Life in Afrikanderland as viewed by an Afrikander: A story of life in South Africa, based on truthCIOS
History
Life in Afrikanderland as viewed by an Afrikander: A story of life in South Africa, based on truth
CIOS
Afrikaners; South Africa -- History -- Fiction
‘A census taken throughout the Civil Service has shown that
eighty-three per cent. are South African born, and seventeen per cent.
Uitlanders. Naturally, the latter are selected from those who can speak
the language of the country.
‘Before I come to the other three grievances, I must set right the
grossly exaggerated figures which are given in the English Press as
affecting the population in the Transvaal.
‘Mr Rhodes, in his cabled letter to the New York _World_, gives them as
100,000 English against 14,000 Boers! Now the
ACTUAL FIGURES
from quite recent compilations are:--
Total inhabitants, 226,028
Of which Transvaal born, 150,308
And Uitlanders of all nationalities, 75,720
------
Of these again are English, 41,275
And of all other nationalities,
including those from Cape
Colony and Natal, 34,445
‘These figures, which are correct, make the absurdity of the political
claim clear, but more clear still if you deduct from the 75,720
Uitlanders the 60,000 who dwell at Johannesburg and its mining
district; if you eliminate that one town from the total, you have
the Boers numbering ten to one against the Uitlanders throughout the
country. And would you have a country ruled in language, franchise and
education by one mining town.
‘To prove the correctness of the above statement you have only to
consider that there are on the
MILITARY REGISTER
over 25,000 Boers. Every one of them is married, and most of them have
children, the average being over four children, which gives the 150,000
souls.
‘Of these fully two-thirds do not understand English. It is reasonable
then to claim that the official language, that official documents,
shall be the language spoken by two-thirds of the people, or do the
women and children count for nothing? But although the official
language by law is Dutch there is not a single Government office in
which there is not English or German spoken to those who cannot speak
Dutch. In the Courts in the witness-box the judges frequently shut
their eyes to the use of the English language, and in the lower Courts
English is invariably spoken by English litigants.
‘Also as to the education the manifesto makes gross misstatements.
Though the State schools are, of course, Dutch, and the ordinary
State-aided schools are Dutch, the
GOVERNMENT HAS ALWAYS AGREED
to give to all English schools exactly the same aid as to the latter,
provided they will gradually, in the higher classes, introduce the
State language, so that in the lowest classes only English is spoken,
while in the highest class Dutch is to be the medium. The Germans in
Johannesburg have and pay for their own school, the English claim to
have their schools, in which, as Mr Lionel Phillips expressed it in
his speech, Dutch may be taught, perhaps, if there was a “little time
left,” maintained at Government expense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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