Central University Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This Item is subject to recall 
 
 Da te Due 
 
 »-tB 11995 
 
 
 FEB U^ 1994 
 
 ^ 'M'i\ 
 
 0139(7/93) 
 
 is— zo to — 
 
 UCSD Lib. 
 
 '■^OlEGO'*" 

 
 THE 
 
 PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 BEING A VINDICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE 
 
 AND A SHORT SKETCH OF THE HISTORY 
 
 OF CHARTERED COMPANIES, WITH 
 
 ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE 
 
 BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 BY 
 
 AN IMPERIALIST 
 
 r,^ ^^cUf^^ ^V'*'^^ 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1896 
 
 \,All ris^hts resetved]
 
 Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 London & Bungay.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES ... I 
 
 II. A SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 30 
 in. THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 79
 
 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 I 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES ^ 
 
 The troubles in the South African Repubh'c, 
 and the part played by the servants of the British 
 South Africa Company, have attracted much 
 attention to the principle involved in granting 
 Royal Charters to Companies which are in their 
 essence commercial. The most violent attacks 
 
 ^ By the expression "Chartered Company" is properly 
 meant any corporation (hmited or unhmited), association, or 
 group of individuals, to whom the Crown in the exercise of 
 its prerogative has directly granted privileges or immunities 
 not enjoyed by any other of its subjects. Within such a 
 sweeping definition can of course come any combination 
 having for its object anything that human needs require or 
 human ingenuity can devise, and so boroughs, universities, 
 colleges, banks, mines, insurance offices, and the like, have 
 often been incorporated under Royal Charter. But of late 
 years the granting of charters has greatly fallen into disuse, 
 and the expression "Chartered Company" has chiefly come 
 to indicate those corporations which have come into existence 
 for the exploration, exploitation, governing, administration, 
 and annexation of outlandish regions, with a view to the same 
 forming sooner or later, directly or indirectly, an integral 
 part of the British Empire. It is in this sense that the words 
 " Chartered Companies " will be used in the following pages. 
 
 B
 
 2 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 have been made upon the system of Chartered 
 Companies in general, and on the objects, methods, 
 and conduct of the British South Africa Company 
 in particular. No inconsiderable number of these 
 diatribes are traceable to the activity of that body 
 of men who curiously delight to profess and call 
 themselves " Little Englanders." They are not very 
 numerous, and perhaps not very influential, but 
 they are extremely voluble, and in a country 
 governed by talkers, it is possible that their 
 invective may secure a wider hearing than the 
 position of the critics deserves. The avowed object 
 of these politicians is to arrest with all the means 
 at their disposal the expansion of England. Some 
 of them, probably a minority, are prepared to 
 abandon our existing responsibilities, and to con- 
 tract the sphere of British political influence as 
 nearly as may be within the shores of this island. 
 Others maintain that the limits of our development 
 have been reached, and that every successive 
 addition to the area ruled by Great Britain is an 
 increase of burdens and not of resource. To them 
 the name of Empire is hateful ; and as a conse- 
 quence they are opposed to Chartered Companies, 
 to whose enterprise and persistency we owe some 
 of the chief additions to our Empire. They base 
 their objections to Chartered Comi)anies, not so 
 much on the ground that the princijile is obnoxious, 
 as on the consequences to which the existence 
 and development of these companies invariably 
 lead — namely, the constant exi'ansion of the 
 Empire. It is idle to remind these short-sighted 
 people that nature has confined the ancestral 
 estates of the English race within the narrow 
 boundaries of our sea-girt isles ; that our popula- 
 tion is . developing at a rate which, but for the 
 outlets provided by the existence of the Empire,
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 3 
 
 would be appalling ; that we cannot grow on 
 British and Irish soil sufficient of the necessaries of 
 life to sustain our population ; that we depend less 
 and less for our wealth on the products of our soil, 
 and more and more upon our manufactories ; that 
 foreign countries close the doors of their markets 
 more rigorously every day against the importa- 
 tions of British-made goods, by hostile tariffs and 
 bounties and all the artifices of protection. The 
 only argument they urge in reply is that to-day at 
 least there is room enough and to spare within the 
 present limits of the Empire, and that it will be 
 time enough to extend our borders when we feel 
 the pinch of overcrowding. But are these critics 
 sure that — if we held what we have now — we might 
 not find, when we sought more elbow-room, all the 
 available territory already pegged-out and appro- 
 priated ? It is a favourite saying of Mr. Rhodes 
 that the nations of the world are awakening to the 
 fact that the earth, though large, is after all limited. 
 On those who believe that to the Anglo-Saxon 
 race belongs in the remote future the supremacy — 
 a peaceful supremacy — of the world, it is incumbent 
 to see that we have sufficient extra room in which 
 to work out our destinies. But the Little Englander 
 cares for none of these things ; he has — to adapt a 
 famous phrase — neither pride of ancestry nor care 
 for posterity ; he lives for the day, and he does not 
 recognize the principle which is the bedrock of all 
 patriotism — that we must pay the debt we owe to 
 those who preceded us by securing the welfare of 
 those who are to come after us. With him then 
 there is no point in arguing. His opposition to 
 Chartered Companies is that they are, what in 
 effect they claim to be, the Pioneers of Empire, 
 and as he loathes Empire so he is the relentless 
 opponent of those who make Empire not only
 
 4 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 possible but inevitable. If Mr. Rhodes had not 
 been an av^owed Imperialist we should have been 
 spared nine-tenths of the criticism lavished upon 
 his aims, objects, and ambitions. 
 
 There is another class of critics of Chartered 
 Companies whose attacks may be dismissed even 
 more summarily. A Chartered Company is, as 
 has been said, in its essence primarily and neces- 
 sarily commercial. It is a trading concern first, 
 whose chief object — like that of a newspaper pro- 
 prietor for instance — is to make money. But as, 
 in the parallel case, the admission of this object 
 does not justify the adoption of discreditable means 
 to attain it, or on the other hand diminish the 
 immense power for good or evil possessed by a 
 properly-conducted newspaper, so in the case of 
 Chartered Companies the fact that they exist for 
 making money does not diminish the value of 
 their services to the Empire any more than it 
 warrants the adoption of improper methods of 
 filling their coffers. But as they are traders they 
 come into rivalry with other traders, and just in 
 proportion as they are successful in their primary 
 object, they incur the jealousy and dislike of their 
 less fortunate competitors, A great deal, for 
 instance, of the opposition to the South Africa 
 Company is attributable to the conflict of that 
 menagerie of " bulls " and " bears " which we call 
 the City. But as their dislike of successful Char- 
 tered Companies is not more disinterested than 
 that which one firm of grocers may feel for another, 
 it is unnecessary to examine the invectives of 
 Throgmorton Street. 
 
 But there is a third class of objectors, to whose 
 opinions far greater weight and respect are due 
 than to those of either of the classes already dealt 
 with. They are men who are by no means " Little
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 5 
 
 Englanders," who on the contrary glory in Empire, 
 and welcome the expansion of England. Their 
 objections are partly political, or politico-moral, 
 and they are entitled to serious and respectful 
 examination. Of such a class Mr. H. O. Arnold 
 Forster, M.P., is a very fair and most respectable 
 specimen. He is a very able, very intelligent, and 
 a very persistent man, whose foible is omniscience, 
 and who is very apt to be led astray by the attrac- 
 tions of a phrase, especially if it be of his own 
 coining. He approves of expansion, but he is 
 opposed to expansion by means of Chartered 
 Companies. And so he undertook in the columns 
 of a daily paper — remarkable, by the way, for its 
 Little England tendencies, tempered only by very 
 timid, occasional, and short-lived Imperialism — to 
 prove that Chartered Companies were bad in 
 principle and should be abolished. As Mr. Arnold 
 Forster is distinctly the ablest and most honest 
 representative of this school, the remainder of this 
 introductory chapter will be devoted to an examin- 
 ation of the various propositions from which he 
 draws his conclusions. 
 
 His disquisition proceeds from the axiom — as 
 he holds it to be — that " a Chartered Company can 
 only be established by confusing two things which 
 are absolutely irreconcilable, and ought never to 
 be associated, I mean the prerogative of govern- 
 ing men on the one hand and the desire of making 
 money on the other." And this leads him up to 
 the sweeping conclusion that " all Chartered Com- 
 panies must be bad." 
 
 There is one characteristic of Mr. Arnold 
 Forster's method of attack which commends it 
 to a critic. He is direct ; he does not mince his 
 words ; he does not provide himself with loopholes 
 of escape; he sweeps his argument into unqualified
 
 6 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 generalizations. " All Chartered Companies must 
 be bad." Mark, he makes no distinction between 
 charter or charter, or between the objects of this 
 particular company or that. A company whose 
 avowed policy it is to exploit and settle an un- 
 known and savage country, stands in his estimation 
 on the same footing with a company, say, o{ piibli- 
 ca?ii, to whom a Roman Government farmed out 
 the collection of taxes, regardless of extortion and 
 oppression so long as the Exchequer received its 
 stipulated share. He draws no distinction between 
 charters which reserve to the Imperial Executive 
 the right to modify or withdraw them, and charters 
 which give the company an absolutely free hand 
 to deal with the property as they will ; between 
 charters which establish vexatious, imprudent, and 
 injurious monopolies, and charters which render 
 such an abuse of power quite impossible. 
 
 There are no exceptions. No record of good 
 work, of Imperial work, can modify the sweeping 
 condemnation which Mr, Arnold Forster passes 
 relentlessly upon all Chartered Companies. For 
 such all-embracing generalization there must be 
 some very deep and convincing grounds. In Mr. 
 Arnold Forster's opinion there are. " I believe 
 that Chartered Companies in general, and the 
 present Chartered Company in particular, are 
 deadly enemies to our true strength, and are 
 indications of disease in our body politic." 
 
 And here we recur to the root objection, " that 
 a Chartered Company can only be established by 
 confusing two things which are absolutely irre- 
 concilable and ought never to be associated, I 
 mean the prerogative of governing men on the 
 one hand and the desire of making money on the 
 other. The right to govern men is one of the very 
 highest duties which can be trusted to a man or a
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARtERED COMPANIES 7 
 
 body of men. The pursuit of money cannot be 
 described in any such terms." Again no qualifica- 
 tions or modifications, but a point-blank, sweeping 
 assertion that the desire to make money and the 
 right to govern men are absolutely irreconcilable 
 and ought never to be associated. It may be 
 noticed in passing that Mr. Arnold Forster does 
 not deign to tell us how men in free communities 
 come by the right and prerogative to govern 
 others. Take for instance our Indian Civil Service, 
 of which it may be assumed Mr. Arnold Forster is 
 as proud as every other Englishman. The rulers 
 of men there acquire their right and prerogative to 
 govern men because in competitive examinations 
 they prove that they are possessed of greater intel- 
 lectual endowments — not necessarily of a kind 
 which demonstrate their fitness for rule — or that 
 they are endued with greater industry than their 
 less fortunate rivals. But does not the desire to 
 make money enter into the calculations of the 
 promising young men who present themselves year 
 after year for examination before the Civil Service 
 Commissioners ? Does not the inducement of 
 higher pay, or of "better prospects," influence 
 them in the choice of their spheres of govern- 
 ment .'' Or again, has the amount of his salary no 
 weight at all with the rising politician anxious to 
 serve his country as a member of a Government ? 
 No doubt he values the prerogative of governing 
 men more than his receipt of a comfortable income, 
 but are the two motives so absolutely irreconcilable 
 that they ought never to be associated .■* Or, to 
 take higher ground still, does Mr. Arnold Forster 
 really maintain that the desire to make money 
 ought to have no weight at all with men to whom 
 is given the highest prerogative of all, that of 
 spiritual influence, in determining whether this
 
 8 THE nONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 living, or that call, or this bishopric, should be 
 accepted or refused ? In an ideal world perhaps 
 these considerations would not and should not 
 count, but in this practical and working world they 
 do count in every department of life. Let us take 
 other callings. The government and education of 
 boys are hardly less important, and have nearly 
 as much influence on the history of mankind, as 
 the prerogative of ruling men. Yet no one blames 
 the owner of a preparatory school or a house- 
 master because the desire to make money enters 
 into his calculations, as well as the loftier motive 
 of moulding the minds of future generations. It 
 would be easy to multiply instances — indeed it 
 would be more difficult to find exceptions — of 
 cases where the desire to make money is indis- 
 solubly connected with higher motives. A captain 
 of a trading-ship is within his smaller sphere of 
 influence as absolute a ruler of men as the greatest 
 of the pro-consuls. But no one is so bound to 
 maintain a paradox as to assert that a desire to 
 make money is not associated with his prerogative 
 of command. But one other instance, and then let 
 this side of the question disappear. To influence 
 the literature of your day is as proud a prerogative 
 as, and possibly a far more permanent one than, 
 that- of governing men. Take a great publishing 
 firm, such as Messrs. Cassell, of which Mr. Arnold 
 Forster is, or was, a very distinguished member. 
 The firm exists for the purpose of making money 
 as well as for the prerogative of influencing the 
 minds of men. Of course everybody knows that 
 Messrs. Cassell would not publish a book which 
 in their judgment was calculated to deteriorate the 
 morals of their readers ; but, on the other hand, 
 would they with the certainty of loss to themselves 
 publish a book of lofty purpose and beneficent
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 9 
 
 influence ? If so, what would the shareholders 
 say ? In the very order of things those two 
 functions which, Mr. Arnold Forster asserts, are 
 absolutely irreconcilable and ought never to be 
 associated, are found reconciled and associated in 
 every department of life. 
 
 But it may be urged in answer to the instances 
 cited above, or at least to some of them, that the 
 desire to make money is the secondary motive, 
 the "prerogative" or "right" or "duty" being the 
 primary or determining motive. If the object of 
 this defence of the principle of Chartered Com- 
 panies were merely to score dialectical points 
 against Mr. Arnold Forster, it would be sufficient 
 to reply that that is not his point. Primary and 
 secondary motives are not only associated together, 
 but they are indissoluble, and cannot in themselves 
 be antagonistic; whereas Mr. Arnold Forster's 
 contention is that these two things, the desire 
 to make money and the right or prerogative of 
 governing men, are irreconcilable, and ought 
 never to be associated. But as the object of this 
 vindication is to show, not that Chartered Com- 
 panies are not so bad as they are painted, but that 
 they are in many cases absolutely indispensable to 
 the development of an Empire such as ours, that 
 plea may be waived. Indeed, it is quite possible 
 that Mr. Arnold Forster did not mean to press his 
 proposition in the absolute and unqualified sense 
 which his words undoubtedly imply. He says, " It 
 is perfectly obvious that every officer of the " (or a) 
 " Chartered Company has, and must have from the 
 necessity of his position, a double interest in every 
 administrative act he performs. In the first place 
 (for I believe that consideration comes first) he has 
 to think of the pecuniary interest of his share- 
 holders. In the second place, he has to think of
 
 10 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 the duty which he owes to his Crown and country, 
 of the honour of his race, and of the interests of 
 the community with whose future he is charged." 
 There is no need to multiply instances in assailing 
 this position, or it might be pointed out that the 
 "double interest" attaches to nearly every great 
 railway company, whose directors have to consider 
 first the interests of the shareholders, and then the 
 interests of the community at large ; to such firms 
 as Messrs. Armstrong, who in the interest of their 
 shareholders build ships and make guns for foreign 
 Powers, which for all they know may at some time 
 or another be employed against the Crown and 
 country to which they owe a duty ; it might even 
 apply to the position of a great firm of publishers. 
 But above all things it is strange that this argument 
 should come from a legislator familiar with our 
 system of parliamentary government. For, mutatis 
 7nuta?idis, Mr. Arnold Forster's objection to the 
 principle of Chartered Companies applies equally 
 to the principle of government by majorities. 
 Ministers, like directors of a company, "have a 
 double interest in every administrative act which 
 they perform." They have to consider the effect 
 of their actions upon their supporters in the House 
 of Commons and in the constituencies, as well as 
 "the duty which they owe to their Crown and 
 country." It is no fanciful comparison, as Mr. 
 Arnold Forster should know better than most 
 people. He has been most conspicuously and 
 most honourably connected with the continuous 
 and continuing efforts made by a section of the 
 community to secure an efficient navy. He is well 
 aware that time after time Ministers have shut 
 their ears to the most urgent appeals for an in- 
 crease of our force of war-ships, because an increase 
 of taxation is unpopular ; and that it is not till
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES II 
 
 popular opinion has forced the hand of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, that steps have been 
 taken to reform a state of unpreparedness which 
 every Minister in his individual judgment admitted 
 and deplored. It may be assumed that the drift 
 of this argument will not be misunderstood. It is 
 not an attempt to prove that two blacks make a 
 white. The object is to show that what Mr. 
 Arnold Forster lays to the charge of the principle 
 of Chartered Companies is really attributable to 
 the fallibility and imperfection of human nature, 
 and that the evils which he fathers upon the 
 principle of Chartered Companies may be equally 
 well affiliated to that system of constitutional 
 government of which he is an admirer and 
 supporter. 
 
 The argument may be pushed a good deal fur- 
 ther. " It has been said," writes Mr. Arnold 
 Forster, " and there is much to confirm the saying, 
 that ' the love of money is the root of all evil.' If 
 that is so, it must clearly be an act of doubtful 
 wisdom to make the love of money the preponderat- 
 ing motive in the government of a people." The 
 generalization conveyed in the text quoted is as 
 broadly true as that implied in the cynical sugges- 
 tion that in all cases of crime you must " seek for 
 the woman." Both propositions have their limita- 
 tions, for just as the latter does not imply that the 
 love of women is bad in all circumstances, neither 
 can the former be twisted into an assertion that the 
 love of money is in itself an evil. Wealth, after all, 
 is only condensed power, and a love of power, 
 within its proper limits, is as honourable and natural 
 a motive as any other that actuates mankind, and 
 has done more for progress and civilization than 
 most others. Power may be sought unscrupulously 
 and applied wickedly, but that does not prove that
 
 12 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 in itself a love of it is degrading or demoralizing. 
 And if we come down to the bedrock of things, a 
 love of money lies at the root of Empire. We 
 do not cover the sea with our fleets for the purpose 
 of counting them up, or with the object of showing 
 in a world-wide " ring " that we are better men and 
 wealthier than our neighbours. We do not annex 
 territory in different parts of the world merely for 
 the childish vanity of painting as much of the atlas 
 red as is in our power. We maintain our command 
 of the sea in order to defend our Empire, and we 
 defend the Empire that we and our children and our 
 children's children shall have elbow-room to find 
 scope for our enterprise and ability and markets 
 for the produce of our industry ; in other words, 
 that we may have opportunities for making that 
 money which, in Mr, Arnold Forster's opinion, is the 
 root of all evil. As a matter of fact, it would be no 
 unfair comparison to liken the British Empire to a 
 gigantic Company, of which the Imperial Executive 
 is the Board of Directors. The Board is paid not 
 only in specie but also in valuables which its mem- 
 bers prize more than money — reputation and power. 
 And it is expected by the shareholders that the 
 Directors shall do the best honest business they can 
 for them and their successors in title. This may 
 sound homely and prosaic after the standards set up 
 by idealists, but after all is it not our boast that 
 we are a nation of shop-keepers ? 
 
 It was perhaps impossible for Mr, Arnold Forster 
 to shirk reference to the precedent of the East 
 India Company. His comments on its history are 
 perfunctory enough, and can hardly have convinced 
 himself. It was from his point of view perhaps the 
 most unfortunate precedent he could have chosen 
 in support of his proposition that " all Chartered 
 Companies must be bad." In the first place, the
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 1 3 
 
 idea of combining a desire to make money with the 
 right or prerogative of governing men (at least out- 
 side their own warehouses) never entered into the 
 minds of the founders of the East India Company; 
 and in the second place, out of this combination 
 of achievement and error there grew that great 
 Indian Empire of which personally Mr. Arnold 
 Forster is as proud as the rest of us. It is true 
 that he has not quite gone the length of gravely 
 maintaining, with a sage legislator of the House of 
 Commons, that if there had been no East India 
 Company, there would have been no Indian Mutiny, 
 in serene oblivion of the simple fact that neither 
 would there have been any Indian Empire ; but he 
 goes perilously near this absurdity. What sense is 
 there in a very intelligent man telling us that it is 
 related that " the promoters of the East India 
 Company did many acts for which England had to 
 blush, and which made our name hated in India " .-* 
 There are pages here and there scattered about in 
 history which make Englishmen blush, and have 
 not made us beloved in Europe or in the world, 
 which are not attributable to the nefarious actions 
 of Chartered Companies, but to the deliberate 
 policy of those who have obtained the right or the 
 prerogative of governing men. As a matter of fact, 
 of course, the East India Company was established 
 with the view primarily of opening up marts in 
 that opulent East whose wealth was so much 
 exaggerated by our ancestors. They had no idea, 
 as they certainly had no intention, of combining a 
 desire to make money with the right of governing 
 men. Their ambition was confined to gratifying 
 the more primitive and less exacting desire. The 
 prerogative of governing men was forced upon them 
 by circumstances ; or perhaps it would be fairer to 
 say that the Company drifted into the position of
 
 14 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 founders of an Empire without seeking it, and 
 without desiring it. 
 
 Not here is the place for discussing the history 
 of the East India Company in its unsought capacity 
 as the Pioneer of Empire — that is dealt with ade- 
 quately enough for the purposes of this work in 
 the next chapter. But the evolution of a trading 
 company's enterprise into the groundwork of a great 
 empire was the work mainly of two men, Clive and 
 Warren Hastings, of neither of whom can it truly 
 be said that in their practice they dissociated the 
 desire of making money from the prerogative of 
 ruling men. In the days before it was recognized 
 that British ascendency in India was a great factor 
 in international politics, there was no effective 
 machinery to control either the policy of the 
 Directors at home, or the action of the men on the 
 spot, who were the real makers of India. It was 
 the absence of such machinery which facilitated the 
 occasional perpetration of acts which have caused 
 England and Mr. Arnold Forster to blush. But 
 the fact remains that out of the earlier proceed- 
 ings of the East India Company grew what Mr. 
 Arnold Forster describes as " a noble example 
 of what Englishmen can do." Candour compels the 
 admission that the opportunity of showing what 
 Englishmen can do was due as much to the breaches 
 of the rules of strict morality as to the enterprise 
 manifested by the original founders of our Indian 
 Empire. But it is enough here to say that that 
 Empire could never have existed but for the prin- 
 ciple of Charters which is so violently assailed, and 
 that a recognition of the defects in that Charter has 
 guided successive Governments in the limitation 
 imposed upon similar concessions. 
 
 The fact is that the objections taken by those 
 critics who assail the principle of Chartered Com-
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 1 5 
 
 panics on such grounds are based upon assumptions 
 every one of which can be demonstrated to be 
 untenable. These may for convenience' sake be 
 tabulated. They are — 
 
 (i) That men of such position as to justify their 
 obtaining a charter would insist on making money 
 for their shareholders without any regard to justice, 
 honour, or patriotism. 
 
 (2) That it would be to their interest rather than 
 to their injury to misgovern the country entrusted 
 to their charge. 
 
 (3) That they could find a sufficient number of 
 pliable and unscrupulous tools in the ranks of men 
 of ability and position to enable them to carry out 
 their nefarious schemes. 
 
 (4) That it is in connection with the duty of 
 governing men that Chartered Companies earn 
 the money which is finally to take the form of 
 dividends. 
 
 (5) That the grant of a charter by the Crown 
 relieves her Majesty's advisers of the responsibility 
 for protecting the lives, liberties, and interests of 
 all who claim the protection of the British flag, or 
 deprives them of the power to take such coercive 
 steps as that inherent and undesirable responsibility 
 may prompt. 
 
 To state the case so is almost equivalent to re- 
 futing the propositions upon which at bottom the 
 charges against the principle of Chartered Com- 
 panies are founded. But, as so much prejudice 
 and misrepresentation have been imported into 
 the discussion roused by recent events, it is as 
 well to examine carefully these fallacies, that the 
 public may judge for itself whether its interests 
 suffer from a devolution of parts of the duty of 
 exploiting the resources of the Empire to bodies 
 of experienced pioneers.
 
 l6 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 Let us take the first proposition, that to make 
 money /<?r fas et nefas is the dominating principle 
 of a company of English men of business. It is 
 an astounding proposition for Englishmen to lay 
 down in any case, and more astounding, as will be 
 seen presently, that it should be enunciated in the 
 case of a company holding a charter from the 
 Crown. If there is one thing on which we pride 
 ourselves, it is the high standard of commercial 
 morality that is observed in England. That there 
 are bad and dishonest companies is as bald and 
 pointless a truism as that in every community 
 there are bad and dishonest men. Now and again 
 a great scandal reveals the fact that a mighty 
 business house has forfeited the regard and confid- 
 ence which it enjoyed and on which it traded. 
 But the intensity of the shock caused by such 
 occasional revelations is a proof, not only of the 
 strength of the confidence reposed in commercial 
 men as a class, but also of the rarity of its abuse. 
 If you could never trust men to make money 
 honestly, you would never be surprised at discover- 
 ing that this or that combination of merchants or 
 traders had been gathering dividends by disgrace- 
 ful means. But, in the ordinary course of circum- 
 stances, the public is left to itself to form an opinion 
 whether the character of a Board of Directors is 
 such as to warrant a belief in their honesty. That 
 there is some carelessness in the facility with which 
 some men of position lend their names to shady 
 enterprises with whose methods of procedure they 
 have not familiarized themselves, is unfortunately 
 true. But no one denies that on the whole the 
 system of limited liability, which is responsible for 
 most of our great commercial companies, has con- 
 tributed largely to the increase of the wealth of 
 Great Britain, and that in only an infinitesimally
 
 tME PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES if 
 
 small percentage of cases has the public confidence 
 been abused. 
 
 But in the case of Chartered Companies the 
 guarantees against dishonesty are multiplied. 
 The Crown is properly very cautious indeed in 
 issuing a charter, which stamps, as it were with a 
 Hall-mark, the character of the companies enjoying 
 it. The advisers of the Crown will only grant a 
 charter when it is applied for by men of ascer- 
 tained character and position. Mr. Arnold Forster, 
 indeed, though he hints objections which had 
 better have been fully stated, admits of the Board 
 of Directors of the British South Africa Company 
 that *' it may be, and doubtless is, a most respect- 
 able body as far as business matters go. I dare 
 say it compares favourably with some other com- 
 mercial associations, and, for all I know or care, its 
 shareholders have ample reason to be satisfied with 
 its operations from a pecuniary point of view." 
 But how could either of these admissions, grudging 
 and reluctant as they are, be true, if the Directors 
 were capable of that dishonesty in money-making 
 which would alone justify the attacks made upon 
 them ? The light of publicity beats upon a Char- 
 tered Company more fiercely than upon another, 
 partly because, as has already been pointed out, 
 its very existence raises a crop of angry and disap- 
 pointed rivals, and partly because in the nature of 
 things it is invested with a semi-political character. 
 It is said of course that the Directors at home 
 are but figure-heads put in to satisfy the require- 
 ments of the advisers of the Crown, and that the 
 real controlling spirit is the masterful mind of Mr. 
 Cecil Rhodes. Assuming for the sake of argument 
 that that is the case, then the opportunity of the 
 assailants is the greater, for they have only to 
 show that in business matters Mr. Rhodes has
 
 i8 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 been guilty of dishonest or even of doubtful means 
 in amassing such wealth as he possesses, or in 
 managing the affairs of any of the great enterprises 
 of which he is a director. But no such charge is 
 raised or even insinuated, and it is admitted that 
 the possession of wealth has always been ranked 
 in Mr. Rhodes's estimation in a properly subordinate 
 place. 
 
 If then it is unlikely a priori that men to whom 
 is entrusted so great a responsibility as that of 
 controlling a Chartered Company, should lend 
 themselves to unfair or dishonourable practices in 
 business, let us see how an association in the 
 position of the British South Africa Company is 
 affected by the proposition that it is in its interest 
 to misgovern the country. Of course the pro- 
 position is never thus baldly stated, but it is 
 implied in every attack against the principle of 
 Chartered Companies. Now in no other case 
 that can be cited do the material interests of a 
 commercial concern and the general interests of 
 the community go so completely hand in hand. 
 For consider the position. It is admitted that 
 the maintenance of peace and good order, and 
 general contentment, are the outward and visible 
 results of good government, and it is precisely 
 upon the existence of these conditions that the 
 material prosperity of the South Africa Company 
 depends. They are not merely a trading concern 
 to whom it might be a temptation to use power 
 to compel those under their control to buy and 
 sell with them alone. Even in such a case honesty 
 is the best policy. But the position of a Chartered 
 Company, such as the British South Africa, is 
 entirely different. Its future, from a commercial 
 point of view, depends upon the measure of its 
 success in attracting settlers to the country. If
 
 THE rRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES I9 
 
 the regulations of the Company towards incomers 
 are harsh and unjust, if there is any attempt at 
 extortion, there will be a general exodus. In fact, 
 the success of the Company in securing absolutely 
 honest and fair government will be reflected in the 
 value of its shares. Bad government in this case 
 means deliberate mismanagement of valuable 
 property, the destruction of the one asset on which 
 they depend for the payment of dividends in the 
 future. The very element of personal interest 
 which is turned as a weapon against Chartered 
 Companies is, in the conditions given, the surest 
 guarantee that they will not misuse the prerogatives 
 granted to them.^ 
 
 The third proposition, which implied that it would 
 be easy to find pliable and unscrupulous tools, is 
 disposed of almost completely in the considerations 
 advanced above. If there were, as there is no 
 reason to believe there is, an ample supply of such 
 material, there would be no market for it in such 
 a community as South Africa. But the character 
 of the men who have already been employed, and 
 are still employed, is a proof that these fears are 
 ungrounded. Whatever may be thought of the 
 folly or madness of Dr. Jameson's raid, no one has 
 charged him or dares charge him with base, sordid, 
 or mean motives, and the fact that he is still the 
 most beloved man with the inhabitants, settlers, and 
 natives of South Africa, shows clearly what kind 
 of character can alone be employed successfully in 
 opening up a new country. The ne'er-do-weel and 
 wastrel of course flock to new fields, but either 
 their vices bring with them their inevitable con- 
 sequences, or their virtues have a chance and they 
 
 1 For an examination into the conditions of the recent 
 revolt in Matabeleland, which might appear to make against 
 these considerations, see page 134.
 
 20 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 rise on the stepping-stones of their dead selves to 
 nobler things. Experience suggests that the class 
 of men who will in the future assume the control 
 of the vast territories at the disposal of the British 
 South Africa Company will not differ in character 
 from those who built up the great Empire in India. 
 But there is this substantial advantage to be noted 
 on the side of this last addition to the inheritance 
 of Great Britain, that whereas India never was, is 
 not, and cannot be, a permanent home for those 
 sent to rule it and their children, there is every 
 inducement to the governors of South Africa to 
 settle in the home of their adoption, and so to root 
 their families to the soil. 
 
 The fourth of the faulty propositions tabulated 
 above is in some respects the most curious, and yet 
 the assumption of its truth lies at the bottom of 
 that argument against combining the desire to make 
 money with the prerogative of governing men which 
 permeates the attacks which we have lately seen so 
 freely made. As a matter of fact, the Chartered 
 Company cannot make money out of the govern- 
 ment of men. By the terms of the charter itself, 
 its powers of taxation are strictly limited. " The 
 Company," says Clause 22 of the Matabele Order in 
 Council 1894, "may by Ordinance approved by a 
 Secretary of State impose such taxes, including a 
 hut-tax^ in respect of the occupations of native 
 huts, and such Customs duties upon goods entering 
 the limits of this Order as are necessary to provide 
 a revenue for carrying out the effective administra- 
 tion of affairs within the limits of this Order." 
 There is nothing therefore to be hoped for by the 
 shareholders in the way of dividends from the 
 government of men or the administration of affairs. 
 
 ^ The hut-tax in Rhodesia is only los. a year as against 
 14^. in Natal.
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 21 
 
 And so tender is the care of the Imperial Executive 
 for the interests of the natives, that it is expressly 
 provided by Clause 23 of the Order in Council, that 
 " the Company shall not by Ordinance, nor shall the 
 Administrator and Council by Regulation, impose 
 upon natives any conditions, disabilities, or restric- 
 tions, which do not apply equally to persons of 
 European descent, save in respect to the following 
 matters : — {a) The supply of arms, ammunition, and 
 liquor, {b) Any matter in respect of which a 
 Secretary of State, upon the recommendation of 
 the High Commissioner, think fit to authorize an 
 Ordinance or Regulation." The very source from 
 which, in the process of time, the shareholders may 
 hope to derive dividend, is only so far connected 
 with the government of men, that unless peace and 
 order prevail in Rhodesia, the source will be 
 dammed up. It is from the disposal of property 
 which was indisputably possessed by the British 
 South Africa Company before the grant of the 
 charter, and which would as indisputably continue 
 to be theirs if the charter were rescinded, that their 
 future dividends are to be derived. By the sale and 
 letting of land and of rights to search for and to 
 work minerals the Directors believe that they will 
 secure a revenue sufficient to pay a remunerative 
 dividend. No powers conferred upon them by 
 charter can possibly increase the value of their 
 property, though here too, as has been said before, 
 abuse of their position might easily ruin their 
 business. If the price they charge is too high, if 
 the conditions they impose are too onerous, they 
 must effectively drive away those would-be settlers 
 whose presence is the only security they have for 
 paying dividends on the capital expended. But 
 the government of men will never enable the Board 
 to pay a penny dividend.
 
 22 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 There remains the last proposition, that the 
 concession of a charter deprives the Imperial 
 Government of responsibility and power in regard 
 to the people who find themselves under, or come 
 under, the rule of Chartered Companies. It would 
 almost seem as if the persons who take this objec- 
 tion to Chartered Companies had never read any 
 charter, and certainly not that granted to the 
 British South Africa Company. So strictly, and 
 indeed so properly, are the prerogatives of the Crown 
 guarded and reserved, that it is provided that the 
 Secretary of State can revoke at will the whole 
 charter, if in his opinion the Directors are failing 
 to discharge the duties entrusted to them.^ But 
 there are many gradations between non-interference 
 and so sweeping a measure as the withdrawal of 
 the charter. Every appointment under it that 
 carries with it authority over the lives and liberties 
 of those living in Chartered territory, is subject 
 to the approval of the High Commissioner, or the 
 Secretary of State, or of both. Nor can persons 
 
 ^ Here are the exact words of Clause 35 — " And we do 
 lastly, will, ordain, and declare without any prejudice to any 
 power, to repeal this Our Charter by law belonging to us 
 Our heirs and successors, or to any of Our Courts, ministers 
 or officers, independently of this present declaration and 
 reservation, that in case at any time it is made to appear to 
 us in our Council that the Company has substantially failed 
 to observe and conform to the provisions of this Our Charter, 
 or that the Company is not exercising its powers under the 
 concessions and agreements, grants and treaties aforesaid, 
 so as to advance the interest which the Petitioners have 
 represented to us as likely to be advanced by the grant of 
 this Our Charter, it shall be lawful for us, Our heirs and 
 successors, and we do hereby expressly reserve and take to 
 ourselves, Our heirs and successors, the right and power by 
 writing under the great Seal of our United Kingdom to 
 revoke this Our Charter, and to revoke and annul the 
 privileges, powers, and rights thereby granted to the 
 Company."
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 23 
 
 appointed to such posts be dismissed without the 
 ultimate sanction of the Secretary of State. In- 
 deed it is the exception and not the rule to find a 
 clause in the charter which does not reserve to the 
 Imperial Executive the right of vetoing every 
 action taken by the Administrator of the Chartered 
 Company. How then can it be argued that the 
 grant of a charter limits or impairs the privileges 
 of those who live within the sphere of its authority ? 
 Indeed it is far more easy for a British subject 
 living in Chartered territory to make his grievances 
 known, and to secure redress, than it is for one 
 who is domiciled in a Crown Colony. Her 
 Majesty's Ministers are always loth to call to 
 account Governors and their subordinates, but they 
 are by no means so forbearing in the case of com- 
 panies over which they have authority, and for 
 whose sensitiveness to rebuke they have no regard. 
 The recent transfer of the whole of the Company's 
 powers of police to the Deputy-Commissioner is so 
 striking an example of the ease with which the 
 Imperial Government can resume any of the powers 
 granted by charter, that it is unnecessary to labour 
 this point further. 
 
 But it may be admitted that it is possible to 
 imagine, and even to discover a case, in which all 
 the evils which certain people see in Chartered Com- 
 panies are developed on a large scale. We might 
 imagine her Majesty's Government handing over, 
 without a charter, a large and wealthy tract of 
 country, not to a company of Englishmen, but to 
 a band of foreigners. It is conceivable that they 
 might reserve for themselves no right to protect 
 the interests of the inhabitants with whom Govern- 
 ment had entered into grave and binding obliga- 
 tions ; that they might make no provision for 
 a sppervision of laws that would affect British
 
 24 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 residents or British subjects who might be attracted 
 by the wealth of the country ; that they should 
 give full licence to these aliens to combine the 
 desire to make money with the prerogative of 
 governing men, and permit the combination to be 
 abused to such an extent that the makers of the 
 wealth should bear the whole burden of revenue 
 without possessing a voice in its application ; that 
 no care should be taken in the alienated territory 
 that justice should be duly and indifferently 
 ministered, or that the most elementary guarantee 
 for the protection of life and property should be 
 taken. That — and worse — may happen in a district 
 retroceded as was the Transvaal, but luckily neither 
 that nor anything like that is possible in a territory 
 which, administered by a Chartered Company, is 
 still under the direct and immediate authority of 
 her Majesty's Ministers. 
 
 It is unnecessary to pursue further the arguments 
 that may be adduced in defence of the principle of 
 Chartered Companies against the attack made upon 
 them. If there is any validity or cogency in the 
 reasons adduced in the preceding pages, it may be 
 deemed that the case of the assailants has been 
 based upon misconceptions of the function and the 
 objects of Chartered Companies, and upon assump- 
 tions which can be demonstrated to be without 
 substantial foundations. Mr. Arnold Forster has 
 been taken as the best type of this class of critics, 
 because he is undoubtedly the ablest and the most 
 impartial of those who have constituted themselves 
 the opponents of what may be called devolution in 
 Empire-making. He is opposed to Chartered 
 Companies, not because he is a Little Englander, 
 but because he is not ; he has no financial axes to 
 grind, or financial jealousies to gratify, and above 
 all he has the great merit of having crystallized
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 2$ 
 
 his objections into a form which admits of direct 
 examination and refutation. His plea is the 
 strongest that has been put forward, and so far as 
 can be seen is the strongest that can be put forward. 
 If then that plea has been shown to be untenable, 
 it is not too much to contend that the case against 
 Chartered Companies on a priori grounds has 
 broken down. 
 
 But, as has been already said, it is not sufficient 
 to prove that Chartered Companies are not the evil 
 they are represented to be. If public sympathy is 
 to be enlisted on their behalf, it must further be 
 proved that they are positively an advantage, and 
 in certain conditions are indispensable. 
 
 A phrase was used above — " Empire-making by 
 devolution " — which roughly expresses the functions 
 of a Chartered Company. The task of developing 
 the resources of a new country is not one for which 
 Governments are adapted, and it is one which the 
 genius and traditions of the Anglo-Saxon race 
 have always left to a private enterprise. It is 
 sometimes assumed that such a work of exploita- 
 tion and development as has been undertaken by 
 the British South Africa Company could not have 
 been performed had a charter been withheld. Such 
 of course is not the case. All the commercial and 
 exploring functions of the Company's activity 
 could have been as successfully carried on had the 
 Directors been content to register themselves, as 
 they were entitled to do, as a Limited Liability 
 Company. That is made abundantly clear in a 
 letter which the Colonial Secretary addressed to 
 the Foreign Office on May i6, 18S9, on the subject 
 of the proposed grant of a charter. " In consenting 
 to consider this scheme," it ran, " in more detail. 
 Lord Knutsford has been influenced by the con- 
 sideration that if such a company is incorporated
 
 26 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 by Royal Charter, its constitution, objects, and 
 operations will become more directly subject to 
 control by her Majesty's Government, than if it 
 were left to these gentlemen to incorporate them- 
 selves under the Joint Stock Companies' Act, as 
 they are entitled to do. In the latter case her 
 Majesty's Government would not be able effectually 
 to prevent the company from taking its own line 
 of policy, which might possibly result in complica- 
 tions with native chiefs and others, necessitating 
 military expenditure, and perhaps even military 
 operations. The example of the Imperial East 
 Africa Company shows that such a body may, to 
 some considerable extent, relieve her Majesty's 
 Government from diplomatic difficulties and heavy 
 expenditure. In Lord Knutsford's judgment, such 
 a company as that proposed for the Bechuanaland 
 Protectorate, if well conducted, would render still 
 more valuable assistance to her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment in South Africa." 
 
 Here the initial principle of devolution is clearly 
 expressed. It would be impossible for her 
 Majesty's Government to exercise from Downing 
 Street effective control over 750,000 square miles 
 of territory in South Africa, except at an ex- 
 penditure which the House of Commons would 
 certainly refuse to sanction. Especially difficult 
 would such a task be if the country were mapped 
 out into spheres of influence of a hundred independ- 
 ent and rival companies. The establishment of 
 one great Chartered Company gave the Govern- 
 ment somebody to hang in case of mismanagement 
 or misadventure. Dr. Jameson's incursion into 
 the Transvaal is cited as illustrating the dangers of 
 Chartered Companies. As a matter of fact, the moral 
 is quite different. This is not the place to discuss 
 the merits or demerits of that famous raid. But
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 2/ 
 
 notice the consequences of the existence of the 
 Chartered Company ! The Government was en- 
 abled at once to fix responsibihty upon a body of 
 men, and to say to those who were concerned, " We 
 hold the Chartered Company responsible for the 
 acts done by their servants, and any injury in- 
 flicted upon the rights of others shall be made 
 good by the Company." Let us suppose that 
 there had been no Chartered Company, that 
 Rhodesia had been exploited by hundreds of 
 independent companies, owing no direct and 
 immediate obedience to the High Commissioner; 
 and let us suppose further that the leaders of the 
 Reform Union had recruited volunteers from every 
 quarter to come to their assistance on the receipt 
 of a written appeal. The battle of Krugersdorp 
 might have been written in the same way, but the 
 embarrassment of Mr. Chamberlain, both in appeal- 
 ing for the lives of the prisoners and in appeasing 
 the indignation of the Boers, would have been 
 infinitely greater. There would have been no 
 individual or recognized body of individuals who 
 could have been held responsible, and nothing 
 short of an armed force of British soldiers could 
 have prevented the residue of Englishmen in 
 Rhodesia from coming to the assistance of their 
 captured brethren. As it was,'and because there 
 existed a Chartered Company whose " constitution, 
 objects, and operations were more directly subject 
 to the control of her Majesty's Government," the 
 mischief caused was not allowed to spread. 
 
 But of course this is not the only or even the 
 chief advantage which the Imperial Executive 
 derives from the existence of a Chartered Company. 
 To exploit and develop the resources of a new 
 country demands the outlay of vast sums that 
 cannot be remunerative in the immediate future.
 
 28 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 And Governments are naturally reluctant to indulge 
 in expenditure which cannot be shown to be 
 urgently needed for the defence of the country, 
 and which is not likely to be immediately repro- 
 ductive. In India, where private enterprise exists 
 only to a limited degree, the Government is obliged 
 to build or guarantee railways, etc.; the consequence 
 is that the state of the exchequer is often an 
 effective obstacle to a policy of extension and 
 development, the utility and need of which are 
 universally admitted. Companies, such as the 
 Chartered, on the other hand, are content to seek in 
 large prospective dividends compensation for the 
 period of enforced idleness and unproductiveness 
 of the capital embarked in the enterprise. If the 
 Government of India builds a railway, it must pay 
 the interest on the cost of production out of every 
 year's revenue of the State, till such time as the 
 railway pays its own way. That burden is borne 
 by the natives. But a Chartered Company builds 
 railways, opens up communications, etc., at its own 
 cost, hoping to recoup in the future the present 
 unprofitable outlay. No Government can or ever 
 does open a country as rapidly as do companies. 
 It is not its special duty nor in its interest. 
 Ministers are patriotic, but they are also human, 
 and it is trying human nature very high to ask the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer of to-day to imperii 
 the popularity of himself and the Government to 
 which he belongs, by raising taxes to sow a crop, 
 the harvest of which will be reaped by a successor, 
 and, it may be, an opponent, some ten or twenty 
 years hence. But companies face this immediate 
 sacrifice, because those who sow are also those who 
 will ultimately reap. 
 
 To emigrants, of course, the existence of a 
 Chartered Company — if the provisions of the
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES 29 
 
 charter are so drawn as to prevent unfair 
 monopolies, such as exist, for instance, in the 
 Transvaal — is an unqualified advantage. Not only 
 is it in the interests of the company to attract 
 capitalists, large or small, into the field of their 
 operations, but in opening up the country, and in 
 the construction of railroads, etc., they have need 
 of men whose capital consists of their thews and 
 their brains. Such men can maintain themselves 
 while they are engaged in the work of pioneering, 
 and can make themselves familiar with the con- 
 ditions of the country and its prospects before 
 they ultimately settle down to make their own 
 fortunes. 
 
 There is of course one point which is sometimes 
 wrested into an argument against Chartered 
 Companies, and that is that sooner or later the 
 task of controlling vast territories grows beyond 
 the strength of a mere Board of Directors, however 
 individually capable. But the arrival of that day 
 is only the indication that the work of the Chartered 
 Company as a pioneer of empire is done. To 
 make it an argument against Chartered Companies 
 is as foolish as to urge that the nurse is superfluous 
 because the full-grown man needs her not, or 
 that the railway contractor need never have been 
 employed, since his work ceases with the completion 
 of the line.
 
 11 
 
 A SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 
 
 We may search in vain through the pages of 
 ancient history for any trace of a Government 
 poHcy to encourage trade or territorial extension 
 abroad by granting immunities, privileges, or mono- 
 polies, to a private band of explorers or adven- 
 turers. That the trade company existed in antiquity 
 we know, but the reasons why it remained so long 
 undeveloped are not difficult to find. The area of 
 mercantile business was narrow ; geographical dis- 
 coveries were neither permanent nor considerable ; 
 modes of travelling and communication were 
 difficult, few, and unsafe, and Governments had 
 neither any means nor any interest to concern 
 themselves much with the fate or fortunes of 
 individuals when once they had quitted the father- 
 land. In the Middle Ages, however, the sovereigns 
 of nearly all European countries began to see the 
 enormous advantages, to themselves and their 
 countries, that might be derived from encouraging 
 trade and commerce beyond the limits of their 
 own dominions, and accordingly the charter was 
 brought into play for the purpose of conferring a 
 royal sanction on foreign enterprise, and also in 
 order to stamp the acts and achievements of the 
 adventurers with the moral support and prestige 
 always to be found in Crown protection and coun- 
 
 30
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 3 1 
 
 tenance. The movement, of course, was but an 
 extension of the principle of the trade-guilds. 
 These originally were only private corporations 
 banded together for self-protection in their trade 
 interests. As soon as they received charters, not 
 only were their immunities, privileges, and mono- 
 polies confirmed, but they were forced to enter 
 into great obligations and perform important 
 duties in return. In 1327 a charter was given to 
 the "Goldsmiths," in 1393 to the "Mercers," in 
 1407 to the " Haberdashers," in 1433 to the "Fish- 
 mongers," in 1437 to the " Vintners," and in 1466 
 to the " Merchant Taylors." Quietly, and side by 
 side with these and others of a like nature, there 
 had been growing up corporations of a less 
 restricted character, consisting principally of mer- 
 cantile and other adventurers. To such companies, 
 which had in view their own private emolument, 
 great privileges and monopolies were given, in order 
 to induce them to hazard large sums in furtherance 
 of foreign schemes, which would, it was supposed, 
 at the same time be beneficial to the Government 
 and the nation ; and which, without charters of 
 incorporation conferring exceptional privileges and 
 protection both at home and in the countries to be 
 explored, would never have been undertaken. 
 There is little doubt that the first " Chartered 
 Companies," in the sense in which that expression 
 is used in these pages, were little more than foreign 
 trading companies. The charter was always granted 
 ostensibly for the purposes of encouraging explor- 
 ation, colonization, and the spread of national 
 interests generally. But little could have seriously 
 been expected in these directions in early times, 
 seeing that when Chartered Companies first sprang 
 into existence England had only just emerged from 
 the civil wars, and had neither men nor money to
 
 \y 
 
 32 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 send abroad. Later on, it is safe to say that, what- 
 ever may have been the greed of the charterers or 
 the selfishness of the monarch, Ministers invariably 
 recognized in advising a grant that it was the 
 country which was primarily to be benefited ; and 
 no charter has ever been granted except on the 
 assumption"that great national advantages would 
 ensue. 
 
 Before approaching the history of Chartered 
 Companies in this country in any detail, it will be 
 as well perhaps to define and explain what a 
 charter really is, and what are its chief features 
 [and characteristics. A charter is an instrument 
 ■ in writing issued directly from the Crown, and 
 ' under its hand and seal, conferring some special 
 \ privilege or immunity upon a specified individual 
 or group of individuals. Used originally as a 
 mode of conveying lands, and even as a means of 
 legislation by the sovereign, it is only in the sense 
 given above that it now survives. A charter then 
 to a company sets out what privileges and advan- 
 tages the corporation is to enjoy ; what is to be 
 the extent and duration of such privileges ; what 
 duties, services, or payments are expected in return, 
 and in what manner and for what reasons such 
 privileges may lapse or be determined. A charter 
 can only be obtained on petition to the Crown, 
 setting out the aims and objects of the Company, 
 and showing how and how far the same are likely 
 to be effected if the privileges prayed for are 
 conceded. The grant can never give more than is 
 asked for, although it frequently, for obvious 
 reasons, falls short of all that is demanded ; and 
 even in conceding the privileges sought, the grant 
 is often hampered with conditions and restrictions 
 imposed for the purpose of guaranteeing to the 
 fullest extent the good faith and good conduct of
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 33 
 
 those on whom the exceptional advantages are 
 conferred. Just as the granting of a charter 
 depends on the will of the sovereign, so does its 
 withdrawal, annulment, or cancellation — but it is 
 safe to say that for two centuries past no charter 
 has ever been revoked except on good cause 
 shown, and for some reason manifestly attesting 
 that the interests of the State demand such a 
 course. Apart from, and in addition to, anything 
 that may appear in the instrument itself, a charter 
 may be destroyed by surrender, i. e. by the grantees 
 voluntarily yielding back the privileges they had 
 obtained ; by effiux of time, where the grant has 
 only been for a specified period ; by a special 
 statute passed to provide for its compulsory 
 extinction ; or on the ground of misconduct. 
 
 Before actually entering on. the history of 
 Chartered Companies, it is necessary to say that 
 there have been two forms of them : those which 
 were called " regulated," and those which went by 
 the name of "joint-stock." The former was the 
 earlier and for many years the more general ; and 
 although at the present time no single instance 
 survives, it is desirable to explain them in order 
 to understand clearly the changes that later took 
 place. 
 
 " Regulated " companies resembled in every 
 respect the trading-guild so common in the cities 
 and towns of all the different countries of Europe, 
 and were a kind of extended monopoly of the 
 same kind. Just as no inhabitant of a town could 
 follow an incorporated trade without first obtain- 
 ing his freedom in the corporation, so, in nearly all 
 cases, no subject of the State could lawfully explore 
 or carry on any branch of foreign trade for which 
 a chartered and " regulated " company was estab- 
 lished without first becoming a member of the 
 
 D
 
 34 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 company. On so doing the trader paid a fixed fe5 
 for the Hcence to carry on at his personal risk the 
 business in his district which the company under- 
 took to promote and protect. The fund raised out 
 of hcences went to pay for the protection afforded 
 to traders, and for the remuneration of consuls at 
 foreign ports. Although in the present day there 
 would doubtless be much to criticize in the 
 " regulated " companies, it is practically impossible 
 that any other system could have prevailed in their 
 time, and no student of this page of the nation's 
 commercial history will repudiate the immense 
 debt of gratitude that is due to the early " regu- 
 lated" chartered companies. At the time when 
 these companies were founded, our country was 
 practically destitute of a naval force. The very 
 ships that opposed the Armada were mostly the 
 property of private persons, hurriedly armed with 
 such munitions of war as could be thrown on 
 board. The Crown had no definite or abundant 
 revenue in those days, and depended very often on 
 arbitrary methods to make both ends meet. Every- 
 thing in time of attack depended on private sub- 
 scriptions, and it is interesting to read how we 
 prepared to meet our great Spanish foes by accept- 
 ing gifts from private persons and corporations — 
 how one brought guns, another powder, another 
 lead, others food and provisions, and so forth. How 
 could the State then defend commerce when it was 
 in no position to defend the country itself.-* How 
 could commerce have existed through the waiting 
 of those weary years if the " regulated " chartered 
 companies had not been there to develop and 
 protect it, and lay the foundations of that edifice 
 which has since grown so imposing and important ? 
 The merchants of the time were not wealthy 
 enough for joint-stock enterprise, and, even had 
 
 'M
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 35 
 
 they been, the habit of confidence in one another 
 had not sufficiently developed, or had not been 
 sufficiently tested, for anything like a general 
 adoption of the joint-stock principle. Moreover, 
 the fines for admission into various "regulated" 
 companies, which were originally very heavy, were 
 gradually by statute brought within reasonable 
 limits ; so that in the end any person desirous of 
 taking advantage of the various charters that had 
 been granted for trading abroad, could do so easily 
 and without being subjected to any preliminary 
 prohibitive payment. 
 
 But the advantages of the "joint-stock" over 
 the " regulated " companies, at least as far as the 
 adventurers themselves were concerned, became 
 apparent in comparatively early times, and subse- 
 quent to the year 1600 the joint-stock company 
 was the form almost invariably adopted. In the 
 first place, the directors of a regulated company 
 had no particular interest in the prosperity of the 
 general trade of the company, seeing that each 
 member carried on his own particular business for 
 his individual profit under his licence to trade — in 
 fact, it very often happened that the decay of the 
 general trade contributed to the advantage of par- 
 ticular trade ; by diminishing the number of com- 
 petitors it enabled the individual both to buy 
 cheaper and sell dearer. The directors of a joint- 
 stock company, on the contrary, having only their 
 share in the profits which were made upon the 
 common stock committed to their care, had no 
 private trade of their own, the interest of which 
 could be separated from the general trade of the 
 company. Secondly, the directors of a joint-stock 
 company had always the management of a large 
 capital, the joint-stock of the company, a part of 
 which they frequently and properly employed in
 
 %6 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 exploring, opening up fresh regions, or in building, 
 repairing, and maintaining forts and garrisons 
 necessary for the good government and adminis- 
 tration of the countries entrusted to their care. 
 The directors of a regulated company, having 
 the management of no common capital, had no 
 other fund to employ in this way than the casual 
 revenues arising from admission fines and the 
 corporation duties imposed upon the trade of the 
 company. Although they had practically the same 
 interest to open up fresh country and keep their 
 existing possessions in safety and good order, they 
 rarely had the same ability to render their services 
 effectual. Further, in a regulated company no 
 shareholder or member could, without the consent 
 of the whole company, transfer his licence or intro- 
 duce a new member into the company. He could 
 only on proper notice withdraw from the associa- 
 tion and demand payment from it of his share of 
 the common funds, if any such existed. In a joint- 
 stock company, on the contrary, no member could 
 demand payment of his share at any time, but 
 each could without any sanction transfer his share 
 to another person, and thereby introduce another 
 member. Lastly, in the regulated company, each 
 member was liable for the debts contracted by the 
 corporation to the whole extent of his fortune, 
 whereas in the joint-stock company each partici- 
 pator was bound only to the extent of his share. 
 Under such circumstances, it is not wonderful 
 that charters, from comparatively early times, were 
 demanded for associations to be conducted on the 
 joint-stock principle, and were more readily granted 
 than earlier was the case with the regulated company. 
 This brief explanation of the two old forms of 
 chartered companies must suffice. It is now pro- 
 posed to trace as concisely as possible the history
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 37 
 
 of such of those companies as may fairly be said 
 to have left a mark upon our national and com- 
 mercial history. The first and earliest Chartered 
 Company, in the sense in which that expression is 
 used in these pages, was not English. The Portu- 
 guese, in the progress of their discoveries along the 
 coast of Africa, having kidnapped some of the 
 Moors, Prince Henry of Portugal, in the year 1443, 
 ordered the commanders of his vessels to carry 
 them back to their own country. His officers, 
 however, instead of obeying this humane and 
 judicious order, obliged the friends of the captives 
 to redeem them, and received in exchange ten 
 negro slaves and a quantity of gold. These novel 
 results, thus unexpectedly offered to the greed of 
 the Portuguese, silenced the murmurs against 
 Prince Henry's schemes of discovery, and immedi- 
 ately filled men of all nationalities with eagerness 
 to embark under the Portuguese flag, under which 
 the Pope had with cheap generosity placed all the 
 countries lying between Cape Bojador and India. 
 A company of merchants at Lagos obtained from 
 the Prince the exclusive right of exploring and 
 trading in the lands of the Moors of the African 
 coast, for a limited time, and in the following year 
 (1444) a few vessels belonging to this first Chartered 
 African Company arrived at a small island called 
 Nar. Prince Henry, later, built a fort on the little 
 island of Narguin for the accommodation of the 
 traders ; and there was established the factory 
 to which the Company sent every year ships with 
 woollen cloth, linen, corn, and some silver. These 
 they exchanged with the Moors or Arabs for negro 
 slaves (to the number of seven or eight hundred 
 annually, by the year 1456) and gold dust. Such 
 was the commencement of the system of Chartered 
 Companies,
 
 38 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 More than fifty years elapsed before there is any 
 trustworthy evidence that England followed Por- 
 tugal's example in granting charters for the pur- 
 pose of fostering foreign commerce. Various 
 bodies of English merchants trading on the con- 
 tinent (chiefly in Italy and the Netherlands) had 
 been more or less officially recognized for well 
 over a century, but it was not until 1505 that such 
 enterprise received the royal sanction and approval 
 which a charter is always supposed to confer. In 
 that year Henry VII. confirmed by charter " to the 
 merchants trading in woolen cloth of all kinds to 
 the Netherlands their former privileges " ; and in 
 this new charter of confirmation they were first 
 properly styled " The Fellowship of Merchant Ad- 
 venturers of England." While the Company was 
 deprived of much of its exclusiveness, it was 
 accorded a much more complete constitution than 
 it had hitherto possessed ; the members were to 
 choose a governor and twenty-four assistants, who 
 were to have authority to hear complaints, make 
 and enforce regulations, levy fines, and to exercise 
 authority over all the merchants trading within 
 their limits. They had also power given them to 
 hold courts and marts at Calais ; provided, how- 
 ever, that they exacted no more than ten marks of 
 any merchant whatever for his freedom in their 
 fellowship for trading to Flanders, Brabant, Holland, 
 Zealand, and the countries adjacent. Fifty years 
 later their powers had so increased that they 
 resisted the introduction of the Inquisition into 
 Antwerp, and threatened to withdraw the 20,000 
 persons they then employed in that city, and the 
 30,000 more under their rule in different parts of 
 the Netherlands. The revolutions which occurred 
 in the Low Countries towards the end of the six- 
 teenth century, and which laid the foundation of
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 39 
 
 the Republic of Holland, having prevented the 
 Company from continuing commerce with their 
 ancient freedom, they were compelled to divert it 
 almost wholly to the side of Hamburg and the 
 cities on the German Ocean. Hence the name 
 was changed to that of the Hamburg Company, 
 though the ancient title of Merchant Adventurers 
 is retained in all their documents. In 1588, out of 
 the 197 ships that were dispatched to oppose the 
 invasion of England by the Spanish Armada, the 
 Merchant Adventurers supplied ten ; and pre- 
 viously they had purposely absorbed and held so 
 much ready money through the medium of their 
 various agencies on the continent, that Philip of 
 Spain, unable to raise sufficient funds to victual 
 his ships, was forced to delay the descent of the 
 Spanish fleet for several years. 
 
 After having been expelled from one place after 
 another on the continent, in 1597 they were forced 
 to leave Germany altogether, and settled in Gron- 
 ingen. Wheeler, the historian and Secretary of 
 the Company, writing in 1601, says that at that 
 time no less than twelve other towns in the Nether- 
 lands vied with one another for the honour and 
 profit of becoming the head-quarters of the Com- 
 pany. In 161 7 the corporation possessed a fleet of 
 35 ships, and numbered 4000 members. So power- 
 ful were they then that they exacted fresh charters 
 from the King, and under them completely mono- 
 polized the whole of the woollen trade to Germany 
 and the Netherlands. In 1624 their decline com- 
 menced. In that year the House of Commons 
 resolved " that the Merchant-Adventurers Com- 
 pany's setting imposts upon our cloths was a 
 grievance and ought not to be continued, and that 
 all other merchants, as well as that Company, 
 might transport everywhere : also that other mer-
 
 40 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 chants besides the Merchant-Adventurers Company 
 might freely trade with dyed and dressed cloths, 
 and all sorts of coloured cloths, with Germany and 
 the Low Countries." In 1634 and 1637 their 
 privileges were confirmed, but in 1643 they had 
 to P^y ;!f 30)000 to preserve their old rights, and 
 by 1 661 they had been so shorn of their ancient 
 advantages, that Hamburg was the sole "staple," 
 or mart, remaining to them. There they were 
 largely favoured, and greatly added to the pros- 
 perity of the town ; but their own glory was slowly 
 but surely departing. Adam Smith, in his Wealth 
 of Nations, speaks of them as existing in his time, 
 but only in name, and since then this first and 
 perhaps greatest of the "regulated" chartered 
 companies has entirely disappeared. 
 
 As must have been noticed, the Merchant Adven- 
 turers had little in common with the Chartered 
 Companies of our own time. The idea of coloniza- 
 tion, exploration, or the discovery and opening up 
 of new regions, was entirely absent. They were 
 purely and simply a privileged body of English 
 merchants, trading abroad. But the extension and 
 development of the principle in the more modern 
 directions was soon to come. In 1553 a company 
 subscribed a stock for a trade to China, by a north- 
 east passage, and one of their ships accidentally dis- 
 covered Archangel. The captain, one Richard 
 Chancellor, determined to wait on the Tzar, and 
 having travelled on sledges to Moscow, returned 
 with privileges for the English merchants, and 
 letters to King Edward. In 1554 the first Charter 
 of Incorporation was granted to the Russia Company 
 for "the discovery of lands, countries, isles, etc., 
 not before known or frequented by any English." 
 The preamble of the charter sets forth that the 
 Marquis of Winchester, then lord high treasurer,
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 4I 
 
 the Earl of Arundel, lord steward of the Queen's 
 household, the Earl of Bedford, lord privy seal, 
 the Earl of Pembroke, the Lord Howard of Effing- 
 ham, lord high admiral, etc., had already fitted out 
 ships for discoveries of countries northward, north- 
 eastward, and north-westward, not as yet frequented 
 by other Christian monarchs in friendship with us. 
 The charter itself goes on to say that the Company 
 shall have one governor (the first to be Sebastian 
 Cabot, during his life) and twenty-eight of the 
 most sad (sedate), discreet, and honest of the 
 adventurers or fellowships, four of whom were to 
 be called consuls, and the other twenty-four assist- 
 ants. The corporation might purchase land to the 
 yearly value of £66 13^-. 4d, might have perpetual 
 succession, and impose mulcts, forfeitures, etc., on 
 offenders against the Company's privileges ; might 
 admit persons from time to time to be free of the 
 Company, and might make conquests of lands 
 of infidels so to be discovered by them. The 
 charter further set out — " Whereas one of the said 
 ships set forth last year (1553) arrived safe and win- 
 tered in the dominions of our cousin and brother. Lord 
 John Basilowitz, Emperor of All Russia, who enter- 
 tained them honourably, etc., and granted them let- 
 ters to us, with licence freely to traffic in his country, 
 with other privileges under his signet : Wherefore we 
 grant this corporation liberty to resort not only to 
 all parts of that Emperor's dominions, but to all 
 other parts not known to our subjects, none of 
 whom but such as shall be free of, or licensed by 
 this Company shall frequent the parts aforesaid, 
 under forfeiture of ships and merchandise — one 
 half to the Crown and one half to the Company." 
 On the Company's second voyage they received 
 a kind of charter from the Tzar, conferring 
 most liberal privileges ; and the years 1555,
 
 42 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 1556, and 1557 were devoted to exploration and 
 discovery. 
 
 In 1558, and seven times afterwards, Anthony 
 Jenkinson, one of the agents of the Company, 
 penetrated to Persia, and established a new trade 
 with that country for raw silk, and on his return in 
 1560, published the first map of Russia that had 
 ever been made. 
 
 By 1566 their trade with Russia and Persia had 
 become so important, their factories and settlements 
 so vast, and their profits so enormous, that it was 
 found necessary to pass an Act of Parliament con- 
 firming their charter, and protecting them against 
 interlopers ; and it is worthy of note that this is the 
 first statute establishing an exclusive mercantile 
 and exploring corporation. Their Russian privileges 
 were suspended by the Tzar, in 1571, owing to the 
 irregularities of some of their servants, the envy 
 of some irregular English traders, and the mis- 
 representations of the Russian ambassador, just 
 returned from England, who was piqued at his 
 failure to determine the policy of Elizabeth. 
 Jenkinson, however, now ambassador from Eliza- 
 beth to the Tzar, acted with such tact and discretion 
 that he was able to obtain a restoration of the 
 Company's privileges from the Russian monarch, 
 and satisfaction for some part of their losses, which 
 amounted to 1,000,000 roubles. 
 
 In 1576 the Company went to enormous expense 
 in fitting out an expedition for the discovery of a 
 passage north-eastward to China and the East 
 Indies — a project unfortunately baffled by the hard- 
 ships encountered from ice and snow. 
 
 In 1578 we find them doing an enormous trade 
 in oil and salmon, their ships bringing home from 
 Lapland as many as 10,000 salmon at one time. 
 Here they came into contact with the Dutch. For
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 43 
 
 years the quarrel was a bitter one, and only ended 
 with the decline of this portion of their commerce, 
 about the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 
 In 1583 the real troubles of the Company com- 
 menced. The old Tzar was dead, and Theodore 
 Ivanowitz ruled in his stead. Elizabeth sent Sir 
 Jerom Bowes to Russia, but the ministers of the 
 new monarch, corrupted, it was said, by Dutch 
 presents, advised him not to renew the Company's 
 exclusive privileges. Camden, in his history of 
 Queen Elizabeth, says that the new Tzar promised 
 to remit to the Company half of the customs paid 
 by other nations in consideration of their having 
 been the first discoverers of the way to Russia by sea. 
 In other respects he added to their privileges out 
 of regard for the Queen, at the same time accusing 
 the Company of having dealt falsely with his people. 
 In 1586 and 1588 they obtained fresh privileges, 
 but none of them were exclusive. 
 
 In 161 3 they obtained an exclusive charter from 
 King James for whale-fishing, and prosecuted this 
 with such vigour that they equipped seven armed 
 ships, and drove from the Spitzbergen seas not only 
 fifteen sail of Dutch, French, and Spanish, but even 
 four English independent fishers. They also set up a 
 cross, with the King's arms on it, at Spitzbergen, call- 
 ing it King James' Newland, and obliged some 
 French vessels, which they had permitted to fish in 
 the neighbourhood, to pay them a tribute of eight 
 whales. In 1618 they entered into partnership 
 with the East India Company in whale-fishing, and 
 did a good business with them for some years ; 
 but as time went on they found themselves un- 
 able to cope with the " interlopers," and their 
 exclusive privilege by 1640 had become a dead 
 letter. 
 
 In 1620 two embassies were sent to Russia by the
 
 44 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 King to try and get the Company's old exclusive 
 privileges ratified. This was effected three years 
 later by a treaty with the new Tzar Michael Feo- 
 dorowitz, who confirmed the Company's old privi- 
 leges and grants in all their integrity. 
 
 For twenty-six years — till 1649 — they once more 
 were sole masters of the commerce to Russia ; 
 but on the death of Charles I. (the Dutch having by 
 that time gained a powerful influence at the Russian 
 Court), the ministers seized the opportunity, on 
 pretence of punishing a nation that had murdered 
 its King, to introduce the Dutch into the Archangel 
 trade, upon condition of their paying 15 per cent, 
 on all imports and exports. Expostulations, de- 
 mands, and prayers were in vain. In 1663 all that 
 the embassy of the Earl of Carlisle was able to 
 effect, was that the Company might trade to Russia 
 on the same footing as the Dutch. This was their 
 death-blow. Thenceforth they existed on the same 
 footing as any other regulated company, each 
 member trading under licence on his own account, 
 paying a small sum on admission and certain an- 
 nual dues for defraying the general expense of the 
 Company. In 1699 admission was made free to 
 every subject on payment of £^. Fifty years 
 later the Company existed only in name. 
 
 In 1579 Elizabeth, to encourage her own 
 merchants in their opposition to the Hanseatics, 
 granted a charter to a band of merchants, excluding 
 all who should not take up their freedom in that 
 Company, by the name of " The fellowship of East- 
 land Merchants." Their privileges were " to enjoy 
 the sole trade through the Sound, into Norway, 
 Sweden, Poland, Lithuania " (except Narva, which 
 was within the Russia Company's charter)," Prussia, 
 and also Pomerania, from the river Oder eastward, 
 Dantzik, Elbing, and Konigsberg; also to Copen-
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 45 
 
 hagen and Elsinore, and to Finland " (here called 
 an island), " Gothland, Bornholm, and OEland ; to 
 have a governor, deputy or deputies, and twenty- 
 four assistants, who may make bye-laws, and 
 impose fines, imprisonment, etc., on all non-freemen 
 trading to those parts," 
 
 In fifty years this Company attained vast wealth 
 and importance. But in 1629 a proclamation of 
 Charles I. marked the first step in the downfall of 
 the enterprise. While ratifying all other privileges, 
 it took away the Company's monopoly of the 
 importation of corn and grain from the Baltic ; 
 which meant the loss of the most valuable of their 
 privileges. For forty years after this they made 
 but little sign ; but in 1670 Sir Josiah Child, in his 
 Discourses on Trade (which he tells us he wrote at 
 his "country house in the sickness year" — 1665), 
 declares that at the date of writing his book "they 
 have not half so much to do as formerly, and the 
 Dutch ten times more than they formerly had." 
 Only two years after this, in answer to the serious 
 cry that rose up against monopolies, the Act of 
 25 Charles II., c. 7, inflicted a mortal blow upon 
 the great Eastland Company ; for by it the whole 
 of the north coast of the Baltic Sea was laid open 
 to all, and the freedom for the trading to the south 
 side of it was obtained by any and everybody on 
 payment of the nominal sum of forty shillings. 
 Yet one more stroke descended on this already 
 sorely-wounded and staggering corporation. The 
 Declaration of Rights (1689) having set forth that 
 all monopolizing companies not sanctioned by 
 Parliament were illegal, the " Fellowship of East- 
 land Merchants" ceased to exist. 
 
 In the year 1579 Queen EHzabeth sent one 
 William Harburn, an English merchant, into 
 Turkey, as her ambassador. He induced the then
 
 46 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 Sultan, Amurath III., to grant that the English 
 merchants might in all respects as freely resort 
 and trade to Turkey as the French, Venetians, 
 Germans, and Poles did at this time. This laid 
 the foundation for the Turkey Company ; for two 
 years later the Queen granted a charter to a 
 number of eminent merchants to last for a period 
 of seven years. In their charter of incorporation 
 she states " that Sir Edward Osburn, Richard 
 Slaper, and two others had, at their own great 
 costs and charges, found out and opened a trade 
 to Turkey not heretofore in the memory of any 
 man now living known to be commonly used and 
 frequented by way of merchandise, by any the 
 merchants or any subjects of us or our progenitors : 
 whereby many good offices may be done for the 
 peace of Christendom, relief of Christian slaves, and 
 good vent for the commodities of the realm, to 
 the advancement of her honour and dignity, the 
 increase of her revenue, and of the general wealth 
 of the realm. She therefore grants unto those 
 four merchants, their executors and administrators, 
 and to such other Englishmen (not exceeding 
 twelve in number) as the said Sir Edward Osburn 
 and Richard Slaper shall appoint to be joined to 
 them and the other two before-named persons, and 
 their factors, servants or deputies, for the space 
 of seven years, to trade to Turkey, in such manner 
 as the said Company shall agree between them- 
 selves ; during which time they may make bye- 
 laws for their good government (not repugnant to 
 the laws of the kingdom). Nothing to be trans- 
 acted without the consent of the governor for the 
 time being (Sir Edward Osburn being hereby 
 appointed the first governor). The trade to Turkey 
 to be solely to them, their factors and servants, 
 during the said term ; and any other subjects
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 4/ 
 
 trading thither, either by sea or land, without their 
 licence, to forfeit ships and goods, moiety to the 
 Crown, moiety to the Company. For the last six 
 years of the said seven years this Company shall 
 export so much goods to Turkey as shall annually 
 pay at least ;^5oo custom to the Crown. Proviso, 
 that in case this exclusive grant shall hereafter 
 appear to be inconvenient, the Queen may revoke 
 the same upon one year's previous notice : and the 
 Queen during the said term may nominate two 
 persons to be added to the said number of patentees, 
 with the same privileges, etc., as the rest herein 
 named. Lastly, if at the end of seven years these 
 grantees desire it, the Queen will grant other seven 
 years to them, provided (as aforesaid) the said 
 exclusive trade shall not appear to be unprofitable 
 to the kingdom." 
 
 It would almost seem that this charter was a 
 little late in the day for inaugurating a trade with 
 Turkey, seeing that the Venetians, French, Germans, 
 and Poles had enjoyed it for many years previously. 
 The following year (1582) Hareborn, the Queen's 
 ambassador, delivered his letters to " the Grand 
 Turk," and was well received by that monarch. 
 Hareborn immediately proceeded to settle consuls 
 in the various ports and to promulgate laws and rules 
 to be observed by the English trading to Turkey. 
 Not long after the merchants, having occasion 
 to attend the Queen in council, publicly received 
 thanks and praise for the big ships they were then 
 building, "with many encouragements to go for- 
 ward for the kingdom's sake." Through the agency 
 of the Turkey Company, England, by reason of the 
 direct trade, procured all the commodities of 
 Greece, Syria, Egypt, Persia, and India much 
 cheaper than formerly. And (says Sir William 
 Monson) *' when the Venetians served us with
 
 4B THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 those rich Eastern wares, by the way of the Red 
 Sea, and down the Nile to Alexandria, and also by 
 way of the caravans to Aleppo, they also were 
 wont to take freight in their ships from port to 
 port, whereas now (1635) all strangers are more 
 desirous to employ our own ships in that service." 
 
 In 1 591 took place that in connection with the 
 Turkey Company which nine years later resulted 
 in the charter of the East India Company. Some 
 of the members conceived the idea of establishing 
 a trade with East India overland, and for that 
 purpose took letters from the Queen to the King- 
 of Cambaya, and to the King of China. They 
 visited Agra, Bengal, Labor, Pegu, Malacca, etc., and 
 returned by sea to Ormuz, and so up the Tigris to 
 Bagdad, Bir, and Aleppo, and lastly to Tripoli in 
 Syria, whence they sailed in an English ship to 
 London. 
 
 In 1593 the charter, which originally was only 
 for seven years, and which had really expired in 
 1588, was extended till 1605. And here it becomes 
 again necessary to quote the charter, for it shows 
 distinctly in these comparatively early times, when 
 the company was only a " regulated " one, how the 
 grant of a charter was always associated with 
 public utility and national advancement. It recites 
 that " henceforward the Company is to be incorpor- 
 ated under the name of the Governor and Company 
 of Merchants of the Levant. The limits of their 
 charter are to be — (i) The Venetian territories. 
 (2) The dominions of the Grand Signior by land 
 and sea. (3) His countries overland to East 
 India, a way lately discovered as already described. 
 The licence to trade shall be for twelve years, 
 during which time four good ships with ordnance 
 and ammunition for their defence, and with 200 
 English mariners, shall be freely permitted to go
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 49 
 
 at all times during the said twelve years, provided 
 that if the Queen be at war so as to have occasion 
 for those four ships, then upon three months' notice 
 by the Lord Admiral, that the Queen cannot spare 
 those four ships from the defence of the realm, the 
 Company shall forbear sending them out until her 
 navy return home. The Company is to have a 
 common seal, and may place in the tops of their 
 ships the arms of England with a red cross in 
 white over the same. If this charter shall here- 
 after appear to the Queen not to be profitable to 
 her or to the realm, then upon eighteen months' 
 notice it is to cease and determine. And, on the 
 other side, if at the expiration of the said twelve 
 years this trade shall appear to be advantageous, 
 then the Company may, on petition to the Queen, 
 have a new grant for twelve years more." In 1605 
 the charter was made perpetual, enacting that all 
 the King's subjects being merchants, under the 
 age of twenty-six years and paying £2^ to the 
 Company, and if above twenty-six years, paying 
 £$0 to the Company, shall be free of the same, 
 as also their apprentices on paying twenty shillings. 
 By reason of the enormous trade and influence 
 that the Company by this time exercised in the 
 East, Thomas Glover was in 1606 appointed to 
 reside in Turkey as envoy and agent of the King 
 in the dominions of the Grand Signior, with power 
 to appoint consuls for the good government of 
 the English in any of the ports of the empire. 
 
 The first warning note was uttered in 161 5. In 
 that year the Levant Company complained that 
 the East India Company, which had only been in 
 existence fifteen years, had already lessened their 
 trade, and that they were sending thirty ships fewer 
 to the East than formerly, whereas the Dutch 
 dispatched above one hundred sail to the Levant ; 
 
 E
 
 50 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 and, further, that they were forced to keep up a 
 large fleet to hold in check the Barbary Rovers, of 
 which other countries and companies had as much 
 advantage as themselves without contributing to 
 the cost. 
 
 In spite of all this they continued to flourish. 
 In 162 1 their exports sufficed to pay for all the 
 goods they brought back from the East, with a 
 large quantity of gold and silver to boot. Taking 
 advantage of the necessities of the Government, 
 they procured from Parliament, for the sum of 
 ;^30,ooo, a confirmation of their privileges and the 
 right to raise their entrance fees. They prospered 
 until the year 168 1, when occurred their great 
 quarrel with the East India Company. Ten years 
 previously they had begun to grumble at the great 
 quantity of raw silk imported from India, all of 
 which formerly had come from Turkey. A formal 
 complaint was lodged before the Privy Council, 
 and the Company's allegations and the East India 
 Company's answers were subsequently published. 
 No notice seems to have been taken of their 
 appeal, and from this moment the fortunes of the 
 Company appear to have slowly but surely declined. 
 Forty years later we find that the number of their 
 members, which had been 500 in 1680, had declined 
 to 200, and that they were again complaining, this 
 time to Parliament, of the English trade to Italy 
 as then managed by our Italian merchants. An 
 Act was therefore passed prohibiting the importa- 
 tion of raw silk and mohair yarn of the product 
 or manufacture of Asia from any ports or places 
 in the Straits or Levant seas, except as were within 
 the dominions of the Grand Signior (6 Geo. I., c. 
 14). By 1744 the French had so gained upon 
 England in their trade to the Levant, that it was 
 much canvassed whether the shortest way for
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 5 I 
 
 England to regain her ascendency would not be 
 to throw the whole Turkey trade entirely open to 
 all British subjects ; and a Bill in Parliament to 
 this effect was introduced. But the Company, 
 being heard at the Bar of the House against the 
 measure, gave such convincing reasons against 
 such a course, that the matter was dropped. 
 
 But the blow was only postponed, and in 1753 it 
 finally descended. By the statute 26 Geo. IL, c, 
 18, it was enacted that every subject of Great 
 Britain desiring to be admitted into the Turkey 
 Company shall be admitted on request to the 
 governor on payment of £20 ; and that every 
 person free of the Company may export goods 
 from Great Britain to a place within the limits of 
 the charter, so long as such person shall remain 
 under the direction of the British ambassador and 
 consuls ; and may also import raw silk or other 
 goods purchased within the same limits. In 18 19 
 one last attempt to bolster up this now crumbling 
 association was made. By an Act of Parliament 
 passed in that year, it was decreed that all goods, 
 to whomsoever they might belong, of the growth 
 or production of Turkey or Egypt, or of any of 
 the dominions of the Grand Signior imported 
 directly into the United Kingdom, shall be subject 
 to the duties payable to the Turkey Company. But 
 nothing could stem the tide of competition, with 
 all the disaster and decline that it brought in its 
 wake. In 1825 this once great corporation sur- 
 rendered all its ancient privileges and immunities, 
 and ceased to exist. 
 
 With the disappearance of the Turkey Company 
 the curtain drops on the great " regulated " com- 
 panies ; and v/ith a grant of a charter to the East 
 India Company in 1600 the scene opens on the 
 era of joint-stock enterprise.
 
 52 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 On December 31, 1600, Elizabeth granted a 
 charter for fifteen years to the Earl of Cumber- 
 land and 215 knights, aldermen, and merchants, 
 empowering them at their own costs and charges 
 to undertake one or more voyages to the East 
 Indies. Its capital in shares of ^50 each amounted 
 only to ;if72,ooo : on this slender foundation the 
 present British Empire of India was subsequently 
 raised. The first footing the Company obtained 
 on that continent was by the establishment of 
 factories in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of 
 Cambay at Surat, Ahmedabad, Cambay, and 
 Goga. Only twenty-four years after its establish- 
 ment the Company showed its desire to be some- 
 thing more than a mere trading corporation, for it 
 obtained from James I. the power to punish its 
 servants abroad by martial as well as municipal 
 law. 
 
 In 1639 Fort St. George or Madras was founded 
 by Mr. Francis Day. Bombay, which had been 
 given to Charles II. as part of the dowry of 
 Catherine of Portugal in 1662, was in 1668 made 
 over to the Company, and erected into the chief 
 presidency in India. The Company now began 
 legitimately to extend its sway along the eastern 
 coast of Hindostan : from the King of Golconda 
 it obtained by purchase great privileges all over 
 his dominions : by treaty with the Portuguese it 
 confirmed its right to Bombay, and in 1675, by 
 successfully suppressing a mutiny which had 
 broken out there, it laid the foundation of its 
 future policy — the establishment of independ- 
 ence and the acquisition of dominion in India. 
 In 1696 Calcutta was purchased from the Moguls. 
 
 Soon after it was invested by the Government 
 with power to suppress interlopers and exercise 
 government in India, and in order to impress the
 
 SKETCH OF" ENGLISH CIlARtERED COMPANIES S3 
 
 natives and the world at large with a sense of its 
 growing importance, it elevated Bombay into a 
 regency in 1687, and formed Madras into a corpor- 
 ation governed by a mayor and aldermen. It 
 established a land force of six companies of 
 infantry, and fitted out a fleet of ten armed vessels 
 for the protection of English subjects trading with 
 or residing in India ; before 1690 these proved 
 sufficient to obtain reparation from the Great Mogul 
 for injuries that our countrymen had sustained. At 
 home during the first century of its existence the 
 Company was much hampered. During the 
 Commonwealth (in 1655) Cromwell suspended the 
 charter, and the commerce to India was thus 
 thrown open to all British subjects. In 1661, 
 however, the charter was re-granted, subject to its 
 being determined on three years' notice, and in 
 1693 the Government of William III., embarrassed 
 by want of funds, threatened to withdraw the grant 
 unless the Company consented to lend the country 
 the sum of i^2,ooo,ooo, and to submit to several 
 alterations and limitations of their former privi- 
 leges. This they agreed to, and so received a new 
 charter, which from time to time afterwards was 
 renewed without difficulty and substantially without 
 change. 
 
 At the commencement of the last century the 
 Company was carrying on its business under the 
 government of three presidencies, one at Bombay, 
 another at Madras, and the third at Calcutta, though 
 the last was not created till 1707. There was no 
 dependence of these presidencies on one another at 
 that period. Each acted independently, and was 
 responsible only to the Company in England. 
 This body was master, not only over all who were 
 in its own employment, but also over such of 
 its countrymen as were not ; it could seize them,
 
 §4 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 confiscate their goods, imprison them, and send 
 them to England. 
 
 For the first hundred years of its existence the 
 Company obtained all that it acquired peacefully. 
 But from 1700 the growing jealousy of native 
 princes and of European Powers with settlements 
 in the peninsula forced it to take up arms to 
 protect its possessions, and thus to enlarge its field 
 of operations. From the taking of Devi-Kota, a 
 place of little importance on the Coromandel coast, 
 a new aspect was given to the politics of India. 
 The French and English Crowns were at peace, 
 but through the ambition of Dupleix the French 
 and English Companies were at war. Their rivalry 
 first showed itself in the Carnatic. Dupleix 
 supported the pretensions of an impostor, Chunda 
 Sahib, while Sanderson, the Governor of Madras, 
 was in favour of the legitimate ruler, Mohamed 
 Ali. The English retreated on Trichinopoly, and 
 Clive represented that, unless that town was to fall 
 and the French to become the real masters of the 
 Carnatic, Arcot the capital must be attacked. His 
 suggestion and services were accepted. Arcot was 
 won, Trichinopoly relieved, Futteabad levelled to 
 the ground, and French predominance for ever 
 destroyed in Southern India. 
 
 In 1754 Suraja Dowlah, after taking the English 
 factory at Cozembazar, marched upon Calcutta, 
 and on the surrender of Fort William perpetrated 
 one of the greatest crimes known to history — the 
 imprisonment of 146 persons in the black-hole of 
 Calcutta. Clive marched towards the town, took 
 Budgebudge, routed the garrison at Fort William, 
 recovered Calcutta, and stormed and sacked 
 Hoogly. On account of the wrongs which the 
 English had suffered at the hands of Suraja 
 Dowlah, it was resolved that he should be deposed,
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 55 
 
 and Mir Jaffir placed on the throne of Bengal in 
 his stead. Suraja Dowlah was defeated at the 
 battle of Plassy, 1757, and Mir Jaffir proclaimed 
 sovereign of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. In 1765 
 the then ruler of these provinces had entirely- 
 emptied his coffers, so he renounced for ever in 
 favour of the Company the revenues of his state, 
 receiving in return ;^48o,ooo a year, which after 
 1772 was reduced to ;!^ 160,000. For a further 
 annual payment of ^280,000 he consented, with the 
 approbation of his ministers, to the sovereignty of 
 the three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa 
 passing to the Company. 
 
 It was thus that this corporation, originally a 
 trading organization, became changed into a terri- 
 torial power, numbering from this period forty 
 millions of subjects, and in receipt of at least 
 three millions sterling a year. The Parliamentary 
 inquiry in England directed against Clive brought 
 in its wake a second, which had for its object 
 the revision of the Company's charter, just then 
 about to expire. This resulted in a new charter 
 in 1773, most of the provisions of which were in 
 force when the Company was finally abolished. 
 It established at Calcutta a Governor-General 
 over all the Company's possessions, with a Council 
 of four members charged with the most im- 
 portant direction of affairs. Madras and Bombay, 
 created presidencies, were each allotted a Governor, 
 subordinate to the Government at Calcutta in all 
 questions of peace and war. In case of difference 
 of opinion the casting-vote lay with the Governor- 
 General, who thus became the veritable sovereign 
 of India, and who was invested with powers which, 
 from certain points of view, exceeded those of 
 almost any European monarch. Not only was he 
 supreme chief of the State, commanding the land
 
 56 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 and sea forces, declaring war, concluding and 
 signing treaties of alliance and commerce, and 
 nominating subordinates, but he could make new- 
 laws and regulations, and abolish or modify ancient 
 statutes and customs. His decisions, although 
 subject to the control of the Board in London, were 
 carried out in India until such time as the Directors, 
 chosen by those shareholders who held at least 
 ;^iooo in the Company, had expressed their wishes. 
 The first official clothed with this gigantic power 
 was Warren Hastings, who had previously held the 
 post of Governor of Bengal. In 1775 Benares was 
 ceded to the Company for a money payment by 
 the then Nabob of Oudh, so that in this year the 
 empire of the company in India extended over the 
 provinces of Bengal, Behar, Benares, Madras, and 
 Bombay — that is to say, over an immense territory 
 peopled by about sixty millions of inhabitants. 
 To this, by the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, was 
 added the kingdom of Mysore, the Company thus 
 securing the whole sea-coast of Southern India, 
 with a free communication across the country. 
 
 After this the natives and their rulers, little by 
 little, began to appreciate the advantages of placing 
 themselves under the administration of the great 
 Company, and a large number of mahrajahs, rajahs, 
 nabobs, etc, were ready to cede their territories and 
 revenues in return for annual allowances and pro- 
 tection from the attacks of other states. The 
 Rajah of Tanjore was the first to perceive the 
 advantage of cultivating amicable relations, and 
 surrendered the whole of his district. The Nizam 
 of Hydrabad in less than a year followed this 
 example by ceding all his possessions in Mysore, 
 In little more than a twelvemonth afterwards the 
 Subahdar of Oudh applied to be relieved of his 
 burden, and gave up Rohilcund and the Doab. In
 
 SKETCH OF* ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES ^7 
 
 the summer of the next year the Nabob of Fur- 
 ruckabad ceded his territories in return for a 
 pension, and on the last day of that year was signed 
 the treaty of Bassein, by which the Peishwa of the 
 Mahrattas agreed to receive and maintain a subsi- 
 diary force to be sent by the Company in return 
 for being re-estabhshed at the head of the Mahratta 
 nation. Thus commenced the Mahratta wars, 
 which terminated in 1805 by the defeat of Scindia 
 and Holkar and the conclusion of peace with them. 
 From 1806 to 18 14 India enjoyed a period of re- 
 pose, of which Lord Minto and Lord Cornwallis, 
 who succeeded to the headship at Calcutta, profited 
 to organize the territories secured by their prede- 
 cessors. The first-fruits of their leniency and for- 
 bearance were the Pindaree and Nepaul wars. 
 Once more the Company was forced to take up 
 arms in defence of its possessions, and ultimately 
 succeeded in bringing the territories of the Ghurkas, 
 Nepaulese, and Mahrattas definitely under their 
 empire. 
 
 Such triumphs laid the foundation of a general 
 peace, of which the Marquis of Hastings availed 
 himself to restore prosperity. In less than four 
 years new villages rose everywhere ; deserted ones 
 were re-peopled; industry spread from Gujerat 
 to Bhopal ; a new life was seen in all directions, and 
 while the expenses of collection were brought down 
 from 40 to 15 per cent,, the revenues of the State 
 were nearly quadrupled. 
 
 But a passing mention can be given to the Bur- 
 mese war, which lasted from 1822 to 1S24. At its 
 termination the Company became possessed of 
 Arracan and Tenasserim (about 600 leagues of 
 coast), as well as all the islands lying off both these 
 provinces. By the annexation of Arracan was 
 secured an admirable frontier on the side of Burmah,
 
 58 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 and by the possession of Tenasserim, an increased 
 security for English commercial navigation, and a 
 road to an inland commerce with the Siamese and 
 other distant peoples. In 1843 Scinde was annexed 
 to the dominions of the Company, and on March 28, 
 1849, on the termination of the terrible war against 
 the Sikhs, a proclamation of Lord Dalhousie, the 
 then Governor-General, announced to the people of 
 India that the kingdom of the Punjaub had ceased 
 to exist, and that all the possessions of the Mahra- 
 jah Duleep-Singh thenceforth would constitute an 
 integral part of the Anglo-Indian Empire. 
 
 By this the Company seemed to have reached the 
 limits that Nature had marked out for it. In May 
 1857 a terrible mutiny, disfigured by most frightful 
 massacres, broke out in the provinces of Delhi, 
 Oudh, and Agra. On its suppression the East 
 India Company was abolished, and its charter 
 withdrawn. Since then the government of India 
 has been transferred to the Crown. 
 
 We must now pass from East to West. In 1670 
 Charles II, granted to Prince Rupert, the Duke 
 of Albemarle, and sixteen other noblemen and 
 gentlemen, a charter for the incorporation of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company. The management of the 
 Company was vested in a committee of seven and 
 a governor (the first was Prince Rupert), and to 
 them was granted the sole trade and rights of 
 lands, mines, minerals, and fisheries within the 
 limits of the charter, that were not actually pos- 
 sessed by or granted to any British subjects, or 
 possessed by the subjects of any other Christian 
 Prince or State. The territory was to be reckoned 
 one of his Majesty's Plantations or Colonies in 
 America, and to be called Rupert's Land ; the 
 Governor and Company were to be the lords pro- 
 prietors of the same for ever, and were to assemble
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 59 
 
 at stated times to make laws and ordinances for 
 the good government of their territory and the 
 advancement of their trade, and were empowered 
 to impose penalties and punishments, provided the 
 same were reasonable and not repugnant to the 
 laws of England. No subjects of his Majesty were 
 to trade within the Company's territories without 
 leave from them in writing under their common 
 seal, under penalty of forfeiting all goods and 
 merchandise brought thence into England ; half 
 of such forfeiture to go to the King, the other to 
 the Company. All lands, forts, factories, or colonies 
 within the limits of the charter were to be under 
 the government of the Company, which was author- 
 ized to appoint governors and other officers to 
 preside within their territories, and to judge in all 
 causes civil and criminal according to the laws of 
 England, and either to try criminals on the spot 
 or to send them to England for trial. Further, the 
 Governor and Company were authorized to employ 
 for the protection of their trade and territory armed 
 forces, to appoint commanders, erect forts, and do 
 all things needful for their safety and peaceable 
 possession. Authority was also given to the 
 Governor and Company to seize any of his 
 Majesty's subjects who (without leave of the Com- 
 pany) should trade in their territory, and to send 
 the same to England for punishment. Such were 
 the principal provisions of this famous charter, 
 which for the space of one hundred and fifty years 
 continued, without the slightest amendment or 
 qualification, the sole title of the " Governor and 
 Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson's 
 Bay." 
 
 Between the years 1670 and 1690 the profits 
 appear to have been very large, as, notwithstanding 
 losses sustained by the Company's establishment
 
 & tH£ PIONEERS OE EMPIRE 
 
 through the attacks of the French in the years 
 1682 to 1688, amounting to ;^ii8,ooo, they were 
 able to make a payment to the proprietors in 1684 
 of 50 per cent., another payment in 1688 of 50 per 
 cent, and a further payment in 1689 of 25 per 
 cent. In 1690 the stock was trebled without any 
 call being made, besides affording a payment to 
 the proprietors of 25 per cent, on the increased or 
 newly-created stock. In the years 1692, 1694, 1696, 
 and 1697 we hear of nothing but attacks and 
 captures of their establishments by the French, 
 and in these five years alone damage is said to 
 have been done to the property of the Company 
 to the extent of ;;^97,ooo. These losses appear to 
 have rendered it necessary for the Company to 
 borrow money on which they had to pay 6 per 
 cent, interest. Nevertheless, in 1720 they were 
 enabled again to treble their capital stock with only 
 a call of 10 per cent, on the proprietors, and not- 
 withstanding another heavy loss sustained by the 
 capture of their establishments by the French under 
 La Perouse in 1782, they seem to have paid 
 dividends averaging 9 per cent., and to show 
 profits on the originally subscribed capital stock 
 actually paid up, of between 60 and 70 per cent, 
 from the year 1690 to 1800. 
 
 One of the principal features in the enterprise 
 of this Company was the fur trade with the 
 Indians inhabiting the territories ceded to them. 
 For many years prior to the conquest of Canada, 
 French subjects had penetrated by the St. Lawrence 
 to the frontiers of Rupert's Land ; but no com- 
 petition had occurred between the traders of the 
 two countries within the territories of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company previous to the cession of Canada 
 to Great Britain. Subsequently to that event (1763) 
 the greater capital and activity of British subjects
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 6l 
 
 led to a competition, first on the frontiers, then in 
 the interior, and at last to the formation of a 
 company combining all the individuals at that 
 time engaged in the trade to the countries border- 
 ing on Lake Superior, under the title of the North- 
 West Company of Montreal, of which Washington 
 Irving has given an interesting description in his 
 Astoria. Between 1800 and 1821 the dividends 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company for the first eight 
 years were reduced to 4 per cent., during the next 
 six years they could pay no dividend at all, and 
 for the remaining eight years they could only pay 
 4 per cent. During the long years that this 
 destructive contest existed frequent applications 
 for protection and redress were made by the 
 Company to the Home Government, but without 
 avail ; scenes of bloodshed, robbery, and demor- 
 alization occurred without any effectual measures 
 being taken to punish or prevent them. 
 
 At length, in the year 1821, when the violence 
 of the contest had nearly exhausted both parties, 
 an arrangement was entered into between them 
 by which their interests became united under the 
 management of the Hudson's Bay Company. The 
 proprietary were then called upon to pay ;!^IC)0 
 per cent, upon their capital, which, with the stock- 
 in-trade of both parties in the country, formed a 
 capital stock of ;^400,ooo, on which 4 per cent, 
 dividend was paid from 1821 to 1824; 10 per cent. 
 from 1824 to 1828 ; 10 per cent, and a bonus of 
 10 per cent, from 1828 to 1832 ; 10 per cent, and 
 a bonus of 6 per cent, from 1832 to 1838. 
 
 In order to secure to the Company the enjoy- 
 ment of the rights of territory and trade granted 
 to them by their charter, and to prevent a recur- 
 rence of the evils attendant on rivalry or competition 
 in trade that had existed for so long a period, and
 
 62 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 were productive of such disastrous consequences, 
 the Act of I and 2 Geo. IV., c. 66, was passed, 
 which enabled the Crown to grant to the parties 
 interested a hcence for exclusive trade during 
 twenty-one years. On this the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany surrendered its charter, and having, as has 
 been stated, amalgamated with its former opponents, 
 applied for the exclusive licence, which was granted. 
 The beneficial effect of the change was surprising. 
 The peace and tranquillity of the country were re- 
 stored, the abuse of spirituous liquors discontinued, 
 the condition of the native population greatly 
 ameliorated, and the commercial interests of Great 
 Britain vastly increased. 
 
 In 1838, that is to say four years previous to 
 the expiry of the exclusive licence granted in 1821, 
 the Company applied for a further renewal, which 
 was immediately conceded, subject to one change 
 in the original grant, viz. the reservation by 
 the Crown of the right to establish within the 
 Company's territories any colony or province as it 
 might think fit. On the expiry of this term the 
 licence was not renewed ; since 1859 the district has 
 been open to all, the Hudson's Bay Company having 
 no special advantages beyond its tried and splendid 
 organization. The freedom to trade did not of 
 course affect theoriginal possessionsof the Company, 
 These it retained till 1869, when they were trans- 
 ferred to the British Government for the sum of 
 ^300,000, and in 1870 were incorporated in the 
 dominion of Canada. The Company, which now 
 trades entirely as a private corporation, still retains 
 one-twentieth of the entire grant, together with 
 valuable blocks of land round the various forts. 
 
 For more than two centuries after the incorpora- 
 tion of the Hudson's Bay Company the system of 
 Chartered Companies in this country lay dormant.
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 63 
 
 The old companies were either dead or dying or 
 drifting towards absorption by the Government ; 
 the age of monopolies and exclusive rights to trade 
 had passed away ; the practice of conferring un- 
 limited powers of action in a foreign or semi- 
 civilized state, unchecked by any official or public 
 surveillance, was a thing of the past, and no longer 
 were distance or difficulties of communication any 
 hindrance to a careful and critical watch over the 
 actions of those who might rule and trade under 
 the shelter and power of the country's flag, and in 
 the country's name. There remained, however, 
 certain quarters of the world (chiefly in Africa) 
 where it was felt impossible that any material 
 advance could be made without the moral assist- 
 ance, and, in case of need, the material support, 
 that can be invoked by the possession of a Royal 
 Charter ; where, too, in order to impress more or 
 less savage tribes, and even European neighbours 
 and competitors, it has been ascertained by experi- 
 ence that deeds and words to be effectual must 
 bear some impress of a national character. The 
 advantages of governing certain of our colonial 
 possessions and dependencies by Chartered Com- 
 panies has been discussed in the previous chapter ; 
 it is sufficient to call attention here to the fact that 
 the essence of the modern charter is to secure to 
 the Crown the right at any time that it may deem 
 expedient to take over the country in respect of 
 which the privileges are granted, and to place it 
 under its own direct control. 
 
 Of modern Chartered Companies four only pre- 
 sent themselves for consideration — one in connec- 
 tion with Asia and three with Africa. The last, of 
 course, are the more interesting, but in accordance 
 with the method pursued hitherto, they will be 
 dealt with in the order of the dates of their charters,
 
 64 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 and not of their importance. They have all come 
 into existence within the last twenty years — 
 the Asiatic perfectly independent of general 
 politics or circumstances ; the three African as the 
 result of events which have given rise to what is 
 now almost a classic expression, " the scramble for 
 Africa." 
 
 In 1865 the Sultans of Brunei and Sulu granted 
 certain concessions to some Americans who never 
 availed themselves of their rights, and in 1877 and 
 1878 the same district was granted to Mr. (now 
 Sir Alfred) Dent, who transferred his rights to the 
 North Borneo Company. The territory under the 
 jurisdiction of the Company comprises the whole 
 of the northern portion of the island ; it has an area 
 equal to that of Scotland, and a coast-line of 
 about 900 miles. There are five principal stations, 
 each possessing excellent harbours. A large part 
 of the country was formerly covered with jungle, 
 but much has been rendered available for agri- 
 cultural purposes through the exertions of the 
 Company. The soil is well adapted to the growth 
 of almost all tropical products, more particularly 
 tobacco, coffee, sugar, sago, and tapioca. The 
 mineral resources of the country have not yet been 
 fully investigated. Gold has been found in two 
 of the rivers on the east coast ; coal, copper, and 
 other minerals have also been met with. The 
 inhabitants, who muster about 200,000 strong, are 
 chiefly Malays and Sulus, who move their villages 
 about every six months, and who maintain a some- 
 what precarious existence by spasmodic attempts 
 at planting and commerce, diversified by a little 
 hunting and a good deal of plunder. 
 
 Early in 1 881 the British North Borneo Pro- 
 visional Association, Limited, was formed, and 
 took over the concessions with all rights and pro-
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 65 
 
 perties, A Royal Charter was then appHed for 
 and obtained in November 1881. In the following 
 year the British North Borneo Company was 
 formed, to acquire all the rights conveyed in the 
 original grants of the Sultans of Brunei and 
 Sulu, and to administer the country and de- 
 velop its resources. At later periods still further 
 districts were added to the possessions of the 
 Company. 
 
 As the grant to the North Borneo Company was 
 the first of the modern charters, and served as the 
 model on which all later ones have been drafted, it 
 may be as well perhaps to refer briefly to the form 
 and principal clauses of this instrument. It com- 
 mences with eighteen paragraphs reciting the 
 statements in the petition as to the concessions 
 from the Sultans of Sulu and Brunei, the vesting of 
 the same in Sir Alfred Dent, the expenditure of 
 time and labour by him in and about the matter, 
 the transfer by him of his interests to the Company, 
 and their readiness and ability to perform all the 
 obligations connected with the concessions, pro- 
 vided they are favoured with a charter. This is 
 followed by a declaration that the Company shall 
 be and is incorporated by charter, subject to the 
 following conditions : — 
 
 (a) That the Company shall be bound by and fulfil 
 the promises of payment and other promises 
 contained in the concessions ; 
 
 (d) That the Company remain a British one in 
 character and domicile, and that its Directors 
 and principal representative in Borneo be 
 British, or naturalized as British subjects ; 
 
 (c) That the Company shall make no transfer of 
 any portion of its grant without the per- 
 mission of the Secretary of State ; 
 
 F
 
 66 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 (d) That in case of differences with either of the 
 
 two Sultans the same shall be submitted to 
 the decision of the Secretary of State ; 
 
 (e) That if the Secretary of State should dissent 
 
 from or object to any of the Company's deal- 
 ings with a foreign power, the Company shall 
 act on any suggestion of the Secretary of 
 State with reference thereto ; 
 
 (/) That the Company shall discourage and by 
 degrees abolish all slavery or domestic servi- 
 tude, and shall prohibit any foreigner owning 
 slaves in the Company's territory ; 
 
 (£■) That the Company shall not interfere with the 
 religion of the inhabitants ; 
 
 {/i) That in the administration of justice careful 
 regard shall be had to the customs and laws 
 of the natives, especially with respect to the 
 holding, possession, transfer, and disposition 
 of lands and goods, and testate or intestate 
 succession thereto, and marriage, divorce, and 
 legitimacy ; 
 
 (z) That the Company shall always act on any 
 suggestion of the Secretary of State made 
 with reference to the treatment of the natives. 
 
 (J) That the Company in its harbours shall freely 
 afford all facilities requisite for British ships ; 
 
 (k) That the appointment by the Company of 
 their principal representative in Borneo shall 
 always be subject to the approval of the 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 These conditions are then followed by a list of 
 the privileges granted to the Company, the principal 
 of which are : — 
 
 (a) To hoist and use on its buildings and elsewhere 
 in Borneo, and on its vessels, such distinctive
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 6/ 
 
 flag indicating the British character of the 
 Company as the Secretary of State and the 
 Lords of the Admiralty may from time to 
 time approve ; 
 {b) To acquire lands by cession or purchase ; to 
 plant or improve territories ; to make and 
 maintain roads, harbours, telegraphs, etc. ; 
 to aid and promote immigration ; to grant 
 lands, mines, etc. ; to farm out for revenue 
 purposes the rights to sell spirit, tobacco, 
 opium, salt, etc. ; to make loans for promoting 
 any of the objects of the Company; to acquire, 
 hold, or charter steam or other vessels; to deal 
 in all kinds of merchandise ; to carry on any 
 lawful commerce or trade ; to establish and 
 maintain agencies everywhere ; to be sued or 
 sue by the Company's name of incorporation 
 in Borneo or in Great Britain or any of its 
 colonies or dependencies, etc., etc. 
 
 Then follows the declaration that nothing in the 
 charter shall be deemed to authorize the Company 
 to set up or grant any monopoly of trade ; and 
 that, subject to customs duties and restrictions on 
 importation, trade within the Company's territories 
 shall be free. Lastly, it is stated that in the event 
 of the Company failing to comply with any material 
 condition of the charter the same shall thereupon 
 be liable to be revoked, cancelled, or annulled. 
 
 So novel an incident in modern times as the 
 grant of a royal charter to a private company, for 
 the foundation of a colony in the Eastern seas, gave 
 an opportunity to the Opposition in Parliament to 
 raise a debate in both Houses. The result, how- 
 ever, in spite of all hostile comment, was to leave 
 the new Company and its charter invested with the 
 sanction of Parliament by a large majority in the
 
 68 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 House of Commons and without a division in the 
 House of Lords. The grant of a charter was 
 vigorously defended by the Prime Minister himself 
 in the former, and by the Secretary of State for 
 Foreign Affairs in the latter. 
 
 Spain and Holland made certain difficulties as 
 to the Company's title and boundaries, but these 
 were surmounted, and in May 1888 it obtained 
 recognition of its territory as a protectorate of 
 the United Kingdom. Since then the internal 
 government has been left in the hands of the 
 Company, while the relations with foreign states 
 are conducted in Downing Street. The Com- 
 pany has a copper coinage, and at the begin- 
 ning of last year had a note issue to the value of 
 180,000 dollars. 
 
 The difficulties that the British North Borneo 
 Company has had to meet, and the good work that 
 it has achieved, are excellently summarized by Sir 
 Rutherford Alcock, one of the governors of the cor- 
 poration, in a recent speech. He said: — "To create 
 a trade in a tropical island in the East where none 
 existed when possession was first obtained ; to 
 bring under civil administration and government a 
 territory where only pirates and nomad tribes of 
 savages formed a scanty population ; and for its 
 development to attract capital and found a colony 
 which must anually increase in value as a com- 
 mercial opening, and naturally improve under the 
 British flag, was manifestly an arduous, and might 
 well prove to be a very uphill and costly, undertak- 
 ing. Without gold mines or other valuable mineral 
 deposits easily accessible to draw both labour and 
 capital to such a territory, it could not in any case 
 be a very rapid operation. In less than ten years 
 however — he might say eight more accurately — this 
 had been accomplished to a considerable extent.
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMrANIES 69 
 
 If what had been actually effected In this period 
 were taken into account, and the present state of 
 revenue and trade, he thought it would be found 
 that British North Borneo would bear favourable 
 comparison with any other colony founded by the 
 British or any other European Government, in a 
 similar period, in analogous circumstances.".; 
 
 The Royal Niger Company, which received its 
 charter in July 1886, conducts its operations over 
 regions estimated to cover half-a-miliion square 
 miles, and with a population variously estimated 
 at from twenty to forty millions. 
 
 The French dream of a great colonial empire in 
 Africa, stretching without interruption and in a 
 straight line from Algeria to the Congo, was 
 rudely shattered by a handful of British mer- 
 chants, inspired and guided by one far-seeing, 
 courageous, and public-spirited man, Mr. Goldie 
 Taubman, now Sir George Taubman Goldie, who 
 paid his first visit to the Niger in 1877. Two years 
 later all the interests of the British, the only 
 Europeans on the river at that time, were fused 
 in the United African Company. From that 
 period, under ^ the influence of Sir George Goldie, 
 it was resolved to try to pacify the hundreds of 
 different tribes by welding them into a homo- 
 geneous state, and to obtain a charter for the 
 administration of the country. On an application 
 to the Government in 1 881, the first objection raised 
 was that the capital of the Company was inade- 
 quate. To parry this, the capital was raised from 
 ;i^ 1 2 5,000 to ^1,000,000, the issue of new stock 
 thrown open to the public, and the name of the 
 corporation changed to the " National African 
 Company." The new association advanced by 
 leaps and bounds. New stations were established ; 
 steamers and launches were sent out ; operations
 
 70 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 were extended further up the Niger and its larger 
 tributaries ; and all preparations for the long-looked 
 and much-hoped-for charter were made. Meanwhile 
 opposition came from the French, under the inspir- 
 ation of Gambetta. Two companies, one with a 
 capital of ;^ 160,000 and the other with ;^6oo,ooo, 
 began pushing towards the districts in the occupa- 
 tion of the British, with the intention of securing 
 the Lower and Middle Benue (the Niger's largest 
 tributary) for their own country. The greatest 
 activity was manifested, and they placed between 
 thirty and forty of their stations on the lower river. 
 While this state of things lasted the grant of a 
 charter was out of the question, and at one time it 
 looked very much as if the whole of this country 
 would be lost to England. But Sir George Goldie 
 was equal to the occasion. He came to the con- 
 clusion that the only way to get rid of the French 
 was to buy them out or starve them out, or possibly 
 to combine both methods. The British Company 
 increased the number of their stations and lavished 
 enormous gifts on the chiefs to deter them from 
 making treaties with the French ; and by the 
 acutest competition raised the value of native 
 products, which formed the commodities of trade, 
 until the losses of the French became so serious 
 that after Gambetta's downfall they were quite 
 ready to retire " on terms." They were bought 
 out with cash and shares in the British Company 
 a few days before the meeting of the Berlin Con- 
 ference ; so that when the Niger district came up 
 for discussion, our representative was able to assert 
 that no nation but our own was in any way in- 
 terested in the lower portion of that river. Next 
 came the opposition from Germany. In 1884 the 
 Central Soudan regions were still without any 
 treaty or declaration of protection, and in April
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 7 I 
 
 of the following year Dr. Flegel, under the aus- 
 pices of the German African Society and the 
 German Colonial Society, left Berlin with inten- 
 tions that were sufficiently obvious. Again Sir 
 George Goldie was on the watch. Before the meet- 
 ing of the Berlin Conference he dispatched Mr. 
 Joseph Thomson to proceed up the Niger and 
 acquire by treaty all the country on its banks. 
 Dr. Flegel and his successor, Dr. Standruger, ar- 
 rived to find they were too late, and in 1886 the 
 British Government had no difficulty in carrying 
 through the Anglo-German Agreement defining 
 the Eastern Boundaries of the British sphere. The 
 Company could now display some three hundred 
 treaties with native chiefs, besides their own original 
 holding. The charter was again earnestly de- 
 manded, but its issue was delayed until July 1886, 
 chiefly owing to Government scruples as to the 
 propriety of granting a charter over territories 
 which by arrangement at the Berlin Conference 
 had to be placed under British protection. After 
 endless negotiations the prayer was granted, and 
 the National African Company became the Royal 
 Niger Company, with Lord Aberdare as Governor 
 and Sir George Goldie as Vice-Governor. The 
 charter itself, in form, provisions, and conditions, 
 is an almost exact reproduction of the one granted 
 to the British North Borneo Company. 
 
 The brief career of the Company has not been 
 without trouble and difficulties. It cannot as a 
 Government expend more than it raises by taxa- 
 tion, nor is it allowed to raise more by taxation 
 than is required for actual current administration. 
 In 1888 the British Government recognized that 
 ;[^25o,ooo had been expended by the Company in 
 obtaining for Great Britain the protectorate of the 
 Niger territories, and then gave formal assent to
 
 72 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 the levying of duties (in excess of those required 
 for current administration) to the extent of ;^i 2,500 
 per annum, being interest at five per cent, on the 
 quarter of a milHon thus devoted to the increase 
 of the Empire. 
 
 In 1878 negotiations with Sultan Burghash of 
 Zanzibar were entered into by Sir William I\Iac- 
 kinnon. These resulted in the Sultan offering him, 
 on certain terms, a lease of the whole of the terri- 
 tories of the Sultanate situated on the mainland. 
 The offer was repeated in i88i,but declined, as Sir 
 William conceived that no Company w-ould be 
 strong enough to undertake such an enterprise 
 without some encouragement from the Government 
 of the day. This had been steadily refused for 
 some time, owing to a fear of wounding the suscep- 
 tibilities of Germany. Between 1880 and 1885 
 Germany lost no opportunity of increasing her 
 influence at Zanzibar, and in the beginning of the 
 last-mentioned year the Sultan found himself in 
 danger of losing every foot of land which he 
 claimed on the African continent. Once more he 
 telegraphed to Sir William Mackinnon, imploring 
 him to accept the concession, so that his country 
 might be administered under British influence. 
 About the same time ]\Ir. H. H. Johnston had 
 obtained from chiefs on Kilimanjaro and Taveta 
 documents which amounted to grants of territories, 
 w^hich rights he made over to a Manchester mer- 
 chant. These two circumstances may be viewed 
 as the starting-point of the British East Africa 
 Company. 
 
 In October and November 1886, the British and 
 German Governments came to a mutual agreement, 
 recognizing the sovereignty of the Sultan over a 
 strip of coast ten miles wide, extending from Tungi 
 Bay to Kipini, and certain stations ; also over the
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 73 
 
 islands of Zanzibar and Pemba and the small 
 islands within a radius of twelve miles. 
 
 Under Sir William Mackinnon a body of capital- 
 ists formed themselves to acquire rights over the 
 territory which had been rescued from Germany as 
 the British sphere. In May 1887 the Sultan 
 granted them the ten-mile strip of coast for fifty 
 years, to be entirely administered by them in his 
 name. In return he was to receive all the custom 
 dues which he was then receiving and 50 per cent, 
 of any additional net revenue which might accrue 
 to the Company from fresh ports. 
 
 Concessions from other chiefs, in addition to 
 those granted by the Sultan, conferred on the 
 Company sovereign rights for a distance of two 
 hundred miles from the coast. They then applied 
 for a charter, as the Imperial British East Africa 
 Company. This was granted on September 3, 
 1888, on the usual terms, it being stated that this 
 new section of the Empire (about 200,000 square 
 miles) w^as to be administered as a Crown Colony 
 so far as that was possible under the conditions. In 
 fact, the shareholders were to represent the Govern- 
 ment, keep up an army, administer justice, and 
 generally represent Great Britain out of their own 
 pockets. They could only advance into the interior 
 under the restrictions of the Berlin Agreement; the 
 coast was open to them where they might, as the 
 Sultan had done, levy taxes on all goods coming 
 from the interior, irrespective of whence they came 
 or whither they were going ; but even this was 
 subsequently taken from them in a most arbitrary 
 manner, and the coast protectorate placed under 
 the free zone provision of the Berlin Act. 
 
 The Company, once the charter was in their 
 hands, immediately commenced to organize the 
 work of administration, to send out exploring
 
 74 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 expeditions, to make roads into the interior, and to 
 select sites for stations. At this time the badly- 
 governed natives in the German section broke out 
 into open rebellion, and great care and skill was 
 necessary to prevent the spirit of disaffection 
 spreading to the British sphere. Mr. Mackenzie, 
 the first administrator, grappled with the difficulty 
 in a masterly manner, and managed to win the 
 goodwill of Arabs, natives, and missionaries. He 
 then set to work to improve Mombasa, construct- 
 ing a light railway on the island and suitable 
 buildings on the mainland. Caravans were at once 
 sent into the interior in various directions to open 
 up relations with the natives and to ascertain the 
 best routes inland. One of these established a 
 station at Machako's, 250 miles from the coast ; 
 another proceeded north to the Tana river and 
 pushed on as far as Mount Kenia. In short, with- 
 in six months the Company had fairly established 
 itself, and the actual and active work of opening 
 up the country was well begun. 
 
 The position of Germany at Witu, at the mouth 
 of the Tana, was early in 1890 utilized by Dr. 
 Peters as a starting-point from which to hamper 
 the Company on the north, by attempting to obtain 
 concessions which would completely exclude it 
 from the interior. Notwithstanding the disap- 
 proval of the German authorities, he landed in Witu, 
 and having planted his country's flag along the 
 river Tana, and encountered the Masai on several 
 occasions, he succeeded in reaching Uganda early 
 in the year. Here he with little difficulty obtained 
 a friendly reception from Mwanga, the King, and 
 by the help of intrigues with the Catholic mission- 
 aries obtained what he termed concessions from 
 the monarch, which if genuine would have entitled 
 the country to the protection of Germany. What
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES 75 
 
 was his disgust when he sailed from Uganda in the 
 autumn to find not only that Emin Pasha had been 
 " relieved " (to do this had been the ostensible 
 object of his expedition), but that England and 
 Germany had made such a delimitation of their 
 respective spheres in East Africa as deprived all 
 his plotting and bad faith of the slightest value. 
 By the famous Anglo-German Agreement of July 
 
 1890, England was left in possession of Witu, and 
 all the coast north of the river Juba, the line being 
 then drawn across the Victoria Nyanza from its 
 western shore to the boundary of the Belgian 
 Congo. And this territory was further enlarged by 
 the Company in 1892 taking over from Mr. Stanley 
 certain treaties which he made with the chiefs to 
 the west of the Victoria Nyanza when on his 
 journey from Lake Albert to the east coast. 
 
 After this the Company's greatest difficulty was 
 that of communications, and everything pointed 
 to the necessity of a light railway from the coast 
 to the Lake, a distance of about 500 miles. As 
 England, by the act of the Brussels Conference of 
 
 1891, had in common with the other signatories 
 promised her best endeavours to put down slavery, 
 it was pointed out that a railway-line between the 
 points mentioned, rendering human carriage un- 
 necessary and unprofitable, would be one of the 
 best steps towards this end. The result was that 
 in 1 89 1 the Government granted for the expenses 
 of a preliminary survey the sum of ;!^20,000, this 
 being understood as only the forerunner of a still 
 larger subsidy for the construction of the railway 
 itself. 
 
 Meanwhile affairs were serious at Uganda, and 
 their history can only be briefly dealt with. The 
 Company's agents, on arriving there in 1 890, found 
 things in such a bad state, due to Mwanga's
 
 76 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 weakness and the intrigues between Protestants, 
 Catholics, and Mohammedans, that they retired, 
 and the temporary abandonment of the place was 
 counselled. English opinion was stirred by the 
 idea of leaving the British missionaries in their 
 then critical position, and by the feeling that Great 
 Britain might thus lose the control of the Nile 
 sources. On all hands the Company was urged 
 to dispatch a thoroughly equipped expedition to 
 Uganda (the Government being among its most 
 earnest advisers), and Captain Lugard, with a small 
 force at his command, was ordered to proceed to 
 the place, to carry out the policy which the Com- 
 pany, yielding to the pressure placed upon it, had 
 determined to adopt. On Dec. i8, 1890, he reached 
 Mwanga's capital, and induced him to sign a treaty 
 acknowledging the Company's supremacy for two 
 years. By the spring of 1891 Captain Lugard 
 thought the English position so secure that he deter- 
 mined to make an exploring expedition westward, 
 leaving Captain Williams in command. Before 
 he did so, however, both Christian parties united, 
 and under his guidance completely routed their 
 common enemy the Mohammedans on May 7th. 
 In 1 89 1 Captain Lugard returned to Uganda, 
 having established British supremacy in all the 
 district between Lake Victoria on the one side 
 and Lakes Albert and Albert Edward on the 
 other. Forts had been erected at all suitable spots, 
 and their garrisons only needed strengthening to 
 make this the great centre of civilization for the 
 whole of Central Africa. But things had been 
 going badly at Uganda during his absence, and 
 shortly after his return the intrigues and plots that 
 had been smouldering while he was away culmin- 
 ated in a conflagration. On Jan. 24, 1892, the 
 Catholics attacked the Protestants, and Captain
 
 SKETCH OF ENGLISH CHARTERED COMPANIES yj 
 
 Lugard, in the interest of British rule, felt bound 
 to assist the latter. His conduct was much criti- 
 cized at the time, but there is little doubt that he 
 acted impartially and with sagacity. Before he 
 returned to England in Oct. 1892 all had been 
 satisfactorily settled. Mwanga was restored, and 
 a new treaty entered into by which he made over 
 Uganda for ever to British protection. The Pro- 
 testants were settled there, the Catholics on the 
 north-west of Lake Victoria, and the Mohammedans 
 in a province of their own. 
 
 But these events were too much for the Company. 
 They brought consequences and responsibilities in 
 their train far too heavy for a corporation with 
 a comparatively small capital and unaided by 
 Government. And so in August 1891, when the 
 Directors' last hopes that a railway would be 
 constructed were disappointed, they intimated that 
 they would be compelled to abandon Uganda, and 
 only undertook to hold it till the end of 1892. At 
 the end of September the " principle of evacuation " 
 was accepted by the new Government, but assist- 
 ance was offered to the Company to prolong its 
 occupation to the end of March 1S93. Sir Gerald 
 Portal, as British Commissioner, arrived in Uganda 
 on March 17, 1893, and at the end of the month 
 the Union Jack was substituted for the Company's 
 flag. What has occurred since then in these dis- 
 tricts belongs rather to our colonial history than to 
 that of the Imperial East Africa Company. 
 
 There still remained the other part of the Com- 
 pany's property to be dealt with. This consisted 
 of the ten-mile strip of coast leased by the Sultan 
 of Zanzibar, and posts at Kikuyu, at Machako's, 
 and one or two other places in the interior. What 
 was to be done ? These the Company could not 
 be deprived of without compensation, nor had
 
 78 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 they done anything to merit a withdrawal of their 
 charter. On the contrary, at great expense and 
 risk, and even loss, they had worthily sustained 
 the supremacy and honour of the British name. 
 So in the beginning of 1895 Government offered 
 the Company ;^20,oooin satisfaction of all claims, 
 and ;^50,ooo if they would surrender their charter. 
 These offers were accepted, and so terminated the 
 career of a corporation which in the short space of 
 its existence made a greater mark on the history 
 of East and Central Africa than had done any 
 power that preceded it. 
 
 The British South Africa Company, the youngest 
 and most important of all chartered companies 
 now existing (and possibly, with the exception 
 of the old East India Company, that have ever 
 existed), received its charter from the Crown on 
 Oct. 29, 1889. Recent events have brought the 
 action of this corporation so prominently before 
 the public that its history, extent of territory, and 
 achievements merit, as they will now receive, a 
 separate consideration.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 
 
 In order to give a true history of the British 
 South Africa Company, and to show the great and 
 patriotic work it has accompHshed, it is necessary 
 to revert to events that took place some years 
 back in South Africa. 
 
 The discovery of diamonds near Kimberley, in 
 1869, made an epoch in the expansion of South 
 Africa, In 1871 British authority was proclaimed 
 over the Diamond Fields. But the Boers were also 
 laying claim to that part of the country, and the dis- 
 pute was settled by arbitration in favour of Great 
 Britain. Towards the end of 1872 Parliamentary 
 freedom was granted to Cape Colony. Two years 
 later Lord Carnarvon, who had succeeded in 
 1868 in uniting the colonies of British North 
 America, sought to apply the same system to 
 South Africa, and accordingly in 1874 he sent 
 dispatches requesting the Government of Cape 
 Colony to assemble representatives of the various 
 colonies and states for a Conference on Federation. 
 Mr. Froude was specially sent to see that this 
 should be carried out. However, misunderstandings 
 arose, the conference was not summoned, and the 
 opportunity was lost. 
 
 In 1876 the Government of the South African 
 79
 
 So THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 Republic practically collapsed ; Sekokuni, a power- 
 ful native chief, revolted against the Boers and 
 inflicted a severe defeat on the Transvaal forces. 
 The Boer Government at the same time was 
 involved in a dispute with Cetewayo, the powerful 
 chief of the Zulus, and the Transvaal treasury was 
 so empty that it had not enough money to pay 
 for the carriage of ammunition from Durban to 
 Pretoria; the balance in hand of the Executive was 
 at the moment I2s. 6d. The British Government, 
 on the principle that England was responsible for 
 the well-being of the whole of South Africa, decided 
 to establish the Queen's authority in the Transvaal, 
 a step that had the support of many inhabitants of 
 the Republic, and on April 12, 1877, Sir T. H. 
 Shepstone rode into Pretoria at the head of a 
 small body of police, and raised the British flag 
 without opposition. Lord Carnarvon carried a 
 second South African Bill through the Imperial 
 Parliament, and that most able of administrators, 
 Sir Bartle Frere, was sent out to carry out the 
 provisions of the Bill. A few months after his 
 arrival, in April 1877, a rebellion broke out on the 
 eastern frontier of the Colony. Peace was only 
 restored in August 1878, when matters assumed a 
 threatening outlook in Zululand. The Government 
 of Natal informed Sir Bartle Frere that a bitter 
 feeling existed between the Zulus and the Boers, 
 and suggested the arbitration of a third party. In 
 September 1878 Sir Bartle Frere himself went to 
 carry out the arbitration, and after carefully con- 
 sidering the situation he gave his award in favour 
 of the Zulus, but on the understanding that Cete- 
 wayo would disband his army ; that he would 
 also receive a British Resident at Ulundi, and 
 give guarantees for a better government of his 
 people. Cetewayo refused to comply with these
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 8 1 
 
 terms, and Lord Chelmsford was sent to enforce 
 the High Commissioner's orders. He crossed the 
 borders of Zululand and Natal in January 1879. 
 Shortly after, Lord Wolseley superseded Lord 
 Chelmsford, and after a series of important engage- 
 ments the war came to an end in the month of 
 November, the military power of the Zulus being 
 broken down for ever. 
 
 In 1880 Mr. Gladstone, who had come to office, 
 recalled Sir Bartle Frere, to the great joy of the 
 Boer leaders, Kruger and Joubert, who, although 
 they had accepted office under the British Govern- 
 ment, were busy plotting against it. With Sir 
 Bartle Frere's recall the intended Federation fell to 
 the ground, and emboldened by this the Boers 
 began to break out into open rebellion. In 
 December 1880 a triumvirate, composed of Kruger, 
 Pretorius, and Joubert, hoisted the Transvaal flag, 
 and early in 1881 the British garrisons in the 
 Transvaal were surrounded by the Boers. General 
 Colley, in command of Natal, marched to their 
 relief, but met with the disaster of Majuba Hill. 
 This disaster has been greatly magnified, for it 
 must be remembered that it consisted of the loss 
 of ninety-two British soldiers and officers killed 
 and two hundred wounded or captured. Reinforce- 
 ments were sent out, and in March 1881 General 
 Sir Evelyn Wood had 10,000 men massed on the 
 heights of the Drakensberg. General Roberts had 
 just reached the Cape, and 10,000 more troops 
 were on their way to South Africa. It was then 
 that through Mr. Gladstone's instructions an 
 armistice was concluded with the Boers, although 
 the English disposed of a force sufficient to crush 
 the rebellion ; and of all the unpatriotic deeds 
 accomplished by Mr, Gladstone none has ever 
 had more evil consequences. Among the terms of
 
 82 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 the armistice it was provided that complete self- 
 government should be granted to the Transvaal 
 under British suzerainty. Recent events have 
 shown hov/ fatal a step this was, and how British 
 influence has suffered through it. 
 
 When in 1881 the Transvaal recovered its inde- 
 pendence, the first care of the Burghers was to 
 invade large tracts of the country adjoining their 
 own, where they founded two Boer states in 
 Bechuanaland — Stellaland and Goshenland. The 
 western limits of the Transvaal were, however, 
 defined by the Convention of 1884, and a British 
 Protectorate was proclaimed over Bechuanaland. 
 The first Deputy-Commissioner had made treaties 
 with the chiefs of the country, but these did not 
 stop the Boers. ^ It therefore became necessary to 
 take stronger measures ; Mr. Cecil Rhodes, having 
 been appointed Deputy-Commissioner, pointed out 
 the danger, and at the end of 1884 Sir Charles 
 Warren marched into Bechuanaland with a strong 
 force. He met with no opposition, and the result 
 of his expedition was to extend the British sphere 
 up to 22° south latitude, Southern Bechuanaland 
 being soon after formed into a Crown Colony. 
 The Boers, having failed to extend their limits 
 towards the west, then thought of marching to the 
 north of the Crocodile river and of laying hands 
 on Lobengula's country, after having already 
 wrested from his father the country which is now 
 called the Transvaal. A letter written to Sir 
 
 1 On September loth President Kruger issued a proclama- 
 tion by which "in the interests of humanity" he proclaimed 
 and ordained two chiefs, Moshette and Monsoia, who were 
 at war with each other — although their territory was outside 
 the borders of the Transvaal — to be under the protection of 
 the South African Republic. The proclamation was stated 
 to be made "provisionally," and subject to Article IV. of the 
 Convention of London.
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 83 
 
 Charles Warren in May 1885, and published by Mr. 
 Keltic in his excellent book, throws a remarkable 
 light on the situation, 
 
 " The Boers," says Sir Charles's correspondent, 
 "are determined to get a footing in Mashonaland 
 (their condition being so wretched and Mashonaland 
 being the finest agricultural land in South Africa) 
 by thus taking the Matabele on the flank and 
 gradually acquiring their territory by conquest ; 
 from thence overspreading all the independent 
 tribes to the west and the south of here. I also 
 had good proof that the Germans and Portuguese 
 are working quietly but slowly to acquire as much 
 of these lands and the Transvaal under their pro- 
 tectorate as occasion will allow of; and believe 
 that they as well as the Boers and other nations 
 are only waiting to hear what action the British 
 Government will take to settle on their own. The 
 natives all showed the greatest desire to be under 
 British protection, chiefs as well as their subjects, 
 and they hate and fear the Boers." 
 
 This letter was written in 1885, and it must be 
 remembered that in 1882 the Boers had already 
 tried to make Lobengula sign a treaty, but the 
 King of the Matabele declined to have anything to 
 do with them. Notwithstanding this. President 
 Krugcr tried in 1888 to make out that such a treaty 
 had been signed. 
 
 Two other Powers were also eager to enter Mata- 
 beleland — Germany from the west and Portugal 
 from the east. 
 
 The Germans, who had already occupied Damara- 
 land, were getting ready to advance towards the rich 
 fields between the Crocodile river and the Zambezi, 
 attracted thither by the glowing reports of their 
 countryman Herr Weber. 
 
 On the other hand, the Portuguese were laying
 
 84 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 claim to this rich country. In 1887 an official 
 map was pubh'shed by the Portuguese Government, 
 in which a great portion of Matabeleland was 
 marked as Portuguese territory. Lord Salisbury 
 protested, and reminded the Portuguese Govern- 
 ment that, according to the Berlin Act, no claim 
 to territory in Central Africa could be recognized 
 that was not supported by effective occupation. It 
 is true that on April 25 of the following year 
 (1888), the High Commissioner of the Cape notified 
 by proclamation in the Governtnent Gazette his ap- 
 proval and ratification of the following agreement 
 entered into at Buluwayo on the nth of February 
 preceding, by the Chief Lobengula and Mr. J. S. 
 Moffatt, Assistant British Commissioner : — 
 
 " The Chief Lobengula, ruler of the tribe known 
 as the Amandebele, together with the Mashona 
 and Makalaka, tributaries of the same, hereby 
 agrees to the following articles and conditions : 
 That peace and amity shall continue for ever 
 between her Britannic Majesty, her subjects, and 
 the Amandebele people ; and the contracting Chief 
 Lobengula engages to use his utmost endeavours 
 to prevent any rupture of the same, to cause the 
 strict observance of this treaty, and so to carry 
 out the spirit of the treaty of friendship which was 
 entered into by his late father, the Chief Umsila- 
 gaas, with the then Governor of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, in the year of our Lord 1836. 
 
 " It is hereby further agreed by Lobengula, Chief 
 in and over the Amandebele country, with its 
 dependencies as aforesaid, on behalf of himself and 
 people, that he will refrain from entering into any 
 correspondence or treaty with any foreign state or 
 power to sell, alienate, or cede, or permit or coun- 
 tenance any sale, alienation, or cession of the whole 
 or any part of the said Amandebele country under
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 85 
 
 his chieftainship, or upon any other subject, without 
 the previous knowledge and sanction of her 
 Majesty's High Commissioner for South Africa." 
 
 But, as acknowledged by Lord Salisbury in his 
 protests against the pretensions of the Portuguese, 
 " no claim to territory in Central Africa could be 
 recognized that was not supported by effective 
 occupation." There was therefore still a danger 
 that the Portuguese would occupy the country, as 
 they had the advantage of being close at hand. It 
 must be remembered that so long ago as 1878 
 Colonel d'Andrade obtained w^hat was known as 
 the " Paiva d'Andrade Concession," the object of 
 which was to exploit the resources, and especially 
 the gold, of the region of JManica immediately east 
 of Mashonaland. Next year this was transferred 
 to the " Societe Generale du Zambeze a Paris," 
 which sent out a large commission of experts 
 under d'Andrade to report on the country. The 
 Paris Company did not consider the reports of 
 these experts sufficiently encouraging, and they 
 declined to go further in the matter. Various 
 other companies were formed, and in 1888 the 
 rights of these corporations were made over to the 
 Mozambique Company, who began to take active 
 steps to proceed towards the interior of the Manica 
 country. 
 
 The danger of seeing Mashonaland and Mata- 
 beleland fall into foreign hands was therefore 
 imminent. The British Government did not seem 
 disposed or able to affirm its rights by an effective 
 occupation, and this splendid territory might have 
 been lost to this country had not a man risen who 
 accomplished what the others were only contem- 
 plating. This man was Mr. Cecil Rhodes. He 
 cannot better be described than by quoting once 
 more Mr. Scott Keltic, the eminent Secretary of
 
 86 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 the Royal Geographical Society, to whom we are 
 indebted for so much valuable information on the 
 political history of Africa. This is what he says 
 of the great African statesman — 
 
 " Mr. Rhodes (now the Right Honourable Cecil 
 J. Rhodes, member of her Majesty's Privy Council), 
 born forty-two years ago, is the son of an English 
 clergyman. On leaving school at the age of six- 
 teen, he was compelled to go to South Africa on 
 account of his health, and there took to farming 
 with his brother. He was in the early rush to 
 Kimberley, and is believed to have amassed very 
 considerable wealth in connection with diamond- 
 mining. Although unable to attend the University 
 before leaving for Africa, he had determination 
 enough to come home and take his degree at 
 Oxford, after a residence of some years in South 
 Africa had restored his health. He was after his 
 return connected with the organization of Bechu- 
 analand as sub-commissioner, and did much to 
 secure that territory without reduction or diminu- 
 tion for England. For several years he has been 
 a member of the Cape Parliament, and in 1890 
 became Premier of the Colony. Mr. Rhodes is 
 probably, as are most men, willing enough to make 
 a fortune, and it is generally believed that he has 
 succeeded in doing so. But his actions and utter- 
 ances in recent years show that he is actuated not 
 simply by the desire to accumulate a fortune ; 
 indeed, the impression made upon those who know 
 him best, is that he is indifferent to money for its 
 own sake. Whatever may have been his original 
 motives for seeking to secure a leading share in the 
 partition of Matabeleland, his aim seems rapidly to 
 have developed into the ambition of forming a 
 great South African Confederation, extending far 
 into the heart of Africa, and joining hands with
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 8/ 
 
 the British sphere on the Upper Nile. His con- 
 duct, not only with regard to Matabeleland, but 
 also in connection with his attempt to federate all 
 the South African states, to acquire Damaraland 
 from Germany, and to spread British suzerainty 
 over the wide region on the north of the Zambezi, 
 can only be adequately explained on the supposi- 
 tion that he is actuated by some such ambitious 
 motive." 
 
 As has been already pointed out, when Mr. 
 Rhodes appeared on the scene there was a great 
 danger of Mashonaland and Matabeleland being 
 lost to Great Britain through lack of effective 
 occupation ; but there was another danger that 
 threatened Lobengula. He had been for some 
 time harassed by concession hunters, who were 
 unable to secure for the Mother Country what was 
 really required — an unimpeachable title through 
 effective occupation. Fortunately Lobengula had 
 near him a disinterested and honest adviser, a man 
 whose word has always been believed by all, blacks 
 and whites alike, the Rev. Mr. Helm. Lobengula 
 was, besides, a shrewd ruler, a man who had mixed 
 a great deal in his youth with the whites, and who 
 was not likely to do things in a hurry : he declined 
 to have anything to do with mere concession 
 hunters, but was ready to listen to the proposals 
 of men on whom he could rely. After negotiations 
 that took place at Buluwayo, he granted the con- 
 cession of the mineral rights over the whole of 
 Mashonaland to Messrs. C. D. Rudd, Rochefort 
 Maguire, and F, R. Thompson, members of a 
 syndicate of which Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Alfred 
 Beit were important members. 
 
 These gentlemen, however, did not wish to turn 
 their concession into a mere money-making specu- 
 lation : their aim was greater. They had the utmost
 
 SS THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 faith in the value of the country, and they were 
 ready to invest large sums of money towards its 
 development, their object being to found a company 
 that would become to South Africa what the East 
 India Company had been to India. To achieve this 
 end it was necessary to make elaborate preparations. 
 When they applied for the concession, Mr. Rhodes's 
 chief idea was to secure this part of Africa to Great 
 Britain for ever. As we have already shown, this 
 could only be done by effective occupation, and 
 accordingly he proceeded to take steps in that 
 direction. On April 30, 1889, the owners of the 
 Rudd Concession submitted to her Majesty's 
 Government their scheme for the formation of a 
 company to develop the Bechuanaland Protectorate 
 and the territories to the north of this region. The 
 objects of the Company were stated to be as follows : 
 
 1. To extend the railway and telegraph systems 
 northwards in the direction of the Zambezi. 
 
 2. To encourage emigration and colonization. 
 
 3. To promote trade and commerce. 
 
 4. To develop and work mineral and other con- 
 cessions under the management of one powerful 
 organization, thereby obviating conflicts and com- 
 plications between the various interests that had 
 been acquired within those regions, and securing 
 to the native chiefs and their subjects the rights 
 reserved to them under the several concessions. 
 
 To carry out work of such magnitude, to make 
 occupation effective, and to secure to Great Britain 
 undeniable title to this vast region, it was neces- 
 sary that a Royal Charter should be granted. 
 The Company was to be started with a capital of 
 one million sterling, the concessionaires themselves 
 guaranteeing seven hundred thousand pounds of 
 the capital. On October 15, 1889, her Majesty's 
 Government granted the charter to the Duke of
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 89 
 
 Abercorn, the Duke of Fife, Lord Gifford, Mr. 
 Rhodes, Mr. Alfred Beit, Mr. Albert Grey (now 
 Earl Grey), and Mr, George Cawston. By this 
 charter the Company was empowered to develop 
 and also to administer the country over which 
 they had obtained concessions, but they received 
 no pecuniary assistance whatever from Govern- 
 ment, and they were to bear alone the enormous 
 expenditure of acquiring, colonizing, administering, 
 and defending 750,000 square miles of territory, 
 which were by their sole exertions to be added to 
 the British Empire. 
 
 As soon as the charter had been granted, the 
 Directors of the new Company set to work to 
 carry out its conditions. The difficulties, it must 
 be remembered, were tremendous. The country 
 where the operations had to be conducted was 
 only known to a few hunters and explorers. At 
 Kimberley, some 800 miles from the Cape, were to 
 be found the last outposts of civilization, and thence 
 to Mount Hampden, in Mashonaland, a distance 
 of nearly 1000 miles had to be covered. From the 
 borders of the Bechuanaland Protectorate there 
 existed no roads ; large and numerous rivers had 
 to be crossed, and although Lobengula had given 
 his consent, precautions had to be taken to avoid 
 collision with the Matabele warriors. It must also 
 be remembered that all the necessaries, the supplies, 
 the tools, in fact everything, had to be brought out 
 from Cape Colony ; the Company, moreover, did 
 not merely intend to occupy the country — its object 
 was to colonize from the very beginning of its 
 occupation. An expedition was therefore organized 
 on a large scale, consisting of 465 Europeans — 165 
 pionecrs,and 300mounted police — divided into three 
 troops, under the orders of Colonel Pennifather. 
 
 All these men were to receive pay and rations
 
 90 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 up to the time of disbandment at Mount Hampden. 
 Each pioneer was to be entitled to mark out 15 
 reef claims, and was promised, as soon as the Com- 
 pany should be in a position to grant it, a farm 
 of 3000 acres. Fifty-six pioneer waggons and 
 14 police waggons accompanied the expedition, 
 and these were followed by 20 more. It was 
 arranged with the transport contractor that he 
 was to construct a good waggon-road to Mount 
 Hampden, and forts were to be erected for the 
 protection of the future prospectors, and for keep- 
 ing the communications open. The force was 
 collected at Macloutsie, on the northern border 
 of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. It was there 
 reviewed by General Lord Methuen, and started 
 northwards on June 28, 1890. 
 
 The utmost care was taken in the selection of 
 the members of the expedition. Pioneers and police 
 received a military organization, being drilled and 
 trained under commanding officers, and they formed 
 one of the finest bodies of men that ever started to 
 carry the British flag into a new country. The 
 guiding of the expedition was entrusted to Mr. 
 Selous, who for the previous ten years had ex- 
 plored every portion of Mashonaland. No detail 
 was neglected to make the expedition a success ; 
 the strictest discipline was maintained throughout 
 the march, and the strictest precautions were taken 
 to remain on friendly terms with the natives on the 
 way. As much as possible the kraals were avoided, 
 in order not to excite hostility. Notwithstanding 
 this, for some distance the expedition was followed 
 and watched by a strong Matabele impi, and the 
 European leaders had to use great diplomacy to 
 prevent a collision. To avoid night surprises, a 
 strong laager was formed every night, and an 
 electric search-light used to illuminate the neigh-
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 9 1 
 
 bourhood of the camp. None of the members of 
 the force were allowed to fire shots, even at 
 game, and the natives gradually became fully con- 
 vinced of the pacific intentions of the part}^, and 
 they abstained from molesting it. On September 
 30, 1890, Mount Hampden was reached ; 400 miles 
 of road had been completed, and forts had been 
 erected at Tuli, Victoria, Charter, and Salisbury. 
 The pioneers were then disbanded, and immedi- 
 ately began the work of colonization. Around the 
 forts houses were erected, while prospectors spread 
 themselves over the country. 
 
 The arrival of the pioneers was immediately 
 followed by many intending settlers, and precau- 
 tions had to be taken to ensure supplies for the 
 whole of the population. No one was allowed to 
 penetrate the country without being in possession 
 of at least nine months' supplies, but many emi- 
 grants escaped the vigilance of the officials, some 
 coming on foot, others with donkeys, and when the 
 wet season began, measures had to be adopted 
 to find supplies for the new arrivals. Roughly, 
 some 200 people came in after the expedition. 
 Before and during the rains — and owing to diffi- 
 culties with the Portuguese, of which more will be 
 said shortly — a fourth troop of 100 mounted police 
 was moved up country in December 1 890. Although 
 the Company was not bound to support the settlers, 
 the new arrivals could not be allowed to starve, and 
 the question of supply proved a most difficult one. 
 
 The rains were unusually severe and long that 
 year; between Tuli and Fort Victoria the numerous 
 rivers, some of them 800 yards broad, were flooded 
 for months, and communications interrupted. 
 All stores and supplies had to be sent from 
 Cape Colony, and work could only be begun after 
 the rains were all over. Towards the end of
 
 92 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 April 1891, Mr. Colquhoun, the first Administrator, 
 suffered greatly from the effects of the climate. 
 He had to retire, and was succeeded at the begin- 
 ning of 1 891 by Dr. L. S. Jameson, who had already 
 had considerable experience of Africa in general, 
 and natives in particular. 
 
 When the pioneer expedition went to Mashona- 
 land, Dr. Jameson accompanied it, without holding 
 any ofificial appointment. In December of that 
 year he was appointed Mr. Rhodes's representative, 
 and went to Fort Salisbury. From there he made 
 a most remarkable journey to Gazaland, in order to 
 obtain concessions from Gungunhana, the chief of 
 the country. The whole of his journey was per- 
 formed during the rainy season under the most 
 trying circumstances. The Portuguese, viewing this 
 operation with distrust, made him a prisoner ; but 
 he was released after reaching Delagoa Bay, and 
 returned to Cape Town. Soon after his arrival 
 there, the new colony was threatened with a most 
 serious danger. The Boers, as was pointed out 
 before, had always cast covetous glances at the 
 riches of Mashonaland, and they determined to 
 seize by force what they had failed to obtain by 
 diplomacy. A trek of 5000 Boers was organized 
 in the Transvaal, but strong representations were 
 made to President Kruger by the High Com- 
 missioner, in consequence of which the intended 
 raid was partly stopped ; however, 400 armed 
 Boers started towards the north, firm in their 
 determination to force their way into British terri- 
 tory. Dr. Jameson was dispatched to TuH, and 
 there with Colonel Carrington established posts of 
 police all along the frontier on the banks of the 
 Crocodile river. Mr. Rhodes's instructions were 
 to avoid bloodshed, so when the Boers appeared 
 Dr. Jameson went to meet them, and managed to
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 93 
 
 induce them to abstain from crossing the border. 
 Any of them, however, were allowed to come into 
 the country on signing an undertaking to submit 
 to the Company's laws. This peril avoided, a 
 new danger threatened the young colony. The 
 Portuguese, who had been laying claim to Mashona- 
 land, had been concentrating a large number of 
 troops in the Manica country, and were threatening 
 a march against Fort Salisbury, although their 
 claim had never been substantiated by effective 
 occupation. As soon as the Company's forces 
 proceeded towards the Manica country the Portu- 
 guese claimed it ; a modus vivendi was, however, 
 agreed upon. But although it had been arranged 
 that the rivers were to be free to navigation, 
 without distinction of flag, the Portuguese officials 
 stopped the traffic on the Pungwe river, and Sir 
 John Willoughby, having been dispatched to take 
 supplies by that route, was himself stopped two 
 days before the expiration of the agreement. Capt. 
 Heyman, who was in command of a patrol of police 
 in the Manica country, was attacked by the Portu- 
 guese near Massi-kesse. This engagement resulted 
 in a brilliant victory for the Company's troops. Capt. 
 Heyman had but forty men with him, bootless, half- 
 clothed, and half-starved ; the Portuguese troops 
 numbered 600, with machine guns. Upon being 
 attacked, Capt. Heyman and his men replied to 
 the fire of the enemy, and the 400 native levies, 
 and 200 white troops of the Portuguese, after a 
 short but sharp engagement, began to bolt in a 
 mad scramble. The officers, it is true, behaved 
 with great courage, and when they found that 
 they could not stop the flight of their men, they 
 themselves retired slowly, after saluting the British 
 with their swords. Massi-kesse was then occupied 
 by Capt. Heyman, and subsequent negotiations
 
 94 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 brought about an agreement between the British 
 and Portuguese Governments, who are now working 
 together with the greatest harmony and concord. 
 
 It was after these events that, in June 1891, Mr. 
 Colquhoun left Mashonaland and Dr. Jameson 
 assumed the administration. 
 
 The new Administrator, before taking up his 
 duties, had the finest medical practice in Kimberley, 
 where his amiable qualities and great medical skill 
 had secured for him a high position. He was 
 personally acquainted with Lobengula, who felt 
 deeply grateful for the way in which he had been 
 cured of a severe illness by the able doctor, and 
 his appointment was hailed with the highest satis- 
 faction by all. Many wondered at his sacrificing 
 the position he had in the Cape Colony, and those 
 who knew him were convinced that it was only 
 through patriotism that he accepted his new post. 
 When he assumed the administration of the country 
 the rains had once more begun, and it was only in 
 1892, scarcely four years ago, that he was able to 
 begin work in earnest. In that short period he 
 had proved himself one of the most remarkable 
 administrators and statesmen that ever managed 
 the affairs of a colony; perhaps there is but one man 
 with whom he can be compared — General Gordon. 
 Like him, he possesses the admirable gift of lead- 
 ing men, and the aim and object of his life has 
 been to carry out successfully the work entrusted 
 to his care. Like Gordon also, he always despised 
 wealth. It is said that Gordon was offered by the 
 Emperor of China a room full of gold and declined 
 to take it ; so Dr. Jameson, during the five years 
 he was Administrator of the Chartered Company, 
 had the opportunity of accumulating a large and 
 legitimate fortune, but always declined to take 
 advantage of his position, and devoted the whole
 
 The BRITISH SOUTH africa company 95 
 
 of his time and energy for the benefit of the 
 territories over which he ruled. 
 
 From the moment he took up the reins of 
 government, Dr. Jameson found himself sur- 
 rounded w^ith difficulties. The force of 500 police, 
 that had been brought up by the first expedition, 
 entailed an enormous expenditure to the Company, 
 and had practically ceased to be of any use, and 
 one of the first steps taken by the new Adminis- 
 trator was to disband them. This shows incident- 
 ally that far from wishing to carry war against the 
 Matabele, one of his first acts was to get rid of 
 the military force at his disposal. He found that 
 the 500 men composing his troops would make 
 splendid settlers, but were kept in idleness ; they 
 had ceased to be necessary, owing to the peaceable 
 attitude of the natives, who were struck by the 
 fair treatment they were receiving at the hands of 
 the whites, and were only anxious to get work. 
 He therefore proposed the men of the police force to 
 extinguish their contract by giving them six months' 
 pay and two months' rations ; they all accepted, 
 and were disbanded, most of them turning into 
 useful settlers. 
 
 Let us now consider the position of the Char- 
 tered Company at the beginning of the year 1892. 
 From the month of October 1890 — the date of the 
 arrival of the pioneers at Mount Hampden — up to 
 April 1892, eighteen months had elapsed. During 
 that period there had been ten months of rains, in 
 which little or no work could be performed and 
 everything had to be organized. The confidence 
 of the natives had to be won, and labour was at 
 first difficult to obtain. It was therefore only 
 towards April 1892 that work began in earnest. 
 At that time nearly 1500 settlers had already 
 come to Mashonaland ; at Tuli, Victoria, and
 
 96 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 Salisbury townships began to be erected, as well 
 as at Hartley Hill and Umtali ; plans of the new 
 towns were prepared by the administration, and 
 the ground divided into stands which were regu- 
 larly put up to auction. The grass and mud huts 
 first erected were replaced by substantial brick 
 houses, and in August 1892 there already existed 
 at Victoria and Salisbury rows of well-built 
 houses ; at the latter place fine Government build- 
 ings had been all but completed at a cost of nearly 
 ;^20,ooo. In the Law Courts magistrates sat daily. 
 New-comers found hotels, stores where all the 
 necessaries of life could be obtained, and even 
 a concert-room. One of the most remarkable facts 
 to the credit of the Chartered Company is that 
 from the beginning of their operations, its Directors 
 and officials have always discouraged speculation 
 and turned their energies towards assisting legiti- 
 mate settlers. For instance, the purchasers of stands 
 in the township of Buluwayo are compelled to 
 build on their land, within six months of purchase, 
 brick houses of a value of at least ;^200 ; pro- 
 spectors have to complete work on their claims by 
 sinking a shaft at least thirty feet deep before they 
 can obtain their title ; farmers are obliged to 
 occupy and develop their property for three con- 
 secutive years, and erect houses on their farms, 
 before they obtain absolute right over their land. 
 
 Besides the roads that were commenced with 
 the occupation, the telegraphic communications 
 were carried out with extraordinary rapidity. Until 
 the establishment of the Chartered Company the 
 telegraph-line only extended from the Cape to 
 Kimberley, but in the beginning of 1892 it had 
 been carried as far as Tuli on the Crocodile river, 
 and before the end of that year it had reached 
 Salisbury, a distance of over 1000 miles.
 
 tHE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 9^ 
 
 As has been already stated, it was only after the 
 rains in 1892 that Dr. Jameson was able to set to 
 work in earnest, and the results that he achieved 
 in less than three years and a half have no parallel 
 in history. Through fresh arrangements made 
 with Lobengula the Company was enabled to 
 devote its attention to the land question. Mining 
 and farming had been chiefly active round Fort 
 Victoria ; in August of that year a large number 
 of shafts had been sunk, and some of the properties 
 promised to give excellent returns. A good many 
 farms began to be developed, and quantities of 
 excellent fresh vegetables were daily brought into 
 the township. It was then that arrangements were 
 made with a highly competent farmer, Mr. Moodie, 
 who started with a large party of settlers towards 
 the border of Gazaland. We will show later on the 
 results he attained. 
 
 It was also in the year 1892 that the land con- 
 cession was obtained from Lobengula, who at first 
 declined to grant anything but the mineral con- 
 cession, wishing to see what work would be per- 
 formed before hegave further rights to the Company. 
 But, while the greatest activity was prevailing in 
 the development of the country, further progress 
 was temporarily stopped by the bursting out of 
 the Matabele war. So many misstatements have 
 been made by the adversaries of the Company 
 with regard to that war, and the motives that 
 prompted it, that it is necessary to go fully into its 
 history, in order to show that it fell as a surprise 
 on the officials, who were quite unprepared for it ; 
 and the rapidity with which a force was organized 
 along with the brilliant manner in which the opera- 
 tions were carried out, certainly reflects the greatest 
 credit on those to whom the task fell. 
 
 Although Lobengula had granted a concession 
 
 H
 
 98 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 to the Rhodes-Rudd Syndicate, allowing them to 
 occupy Mashonaland, his young men had seen 
 with much jealousy the advent of the whites into a 
 region that had up till then been one of their chief 
 raiding grounds. They knew enough of the English 
 to understand that they would not be allowed 
 much longer to devastate Mashonaland, and they 
 were determined to expel the white settlers from 
 the country. Lobengula himself did not want to 
 fight, but the very constitution of the Matabele 
 kingdom rendered him powerless to restrain the 
 Avarlike spirit of his younger warriors. In order to 
 stop their plots and intrigues, he used every year 
 to send large forces to raid the neighbouring tribes 
 under the pretence of levying tribute. Impis 
 used to invade sometimes the Barotse, sometimes 
 the Mashukolumbwe country, and regularly some 
 of the rich districts of Mashonaland. Wherever 
 these hordes of savages passed, they killed the 
 men, the old women, and the babies in arms, carry- 
 ing into slavery the younger women and the chil- 
 dren, who formed the share of the loot that went 
 to the warriors ; the cattle were driven back as 
 the share of the King. In their mad craze for 
 destruction, they burnt every village and destroyed 
 every plantation. Wherever they had been their 
 passage was marked by ruins, and where fertile fields 
 were seen previously, the ground was strewn with 
 human skeletons. It was by thousands that the 
 number of their victims could be yearly reckoned, 
 and in their lust for blood they killed for the sake 
 of killing, and destroyed for the sake of destruction. 
 Lobengula had to encourage these raids, as an 
 outlet for the ardour of his warriors and to prevent 
 their plotting against him ; and even when they 
 were not raiding their neighbours, the Matabele 
 were constantly sent out by the king to "wipe
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 99 
 
 Out" some of his own villages where the Induna 
 (local chief) had in some way incurred his dis- 
 pleasure. The answer he once gave to a missionary, 
 who was reproaching him with killing many of his 
 subjects, gives a clear idea of what was going on 
 in the country : " I should like you," he said, " to 
 sit for a week in my chair and to act as king in 
 my place ; we should see if at the end of that time 
 5'ou would not have killed more people than 
 myself. If you had not done so, I fancy that long 
 before the end of the week you would have been 
 killed yourself." 
 
 Besides, these raids were quite necessary to main- 
 tain the military organization of the Matabele, as 
 all the children that were captured were incorpor- 
 ated when grown up in the various regiments, and 
 the introduction of this new blood was what made 
 the very strength of the army. After the occupa- 
 tion of Mashonaland the Matabele soon found no 
 outlet for their warlike spirit. A treaty was made 
 with the King of the Barotse, by which his country 
 was placed under the British Protectorate. To the 
 south, Khama had long enjoyed safety through 
 British protection conferred on him. To the east and 
 north of Matabeleland the Chartered Company was 
 strongly established in Mashonaland. The Mata- 
 bele, therefore, felt themselves hemmed in on all 
 sides, and they determined to try and annihilate the 
 whites, whom they could not forgive for protecting 
 the industrious neighbouring tribes, which they had 
 been accustomed so long to oppress. All the tra- 
 vellers who went into Matabeleland in 1892 could 
 not help noticing the excitement that prevailed 
 there among the natives. They used to surround 
 the waggons, singing murderous songs against the 
 white men, saying that they would soon kill them all, 
 and even when Mr. Moffat, the British Commissioner,
 
 iOO THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 returned from a visit to Lobengula, his horse was 
 surrounded by the young warriors of the Imbesu 
 regiment, who threatened him with their spears 
 and tried to pull him off his horse. 
 
 About the same time, some Matabele impi came 
 to raid the Mashona villages on the eastern border 
 of Matabeleland, where the whites had not yet 
 penetrated ; and in the latter part of 1892, 
 several parties of Matabele committed acts of 
 aggression against white men on the road between 
 Tuli and Salisbury. In one instance the post-cart 
 was stopped, and its occupants stripped of all they 
 had, while transport riders were ill-treated and 
 plundered. Dr. Jameson, however, did not wish 
 to take any hostile action, and was content with 
 making representations to Lobengula through the 
 Company's agent at Buluwayo, who asked the 
 King to punish the offenders himself But Lo- 
 bengula did not take any steps in the matter. It 
 was then that the enemies of the Company made 
 capital out of Dr. Jameson's pacific proceedings. 
 They violently denounced the settlers for not 
 protecting the Mashona among whom they lived, 
 pointing out that it was disgraceful that these tribes 
 should have to pay hut-tax to the Company and 
 receive no protection in exchange. 
 
 Notwithstanding the representations made to 
 Lobengula, fresh and more serious outrages 
 took place in the beginning of 1893. In July of 
 that year, a strong Matabele impi of several 
 hundred warriors marched into Mashonaland, 
 destroyed every village on their way, and killed a 
 large number of natives. They pushed as far as 
 the neighbourhood of the township of Victoria. A 
 strong detachment marched right into the town- 
 ship, killing many of the white men's servants 
 under their very eyes. Even then Dr. Jameson
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 10 1 
 
 tried diplomacy. He sent word to the Matabele to 
 retire from the vicinity of the settlement, warning 
 them that if they did not do so, he would have to 
 eject them. They declined to comply with his 
 orders, and as they were continuing their raids, a 
 small force of thirty-eight mounted police was sent 
 out to enforce order and peace. On the appear- 
 ance of the representatives of the law, the Matabele 
 fired on them, but the police ultimately drove them 
 out, after several of their number had been killed. 
 Messages were immediately sent to Lobengula, 
 and every effort was made to obtain a peaceful 
 solution of the difficulty. Her Majesty's High 
 Commissioner, Lord (then Sir Henry) Loch, also 
 communicated with him, but the King of the 
 Matabele, in reply to their messages, dispatched a 
 most defiant answer, declaring that he would not 
 enter into negotiations until the Company had 
 delivered up to him the Mashona men, women, and 
 children, who had fled to Victoria and placed 
 themselves under the protection of the whites. He 
 added that they were slaves, and did not conceal his 
 intention of having them put to death. To comply 
 with this request would have been a crime against 
 civilization, and it then became necessary to pre- 
 pare for war. When the police were disbanded in 
 1892, only forty men had been retained, but the 
 settlers had organized themselves into Volunteer 
 forces, and these were called upon to hold them- 
 selves in readiness. Dr. Jameson concentrated 
 strong bodies of men at Victoria, Salisbury, and 
 Tuli, and large numbers of horses were purchased 
 in the Transvaal, and dispatched up country with- 
 out delay. Mr. Rhodes, with his usual liberality, 
 did not hesitate to come forward to the help of the 
 Company, and placed at its disposal, out of his 
 own private resources, the sum of ^^50,000. The
 
 102 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 High Commissioner at the same time was informed 
 that the Company wanted nothing, and required 
 no assistance from her Majesty's Government. 
 Matters in the meantime were getting more and 
 more serious. Lobengula dechned to withdraw 
 from the position he had taken up, and large 
 bodies of Matabele surrounded Fort Victoria. 
 The Company remained on the defensive, but on 
 the 2nd of October the Matabele attacked a 
 patrol of police close to Fort Victoria, and the 
 lives and property of the settlers were seriously in 
 danger. After a careful investigation of the posi- 
 tion of affairs, the Fligh Commissioner authorized 
 Dr. Jameson to take whatever steps might be 
 necessary to ensure the safety of the settlers under 
 his care. 
 
 An appeal was made to the settlers, who 
 answered with the greatest eagerness, and 922 
 men were immediately ready to take the field. 
 The object of the Company was not merely to 
 punish the Matabele and then allow the state 
 of affairs that existed previously to begin anew. 
 From the very beginning the Directors' policy 
 had been to combine occupation with colonization, 
 and arrangements were made to develop the new 
 territory as soon as it should be conquered. Each 
 one of the volunteers was promised fifteen mining 
 claims and 3000 acres of land, subject only to the 
 provisions of the existing laws, which compelled 
 owners of mines and farms to complete work on 
 their property before they were granted their final 
 title. The force was commanded by Major Forbes, 
 with Sir John Willoughby as senior military officer, 
 and was accompanied by the Administrator, Dr. 
 Jameson. 
 
 It was imperative that the operations should be 
 conducted without wasting a single moment, as the
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY IO3 
 
 rains were approaching, and it would have been 
 impossible to carry out the campaign during the 
 rainy season. The whites would have been besieged 
 in the forts, and the Matabele would have taken 
 the opportunity to fall on the unprotected Mashona 
 and to murder them wholesale. The advance was 
 made in three separate columns. The Salisbury 
 column under Forbes started from Fort Charter, 
 half-way between Victoria and Salisbury, and 
 marched towards the Iron Mine Hill, about sixty 
 miles from Charter, where it was to meet the force 
 coming from Victoria. The Tuli contingent was 
 to ride direct to Buluwayo, in order to divert the 
 attention of the Matabele, who would thus be 
 attacked from two sides at once. The operations 
 began on September 5, 1893, and as it was feared 
 that Lobengula might attack the Bechuana- 
 land Protectorate, the High Commissioner sent 
 instructions to Colonel Gould Adams, who was in 
 command of the British Bechuanaland Border 
 Police, to occupy Tati ; it was also agreed that 
 the Tuli contingent of the Chartered Company's 
 forces should be placed under the command of this 
 officer. Eighteen hundred and ninety of Khama's 
 men accompanied this column ; but when fighting 
 began they very soon withdrew, as their object had 
 been to secure loot; they expected that the fighting 
 would be done by the whites, and that they would 
 merely share the spoil. 
 
 Fighting commenced on October 16, Captain 
 Campbell being killed while attempting to drive 
 in some cattle which had been taken from 
 Victoria. On October 24, after crossing the 
 Shangani river, while the combined columns were 
 formed into laagers, they were completely sur- 
 rounded by 5000 Matabele, who opened fire on 
 them shortly before sunrise. The fighting was
 
 104 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 brief but most determined, and it was chiefly 
 due to the use of the Maxims that the enemy- 
 were repelled with heavy loss. The advance 
 was continued, the Matabele daily attacking the 
 force, and on November i a fierce battle near 
 the Imbemesi river was fought. The natives 
 were 7000 strong, and among them was the 
 Imbesu regiment, considered the finest fighting 
 body of the Matabele. They attacked with great 
 determination, but the whites secured a decisive 
 victory over the King's troops. On November 4 
 Buluwayo was occupied, and it was found that 
 Lobengula's store of ammunition had been blown 
 up two days previously. 
 
 Lobengula himself had fled, but messengers were 
 sent after him, asking him to come in and 
 guaranteeing his safety. A reply was received 
 to the effect that he would come, but when the 
 two days that had been granted to him to 
 do so had expired there was no sign of his 
 arrival, and Major Forbes was dispatched in 
 pursuit. He started with about 300 men, two 
 Maxims and a seven-pounder. Waggons were 
 dispatched, carrying twelve days' rations for the 
 whole forces and reserves of ammunition, to Shiloh ; 
 but the rains had set in, and the greatest difficulty 
 was found in proceeding with the waggons. Major 
 Forbes therefore decided to go on without them. 
 He took only 155 mounted men with pack-horses, 
 sending back the remainder of his force and the 
 waggons to Buluwayo. Four days later the 
 Shangani river was reached, and fresh traces of the 
 passage of Lobengula were found there. Major 
 Allan Wilson was sent forward with eighteen men 
 to reconnoitre, having instructions to be back at 
 sundown. He did not, however, return, but in the 
 middle of the night Captain Napier came back to
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY IO5 
 
 Major Forbes, informing him that the King was 
 only five or six miles ahead, that a large force of 
 natives was with him, and that Major Wilson 
 considered it advisable that the whole force should 
 come on with the Maxims. Unfortunately Major 
 Forbes, being surrounded by a strong impi, could 
 not attempt to cross the river before daylight ; 
 he therefore dispatched Captain Borrow with 
 twenty mounted men to reinforce Major Wilson. 
 At daybreak Major Forbes made preparations 
 to go and join them, but he was confronted 
 by a party of natives who had crept up hidden 
 in the bush, and when these had been dislodged 
 the river had risen too high to admit of being 
 crossed. At eight in the morning three scouts 
 came from Major Wilson's party reporting that 
 at daybreak the patrol had ridden up to the 
 King's camp, calling out to him to surrender, 
 and that they had been attacked and had to 
 retreat, Major Wilson having then sent back these 
 scouts to ask for further help. As this did not 
 come, owing to the reasons we have before 
 explained, he had to go on retreating, and was 
 surrounded by a large force. One after another 
 the horses fell and a barricade was formed of their 
 bodies. Presently ammunition ran short, and 
 although the enemy had been twice repulsed, the 
 continuous stream of reinforcements that came to 
 the Matabele overwhelmed the gallant little band, 
 not one of them escaping. The sad episode was, 
 however, one of the most glorious feats of the 
 campaign, and even the natives were struck with 
 admiration for the bravery of their foes. 
 
 Major Forbes' supply of stores was getting rapidly 
 exhausted, and he had to send messengers to 
 Buluwayo for reinforcements, supplies and ammu- 
 nition, informing the Administrator at the same
 
 I06 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 time what had taken place, and adding that he 
 intended to effect his retreat to the Shangani river. 
 A party of lOO men immediately started from 
 Buluwayo, Mr, Rhodes himself accompanying the 
 column, and on December 14 a junction was 
 effected with Major Forbes. 
 
 The whole force soon returned to Buluwayo, and 
 by the end of the year news arrived of Lobengula's 
 death. Natives soon poured in, in large numbers, 
 and with them many indunas, who made their sub- 
 mission. Gradually they resumed work in their 
 fields, and most of them surrendered their weapons, 
 assegais, and guns. Quiet had been so effectually 
 restored by the end of December that the force 
 could be disbanded, and the volunteers immediately 
 began prospecting and pegging-out farms. A body 
 of 150 police was raised, which was more than 
 sufficient to maintain order. 
 
 It can be said without exaggeration that this 
 war was certainly one of the most glorious 
 episodes of British Colonial warfare. It reflects 
 the greatest credit on the leaders and their men, 
 all of whom, as volunteers, had been fighting for 
 the supremacy of the British flag in Africa, and it 
 is much to be doubted if a similar result could 
 have been obtained by three times the number of 
 regulars. It is impossible to realize the hardships 
 that officers and men had to go through, and it 
 would require volumes to quote the individual 
 acts of bravery that were performed during that 
 campaign. It has been said by some of the 
 adversaries of the Chartered Company that the 
 Matabele war was brought on by the greediness 
 of the Company, but the impartial history of the 
 facts we have just described conclusively proves 
 that it was only when they had been driven to 
 it that the whites took up arms — and not then
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 10/ 
 
 for the sake of conquest, but for the sake of 
 defending the natives among whom they Hved, 
 against oppression, slavery, and murder. Mr. 
 Labouchere has more than once alluded to what 
 he calls the " loot " certificates given to the men 
 who took part in the campaign. This word is 
 very high-sounding, but it is an absolute distortion 
 of the truth. By granting mining claims and 
 farms, the Company secured for the country a 
 body of settlers who merely became soldiers for 
 a short time, and by accident, and who, the war 
 once over, immediately set to work and brought 
 their labour into the new country, so that a large 
 amount of capital was soon invested. Never, in 
 any part of the world, have such rapid strides 
 been made. Only two years ago this magnificent 
 country, one of the richest of the whole of Africa, 
 was in the hands of raiding murderous savages. 
 Their king, Lobengula, was opposed to every kind 
 of progress ; he would never allow his people to 
 use waggons or ploughs, or to benefit by the in- 
 troduction of improved methods of cultivation. 
 When asked why he prohibited the use of ploughs, 
 he replied that if he allowed them, one single man 
 would be able to do the work then performed by 
 ten, and that, therefore, the remaining nine would 
 devote their time to plotting against him. Every 
 one of his subjects, from the highest to the lowest, 
 was in daily fear of his life ; witch-doctors reigned 
 supreme, and under the cover of witchcraft families 
 and whole villages were suddenly annihilated to 
 satisfy the jealousy and covetousness of a few of 
 Lobengula's influential retainers. The natives 
 themselves had nothing to induce them to improve 
 their land, or to increase their stock of cattle ; 
 they knew well that if they managed to accumu- 
 late wealth, they would soon be exposed to some
 
 I08 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 denunciation that would cause their death. To 
 quote but one instance of this state of affairs, we 
 may take the case of a chief in the Makalaka 
 country, Lobengula having heard that this in- 
 duna had purchased waggons, and was using 
 them to carry his produce to the white men at 
 Tati, immediately decided to do away with him, 
 as well as with all his people. An impi was sent 
 to surround his village, and the chief, with all his 
 subjects, was put to death. The natives of the 
 Upper Zambezi, many of whom used to come to 
 Cape Colony in search of work, were prevented by 
 the fear of Lobengula from going to Mashona- 
 land for employment. They had to cross the 
 dreary waterless Kalihari desert, and had to walk 
 nearly 1200 miles to Cape Colony, many of them 
 losing their lives during this long journey ; and 
 when the survivors returned to their country, 
 bringing the goods they had purchased with the 
 produce of their labour, many of them were 
 robbed and murdered on their way home. At 
 Dakka, south of the Zambezi, there formerly 
 stood a large settlement of Makalaka, around 
 which extended large cultivated fields, and the 
 splendid green pastures of their district were 
 covered with cattle. In one of the raids the 
 Matabele passed through the place, and now not 
 a single trace remains of what once was a pros- 
 perous centre. 
 
 Let us now consider what has been done in 
 Matabeleland since the Chartered Company has 
 occupied the country. Fair roads have been made, 
 one of them running through Tati and Buluwayo, 
 right up to Fort Salisbury, and another running 
 from Tuli to the latter place. In Buluwayo 
 itself, where two years ago there existed but three 
 groups of mud huts, inhabited by six white men,
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY IO9 
 
 a town has been erected, and more than 2000 
 white men are now settled within its walls. 
 Nearly 500 houses have been erected ; there are 
 twelve hotels in the place,a club, three banks and two 
 churches ; three printed newspapers are published. 
 There is also a Stock Exchange ; electric light is 
 being laid ; and the water-works, the reservoirs for 
 which are now in course of construction, will soon 
 be completed ; they will hold sufficient water for a 
 continuous annual supply to a population of 15,000 
 inhabitants. This supply can be easily increased 
 when required. Once in possession of the land to 
 the south of the Zambezi, the Company was not 
 less active in preparing for the development of the 
 regions to the north. An agreement had been 
 made with the King of the Barotse by which a 
 mineral and trading concession was obtained over 
 the whole of his land, a region covering about 
 225,000 square miles. By an arrangement with 
 her Majesty's Government in 1891, the field of the 
 Company's operations was also extended to the 
 whole of the British sphere immediately north of 
 the Zambezi, in what is known as British Central 
 Africa ; Nyasaland, however, being reserved by 
 Government and administered as a protectorate. 
 It was then arranged that Mr. (now Sir) H. H. 
 Johnston, who had been appointed Imperial Com- 
 missioner in Nyasaland, was at the same time to 
 act as Administrator over the Chartered Company's 
 territories north of the Zambezi. A subsidy of 
 ^10,000 a year, afterwards increased to i^ 17,000, 
 was allowed to him in order to defray the cost of 
 Administration. This subsidy was not merely 
 employed to develop the Chartered Company's 
 own territory, but was also used for the benefit of 
 the British Protectorate in Nyasaland. The Com- 
 pany, it is true, derived a profit from it, as Nyasa-
 
 no THE nONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 land is the base from which the whole of the 
 operations were conducted, and the improvements 
 and progress made in that region conduced 
 indirectly to the development of the Chartered 
 Company's neighbouring territory. The subsidy 
 was mainly employed in defraying the cost of the 
 police force, consisting of about 150 Zanzibari and 
 Sikh sepoys under European officers; the num- 
 ber has lately been increased, and with their help Sir 
 H. H. Johnston has been able to stamp out the slave 
 raiders that had for more than a century stopped 
 all progress in that rich region. Arrangements 
 were also made with the African Lakes' Corpora- 
 tion by which the Chartered Company secured a 
 controlling interest in that Company, and from 
 1891 until 1894, i^75,ooo had been expended by 
 the Chartered Company towards the opening out 
 of that part of Africa. The agreement between 
 the Government and the Company came to an end 
 in 1895, and since then the Company has taken 
 over the administration, Major Forbes having been 
 appointed Resident Commissioner. A number of 
 stations have been built and occupied between 
 Lake Nyasa and Lake Tanganika, and exploring 
 parties have ventured into the interior, west of 
 Lake Nyasa. The country is of great wealth from an 
 agricultural point of view ; it contains first-rate 
 grazing grounds, and the native cattle which 
 abounds is of the best. The high plateaux are well 
 adapted to the cultivation of coffee. European 
 vegetables and wheat can easily be raised, and 
 experiments with them have been most successful. 
 The lower districts are well adapted to the cultiva- 
 tion of sugar-cane and rice, and the forests contain 
 large quantities of India-rubber which has not yet 
 been put to practical use, but which is very certain 
 to give large returns. There are indications of
 
 The BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY III 
 
 gold reefs, and the huge district promises to become 
 a valuable addition to the British Empire. 
 
 Let us now consider how the Chartered Company- 
 has carried out the promises it made when the 
 charter was applied for. The greatest care has 
 been bestowed upon opening out new means of 
 communication, and upon improving those already 
 in existence. Two main roads now lead from the 
 sea to Mashonaland and Matabeleland — the first 
 from the south, through Bechuanaland, and the 
 other from the east, from Beira through the Manica 
 country. Buluwayo can be reached from Cape 
 Town in less than eight days, and only five days 
 are necessary to reach Fort Salisbury from Beira, 
 through the Manica country. 
 
 The Bechuanaland Railway Company was formed 
 in May 1893, for the purpose of constructing a 
 line from Vryburg to Mafeking, and thence north- 
 wards towards the river Zambezi. The first 
 section to Mafeking was opened for traffic in 
 October 1894, and the line is now being pushed 
 forward to Buluwayo, a distance of about 500 miles 
 from the present terminus. Shortly after the 
 occupation of Mashonaland, steps were taken to 
 open communications with the east coast, the 
 Portuguese port of Beira being the nearest and 
 most convenient means of approach from the sea to 
 Mashonaland. Arrangements were made with the 
 Portuguese Government, and a railway was con- 
 structed from Fontesvilla, 40 miles up the Pungwe 
 river, as far as Chimoio, a distance of no miles. PVom 
 Beira to Fontesvilla steamers are used on the river, 
 but a line of railway is now being constructed, 
 connecting Beira with Chimoio, which will do away 
 with trans-shipment. Steps have also been taken to 
 extend this line as far as Umtali, the first town- 
 ship situated within the borders of the British
 
 11:2 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 South Africa Company's territory, so that Salisbury 
 will then be brought within 150 miles of a railway 
 terminus. The ultimate object of the Company is 
 to connect the proposed railway to Buluwayo with 
 Fort Salisbury, so that when the Beira-Salisbury 
 railway has been completed, the whole of Charter- 
 land will be served by railways. As it is, the 
 cost of transport has already been considerably 
 reduced. At the present time transport from 
 Beira to Salisbury comes to about £21 per ton, and 
 from Mafeking to Buluwayo it varies, according to 
 the time of the year, from ;!^I4 to i^20 per ton, as 
 much being charged from Buluwayo to Salisbury, 
 and vice versd. From Cape Town to Mafeking the 
 cost is £6 \2s. od., or, at special rates for certain 
 goods, £$ I2s. od. per ton. When these railways are 
 completed, the transport from Beira to Salisbury 
 will be reduced to £12 per ton, and from Cape 
 Town to Buluwayo about the same — a reduction 
 of about £i/if. per ton on the present rates. 
 
 North of the Zambezi steamer services connect 
 Chindi, at the mouth of the river (where ocean- 
 going steamers can lie), with Katunga, where 
 the navigation of the Shire is stopped by the 
 Murchison Falls. Another steamer service connects 
 the Upper Shire river with the north of Lake Nyasa. 
 A company has, however, been formed for the 
 purpose of building a railway from Quilimane on 
 the east coast to the southern end of Lake Nyasa. 
 The plant for this line is now being sent out, and 
 when it has been completed the northern part of 
 Lake Nyasa will be placed within four days of the 
 sea-coast. The actual cost of transport from 
 Chindi to Blantyre, where most of the coffee- 
 plantations are to be found, is ^10 per ton, and 
 from Chindi to the north of Lake Nyasa ^^"15 per 
 ton.
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY II3 
 
 One of the most remarkable results achieved 
 by the Chartered Company has been to cover the 
 whole of South Africa with telegraph lines, and 
 to extend the communication as far as the southern 
 end of the Lake Nyasa. The occupation of 
 Mashonaland was immediately followed by the 
 construction of a telegraph line connecting the 
 Government line from the Cape to Mafeking with 
 Fort Salisbury. Scarcely one year after the 
 pioneers had penetrated into Mashonaland, Fort 
 Victoria was connected by telegraph with Mafe- 
 king, a distance of 630 miles, and a month and a 
 half later the line extended as far as Salisbury, a 
 further distance of 189 miles. Mr. Rhodes then 
 had a great conception of an African-Transconti- 
 nental line that would connect the Cape with Cairo. 
 When he first mentioned the idea, some called 
 him a dreamer, and others ridiculed his notion as 
 impossible to be carried out. Notwithstanding 
 this, in December 1895, thirteen hundred and fifty- 
 four miles of the line were already in operation. 
 After the Matabele war the field-telegraph line 
 that had been erected between Palapye and Tati 
 was replaced by a permanent line from Macloutsie 
 to Mangwe ; this extended to Buluwayoand thence 
 to Salisbury, a branch-line being in course of con- 
 struction between Gwelo and Selukwe. From 
 Salisbury a line was built to the south-east of 
 Umtali, over a distance of 170 miles, connecting 
 Salisbury with the Portuguese line to Beira. 
 Another line was carried out between Salisbury 
 and Tete on the Zambezi, and thence carried on 
 as far as Blantyre in British Central Africa. This 
 line being joined to the Portuguese wire at Tshi- 
 romo, places the whole of the Chartered Company's 
 territory in communication with the outside world 
 by two different routes through the Cape and East 
 
 I
 
 114 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 Coast cables. It is now proposed to extend the 
 line north of Blantyre, and in June last 200 miles 
 of materials were shipped from the Clyde, and 
 before long the telegraph line will have reached 
 Lake Tanganika, and have been pushed on as far 
 as Uganda. When the Mahdi has been crushed, 
 as is more than likely to happen before many 
 months have elapsed, nothing will stand in the 
 way of the completion of Mr. Rhodes's great 
 conception, and telegrams will be able to travel 
 overland from the Cape to Cairo, It must be 
 remembered that the greatest credit is due to the 
 Chartered Company, not only for having laid this 
 line, but also and chiefly for having managed to 
 keep it so far in working order. It shows more 
 than anything else the high respect that the natives 
 entertain for the whites in the regions that are 
 crossed by the telegraph line, as the temptation to 
 the natives to destroy the wire must be enormous. 
 In the districts where the line passes iron wire is 
 one of the chief and most valuable articles of ex- 
 change, and it requires constant supervision to 
 prevent their touching it. 
 
 One of the most remarkable facts connected with 
 the Chartered Company is the excellent way in 
 which the administration has been carried out. At 
 the same time the settlers have not suffered from 
 too much red-tape, the drawback of most Imperial 
 Colonies. Everything has been done to encourage 
 colonization, only such duties being imposed as 
 were absolutely necessary to recoup the cost of the 
 officials, and the new colony is wonderfully free of 
 burdens of any kind for those who have come to 
 make their home in it. The general direction of 
 affairs has been vested with the Administrator, 
 assisted by a Council. The law is administered by 
 a Judge of the High Court, and the legal affairs are
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY II 5 
 
 in the hands of a solicitor and legal adviser, while a 
 public prosecutor is in charge of criminal affairs. 
 The country has been divided into districts, and in 
 each one of them a magistrate has been appointed ; 
 these act as police magistrates and county judges. 
 It is a remarkable fact that the amount of serious 
 crimes has been very small, and almost entirely 
 confined to the native population. The punishment 
 inflicted on the offenders has usually been lenient, 
 as imprisonment is no real punishment to the 
 native ; when in prison he usually gets food superior 
 to what he is accustomed to, and whipping, which 
 is really the only punishment that can make an 
 impression on him, is forbidden by statute. To 
 deal with the natives from the civilized point of 
 view is one of the most difficult questions connected 
 with Africa. These people, who until the arrival 
 of the whites were accustomed to see the smallest 
 offence punished with death or mutilation by their 
 chiefs, can scarcely realize that mere imprisonment 
 means a punishment, and even the system of em- 
 ployment of hard-labour prisoners, for the carrying 
 out of public works, can scarcely be called a punish- 
 ment to them. It is a great mistake that the 
 statutes should prevent the employment of the whip 
 in South Africa ; its use is admitted in all other parts 
 of Africa, and the number of lashes to be admin- 
 istered in each case regulated by law, and it is 
 therefore marvellous that without such punishment 
 a Company should have ever managed to keep the 
 enormous number of natives under its administration 
 in order. The laws against the sale of intoxi- 
 cating drinks to the natives are most stringent, 
 entailing a heavy fine and the cancellation of the 
 licence, and the unmerciful dealing with that class 
 of offenders has prevented the recurrence of the 
 danger. The Chartered Company's territory, with
 
 Il6 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 a large white population, is almost the only part of 
 Africa where the sale of intoxicants to natives is 
 absolutely prohibited, and where the trade in spirits 
 has always been an unknown factor. To this may 
 be attributed the extraordinarily small number of 
 offences committed by the blacks. What a difference 
 as compared with the Congo State, where native 
 labour is almost exclusively paid in poisonous gin, 
 and where murderous affrays are the daily con- 
 sequence ! The natives of Matabeleland and of 
 Mashonaland can most honestly be said to be far 
 healthier and happier than any natives under 
 German, Portuguese, or Belgian rule. In the colo- 
 nies belonging to these nations the native popu- 
 lations suffer more from the brutality of European 
 officers who govern them than from the raids of the 
 Arab slave-dealers. 
 
 It is chiefly and almost onl}'- on the good adminis- 
 tration of its territory that the Company can rely 
 for its future revenue, as this is entirely dependent 
 upon the number of emigrants that come to settle 
 in the country. The only source of revenue at 
 present consists of trade licences, stamp duties, 
 income from the postal service, besides the prospect- 
 ing licences and sale of building stands and of 
 farms. The only tax imposed on every settler 
 consists of the insignificant amount of li". that has 
 to be paid by every man who penetrates the Chart- 
 ered Company's territory, this amount having to 
 be paid for a prospecting licence that confers the 
 right of searching for minerals and of pegging-out 
 twenty gold claims. Every new-comer upon receiv- 
 ing this licence has to sign an undertaking by 
 which he agrees to submit to the Chartered Com- 
 pany's laws in the following terms: 
 
 " I, having taken out a prospecting licence from 
 the British South Africa Company, do hereby
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY II f 
 
 agree to comply with all the laws and regulations 
 of the Company, to assist in the defence of its 
 territories and in the maintenance of public order 
 when called upon to do so, and to obey without 
 question all the decisions and directions of the 
 Company's officers, subject to the forfeiture of 
 such licence and of any rights accruing therefrom; 
 and I moreover hereby acknowledge the right of 
 the Company within the sphere of its operations to 
 remove me if I resist such decisions and disobey 
 such directions." 
 
 The provisions under which mining properties 
 may be acquired are the following : 
 
 " The holder of the prospecting licence has a right 
 to search for minerals and to peg-out on unoccu- 
 pied reefs ten continuous claims (each claim being 
 of 150 ft. in the direction of the course of a reef, 
 and 600 ft, in width). Within fifteen days of the 
 discovery of a mine, the prospectors must apply 
 for a certificate of registration from the mining 
 commissioner. Each claim-holder must within 
 four months from the date of registering his claim 
 execute at least 30 ft. of development work by 
 sinking a shaft, after which his property must be 
 inspected by the mining commissioner, who grants 
 him a certificate that states his title. In each suc- 
 ceeding year further development work of 60 ft. 
 of shafting, drives or tunnels, must be executed, and 
 an inspection certificate applied for ; failing to do 
 so, the claim-holder is deemed to have abandoned 
 his property." With the exception of is. paid for 
 the prospecting licence, and a small sum for regis- 
 tration and certificate, no payment has to be made 
 by the prospector until he disposes of his property, 
 and the Company then becomes entitled to 50% of 
 the price received for the mine. 
 
 A great many people have been complaining
 
 il8 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 that these terms are unfair, but when one con- 
 siders the terms granted in other mining districts, 
 it will be seen that the prospector in the Company's 
 territory is much more favoured than in other 
 goldfields. Mr. Rhodes's original idea was to allow 
 every one to peg-out five claims, being compelled 
 at the same time to mark five adjoining claims that 
 would have become the property of the Chartered 
 Company, but in order to simplify matters he pre- 
 ferred to allow ten claims, one-half of the purchase- 
 money having to be paid to the Company. The 
 regulations as we have just described them are 
 eminently favourable to the miner without capital, 
 as, with the exception of the shilling he has to pay 
 for the prospecting licence, he is only compelled to 
 complete on his property an amount of work that 
 he can himself perform, and that entitles him to the 
 full ownership of the mine he has discovered. In 
 other mining countries a fixed payment of 5^. to 
 los. per month per claim has to be paid by each 
 claim-holder under penalty of forfeiture in default ; 
 so that a miner who has pegged-out ten claims has 
 to pay £2 10s. to ^5 monthly until he finds a pur- 
 chaser, and many men have thus been compelled 
 to abandon valuable property on which they had 
 spent what to them was a large capital, failing to 
 find sufficient money to effect the monthly pay- 
 ments. No man need have such fears when dealing 
 with the Chartered Company. By asking for 
 payment out of the profits made on the sale of the 
 mines, the Company is only exercising a right that 
 no one can complain of, for it must be borne in 
 mind that it has acquired for itself the right to 
 the minerals of the country, and that it has required 
 two millions of capital to open out these gold- 
 bearing districts to prospectors ; consequently if the 
 Company had not spent this amount of money
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY II9 
 
 the prospectors would have been unable to carry- 
 out the work they have done. The Company cannot 
 be expected to work for nothing ; the shareholders 
 are entitled to a return for their outlay, and nobody 
 can complain of having to pay one-half of what is 
 all clear profit. For if the property is a good one 
 and a large price is paid for it, there still remains a 
 considerable margin of profit, considering the first 
 owner has only had to pay one shilling to acquire 
 it, and to expend a small sum to carry out the 
 development work that has enabled him to obtain 
 his final title. If, for example, one compares the con- 
 dition of affairs in the Company's territory and in 
 the Transvaal, the settlers and mine-owners have 
 to support none of the burdens that are crushing 
 under their weight the investors in the Transvaal. 
 In Charterland we find no heavy taxation, no 
 monopoly in explosives, none of the restrictions 
 that cripple progress ; everything in the country 
 is done to encourage individual prosperity. When 
 the railways are completed, the cost of living and 
 the cost of materials will be much below what they 
 are in the Transvaal ; there will be none of the 
 money squeezed out of the colonists thrown away 
 to satisfy the whims and the intrigues of an ever- 
 plotting Executive. And whereas in the Transvaal 
 the Government is for ever making fresh demands 
 upon the working population, and giving them 
 nothing in return, in the Chartered Company's 
 territory the Administration is constantly making 
 sacrifices to improve the condition of the people, 
 and only asking a small return from those who have 
 been successful. Had the Imperial Government 
 opened out the country instead of the Chartered 
 Company, it would have been necessary, in order 
 to cover the expenses of the administration, of the 
 war against the Matabele, and road and telegraph
 
 I20 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 making, to impose high customs duties. Where the 
 Chartered Company has itself invested large sums 
 of money towards the extension of the railways 
 and means of communication, with the ultimate 
 object of increasing the value of the country under 
 its rule, and content to wait for that distant return, 
 Government could not have been expected to do 
 the same without meeting with strong opposition 
 from the taxpayers in the Mother Country, who 
 would have strongly resented what would have 
 been justly deemed lavish expenditure towards the 
 maintenance of the colony. If we take for instance, 
 as a term of comparison, what has been done in the 
 British Central Africa Protectorate, and in the 
 British South Africa Company's territories, we find 
 that from the settlers' and from the emigrants' 
 point of view, the conditions of life are far more 
 favourable under the Company than under Imperial 
 rule. Wonderful results have been achieved under 
 both administrations, but the methods have neces- 
 sarily been different. And it may further be 
 said that if it had not been for a subsidy of ;^io,ooo 
 a year granted to Sir H. H. Johnston by the Com- 
 pany he would have been unable to transform the 
 Nyasa country as he has done. But even so, 
 now that the Company's subsidy has ceased to be 
 paid, he has been compelled to impose heavy duties 
 on all the goods that come into Nyasaland, in order 
 to be able to face the expenditure of the adminis- 
 tration. One of the chief difficulties the governor 
 of an Imperial colony always encounters is, that 
 he is necessarily limited by the budget granted by 
 Parliament and by the revenue he is able to raise. 
 So that even when he finds some necessary expend- 
 iture would lead to a brilliant future return, 
 he is unable to face it, being bound to keep within 
 his budget.
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 12i 
 
 Very different are the methods of the Chartered 
 Company. As it is a company and a money-making 
 concern its Directors can, wherever they deem it 
 necessary, incur expenditure, without having, Hke 
 Government, to wait until the estimates are passed 
 by ParHament. The very fact that the Company is 
 a money-making concern is what has been its 
 strength. It has often been said by jealous 
 foreigners that England is a nation of shop- 
 keepers ; yet it is the desire to make money that 
 has made the greatness of this country. If it had 
 not been for that desire, none of the colonies would 
 have been acquired, and whereas France, Germany, 
 and Portugal have only kept in sight the extension 
 of their territory, England has never sought to 
 acquire fresh land unless she was certain that it 
 would become a field for money-making. Take for 
 instance what has been done by Germany in East 
 Africa, and by P'rance in Madagascar. A carica- 
 ture was published in one of the Paris papers 
 recently which gives the keynote to the whole situ- 
 ation. Crowds of Hovas are represented watching 
 the sea with field-glasses : a large fleet is coming, 
 and all of them exclaim, " They are coming ! 
 They are coming ! " " Who } " says one of the by- 
 standers ; " the colonists ? " " No," replies one of 
 the watchers, " the officials ! " 
 
 In every colony except those of Great Britain, 
 the sole aim and object of the Governments seem 
 to be the introduction of officials ; development 
 of trade is to them a secondary consideration. In 
 Charterland, as we have already said, one of the 
 points that have made the Company highly 
 popular with the settlers is the absence of un- 
 necessary red-tape. Everything is simplified as 
 far as possible, and, being a new organization, the 
 administration is not bound by rules and traditions,
 
 ii2 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 which Government cannot do away with. Tradi- 
 tions are a very good thing in some ways, but they 
 often hinder progress. Take again the Portuguese 
 colonies. Portugal has occupied the Zambezi from 
 the coast to Tete for the last three centuries, and 
 during the first period of occupation the adminis- 
 tration was constructed on the models then in favour. 
 The country was divided into a certain number of 
 prazzos, which were put up to auction every three 
 years, the lessee paying a certain fixed yearly 
 rental to the Government and having the right to 
 collect a certain fixed amount of revenue from each 
 one of the inhabitants ; he had also a right to raise 
 a force, and was practically the sole and absolute 
 master of the natives of his district. This system 
 has been going on to this day, and the reason why 
 the Portuguese have been unable to develop their 
 sphere with more rapidity is that before intro- 
 ducing more modern methods they would have to 
 destroy a system that has been in vogue for 
 centuries, the upsetting of which would meet with 
 the strongest opposition from those who are settled 
 in the land. And it may be said that the Chartered 
 Company has succeeded in less than five years in 
 doing more towards progress than the Portuguese 
 have done in the last three centuries. So far as 
 the value of the countries secured by the Chartered 
 Company is concerned, there is no doubt that it 
 has managed to secure the finest and most valuable 
 parts of Africa. The whole of Charterland is 
 remarkably healthy and well adapted to the settle- 
 ment of Europeans, and with the introduction of 
 civilization, and with improved sanitary methods, 
 there is not the slightest doubt that fevers and 
 other causes of sickness will soon disappear. 
 Mashonaland, Matabeleland, and Northern Charter- 
 land all consist of high plateaux, between 4000
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 1 23 
 
 and 5000 ft, above the sea-level ; there is never 
 excessive heat in these regions, the nights are 
 always cool, and during the cold season it is not 
 uncommon to find ice in the pools until ten in the 
 morning. One of the chief causes of. disease in 
 the early days of a new town is generally found in 
 a bad water supply. The erection of waterworks 
 that has been accomplished in Buluwayo should 
 put a stop to sickness, which has, notwithstanding 
 the unsanitary conditions of the early times, been 
 remarkably rare. Two of the chief curses of Africa 
 are horse-sickness and the Tsetse fly, which destroys 
 so many domestic animals, but these have always 
 disappeared before the introduction of civilization, 
 and there is no reason why Rhodesia should not 
 be free of these twin evils within a very short 
 period. Horse-sickness has almost altogether dis- 
 appeared from every one of the districts of the 
 Cape Colony, and the Tsetse fly is gradually 
 vanishing from every one of the roads that have 
 been made by the Company. It is a well-known 
 fact that fevers are usually contracted in the low- 
 lying regions near the coast, and with the intro- 
 duction of railways, settlers will be able to reach 
 the healthy parts of the country without staying 
 sufficiently long in the centres where they are 
 likely to contract the germ of the disease. 
 
 It has been said above that the Chartered 
 Company has secured the finest part of Africa, 
 and it will now be shown what the natural resources 
 of this region are, and what possibility it offers in the 
 future. Although the Portuguese have the advan- 
 tage of a fine waterway, the Zambezi, the valley 
 of that river is so unhealthy that it will never offer 
 a field for the permanent settlement of Europeans. 
 The German territory consists of arid, waterless 
 plains, where the natives have great difficulty in
 
 124 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 raising sufficient produce to supply their own needs ; 
 minerals have not as yet been discovered there in 
 payable quantities, and the treatment that has been 
 meted out to the native population has turned the 
 hand of every black against the whites. The only 
 part that is likely to be of some use, from the agri- 
 cultural point of view, is in the neighbourhood of the 
 coast, and there, as along the Zambezi, the great 
 drawback is the unhealthy state of the region. The 
 Germans began to occupy their sphere nearly five 
 years before the Chartered Company commenced its 
 operations in the south, and at the end of ten 
 years' work the results they have obtained show 
 that they are unable to make any practical use of 
 their enormous possessions. In the 885,000 square 
 miles over which their rule extends, there are about 
 280 white men, 170 of whom are officials. 
 
 In Rhodesia there is now a population of nearly 
 10,000 Europeans. Seven townships have been 
 erected — Tuli, Victoria, Salisbury, Umtali and 
 Hartley Hill in Mashonaland, and Buluwayo and 
 Gwelo in Matabeleland. In 1893, 3^4 building 
 stands had been sold in Fort Salisbury, and 
 although Buluwayo has scarcely been more than 
 two years in existence, 539 stands had been sold in 
 1895, and the population exceeds 2000 European 
 inhabitants. More than 2000 waggons, representing 
 over 6000 tons of goods, came to Buluwayo in less 
 than twelve months, and the town is supplied with 
 every kind of business, an immense amount of 
 money having been invested in the place. Last 
 year there were already twelve hotels, the building 
 of which had cost about ^50,000, There were fifty 
 general dealers, besides ninety-seven other places 
 of business ; four newspapers are published there ; 
 and we also find three banks, a large hospital 
 erected at a cost of ^6500, and the Govern-
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 125 
 
 ment buildings, consisting of court - house and 
 offices, public offices for the Mining and Civil 
 Commissioners' Department, a gaol, post and 
 telegraph offices, with a house for the post- 
 master, a large store, and a police-station. At the 
 Buluwayo post-office, in twelve months, 137,000 
 letters were dispatched, and 168,000 were received, 
 and more than 32,000 telegrams passed through 
 the telegraph-office. From April 1895 to September 
 of the same year — less than five months — ^^"4800 
 was paid for licences alone, and more than 10,000 
 natives were employed by Europeans, In the 
 four months that followed the rains in 1895, over 
 15,000 tons of merchandise were imported into 
 Mashonaland by the Tuli road. So great has 
 been the confidence of the settlers in the future 
 of the country, that building stands which were put 
 up for auction at an upset price of ^^25 each, 
 many of them being sold for less than ;^38 at the 
 public auction, have increased in value in a most 
 remarkable way. The 539 stands that have been 
 sold in Buluwayo produced a total amount of 
 ^I53>3i2 lOi". od.^ or an average price of 
 ;^284 los. od., and they are still rising in value. 
 The purchase of the stands is not a mere specu- 
 lative operation, as every purchaser is compelled 
 to build on every one of these stands a house of 
 the value of at least ;^200. Three banks are 
 carrying on a brisk business with the various parts 
 of the country. The Standard Bank of South 
 Africa has opened branches at Salisbury, Bulu- 
 wayo, and Umtali ; the Bank of Africa has branches 
 at Salisbury, Buluwayo, and Beira, and the African 
 Banking Corporation has also a branch at Bulu- 
 wayo. Before these banks had officials in Rho- 
 desia, the whole of the payments were made by 
 the Chartered Company's cheques, and so great
 
 126 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 was the confidence that the whites and natives 
 ahke accepted that paper without the slightest 
 difficulty. 
 
 The question of labour has been one of the most 
 difficult to solve, as the natives, being well paid, 
 some of them receiving an average of ;^i per month, 
 were able, after a few months' work, to accumulate 
 a sufficient quantity of money to live in idleness 
 for at least a couple of years to come. Once 
 they had secured that money they were disinclined 
 to do any further work. It is true that all of them 
 were engaged on contracts for periods of three to 
 six months, but to enforce these contracts was in 
 most cases an almost impossible task, and when 
 they ran away it was almost impossible to trace 
 them and get them punished ; besides the constant 
 renewal of labour made good work quite out of 
 the question. When the men had learned their 
 work, and were thoroughly efficient, their time had 
 expired, and the fresh lot that came in had to be 
 trained anew. There are two ways in which the 
 state of affairs can be remedied. By the gradual 
 contact with white men the natives will learn to 
 have fresh wants, and to satisfy themselves they 
 will have to work. It must be remembered that 
 until quite recently the Matabele, with the ex- 
 ception of the slaves, had never performed any 
 work, all the heavy tasks devolving on the women, 
 the men devoting their time to making war, hunt- 
 ing, and plotting. Things will evidently be different 
 for the generation that is coming. In the meantime, 
 the second way in which this lack of labour can 
 be remedied is by importing operators from other 
 districts. So far, until Lobengula had been crushed, 
 as we have already explained, the natives from the 
 Zambezi, and especially the Barotse, declined to 
 come to Mashonaland through the fear of the
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 1 27 
 
 Matabele, their deadly enemies ; but now large 
 numbers of them have begun to come to Charter- 
 land. Indian coolies would evidently prove useful 
 for skilled agricultural work, such as coffee and 
 sugar plantations, and the planters of British South 
 Africa are getting some of them out there ; but for 
 mining they are quite unsuited, and will be unable 
 to resist the climate except for outdoor work. To 
 bring Cape boys into the country is out of the 
 question, as they expect enormous wages and 
 superior food ; they are, besides, drunkards, and 
 their example would have a fatal influence on the 
 other natives. There is a great demand for skilled 
 European labour. It is well paid, ranging between 
 j^20 and £40 per month, with lodgings, and in 
 many cases food is also supplied to the men. 
 Most of the mining is done under the supervision of 
 European miners, and in that class of work British 
 workmen have been found far superior to foreigners. 
 The Tati Company tried at one time to get out a 
 number of Italian miners, but the experiment was 
 most unsatisfactory; and when they were replaced 
 by Cornishmen it was found that the extra expense 
 that their employment entailed was largely com- 
 pensated by the extra amount of work done, and 
 the superior quality of it. The Italians, besides, 
 never could deal with the natives, and they had 
 all to be sent back to their homes. The aver- 
 age price paid to natives in Matabeleland and 
 Mashonaland is £1 per month, with food that comes 
 to about 23J. per month. Cape boys, on the other 
 hand, expect at least £2 los. od. per month, and 
 the food that has to be supplied to them comes to 
 a great deal more than their wages. Natives in 
 Mashonaland and Matabeleland could never be 
 trained to drive waggons, but excellent waggon- 
 drivers could be found in Khama's country, if only
 
 128 T^E PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 this chief would allow the men to come and seek 
 work outside his territory. 
 
 Land can be purchased at the rate of is. 6d. per 
 morgan in Mashonaland, and 3^-. in Matabeleland ; 
 the payment is made by an annual quit-rent, pay- 
 able in advance, of £T) per 1500 morgan and 4s. 
 for every additional 100 morgan. A morgan equals 
 a little over two acres. 
 
 The experiments of farming have been most 
 successful. Water is abundant and affords every 
 facility of irrigation ; the grass is exceptionally good, 
 and for horned cattle, goats and Cape sheep, the 
 country is unsurpassed. Horse-sickness — that 
 scourge of Africa — is gradually disappearing from 
 civilization, and at the beginning of 1893, 500 appli- 
 cations for farms have come from the Free State 
 alone. The breeding of horses, cattle, and sheep 
 ought to be remunerative, considering that horses 
 fetch an average price of;!^35,oxen forslaughter and 
 draught range between ^^"5 to £g, and cows fetch £$ 
 to £y. The sheep sell at ^i per head, and donkeys, 
 which thrive in a remarkable way, between ^^3 and 
 £$. Several men manage with a small vegetable 
 garden to derive an income of over ;^500 a year. 
 
 Mr. Moodie, who started in 1893 with a large 
 party of farmers to establish homes near the Sabi 
 river, in order to carry out farming on a large scale, 
 supplies a most interesting report on the results 
 he has obtained. Twenty Europeans accompanied 
 him at first, and he was afterwards joined by 
 nearly 600 white followers. Farms are now 
 occupied by those who joined him, and he speaks 
 most highly of the value of the country from an 
 agricultural point of view. He has devoted much 
 attention to developing trade in leather, and has 
 found many barks highly suitable to tanning the 
 skins on the spot. His experiments with tobacco-
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 1 29 
 
 plants have been highly satisfactory, and the 
 tobacco he has grown is already widely smoked 
 by the Europeans in Rhodesia, and preferred to 
 colonial or Transvaal tobacco ; he is of opinion 
 that its culture will in the near future become not 
 only more extensive but also more remunerative 
 than any other, and it is a remarkable fact that 
 two crops a year can be grown. Wheat, oats, 
 barley, rye, have given most satisfactory results. 
 The abundance of water and the strong running 
 streams enable irrigation to be carried out at little 
 cost, and farmers are enabled to cultivate both in 
 the summer and the winter months. As a pastoral 
 country Rhodesia surpasses most parts of South 
 Africa. Native fan-tailed sheep and goats thrive 
 well. The place seems well suited to Angora 
 goats, and the only disease discovered in the cattle 
 is the bush or gall-sickness, which is prevalent in 
 all new countries, but found on a remarkably small 
 scale out there. Until lately the average loss from 
 disease was only two per cent. Horned cattle 
 thrive remarkably well ; they keep in good con- 
 dition all the year round, and require no shifting 
 in the winter. The percentage of calves and the 
 yield of milk are very large. As to pigs and poultry, 
 they are said to thrive phenomenally well, Mr. 
 Moodie speaks also most highly of the possibilities 
 that are to be found in the exploitation of the 
 magnificent forests of the Sabi district, where 
 excellent timber is to be found in sufficient 
 quantities to meet all the requirements of the 
 buildings in Mashonaland for many years to come, 
 and he even says that starting saw-mills and ex- 
 porting timber ought to prove most remunerative. 
 From an agricultural point of view, Matabele- 
 land also is one of the richest parts of Africa. 
 The crops raised by the natives, although the 
 
 K
 
 130 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 ground is cultivated in the most primitive and 
 unscientific manner, are remarkably fine. The 
 cattle is of the best, and the animals coming from 
 the Cape are greatly improved by a stay of a few 
 months on these rich pastures. To the north of 
 the Zambezi the country is no less rich, and it is a 
 well-known fact that the Matabele always cast a 
 covetous eye on the still little-known Mashuko- 
 lumbwe country, where thousands of beautiful 
 cattle are to be found. The high plateaux of that 
 district are admirably suited to the cultivation of 
 coffee. The nature of the soil and the climate are 
 similar to those found in the Shire highlands, 
 where coffee plantations have within the past few 
 years extended with extraordinary rapidity, and 
 have given the best results. Tobacco is grown 
 everywhere by the natives, and Havanna plants 
 have been imported by Messrs. Buchanan Brothers 
 and have thriven splendidly, and the tobacco when 
 properly and scientifically treated has proved of 
 excellent quality. There is no reason why this 
 culture should not be developed, and there is every 
 reason to believe that the tobacco of Northern 
 Charterland will prove in time a serious competitor 
 to the leaf produced in Manilla, Sumatra, and even 
 Havanna. The low price at which ground is still 
 to be bought, and the cheapness of labour, ought 
 to enable planters to attain this aim. The able 
 botanist, Mr. White, whose attention has been 
 directed towards the possible exploitation of india- 
 rubber, has shown that there is also a great future 
 in that part of the country for this industry, so 
 that from an agricultural point of view the Charter- 
 land Company's territories may be said to offer 
 the finest and most variously extended field, without 
 equal in any part of the world. 
 
 One of the chief mistakes that have been made
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY I3I 
 
 in the French and German colonies has been to 
 try and make use of the natural resources of the 
 colonies before proper means of communication 
 have been established, and the Chartered Com- 
 pany, understanding that the first and indispens- 
 able step to be taken in order to obtain proper 
 results was to render communication easy, and to 
 lower the cost of transport, has, as we have seen, 
 devoted its attention mainly towards that aim. 
 We have shown what has been done in the way of 
 railways, roads, and telegraphs, but it is also in- 
 teresting to note that at the present time letters 
 can be posted up to Lake Moero, right in the 
 heart of Africa, and are transmitted home for the 
 mere sum of $d. Parcels can even be sent there 
 for the sum of IJ-. per pound. There is a post- 
 office near that lake where stamps are sold and 
 letters are dispatched and received regularly every 
 fortnight. The establishment of the telegraph- 
 line has not only proved a great convenience to 
 the settlers, but from an administrative point of 
 view it enables the Administrator of the Company 
 to keep in touch with every one of his subordinate 
 officers, and to govern the whole of the extensive 
 region under his rule from the head-quarters at 
 Buluwayo. Although it is necessary to leave a 
 good deal of latitude and initiative to the local 
 magistrates, the orders that are sent to them from 
 their chiefs enable the latter to carry out this 
 policy in the remotest districts. 
 
 Another reason that has been conducive to the 
 good of the administration of the country is that 
 each one of the details of this administration is in 
 the hands of the magistrate, who acts, as we have 
 shown, as police magistrate and county court 
 judge. The natives are under the orders of the 
 native commissioner, that class of officials having
 
 132 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 been recruited from among men with a long and 
 thorough previous knowledge of the language and 
 habits of the natives. The mining commissioner 
 is entrusted with the supemsion of all the mining 
 operations. He has to inspect personally and report 
 upon the work in each one of the mines ; the Com- 
 pany being thus able to follow the operations of 
 the prospectors, and the independent reports of 
 the commissioner thus allowing them to form an 
 adequate idea of the value of each one of the reefs. 
 The Company, it must be remembered, has a direct 
 and vital interest in each one of the properties, 
 being entitled to a half-share in whatever company 
 may be formed to work the various properties, so 
 that the Government and the settlers work hand in 
 hand, and have both common interests. And that 
 Mashonaland and Matabeleland offer a great field 
 as mining centres is a fact which is now beyond 
 doubt. It must be borne in mind that so far the 
 reefs have merely been tested, and it is only when 
 proper machinery can have been erected, and 
 when work has been carried out on a practical 
 scale, that the real value of the mines will be 
 proved. 
 
 It will be easily understood that there were 
 insuperable difficulties in early days, and only quite 
 preliminary prospecting work could be undertaken, 
 such work being entirely confined to Mashonaland, 
 and it must be borne in mind that before a mine 
 can be thoroughly tested two years' work has to be 
 performed. 
 
 Since the conquest of Matabeleland, the pioneers 
 (companies and individuals) have been able to settle 
 down to steady work, and large amounts of money 
 have been invested in the country, sufficient to 
 enable mining work to be undertaken on a proper 
 scale, and we may safely say that the result has been
 
 THE FiRITISII SOUTH AFRICA COMTANY 1 33 
 
 sufficient to show clearly that there are several 
 proved payable mines in the country, and many 
 more sufficiently proved to show a promise of being 
 such, without speaking of a very much larger 
 number as yet unproved which give the best indi- 
 cations from surface prospects. 
 
 The gold-belts throughout the country cover an 
 area of upwards of 400 miles in length, varying in 
 width from ten to forty miles. 
 
 To open up a mine it requires under the most 
 favourable circumstances two years of work and a 
 large amount of capital, and if we remember that 
 but two years and a half have elapsed since work 
 could be begun in Matabeleland, it will be readily 
 understood that it is only now^ that results will be 
 able to be shown. The work that has been per- 
 formed so far conclusively proves that in many 
 instances the reefs consist of the " Fisher Veins," 
 that do not pinch-out, but should continue to any 
 depth. In order to convey a clear idea of the value 
 of the country from a mineral point of view, we shall 
 give some details of the results that have been 
 obtained on one of the most important properties 
 in Matabeleland — the Willoughby Consolidated 
 Companies. It is on the Bonsor and Dunraven mines 
 belonging to this company that the most extensive 
 development work has been carried out. These 
 mines have been opened up at the different levels by 
 drives along the reef, " adits" — tunnels driven from 
 the side of a hill — and shafts. Extensive shoots of 
 ore have been found in large well-defined bodies to 
 a depth of 300 ft. below the surface. From the 
 Dunraven mine alone several thousand tons of ore 
 have been taken out, and it is estimated, taking rich 
 and poor together without sorting, to average one 
 ounce per ton. From careful calculation it has been 
 ascertained that the working of these mines would
 
 134 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 not exceed five dwt. per ton, leaving a nett balance 
 of 15 dwt. per ton, or £2 12s. 6d. at ^^3 los. per oz. 
 
 Sixty head of stamps, with engines of a combined 
 force of 480 horse-power, have partly arrived and are 
 partly about to arrive, and it is anticipated that 
 these will be erected to start permanent crushing 
 before the end of the year, so that there should be a 
 regular output from at least two good mines in the 
 country. The stamp-power will be sufficient to 
 crush at least 150 tons daily. 
 
 When practical results have been obtained on 
 this important property, it is more than likely 
 that they will encourage capitalists to invest in 
 other mines, and the gold industry will take a 
 rapid extension. 
 
 There is every inducement to capitalists to invest 
 money in the Chartered Company's territory, for the 
 conditions under which property can be held there 
 compare most favourably with those imposed in the 
 Transvaal, and whereas the Government of the 
 South African Republic does everything in its 
 power to discourage trade and industry, the Char- 
 tered Company endeavours by all means to 
 encourage them. In Rhodesia we find no customs 
 duties, no monopolies that cripple the investors ; 
 labour costs nearly one-quarter less than it comes 
 to in the Transvaal, food is far cheaper, explosives 
 come to about 62s. per case of 50 lbs., while in the 
 Transvaal they cost 85i". It will be readily seen 
 that in a large mine the saving on dynamite alone 
 is enormous. 
 
 It is a great mistake to think that the present 
 high rates of transport to Matabeleland can prevent 
 the rapid development of the mining industry, for 
 if, as we have shown, a nett profit of £2 12s. 6d. 
 per ton can be realized, it can be of little importance 
 whether ;^io,ooo more or less are spent in the
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 1 35 
 
 erection of machinery on a property where a nett 
 profit of ;^7S25 can be yearly realized by the crush- 
 ing of 3000 tons of ore. 
 
 The rebellion that has lately broken out is an 
 incident much to be regretted, but it has happened 
 at a propitious season, when the damage caused 
 will be most easily repaired. Six months will 
 elapse before the next rains begin, and the rebels 
 will have been subdued long before then. The 
 farms and mines are still in an early stage of 
 development, though had this outbreak occurred 
 two years later enormous damage would have been 
 caused. The townships themselves are perfectly 
 safe ; no damage can be caused to the mining 
 shafts, and, the military operations over, the work 
 will be resumed with fresh vigour. 
 
 It is not without interest to inquire what has 
 been the probable cause of this outbreak. To 
 attribute it to the Chartered Company is absurd, 
 since such revolts have always followed when 
 savages were conquered but not thoroughly broken 
 up. Those who are intimately acquainted with 
 the natives will find it easy to understand the 
 causes of the rising. Witchcraft has always played 
 a most important part in the life of the Matabele, 
 and to witchcraft every ill that befalls them is 
 attributed by this people. For instance, no man, 
 according to their belief, ever dies of natural causes : 
 his death has always been the result of some evil 
 influence. Either it has been caused by the angry 
 spirits of his ancestors, or else, and more usually, 
 some ill-minded person has made "medicine" (a 
 charm) to bring it about. In the same way drought, 
 famine, or cattle plagues are attributed to the acts 
 of evil-doers. The witch-doctors are consulted 
 and render their oracle ; if they declare that the 
 angry spirits of the ancestors have caused the evil,
 
 136 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 a sacrifice must be offered to propitiate them. If, 
 on the other hand, they point out some living 
 person as the mischief-maker, he is instantly put 
 to death, with his family. It is easy to understand 
 the immense power that was possessed by these 
 magicians. But with the advent of the Chartered 
 Company the witch-doctors were unable to make 
 use of their power as of old. If at their suggestion 
 any man was killed, they were punished as acces- 
 sories to the murder ; in Lobengula's time the 
 property of the murdered man was confiscated, 
 and the witch-doctors received their share ; nothing 
 of that was left to them. It must not, therefore, be 
 wondered at if they readily seized an occasion of 
 trying to regain their former position. The rinder- 
 pest supplied them with the opportunity they had 
 long looked for. The cattle — the most precious 
 possession of the native — died by hundreds ; in 
 order to prevent the spread of the disease the 
 Administration had all the suspected animals killed. 
 The witch-doctors were of course consulted as to 
 the cause of the plague. Most likely they declared 
 that Lobengula's spirit, angry at seeing his death 
 unavenged, was causing some animals to die, and 
 was inciting the white man to kill the others; 
 adding probably that Government was killing the 
 beasts in order to hasten the ruin of the people. 
 
 There was but one way of appeasing Lobengula's 
 angry spirit, and that was to kill all the whites or 
 to drive them out of the country. How the sugges- 
 tion was readily acted upon can also be easily 
 explained. In Lobengula's time the Matabelewere 
 held with an iron hand : the least fault was punished 
 with death ; if the offender was an induna, or local 
 chief, all his people were killed with him. Under 
 the European administration the most serious 
 offences are merely punished with imprisonment,
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COiMPANY 1 3/ 
 
 which is hardly a punishment at all to the natives, 
 and like all Africans they attribute kindness to fear 
 and weakness. There is also another and most 
 serious reason why the Matabele were anxious to 
 fight the whites. It has been shown (p. 98) that 
 every year, in former times, the Matabele impi used 
 to go out raiding ; these raids have of course been 
 stopped, and the warriors must have felt this deeply, 
 as they then feasted for months — while the raid 
 lasted — on the meat of the cattle they were looting, 
 and from these raids they returned with a plentiful 
 supply of women and slaves. Now they must work 
 to get meat, and even so the idea of slaughtering 
 an animal that belongs to them, or that has been 
 purchased by them, except in case of a ceremony, 
 is heart-breaking to the Matabele. They are no 
 longer able to steal slaves, and they have to be 
 content with their actual stock of wives unless they 
 increase it by marriage — an expensive process, as 
 a wife must be paid for in cattle to her parents. 
 Then also the Matabele like to fight for the sake of 
 fighting, and the two years of absolute peace they 
 enjoyed, or rather suffered, must have weighed 
 heavily on the minds of the turbulent warriors. To 
 attribute this rebellion, therefore, either directly 
 or indirectly to the Chartered Company is wholly 
 to misapprehend the question. The rinderpest has 
 really been the indirect, and the witch-doctors the 
 direct, cause of it. It has been said by certain 
 critics unacquainted with the Matabele, that the 
 absence of a large number of the Company's forces 
 and the events of the Transvaal have brought on 
 this outbreak. Such an opinion can hardly be 
 sustained, for it must be remembered that the police 
 force which was engaged in the Transvaal had only 
 been recently organized, while the volunteers were 
 all in Matabeleland ; besides, natives do not act on
 
 138 THE PIONEERS OF EMPIRE 
 
 the spur of the moment, and, as was explained 
 above, a general movement like the one that took 
 place can only be fostered by a powerful lever such 
 as the belief in witchcraft, the one great social force 
 among the recently conquered African tribes. 
 
 There need be no hesitation in predicting that 
 the rebellion will be followed by a considerable 
 influx of settlers, and that lively reaction will follow 
 the momentary cessation of work. 
 
 This rebellion has once more proved that Rhod- 
 esia is well able to defend herself without the help 
 of Imperial troops, and it has also shown the abso- 
 lute confidence that the settlers have in the 
 Company, Scarcely any of the inhabitants of 
 Matabeleland and Mashonaland have left their new 
 homes, every single one of them having put down 
 the plough and the pick to take up the rifle. It is 
 much to be doubted whether they would have done 
 so had the country been a Crown Colony instead of 
 belonging to the Chartered Company ; while, if 
 Government had been compelled to send Imperial 
 troops to the front, this little war would certainly 
 have cost the British taxpayer a good deal more 
 than one million sterling. 
 
 The work that has been accomplished, and the 
 results that have been obtained, by the Chartered 
 Company can be recapitulated in a few words. 
 
 (i) It has secured to the British Empire a magni- 
 ficent territory of 750,000 square miles that 
 would otherwise now be in the hands of the 
 Boers, Germans, and Portuguese. 
 
 (2) It has opened out the whole of this vast territory 
 to individual enterprise, encouraging all and 
 bringing out at its own expense more than a 
 thousand settlers who have been attached to 
 the land by free gifts of farms and claims.
 
 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 1 39 
 
 (3) Under its auspices seven towns have been built, 
 
 and ten thousand Europeans have come to 
 settle in the country. 
 
 (4) 1400 miles of telegraph line have been com- 
 
 pleted ; about 1000 miles of road, and nearly 
 3000 miles of railways have been constructed, 
 and before long 700 miles more of rail will 
 have been laid. 
 
 (5) With the Company's help the wealthy 
 
 colony of British Central Africa has reached 
 its actual state of prosperity ; and is now 
 enabled to be administered without any 
 subsidy from the Home Government. 
 
 (6) Lastly — not leastly — all this gigantic work has 
 
 been done without the least material or 
 financial help from the British taxpayer, and 
 these men. Directors and Shareholders, who 
 have devoted their energy, their time, and 
 their money to this end, satisfied to look to 
 the future for a return for the enormous sacri- 
 fice it has entailed, have well deserved the 
 moral help and support of every one of their 
 countrymen. 
 
 THE END.
 
 Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 London & Bungay. 
 
 y
 
 
 .#StS1 
 
 ^ 
 
 M 
 
 
 m. 
 
 M 
 
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which It was borrowed. 
 
 •*■ • mvi^"^