Home Blood on the Path Notes Book Three Chapter Notes - 3

Chapter Notes - 3

CHAPTER NOTES Snapshots in small bytes – 3. Sidelights to Blood on the Path - a saga of the founding of South Africa 100 years ago.   (Published by Springbok Press. All rights reserved) BOOK THREE - 1902-1930 -       George Washington’s influence on SA -        Merriman and the SA Press -        Schoongezicht -        The Yellow Peril -        Monypenny and the media -        Mailships on the Africa run -        Lord Bryce -        Planning a new Nation  -        Wreck of the Sea Foam        -        The Great War George Washington’s influence on SA affairs George Washington’s choice, which can be paraphrased as: ‘Choose the Constitution we have been able to agree on – or choose chaos’, was used to great effect by Merriman at a Cape Town City Hall meeting, the largest ever held up to that time.  Washington’s quote also became an oft-repeated shibboleth in London and in the capitals of all the colonies and republics in southern Africa, creating an irresistible momentum for adoption of the South Africa Act.    See Chapter 34 Merriman and the SA press A few newspaper editors took considerable strain in trying to support Merriman’s candidature for first PM of South Africa, and finally resigned on principle when -– through lack of editorial and other support - he failed to be elected. The editors deserved commendation for standing up for editorial independence . . . even if  ‘the deed was done’ and they had bowed to their own publishers’ political demands.  It is not possible to determine at this distance in time whether other newspaper editors, claiming total editorial independence, were in fact political lackeys or were simply sincere in their beliefs in preferring Louis Botha and his colour bar supporters, to Merriman and his seekers of all-race conciliation.  While racism was the main issue – it was not about colour.  It was about the alarming racism between Boer and Colonial that had been brought to battle-fever and remained rampant when hostilities ceased. In the years following Union, the SA press did what newspapers around the world did at the time – and still do: they catered for (or pandered to, depending on one’s viewpoint) the interests of their ‘target market’.  There have been many exceptions, but not, it seems, in 1912. Thus the English-language Press was blind to the  ‘Poor White Problem’, which was almost the exclusive concern of the Afrikaans Press as it involved boer families displaced from the lands in the Anglo-Boer War.   Newspapers of both languages were obsessed with the political tension existing between the two white groups. There never was much pretence of objectivity in their reporting, but at that point they focused strongly on attempts by both sides to dominate politically, and on the efforts by Botha and Smuts to bridge the bitter gap. Neither they nor their readers showed sustained interest in the ‘Native problem’. That was exclusively the interest of a few very small African publications catering for a small literate class. The Black Press, like its counterparts, was also blind to other group’s problems.  It failed, for instance, to take into account the political stalemate in politics created by the racism between whites. Understandably, the Black Press could see no urgent need to solve the Poor White Problem.            Much later, during the Apartheid years, the SA English-language Press sought the widest audiences possible, and catered for the interests of readers of all colours and all cultures.  By the 1980s, no less than one-third of The Star’s readers, for instance, were Africans, while the newspaper had more Afrikaans readers than the biggest daily Afrikaans-language newspaper (mainly because the Afrikaans newspapers were considered to be the uncritical Party Press of the Nationalist government). Large proportions of the readers of Natal newspapers were Indian and Zulu, and in the Cape, an equally large portion was from the Coloured community. But the English Press’s target market was white – as was the source of its advertising revenue. Schoongezicht There’s an old saying about the families of the Dutch settlers who came to South Africa in the 17th century: The Cloetes speak only to the van der Byls, and the van der Byls speak only to God.  Perhaps this piece of social gossip arose when the van der Byls purchased the estate of Rustenberg (originally Rustenburg), which had been producing wine since the 1680s on the seaward side of the majestic Simonsberg peaks. Albertus van der Byl bought this enviable property in 1810, and his brother-in-law Hendrik Cloete bought the neighbouring farm, Schoongezicht, the following year. Cloete - whose grandfather had embellished Groot Constantia manor house in the previous century with a giant, neo-classical version of Thibault’s Cape Dutch gable - copied the style with a new gable for Schoongezhicht. The farm changed hands a number of times before John X Merriman bought it in 1892 – and his brother-in-law, Judge President Sir Jacob Barry, bought Rustenberg two years later. Merriman and his niece’s husband, Alfred Nicholson, built up and registered a thoroughbred Jersey herd on Schoongezicht, then set out to produce wines to ‘rival the best of Australia’s. Today both Rustenberg and Schoongezicht are owned by the Barlow family who have been there for 60 years – longer than any other occupant. Simon Barlow has upgraded the joined wine estates to the best of world standards and continues to improve the Jersey herd after 100 years. He sees himself as “caretaker” of the quality that was envisioned by his father and those before him. “Completing my father’s vision was important to me,’ he says. “Now I have a vision for my sons, and so it continues, just as it has for the past 100 years. The Yellow Peril  The Chinese Labour dispute put in context the contradictory views about Black labour on the goldmines. Africans wanted those jobs that the Chinese had been given. This despite the fact that there are many sources recording the grievances of Black workers in the early days of mining. Most cite virtually every practice of the mines, including the migratory system – seen as a means of controlling profitable unskilled cheap labour - and the compound system - seen as a means to keep workers enslaved. In seeking to portray the reality of the time, I found it unwise to assume any circumstance to be as simple or as blatant as that.  Of course every labour practice was abused in the absence of organised bargaining, but the reality is that the notorious migratory system was insisted upon by tribal chiefs across southern Africa, initially to the detriment of the mine-owners and the benefit of tribesmen. Also, all workers were voluntary recruits, unless duped by profiteers in their own homelands. Though, again, without organised worker representation, they were undoubtedly underpaid and certainly abused. The compound, until the Chinese contract workers came, was seen initially by some as mainly beneficial to tribal workers arriving in a barren environment without food or shelter. Much of current and popular literature on the subject was propaganda. But it is now history, and the history of it carries a greater truth than its factual origins  do.  For the truth is that in time the migratory labour system made it easy for an all-white government to introduce ‘Influx Control’, and to adapt the northern Province’s Pass Laws to abolish the free movement of  African men in their own country and to forcibly remove them from ‘White areas’ . The system not only forbade freedom of movement, it damaged African family life to a point where it became a crime against humanity. The apartheid system was able to flourish for nearly 50 years, partly because of the migratory labour system practised in the north before South Africa was founded. See Chapter 31in Blood on the Path   Monypenny and the media Like Francis Dormer, William Monypenny [chapters 21, 24, 31] played a role that was   far more significant in the making of South Africa and the making of independent journalism than has been recognised by anyone. Unlike Dormer, he was yet another Englishman, temporarily seconded to ‘Africa’ in the hopes that he would protect the interests of his patrons. Yet while he sympathised with his Uitlander readership in the wildest and most tense of times, he embraced neither the unquestioning enthusiastic jingoism of his colleagues and peers – nor the greed of his goldmining supporters. You can read about him among the “real characters” listed under Blood on the Path in this website. Mailships on the Africa run Fascination with the era of elegant ocean liners has produced many books on the subject – more, perhaps, than books about the romantic era of clipper ships. There are even books today about single ships of individual shipping lines operating in the first half of the 20th century.   This intense interest is caused no doubt partly by nostalgia, but more by the stark contrast of 20th century steam-ships with 21st century airliners. The style and elegance; the leisure and pleasure; the social activity encouraged by so much time and space in luxury liners at sea – all contrast markedly with the cramped, frantic era of air travel. The result, to a degree, is the explosive growth in cruise ships in this century; though the older generation knows that casual cruise tourism provides none of the energy and excitement which purposeful sea-travel did in the previous century.                                                      See Chapter 34 Lord Bryce  “Jingoism, the worst form of imperialism, reached its apogee in Britain during the first years of the 20th Century.  It affected the course of history” –Lord Bryce. James Bryce, part of Merriman’s  “support system” abroad   was one of Merriman’s most valuable correspondents over a long period. He was able to provide wisdom as well as constitutional advice to Merriman as South Africa moved towards Union.  Lord Bryce became Chief Secretary for Ireland in the Liberal Government and, from 1907, Ambassador to Washington. He was author of the The Commonwealth of America, and became ‘one of few outside voices Americans would listen to’.  See Chapter 34  Planning a new nation  Merriman was told by correspondents in Ottowa and London whom he trusted that union was preferable to the expense of great duplication of powers in a federation of provinces. He was told that the Canadian federation, was designed at huge cost solely to cope with the animosities of the English and French colonials. He was told that Australia’s federal system allowed too much overlap of administration and led to greater corruption.  However, the original British plan for South Africa, conceived by a very different British government as far back as the 1870s had been for a federation, and this principle was promoted by Cape liberals and black leaders, but opposed by the new government in Westminster and the Boer Republics who wanted centralised power for whites in South Africa. Centralisation of power has always been attractive to those who possess some - or anticipate holding it.        See Chapters 33-34 of Blood on the Path,  and          ‘Creation of SA’ in this website.   Wreck of the Sea Foam Accounts of the tragedy of the fishing vessel Sea Foam appear in Have Wings, Will Fly  (see Bibliography). On a quiet almost eerie, misty day the boat capsized off the Cape Atlantic shore, killing eight men and leaving 18 children fatherless and without support. There was only one survivor, Achmat Achmad. On 20 July, 1948 the Cape Times reported: There was no wind. . . early in the afternoon a thick fog came down and it was decided to make for home. Achmad said: “A big swell struck the stern and swung (Sea Foam) round. A second big wave caught her broadside on and rolled her over. All the crew on deck were washed overboard.” Achmad found his legs entangled in a fishing line. He was dragged down by the weight of his sea-boots . . .(but) managed to kick free. When he reached the surface he saw Jaffa and another man also swimming, but the powerful seas soon separated the three men. Achmad said that (Armlen) Baker was in the engine room when the Sea Foam was swamped, and added, “When I reached the surface I could hear him shouting for help.  For more than an hour Achmad battled his way towards the beach. He was battered by the rollers and entangled in masses of seaweed (and) pounded against the rocks.  He reached the shore in a semi-conscious state and was dragged ashore by two anglers who had watched the life-and-death struggle.  A search for other survivors revealed only two lifebelts floating on the sea. Sea Foam was discovered washed ashore and undamaged. The other life-belts were found in the boat lockers. The wreck , a quarter of a century earlier, of Yusuf’s fishing boat, as described in Blood on the Path, is based on the above account.   The Great War The oral history of events in World War One, recorded in chapter 41 of Blood on the Path, illustrates a trite truism: History is not only powerfully more relevant than fiction – it is incredibly stranger. The accounts of WW1 in Blood on the Path deviate from historic record only in the names of those involved, and deviates only in one small fact.  The fact is that the diary scribe (on this point, Private Leslie Bingham 11 Platoon C Company, 1st regiment, 1st SA Infantry) was gassed at Passchendale, and not on the Somme. The site has been changed in order to record, in the context of a novel-history, the Great War peril of poisonous gas. The battle for Passchendale lasted three months, In those 12 weeks General Haig lost 250,000 men in the Flanders mud. To no avail. The portrayal of two South African soldiers in the same hospital at the same time with the same wound caused by a bullet through the jaw is also true.  The one soldier was Bob Grimsdell, later a famous golf architect, whose memoirs were published by Royal Johannesburg Golf Club at its centennial after WW2. The other soldier with a bullet-shattered jaw was the author’s father, whose first name is used in the book.