Times' Pitso

Jeff Ramsay | Monday June 28, 2021 15:11

On July 20-21 of 1909, Colonial Secretary Lord Crewe held secret talks with the official South African delegates. In his opening remarks, he made it clear that members of the government “were prepared to see the Bill through both as to franchise and as to representation.”

Thereafter, most of the discussions at the meeting centred around proposed amendments to, and clarifications about, the Schedule for the future incorporation of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland.  A guarantee against the partitioning of the territories after their incorporation was accepted, but amendments proposed by the Resident Commissioners of Basutoland and Bechuanaland, which sought to institutionalise the status of the Chiefs and the Basutoland National Council were ruled out.

For the Batswana and their allies, the challenge was to get the imperial government to commit itself as explicitly as possible to respecting indigenous opinion on the matter. In this context, Gerrans succeeded in getting The Times (London) newspaper to publish in full a “report of the meeting convened by Mr Barry May in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, at which the subject of South African Union was officially discussed with the chiefs of the Protectorate.”

The said report largely consisted of full English translations of Dikgosi Bathoen, Linchwe and Sebele’s January 1909 Gaborone pitso testimony. On the previous day, the same transcript had been formally delivered by Gerrans to the Colonial Office as part of a new “Chiefs and people of Bechuanaland” petition against South African incorporation. The publication of the Batswana leaders’ views had a clear and immediate effect on public discussions.

One advantage the Dikgosi enjoyed was their credibility as spokesmen. Their appearance also challenged the racist stereotype that “natives” naturally needed the assistance of others in articulating their interests.

Bathoen and Sebele’s skill in elocution was also the subject of a follow-up article in The Times entitled “The Vice of Generalities” which noted that: “The speeches of these barbarian chiefs, even as reported in English, are far better reading than the speeches of most European statesmen.”

The same article went on to once more quote various passages, which were contrasted with “the coldness and staleness of modern civilised speech.”

Several British backbench and opposition MPs took up the Basotho-Batswana-Swazi cause. Amongst them was the pioneer Scottish Labour MP Keir Hardie, who first raised the issue of the Protectorates’ future during Parliament question when he asked the Colonial Office Undersecretary, Colonel Seely.

(Hardie:) “...whether in the concurrence of all parties in the measure native opinion in the Protectorates has been taken into account, whether in the event of the time coming when it is proposed to transfer the Protectorates from the Crown to the new Parliament the House of Commons will be allowed to discuss the matter before it becomes finally binding?” (Seely:) “as to the natives, we have taken every step we possibly could to ascertain what their wishes are. With regard to the second point, which is akin to it, as to the transfer of the Protectorates, I think I made it plain in my statement that the schedule to the Bill is permissive, that it arranges the broad principle in regard to native rights and immunities on which such a transfer shall be affected, if and when that transfer is desired by South Africa as a whole and is assented to by the Crown.”

(Hardie:) “Including the natives?”

(Seely:) “Certainly when I say South Africa as a whole I mean South Africa as a whole.”

In his response, Seely had sidestepped the question of whether the Commons would have the opportunity for discussion before any change in the status of the Protectorates.

But two weeks later, during the formal Commons’ debate on the South Africa Act, he, in response to further opposition queries, confirmed his government’s commitment to allow the house to express its opinion before any transfer.

In what subsequently proved to be a symbolically important promise, he went on to say that “the wishes of the natives in the territories will be most carefully considered before any transfer takes place.”

On May 31, 1910, the Union of South Africa came into formal existence.

This event coincided with the forwarding of three new petitions to “our Great Chief, Edward VII” from Bathoen, Khama III and Sebele, that once more laid out their case for the preservation of the 1895 status quo.  The appeals brought to a close the Batswana campaign to prevent their initial inclusion in the Union of South Africa, and the beginning of the much longer campaign to preserve their status outside the powerful settler ruled Dominion now established along their borders.