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THE CIVIL SERVICE OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE 1872-1910Franco Frescura Although the Cape General Post Office was the Colonial Department primarily charged with the task of maintaining postal and telegraphic communications within the Cape, as well as between the Colony and the rest of the world, its duties often overlapped with a number of other services. The Department of the Prime Minister, for example, was responsible for foreign affairs as well as the conduct of war, both of which had implications for the postal service. The Army usually ran its own separate Post Office, while the Colonial Administration expected its own official documents and letters to pass gratis through the Post Office. In some instances the Department of Native Affairs conducted a rudimentary postal service in the so-called Native Territories prior to the establishment of a formal postal infrastructure. The railway system not only transported mails and ran a series of Travelling Post Offices as part of its rail service, but in many instances the local Post Office was located on railway property and the station master was also employed as the postmaster. The relationship between the Post Office and Railway Departments was strengthened further by the development of a country-wide telegraph infrastructure whose spread was, in many ways, symbiotic with the growth of a railway network across southern Africa. The Post Office, in its turn, acted as an extension of the Treasury by collecting personal taxes below £10, and by selling licenses and revenue stamps on its behalf. Thus it becomes important to consider all of these Departments as part of a larger interlocking system of colonial administration and postal infrastructure. THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PRIME MINISTERThis Department acted as the channel of communication between the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and the Government of the Colony. All Minutes submitted to the Governor in Council were recorded by this Department, and the decisions taken by the Council were conveyed to the Ministerial Department concerned by the Secretary to the Prime Minister. The Department also dealt with all communications between the Cape Government and outside agencies, including the Imperial Government, other British Colonies, neighboring territories, foreign states and their Consuls. The Department was also the medium of communication between the Government and the two branches of the Legislature. All instructions involving the Civil Service as a whole emanated from the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister's Department was abolished on 1 July 1891 when its duties were transferred to the Department of the Colonial Secretary, but it was re-established on 8 March 1894. On 1 June 1904 the post of Secretary to the Prime Minister was abolished and the office was placed under the charge of the Chief Clerk, but on 6 June 1905 the position was re-established. At the end of 1908 the administration was again re-organized, and from 1 January 1909 the functions of this department were merged with those of the Colonial Secretary. As a result of this reconstruction some of its duties were allowed to lapse, although the majority continued to be performed by a member of the Colonial Secretary's Office, acting as Departmental Secretary to the Prime Minister. The following persons have served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony:
The following persons have served as Secretary to the Prime Minister:
From 1904 to 1907 the post of Chief Clark to the Prime Minister was filled by R Sothern Holland. THE DEPARTMENT OF NATIVE AFFAIRSThe functions of this department extended to all indigenous inhabitants of the Cape under Colonial rule. The office of Secretary for Native Affairs was created under the Responsible Government Act of 1872, but when this was abolished in 1893, the administration of Native Affairs was brought under the Office of the Prime Minister. Local administration was given over to inspectors whose official communications were made through the Civil Commissioners of their respective districts. Before 1 July 1902 the Transkeian Territories were divided into the Chief Magistracies of Transkei, Tembuland, Pondoland and Griqualand East. However in terms of Proclamation No 112 of 1902 they were amalgamated and placed under one Executive Head, the Chief Magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, resident at Umtata. Two years later the Better Administration of Justice Act (No 35 of 1904) abolished the judicial functions previously exercised by the Chief Magistrate, and on 1 July 1904 Proclamation No 180 of 1904 brought the administration of the Transkei directly under the control of the Secretary to the Department of Native Affairs. However the Chief Magistrate for the Transkeian Territories remained at Umtata, while an additional Assistant Chief Magistrate, for the Territories of Griqualand East and Eastern Pondoland, was stationed at Kokstad. In 1906 the jurisdiction of the Courts of Chief Magistrate and Assistant Chief Magistrate was restored in cases of divorce and separation. In July 1907 the Colonial Government rationalized many of its administrative functions, and on 1 July 1908 the Department's Accounting Branch was transferred to the Treasury. The office of Assistant Chief Magistrate for the Territories of Griqualand East and Eastern Pondoland was also discontinued from the same date. The following persons have served as Secretary for Native Affairs in the Cape Colony:
John Frost, CMG. Office abolished from 1893-99
THE TREASURYThe duties of this department increased substantially following the introduction of Responsible Government in 1872. Before this time the Colonial Treasurer had served as the depositary of revenues for the Crown, charged with their safe custody and their issue under a fixed set of regulations. After 1872 the position was charged with the proper and prompt collection of revenues, and was assigned duties approximately equivalent to those of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer. This included control of the departments of Customs, Licences and Stamps, Income Tax, Excise, Posts and Telegraphs, the Agent-General, and the Office of the Auditor. It was also responsible for the compilation of the Statistical Register and, following the abolition of the office of Government Actuary, all work connected with the Life Insurance Acts, Friendly Societies, and companies was carried out by this Department. THE DEPARTMENT OF POSTS AND TELEGRAPHSWhen the British took over the administration of the Cape for the second time in 1806, they inherited from the Dutch a postal infrastructure which, at best, could only be described as “rudimentary”. Since its inception in 1792, its primary focus had been the transmission and receipt of mails through Cape Town, and although a system of mail runners and veld-cornets had been initiated in 1803, its primary concern appears to have been the dissemination of government regulations to remote rural areas. Initially the British did little better, and for the next nine years, the Post Office took little action beyond the restructuring of previous Dutch policies. By 1824 eighteen new post offices had been opened, but these were all located in the Colony’s major centers of administration, and residents living in the outlying areas normally collected their mails during their quarterly nachmaal gatherings, a practice which reinforced previous Dutch social and religious custom. By 1852 only 73 country post offices had come into operation. A major change in policy appears to have taken place after the appointment of JA Le Sueur in 1851, who immediately instituted a system of postal agencies and field-cornets’ posts. This was operated largely by minor government officials, rural shop-keepers, hotel owners and local dignitaries as an extension of their official or commercial duties, usually for free, or for a nominal honorarium of £6 per annum. By 1892 the number of post office establishments in the Colony had risen to 718. Throughout most of this time the finances of the Cape Post Office remained firmly fixed in the red, and it was only after its merger with the more lucrative Telegraph Department in 1885 that it began to show a profit. Although not specifically stated, it might appear that, after 1851, official Colonial policy expected the Post Office to play a developmental role in the Cape economy, by providing the country with a heavily subsidized communications infrastructure which would support trade and facilitate other economic activities. Consequently, in addition to the primary duty of collecting and delivering mails, over the years, the Post Office also undertook Money Order, Postal Order, Postal Draft, and Savings Bank services, it sold revenue stamps, issued licenses, received Income Tax payments, and collected Customs Dues on letter packets and parcels received from countries outside the South African Customs Union. From 1873 an extensive telegraph system came into operation in southern Africa, and after 1898 telephone exchanges were established at Cape Town, Claremont, Cradock, East London, Grahamstown, Kalk Bay, Kimberley, King William's Town, Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn, Paarl, Port Elizabeth, Queenstown, Rondebosch, Sea Point, Simon's Town, Worcester, and Wynberg. Several of the principal towns in the Colony were connected by telephone trunk lines and an inter-colonial telephone system connected Kimberley to Bloemfontein and Mafeking to Johannesburg. For the purpose of administration the Head Office in Cape Town was divided into three principal divisions, namely a General Secretariat under the immediate direction of the Postmaster General, the Accounting Branch, and an Engineering Branch, which supervised the general field operations of the Telegraphs Department. The daily administration of postal, telegraphic and telephone affairs was conducted on a regional basis, with the Colony being divided into five Districts, each one controlled by a Surveyor and District Engineer. By 31 December 1908 the Post Office Establishment employed some 5163 persons at 1065 post offices throughout the country. Its budget for 1908 included a total of £547,366 in revenue, and an expenditure of £648,111. The deficit was largely owed to capital expenditure in the nascent telephone service. Mails were carried by means of motor vehicles, trains, carts, horses, camels and foot-runners over a distance of 9,815,418km. THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKSThe Office of Commissioner of Crown Lands and Public Works was created by Act No 1 of 1872, upon the first introduction of Responsible Government to the Cape The Commissioner was charged with the implementation of land laws in the Colony, and with the administrative control and supervision of all public works. These included Government railways, buildings, public road, communications, bridges, tolls, ferries, lighthouses and harbours, as well as control over the Colony's natural and mineral resources, geological exploration, irrigation and, strangely, immigration. This situation continued until 1 September 1892 when the Offices of Crown Lands and of Public Works were separated into two branches. On 1 July 1889 the office of Secretary for Lands and Mines was abolished, the control of the entire office reverted to the Assistant Commissioner. On 1 September 1892 all matters connected with Lands and Mines were transferred temporarily to the Treasury pending the formal establishment of a Department of Lands, Mines and Agriculture as a separate ministerial division. Government Notice No 1069, of 30 October 1893 separated the Public Works Department from the Railways, while Act No 14 of 1896 transferred control of all matters relating to Ports and Harbours to the Treasury, while retaining the lighthouse service under the aegis of Public Works. In July 1903 the administration of Immigration was transferred from the Commissioner of Public Works to the Secretary for Agriculture, seemingly yet another strange choice. In 1908 the Department of Public Works was reorganized. The Divisional Offices at Kimberley, Cradock and Worcester were abolished; the Office of the Divisional Engineer at Kokstad was transferred to Umtata, the whole of the Transkei was brought under his control; and the area of control under the Divisional Office at King William's Town was extended westward. The remaining districts of the Colony were brought under the direct control of the Head Office in Cape Town. The continued depression of the Colonial economy in 1909 forced the abolition of the posts of Chief Engineer and Architect. The following persons served as Commissioner of Public Works for the Cape of Good Hope:
The PWD was the department responsible for the erection and maintenance of post office buildings and telegraphic infrastructure, a task which, generally speaking, it appears to have fulfilled with reasonable success. However, in those cases where postal facilities were sited either on railway property, or in government buildings, a certain amount of interdepartmental tension appears to have existed. Also responsibility for much of the dithering which surrounded the erection of a new General Post Office building in Cape Town must be laid at the door of the PWD. THE RAILWAY DEPARTMENTIn 1859 Governor of the Cape, Sir George Grey, cut the first sod of the Cape Town-Wellington Railway. This was opened for traffic in 1863, and in 1873 it was purchased by the Cape Government for £773,900. In 1863 construction was begun on the line between Salt River Junction and Wynberg. This was opened for traffic in 1864, and in 1873 it was purchased by the Cape Government for £75,000. In 1872 the Cape Government commenced the construction of railways in its own right under the control of the Public Works Department, and the following year the Railway Department was formally constituted with WG Brounger as its first Railway Engineer and Head of the Department. In 1875 the Railway was separated into three: the Western, the Midland and the Eastern Systems. During the colonial era the transport infrastructure of the Cape was heavily reliant upon the use of animal-drawn wagons. Shipping did provide a useful alternative to the more ponderous forms of land travel, but a lack of suitable harbours along the southern and eastern coasts limited the movement of goods to and from the South African hinterland. Consequently when a railway system began to be developed in the Cape from 1876 onwards, its potential as a tool for the colonization and development of the subcontinent was immediately understood. The first major routes to be opened were those linking Cape Town to De Aar, designated the Western System, and Port Elizabeth to De Aar, known as the Midland System. The lines were begun almost simultaneously in the 1870s and were both completed on 31 March 1884. Thereafter the Western line was pushed rapidly northwards, reaching the Griqualand diamond fields in 1885 and Mafeking in 1894. The eastern frontier was served by a line linking East London to Aliwal North, designated as the Eastern System, which was fully opened on 8 September 1885. The three systems were connected on 8 February 1892 when the Middelburg Road-Stormberg Junction line was inaugurated. The line linking the Cape's railway system to the Orange Free State and the Witwatersrand via Naauwpoort took a while longer to achieve, and only reached Bloemfontein on 17 December 1890, the KiGariep on 17 May 1892, and Johannesburg on 15 September 1892. This was designated the Northern System. The first travelling post office was inaugurated, on a trial basis, in 1882 under the personal supervision of the Post Master General, Somerset R French. POSTSCRIPTThis paper appeared in the Cape and Natal Philatelic Journal (Vol 11, No 4:44, December 2007: 108-113) under the title of The Cape Colonial Establishment, 1872-1910.
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