men in attempting to bend nature
into the service of their own greed."
It was understood that the only conditions under which Chinese
labour could be introduced to the Rand was a system by which they
were kept apart, under lock and key, from the rest of the population.
But this system has broken down. Hordes of Chinese, as I have
shown, are running over the country. The utter futility of the
compound system is proved by the fact that as many as thirteen
Chinese laundries have been broken up by the police in one week,
only for others to take their place.
It was recognized by the Government that the Chinaman must not
be allowed to be a competitor. This was one of the reasons of
herding him with his fellows like cattle in a pen.
But the Chinaman broke loose. With Asiatic unconcern he sets all the
rules of the Ordinance at defiance, and calmly sets up a laundry in
the town, caters for custom, carries on his business just as if he
were a free man and not a yellow serf, until some frightened
cosmopolitan sees him in the streets, and in a state of fear demands
that the nearest policeman shall see whether the creature has a
permit or not.
John Chinaman, who, of course, has no permit, is thereupon
arrested, his laundry business comes to an abrupt close, and he
starts once again his task of gold grubbing for a shilling a day.
The amended Ordinance of August last contained this clause—
"It is provided that labourers being in possession of gum, opium,
extract of opium, poppies, etc., shall be liable to a fine on conviction
of £20, or in lieu thereof of imprisonment for three months, with or
without hard labour."
This ominous clause was rendered necessary by the steadily
increasing growth of opium dens.
Twelve months before, some few weeks after the arrival of the first
batch of Chinamen, the Government had passed what was known as
the Poison Ordinance. The object of this Ordinance was to regulate
the sale of opium. It provided that only registered chemists and
druggists might sell opium, and that every package of the drug must
be labelled with the word "Poison."
Of course, this was ridiculously inadequate, and it was soon found
that more stringent measures must be taken. It was decreed,
therefore, that opium could only be sold to persons known to the
seller, and on an entry being made in the poison-book. These further
restrictions were found perfectly futile. The sale of opium increased
enormously.
At a meeting of the Transvaal Pharmacy Board, the secretary of the
board read his report on the poison-books of the chemists in
Johannesburg. It transpired that an examination of the books of one
chemist had disclosed the following sales of opium on various dates
in July and August last—336 lbs., 18 lbs., 28 lbs., 7 lbs., 31 lbs., 48
lbs. All this had been sold to Chinamen for smoking purposes.
One lot was said to have been sold under a medical certificate, but
the doctor concerned denied all knowledge of such certificate. The
chairman of the board said, that while it was gratifying to know that
only three out of sixty-eight pharmacies along the Rand carried on
traffic in opium, the ugly fact remained that two of these chemists
had imported during August two tons of Persian opium for smoking
purposes, and an examination of their books disclosed that only a
few pounds were unsold.
In vain have the authorities attempted to put an end to this drug
habit. Recommendations have been made by the Pharmacy Board
that any chemist secretly supplying the Chinese with drugs should
be sent to prison, without the option of a fine. As if one evil were
producing another evil, it has been proved that not only are the
Chinamen demoralizing the Rand, but the Rand is demoralizing the
Chinamen. The majority of the Chinese labourers have been drawn
from the north of the Celestial Empire, where very little opium is
used, on account of the poverty of the people. The comparatively
large salaries which these labourers are now receiving enables them
to indulge their inherited taste for the drug to their hearts' content.
But in addition to this sale of opium by chemists on the Rand, opium
dens have sprung up all over the place. As soon as the police stamp
them out in one quarter they reappear in another. They are
accompanied, of course, by the usual gambling hells. These, too, the
police endeavour to suppress. All the money that they find is
impounded; heavy fines are exacted. But instead of decreasing they
increase. The most dangerous vice of the Orient is thus thriving
luxuriantly upon the favourable soil of the Rand.
One cannot blame the Chinaman for drugging himself. It is difficult
even to blame him for the outrages that he commits. The opium
habit, of course, is a step towards other habits. If the Chinaman
merely went to the opium dens in his off hours, drugged himself,
slept his celestial sleep, and then returned to his labours prepared to
work as hard as any cart-horse, the Rand lords would be the last
persons to forbid him these indulgences. But the opium habit is
demoralizing and degrading. It excites passions almost beyond
control.
I have already pointed out that Mr. Lyttelton promised in the House
of Commons that the Chinaman should be allowed to take his
womenfolk with him if he wished, and a great point was made of the
fact that the morality of the Chinamen would be well looked after. No
risks were to be taken. The Archbishop of Canterbury had to be
satisfied upon the point before he made his regrettable necessity
speech—"Show me that it brings about or implies the
encouragement of immorality in the sense in which we ordinarily use
the word, and, I am almost ashamed to say anything so obvious, I
should not call the so-called necessity worth a single moment's
consideration. In such a case there could be but one answer given
by any honest man. The thing is wrong, and please God it shall not
take place."
The Most Reverend Primate should be satisfied by now that the
system deliberately set up in the Transvaal has brought about and
encouraged immorality.
The Chinaman is always a frugal feeder, yet the strength of his
passions is notorious. There is no necessity to go back into the past
moral history of the Chinese race to contradict this statement.
Gangs of escaped labourers have attacked farm houses on the veld,
and where they have found no men, or where the men have been
overpowered, they have committed all the most bestial assaults
known upon the women and children. One white woman was known
to have been found raped, and dead. It is not safe for any decent or
respectable white woman to go near a Chinaman. The way he looks
at her is sufficient to raise the most murderous thoughts in the mind
of any white man present.
A deputation of miners asked Lord Selborne for protection against
the Chinamen, stating that the way in which they spoke to and
looked at white women was intolerable, and pointed out further that,
unless steps were taken to protect the white population, the most
horrible crimes would be committed.
That warning has proved true.
Lord Milner has called the sentiment, which has arisen in the breasts
of nearly all Britons, of loathing for the introduction of Chinamen
into the Rand, Exeter Hall sentiment. It possibly is the sentiment of
Exeter Hall, but it is to be hoped it is the sentiment also of all decent
people who believe in virtue and morality, and who still cherish a fine
chivalrous ideal of woman.
The Government have again and again declared that the protest of
the Opposition in the House of Commons was dictated purely by
party considerations—that Chinese labour was a good stalking horse.
That people really were concerned about the welfare of Chinamen
on the Rand they refused to believe. As a matter of fact it is really
the Government that are blinded by partisanship; they see
everything through a false medium. What they do not see falsely in
the Transvaal they do not see at all. For it cannot be that they really
are in favour of retaining on the Rand 50,000 Chinamen who commit
the most loathsome outrages on the white population. It is almost
passing belief that they should blind themselves to the fact that the
womenfolk of the Transvaal are absolutely unprovided with any
adequate protection against these hordes of Chinamen.
Every day, as has been shown, desertions grow more numerous, and
with every Chinaman that escapes the terror increases. No steps
have been taken for the protection of his morals. Not even the most
human elementary step of letting him bring with him his wife has
been taken. And but few steps have been taken to protect the white
population. The most ordinary commonplace foresight has been
wanting. The carnival of lust and blood now going on in the
Transvaal could have been prevented. It was bad enough to
introduce Chinese labour at all into the Transvaal. The case becomes
more damnable when they are introduced without those restrictions
which had been promised.
"I am opposed," said Herbert Spencer, "to the importation of Chinese
labour, because if it occurs one of two things must happen. Either
the Chinese must mix with the nation, in which case you get a bad
hybrid, and yet if they do not mix they must occupy a position of
slavery."
The British Government, at the dictation of the Rand lords,
attempted to make the Chinaman occupy a position of slavery, failed
to completely establish this system, and is allowing the Chinamen to
mix with the population. Thus we shall have in the Transvaal the two
evils which Herbert Spencer raised his voice against. We have
already slavery; we shall certainly have a bad hybrid population. The
degrading influence of the Chinaman is shown in Johannesburg.
White women are actually marrying them. They are even mixing
with the black races. The Transvaal was bad enough before, when
merely thronged with the scouring of Europe. But it will be a
thousand times worse before the last Chinaman is repatriated.
In a morning paper of November 2 I read that Mr. Lyttelton, the
Colonial Secretary, in a letter to Mr. George Renwick, M.P., defends
the action of the Government in regard to the employment of
Chinese labour. He refers to the demand for it in the South African
colonies, and says—"The opinion to which we came was based upon
evidence taken from many sources. That it was correct is borne out
by the fact that we have received not a single petition from the
Transvaal for the revocation of the Ordinance."
Let not Mr. Lyttelton lay such flattering unction to his soul. If it be
true, as he states, that the Imperial Government have so far not
received a single petition from the other side against the Chinamen,
he need only wacht een beitje—wait a bit—as they say in South
Africa. The petitions will follow. By and by they will be thick as
leaves in Vallombrosa. Does Mr. Lyttelton never read the daily
papers? Is he unaware, for instance, that at a special meeting held
at Krugersdoorp on October 10, a resolution was carried praying that
an end might be put to the importation of Chinese, and that the
Chinamen now on the Rand might be sent back immediately after
the expiration of their contracts? Does he pretend to be ignorant of
the fact that it was announced at the time that this resolution would
be sent to the Imperial Government through Lord Selborne? I cannot
believe it. Let Mr. Lyttelton note that the correspondent from whose
message I quote, significantly added—"If this way of protesting has
no result, it is intended to send a deputation to England to discuss
matters regarding the Chinese question."
Verily, it would seem that nothing short of a measure of the kind will
stir the conscience of Christian England to an appreciation of the
intolerable state of affairs now being endured in South Africa by
those whose lot is cast in proximity to the yellow man!
 CHAPTER VI
THE EFFECT OF CHINESE LABOUR. PROMISES
AND PERFORMANCES

The introduction of Chinese indentured labour to the Transvaal has

been a complete failure—(1) Financially, (2) Socially, (3) Politically.
The slave-owning ideals of the Rand lords has made the Transvaal a
hell. It has not even made it a paying hell. Every security connected
with the Rand industry has decreased enormously. It is estimated
that the loss of capital runs to many millions of pounds sterling. It
cannot be said in excuse that this is the result of general commercial
depression throughout the Empire, for almost every other kind of
security, except Consols, has considerably appreciated in value.
Certainly the record monthly output of gold has long been passed.
More gold has been produced each month than was ever produced
before, even during the pre-war period. But these record outputs
mean nothing. Even at 1s. 6d. a day the Chinese labourer has been
proved to be an expensive luxury. He costs nearly 50 per cent. more
than the Kaffir. The expenses of nearly every mine where Chinese
labour has been employed have gone up; the expenses of every
mine where Kaffir labour is employed have gone down.
Mr. F. H. P. Cresswell had something pertinent to say on this topic in
the admirable address on the Chinese labour question which he
delivered the other day at Potchefstroom. Dealing with the argument
that white labour was prohibitively expensive, and that in order to
work low-grade mines coolies must be employed, the indefatigable
fighter of the yellow man observed—
"I have picked out at random a number of mines, and I find that the
mine showing the best results, the only one showing other than very
bad results with coolies, is the Van Ryn Mine. This mine in the June
quarter of 1904 was working at a cost of 24s. 5d. per ton, and milled
30,000 tons in that quarter; they were then using native and, I
believe, no unskilled whites at all. A year before that they were
milling 24,500 tons, at a cost of 28s. 2d. per ton, with 1,000 natives.
In the June quarter of 1905 it worked at a cost of 21s. per ton, and
milled 60,000 tons. In that quarter it was using some 2,000 coolies."
Here is an instructive list which was compiled by the Pall Mall
Gazette on September 8 last:—
Ever since the beginning of the war, we seem to have been watching
in a bewitched trance for the coming of the boom. Some people
described Johannesburg as the enchanted city waiting for the spell
to be removed for the boom to come. It has never come; and it
never will come as long as Chinamen are employed to do the work
that can be done by Kaffirs or white men.
When the incurable idleness of the Chinaman and his cost of keep is
added to that 1s. 6d. a day, he is dearer than the black man or the
white man.
The Rand lord was anxious to procure cheap labour and subservient
labour. The white man could not be employed because he would
have held the management of the country in the hollow of his hand,
have formed trade unions, and insisted on proper wages and proper
treatment. Enough black men, if time had been given, would have
worked at the mines even at the reduced wages paid by the Rand
lords.
On this point, too, Mr. Cresswell, from whose Potchefstroom speech I
quoted just now, had something instructive to say. In dissecting the
official records, he observed—
"They show that between June 1904 and the end of last August—the
last month for which statistics are available—the number of natives
on the producing mines of the Rand had increased by 19,000, or an
average increase of 1,355 a month. Does any man here for a minute
really believe that if no Chinese had come here at all the gentlemen
controlling the mines would not have done exactly the same from
June 1904 to August 1905, as they did from June 1903 to June
1904? Does any one believe that in the latter period, as in the
former period, they would not have managed to bring an average of
a hundred more stamps into operation, and into the producing
mines, for every 1,085 natives at least that they added to their force
of native labour? If they had merely added on 100 stamps for every
1,085 natives, as they did up to June 1904, do you know how many
stamps would have been working in August 1905? They would have
had 6,503 stamps at work. Do you know how many they actually
had at work? They had 6,845 stamps at work, or a paltry 342
stamps more than if no Chinese had ever been imported!"
But the Kaffir could not be forced to work. There was nothing to
prevent him from throwing up his employment when he had earned
sufficient money and was returning to his kraal. The only chance,
therefore, so the Rand lords argued, of acquiring the voteless and
subservient labour that they wanted, was to get Chinese labour. The
Chinaman is certainly voteless, but he has proved far from
subservient—far less subservient than a Kaffir.
Belonging to a more intelligent race, the child of an old though
dormant civilization, he has known exactly how to deal with his
masters. Of the gold extracted from the mines so much goes to
wages and so much goes to dividends; the wages are spent in the
country, the dividends are spent in Europe. Raise wages and you will
render South Africa prosperous; lower wages and you will denude
South Africa.
The Chinese policy of so-called economy has ruined the small trader,
and turned the main stream of South African gold to Park Lane, Paris
and Berlin, with a thin stream to China. This country, which has
given so much for the Transvaal, has benefited least by the gold
mines.
The Kaffir does nearly 50 per cent. more work than the Chinese
coolie, and Mr. Cresswell has proved that for the actual work of
mining it is better to employ a white man than a Kaffir. These are
not fanciful deductions, but indisputable facts proved finally and
conclusively.
For almost two decades now the gold fields of South Africa have
been the most potent force in English society, a force more for evil
than for good. It is probable that we have lost more money in wars
which are the direct result of the gold fever than we have ever made
from the gold mines. If we were to estimate the cost of maintaining
a large military force in South Africa, the financial effect of the
unrest which existed in the pre-war period, the serious effect of the
Jameson Raid on the money market, the £250,000,000 that we
spent on the war, the millions that we have spent since in the work
of repatriation, if we were to compare these figures with the amount
of wealth extracted from the Rand, and made a simple profit and
loss account, it is highly probable that we should find ourselves very
considerably out of pocket.
And yet, as if hypnotized by the glamour of gold, we continue to
treat the mine owners as if they were some particularly favoured
class. We continue to submit to their dictation, which has proved so
ruinous in the past, and we deliberately disregard the voices of the
whole Empire in their favour. Such a policy is neither good sense nor
good business.
The introduction of Chinese labour into the Rand on the top of all
these grave financial and economical failures cannot be distinguished
for a moment from madness. It would seem, indeed, that we were
deliberately bent on destroying the Empire for the sake of the Jewish
and un-British houses in Johannesburg. "He whom the gods intend
to destroy they first make mad," is an ancient proverb, which seems
strangely applicable to those gentlemen who are responsible for the
management of our vast Empire.
They say here in Britain that the stories of gangs of murderers
roaming over the Transvaal are so many political fairy-tales, the
result of party feeling, the usual bait for the hustings, the stalking-
horse to bring into office one set of men and to throw out of office
the other. They say that the objection of the British public to Chinese
labour is a matter of hypocritical sentiment; that they really have
none of those fine ideals which they pretend to; that they have no
passion for liberty and freedom and the rights of man. Is not the
Chinaman better off than he is in his own country?
Such casuistry would justify the beating to death with the knout in
this country of a black criminal, because in his own country capital
punishment was carried out by the more cruel process of burying
him alive in an ant-heap to be eaten by the ants in the heat of the
African sun.
It has brought terror and fear into the Transvaal. And terror and fear
breed passions and vices which are a danger to every social
community. It emphasizes the cruelty and cunning in a man's nature.
It destroys in him that kindliness and sympathy—those "virtues of
the heart," as Dickens used to call them—which in spite of all are
still noble and fine sentiments to cherish.
Professor James Simpson, of New College, Edinburgh, who lately
visited South Africa with the British Association, takes the view, I
see, that ere long the more evilly-disposed among the Chinese will
have been worked out of their ranks, and the whole body will settle
down to "strenuous, if automatic, labour." It is devoutly to be hoped
that such will be the case, but up to the present there is nothing to
indicate that it will be so. On the contrary, everything points to the
fact that the Chinaman, emboldened by his successful efforts at
checkmating the representatives of law and order, will perpetrate
fresh outrages with increased impunity, and that the last phase of
the yellow terror will be worse than the first.
I had just written the foregoing when, happening to pick up an
evening paper, the following Reuter message from Johannesburg,
dated November 3, caught my eye:—

"Chinese Secret Society on the Rand.

"Johannesburg, November 3.
"Evidence given at the trial here of some Chinamen charged
with being concerned in the disturbance at the New
Modderfontein Mine, disclosed the existence of an organized
secret society among the Chinese called the 'Red Door,' the
object of which is the committal of crime. The members, who
are all of bad character, are sworn to render each other
assistance. The authorities are breaking up the society and
repatriating the ringleaders."

What has His Grace of Canterbury to say to this?

I have seen in a recent election in England a poster evidently
intended as a counterblast to the posters issued by the Opposition.
It is a poster, in which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman is addressing
an English miner, while in the distance two happy Chinamen grin
pleasantly in the clean, well-laid-out mine. Says Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman in effect, "My dear man, these men are robbing you of
your labour." "Not at all," replies the white miner, "for every batch of
these yellow men one white man is employed."
This is intended as a defence of the statement made by Lord Milner
on March 20, 1904, who then stated that he was prepared to stake
his reputation on the estimate that for every 10,000 coloured
labourers introduced there would be in three years' time 10,000
more whites in the country. In effect, the implication underlying this
statement was, of course, that for every yellow man introduced, one
white man would come into the country and find employment.
Six months later—on September 5, 1904—the Colonial Secretary
replied as follows, to a correspondent who wrote asking him whether
it would be now advisable for a man to go out to the Transvaal.
"Mr. Lyttelton," so ran the answer, "would certainly not advise any
one to go out without a definite prospect of employment."
So far from 50,000 white men finding employment in the Transvaal
since the introduction of 50,000 Chinamen, the proportion is
thousands below this number, and not even the poverty-stricken
state of Poplar or West Ham can compare with the impecuniosity to
be met with at every street corner of the Gold Reef City. There are
thousands of men in South Africa who have been lured there by the
prospects of the Rand in a daily state of destitution. The streets of
Johannesburg are crowded with unemployed. The evil seeds of
poverty and destitution have been scattered throughout the length
and breadth of South Africa. Business in Durban is in a parlous
condition. In Cape Town there are thousands of absolutely destitute
men, women, and children who have to be provided for weekly out
of funds now almost exhausted. Night after night these unfortunate
wretches are compelled to sleep on the mountain slopes, whether it
be winter or summer, and quite recently a man was found on one of
the seats in the Public Gardens in such a state of starvation—for he
had tasted nothing for five whole days—that he died an hour and a
half after.
This is the boasted prosperity which was to have come to the
country through the introduction of Chinese labour. And yet Mr.
Balfour writes to Mr. Herbert Samuel on November 22—vide the
correspondence in The Times—that he can see "nothing in the
condition of things to induce the Government to reverse a policy
which was recommended by an overwhelming majority in the
Transvaal Legislative Council, with the approval of the great bulk of
the white population."(!)
Many attempts have been made to justify the pledge made by Lord
Milner, that for every 10,000 introduced, 10,000 white men would
find employment. This is a side of the question which was admirably
put by Lord Coleridge in May last:—

The Government's policy seems to be that of the mine owner, or

rather to serve that of the mine owner—to get labour as cheaply
as possible, and, above all, to keep out the white man for fear
he should grow independent. Mr. Lyttelton, speaking at Exeter
on May 5, said:—
"The result of the introduction of Chinamen has been that 3000
white men are employed on the mines in addition to those that
were employed before the introduction of that labour, and the
result is that, in round figures, £500,000 has been received by
British artisans."
And so on. That is a completely misleading statement. I say,
and I think I shall show, that the employment of Chinese has
led to a decrease in the amount of white labour employed. Take
the year from June 1903 to June 1904. The proportion of white
men to Kaffirs during those twelve months remained practically
stationary, at one in six, in round figures. On March 31, 1905,
which is the date of the last Return we have, there were
105,184 Kaffirs working in the mines, and at the proportion of
one-sixth there would have been 17,530 white men. But the
number of white men employed at that date was only 16,235.
Following that proportion, if the Chinese had not arrived we
should have had at least 1300 or 1400 more white men
employed than there are now. In addition to that there are over
34,000 Chinese employed not represented by a single white
man, and Lord Milner does not hold out any hope that the
proportion of white men to coloured labourers will in future be
greater than one in fourteen.
Crime and outrage are all that this degrading policy of Chinese
slavery has brought to the country. There is an old text that says,
"Be sure your sins will find you out." But rarely does it happen within
the space of a year and a half, that a national crime meets with its
reward.
Immediately after the war one could not say that the Transvaal was
peopled by a happy, industrious community, but it was a veritable
heaven compared with the Transvaal of 1905; a veritable paradise of
plenty. This has been the social effect of the importation of Chinese
labour. The political effect is quite as serious.
It has been said that the ultimate object of our rule in South Africa is
the federation of all the states of South Africa into one
commonwealth. It was the dream of Cecil Rhodes that South Africa
should take her place among the commonwealths of the Empire. A
constitution, such as exists in Australia at the present moment, was
to be given to South Africa. The states of Cape Colony, Natal, the
Orange River Colony and the Transvaal—all free, self-governing units
—were to be welded together into one great self-governing Imperial
unit. The introduction of Chinese labour in the Transvaal has
rendered this impossible. Until these Chinamen are repatriated there
will be no commonwealth for South Africa.
In the first place, one of the essentials for such a federation would
be that each state should be a self-governing colony. The mine
owner knows, and the Government of Great Britain must know by
now, that once self-government is given to the Transvaal, Chinese
slavery would be at an end. Therefore the mine owners, who really
"boss" the Transvaal, would take care to suppress any agitation in
favour of self-government. As they refused the referendum so will
they refuse the Boer and the Briton the right of free constitution.
Hence the granting of responsible government to the Transvaal is
deferred, and hence the federation of South Africa is postponed
indefinitely.
Again, Cape Colony would never consent to the federation of the
Transvaal unless the Chinese labourers were repatriated. They have
stated their opinion in no uncertain language. They would have no
desire to enter into a partnership arrangement with a community
which was hampered with such a grave social problem as Chinese
labour. The Transvaal has done harm enough to Cape Colony,
without adding this last straw to the load of evil which the gold
mines of the Rand have bred for her.
This is one of the Imperial political disasters resulting immediately
from the importation of Chinese labour.
There is another Imperial consideration even more serious.
No one can read the protests sent to the Colonial Office by the great
self-governing colonies that fought in the war, without realizing the
gravity with which such a breaking away from the traditions of the
Empire has been received by these colonies. Had we known it was to
be war for the Chinese miners, the appeal made to Australia for men
and arms would have had a very different effect. This is the
substance of Australia's protest. Sentiment is a thing easily
destroyed. Not even the Government, I think, can realize the
indignation felt in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand by the
Indentured Labour Ordinance. It should have been the policy of the
Imperial Government to foster the tie that binds all the units of the
Empire together. Mr. Chamberlain has voiced this opinion times out
of number; our Imperial bards have sung it. The Government, which
has always boasted that it was more Imperial than the Opposition,
more wrapped up in the honour and the greatness of the Empire,
has made this sentiment a commonplace in every election speech.
And yet they have done more to destroy this bond than any other
party in the state.
Again, some attention should have been paid to the Dutch problem
in the Transvaal. No attention was paid to it. We hear little now of
the war. The Transvaal might have been ruled from the beginning by
the British Government. Now and again the English papers mention
casually the once familiar name of General Botha as having
addressed the Het Volk. But the Dutch problem is never considered
at all in England by the great men of the people. And yet it is a very
vital and important question. Next to the native question it is,
perhaps, the most vital question with which South Africa has to deal.
Throughout South Africa the Boers are to-day the most thrifty, the
most industrious, and almost the most agricultural section of the
community. Of their ability in war we have had a long experience. Of
their courage and patriotism we gained a knowledge at a great cost.
They outnumber the English population in the Transvaal and Cape
Colony. And South Africa will never be absolutely secured to the
British Empire until the proportion of Boers to the total white
population is reduced.
It should have been the object of the Government, immediately after
the war, to pack the Transvaal with Englishmen, to act as a
counterbalance to the Boer population. This would have been a
dangerous experience if there was no excuse for introducing such a
large number of Englishmen. But the excuse was to hand. A splendid
opportunity of reducing the population of the Boers to the total
white population occurred at the re-opening of the mines. Increased
use of white labour in the mines would have given to the Transvaal
that preponderating majority of Britons which the safety of the
Empire demands. The home Government did not take that
opportunity, and South Africa has been left in exactly the same
dangerous condition as she was after the war.
Instead of performing this obvious duty to the country, the
Government listened to the objections of the mine owners to
swarming the country with white labour, upon the grounds that they
would prove a disturbing element socially and politically, and agreed
to the importation of the Chinamen.
There is yet another grave political aspect of this deplorable
problem. As the British people are apt to forget that the Boers
outnumber the Britons in the Transvaal, so they forget, when
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