Infantry soldier respectively. Allowances are given at the rate of £18 a year for a horse and £2 for a bicycle. A Volunteer enjoys various privileges. He is exempt from poll-tax and service on juries. He travels at half-rates on the Government railways when in uniform and holding a pass signed by his immediate commanding officer. When living in or near towns he can purchase forage from the Government at reasonable rates. The pay of a Volunteer when on active service ranges from 30s. a day for a lieutenant-colonel to 5s. a day, with free rations and forage, for the private soldier. The system seems to be working excellently, and the service is popular. The many

Scots in Johannesburg are exceedingly proud of their Scottish Horse Volunteer Corps, whose headquarters are in this city. This fine corps is the re-establishment as a Volunteer regiment of the splendid Scottish Horse which was raised by the Marquis of Tullibardine at the suggestion of the Caledonian Society of Johannesburg, and even at that time the Marquis had it in his mind to effect the continuation of the life of the corps in its present form so soon as the Government should decide to establish a Volunteer force in the Transvaal. The Transvaal will soon possess a formidable little army of loyal British seasoned in war. The success of the Volunteer movement seems now assured. The railway men and miners are enlisting in numbers, and the directors and managers of the gold-mining groups have built horse-stalls for the use of Volunteers working on their properties, and also assist them in obtaining forage at cost price.

While I was in Johannesburg I conversed with many men-mining engineers, prospectors, commercial travellers and others who had recently travelled all

IN DEFENCE OF THE NATIONAL SCOUTS 209

over the colony. All these assured me that when I began to trek through the Transvaal I should find the people settling down quietly, even as I found them in the Orange River Colony; that here, too, British and Boers were working together in harmony, and that little bitterness was manifested, except perhaps among the 'Wild Boers' of the remote bush veldt. But, according to them, throughout the colony the National Scouts were regarded by the Dutch population with a hatred so intense that it was doubtful if they would be able to remain in the country. Even in Great Britain, if one may judge from what is said in some of the papers, there is a tendency to despise these scouts who fought for us and to deny them all sympathy. Do people at home realise that a cruel persecution compelled these men to take up arms against their own countrymen, and that they took this step in order to protect their wives and children? Of course, I cannot speak for the motives of all the men who joined the ranks of the National Scouts; but I have met some of them who have given me the following explanation of their conduct, and what they say is corroborated by the records of what happened. They had fought against us as long as there was any hope of a successful issue for their cause, and at last, realising that the continuation of hostilities was futile and could but lead to the complete ruin of the country, surrendered under one or other of the British proclamations, and were permitted to remain on their farms under our protection. But, as all know, we were unable to afford them the promised protection. War once more swept over the already pacified districts, and the Boers who carried on the mad guerilla war avenged themselves on their surrendered fellow-countrymen, destroyed their homesteads, carried off their cattle

P

and crops, maltreated them in every way, and in some cases murdered them. Here is an example of what the 'hands-uppers' had to endure. The Boers on one occasion came to the unprotected Sand Spruit refuge camp, deliberately murdered a refugee and his son, and opened fire on the camp, which was crowded with women and children. It was crime of that kind which drove many of the surrendered to take up arms on our side during the guerilla war, their object being to put an end to the terrible state of things as soon as possible. It was the Boers in the field who in the first place treated the 'hands-uppers' as an enemy, and they have themselves to blame if some of these men under so great a provocation offered their services to us as National Scouts. I found later that the feeling against the National Scouts was gradually becoming less bitter in the Transvaal.

CHAPTER XVII

THE NATIVE LABOUR QUESTION-NUMBERS OF AVAILABLE KAFFIRS-DIVERS VIEWS-CHINESE LABOUR-A MANUFACTURED AGITATION-POSITION OF

THE KAFFIR-SUGGESTED INDUCEMENTS TO KAFFIR LABOURERS-VIEWS OF THE MINE MANAGERS-BRITISH NAVVIES-COMPARATIVE COST OF WHITE AND BLACK LABOUR-THE PAMPERED KAFFIR.

THE native labour question is the burning one on the Rand at present, as, indeed, it is throughout South Africa. Those sentimentalists in Great Britain who are of opinion that their fellow-countrymen in this climate change their nature and degenerate into brutal slavedrivers apparently consider that this question concerns the gold-mining interest almost exclusively. The truth is that the condition of the Kaffir labour market affects every industry in the land. The prosperity of the entire white population, including the white artisans, depends on the sufficiency of Kaffir labour. The Kaffirs employed on the mines form but a small percentage of those who serve us in various capacities on farms, on railways, as servants, as carriers, and so forth. But, to deal with the Rand alone for the moment, it may be said that some of those who are now discussing this vital question on the platform and in the Press at home apparently do not realise to what a great number of their fellow-countrymen out in South Africa the full working of the gold mines signifies a livelihood. Tens of thousands of white men, directly or indirectly, depend on that industry, and to check the influx of native labour, as some theorists would like to do, would

bring destitution to the bulk of the white population of the Transvaal. Gold-mining is not like coal-mining. It does not consist merely of the extraction of the ore from the reef; for after the extraction comes the complicated treatment of the ore necessitating a vast amount of skilled labour that is beyond the capacity of the black man. In order to realise how various and far-reaching are the industries involved in the working of the Rand mines one should picture to oneself an English country crowded with coal mines, cotton mills, and chemical works.

Here are some figures that will make clear what the Rand means to the British artisans. Just before the war there were working on these mines 97,800 natives and 12,413 white men, the natives receiving in wages about £234,000 a month and the white men £332,620. The white men therefore were earning among them just under four millions a year, the European on the average receiving twelve times the pay of the Kaffir. Since then the proportion between the number of Kaffirs and white men on the mines has been reduced, in December last the numbers being 40,745 Kaffirs and 10,292 white men. Of course, in addition to those directly employed on the mines, there is also on the Rand a large army of other white men whose livelihood depends absolutely, if indirectly, on the prosperity of the mining industry.

Men hold a variety of views on the labour question, but on one point nearly all those who have carefully considered the subject are in agreement. This is that though white men can be employed in this country as navvies on railway construction and irrigation works, and even in the coal mines, it is an economic impossibility to employ unskilled white labour on the gold