,-0 r 1 V ^' \\ RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR BY EDWARD T. COOK FiVorrat jxtv ovv a\ (TTaGei% ov mpi ^iKpCJv aXX' efc fincpCJv, araaicil^ovai dl nepi fieyd\it}V. Aristotle's Politics^ viii. 4. liEW AND REVISED EDITION LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD ^ttliliah^ to thz Jnbia ©fiia 1902 1 First Edilion {^vo.), printed June, 1901. Reprinted September, 1901 ; November, 1901. Neiv and Revised Edition {Crown Zvo.), printed April, 1902. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION The object of these pages is to provide within a single volume of moderate size as complete a handbook as possible to the dis- cussions on the policy of the South African War. Upon the conduct of the war I do not touch. My attempt has been to trace the war back to its ultimate causes, to recall the sequence of events immediately preceding it, to set out the actual course of the negotiations, and to discuss the questions of right and wrong involved in the struggle. I do not pretend to be impartial, in the sense of taking no side. I believe that substantially Great Britain has been in the right, and the Dutch Republics have been in the wrong. The general point of view which will be found in the following pages was summarized in a newspaper article here reprinted in an appendix (p. 363). But though the book is informed with a definite opinion, I have endeavoured to supply the reader with the data necessary for arriving at an independent judgment. The facts and documents on which alone any intelligent opinion can be based are scattered in a large mass of books of reference, of newspaper files, and of Parliamentary papers. I have cited textually the more important despatches, collecting them in their proper order from a chaos of Blue-Books (many of which are now out of print). My purpose has been to supply throughout chapter and verse for every reference, and particular illustrations of every general statement. A full index will, it is hoped, facilitate the use of the book for purposes of reference. The origin of the volume was a suggestion made to me from several quarters that I should collect some of the articles written on South African questions during my editorship of a London 3^0337 vi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION morning paper. The suggestion in the form in which it was made was soon seen to be impracticable. It was abandoned, not because on looking back over forgotten files I found old words rising in judgment against me in the light of subsequent events, but because the form of the political leading article renders it wholly unsuitable for reproduction. To make any impression by means of leading articles, a writer must go all lengths in iteration. His audience of one day, he remembers, will not be quite the same as his audience on the next. In any case, what exists on paper to-day is to-morrow cast into the oven. The worthiest fate which a journalist can expect for the words of wisdom he addresses to the head and heart of his readers is that they should afterwards wrap up their boots. Nobody pays much attention to any one leading article ; it is only by hammer, hammer, hammer that a newspaper-writer can hope to fix his points upon public attention. Iteration, therefore, is of the essence of journalistic effect. It is saved from damnation, if at all, only by the fact that each article is hung on some different peg such as may be found in the news of the day. The occasion is sometimes slight enough, but the writer, to give excuse for his repetitions, works it hard and makes it colour the whole article. The leading article, then, is occasional in form and prone to repetition in substance. These character- istics stamp it, apart from all other imperfections, as irremediably ephemeral. But on turning over a large file of South African articles — I shrink from indicating their number — it seemed to me that some of the material therein employed might usefully serve a further purpose by being collected into a book of reference in the way described above. And so the present volume took shape. Though it represents the fruits, in one sphere, of five years' work in daily journalism, it is yet new matter in the sense that it has been almost entirely re- written. Occasionally, however, the most effective way of telling the story or making a point seemed to be to recall comments made at the time in the public press. In such cases I have cited the actual words of old articles. For permission to do this I have to thank the proprietors of the Dat'/y News. It is probably unnecessary to add, but, in order to prevent even a possibility of misunderstanding, it seems right for me to say that PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION vii the proprietors of that paper, past and present, must not be taken as having the slightest responsibihty for my words or sympathy with my views. I am on this account the more indebted for their indulgence in permitting me to repeat any portion of my heresies here. The rights and wrongs of the South African War still exercise many minds. It is well that they should do so. Questions of right and wrong are of enduring interest. War is so terrible a scourge that the policy and ethics of any resort to it can never be too fully discussed. In the present case the discussion has the further interest that it raises questions of national policy and party relations which will assuredly remain with us even when the war has at last come to an end. The relation of the different parts of the Empire to one another, the function of the Empire as (in Mr. Gladstone's words) ' a trust and a function given from Providence,' the outlook of the Liberal party upon such problems — these are among the questions on which incidental remarks will be found in the following pages. E. T. C. June I, I go I. NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION I REPRINT the above preface in order to explain the genesis of this book. In the present edition I have found it necessary, for reasons of space, to omit many of the newspaper articles which were given in earlier editions. In revising the book throughout, I have endeavoured to profit by criticism. I have supplied a few omissions and offered explanations on points which have been called in question. Inci- dentally I have taken occasion to reply to some of the more specious misunderstandings to which writers who take the Boer side in this controversy are prone. I have also added throughout a considerable number of new references and fresh pieces of evidence. The process of bringing the book up to date has involved some rearrangement of the latter portion, and four additional chapters now appear, dealing with conditions of settlement in relation to viii NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION the Kitchener-Botha and other negotiations. These chapters were written before the ' peace mission ' of Mr. Schalk Burger to Mr. Steyn had taken place, and the book goes to press while the result of that mission is still unknown. My book is limited, I may repeat, to the politics of the war. With its conduct, and the allegations made in connection therewith, my present pages are not concerned. I have, however, incidentally referred to one aspect of the Refugee Camps, and have printed Lord Kitchener's despatch thereon — a document which should be carefully studied before the British authorities are accused of a policy of ' barbarism ' in this matter. E. T. C. March, 1902. CONTENTS PART I UNDERLYING CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE : 1836-1894 CHAFTER FACE I. A CONFLICT OF RACE - - . - i II. A CONFLICT OF IDEALS .... 7 in. A CONFLICT OF AMBITIONS - - - - 18 IV. *AFRIKANDERDOM ' AND THE BOND - - - 24 PART II DISPUTES BEFORE THE WAR : 1894—1899 V. LORD LOCH AT PRETORIA - - - -36 VI. THE * DRIFTS ' ULTIMATUM - - - '45 VII. THE RAID - - - - - - 49 VIII. THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY* - - '54 IX. PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE - - 69 X. MR. KRUGER's PREPARATIONS - - - 84 XI. BEFORE THE STORM : LORD MILNER'S APPOINTMENT 94 Xn. THE STORM BURSTS: THE EDGAR CASE - - 102 CONTENTS PART III NEGOTIATIONS AND ULTIMATUM : March— October, 1899 CHAPTER PAGE XIII. THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN - - - 108 XIV. THE BLOEMFONTEIN CONFERENCE - - 122 XV. THE SEVEN YEARS FRANCHISE LAW - "133 XVI. THE QUESTION OF * SUZERAINTY ' - - I44 XVII. THE PROPOSED JOINT INQUIRY - - - 154 XVIII. THE FIVE YEARS OFFER - - - "159 XIX. THE OFFER WITHDRAWN — BRITISH DESPATCH OF SEPTEMBER 8 - - - - - 1 76 XX. REVERSION TO THE SEVEN YEARS SCHEME — TRANS- VAAL DESPATCH OF SEPTEMBER 1 6 - - 185 XXI. A 'GOLDEN BRIDGE' — BRITISH 'INTERIM DE- SPATCH' OF SEPTEMBER 22 - - - 1 96 XXII. A PAUSE — LAST EFFORTS FOR PEACE - - 202 XXIII. THE ULTIMATUM - - - - - 209 PART IV SOME FALLACIES EXAMINED XXIV. THE WAR NOT 'A CAPITALISTS' JOB ' - - 2 20 XXV. THE RIGHTS OF THE UITLANDERS - - 230 XXVL THE TRANSVAAL AS A ' REPUBLIC ' - - 237 XXVII. MR. KRUGER AND ARBITRATION - - - 242 XXVIIL THE ' NINE-TENTHS ' FALLACY - - - 248 XXIX. LIBERALISM AND THE WAR- - - ' 251 CONTENTS PART V IN THE LIGHT OF THE WAR CHAPTER XXX. MR. KRUGER'S HOPES XXXI. THE TRANSVAAL ARMAMENTS XXXII. THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR - XXXIII. THE NATIVE QUESTION XXXIV. THE COLONIES AND THE WAR PAGE 263 276 282 290 301 PART VI CONDITIONS OF SETTLEMENT XXXV. THE REASONS FOR ANNEXATION - XXXVI. THE KITCHENER-BOTHA NEGOTIATIONS XXXVII. SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS XXXVIII. THE QUESTION OF AMNESTY XXXIX. CONCLUSION 316 335 353 361 Appendix : ' south africa : a retrospect ' ' the new liberalism : a forecast ' 366 - 370 Index, with list of blue-books and chrono- logical LIST of THE MORE IMPORTANT DE- SPATCHES - - - - - 374 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR PART I UNDERLYING CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE : 1836-1894 CHAPTER I A CONFLICT OF RACE Occasions and issues in politics — Racial conflict between British and Boers — Memories of Slachter's Nek — Mr. Reitz's * Century of Wrong ' — * Rotten egg' and *red neck' — Tant' Sannie and the English — Moral effects of Majuba. It was a reflection of the first of political philosophers that dis- turbances in States, though they may arise on trifling occasions, do not involve trifling issues. The immediate cause of a war may seem altogether disproportionate alike to its sacrifices and to its results ; its outbreak may be traced to a caprice, a hasty word, a clumsy phrase. But the question remains how the nations involved in the war came to place their destinies at the mercy of such trifles. The answer is that the fundamental issues are seldom other than important. It is with political as with natural convul- sions. The immediate occasion of them may be a step, a drop, a crack; the ultimate cause is to be found in the long process of permanent factors, or the slow emergence of subterranean forces. The South African War — the greatest struggle in which Great Britain has been involved for more than a generation, and a I 2 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Struggle which to the other combatant involved his very existence — is often ascribed to accidental, temporary, and personal causes. It was caused, say some, by the Jameson Raid ; it was caused, ^--^ say others, by the Bloemfontein Conference. According to some, it was engineered by * bloated capitalists ' ; according to others, by 'corrupt Hollanders.' Some see in the war the result of one old man's obstinacy ; others, the result of another man's unruly tongue. If we are to accept the theories of a certain school of writers, Boer and Briton have been in death-grips over the precise meaning of the word ' suzerainty,' or a diiference between five years and seven in the term of naturalization, or the paltry margin of a / dispute left over when ' nine-tenths ' of it were amicably settled. All of these things may have had, and some have indisputably had, a certain share in producing the occasion of the quarrel. But I hope to show in the following pages that for the true explanation of it we must look to deeper and broader causes. I believe that what was said of another great war is true also of this : ' The cause of this quarrel is no dim, half-avoidable involu- tion of mean interests and errors, as some would have us believe. There never was a great war caused by such things ; there never can be.'"^ It was not to fill the pockets of greedy capitalists that the British people, sinking in large part its internal differences, set itself in grim determination to 'see this thing through.' It was no paltry difference between details in a Franchise Bill that called forth the enthusiasm of the British race throughout the world. Nor, on the other side, can it have been a mere mis- understanding of the minutiae of a despatch, or the personal perversity of a self-willed autocrat, that caused the Transvaal Government to make preparations on a scale which has ' staggered humanity,' and that inspired the Dutch burghers to display in the field a courage and a persistence which have won admiration from every generous foe. The ultimate, the fundamental reason of a struggle, so serious, so obstinate, and — on one side, at least — so well foreseen, must be found in causes worthy of it.f * Ruskin's 'Modern Painters,' vol. iii., part iv., chap, xviii. f To prevent misunderstanding, it should here be said that what I think may properly be called the philosophic view of history does not cover a fatalistic prac- tice in politics. The fact that a war may, on a final consideration of its causes, be pronounced inevitable does not absolve statesmen from the duty of taking all A CONFLICT OF RACE 3 The conflict between Boer and Briton in South Africa did not begin in 1896 with Dr. Jameson's raid, nor in 1899 with the Bloemfontein Conference, neither does it spring out of temporary or trifling differences. It is essentially a conflict (i) of race, (2) of ideals, and (3) of political ambitions. Some understanding of these deep-lying causes of conflict, some knowledge of the way in which they had made themselves felt in previous circumstances, is essential to any intelligent discussion of the later events which led up to the war. Over and over again, in considering those events, men must have asked themselves why the one side or the other did not on this point or on that make further concessions. The only intelligible answer to such questions is to be found in the working of permanent causes which tended to draw the dis- putants asunder. First, then, there was between Boer and Briton a conflict of race. The Dutch and the English in South Africa are, indeed, sprung from the same Low-German stock, and under favourable circumstances a fusion might long ago have taken place among them. But the circumstances, as we shall see, were not favour- able, and community of origin is not enough of itself to induce feelings of racial sympathy. Circumstances were not favourable. It is never agreeable for a people to be handed over, as the Dutch settlers in South Africa were in 1814, to an alien Govern- ment. Sometimes with the best intentions, and sometimes not, the British Administration so conducted afiairs as to do little to soften the animosity caused by the original transfer of sovereignty. The affair of Slachter's Nek in 181 6 may be taken as an illustra^ tion of the way in which racial animosity fastened on any incident calculated to feed it. Five men had been sentenced to death as ringleaders in a rebellion. They were publicly hanged at Slachter's Nek. The scaffold broke down under their united weight, and the five men fell to the ground only partially strangled. The officer charged with the execution had the scaffold reconstructed, and by sunset the five culprits were eff'ectually hanged. It may be remarked that the officer who possible steps to avoid it. It will be seen from the following pages that, in my opinion, neither party to the South African War has a clean record in this respect. I — 2 4 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR decided to rehang the men was of Dutch descent. Indeed, nearly all who had to do with the trial, sentence, and execution were Afrikanders, except the British Governor, who pardoned only one of the six ringleaders sentenced to death by the High Court. The rebellion arose out of an injury to a Hottentot, and proceeded with an inciting of natives to rise against the Colonial Government. The punishment of the ringleaders was just, but the circumstances of the execution produced a most painful im- pression. * It was at Slachter's Nek,' said Mr. Reitz, in his appeal to the Dutch race at the outbreak of the present war, * that the first bloodstained beacon was erected which marks the boundary between Boer and Briton in South Africa, and the eyes of posterity still glance back shudderingly through the long vista of years at that tragedy of horror.' ('A Century of Wrong,' p. 6.) It is well known that at the time of the Jameson Raid Mr. Kruger had in Pretoria the very beam of wood on which the five were hanged, and that some of the burghers strongly favoured the idea of hanging the leading Reformers on it. They have long and bitter memories, the men who are born and bred on the solitary veld.* Mr. Reitz, a highly educated and intelligent man, looking back over the history of British South Africa, sees in it a ' century of wrong,' and an English historian finds a clue through the per- plexities of Mr. Kruger's policy in the old man's hatred of the English (Bryce's ' Impressions of South Africa,' chap. xxv.). One of Mr. Kruger's colleagues (Mr. J. S. Smit, Railway Com- missioner), on a public occasion, carried the race feud back even further than does Mr. Reitz. ' They talked,' he said, * about race * But some can forget and forgive, and indeed Slachter's Nek is really some- thing which both Dutch and English should be glad to forget. The officer who carried out the execution was a Colonel Cuyler. An African clergyman says that the present representative of the Cuyler family was once travelling in a remote up- country district, when he came to a Boer farm, and asked for hospitality. The usual question was put : ' What is your name ?' When the answer came, the Boer said : * Your grandfather hanged my grandfather at Slachter's Nek ; but come in, we will forget all that now,' and the usual kindly Boer hospitality was extended to Mr. Cuyler. (See an article on ' Afrikanderdom ' in the Daily News, January 5, 1900. ) For the story of Slachter's Nek see Cloete's ' History of the Great Boer Trek,' 1899, chap, i. A CONFLICT OF RACE S hatred in this country. There was no race hatred between the ItaHans, the French, the Germans, and the Transvaal people. If there was any race feeling, it was against their political opponents of over two hundred years' standing ' (see report in a Blue-Book, 1897, C. 8423, p. no). Among the common people on either side mutual dislike is matter of common parlance. The usual term applied by the Boers (when they talk among themselves) to an Englishman is, adds Mr. Bryce, 'rotten egg,' and everybody on this side has heard corresponding compliments paid to the Boers. Among the English the Boers are supposed to be dirty ; among the Boers the Englishman's 'red neck ' is proverbial. In the year after Majuba, General Joubert, Commandant-General of the Republic, had written to Matabeleland to seek alliance with the then mighty Lobengula. After recounting how the Boers had made the Englishmen let go of the Transvaal, ' like an ape with a handful of pumpkin-seeds,' by beating him to death, he bids Lobengula expect the time ' when the stink which the Englishman brought with him shall be quite blown away.'* ' Oh that all the English had one neck between them, and that I had the axe to cut it off!' was the pious prayer of another prominent Krugerite.f ' It is the English that she hates,' the German overseer on ' A South African Farm ' explains to Bonaparte Blenkins on his introduction to Tant' Sannie, and it may be feared that the authoress of that clever and widely-read book did something to make the hatred returned, for she paints the Boers as rude, brutal, and savage. | The two peoples had a common religion, but a common reli- gion held with a difference is no dissolvent of popular antipathies. British opinion was impressed by Mr. Kruger's open Bible no more favourably than was Boer opinion by Exeter Hall. To /Aem our Christianity was hateful for its softness towards the natives.-^ To us their religion savoured too much of the tribal system of the * The text of this letter is given in FitzPatrick's ' Transvaal from Within,' first edition, p. 54. t See Paul M. Botha's ' From Boer to Boer and Englishman,' p. 3. J It is curious that Mrs. Olive Schreiner, who is now so hot in her sympathy with the Boers, should in her best-known book have given so repulsive an account of them. Of the Boer at his best Mr. Selous has drawn some attractive pictures. 6 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR old dispensation.* Thus, in spite of intercourse and intermarriage, in spite of the efforts of many of the better minds on either side, the Dutch race and the Enghsh remained separate and hostile in South Africa. The patriotism of each was tinctured strongly with dislike of the other. In 1881 a great English statesman made a supreme effort, by a display of magnanimity! rare in history, to disarm the combatants in this racial conflict. But men's minds are narrow, and his ' great deed was too great' The settlement after Majuba left behind it in the minds of the British a rankling desire for revenge, and in the minds of the Boers an equally dangerous feeling of pride. ' The Boers,' says Mr. Bryce, ' saw in the conduct of the British Government neither generosity nor humanity, but only fear.]: Jubilant over their victories, and (like the Kaffirs in the South Coast wars) not realizing the overwhelm- ing force which could have been brought against them, they fancied themselves entitled to add some measure of contempt to the dislike they already cherished to the English, and they have ever since shown themselves unpleasant neighbours.'§ On the * In a speech delivered in 1890 President Kruger thus distinguished the burghers, who were of the chosen people, from the other inhabitants of the country : ' All ye multitude, listen with full attention, that you may take hold of what I say. God is in our midst. I shall first address the true burghers who are here to praise God for His Almighty deeds favouring our entire people in the past days and now also. Yes, for you also, murderers, thieves, and even strangers. He works in His own good time, for ye also are of God's image. Thus I name you all His people." He paused to allow this charitable inclusion to sink into the hearts of the frivolous 'strangers,' and then qualified the concession by a word of caution to his ' true burghers.' ' But for us burghers, it is for us to pay our vows to the Lord.' This was a Dingaan's Day speech, the anniversary of the fierce battle fought on December 16, 1838, when a handful of Boers defeated the powerful Zulu king Dingaan. (For the speech, see Times, November 25, 1899.) f It should, however, be remembered that there was another side to Mr. Glad- stone's policy. See below, p. 12. J This was the effect produced also on the minds of sympathizers with the Boers. Dr. Kuyper's reference to the Majuba settlement is instructive : ' Le g(5n6ral CoUey accourut de la Natalie avec ses regimens ^cossais, mais il fut battu et tu6 k Amajuba, le 27 F^vrier 1881, De Londres, on exp^dia des ordres, pour conclure un armistice. II dtait temps. Dej^ les commandos de I'^tat libre se mettaient en marche pour descendre dans la Natalie ' [Revue des Deux Mondes, tome clvii., 1900, p. 500.) § Mr. Merriman's verdict was the same. Speaking in 1855, he said : 'I was one of those who thought that the British Government had been magnanimous in terminating the Transvaal War. How have the Boers repaid the magnanimity of A CONFLICT OF RACE 7 Other side, the British ' who live in the two colonies hold that the disgrace (as they term it) of Majuba Hill ought to have been wiped out by a march to Pretoria, and that the Boers should have been made to recognise that Britain is, and will remain, the para- mount Power, in fact as well as in name. They feel aggrieved to this day (1897) that the terms of peace were settled at Laing's Nek, within the territory of Natal, while it was still held by the Boers. Even in Cape Colony, where the feeling is perhaps less strong than it is in Natal, the average Englishman has neither forgotten nor forgiven the events of 1881 ' (' Impressions of South Africa,' chap. xii.). Even the memories of Majuba might, however, have been wiped out, if the two races had been capable of confronting political questions from a common standpoint. But they were not. The conflict of race in South Africa was, as we shall see in the next chapter, a conflict also of ideals. CHAPTER II A CONFLICT OF IDEALS A clash of conflicting political ideals — The Great Trek — Great Britain's 'morbid love of the natives' — The Grondwet and * no equality' — The * Chosen People ' and the Outsiders — The Boer idea of liberty — The annexation of 1877 and the war — Political effects of Majuba — Lord Randolph Churchill's opinion — The Witwatersrand — Inrush of the gold-seekers — Disfranchisement — Sketch of the Transvaal Constitution — Mr. Kruger's difficulties — British ideals and the Republics. It is difficult for different races to understand and sympathize with each other. It is difficult, also, for diff'erent centuries and different civilizations to do so. All these difficulties combined to keep the Boer and the Briton apart. South Africa, as the war has brought home to us with painful force, is a country of vast distances. The ambition of every Boer farmer, it is said, is to have no other human habitation in sight of him. The presence Great Britain? They have done everything to flaunt, insult, and annoy the British Government.' (Speech at Grahamstown.) 8 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR of another civilization than his own is, and always has been, an equal eyesore. What has really been witnessed on the battlefields of South Africa is not merely a struggle between the Dutch race and the British, but the clash of different civilizations, of alien political ideals. It has been a conflict between the tribal idea of exclusion and the inclusiveness of modern States; between the pastoral State and the industrial ; between oligarchy and demo- cracy ; between Liberalism and Toryism. In a word, between the modern spirit and the ancient. What caused the Great Trek of 1836, which is the starting- point of Transvaal history ? Many reasons contributed to it, but Mr. Bryce is probably right when he finds the main grievance of the Dutch against the English in ' those native and colour questions which have ever since continued to trouble South Africa.' Mr. Reitz, in his indictment of British rule in that country, pays to it what most of us will consider a very high compliment. ' Great Britain,' he says, ' is the Power which was celebrated in South Africa for its morbid love of the natives ' (* A Century of Wrong,' p. 92). It was to escape from the sphere of this morbid love that the Boer people pursued what Mr. Reitz calls ' their pilgrimage of martyrdom throughout South Africa.' This is one of the roots of the matter. The average Boer, left to himself, did not, it may be, treat the natives very much worse than the average Briton in like circumstances ; but the Imperial Government stood out for better treatment than that given by either. This was the motive of more than one act of British pohcy in South Africa. It was, for instance, as protectors of the natives that the British occupied Natal, and it embittered the Boers against the British Government, As Livingstone wrote : 'The great objection many of the Boers had, and still have, to English law is that it makes no distinction between black and white. They felt aggrieved by their supposed losses in the emancipation of the Hottentot slaves, and determined to erect themselves into a Republic in which they might pursue without molestation the ''proper treatment of the blacks'" ('Missionary Travels in South Africa,' p. 29). The ' proper treatment * implied compulsory unpaid labour and liberal application of the rhinoceros-hide sjambok. * The Boer emigrants,' says Mr. Bryce, ' seem all through to have treated the A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 9 natives much as Israel treated the natives of Canaan, and to have conceived themselves to have Old Testament authority for occupy- ing the territories of the heathen and reducing them by the sternest methods to serfdom or submission.' In this respect we do not know that British colonizers have always differed very much from Boer emigrants ; but the influence of the Home Government has been exerted in order to give some protection to the native races, and in the British colonies some political rights have been accorded to them. The idea of looking upon the coloured man as a potential citizen, or even as a potential Christian — equal before his Maker with the white man — is foreign to the fundamental conceptions of the Boers. The Grondwet, or Constitution of the Transvaal, itself lays down (in Article IX.) that there shall be *no equality, either in Church or in State, between white and coloured.'* It is impossible to conceive of a British constitution-maker laying down such a pro- vision as that. ' Then the greater hypocrites you,' it may be replied. But it is not so. Doubtless the treatment of the native races alike by British Governments and British colonists has often been harsh ; but we are treating now of ideals, and the ideal of Exeter Hall is not shared by — nay, it is barely intelligible to — the Boers. And in actual practice the difference between the national ideals makes itself perceptibly felt. In Cape Colony there is no colour Hne in politics, and no colour test for the franchise. Any native who can fulfil the conditions has as much right to vote as a white man. If he can read and write, and earns a regular salary of ;£$o per annum, or occupies taxed property of the value of ;£"75, he is entitled to vote. Native constituencies have returned some of the best men in the Cape Parliament. Sir James Rose Innes, for instance, at one time owed his seat to native votes. Such a system is repugnant to the Boer mind. It will be remembered that Lord Salisbury, speaking in the House of Lords shortly after the outbreak of the war, declared that * one of the things which must be insisted upon in the future was that due precaution should be taken for the philanthropic and kindly and improving treatment of those countless indigenous races ' of * The text of the Grondwet and of the two Conventions of 1881 and 1884 has been conveniently published by Mr. H. MacLeay, 1899. 10 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR whose destiny he feared we had been too forgetful in the past (Hansard, vol. Ixxvii., October 17, 1899, col. 22). It was not without significance that among the questions upon which Com- mandant-General Botha was most anxious to obtain information in his negotiations with Lord Kitchener in February, 1901, was the Kaffir question, and whether the franchise would be given to them (Cd. 528, p. 2). The native question was used also as a principal argument by General Ben Viljoen in the appeal ' to my fellow-Afrikanders in Cape Colony,' which he circulated during the war. ' If,' he said, ' the Republics fell into the hands of England, then the Boers in Natal and the Cape Colony will be disarmed by England, and humiliation will follow upon humilia- tion. Then the Hottentots will not only accompany you to the ballot, vote along with you, and also travel in your company in first-class railway-carriages, but they will sit by your side, if not above you, in Parliament ; in a word, the word " Afrikander " will disappear from the history and vocabulary of South Africa. The honourable positions hitherto occupied by Afrikanders in every department in South Africa will then be occupied by the lords, dukes, colonels, and other played-out scoundrels and niggers' (Cape Times, January 28, 1902). Both of Lord Salisbury's points — equality for all the whites and better treatment for the blacks — are terms repugnant to the Boer ideals, and both for a similar reason. The Boers believe them- selves in all sincerity to be a chosen people. The natives are to them, therefore. Divinely-appointed hewers of wood and drawers of water, and, similarly, the newcomers, the strangers, the Uit- landers, are regarded as outside the covenant. The land is the land of the Boer folk, to develop or not as they may choose. The nation is the nation of the Boers, not to be recruited from the out- side, but to be kept for the first trekkers and their descendants. No one can read Mr. Kruger's speeches without perceiving how wide a gulf is fixed between his ideas and those which prevail in modern States. He recognises no title to political status other than is derived from birth and race ; no method of gaining political rights other than the gun. A deputation from Johannes- burg once waited upon him to enter a protest against a certain measure. The President jumped up impatiently. ' What is the A CONFLICT OF IDEALS ii good,' he exclaimed, *of protesting? You have not the guns : I have.'"'^ On another occasion Uitlander petitioners were before the Raad asking for their rights. ' Their rights !' exclaimed one of the members. ' Let them fight for them.' The Boers are deeply attached to the idea of liberty, no less deeply than the British ; but liberty in the political dictionary of the Boer means freedom from restraint for an exclusive and tribal body, for the family only of the elect, not equal rights for a free community. This conception takes us back far into past centuries. It is true that where there is great disparity between the degrees of advance- ment in civilization of the various races inhabiting the same country, the racial theory survives in favour of the higher race. It has been reserved for the Boers to apply it as between two races which (to put it in the light most favourable to them) were in the same degree of civilization. PoHtically, the conceptions of the Boers are as far behind the age as are the ideas of many of them in other matters. They are the political conceptions of men who ' would arrest the locomotive in mid-Karoo at twelve o'clock on a Saturday night,'t and who, holding locusts to be a plague, as in the days of Pharaoh, sent by God, would regard any measures for their extermination as ' raising hands against the Almighty.'! The conflict of political ideals which I have endeavoured to describe is one of the principal clues to the history of the Trans- vaal Boers in relation to the British from 1836 to 188 1. It explains the Great Trek of 1836. It explains also the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, and the subsequent war. The Boers had the will to be independent because they desired to carry out their own political ideals. But those ideals were too narrow and too ill-informed to support an Independent State. The British annexation of 1877, whatever else may be said about it, was the result of interference by the British in order to save a bankrupt State from imminent dangers. As soon as the external danger passed away, the Boers rose in arms to resume their independence. Mr. Gladstone granted it to them, though, as we shall see, on strict conditions. The poHcy of Majuba failed, as we showed in the * FitzPatrick's ' The Transvaal from Within,' p. 302. t Mr, Cronwright Schreiner's ' Political Ethics and Political Organization,' 1893. I Debate in the Volksraad, July 21, 1892. 12 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR last chapter, in the moral sphere. It did not wipe out all racial animosities, and cause Boer and Briton to live on an exalted plane of the higher emotions. But it is a mistake to represent Mr. Gladstone's policy as dictated only by magnanimity. It was an act of high policy as well as of the higher morality, ''^ and in the political sphere it had, on the state of facts then existing, very much to justify it. It avoided some immediate dangers, and it made possible some future advantages. A remarkable witness to these facts may be cited in Lord Randolph Churchill, who visited South Africa during the time when Mr. Rhodes seemed to have established a working alliance with the Afrikanders : ' In justice, it should be added,' wrote Lord Randolph, 'that the s?igacious policy of Mr. Rhodes has only been made possible by the termination of the Transvaal War in i88i, and by the manner of its termination. The surrender of the Transvaal and the peace concluded by Mr. Gladstone with the victors of Majuba Hill were at the time, and still are, the object of sharp criticism and bitter denunciation from many politicians at home, quonuti pars parva fiii. Better and more precise information, combined with cool reflection, leads me to the conclusion that had the British Government of that day taken advantage of its strong military position and annihilated, as it easily could have done, the Boer forces, it would have indeed regained the Transvaal, but it might have lost Cape Colony. The Dutch sentiment in the Colony had been so exasperated by what it considered to be the unjust, faithless, and arbitrary policy pursued towards the free Dutchmen of the Transvaal by Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Theo- philus Shepstone, and Sir Owen Lanyon, that the final triumph of the British arms mainly by brute force would have permanently and hopelessly alienated it from Great Britain. Parliamentary Government in a country where the Dutch control the Parliament would have become impossible, and without Parliamentary Government Cape Colony would be ungovernable. . . . On the whole, I find myself free to confess, and without reluctance to admit, that the English escaped from a wretched and discreditable muddle not without harm and damage, but possibly in the best possible manner, and that lessons have been taught to many parties by the Transvaal War which, if learned, may * The late Lord Selborne, in his ' Memorials, Personal and Political,' says : • There were reasons of policy as well as sentiment which made for peace. There was a widespread sympathy with the Boers among the population of Dutch origin predominant in the Cape Colony and in the Orange Free State, and exercising throughout South Africa an important influence. A prolongation of the war might have made that sympathy a source of serious danger ; the area of hostilities, and the consequences depending upon them, might have been formidably increased. These reasons added practical weight to the moral considerations which pressed upon us.' See also Lord Kimberley's speech at Newcastle, November 14, 1899. A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 13 be of the utmost value in framing future policy ' ( ' Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa,' 1891, pp. 23, 24). The policy of Majuba did, after all, keep the peace more or less for twenty years. The conflict of ideals was indeed there all the time, not always latent. But the old order might conceivably have been transformed without acute conflict, but for the emer- gence of a new and unforeseen factor. This factor was the dis- covery of gold. As Mr. Garrett well puts it, the trouble was not the result * Of a " double dose of original sin " in any human quarter, but simply of a very singular geographical accident. In all South Africa there was one region which the exclusive pastoral Boer had chosen for his last stand against civil- ization—the Transvaal, or, as he significantly named it, "the South African Republic." In all South Africa, in all the known world, there is only one gold-field with the exact characteristics as to extent and regularity of the Wit- watersrand. And the Witwatersrand must needs crop up in the Transvaal — crop up, too, just when the Great Powers were casting lots for all the rest of the continent still unappropriated, and there was nowhere left for the trekboer to go. There was plenty of room for Witwatersrands in neighbouring terri- tories where immigration was regarded as a blessing. Placed anywhere in the million square miles of British South Africa, Johannesburg would never have broken the slumbers of a State Secretary, and President Kruger would be only a name in the '* Statesman's Year Book." But geological accident would have it just here, and the human corollaries were inevitable' ('The Inevitable in South Africa,' Contemporary Review y October, 1899). The cropping up of the Rand at once brought up also the latent conflicts of which we have spoken. The gold-seekers came in, and they had the right to come. The right was secured to them by the same instruments that gave the Boers their right of self-government. It is true that in 1881 the gold rush had not been foreseen ; but when the mines began to be opened up, it was Mr. Kruger himself who invited the strangers to come in, and promised them every assistance in their enterprises."^ How did the President fulfil his promises ? He did exactly as a man with his political ideas was likely to do. He disfranchised the new- comers, and while using the fruits of their enterprise to enrich the State, he reserved all political rights for the old burghers. In this connection I may republish a statement which I drew * For a further discussion of this subject, and for the documents justifying the statements made above, see Chapter XXV. 14 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR up at the commencement of the crisis. Some knowledge of the Constitution of the South African Republic is necessary in order to understand the rights and wrongs of subsequent controversies : 'THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC. 'The Executive (or Uitvoerande Raad) consisted of: * The State President. — Elected for five years by a general election, the electors being " enfranchised burghers" only (Outlanders entirely excluded). * The Commandant- General. — Similarly elected. ' The State Secretary. — Elected by the First Volksraad for five years. * The Secretary for Native Affairs and tivo Unofficial Members. — Elected by the First Volksraad for three years. ' The First Chamber [px Volksraad). — This consisted of twenty-four members, who must be (i) thirty years of age ; (2) free burghers born in the country ; or (3) naturalized aliens, qualified as shown below. Johannesburg had only one member. ' The Second Chamber. — This also consisted of twenty-four members. For qualifications, etc., affecting Outlanders, see below. ' Foiaers of the Chambers. — The Dual Chamber Bill gave the First Chamber supreme powers and a veto over every act of the Second Chamber. It left it also to the discretion of the President what measures passed in the Second he should send up for the approval or otherwise of the First Chamber. The Second Chamber had no powers in relation to taxation. It did not consider the subjects dealt with by the First Chamber. 'THE POLITICAL POSITION OF THE OUTLANDERS. * This is a very complicated matter to explain. In order to make it as easily intelligible as possible, I arrange in consecutive form the stages through which an Outlander had to pass on his way to some share in the rights of citizenship : * I. Fourteen days after arrival, enrolment in the Field Cornet's list. (Omission of this formality vitiated all the subsequent stages.) ' 2. Two years after enrolment in the Field Cornet's list, and after that period of continuous residence, naturalization might be obtained. * The costs of naturalization were— (i) a payment of £$y (2) taking the oath of allegiance, (3) liability to military service. 'If a man omitted to take the oath of allegiance, then his children, even if born on Transvaal soil, forfeited the franchise (Law of 1894). ^ The privilege of naturalization was a vote for the Second Chamber. ' 3. Two years after naturalization you became, if thirty years of age, eligible for the Second Chamber. ' 4. Ten years after eligibility for the Second Chamber was obtained, you obtained both (i) the right to vote, and (2) the right to be eligible for the First Chamber. * The right to vote for the President and Commandant-General was not in A CONFLICT OF IDEALS IS any case conferred on naturalized aliens ; it pertained exclusively to " enfran- chised burghers." * Summing up the stages and conditions enumerated above, it appears that to obtain the franchise for the effective Chamber you must (i) have enrolled yourself in the Field Cornet's list ; (2) have resided for fourteen years ; (3) during twelve of which you have been without full citizen's rights anywhere, for you have had to renounce your former allegiance, obtaining only in return liability to military service, the right to vote for the ineffective Chamber, and (during the last ten years of the twelve) the right to sit in the same ; (4) be forty years of age. *A COMPARISON WITH OTHER SOUTH AFRICAN STATES. * To understand the position of a settler in the Transvaal, one must inquire what his position would be in other adjoining territories. It is interesting, therefore, to compare the state of things in this respect in the Orange Free State and in the Cape Colony. An inhabitant of the latter moving to the Transvaal required fourteen years' residence, etc., to obtain effective citizen- ship. An inhabitant of the Transvaal moving to the • Oraitge Free State required two years' residence for obtaining the same, and to the ' Cape Colony required only to take the oath and go through a few other formalities to obtain the same at once. • In this connection it is interesting to point out that England was not asking the Boer to do otherwise than she had done herself. Just as in the Trans- vaal the majority is English, so at the Cape the majority is Dutch. " When responsible Government was introduced into Cape Colony in 1873, it was represented that by this course the control of the Cape Parliament would pass from the English to the Dutch, who formed two-thirds of the European popu- lation. This fact did not prevent the English Government from carrying out its just intention" (W. Basil Worsfield in Contemporary Revieiv^ April, 1896). • A SUMMARY OF "REFORMS BACKWARD." ' It is often said that the Outlanders were too impatient, that President Kruger should have been given time, that the expansion in the Republic had only been in recent years, and that " Liberal Englishmen should have a little patience with a Republic that, taken by surprise, has not reformed its legislative system within the short space of seven years " (F. Reginald Statham in Daily News, March 30, 1896), ' In this connection it is interesting to construct a little manual of events. The legislative system of the Republic had no doubt been reformed within the space of seven years, as well as previously, but, unfortunately, the reforms had been, from the Liberal point of view, reforms backward. The principal changes in the alien and franchise laws of the South African Republic were as follows : i6 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR ' 1855. — All white aliens to enjoy equal rights with other citizens on purchase of the right of citizenship. * 1876.— Naturalized aliens to enjoy equal rights with citizens. Naturaliza- tion obtained by (i) possession of real property, or (2) one year's residence. * 1 88 1. — Pretoria Convention. The above was the s^aius quo at the time of this Convention. ' 1883. — Naturalization only obtainable after five years. * 1884. — London Convention. The above was the status quo at the time of this Convention. * 1889-90. — The Gold Rush. The above was still the status quo. * 1890.— The Second Chamber established. Outlanders to elect thereto after two years ; to be eligible after four. But to elect to the First Raad after ten years, and to be eligible after fourteen. * 1893.— The existing law as described above. * 1894. — Children (born in country) disfranchised unless their fathers took the oath of allegiance. 'It will be seen that, so far as effective citizenship was concerned, the " reforms " had consisted in raising the qualification from (i) simple purchase, to (2) one year's residence, (3) to five years, (4) to fourteen years, (5) to fourteen years plus some other conditions ' i^Daily News, April 8, 1896). Thus deprived of representation, the new-comers, as might be expected, suffered from many practical grievances. It is im- possible, on the facts set forth above, to acquit Mr. Kruger of broken pledges. It is fair, however, on the other hand, to remember the difficulties of his position, confronted as he was with so many new problems and strange conditions. Olive Schreiner has an eloquent passage in this connection : * It is sometimes said that when one stands looking down from the edge of this hill at the great mining-camp of Johannesburg stretching beneath, with its heaps of white sand and debris mountains high, its mining chimneys belching forth smoke, with its seventy thousand Kaffirs and its eighty thousand men and women, white or coloured, of all nationalities, gathered here in the space of a few years on the spot where, fifteen years ago, the Boer's son guided his sheep to the water, and the Boer's wife sat alone at evening at the house-door to watch the sunset, we are looking upon one of the most wonderful spectacles on earth. And it is wonderful, but as we look at it the thought always arises within us of something more wonderful yet — the marvellous manner in which a little nation of simple folk, living in peace in the land they loved, far from the rush of cities and the concourse of men, have risen to the difficulties of their condition' ('Words in Season,' p. 82). It is impossible to agree with Mrs. Schreiner that the difficulties were surmounted, but impossible also not to recognise how great A CONFLICT OF IDEALS 17 the difficulties were. In a State wherein modern ideas prevailed the difficulties would have solved themselves by the admission of the new-comers to political rights ; but in the Transvaal modern ideas did not prevail. The inrush of the gold-seekers brought into full force and into the strongest relief that conflict of political ideals which it has been the object of this chapter to illustrate. Mr. Kruger, a tribal autocrat, was called upon to deal with an industrial democracy. Many and acute collisions were inevitable, and they occurred. Yet, even so, the final arbitrament of the sword might, under conceivable conditions, have been avoided, difficulties might have been gradually met, and the inevitable adjustment of the Transvaal Government to its new environment need not have involved the loss of its flag. The conflict of ideals was not on the British side irreconcilable. The maintenance of Britain as the paramount Power in South Africa, and the develop- ment of the country in accordance with British ideas, were not inconsistent with the recognition and maintenance therein of republican States. ' If anyone believes,' said Mr. Rhodes in 1892, * in the friendly relations between the different South African countries, and wishes them to be strengthened, do dismiss this idea of asserting a union, meaning thereby a dis- appearance of the local flags, the local sentiment, and the local interests in South Africa. If the President of the Transvaal has one specially dear, honest feeling, it is his independence in his flag, and there is nothing more detrimental to our closer sentiment than this talk of politicians on the basis of one South African State right up to the Zambesi, which must mean, to the President of the Transvaal, the disappearance of his flag' (Speech at Kimberley, September 6, 1890).* That was the language of moderation ; and to like effect Lord Milner wrote seven years later that ' South Africa could prosper under two, three, or six Governments' (despatch of May 4, 1899, C. 9345» P- 211). But it was not to be ; for the conflict of race and the conflict of political ideals was at the same time a conflict of political ambitions. * Dr. Jameson, in a lecture at the Imperial Institute at the beginning of 1895, had spoken to similar effect. It was a just Nemesis on the plots of Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jameson that the rising at Johannesburg should have broken down on this very point of the flag. 2 i8 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR CHAPTER III A CONFLICT OF AMBITIONS The so-called * conspiracy ' — What it was and was not— The Transvaal aiming at complete independence— The negotiations of 1883 — Attempts to abrogate the Convention of 1884 — Territorial ambitions of the Transvaal. The British ideal in South Africa before the war was a congeries or a confederation of States — not all of them under the British flag, but all of them accepting British paramountcy. What was it that caused the pursuit of this ideal to bring the British and the Boers to loggerheads ? In the previous chapters we have traced some of the permanent elements of disunion, but these are not enough, I have suggested, to account for the whole of the facts. In spite of the obstacles already described, Boers and Britons seemed several times to be drawing together. At the last moment, however, there was always a hitch. There is one theory about Boer policy in South Africa on which, I submit, the facts of recent South African history have never been, and can never be, logically explained. This theory is that the Transvaal was a simple pastoral State, in a backward stage of development, but yet with no desires or ambitions other than were consistent with the Convention of 1884. I propose to subject this theory to examination in the light of (i) the facts of Mr. Kruger's poHcy (Chapter III.), and (2) the general tendency of ' Afrikander ' aspirations (Chapter IV.). This examina- tion will at the same time throw light on the counter-theory of an anti-British ' conspiracy ' in South Africa. In a manifesto issued by Mr. Courtney (January 17, 1900) it is stated that ' the so-called Dutch conspiracy to oust British power from South Africa rests on the most shadowy foundation.' If the controversy is to be made to turn on the word ' conspiracy,' I should be inclined to agree with Mr. Courtney. I have never seen evidence to show that there was a definitely formulated conspiracy between the two Republics on the one side and prominent Dutch colonists on the other to oust British power from South Africa. The conclusion suggested by a study of South African history points rather to a conflict of tendencies, of ideals, of ambitions. The principle of A CONFLICT OF AMBITIONS 19 British policy in South Africa in relation to the Transvaal was local autonomy for that State, protected, however, and controlled in its foreign policy by Great Britain. The principle of Transvaal policy was very different. Its ambition was to become an absolutely independent and sovereign State, constantly enlarging its borders and throwing off daughter Republics ; so that when the time came for the formation of the United South Africa aimed at by the Afrikander Bond, the paramount power should be that, not of Great Britain, but of the Dutch Republics. What has been suggested is, then, that the Transvaal Govern- ment was resolved to be rid of the last vestiges of British supremacy; that the Orange Free State had been induced to sympathize with them in this object ; that an ideal widely held amongst the Boers was a United States of South Africa, under a Boer flag ; that this ideal was cherished by an extreme wing of the Afrikander Bond ; and that the Republican propaganda had many adherents among the Dutch subjects of the Crown. This is the rational and historical form of the theory referred to by Mr. Courtney. In this form the statement, so far from having no foundation in fact, is in some measure open to no question whatever ; and the assertion, often made, that the theory was an ' afterthought ' on the British side is demonstrably incorrect. It was placed on record by Lord Milner in a despatch which preceded the negotiations of 1899, and it had been put forth many years before by other men, whose knowledge of South Africa was wide, and whose freedom from bias against the Boers is beyond question. The first clause in the series of propositions set out above — the statement that the Transvaal Government aimed at complete independence of Great Britain — admits of no sort of doubt. The essential documents to study in this connection are in the Blue- Book of 1884 (C. 3947) containing 'Correspondence respecting the Convention concluded with the South African Republic on the 27th February, 1884.' The first thing which will strongly impress the reader is the view put forward by Mr. Kruger of the Conven- tion of 1 88 1. We in this country are in the habit of speaking of Mr. Gladstone's policy therein as a piece of extraordinary mag- nanimity. To Mr. Kruger, on the other hand, the boot was on the other leg. ♦ The said Convention,' he remarks (p. 2), * was 2 — 2 20 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR only ratified by the Volksraad under compulsion to prevent further bloodshed.' What Mr. Kruger specially objected to was that the Convention was ' a unilateral document framed by a Royal Com- mission,' and that the Transvaal did not have * the status of a contracting party.' Accordingly, what he asked for was that the status established by the Convention of 1881 should be altered by a new instrument founded on the basis of 'two contracting Powers' (p. 5). Here we find the first germ of that claim to the status of a Sovereign International State which Mr. Kruger and his advisers never henceforth for a moment abandoned, which governed their policy for two decades, and which was to play so large and fatal a part in producing the rupture of 1899. In the draft ^reafy submitted by Mr. Kruger and his fellow-delegates on November 26, 1883, care was taken, both in its form and in its substance, to embody the claim to be a Sovereign International State. We need not, how- ever, here examine the draft, though hereafter we shall have to recur to it in other connections ; for Lord Derby promptly replied that the treaty was * neither in form nor in substance such as Her Majesty's Government could adopt' (p. 18). The actual Con- vention ultimately agreed to contained, as everybody knows, at least one article which was obviously inconsistent with the status of a Sovereign International State. This was Article IV., under which treaties negotiated by the South African Republic were reserved for the approval of Her Majesty the Queen. Mr. Kruger signed that article. Did he thereby renounce his claim ? Not at all. This is a subject on which strange misrepresentations have been made by Mr. Kruger's friends."^ He accepted the Conven- tion of 1884, indeed, but he accepted it only as an instalment. Like a certain section of the Irish Nationalists, he might accept compromises, but his real aim was to sever ' the last link.' Mr. Kruger himself made no concealment of this fact at the time of negotiating the Convention of 1884. ' It may be,' he wrote to Lord Derby, ' that the people of the South African * Thus Mr. Cronwright Schreiner stated in an interview [Daily News, February 8, 1900) : ' I have never heard any responsible person in the Transvaal express any intention of doing away with Article IV. of the 1884 Convention.' Mr, Schreiner may not have had the opportunity of hearing, but surely he might have read. A CONFLICT OF AMBITIONS 21 Republic will even now thankfully accept from Her Majesty's Government some alleviation of the burden imposed upon them ; but whatever concessions Her Majesty's Government may be prepared to make, the reciprocal confidence between the British and Dutch colonists will then only revive when Her Majesty's Government also will accept the Sand River Convention as the historical basis of all further arrangements. Any settlement not founded upon this basis cannot but be of a merely temporary character — only upon that basis can a permanent settlement be secured ' (p. 4). The Convention of 1884 was, then, to be accepted only as an instalment. In what directions further instalments were expected was explained by resolution of the Volksraad in ratifying the Con- vention. Among the points to which the Raad took exception was the delimitation of the Transvaal's boundaries and the right of veto reserved under Article IV. (see ' Correspondence relating to the Status of the South African Republic.' 1899, C. 9507, p. 25). In both respects the Volksraad's resolution corresponded with Mr. Kruger's efforts. In an article in the Quarterly Review^ written obviously with authority by one who had personal knowledge of many of the events related, the steady persistence of Mr. Kruger's policy is clearly brought out (January, 1900).* 'Just as, from the time the Convention of Pretoria was signed, the Boers set to work to procure an alteration in its provisions, so,' says the reviewer, ' they regarded the Convention of London merely as a stepping- stone towards the attainment of a completely sovereign, inde- pendent, and international State.' From this position President Kruger never wavered. To abrogate the Convention was his consistent policy, and he would never take any step which might militate against the great object of his life. In 1894 he refused to ratify a draft Convention exempting British subjects from * The late Lord Loch, in a speech at the Imperial Institute ( Times, December 8, 1899), made some interesting revelations : ' During the time he was in South Africa he had many conversations with President Kruger, and probably knew him better than any previous High Commissioner, At many interviews, and in many conver- sations, President Kruger referred to his desire for the independence of his country as regards release from the article of the Convention precluding him from making independent treaties. It was very evident he would never be satisfied with the inferior position of his country as compared with the Free State. He also spoke of being hemmed in on all sides, and always desired a seaport, and even on one occa- sion mentioned a desire for a navy also. It was evidently his desire to negotiate directly with Foreign Powers on equal terms.' 22 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR military service. With nearly every European State he made such a Convention. With Great Britain he would not. His object was to embody what he regarded as a concession in a general revision of the Convention of 1884 (see C. 8159, pp. 22, 23). It was on this same point that the negotiations for Mr. Kruger to visit London in 1896 broke down. He made it a condition that the Convention of 1884 should be superseded and Article IV. withdrawn, 'because it is injurious to the dignity of an independent Republic ' (* Correspondence relating to Affairs in the South African Republic,' 1896, C. 8063, p. 13). It was on this same rock that the negotiations of 1899 were, as we shall see, dashed to pieces. The Convention of 1884 limited the Transvaal's ambitions in two ways. It placed the Republic in a position of semi- dependence on Great Britain ; and it strictly shut it off from encroachments beyond its borders. Just as President Kruger set himself to abrogate the Convention in the former respect, so also he attempted unceasingly, and in all quarters of the compass, to violate it in the latter respect. The first attempt was made on the west, in the hope of securing control over the great trade route northward. This was stopped by Mr. Gladstone when he sent out Sir Charles Warren's expedition and proclaimed the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1885. The next attempt to violate the Convention was made in the years 1889, 1890, 1891, when it was hoped to forestall Mr. Rhodes in Mashonaland. To these attempts we shall return in a later chapter (V.). On the com- plicated story of President Kruger's ambitions eastwards — that is, seawards — the Quarterly reviewer gives a very lucid account of Lord Loch's negotiations. Her Majesty's Government, steadily pursuing a policy of conciliation, not only surrendered Swaziland, but offered President Kruger a seaport. There were, however, the following conditions, among others, attached : that the Republic should not, without the approval of Her Majesty's Government, part with the harbour, or enter into any treaty regarding it \ and that if any dispute arose with a Foreign Power regarding the harbour, the diplomatic negotiations should be carried on by Her Majesty's Government. President Kruger, who had previously enlarged on the commercial importance of a A CONFLICT OF AMBITIONS 23 seaport, declined these conditions. Can any reasonable doubt exist as to his motives ? The President tried threats ; the concessions obtained for him on the sea-coast might be transferred to some Foreign Power. He also tried intrigues ; and in the end Lord Ripon, on the advice of Lord Loch, annexed the territories in question to Zululand. The whole story makes it abundantly clear that the real object of the President, in his eastward extension schemes, was to take another step towards the complete independence of the Republic. To quote the reviewer again : ' What the Government of Pretoria aimed at was an extension of territory which, had it been granted, would have made the Republic the leading and dominant State in South Africa. On the west they tried to secure the control over the great trade route northward ; on the north they coveted the territories of the Matabele and of the Mashona ; on the east they claimed that all the country which lay between the Republic and the sea should be surrendered to them, so that, with a harbour and a sea-coast of their own, they might take their place as a completely independent State in the family of nations.' All this is not a matter of argument, but a matter of fact. Nor does it seem to me a case for recrimination.''*' We can understand, and even sympathize, with the aspirations of the Boers. Only, they happened to be irreconcilable with those of the British.! * Mr, Merriman was less charitable. ' From the time the Convention was signed the policy of the Transvaal was to push out bands of freebooters, and to get them involved in quarrels with the natives. They wished to push their border over the land westwards, and realize the dream of President Pretorius, which was that the Transvaal should stretch from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. The result was robbery, rapine and murder' (Speech at Grahamstown, 1885). t It is interesting to find the Boer view of the Convention of 1881, as presented in this chapter, confirmed by Commandant-General Botha. ' I informed Lord Kitchener,' he says, in his Proclamation of March, 1901, ' that we were only fighting for our independence, which would never be surrendered by our people, and pointed out to him that this war has its origin in the wrong that was done to our people in the unjust annexation of 1877, which injustice was later, in 18811 although admitted by the British Government, not wholly made good by it, because our independence was not fully given back to us ' (Cd. 663, p. 10). 24 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR CHAPTER IV 'afrikanderdom' and the bond Analysis of the terms ' Afrikander ' and ' Afrikanderdom '— ' Tiie birth of the Bond ' — Mr. Merriman on the struggle for South Africa — Mr. T. Schreiner and Mr. Reitz — ' Africa for the Afrikanders ' — Uncertainty of British policy — * The South African Republic ' — The Transvaal's economic hegemony — The Hollander hopes. Mr. Kruger, in the ambitious policy which he steadily pursued, as sketched in the last chapter, was closely in touch with aspira- tions entertained, not only by many of his own burghers, but also by many of the Dutch in other parts of South Africa. He was, in fact, the agent of the Afrikander ideal. At this point it is necessary to make some distinctions. The terms 'Afrikander' and 'Afrikanderdom' are ambiguous, and confusion in this matter has done much to obscure current discussions. Thus, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in a speech at Manchester (November 15, 1899), had a good deal to say about Afrikanderdom. Whereupon a South African correspondent {Daily News^ November 15) criticised Sir Henry severely, and charged him, even, with an ' ignorance of South African affairs astonishing in a man of his position.' Sir Henry had said that ' the whole effort of the true statesman ought to be directed, not to reduce and destroy the power of Afrikanderdom, but to build it up and develop it.' He went on to compare it to ' Canadianism.' The South African correspondent challenged these statements. He declared that Afrikanderdom is the very opposite of Canadianism ; he wanted to know where, under Sir Henry's patronage of Afrikanderdom, the British South Africans would come in, and he proceeded to accuse the Liberal statesman of ignorance. But Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, we may be quite sure, knew perfectly well what he was talking about. The explanation is, that he was talking about one thing and the correspondent about another thing. What, then, is an Afrikander? The term originated, I believe — or, at any rate, was first defined — after the war of 1881, when the Afrikander Bond was formed. 'He is an Afrikander,' we read, * who, whether by birth or by adoption, considers Africa ' AFRIKANDERDOM' AND THE BOND 25 as his home and its interests as his own.' According to this definition, Afrikanderdom would mean the spirit of South African patriotism. It would include all South Africans of whatever origin and whatever politics. Obviously, it is in this sense that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman meant to use the word. He cited as 'astounding and ill-omened' the remark attributed to Lord Milner, that he was ' determined to break the dominion of Afrikanderdom.'"^ ' The power of Afrikanderdom,' said Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 'is British as well as Dutch.' Obviously, in that sense of the word, it would be a ridiculous thing for a High Commissioner or anybody else to say that he was deter- mined to ' break ' Afrikanderdom. To break the spirit of South African patriotism ; to break an Anglo-Dutch union ; to break that very equality of the two races under the British flag which is the formula of British statesmen in South African policy — the thing would be not merely ' ill-omened ' : it would be rank mad- ness. It would, as Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman said, be the same as if ' the Governor-General had proclaimed that he regarded his mission to be to put down Canadianism.' The fact that Sir Henry likened Afrikanderdom to Canadianism shows clearly in what sense he used the former term. It must have been in the sense of Anglo-Dutch South-Africanism, for the very essence of Canadianism is its broad patriotism, based on equality of the two white races. Canada, in the historic words of its House of Commons, is ' a people which has largely succeeded, by the adoption of the principle of conceding equal political rights to every portion of the population, in harmonizing estrangements, and in producing general content.' If, then, this is what is meant by Afrikanderdom — if its power be indeed ' British as well as Dutch ' — then we may all agree with Sir Henry Campbell Banner- man that the object of true statesmanship is ' to build it up and develop it.' So far, then, of 'Afrikander' in its sense of 'South African.' But there is another sense, as anybody might know from the actual situation. How comes it, otherwise, that the Afrikander Bond is in effect not an Anglo-Dutch, but a Dutch body? How comes it also that some eminent Afrikanders (in Sir Henry * Lord Milner denied using the words. (See the Bhie-Book, Cd. 43, p. 239). 26 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Campbell-Bannerman's sense) are, nevertheless, among the severest critics of the Afrikander movement ?* The aims and aspirations of the founders of the Bond are on record. The organization was founded by three men, Mr. Reitz, Mr. Borckenhagen and the Rev. J. S. du Toit. Mr. Reitz we all know. Mr. Borckenhagen, now dead, was a German, who edited the J^ree State Express, and whose Anglophobia was of the most virulent and persistent type. Mr. du Toit's was not persistent, for in after-years he became, as he still remains, a warm admirer of Mr. Rhodes and a supporter of British paramountcy in South Africa. Mr. du Toit was the conductor of a Dutch paper called De Patriot, and in 1882 he republished from it, under the title * De Transvaal Oorlog ' (The Transvaal War), a series of pro- pagandist articles.! These articles begin with some general reflections on the war. There is no mention of English 'magnanimity.' On the contrary, 'proud England was compelled to give the Boers back their land after her soldiers had been repeatedly beaten by a handful of Boers. The little respect which an Afrikander still had for British troops and cannon is utterly done away.' ' The British soldiers have got a fright. They have seen how the Boers shoot. They will take precious good care not to come again to fight with the Boers.' The war had shown that the Boers were a chosen people. 'God's hand has been visible in the history of our people as it has never been since the days of Israel' The Boers had gained much by the war ; * An interesting analysis of the 'Afrikander' movement was given by Mr. Advocate Wessels in a speech delivered at the inauguration of the Paarl Branch of the Guild of Loyal Women of South Africa, June 6, 1900. The speech has been issued in pamphlet form by the South African Vigilance Committee. f This pamphlet was for the first time translated into English in 1900, under the title, ' The Birth of the Bond ' (published by Mr. Josiah Slater, of the Journal, Grahamstown). The pamphlet sketches an outline of future policy for the Dutch in South Africa, which in some respects has been filled in with remarkable fidehty. As the translator remarks, ' With these articles as a key, all the moves of the Bond and of the Republics fall into their place — the enmity practised towards English colonists, the diligent propagation of the Dutch language, the underground war against Imperial influence, the dogged refusal to make concessions to the Uitlanders, the accumulation of war material, the fostering of the manufacture of explosives, the consolidation of the two Republics, the assumption of absolute independence, and the declaration of war at the earliest moment it was thought safe.' ' AFRIKANDERDOM' AND THE BOND 27 they must use it to gain more in the future. The Republics * must make their own ammunition ' and provide themselves with cannon. War must be waged, too, against the English language. It is 'gibberish,' but it serves to introduce English ideas and 'English Parliament laws.' The organization for furthering the anti-English crusade was to be the Afrikander Bond : ' This is now our time to establish the Bond, while a national consciousness has been awakened through the Transvaal War. And the Bond must be our preparation for the future confederation of all the States and colonies of South Africa. The English Government keeps talking of a confederation under the English flag. That will never happen. We can assure them of that. We have often said it; there is just one hindrance to confederation, and that is the English flag. Let them take that away, and within a year the confederation under the free Afrikander flag would be established. But so long as the English flag remains here the Afrikander Bond must be our confederation. And the British will after a while realize that Froude's advice is the best for them ; they must just have Simon's Bay as a naval and military station on the road to India, and give over all the rest of South Africa to the Afrikanders.' Such was the birth of the Bond. Its esoteric aim was stated in the following article of a draft 'Programme of Principles,' sub- mitted to the Bond Congress in 1882, published as an appendix to the published minutes of 1884, and only finally altered in 1886 : • In itself acknowledging no single form of government as the only suitable form, and whilst acknowledging the form of government existing at present, it (the Bond) means that the aim of our national development must be a United South Africa under its own flag ^ Branches of the Bond were started on the draft constitution in Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Free State. The first Con- gress was held in 1882 at Graaff Reinet. In the following year a new influence was introduced by the amalgamation with the Bond of Mr. Hofmeyr's Farmers' Protection Association, and henceforth its ostensible programme was more moderate. Mr. Schreiner told the South Africa Committee that it was a Farmers' League. ' It represents,' he said, ' almost entirely what we may call the country districts ; it is not a town organization ; it flourishes in the country, not in the towns, and its members, of course, are to a very great extent of Dutch origin, because the Dutch are, after all, the farming people of the country ' (' Pro- ceedings of Select Committee on British South Africa,' p. 213). 28 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR This was its ostensible character, but the Bond has at different times and in different circumstances assumed other aspects. In some incarnations, it was not anti-British at all, and Mr. Rhodes for some years used it as his political instrument. In other aspects it appealed, as Mr. Bryce says, ' nominally to African, but prac- cally to Boer, patriotism ' (' Impressions of South Africa, 1897,' p. 502). It included moderates and extremists, and, Hke similar organizations in Ireland, it had many sides. ' A certain section of the press,' wrote Lord Milner, ' not in the Transvaal only, preaches openly and constantly the doctrine of a Republic embracing all South Africa, and supports it by menacing references to the arma- ments of the Transvaal, its alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which in case of war it would receive from a section of Her Majesty's subjects. . . . Language is fre- quently used which seems to imply that the Dutch have some superior rights, even in this colony, to their fellow-citizens of British birth.' Lord Milner only described in 1899 what Mr. Merriman deplored in 1885. The speech from which I quote was made in connection with Sir Charles Warren's expedition in that year. Mr. Merriman saw in Mr. Kruger's policy on that occa- sion, and in the support which it received from many Afrikanders, clear proof of dreams and schemes to oust British supremacy from South Africa generally : * The question is,' he said, * whether we intend to progress along the lines of freedom, of civilization, and respect for law and order, or whether we are ready to take the Transvaal for a model, and have our policy shaped by the Afrikander Bond. . . . From the very first time, some years ago, when the poison Ijegan to be distilled into the country, I felt that it must come to this — Was England or the Transvaal to be the paramount force in South Africa ? . . . From the time the Convention was signed, the policy of the Transvaal was to push out bands of freebooters and to get them involved in quarrels with the natives. They wished to push their border over the land westwards, and realize the dream of President Pretorius, which was that the Transvaal should stretch from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. . . . The Afrikander Bond has made a show of loyalty, while it stirred up disloyalty. Some people, who should have known better, were dragged into the toils under the idea that they could influence it for good, but the whole teaching of history went to show that when the conflict was between men of extreme views and moderate men the violent section triumphed. . . . What could they think of the objects of that Bond when they found Judge Reitz advocating a Republic of South Africa • AFRIKANDERDOM ' AND THE BOND 29 under one flag, and the Rev. Du Toit spluttering out his disloyalty ? No man who wishes well for the British Government could have read the leading articles of the Znd Afrikaan, the Express^ and De Patriot^ in expounding the Bond principles, without seeing that maintenance of law and order under the British Crown, and the objects they have in view, are absolutely different. . . . My quarrel with the Bond is that it stirs up race differences. Its main object is to make the South African Republic the paramount Power in South Africa. . . . The great question is whether you wish to remain an integral portion of the British Empire. Do you want to have another flag here — a German flag or a flag of a United South Africa ? . . . Do you wish to be members of an imaginary South African Republic, or to continue citizens of a colony under the tutelage of a Power under whom every man is regarded as equal before the law, and whose reign is the reign of freedom and of order ?' (Speech at Grahamstown, January 16, 1885).* In corroboration of Mr. Merriman, another witness of equal impartiality — in the sense that he has at different times taken different sides — may be called. What, asked Mr. Cronwright Schreiner on one occasion, is the Afrikander Bond? ' It is,' he said, in answer to his own question, * anti-English in its aims, its officers and its language are Dutch, and it is striving to gain such power as absolutely to control the Cape Parliament.' What sort of men were they ? 'The vast majority of Bondsmen,' continued Mr. Cronwright, ' are nearly illiterate, ignorant, and governed almost entirely by emotion instead of reason ; the wisdom of the Bond represents to a very great extent the ignorance of the farming population of the colony ' (* Political Ethics and Political Organiza- tion,' a paper read to the Cradock Farmers' Association on October 7, 1893, and reprinted as a pamphlet ; see Daily News^ April 20, 1900). Mr. Cronwright may or may not be wrong with * Mr. Merriman was not alone at this time in thus defining the ultimate issue. The late John Mackenzie, of the London Missionary Society, to whom the Empire owes more than it ever repaid, published his ' Austral Africa ' in 1887. Chapter viii. was entitled ' The Transvaal Struggle for Supremacy in South Africa. The Delegates in England in 1883-84.' Some Afrikanders made no secret of their ambitions : ' Never forget, young Afrikanders ! how the English dominion was to your fathers as the kingdom of Egypt, from which the Lord helped them to go free ! Keep now from English ways ; so, in time, under God's blessing, with His promise, shall the numbers of your people, who possess this land, in the north and in the east parts of South Africa, hereafter be increased tenfold ; and it shall be for the Afrikander nation to rule over it, with a confederation of United States of South Africa, strong enough to defend it, not only against the mighty British Empire, but against any European Power ' (' The Transvaal Boer Speaking for Himself/ by C. N. J. Du Plessis, 1898, p. 20). 30 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR regard to the rank and file, or the mass, of the Bondsmen, but among the leaders and influential members in its extreme wing were many men of high intelligence and marked ability. There was, for instance, Mr. Reitz himself. In a letter to the Cape Times^ Mr. Theophilus Schreiner* gave the following account of an interview he had with Mr. Reitz in the early days of the Bond : * I met Mr. Reitz, then a judge of the Orange Free State, in Bloemfontein between seventeen and eighteen years ago, shortly after the retrocession of the Transvaal, and when he was busy establishing the Afrikander Bond. It must be patent to everyone that at that time, at all events, England and its Govern- ment had no intention of taking away the independence of the Transvaal, for she had just '* magnanimously " granted the same ; no intention of making war on the Republics, for she had just made peace ; no intention to seize the Rand goldfields, for they were not yet discovered. At that time, then, I met Mr. Reitz, and he did his best to get me to become a member of the Afrikander Bond, but after studying its constitution and programme, I refused to do so, whereupon the following colloquy in substance took place between us, which has been indelibly imprinted on my mind ever since : ' Reitz : *' Why do you refuse ? Is the object of getting the people to take an interest in political matters not a good one ?" ' Myself : " Yes, it is ; but I seem to see plainly here between the lines of this constitution much more ultimately aimed at than that." ♦Reitz: "What?" 'Myself: "I see quite clearly that the ultimate object aimed at is the overthrow of the British Power, and the expulsion of the British flag from South Africa." * Reitz (with his pleasant, conscious smile, as of one whose secret thought and purpose had been discovered, and who was not altogether displeased that such was the case) : " Well, what if it is so ?" * Myself : '* You don't suppose, do you, that that flag is going to disappear from South Africa without a tremendous struggle and fight ?" * Reitz (with the same pleasant, self-conscious, self-satisfied, and yet semi- apologetic smile) : ** Well, I suppose not ; but even so, what of that ?" ' Myself : " Only this, that when that struggle takes place, you and I will be on opposite sides ; and what is more, the God who was on the side of the Transvaal in the late war, because it had right on its side, will be on the side of England, because He must view with abhorrence any plotting and scheming * The Schreiner family, by the way, affords a remarkable illustration of the divisions of South African opinion. Miss Olive Schreiner (Mrs, Cronwright Schreiner) is strongly 'pro-Boer.' Her sister, Mrs, Lewis, is as strongly on the other side. Her mother, Mrs. Schreiner, is a strong supporter of Mr, Rhodes. One of her brothers, Mr, Theophilus Schreiner, is strongly pro-British. Her other brother, the former Cape Premier, occupies a ' neutral ' position. Mr, Cronwright took the name of Schreiner on his marriage. 'AFRIKANDERDOM' AND THE BOND 31 to overthrow her power and position in South Africa, which have been ordained by Him." 'Reitz: "We'll see'"* {Ca/>e Times, November 6, 1899, and Cd. 43, pp. 191, 192). In his ' Century of Wrong,' issued by Mr. Reitz as a justifica- tion for the war, the State Secretary of the Transvaal threw off the mask. He appealed to his ' brother Afrikanders ' to fight for ' a real union of South Africa ' — a union, that is, free from the para- mountcy of Great Britain. So should ' liberty assuredly rise in South Africa like the sun from out the mists of the morning, just as freedom dawned over the United States of America a little more than a century ago. Then from the Zambesi to Simon's Bay it will be Africa for the Afrikander.^ This formula with which Mr. Reitz concluded his appeal in 1899 was no new one invented for the occasion. It had been used in almost identical terms, in the course of President Kruger's appeal to the Free State for assistance in 188 i.t 'Africa for the Afrikanders.* It was a convenient phrase covering a multitude of meanings, and thus meeting the views of all shades of opinion within the Afrikander Bond. To the extreme wing, to the inner ring, it meant, as we have now seen, a United States of Africa under the Boer system, and as free from * Mr. Reitz's ally, Mr. Borckenhagen, had a somewhat similar conversation with Mr. Rhodes. 'Mr. Rhodes,' he said, 'we want a united South Africa.' And I said: 'So do I. Yes," I said, 'I am with you entirely; we must have a united South Africa 1' He said : ' There is nothing in the way.' And I said : ' No, there is nothing in the way. Well,' I said, ' we are one.' ' Yes,' he said, ' and I will tell you we will take you as our leader.' He said : 'There is only one small thing, and that is, we must, of course, be independent of the rest of the world.' I said : ' No ; you take me either for a rogue or a fool. I would be a rogue to forfeit all my history and all my traditions, and I would be a fool because I would be hated by my own countrymen and mistrusted by yours' (Speech by Mr. Rhcjdes at Cape Town, March 12, 1898). \ \ From Mr. Kruger's appeal to President Brand for intervention, d^ted Heidel- berg, February 7, 1881 : ' Freedom shall rise in South Africa, as the s^n from the morning clouds, as freedom rose in the United States of America. Then shall it be, from Zambesi to Simon's Bay, Africa for the Afrikander ' (quoted in the Times, May 24, 1900). President Brand was deaf to the voice of the charmer. Why ? Mr. Merriman shall tell us : ' The object of the Bond is to make the South African Republic the paramount Power in South Africa. That is the reason of its hostility to John Brand, the Afrikander of Afrikanders — a true friend to the English ' (Speech of 1885). 32 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Great Britain as the United States of America. Here again, as was said before, there is httle occasion for recrimination. The aspirations of the extreme Afrikanders were as natural from their point of view as are the conflicting British aspirations from ours. It is, moreover, easy, I think, to see that there was much in the history and development of South Africa to encourage the extreme Afrikander idea. The policy of the Imperial Government had throughout the century been conspicuous for nothing so much as its instability. As it was seen swinging now this way and now that, men's minds may well have been in perplexity for the future. No one could have lived through the time of wobbHng by the British Government without asking himself whether England really cared, whether the English meant in the end to adhere to their largest claims or to be satisfied with the smallest.* The settlement of 1881 could not fail to emphasize these doubts. The men who had stood by England found that England, after all, did not stand by herself. What Mr. Gladstone said he would not do in 1880, he did in 188 1. It was magnanimous, but it was not stable. The more ignorant of the Boers could not see the mag- nanimity, because they did not know the overwhelming strength which England held in reserve. All alike, ignorant or educated, could see the instability. The clever young Afrikanders who came over to this country to be educated learnt, no doubt, among other things, that England was strong ; but there was little to teach them that she had any firm and consistent South African policy. Was it wonderful that ambitious men began to look for career and opportunities to the possibility of Dutch, rather than British, supremacy ?f Mr. Kruger had a will and a mind of his own. His purposes, it was clear, were firmly set. In 1884, as in 1881, he had suc- ceeded in getting from the British Government a large measure of what he demanded. Not the least valuable of the points he scored in 1884 was the permission to adopt the title 'The South * Some striking remarks in this sense will be found in Mr. Paul Botha's pamphlet already referred to, Mr. Botha is an Afrikander, whose father took part in the Great Trek, and he was for twenty-one years a member of the Free State Volksraad. ' It is the jerky hand on the reins,' he says, ' that makes them jib.' t For some further remarks on the spirit of the young Afrikanders, see Chapter XXX. 'AFRIKANDERDOM' AND THE BOND 33 African Republic' With the best intentions in the world, Lord Derby did a very bad stroke for his country in making that con- cession. The Bond had then for some time been preaching the idea of * South Africa for the Afrikanders.' Its founders looked to the Transvaal as the country through which the idea was to be realized. Mr. Kruger went to London, and returned the President of ' The South African Republic' The influence of words upon thought is very great, and who shall say how many thoughts were set in motion by the fact that the British Government allowed the Transvaal to call itself the Sou^A African Republic ? In the ultimatum of October 9, 1899, Mr. Kruger assumed the privilege to speak in the name or in the interests of ' the whole of South Africa.' Such pretensions seemed to most of us arrogant and absurd at the time ; but may it not be that the strong, though imperceptible, influence of language had been working for fifteen years to familiarize men's minds with the idea of the Transvaal as the South African authority ?"*^ Then came the discovery of the gold, and the economic hegemony of South Africa was shifted from the British Colony to the Dutch Republic. That Republic, which before had been on the verge of bankruptcy, became rich and powerful. Political ambitions had now material means at their disposal. The ambi- tions — or, at any rate, the hopes — had been in the minds of the Boers for many years. Froude, when he visited the country in 1874, heard the hopes of a Dutch South Africa freely expressed. 'The President,' he writes from Pretoria, 'spoke at a public dinner last night, talking with vague enthusiasm about a united South Africa. I asked him what the flag was to be. He hesitated, but I saw what he meant. I told him that a South African flag would float over Cape Town Castle and Simon's Bay when South Africa were strong enough to drive us out, but neither he nor I would live to see it. I wish the good people in England would resolve definitely as to what they want to be done. * Lord Salisbury was in this matter a good prophet. Speaking in the House of Lords on March 17, 1884, he said : ' It is a very shallow philosophy which treats names as a matter of small importance. The fact that they call themselves the South African Republic will, we may depend upon it, be constantly dinned into the ears of the same blood and race outside the borders of the Republic, and inferences will be drawn not favourable to our Imperial interests.' 3 34 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR When they know their own minds, the colonists will know what to expect.' From Pretoria Froude went to Bloemfontein. * Ex- perience show^ed, said the President, that all colonies became sooner or later independent. At no very distant time the British would leave South Africa altogether, and he could afford to wait ' (' Leaves from a South African Journal ' in ' Short Studies,' new edit., iii., pp. 529, 543). In the earlier days such ambitions may have remained in the stage of ' vague enthusiasm.' The sudden accession of wealth and importance due to the discovery of the goldfields, following upon the concessions obtained or extorted from the British Government in 1881 and 1884, was sufficient to bring down the Afrikander idea from the clouds into the region of practical politics. These developments, coupled with the active propaganda main- tained by a section of the Afrikander Bond, may well have served to draw away ambitious minds from the idea of a South Africa under the British flag to the dream of the Dutch United States. To the Hollanders whom Mr. Kruger imported from Europe to fill various Government offices such a dream was naturally enticing. 'The future of England,' wrote the Ha7idelsblad of Amsterdam, ' lies in India, and the future of Holland in South Africa. . . . And when, in course of time, the Dutch language shall universally prevail in South Africa, this most extensive territory will become a North America for Holland, and enable us to balance the Anglo-Saxon race.' Such ideas were natural, but they served to aggravate the existing conflict of race and political ideas by adding to it a conflict of ambitions. To sum up, then. We have seen that just as the ' mag- nanimous ' settlement of 1881 was accepted by Mr. Kruger only as a lever for obtaining further concessions, so the Convention of 1884 was accepted only as a half-way house to complete inde- pendence. The attainment of this independence, and the recog- nition of the Republic as a Sovereign International State, were the constant aims of his policy. Side by side with these aims, he aimed also at so extending his borders as to increase the power and influence of his State. In all this he was acting in accord with the aspirations of the more extreme wing of the Afrikander Bond. Towards those aspirations the younger and 'AFRIKANDERDOM' AND THE BOND 35 more ambitious spirits throughout Dutch South Africa were powerfully attracted. In the preceding chapters we saw that deep down below the immediate occasion of the present struggle there was a conflict of racial feeling and of political ideals — a conflict between the idea of equal rights for all the white races and the idea of oligarchy by a chosen people. Is it not clear, from the facts adduced in this and the preceding chapter, that there has been at stake also a conflict of political ambitions — a conflict between British and Boer paramountcy in South Africa ? 3—2 PART II DISPUTES BEFORE THE WAR : 1894—1899 CHAPTER V LORD LOCH AT PRETORIA Troubles with the Transvaal before the Raid — (a) In the territorial sphere : Transvaal ' Raids ' ; Sir Charles Warren's expedition — (<^) In the political sphere : Lord Loch's visit to Pretoria — The grievances of the Uitlanders — Lord Loch's opinion of them — ' Charged with electricity ' — Lord Loch's precautionary measures — Lord Ripon's despatch of 1894. No Statement has been more commonly current in discussions of the South African Question than that the war was the result of the Jameson Raid. Everything was going well — so this state- ment implies — all difficulties were in course of solution, until Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jameson embarked on their wicked enter- prise. The Raid was the source and origin of all evil. It turned Mr. Kruger from the paths of conciliation to an attitude of suspicion. It sowed the seeds of ill-will between Boer and Briton. It first suggested to the Transvaal Government to arm itself. The bad blood thus generated poisoned the waters of subsequent negotiations, and war ensued. What we have seen in the preceding chapters will have shown how unphilosophical is this theory of the Raid as the cause of the South African crisis. Roots of evil existed deep down in the permanent causes discussed in the preceding chapters. The theory is also unhistorical, for, as a matter of fact, those causes had already brought Boer and Briton to the verge of armed conflict on several occasions before the Raid was even so much as dreamt of. These complications had arisen in the (a) LORD LOCH AT PRETORIA 37 territorial, {b) the political, and {c) the economic sphere. That the disputes were not due to the perversity of particular Ministries is sufficiently shown by the fact that they occurred under three several Prime Ministers — Mr. Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, and Lord Salisbury. To a succession of crises caused by the territorial ambition of the Boers some reference has been made in the last chapter, and only a few further remarks on the subject need here be made. The other complications call for somewhat fuller treatment, for their significance is great, and has not always, I think, been correctly appreciated. No sooner had the Pretoria Convention been signed than the Boers began to attempt to enlarge the frontiers defined in that treaty. Large numbers of Dutch farmers trekked into Zululand and commenced to settle in the country. In 1884 they felt themselves secure enough to establish a new Boer State, which was proclaimed in August as * The New Republic' In order to retain the command of the sea-coast, the British Government hoisted the English flag at St. Lucia Bay in December of the same year. In 1886 the British Government consented to recog- nise the New Republic, although somewhat curtailing its frontiers. Shortly afterwards it was formally incorporated in the South African Republic, The Boers pursued a similar policy on the western border, but in this direction the designs of the Dutch expansionists were not so successful. Immediately after the signing of the Pretoria Convention, Boer marauders began to cross into Bechuanaland and to occupy the country. In 1882 they established a small and independent State, which was proclaimed as the Republic of Goshen, and in 1883 another Republic was formed in Stellaland. The next step, that of incorporation with the South African Re- public, was only prevented by the armed expedition which Mr. Gladstone's Government sent out to enforce the observance of the terms of the London Convention. In 1884 President Kruger had despatched Joubert to the western frontier with the ostensible object of preserving order. Joubert, however, ignoring the London Convention, declared the country to be Transvaal terri- tory. President Kruger followed up this step by a proclamation, 38 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR dated September lo, 1884, in which he proclaimed, ' in the interests of humanity,' that the territory was under the protection of the South African RepubHc. Upon the protest of the High Commissioner, however, the proclamation was withdrawn. In December, 1884, Sir Charles Warren landed at Cape Town, and marched up-country at the head of 4,000 men. He met with no open opposition, the two Republics disappeared, and the territory became the British colony of Bechuanaland. In 1 89 1 the Boers made another attempt to extend their frontiers, this time to the northward. The Boers had always looked to the country beyond the Limpopo River as a region where ' a genuine Afrikander nationality might be developed.' As early as 1882 President Kruger had tried to enter into treaty relations with Lobengula. When this territory was acquired by the Chartered Company preparations began to be made in the Transvaal for a great trek. Early in 1891 there seemed every prospect of a large body of Boer farmers rushing the territory by force of arms and numbers. The first warning addressed by Lord Loch to President Kruger produced no result. It was repeated in a stronger form. The High Commissioner concen- trated a detachment of Imperial troops on the Transvaal frontier, and the Chartered Company Police and some Imperial troops patrolled the northern border under command of Colonel Goold- Adams and Dr. Jameson. In face of these preparations President Kruger drew back, and prohibited the great trek. It was with reference to these affairs that Mr. Rhodes said of his antagonist, 'The greatest raider in Africa is President Kruger. Once he raided his own people in the Free State, and twice he raided us in Stellaland and at Tuli ; in fact, raiding has been taught to South Africa by President Kruger' (Speech at Vryburg, Sep- tember 3, 1898). Mr. Kruger, on his side, had good reason before the Jameson Raid to dislike Mr. Rhodes. * Rhodes,' said he on one occasion, * you are putting a ring-fence round me, and that is why I am fighting you ' (' Cecil Rhodes : Political Life and Speeches,' p. 625). In the political sphere, Mr. Kruger's coercive policy had nearly brought about an armed conflict in 1894, which was only averted by the firmness of a Liberal Government. The facts of this crisis LORD LOCH AT PRETORIA 39 are of great importance for the right appreciation of subsequent events. Lord Loch's visit to Pretoria in 1894 was in many ways a turning-point in South African history. It first brought to light, if not to a head, the reform movement in the Transvaal. It was the first intrusion of the Imperial factor into the internal affairs of the South African Republic. And in all probability the steps which the High Commissioner took on that occasion in order to safeguard British interests had some effect in causing the Trans- vaal Government to look carefully to its resources, and to begin arming for conflict."*^ We are fortunate in being able to tell the story of this crisis in the words of the principal actor himself It will only be necessary to supplement Lord Loch's statement with a few elucidatory refer- ences, in case the reader may not carry the circumstances of the time in his mind. In June, 1894, Lord Loch visited Pretoria. His visit was con- cerned with three matters : the position of Swaziland, the com- mandeering of British subjects, and the other grievances of the Uitlanders. To the first two matters we have already referred (p. 22). On the former point, the British Government made concessions to Mr. Kruger, and the Swazi nation and territory were placed under the control of the South African Republic. On the subject of commandeering, Mr. Kruger made concessions in the particular case on hand, though, as we have seen, he decHned to negotiate a permanent convention on the subject, t An important point should here be noticed. Mr. Kruger has often said, and his statement has been accepted and repeated by sympathizers in this country, that 'the Uitlanders never really wanted the franchise, for they refused to go on commando '; or sometimes the statement was, ' They wanted the franchise, and at the same time refused to be commandeered.' The statements are absolutely unjustified. The only foundation for them is that in 1895 (at a date, observe, later than the crisis now under dis- * This is a theory which always seemed to me probable, and which I frequently put forward in connection with the allegation that the Transvaal only adopted its policy of armaments after the Raid. The theory is confirmed by Mr, Reitz in his ' Century of Wrong.' t Some attempt to commandeer British subjects was made even in 1899 (see C 9530, p. 2). 40 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR cussion) the Volksraad passed a besluit (resolution) empowering the Executive to grant the franchise in special cases in future to Uitlanders who had served on commando, subject, however, to the written agreement in each case of two-thirds of the burghers of the district in which each individual Uitlander proposed to be enfranchised resided. The Uitlanders were to go on commando, and in return might be given a vote. What they said was that only citizens should be asked to go on commando. Mr. Leonard explained the matter in his speech : ' There is one duty which only citizens can be called upon to render, that is the duty of risking their lives in military service. ... I say that it is difficult to perform military service as a duty to the State when we are denied the rights of citizenship. When we are called upon to render military service without having the rights of citizenship, then we are justified in falling back on our position as aliens. There is no inconsistency in taking up that position. We are prepared to fight ; but if we are going to do so without being citizens we are not going to do so on terms of partnership between the lion and the jackal. . . . Before they claim our services as soldiers of the country, they must make us sons of the country. I, for one, when I heard of the outbreak in the North, thought it would be a noble thing for Johannesburg to equip a force and present it to the Government ; but the attitude of the Government was such, unfortunately, that we do not know even if they would accept any gifts '(C. 3159, P-44). With this explanation, we may pass to the next subject : the general grievances of the Uitlanders. The point seemed sub- sidiary and incidental at the time, but it was in relation to it that the chief significance of Lord Loch's visit is to be found. ' On my arrival at Pretoria, I was met at the station,' says Lord Loch,* ' by President Kruger, accompanied by many of his Executive. There was a great * I quote from Lord Loch's statement in the House of Lords (Hansard, May i, 1896). The statement was a personal explanation made in refutation of a charge alleged against him by the Temps newspaper (April 30), on the strength of evidence alleged to be in the hands of the Transvaal Government, and presumably supplied by somebody with access to that Government's documents. The charge was that the High Commissioner ' proposed to the Reform Committee the invasion of the Transvaal,' It was based on a letter from Mr. Lionel Phillips seized by the Trans- vaal Government. The official documents referring to Lord Loch's visit were published in 1896 (C. 8159) : ' Papers relating to the Commandeering of British Subjects in the South African Republic in 1894, and the Visit of the High Com- missioner to Pretoria.' This is a short Blue-Book which should be studied by everybody who desires to go to the root of the matter. LORD LOCH AT PRETORIA 41 crowd at the station, and it was with the greatest difficulty that President Kruger was enabled to have the way cleared for himself and myself going to his carriage. The crowd was a very excited crowd. They removed the President's coachman from the box, and took out his horses. Two men clambered on to the box with Union Jacks, and in this way we were conducted to Pretoria, a distance of from a quarter to half a mile. On our arrival at the hotel where rooms had been prepared for me, there was a great crowd assembled in the streets wishing to present addresses. I reminded those who were anxious to present addresses to me that I was the guest of a friendly Power, and I refused to receive any address unless proper consideration was paid to the President, to his Government, and to the people of the South African Republic. There was much excitement at Johannesburg at this period. I may remind your lordships that Johannesburg is some fifty miles from Pretoria. The excitement existed there, not only in connection with the compulsory commandeering of British subjects to serve in the war with the natives north of the Transvaal, which was then occupying the attention of the Transvaal, but there was also much excitement in Johannesburg in connection with the alleged grievances. They were desirous that I should visit Johannes- burg with a view to hearing personally from those interested the whole circum- stances and details of their grievances.' President Kruger, being aware of the dangerous situation and fearing a collision, begged the High Commissioner, as a personal favour, and as ' an act of international friendship,' to give up his intended visit to Johannesburg. This Lord Loch consented to do. He received instead, at Pretoria, a small deputation from Johannesburg. The deputation was from the National Union, an association formed on the Rand in 1892 (prior, it will be seen, to the com- mandeering crisis), ' whose object was to procure, by every con- stitutional means, a remedy to the grievances under which we were labouring.' The deputation included the Hon. J. Tudhope (formerly a member of the Cape Ministry), the Hon. J. W. Leonard, Q.C., Mr. W. Hosken, Mr. F. H. Hamilton, Mr. E. P. Solomon, other professional gentlemen and a dozen miners, repre- senting different mines. The position taken up by the deputation and the Reform Union which it represented can best be explained in their own words. In their address to the High Commissioner they stated : ' We respectfully look to your Excellency to uphold the interests of all British subjects in the Transvaal in a manner consistent with the greatness of the traditions of our country, and so as to maintain and strengthen the attach- 42 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR ment of our fellow-countrymen to our Queen. Your Excellency will hardly need to be reminded how great are the interests of Her Majesty's subjects in this country ; but we would wish to emphasize for your Excellency's considera- tion the peculiar difficulties which have lately manifested themselves as being incidental to our position here. Denied the franchise and having recently been subjected to the indignity of seeing a petition presented by 13,000 residents — mainly subjects of the Queen— praying for some relaxation of the unjust franchise laws, greeted with laughter and scorn by the Legislature ; having further been informed by the authorities that not only we, but our children, born in the country, can never hope to participate in the more precious privileges of citizenship, our wrongs have lately been accentuated by the circumstance that the Courts and the Government of the State have declared our liabihty to be called out at any time, without pay or compensation, for compulsory military service, for the carrying out of the laws in the making of which we can never have any voice, and in the enforcement of which we have no interest' (C. 8159, pp. 26, 27). It will be seen that ' the alleged grievances ' of the Uitlanders were felt, and felt keenly, before and apart from the question of commandeering, and long before the Raid or the revolutionary Reform movement, out of which it grew, had entered into any- body's brain. Nor at this time had any ' bloated capitalists ' identified themselves with the movement. The grievances, whether real or not, were not an after-thought or an excuse, invented to justify either capitalist intrigues or revolutionary plots. They had caused a Reform Committee to be organized as long ago as 1892, and they were on the verge of producing an outbreak as early as the middle of 1894. But were the grievances real or only alleged } Lord Loch made no secret of the fact that he considered them very real and very serious. He expressed this view both to President Kruger and to the Home Government. In intimating to the former his willingness to abandon the pro- posed visit to Johannesburg, he wrote (June 27, 1894, p. 25 in the Blue-Book) : * I am encouraged by your frankness to be equally frank with your Honour, and to explain the views I have formed from an impartial and perfectly friendly observation of the existing situation. The British subjects appear to me to have some very real and substantial grievances, which have not, I think, received such a sympathetic hearing from the Legislature as the residents of Johannesburg, who are the most important taxpayers in the Republic, consider to be due to any respectable and responsible representations that they may make. It is not for me to make any detailed suggestions to your Honour on LORD LOCH AT PRETORIA 43 this subject, but I may bring to your notice one consideration which will prove to your Honour the importance of dealing with any grievances that may exist in a sympathetic spirit. There is, I believe, an alien white population at present in the Republic of about 40,000 persons. A few years may see this population almost doubled, and if they suffered under the same grievances, it would be almost impossible to avert the dangers which have recently threatened. I am sure your Honour will not misunderstand my motives in making these observations. They are made in the spirit of a true friend with a genuine desire to promote the prosperity of the people of this country ; and I shall be gratified to learn that any grievances of which British subjects may complain will receive the early consideration of your Honour and your Honour's Government.' In a subsequent despatch to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Ripon (July 4, p. 19), the High Commissioner wrote : * The political atmosphere was charged with such an amount of electricity that every moment an explosion was imminent. The legislative and executive enactments which press heavily on the great industry which contributes upwards of ;i^ 1, 000, 000 annually out of a total revenue of little more than ;i^i, 250,000, without the population that produces this wealth possessing any franchise rights or voice in the government of the country, have created a deep-seated feeling of dissatisfaction, shared alike by the English, American, German, and other foreign residents in the country' (C. 8159, p. 19). The serious view of the situation taken by Lord Loch, the man on the spot, was fully shared, on mature reflection, by the Government at home. In a despatch dated October 19, 1894, Lord Ripon reviewed the position in South Africa, and first threw out that scheme of ' Franchise First ' and of ' Five Years ' as the terms of probation which Lord Milner was afterwards to develop at Bloemfontein. After touching on the settlement of the com- mandeering question. Lord Ripon said : ' Of the remaining grievances, the most important, and the only ones on which I shall touch, are those connected with the question of naturalization as affecting the power of aliens to acquire burgher rights, and especially the franchise, and with the form of the Oath of Allegiance exacted from those whose claim to naturalization is recognised. . . . The principal ground for criticizing the policy of the Republic is that, whilst for seven years past it has been gaining wealth and strength by the industry, capital and intelligence of a body of foreigners who, counting adult males against adult males, now exceed its native population in numbers, and greatly exceed them in their contributions to the State, it has been at the same time adding to the stringency of the conditions on which the men who compose this new and indispensable element 44 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR in the body politic can obtain the full right of participating in public affairs which concern them so vitally, and which they have influenced so favourably. The period of residence, which constitutes the most important condition of naturalization, differs in different countries ; but there is a very general consensus of opinion among civilized States that five years is a sufficiently long period of probation, and Her Majesty's Government would wish you to press on the Government of the Republic the view that the period in this case should not exceed that lim't as regards the right to vote in the First Volksraad, which is the dominant body, and in Presidential elections. In the absence of any special reasons which are not apparent, it would seem reasonable that the legislation of the Republic should follow that of this and certain other civilized countries in making the qualification for a seat in the Legislature identical Avith the qualification of voting ' (C. 7933, p. 93). Such was Lord Ripon's suggestion upon these questions, which, as he said, ' stand in need of a solution, if the relations of this country with the South African Republic are to be placed on a satisfactory footing.' The suggestion is of great importance. It shows that the Liberal Government, no less than its Conserva- tive successor, was alive to the seriousness of the situation, and was of the same mind as to the essence of the difficulty. Lord Rosebery's Government went out of office too soon for us to know in what manner they would have handled the South African Question when time and patience were found to produce no amelioration of the existing conditions. It should, however, be noted that they had already given proof of their firmness when necessity arose. It was Lord Ripon who stepped in to annex the strip of land which lies between Swaziland and the sea, and who thus finally closed the door on the schemes of the Boers for a railway to the sea-coast — an annexation, says his colleague, Mr. Bryce, which ' may be justly deemed one of the most important events in recent South African history ' (' Impressions of South Africa,' p. 210). It was furthermore in responsibility to Lord Ripon that Lord Loch had taken energetic measures in June, 1894. He found, as we have seen, that the ' political atmosphere was charged with electricity.' What action, then, did he take ? He made earnest representations, as we have seen, to President Kruger, and upon the National Union he enjoined patience and prudence, while promising them careful consideration for their grievances. Lord Loch, however, was also a man of action, and LORD LOCH AT PRETORIA 45 did not confine his treatment to pills or soothing syrup against the earthquake. His further measures were thus explained in the House of Lords : ' In consideration of the excited state of the city of Johannesburg at that time, with the probability — the near possibility at one time — of an insurrection arising in Johannesburg, I felt it to be my duty, in the position I filled as Her Majesty's High Commissioner, to take steps, if necessary, to protect the lives of the British subjects and property of the British subjects in Johannesburg. The steps I adopted were in connection with an assembly at certain points of the British and Imperial Bechuanaland Police. My intention was that if disturb- ances had arisen in Johannesburg — disturbances resulting from the administra- tion extended by the Republic towards the Uitlanders in that city — it would have been my duty, I considered, to have informed President Kruger that he would be held responsible for the safety of the lives and property of British subjects in the country. I further conceived it to be my duty to inform President Kruger that if he had failed to provide the necessary protection for the lives and property of British subjects I should have felt myself at liberty to have taken such steps as I may have felt expedient to give that protection which he had failed to give.' This grave warning shows clearly enough that trouble in the Transvaal was long antecedent to the Raid. The grievances of the Uitlanders had as early as 1894 so aggravated the situation that ' every moment an explosion was imminent.' In the follow- ing year an explosion was imminent in another direction. CHAPTER VI THE 'drifts' ultimatum More trouble with the Transvaal — {c) In the economic sphere : The Drifts crisis of 1895 — Mr. Kruger's ring-fence — Negotiations between Mr. Chamberlain and the Cape Government — Ultimatum agreed upon — The Bond and the Cape Government's decision. We have discussed in the last chapter troubles with the Transvaal arising out of {a) Mr. Kruger's territorial ambitions, and {b) the state of political servitude in which he kept the Uitlanders. In the present chapter, (c) a crisis of a different kind has to be related.''' In 1895 the policy pursued by President Kruger of attempting * The documents will be found in * Correspondence relative to the Closing of the Vaal River Drifts,' issued in 1897, C. 8474. 46 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR to make the Transvaal commercially and politically independent of Great Britain brought the two countries to the verge of war. It was President Kruger's expressed intention to 'build a wall' and ' construct a barbed-wire fence ' round the Transvaal which would exclude goods coming from Cape Colony from entering the State. He had long favoured the construction of a railway-line from Delagoa Bay which would compete with the Cape line. Towards the end of 1894 this line was completed, and President Kruger at once took measures to divert all the oversea traffic from Cape Town to Delagoa Bay. In 1891 the Cape Government had advanced ;£'6oOjOoo to the Netherlands Railway Company to enable it to complete the railway-line from the Vaal River to Johannesburg. In return, the Cape Government was allowed to fix the through traffic rates till the end of 1894, which it did at the rate of 2'4d. a ton per mile. No sooner, however, had the agreement expired than the com- pany raised the rates on the short strip of fifty-two miles of rail from the Vaal to Johannesburg to almost 8d. a ton per mile on all oversea goods. At a single blow the Cape was thus deprived of customs dues and railway-rates, for this prohibitive rate was clapped on in the interests of the competing line from Delagoa Bay. In order to avoid paying the excessive rates, importers unloaded their goods south of the Vaal, placed them in ox-waggons, and crossed the river by the Drifts. Throughout the summer of 1895 ^s many as 120 waggons a day passed the Vaal. Apart from the question of the rates, the Netherlands Company did not possess sufficient rolling-stock to deal with the congestion of goods traffic. As this attempt to starve the Cape Railways had not proved drastic enough for the purpose, President Kruger took a step which aroused intense indignation in Cape Colony. On October i he issued a proclamation closing Viljoen's and Zand Drifts as ports of entry for oversea goods. The Cape Cabinet, of which Mr. Rhodes was Premier and Mr. Schreiner Attorney-General, protested strongly against the proclamation as a violation of Article XIII. of the London Convention : ' Nor will any prohibition be maintained or imposed on the importation into the South African Republic of any article coming from any part of Her THE 'DRIFTS' ULTIMATUM 47 Majesty's dominions which shall not equally extend to the like article coming from any other place or country.' The only effect of this protest was an intimation from the Trans- vaal Government that they were prepared to extend the prohibition to colonial as well as to oversea goods. The Cape Ministers ' having exhausted all other remedies,' then made an urgent appeal to the British Government to maintain the Convention, and ' to give such instructions as may be necessary to insure its due obser- vance.' Mr. Chamberlain replied that he was willing to send a strongly-worded message to President Kruger, provided he was assured that the Cape Government would not draw back at the last moment. If Her Majesty's Government took the matter up, he wrote, they could not allow it ' to drop until they have obtained a compliance with their demands, even if it should be necessary to undertake an expedition for that purpose.' He asked for a * most explicit undertaking in writing ' from the Cape Ministers that, if it became necessary to despatch an expedition, the Cape Parliament would bear half the gross expense, furnish a fair con- tingent of the fighting force, and give the full and free use of its railways and rolling-stock for military purposes.''' The Cape Ministry, without hesitation, unanimously accepted these terms. A message which characterized the closing of the Drifts as *an unfriendly action,' caUing for the ' gravest remonstrance,' was sent to President Kruger. The ultimatum had its effect. The Drifts were reopened on November 5, and the Transvaal agreed to issue no further proclamations on the subject without previously con- sulting the British Government. The gravity of this crisis over the Drifts is clear. The impor- tance of its evidence to Mr. Kruger's designs and persistent unfriendliness is obvious. The fact that in this quarrel the Cape Ministry was prepared to assist the Home Government in war against the Transvaal has been used to cover a very wide proposition. Mr. Rhodes was Premier, but he relied on the Dutch vote. Therefore, the Bond supported the Drifts ultimatum. Therefore, their loyalty is beyond question. The argument is * At the request of the Cape Ministry this written undertaking was treated as strictly confidential, and not to be made public unless it should become necessary to take action upon it. This point is of some importance. 48 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR fallacious at every point. The secret agreement remained secret for more than a year. When it was divulged it came as a starthng surprise to politicians outside the Cabinet. Many, especially many Bondmen, scouted it as incredible, till the papers of 1895 were called for and produced in the session of 1897. The Ministry which made the agreement had then ceased to exist ; of its mem- bers, the Bond has since opposed all those who justified the agree- ment. The single exception was Mr. Schreiner, who did what he could to minimize his action. But his reprieve was short-lived, and when another and more serious crisis came, and he did loyally, if tardily, support the Imperial Government, he incurred the Bond's displeasure and fell. Mr. (now Sir Pieter) Faure, who was also in the Rhodes Ministry of 1895, was opposed at the next election; he was denounced as a * false Afrikander,' was turned out of his old seat at the Paarl, and had to seek refuge in an anti-Bond con- stituency.''' 'The truth is,' as Mr. Garrett has concisely put it, 'that the attempt to strike a blow at the Cape railways by the closing of the Drifts was a thing which all Cape Colonists naturally resented, and which the most Kruger-ridden Bondmen could scarcely defend ; but the minute it was known that the trick had been defeated by an Imperial ultimatum, so that the issue was once more, what Mr. Merriman had defined it in 1885, the issue whether " England or the Transvaal was to be the paramount force in South Africa," the Bond swung at once to the side on which Mr. Merriman said it stood in 1885, and on which it stands to-day' {Times, May 14, 1900). A similarly fallacious deduction has been drawn from the fact that the Cape Dutch in 1898 passed the Navy vote — a vote in aid, it may be said, of the Imperial Navy. The ideal of one extreme Afrikander school was always British paramountcy at sea, as the cheapest form of protection, and Dutch-Republican paramountcy in South Africa.! The vote proved little either way. But one * Sir Pieter Faure was guilty of another sin. In 1897 he accompanied Lord Milner on a tour, and in a speech at Port Elizabeth, following His Excellency, he fell into what was heresy in the opinion of the Bond, He said : ' Let them not say "Africa for the Afrikanders," but rather "Africa for all" ' {Cape Times, Septem- ber II, 1897). f In an "Afrikander Manifesto" issued shortly before the war, the constitution of the future United States of South Africa was explained. One paragraph was aS THE RAID 49 effect the two incidents— the Drifts ultimatum and the Navy vote — did have. It was to confirm the British Government for a time in the poHcy of patience. They waited to see whether the Trans- vaal Government would of itself introduce reforms, and whether the influence of Cape Afrikanders would be of any avail in that indispensable direction. CHAPTER VII THE RAID The evil effects of the Raid — Lord Russell on the consequences of the crime — The Select Committee on the embarrassments caused by it — The Raid a perversion of a legitimate Reform movement — The Reformers disarmed thereby — The Raid a symptom rather than a cause. The facts which have occupied us in the last few chapters will enable us to see in its true perspective and relations the stirring and lamentable incident which forms the next landmark in South African history. The Jameson Raid is often spoken of as the cause of the war. It was not that, but it was a blunder and a crime, and it had the most serious consequences. As the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Russell of Killowen) said, in sentencing Dr. Jameson and his companions (July 28, 1896) : * In the case of most crimes the consequences end with the actual facts which constitute the crime itself, and which are directly connected with it. In this case we know the immediate consequences of your crime have been the loss of human life, disturbance of the public peace, the creation of a certain sense of distrust in public pro- fessions and public faith. These were the consequences, but whether the end of them I will not stop to inquire.' A year later (July 15, 1897) the tardy report of the South African Committee, in its condemnation of Mr. Rhodes, made the same point : ' Mr. Rhodes occupied a great position in South Africa. He was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and, beyond all other persons, should have been careful to abstain from such a course of action as that which he adopted. As follows : ' For the privilege of being allowed to govern ourselves, the Government undertakes to subsidize the British Government by voting an annual sum to go ' towards the maintenance of the navy ' {Standard, February 24, 1902). 4 50 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR managing director of the British South Africa Company, as director of the De Beers Consolidated Mines and the Goldfields of South Africa, Mr, Rhodes controlled a great combination of interests ; he used his position and those interests to promote and assist his policy. Whatever justification there might have been for action on the part of the people of Johannesburg, there was none for the conduct of a person in Mr. Rhodes' position, in subsidizing, organizing and stimulating an armed insurrection against the Government of the South African Republic, and employing the forces and resources of the Chartered Company to support such a revolution. He seriously embarrassed both the Imperial and Colonial Governments, and his proceedings resulted in the invasion of the territory of a State which was in friendly relations with Her Majesty, in breach of the obligation to respect the right to self-government of the South African Republics under the Conventions between Her Majesty and that State.' There was another element in the case which the Raid most seriously embarrassed, and that was the Reform movement in the Transvaal. Into the story of the Raid itself, and into some of the vexed questions arising out of it, such as the precise relations of Mr. Rhodes to Dr. Jameson, the Raiders to the Reformers, and of the ' plan ' to the Raid, it is unnecessary to enter here. These things are the subject of a considerable library of books, and though they present many and piquant points of interest, both tragic and comic, they are not essential to the theme of the present argument, the object of which is to present the causes of the war, the rights and wrongs of the South African Question, in their historical relations. What for this purpose is essential to remember is the local circumstances out of which the Raid grew. That bad and blundering complot did not spring causeless from the hot head of Dr. Jameson, as he read the ' Life of Clive ' on the stoep of Government House, Bulawayo, and said to himself, 'Give would have done it.'"^ It was a plot hitched on by its authors to an existing state of things. It was the perversion into a revolutionary movement from the outside of a Reform move- ment which had long been maturing within. We left the Re- formers in Chapter V. quieted down for the moment by Lord Loch's assurances, and trusting to Her Majesty's Government ' to obtain for British subjects in the South African Republic early recognition of their political rights and privileges as law-abiding * For the incident here referred to, see F. E. Garrett's ' Story of an African Crisis,' p. 29. THE RAID SI citizens who have contributed so largely to the progress and pros- perity of the State.' The High Commissioner had counselled them to use constitutional means for securing the redress of grievances, and shortly after his return to Cape Town a mass meeting, convened by the Transvaal National Union, was held at Johannesburg ' to consider the political situation.'"*^ The speeches are important, as showing the programme on which the Reform movement was at this time being conducted. Mr. J. W. Leonard, Q.C., was the first speaker. 'What we want,' he said, * is to be free men in a free State. Our policy is written so that all men may read. That policy consists in the broadening of the basis of government ; of adapting the constitution in a new country to the needs of a new country ; the taking in of the sinew and bone and strength which come with a new population ; a fusion of the populations to arriving at one common end — the good of South Africa. What we want is nothing more than a Republic in deed and in fact. A Republic broad-based upon the people's will — the people, and not one little section — of every man who comes to this country, and is prepared to say, " I have come here to stay, and this is my land." It is our duty and our right to agitate; it is the only method by which we can show that we intend to have our political rights. We intend to agitate and agitate till we get our way.' The other speaker was the well- known advocate, Mr. Wessels, the leader of the Pretoria Bar, who introduced himself as a man who had ' not one solitary drop of English blood in his veins.' The object of the National Union, he said, was not in any way to see the British flag once more floating in the country. Its object was only to see good govern- ment in the country. The majority in the Raad kept the Uit- landers out, because they found they would not be able ' to work the shekels.' If that policy were persisted in, ' blood would be shed in the streets of Johannesburg, and who would be to blame ? It would not be the Uitlanders ; it would not be the strangers who sought by every possible means to obtain a voice in the aff'airs of the State ; not the men who tried to protect themselves and obtain freedom for themselves, but the fatal thirteen in the Raad. * A full report of the speeches delivered at this meeting is No. 29 in the ' Com- mandeering" Blue-Book (1896, C. 8159). 4—2 52 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR The argument of the rifle is a nasty one ; it is an argument which I have heard used by burghers in Pretoria ; but God forbid that it should come to that.' It is impossible for any Englishman to study the Reform move- ment in the Transvaal without sympathizing with its objects and admiring those who threw themselves into its work."* They were at this stage not capitalists, but for the most part were of that middle class by which in our own country also so much of the brunt of the battle of reform was borne. The growth of the Reform movement in the Transvaal had in one way a very literally deep cause. 'About 1892/ says Mr. Bryce ('Impres- sions,' p. 518), 'the theory was propounded that the gold-bearing reefs might be worked not only near the surface, but also at much greater depths, and that, owing to the diminution of the angle of the dip as the beds descend into the earth, a much greater mass of gold-bearing rock might be reached than had been formerly deemed possible. This view, soon confirmed by experi- mental borings, promised a far longer life to the mines than had been previously expected. Those who had come to the Rand thinking they might probably leave it after a few years, now conceived the idea of permanent residence, while the directors of the great mining companies, perceiving how much their industry might be developed, smarted more than ever under the mal- administration and exactions from which the industry suffered.' Gradually the capitalists came into the Reform movement, and as the methods of constitutional agitation remained devoid of any results, talk began of an armed rising. The actual plans devised by Mr. Rhodes and his fellow-conspirators were known only to a few, but towards the end of 1895 revolution was in the air. Mr. Bryce, who was there at the time, says that everyone talked of it, though few had any idea of the form it was actually to take. The situation towards the end of 1895 was, in fact, the same as Lord Loch reported in the middle of 1894. What would have happened if Dr. Jameson had not, in * Among those who thus sympathized with it was, it is interesting to know, Mr. Merriman. He was in communication with some of the Reformers at the time, and afterwards in the Cape Parhament argued that their grievances were real, and that they were justified in taking up arms. (See Reuter's message from Cape Town in daily papers of August 5, 1898.) THE RAID 53 Mr. Rhodes' phrase^ ' upset the apple-cart,' it is impossible to say. What actually happened was the worst that could have happened. Those who were essentially in the right were placed, by the action of Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jameson, in the wrong. Those who were essentially in the wrong were placed in the right. Every bad influence was enormously strengthened. Racial animosities were intensified throughout South Africa. The retro- grade ideas of policy prevailing with Mr, Kruger and his set were now invested with a semblance of justification. The miscarriage of the plot and the ludicrous incompetence displayed by the British as conspirators strengthened the self-confidence of the militant Boer. Every influence in the other direction was pro- portionately weakened. The Reformers in the Transvaal were in every sense of the word disarmed. Mr. Rhodes' influence with a section of the Afrikander party in Cape Colony was destroyed, and for the time the hands of the Imperial Govern- ment were tied. All this is true, but it is not all the truth, though to this day there are many in this country who have never been able to see any further. To readers of these pages who have followed the argument so far, who have traced permanent causes producing a succession of crises in the Transvaal, it will, I think, be clear that the Raid was essentially not the cause of trouble in South Africa, but a symptom of it, and that, therefore, though it may have furnished an excuse for Mr. Kruger's policy, it was no justification. To practical statesmen in both countries this aspect of the situation presented counsels of prudence which, as we shall see, they very imperfectly followed. 54 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR CHAPTER VIII THE * COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY ' The situation after the Raid— The British Government should have been 'prompt in inquiry, slow in diplomacy '—Mr. Chamberlain's haste — Publication of the ' Home Rule for the Rand ' despatch— Lord Rosmead converts Mr. Chamberlain— The inquiry postponed — A 'Committee of No Inquiry '—Insinuations against Mr. Chamberlain— The missing cables — Mr. Chamberlain's whitewashing of Mr. Rhodes — Effect on Mr. Kruger : his interview with Mr. J. B. Robinson. The Raid provided Mr. Kruger with an excuse, not with a justifica- tion. Therefore, the duty of British statesmen was to do every- thing in their power to take the excuse away. The Raid was a symptom of permanent elements of disorder in the body politic, not the cause. Therefore it was the duty of Mr. Kruger to apply, in circumstances unexpectedly favourable to him, some permanent remedy. Up to a certain point the proper course was taken on both sides. Mr. Kruger showed a wise magnanimity in sparing the lives of the Reformers ; Mr. Chamberlain did his obvious duty in disavowing the Raid, and in bringing the Raiders to trial. He also did right in clipping the wings of the Chartered Company. Military functions were so entirely taken away from it that it no longer had control even of a single policeman (for details, see C. 8732). But beyond these initial stages neither the British Government nor Mr. Kruger can be acquitted of serious blame. What Mr. Kruger ought to have done was to disarm the Uit- landers by some immediate and moderate measure of reform. What the British Government ought to have done was to institute at once, and to press home, a searching inquiry into the whole cir- cumstances of the Raid, and in the meantime to have made no attempt to force the pace in the Transvaal. This double point of view was presented by the present writer in the daily paper of whose policy he was then in control with an almost daily iteration which his readers may well have found tedious. One or two short extracts may, perhaps, be pardoned to him now in order to illus- trate the point of view here assumed. In the first article which he contributed to the journal in question, it was said : THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY' $5 ' The key to the situation in South Africa is the redress of the grievances of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal. " Force is no remedy." The force which Dr. Jameson so unhappily thought to apply cured nothing. And neither will the disarmament which the Boers and the British High Commissioner effected cure anything. So long as the root of the evil is untouched, symptoms of dis- turbance will inevitably recur ; and sooner or later it is tolerably certain that the Uitlanders must succeed. It is idle to suppose that a large and growing community of English-speaking men, accustomed to free institutions, can for ever be kept under the heel of an oligarchy. Sooner or later, then, their deliverance must come. But it may make just all the difference to the future of South Africa how it comes. We want it to come not after another race war, and not so as to result in the creation of a Republic, speaking the English tongue, but hostile to England in sentiment. ... A Boer Republic with its internal independence secured, a Rand with its local liberties secure ; on such terms, and on some such terms only, can the peaceful development of South Africa, under the protection of this country as the paramount Power, be secured' {Daily News, February lo, 1896). A few days later the other aspect of the case was taken up (and never for many days at a time dropped) : * The case for a full inquiry into the Chartered Company remains stronger than ever. To demand such inquiry is in no way to prejudge the issues, for the simple fact that there are admitted actions and avowed intentions which raise suspicions on the face of them. To clear up such suspicions is obviously necessary. Public policy and private justice alike require it. Was the Chartered Company in any way privy either to the Jameson Raid or to the Johannesburg rising ? If it was, what did it do, and why ? These are questions surrounded with every kind of suggestion, suspicion, and insinuation ; and the sooner they are answered the better ' {Daily News, February 15, 1896). It will be convenient for the better sequence of the subsequent argument to deal first with the delay in the British inquiry, and to proceed in the next chapter to deal with Mr. Kruger's delay— a delay that was never redeemed — in instituting reforms. The case for immediate and searching inquiry, as put forward in the articles above referred to, was very simple, and in the retro- spect will require little elaboration. The dilatory pleas urged by the Government at the time are no longer likely to convince any- body. The chief of them was that to open the inquiry at once would have been to prejudice the trial of the Raiders. But the inquiry as originally contemplated was to have included an in- vestigation into the Chartered Company's administration generally ; indeed, as originally drafted the terms of reference included nothing 56 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR else. There was not even any colourable reason why the Committee should not have started at once on this branch of its labour, which in the end it shirked altogether on the ground of no time ; it had nothing whatever to do with any of the issues involved in the trial of Dr. Jameson. To anyone who sat through the proceedings of the Committee, as I did, the plea was ludicrous, for day after day the Committee pursued inquiries into branches of the Transvaal Question which likewise had no connection whatever with any material issue in that trial. The reasons for prompt inquiry were obvious. The inquiry had been promised to Mr. Kruger. It was due no less to the honour of the Government itself. The case was admirably summed up by Lord Rosebery in a speech at New- ton Abbot on May 15, 1896 : * In that matter it seems to me that there is no room for delay, and that promptitude is of the very essence. I think we owe the promptest, the most searching, and the most impartial inquiry, not merely to South Africa, not merely to Europe, not merely to ourselves, but also to the persons who are accused. We owe it to South Africa to show that in this matter we mean to do impartial justice, that we mean to deal fairly as between neighbours and neighbours, and that we shall not allow our national honour to be suspected or tampered with by any delay in the course of justice. In the next place, we owe it to Europe. I am sorry to say that in Europe the innocence of our intentions is often suspected, and never more than on the present occasion. Half Europe, or the press of half Europe, profess to believe that we, our Government, and our people, were part and parcel in the recent Raid upon the Transvaal Republic. Well, if we show any symptoms of delaying or shirking or frustrating any inquiry, that belief will be strengthened beyond all opportunity of revocation.' 'Your stale and fly-blown investigation will be held,' said Lord Rosebery on another occasion, 'when nobody cares what you think, and when all the facts of the case have long been before the public' (House of Lords, June 15, 1896; Hansard 4 S., vol. xli., p. 1047). The prediction was entirely veritied. The Committee did not report till the middle of July, 1897, or eighteen months after the Raid. An inquiry thus deferred could do nothing to mitigate the dangers and difficulties of the situation. Rather did it tend to reopen old wounds and to revive bitter animosities. ' Your inquiry,' said Lord Rosebery, ' should have been prompt, your diplomacy slow.' Mr. Chamberlain reversed the process. THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY' 57 His inquiry was slow, but his diplomacy was quick and tripped itself up. He announced that Mr. Kruger was coming to London to talk things over. Mr. Kruger did not come for a reason already explained (p. 22). He had no intention of coming except in return for Article IV. of the Convention of 1884. Mr. Chamber- lain wrote a despatch formulating a scheme of Home Rule for the Rand. The suggestion was in itself one which Mr. Kruger might very wisely have adopted. But Mr. Chamberlain spoilt its chance of success by publishing the despatch, and publishing it, too, before Mr. Kruger had seen it. Had it not been published, Mr. Kruger might conceivably have adopted the suggestion, for he could have made it his own, and carried it out as a magnanimous concession. As soon as the despatch was published, it became certain that Mr. Kruger would not listen to the plan, for he was in no mood to have his hand forced. Presently Mr. Chamberlain came to perceive this. To the late Lord Rosmead belongs the credit of this conversion. Mr. Chamberlain was 'left in great perplexity' (January 15, 1896) by the High Commissioner's inaction, 'assumed that negotiations were in progress between him and the President' for the instant redress of the Uitlanders' grievances, and told Lord Rosmead that ' it would be his duty to use firm language.' The reply of the High Commissioner to this despatch was equally emphatic, and met the Colonial Secretary's categorical imperative with a categorical refusal. The High Commissioner had no idea why Mr. Chamberlain was perplexed, and no time to bolher his head about it. As for the Uitlanders' grievances, he had not discussed the question with the President at all, nor did he intend to do so. He declined to communicate the Colonial Secretary's despatch, and as for 'firm language,' it would be hopelessly 'inopportune.' Mr. Chamberlain accepted Lord Rosmead's arguments." * Mr. Chamberlain at an earlier date had considered the question of sending a force to South Africa ; here also he was overruled by the High Commissioner. The following is an extract from Lord Rosmead's despatch of January 20, 1896 (No. 13 in C. 8063) : ' On Wednesday, the 8th January, I received a cablegram from the Secretary of State, dated 7th, approving my advice to Johannesburg to surrender, and intimating that he was considering, in concert with his colleagues, the propriety of immediately sending large force, including cavalry and artillery, 58 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR To see this, one has only to compare the despatch above quoted with Mr. Chamberlain's speech in the House of Commons, August i8, 1896. 'Is it not possible,' he said, replying to Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, ' for the hon. member to see that what- ever may have been the grievances of the Uitlanders at the time of this Raid, which, I think, even he did not attempt to defend, there must undoubtedly have been a feeling of irritation on the part of the people of the Transvaal, and that common prudence demands that at all events we should give time for that feeling of irritation to subside, and that we should not base upon our own wrong a demand for reform that would be absolutely unjustifiable under such circumstances.' Again, Mr. Chamberlain, in the House of Commons on May 8, 1896, said further: 'In some quarters the idea is put forward that the Government ought to have issued an ultimatum to President Kruger, an ultimatum which would certainly have been neglected, and which must have led to war. Sir, I do not propose to discuss such a contingency as that. A war in South Africa would be one of the most serious wars that could possibly be waged. It would be in the nature of a civil war. It would be a long war, a bitter war, and a costly war, and it would leave behind it the embers of a strife which, I believe, generations would hardly be long enough to extinguish. Of course, there might be contingencies in which a great Power has to face even such an alternative as this. If some of those wild rumours which grow like mushrooms on the soil of South Africa, and which are one of the most disturbing factors in any negotiations— if some of those wild rumours which attribute to President Kruger a design to break the Convention or actually to make an armed attack on Natal were true, we should have been on the defensive; but to go to war with President Kruger in order to force upon him reforms in the internal affairs of his State, with which successive Secretaries of State, standing in this place, have repudiated all right of interference, that would have been a to the Cape to provide for all eventualities. I replied by my cablegram of the 8th, No. I, that I thought President Kruger had behaved very well throughout this matter; that public excitement was now allayed, and that I should deprecate despatch of large force, or other measures likely to revive it.' THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY ' 59 course of action as immoral as it would have been unwise' (Hansard, 4 S., vol. xl., pp. 914, 915). Common prudence was undoubtedly on the side of promptness in inquiry and caution in diplomacy. We now know that common prudence was reinforced by another consideration. The Trans- vaal Government were piling up enormous armaments, and the British Government knew it ; but Mr. Balfour and his colleagues dared not take any counter-steps in time, either by way of re- monstrance or in the direction of preparations of their own. They felt that the Raid tied their hands*— for the Transvaal Government believed that the Imperial Government had been mixed up in the Raid. The interference by the Government with the sentences passed on the Raiders before their full term of imprisonment had been served ; the glorification of the Raid in some quarters,! the apologies for it in others, | not unnaturally increased the suspiciousness of the Boers. This was all the more reason why not a moment should have been lost in doing every- thing that was possible to dispel suspicion. But the inquiry was * ' Perhaps I shall be asked, Why did the Government, knowing that armaments were being accumulated in the Transvaal, not enter a protest two years ago, and declare that either the armaments should cease, which could by the nature of the case be directed against nothing but this country and her colonies, or else that we should regard it as a cause of quarrel between us and the Boer Government? There was a conclusive reason, and a melancholy reason, why that argument should not have been used to the Boer Government. Our hands were tied and our mouths were closed at that time by the Raid. How could we say to the Boer Government, ' You must disarm ; you have nothing to fear from us ; your armaments, if you accumulate them, must be directed not to self-defence, but to aggression ' ? How, I say, could we use that language when three years ago an expedition composed of our countrymen had, from British territory, made an onslaught — a feeble and ineffective onslaught, it is true, but still an onslaught— on the Boer Government ? We were helpless in the face of that argument. That argument could never be used in the face of public opinion and in the face of Europe, for it was always open to the Boer Government to say that these arms that were accumulating, these munitions of war which were choking their arsenals, were intended, not for aggression, but simply as a measure of precaution and self- defence against a possible raid taking place from our territory' (Mr. Balfour at Manchester, January 8, 1900). t As, for instance, by the Poet Laureate. It is a pity that this famous poem was not one of those which for patriotic reasons he keeps in the dark (see his letter to the Times, January 7, 1902). X As, for instance, by Mr. Stead when he adjusted the Raid to 'the moral meridian of Pretoria ' {Review of Reviews, 1896, p. 105). 6o EIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR not prompt ; neither, when it did at last come, was it searching. It stopped short precisely at the point where it ought to have gone on. By the time the Committee met there was very little left for it to find out : Dr. Jameson had already been tried ; the Cape Committee had reported. But there was one essential matter which had been opened, but not investigated before the Judge and jury, and which the Cape Committee had no sufficient means of exploring. That point was the complicity or foreknowledge, if any, of the Colonial Office. This was a matter which the Select Committee of the Imperial House of Commons alone had the power of clearing up, and which it was especially bound, as repre- senting the body to which Ministers are responsible, to clear up. Suspicions, innuendos, and insinuations had been spreading and strengthening for months past. In many minds they had crystal- lized into convictions. Nor were these suspicions confined to irresponsible Chamberlain-baiters at home or to Continental Anglo- phobes. The Lord Chief Justice, in his summing-up at the trial of Dr. Jameson (July 28, 1896), had referred to evidence given before him which bore upon this point. The evidence in question, he said, was 'very grave — grave outside the particular alleged offence into which they were inquiring, because undoubtedly, if there were any foundation for the statement, it would be a most serious reflection upon the good faith of the Government of the Queen by her representatives, both at Natal and at the Cape.' Sir James Sivewright, speaking in the Cape Parliament, had said : ' It was thought that the English Government and Chartered Company in London knew a great deal more about the business than had come out ; and it was thought that if the Chartered Company were not active parties in the Raid, at all events they turned a blind eye to what was going on. Until the last vestige of suspicions of this kind was removed they would continue to have 1 ace feeling in the country. It certainly seemed strange to him in reading the 51ue-Book to find a quarter of an hour before Mr. Chamberlain had seen the Yiessage from Sir Hercules Robinson saying it was rumoured that Jameson had tVossed the border, Mr. Chamberlain was able to telegraph to the High Com- missioner, saying, " Are you quite sure that Dr. Jameson did not cross yester- day?"* ... He thought there was subject for an inquiry there' {Cape Times, May 16, 1896). * It was Miss Flora Shaw, of the Times, who put the Colonial Office up to this possibility and brought Mr. Chamberlain to London by night mail on New Year's Eve, 1895. In her evidence on May 25, 1897, Miss Shaw said : ' On the 30th THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY' 6i As the Committee's investigations proceeded, two Imperial officers were found to have been in some degree cognizant of the plot — Sir Graham Bower, the Imperial Secretary to the High Commissioner at Cape Town, and Mr. Newton, the Resident Magistrate in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Was the cog- nizance confined to them, or was it extended to other and higher personages ? The findings of the Committee on this point were as follows : ' Your Committee state, in the most emphatic terms, that there is no evidence whatever that the High Commissioner had the slightest knowledge of the plot or of the intended use of an armed force within the Transvaal, both of which were purposely concealed from him. The Committee ascertained that the state of Lord Rosmead's health disabled him from giving evidence before the Committee, but they have received from him an absolute denial of any such knowledge on his part. In the opinion of your Committee, under most trying and difficult circumstances, the High Commissioner did everything that was possible to maintain the honour of his country. * Neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies nor any of the officials of the Colonial Office received any information which made them, or should have made them, or any of them, aware of the plot during its development. * Your Committee fully accept the statements of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and of the Under-Secretary, and entirely exonerate the officials of the Colonial Office of having been, in any sense, cognizant of the plans which led up to the incursion of Dr. Jameson's force into the South African Republic' (Report, pp. 13, 14, 15). These findings were clear and definite, but they failed to silence the whisper of insinuation or to banish suspicion from many minds. The reason was that the Committee had failed to take all the steps, the obvious and proper steps, which a Court of Law or a Statutory Commission would have taken in order to probe the matter to its depths. The incompetent and incon- clusive manner in which Mr. Jackson and his colleagues conducted their investigations caused them to be called, not unreasonably, * The Committee of No Inquiry.'"^ December, 1895, I got news that Dr. Jameson had crossed the Transvaal border with his troops. I saw a telegram in Mr. Beit's office saying, I think, "Jameson has disregarded his instructions and has crossed the border with 400 men." I went straight to the Colonial Office and saw Sir R. Meade. He sent to Mr. Chamberlain, who was at Birmingham, and in an hour the Colonial Office had its own informa- tion.' This explains the telegram sent from the Colonial Office in Mr. Chamber- lain's name to Sir Hercules Robinson (Lord Rosmead) on the day named. * Daily News, June 2, 1897. 62 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR As many misconceptions still exist with regard to this subject, it may not be amiss to offer some elucidations here. We have seen that it was proved before the Committee that local officials knew something of the plot which resulted in the Jameson Raid. It was shown also by the notorious cables that persons in London connected with the Chartered Company believed, or affected to believe, and thereafter caused others in Africa to believe, that * the Colonial Office ' was also ' in it.' In what ? Not in the Raid as it actually happened. No suggestion has been made in any responsible quarter that Mr. Chamberlain was in that. What was suggested was this : Mr. Rhodes and the Raiders, in order to carry out their schemes, required a 'jumping-off ground.' This was obtained by the cession of the Bamaliti and Barolong territories, adjoining the western frontier of the Transvaal, by the native chiefs to the Chartered Company (C. 7962, p. 26). The negotiations for this transfer, which included negotiations with the chiefs Khama, Bathoen, and Sebele, were carried on, not through the High Commissioner at Cape Town, but directly with Mr. Chamberlain at the Colonial Office. On the part of the Chartered Company, it was represented that a strip of territory along the Transvaal border was necessary for the protection of the railway then in course of construction. Perhaps it was, but what Mr. Rhodes had also, and at the time chiefly, in his mind was the use of the said strip as a 'jumping-off ground' for the Raiders. The case, even from this latter point of view, might have been very plausibly put. Of course, no one would have talked — nor, indeed, did Mr. Rhodes himself think — of Dr. Jameson crossing the border before any outbreak had occurred at Johannesburg. That was what Dr. Jameson actually did. Let us contrast with it what Lord Loch did in 1894. Upon signs of a rising in the Transvaal, he assembled the British Bechuana- land Police quietly on the border, with a view to their being ordered in by the High Commissioner to protect life and property at Johannesburg. What Mr. Rhodes contemplated — apart from the subsidy which he made to the movement at Johannes- burg itself — was something between the utterly indefensible proceeding of Dr. Jameson and the proper proceeding of Lord Loch. The question is not whether Mr. Chamberlain was ' in ' THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY' 63 the Jameson Raid, but whether it ever entered his head in handing over the border-strip to the Chartered Company and sanctioning the establishment of a force there that the said force might be used in connection with affairs at Johannesburg. This is the only * charge ' — if such it can be called — that was ever explicitly preferred by responsible persons against Mr. Chamber- lain. It was stated, in anything but an unfriendly way, in the Preface to ' The Story of an African Crisis,' written by the then Editor of the Cape Times. The passage is worth quoting, in order to define the issues. According to the Cape editor, 'what Mr. Chamberlain was probably prepared to sanction in 1895' was : * Upon report of a probable rising in the Transvaal at a definite time (the end of December) to allow the British South Africa Company's police (including the ex-B.B. P.) — a force subject, but not quite so directly subject, to the High Commissioner's orders — to be assembled in the same way and for the same purpose as above ; the possibility of such measures being called for being indirectly recognised in territorial arrangements some time beforehand.* If this had been Mr. Chamberlain's attitude, there would have been nothing seriously wrong in it, though it would have been open both to abuse and to misconceptions. For a long time there was nothing in Mr. Chamberlain's declarations inconsistent with the theory sketched above. He had merely denied all know- ledge of, and sympathy with, the Raid — a denial which is indeed patent on the face of all his official actions. Subsequently, how- ever, Mr. Chamberlain enlarged the scope of his denials, and testified that it never entered his head for a moment to connect in any way whatever the presence of Chartered Police on the frontier with the prospective disturbances at Johannesburg. He knew of the latter, and he was responsible for the former. But the sole reason why, after first refusing the transfer, he afterwards agreed to it, was the fear lest certain natives should take up arms against the * puff-puff.' This is where the whole difficulty came in ; for evidence was adduced before the Committee to the effect that the connection between the two things was pointed out to Mr. Chamberlain. Here is the most definite portion of the evidence in question :* * Some of Miss Flora Shaw's cables seemed to be equally definite. Thus she cabled to Mr. Rhodes : ' Chamberlain sound in case of interference European 64 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR •(Dr. Harris's evidence) I said to Mr. Chamberlain: "We shall be there, and, of course, if there is a rising at Johannesburg, we shall not allow them to get the worst of it." ' (Telegram put in and sent by Dr. Harris to Mr. Rhodes, November 4) : ** I have spoken open to E. Fairfield." '(Dr. Harris's evidence): "I will explain what I said now that I am compelled to do so. I mentioned to Mr. Fairfield that one of the reasons why Mr. Rhodes was anxious to get the Protectorate was that he considered it imperative to have a British force on the borders, so that in the event of a disturbance taking place in Johannesburg he would be in a position, if he deemed it right, to use that force." ' The late Mr. Fairfield was one of the Permanent Under- Secretaries at the Colonial Office. Upon these statements Mr. Chamberlain made the following disclaimer : ' It was in the course of this conversation that Dr. Harris made a remark, the exact words of which I could not pledge my memory to at this distance of time. It was : "I could tell you something in confidence," or, " I could give you some confidential information." I said : " I don't want to hear any confidential information. I am here in an official capacity ; I can only hear information of which I can make official use. . . ." Dr. Harris added that he made a guarded allusion to the desirability of there being a police force near the border. Of course, I don't mean to say that he didn't say this. All I have to say is, that if such an allusion was made, I did not understand it — at all events, not as referring to anything which has subsequently taken place. ' I desire to say, in the most explicit manner, that I had not, and that I never had, any knowledge, nor, until I think it was the day before the actual Raid took place, the slightest suspicion of anything in the nature of a hostile or armed invasion of the Transvaal.' Mr. Chamberlain's evidence was confirmed by Lord Selborne, then Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office. He was present at the interview described by Dr. Harris. He remembered Mr. Chamberlain stopping Dr. Harris. He supposed that Dr. Harris was about to impart some information about the revolution known to be brewing at Johannesburg. If at any time Dr. Harris con- Powers, but have special reason to believe wishes you must do it immediately.' She assured the Committee, however, that she had no special information about Mr. Chamberlain's attitude. Miss Shaw wrote articles on Colonial topics for the Times, and apparently had the run of the Colonial Office. I suppose we must assume that Miss Shaw succumbed to a temptation, not unknown in the journalistic career, of exaggerating her ' special ' and exclusive information. THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY' 65 veyed any such or other secret information, no one at the Colonial Office had the least idea of what he was driving at. ' I do not doubt,' Lord Selborne added, ' that Dr. Harris believed, as he has said here, that Mr. Fairfield had understood the statement he made to him in conversation respecting the plan ; but, on the other hand, I am quite confident that Mr. Fairfield, who was very deaf, had either imperfectly heard what was said, or had not taken in the significance of the words he heard. Until he was seized with his fatal illness in the autumn of 1896, we repeatedly dis- cussed together the events of the previous year, sometimes alone, but very often with Sir Robert Meade, and I am absolutely convinced of the fact that he had no suspicion of the plan of Dr. Jameson.' The Committee very naturally accepted Mr. Chamberlain's and Lord Selborne's statements. In doing so they were not logically compelled to impugn the good faith in this matter of Dr. Harris. To the one man, whose mind was full of ' the Jameson plan,' the most distant allusion would seem as plain as a pikestaff; to the other man, whose mind was full of altogether different considera- tions, such allusions might convey no information, leave no recollection, and have no significance whatever. What would be impugned, in the event of Mr. Chamberlain's statement being finally established, is only Mr. Chamberlain's acumen. He knew what Lord Loch proposed in 1894; he knew that a rising was imminent in 1895. If in all these negotiations with Lord Grey and Dr. Harris, and the rest of them, it never for a moment occurred to Mr. Chamberlain that the police force on the border would, could, or should be used or useful in connection with possible disturbances at Johannesburg — why, then Mr. Chamber- lain's reputation for dreadful smartness is somewhat exaggerated. The Committee are not, then, to be blamed for accepting Mr. Chamberlain's evidence. What they are to be blamed for is that they did not follow up all the clues, which would have settled the matter once and for all, have left no doubt remaining in any reasonable man's mind, and have silenced any unfounded sus- picions for ever. Many such clues had been disclosed in the course of the proceedings. Thus (i) Dr. Harris, in alleging that he had spoken openly to Mr. Fairfield, stated that Mr. Beit and 5 66 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Mr. Maguire were both independently aware of the fact. Those gentlemen were not examined on the subject. (2) The cables which were produced and other evidence showed that Lord Grey played the principal part in the negotiations between the Colonial Ofifice and the Chartered Company. Lord Grey was not called. (3) Mr. Hawksley, Mr. Rhodes' solicitor, was also possessed of the facts. He began to tell the Committee what passed between him and the Colonial Office, when a member of the Committee objected, and nothing more was elicited. (4) Finally, the cables produced by the Cable Company were not complete. A complete set was, however, proved to be in Mr. Rhodes' possession, and had by him been submitted to the Colonial Office. Mr. Rhodes' solicitor was called upon to produce the missing cables. He declined, and in the end the Committee did not insist. Nor was sight obtained of a covering correspondence with Mr. Hawksley at the time when the cables were sent for the Colonial Office's inspection, although it has been alleged that this correspondence was highly important. Only a few people know at first-hand what truth there is in this statement, and what the missing cables contain. It is quite possible that they would not carry the case any further. Dr. Harris and his friends, believing that his guarded allusions had been understood and his open talk had fallen not on deaf ears, might easily read into the words and acts of the Colonial Office all sorts of compromising interpretations which were not really there at all. But the Committee's failure to probe the matter to the end was a grievous blunder ; it left suspicion plenty of material to feed upon, and to this day it lives and thrives. The fault of the Committee in this matter must be shared by the leaders of both political parties,^ and by the House of Commons, which accepted the Committee's report. A special share of blame belongs, however, to Mr. Chamberlain. He ought to have insisted on the production of all the cables and covering correspondence, and he should have anticipated all compromising disclosures by laying before the Committee, at the beginning of * Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Blake were alone on the Committee in desiring to pursue the investigation to its proper end. Sir William Harcourt and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman were on the other side. This clenched the matter, and rendered futile all subsequent attempts of the Liberal party to reopen the subject. THE 'COMMITTEE OF NO INQUIRY' 67 its inquiries, all the relevant documents or information at the disposal of the Colonial Office. When the report of the Com- mittee had appeared, Mr. Chamberlain made another serious blunder. He signed the report which condemned Mr. Rhodes one day ; he made a speech whitewashing Mr. Rhodes the next day. Mr. Chamberlain, as a member of the Committee, had declared that Mr. Rhodes, among other things, 'deceived the High Commissioner, representing the Imperial Government, con- cealed his views from his colleagues in the Colonial Ministry, and from the Board of the British South Africa Company, and led his subordinates to believe that his plans were approved by his superiors.' The report declared further, with reference to the suppressed cables : * The fact that Mr. Rhodes (after having authorized that they should be shown to Mr. Chamberlain) has refused to allow them to be produced before the Committee, leads to the conclusion that he is aware that any statements purporting to implicate the Colonial Office contained in them were unfounded, and the use made of them in support of his action in South Africa was not justified.' This allegation may or may not be correct. But Mr. Chamberlain was a party to it. He must therefore be of opinion that Mr. Rhodes withheld the telegrams because he knew they do not sustain the use which he made of them both in South Africa and in London. The use of them in South Africa — if Mr. Rhodes knew their statements to be unfounded — was lying. The use of them in London was, on the same hypothesis, a form of political blackmailing. What, then, had Mr. Chamberlain to say of this long course of what, if the report be correct, was lying and blackmailing ? * Nothing had been proved,' he said, 'and nothing exists which affects Mr. Rhodes* personal character as a man of honour.' Mr. Chamberlain covered himself by reference to the ethics of revolution. But it is one thing to practise deceit so far as it is necessary to the keeping of your own counsel, and another thing to allege that you have the support of the authorities. If you allege this, when you know that it is false, and then by means of telegrams, which you know to be false, proceed to * intimidate one public department after another,' you cannot for those gross acts of perfidy plead the sacred rights of a revolutionary. Mr. Chamberlain's statement, 5—2 68 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR then, that he had no complaint to make against Mr. Rhodes only tended to deepen the mystery hanging over this unexplored affair. What effect did the fly-blown report of the Committee, followed by Mr. Chamberlain's whitewashing of Mr. Rhodes, have at Pretoria ? Mr. J. B. Robinson was there at the time, and he has told us. News of the report reached Pretoria before news of the subsequent debate. Mr. Robinson called on each occasion upon President Kruger. This is his report of their conversations : ' I said, ** Well, President, you see what I have told you is right. The Committee have taken evidence, and their report deals with the conclusions that they have arrived at." He said, "Yes. What else is to follow those conclusions ?" I replied, *' I must ask you to exercise a little patience, and not come to any hasty decision upon the matter." A few days later another cable was published, from which it appeared that some of the members of Parliament, in commenting upon the Committee's report, took the opportunity of speaking favourably of Mr. Rhodes. I went down to see the President again, and I shall never forget that morning. I entered the room, and he looked at me, shook hands, and motioned me to a chair. I sat down, but not a word did the President say, so I commenced, *' Anything fresh this morning. President?" He replied, "No, there are some cables in the papers this morning, but the news that they convey is not fresh — not at least to me." I answered, "What do you mean?" He said, " I am referring to the debate in the House of Commons." I immediately saw the difficulty that confronted me, as the President looked at me steadily, and said, "What do you think now of your friends and their assurances ?" I replied, " I have no doubt that the party who made that statement in Parliament conscientiously believed that what he said was true." The old President then became irritable, and in a loud voice shouted at me, " Do you mean to tell me, as an intelligent man, that you accept these statements, and that you believe in them ? Do you think we are fools ? Do you think for a moment that we do not know the true working of this Raid ? Do you mean to tell me that you do not know that the men who organized and engineered this Raid organized it for their own benefit, and that they had decided how they would divide the Transvaal, how each of the parties was to have certain interests in this country, and that many of the Reformers who were put in gaol were perfectly innocent, and ignorant of the schemes of the men who were in the inner circle ?" He continued, "There are only twelve men in that inner circle, and they were to share the spoils, and divide the Transvaal amongst themselves. They and their companies found the money for the Raid. Do you think that we are so innocent as not to know that Mr. Rhodes, metaphorically speaking, held a pistol at the heads of certain men in England, and said to them. If you do not support me, I will denounce you and your complicity in the Raid ?" The President at this stage became more excited, and shouted so loudly that the PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 69 people in the street stopped to overhear the conversation' {Daily Nezvs, January 16, 1900). A more serious consequence of Mr. Kruger's excitement was that it confirmed his decision to harden his heart against the Uitlanders, and to persevere in his anti-British policy. This decision will occupy our attention in the next chapter. CHAPTER IX PRESIDENT kruger's YEARS OF GRACE The situation after the Raid — Mr. Kruger's opportunities— Moderate reforms would have stopped agitation and strengthened the Republic — Ill-advised action of the pro-Boers — Mr. Kruger's promises to Johannesburg — His actual policy, {a) Studied exasperation towards the Imperial Government ; violation of the Convention of 1884 ; the Aliens Expulsion Law ; the Aliens Emigration Law ; treaties with foreign Governments. {l>) In relation to the mining industry, a policy of continued maladministration. The Government Industrial Commission ; its recommendations ignored ; effect on capitalists and foreign opinion, (c) In relation to the political status of the Uitlanders, a policy of increased repression ; some sham reforms ; the press laws ; dismissal of Chief Justice Kotze. Seldom has so favourable an opportunity been offered to any statesman as that which lay to Mr. Kruger's hand in the months immediately following the Raid. During the years which pre- ceded that lawless adventure it might sometimes have seemed to the old man with his Bible on the stoep as if the very stars in their courses were fighting against him. The measure of in- dependence which he had won by strength of arms in 1881 and enlarged by craftiness of counsel in 1884 had been threatened by the discovery of gold. Newcomers, whom he feared, had poured into the land, bringing with them new ideas, which he hated. At first it looked as if they might one day depart as suddenly as they had come. They came to extract the gold rather than to settle on the soil. The possibility of working the mines to a deeper level had dashed this prospect. The new-comers, it was now clear, had come to stay, and the discovery of deep-level possi- bilities in gold-mining had caused the agitation of the Uitlanders also to strike deeper. 70 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Meanwhile, President Kruger, hitherto the one strong man of South Africa, had met his match in an Englishman, who had originally come to the country as an invalid, but had found in it not only health and fortune, but scope for ambition as far-reach- ing and a will as tenacious as Mr. Kruger's own. In Cecil Rhodes Mr. Kruger was not slow to perceive his deadly foe. This was not because Mr. Rhodes cherished personal animosities or was a difficult man to deal with. On the contrary, it was one of Mr. Rhodes' leading ideas that bargaining was better business than fighting, and that ' every man has his price.' Mr. Rhodes tried to do a peaceful deal with Mr. Kruger. If no bargain was ever struck, it was because the two men represented ideas and ambitions which were irreconcilable. Mr. Kruger stood for the old order of things, the old-fashioned ideas, which clung round a scattered pastoral community ; Mr. Rhodes stood for the new order, for the bustling life of an energetic community of gold- seekers. Mr. Kruger was bent on keeping as much of South Africa as possible for the old ; Mr. Rhodes was bent on winning as much of it as possible for the new. Success so far had been with Mr. Rhodes. Conflict between the two men was perhaps inevitable ; but, if so, it was not because Mr. Rhodes was infected with any of the racial animosity which unhappily divided so many of his fellow-countrymen from sympathy with the Dutch. On the contrary, Mr. Rhodes held power at the Cape partly by sympathy with the Dutch element, and in the North he cordially welcomed Dutch settlers. In his last tussle with Mr. Kruger — that over the question of the Drifts — the Dutch President had the mortification of knowing that the Premier of the British Colony had in some measure the support of Dutch opinion behind him. Nor was this all. The Imperial factor, which had in the past been always uncertain, and often of no account, had now become active and definite. Mr. Kruger had seen two successive Governments assert them- selves to thwart his schemes. It was a Tory Government which forced him to open the Drifts ; it was a Liberal Government which had shut him out from the sea. The fates seemed against him. But, then, in a black hour Mr. Rhodes planned the Raid, and in a moment the relative position of the rivals was reversed. PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 71 Mr. Rhodes was undone. He had lost the support of the Afrikanders utterly, and perhaps for ever. Mr. Kruger's burghers were united and enthusiastic ; the Uitlanders were divided and dispirited. The head of a great European State had sent a signal mark of his sympathy with the Dutch Government. The British Government had replied by the despatch of a flying squadron ; but, so far as interference with Mr. Kruger's own affairs was concerned, its hands were for the time completely tied. This state of affairs placed President Kruger in a position of great strength, and gave him a unique opportunity. The policy which statesmanship demanded — if, that is, peace and quiet were wanted — was obvious. It was for Mr. Kruger to grant to the new-comers, by grace and of his own motion, some gradual in- stalments of those reforms which they had failed to extort from him by arms and conspiracy. A modicum of reform conceded by President Kruger after the Raid would have damped down the agitation of the new-comers for years. They were in no position to ask for much ; the Imperial Government was in no position to ask effectually for anything. Mr. Kruger, by giving way a very little at this stage, might have safeguarded the position of his old burghers for a generation, confirmed his own supremacy for the term of his natural life, and secured the existing status of the Republic, perhaps in perpetuity. Even a very small Reform Bill introduced voluntarily by the Transvaal Government would have served (as Sir Henry de Villiers afterwards put it) to ' rally the greater number of the malcontents around them. As the alien population increases, as it undoubtedly will, their demands will increase with their discontent, and ultimately a great deal more will have to be conceded than will now satisfy them ' (Letter to President Steyn in the papers presented to Parliament, 1890, Cd. 369, p. i). One direction in which Mr. Kruger might have proceeded had been pointed out by Mr. Chamberlain in a despatch of February 4, 1896 : ' Basing myself upon the expressed desire of President Kruger to grant municipal government to Johannesburg, I suggest, for his consideration, as one way of meeting the difficulty, that the whole of the Rand district, from end to end, should be erected into something more than a municipality as that word is ordinarily understood ; that, in fact, it should have modified local autonomy, 72 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR with power of legislation on purely local questions, subject to the veto of the President and Executive Council' {No. 220, § 44-46, in C. 7933). Neither this proposal of ' Home Rule for the Rand ' nor any other measure of conciliation was adopted by the President ; yet it was a case in which a little reform would have staved off all fear of revolution and war. What Burke said of reforms in our country was eminently true also of the Transvaal : * All things which came should issue as a gift of her bounty and beneficence rather than as claims recovered against struggling litigants,' so that the gifts ' should appear the salutary provisions of your wisdom and foresight, not as things wrung from you with your blood by the cruel grip of a rigid necessity' (First Speech at Bristol). President Kruger had in the time immediately follow- ing the Raid a golden opportunity for making such gifts with safety. A minimum of concession would have had a maximum of efficacy. Those were Mr. Kruger's years of grace. These considerations, which ought to have governed his policy during those years, were very obvious, and they were urged per- sistently in some quarters (see, e.g., Daily News, February 10, March 25, 1896, diXidi passim thereafter). But, unfortunately, just as one section of the Liberal party gave no countenance to the agitation for pushing the inquiry into the Raid to its logical con- clusion, so another section of Liberal politicians gave no assist- ance to those who preached at this crisis the Liberal doctrine that force is no remedy, and that only by the redress of grievances could Mr. Kruger hope to save and serve his State. Whenever a speech was anywhere made or an article written impressing upon the Transvaal Government the importance of utilizing the time of grace to apply some permanent remedy, there promptly appeared a counter-pronouncement challenging the case for reform or justifying Mr. Kruger's policy.* These apologists for Mr. Kruger * Thus Mr. Courtney, on April 15, 1896, said : ' He hoped he sympathized with a people striving to obtain political rights in every part of the world, but when a claim for political rights came before him tainted with stockjobbing and with share-rigging, then his sympathy was chilled, and he was sorry to see that a certain number of English people and of the organs of English opinion were carried away by sympathy with persons who did not deserve any sympathy.' But if the claims of the Uitlanders were just before Dr. Jameson moved and Johannesburg rose, why did they become undeserving of attention afterwards? For the 'stockjobbing' PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 73 came to be classed among pro-Boers."* If it was implied that they were wisely and disinterestedly attached to Mr. Kruger, the nickname was not appropriate, for they were the worst friends he had. They encouraged him, according to the measure of their opportunities, in all his most dangerous tendencies and all his least creditable passions. Extremists on both sides were at this time very mischievous. On the one hand, the Jingoes talked about ' smashing the Boers ' and ' sending out 30,000 men to conquer the Transvaal.' On the other, the Krugerites encouraged that masterful old man in believing that he had a right Divine to govern wrong. In this right President Kruger seemed to believe more firmly than ever after the Raid. The Raid secured for him an easy re-election to the Presidency — Mr. Kruger, 12,858; Mr. Schalk Burger, 3,753; General Joubert, 2,001. It also provided him — partly, as we have seen, owing to mistakes made by the Imperial Government — with an easy excuse, though, as we have also seen, with no real justification, for adopting a policy of coercion. He was not slow to use his power and his excuse. Immediately after the Raid he had, indeed, spoken the Reformers fair. In a pro- clamation, dated December 30, 1895, he declared that the Trans- vaal Government was ' still always prepared to consider properly all complaints which may be properly submitted to it, and submit them to the Legislature of the country without delay to be dealt point, see Chapter XXIV. Another and more persistent apologist for Mr. Kruger at this period, and during the following years, was Mr. F. R. Statham, for whose pecuniary relations with the Transvaal Government through the Netherlands Rail- way Company see below, p. 229. A true friend of Mr. Kruger in this matter was the late Rev. John Mackenzie, whose open letter to the President, of June 18, 1896, puts the case very well. Mr. Mackenzie, among other things, asked Mr. Kruger to remember that the land to which the voortrekkers went was a land prepared by the Almighty, not only for the farmer, but also for the gold-seeker and the gold- miner {Cape Times, weekly edition, July 22, 1896). * The first use of terms of political slang is often a subject of inquiry. The earliest use of the term ' pro-Boer' that I have come across is in the Daily News of April 22, 1896. ' If it were indeed a necessity of the situation to be pro-Boer or pro- British — the one to the exclusion of the other — then as Britons we should be for the British, we admit.' In this book I have occasionally used the term ' pro-Boer' to describe the views of those who have taken the Boer side in the controversies under discussion. I use it, not offensively, not as meaning to imply that the persons so described are unpatriotic, but only for the sake of convenience and concision. 74 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR with.' This proclamation served a purpose in hastening the dis- armament of Johannesburg. In a second proclamation, dated January lo, 1896, the President appealed to the inhabitants of that city to * make it possible for the Government to appear before the Volksraad with the motto " Forget and Forgive." ' These soft-spoken words were taken by Mr. Chamberlain and the Uitlanders themselves as promises of reform. Subsequent events speedily undeceived them. The actual policy carried out by President Kruger was, in its relation to the Imperial Government, one of studied exasperation ; in relation to the mining industry, a policy of continued maladministration ; and from the political point of view generally, a policy of rigorous repression. In its relation to the Imperial Government, Mr. Kruger's policy was one of studied exasperation. This was the description of it given by Mr. (now Sir William) Conyngham Greene, the British agent at Pretoria. * The general opinion seems to be,' said Mr. Greene, in a despatch (June 14, 1898) dealing with the Aliens Expulsion Law, * that the passing of the measure, having regard to the protest recorded by the Secretary of State in his despatch of October 16 last, and even earlier, marks another step in the policy of exasperating the Imperial Government, while, as regards the foreign community resident in the Republic, it is, I think, looked upon as an attempt to intimidate, or, at any rate, to fetter, the Uitlander population in the pursuit of any constitutional efforts to obtain the redress of their grievances, if not even in the discharge of their ordinary business avocations ' (' Papers relating to the Complaints of British Subjects in the South African Re- public,' 1899, C. 9345, p. 63). To this latter aspect of the matter we must presently revert. Here the point to be noticed is the inconsistency of the AHens Expulsion Law with the terms of the London Convention. The law empowered the President to expel without an appeal to the Court any foreigner who ' by word or writing excites to disobedience or transgression of the law, or takes any steps dangerous to public peace and order.' There were several revisions of the law,* but in the end, as at the begin- * A recapitulation of the several stages of legislation in respect to this matter was given by Lord Milner in a despatch of June 15, 1898 (C. 9345, p. 60). PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 75 ning, the right of any stranger to live in the Republic or to move freely within its borders was left at the mercy of the Executive. Yet by Article XIV. of the London Convention it was agreed that ' all persons other than natives conforming themselves to the laws of the South African Republic shall have full liberty with their families to enter, travel, or reside in any part of the Re- public' No less clearly in conflict with the Convention was another law introduced in 1896. This was the Aliens Immigra- tion Law, which altered the conditions upon which foreigners could enter the Republic. Her Majesty's Government had to make a strong protest against this violation of Article XIV. of the Convention.* It was repealed in 1897, but not, as the Republic ostentatiously stated, because of its conflict with the Convention, but because it was found in its working to expose the inhabitants of the neighbouring States and Colonies to inconvenience. The Republic declined a friendly discussion with Her Majesty's Government with a view to agreeing upon the terms of a measure which might meet the objects of the Transvaal in a way that would justify us in waiving a strict interpretation of Article XIV. They said it was their intention to come to an agreement with other Governments in South Africa as to the principles of legislation for the purpose of excluding dangerous or detrimental immigrants. Naturally, they had to be informed in reply that, although such a Conference was desirable, the Queen's Government could not withdraw their claim to be consulted before any legislation was introduced in the South African Republic derogating from the rights secured by the Convention, to which the other South African Governments were not parties. The answer of the Transvaal Government to Her Majesty's Government's protests was long, and in places ingenious ;t but Mr. Chamberlain's protests are Nos. 120 and 121 in C. 8423. The reply of the Transvaal Government will be found at p. 6 of C. 8721. * For text of the Aliens Immigration Law see p. 69, C. 8423 ; for Mr, Chamber- lain's protest against the law as a breach of the London Convention see despatch No. 120, C. 8423 ; for the reply of the South African Republic see p. 6, C. 8721. + Thus, an ar^umentum ad homineni was addressed to Lord Salisbury. ' The Alien Exclusion Bill of 1894, presented by His Excellency the Prime Minister of Her Majesty, Lord Salisbury, in the House of Lords, makes provision for the exclusion of undesirable immigrants, and it may justly be argued that Law No. 30 of 1896 in 76 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR underneath it all, no reader will fail, I think, to detect the governing motive of Mr. Kruger's policy. The laws in question were defended as laws natural and proper in an independent State. It was the semi dependent status fixed by the Convention that the Transvaal Government sought to undermine. Still more obvious was this motive in the causes of complaint given to the Imperial Government in relation to Article IV. of the Convention.* That article runs as follows : * The South African Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation other than the Orange 'Free State, nor with any native tribe to the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same has been approved by Her Majesty the Queen.' To anyone seeking to interpret the Convention in good faith and with goodwill, this clause would seem clear enough. But the Transvaal Government signed an extradition treaty with Portugal (November 3, 1893), and did not submit it to Her Majesty ; they communicated to the Swiss Government their act of accession to the Geneva Convention (September 30, 1896) without first consulting the Queen ; and so, again, they executed and ratified an extradition treaty with the Netherlands which also was not submitted for the approval of Her Majesty. In several of these cases the terms of the Convention could have been observed without any difficulty. There was no likelihood whatever that the Queen's Government would have objected to the extradition treaties, and they were known to be favourable to the Transvaal's accession to the Geneva Convention. In other cases any reason- able and legitimate objects which the Transvaal Government had in view could have been readily attained without any infringement of the Convention if Mr. Kruger had cared to seek a previous that respect rests on the same basis as the law proposed by His Excellency Lord Salisbury.' This was not the only case in which President Kruger was able to recognise in the British Prime Minister a kindred spirit. It was one of the humours of the situation that a Tory Government at home was in conflict with Toryism in South Africa. Equally paradoxical was the defence of Toryism there by a section of ' advanced ' Liberalism here. * A recapitulation of these cases will be found in Mr. Chamberlain's despatch of March 6, 1897, No. 121, in C. 8423. The answer of the Transvaal Government as to the extradition treaty with Portugal will be found on p. 3, C. 8721 ; as to the accession to the Geneva Convention, see p. 15, C. 8721 ; as to the Aliens Immigra- tion Bill and other breaches of the Convention, see p. 6, C. 8721. PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 77 understanding with her Majesty's Government. That, however, it would seem from the facts recited above, was the one thing which he was careful to avoid. Respect for the Convention of 1884 was often on his lips in public and official utterances ; determina- tion to undermine it was never absent, it would seem, from his mind. It is difficult to resist Sir W. Greene's conclusion that the President's policy in the years following the Raid — those years of grace in which he might so easily have secured the peace and prosperity of South Africa — was a policy, in its relation to Great Britain, of exasperation. Whatever may have been Mr. Kruger's object, exasperation was also the effect produced by his dealings with the mining industry. Mine-owners are not very sympathetic persons to most of us. The grievances of capitalists who, in spite of all, amass enormous fortunes, are apt to leave one somewhat cold ; but even the rich have their rights. Politicians, too, will remember that the mining industry is the staple industry of the Transvaal and the leading industry of South Africa, acting and reacting on the whole pohtical and economic condition of the country. On the bad treatment or the good meted out by the Administration depended in considerable measure the prosperity and content- ment of the whole community. * The mining industry,' said the Commission appointed by Mr. Kruger in 1897, ' must be held as the financial basis, support, and mainstay of the State.' How, then, did Mr. Kruger use his years of grace to deal with the grievances of the most important industry within his borders ? His first step promised well ; it was the appointment of the Commission of Inquiry referred to above. The Commission consisted of nominees of the Transvaal Government, and most of its members were State officials. No Reformers or representatives of the mines were included. Whatever may have been Mr. Kruger's motives in appoint- ing it, the Commission did its work, under the chairmanship of Mr. Schalk Burger, impartially and thoroughly. The conclusions may be accepted as the last word on the subjects, and within the sphere, of its inquiry.* The report begins by clearing away * The text of the report, which should be studied by all who desire to know the truth about one of the most important aspects of the South African Question, will 78 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR certain fallacies which had often figured in statements by English apologists for the Boers — in this respect more Boer than the Boers. It was said, for instance, that if some of the mines did not pay, it was because they were overcapitalized; and, again, that there could be nothing much to complain of, because the miners re- ceived very high wages. The report shows that if the wages were high, it was because the cost of living at the mines was also very high* — a fact for which the policy of the Transvaal Government was itself largely responsible. As for the question of overcapital- ization, upon which Mr. Labouchere and others had spent so much ingenuity, the report brushed it aside as not to the point. Of course, if a mine be largely overcapitalized, or if a gold reef exist only in the imagination of promoters, no dividends in the one case or profits in the other would accrue, even if coal, labour, and dynamite were delivered free of charge. The real point at issue was the cost of production, and this, the Commission found, was unnecessarily and unreasonably high. Hence it was that some mines made no profits, and others much smaller profits than they might. For the unduly high cost of production the manage- ment of the mines was not to blame. On the contrary, ' your Commission is pleased to state that at present there exist all the indications of a pure administration, and the State as well as the mining industry must be congratulated upon the fact that most of the mines are controlled and engineered by financial and practical men, who are devoting their time, energy, skill, and knowledge to the interest of the mining industry, and who have not only intro- duced the latest machinery and mining appHances, but also the greatest perfection of method and process known to science.' The blame rested not on the management of the mines, but on the maladministration and corruption of the Transvaal Govern- ment. ' It is the duty of the Government to lighten the burdens of the mining industry,' and more especially to abolish ' conces- be found on pp. 1-13 of ' Papers relating to the Complaints of British Subjects in the South African Republic,' 1899 (C. 9345). For the effect produced by the report of ' progressive ' opinion in the Free State, see next chapter, p. 89. * Nothing was cheap except tobacco and mealies. The smallest current coin was a tickey (threepenny-piece). Coppers were unknown. PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 79 sions that are irksome and injurious, and will always remain a source of irritation and dissatisfaction.' Let us notice a few of these burdens in order. It was proved to the satisfaction of the Commission that ' the Liquor Law is not carried out properly.' According to Sir W. Greene, the British agent, the sale of poisonous alcohol to the native labourers on the mines incapacitated permanently 12 per cent, out of 88,000 labourers from doing any work. The law in itself was good, but it was not carried out. The illicit dealers were rich and powerful, and they stopped at nothing to secure a continuance of their ill- gotten gains (C. 9345, pp. 43, 49).^ Again, the Commission found that a very serious burden was imposed on the mines by transit duties and import duties on foodstuffs, which were * unfair and ought to be abolished.' More serious still were the burdens caused by the policy of concessions to monopolists. The Com- mission pointed out with admirable lucidity that the South African Republic, as one of the largest, if not the largest, of consumers of explosives in the world, ought to have been able to obtain them on the most advantageous terms. But, in fact, the mines had to pay a charge of forty to forty-five shillings per case in excess of the price in the open market. The cause ' was the monopoly in the hands of the South African Explosives Company, whereby they and their friends make enormous profits at the expense of the mining industry.' These profits were put by the Commission 'at no less than ;^58o,ooo for the years 1897 and 1898.' This huge monopoly ' does not benefit the State, but serves to enrich individuals.' 'The mining industry has thus to bear a burden which does not enrich the State or bring any benefit in return, and this fact must always prove a source of irritation and annoyance to those who, while willing to contribute to just taxation for general good, cannot acquiesce in an impost of the nature com- plained of. The importance of this to the mining industry may be gathered from the fact that explosives have been shown to average 9 per cent, of the total working cost, but for the develop- ment work the percentage is a higher one.' * The murder of Mrs. Applebe, which caused much excitement and indignation at Johannesburg in May, 1899, was attributed by the British agent to revenge on the part of this nefarious trade against her husband, who, as a Wesleyan minister, had exerted himself boldly against their proceedings (C. 9345, pp. 178, 179.) 8o RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR The Commission recommended, therefore, that the dynamite con- cession should be cancelled, that the accounts of the monopolist company should, in the interests of the State, be subjected to search- ing investigation, and that free trade in explosives, subject to a reasonable import duty, should be introduced forthwith. The other concessionaire whose monopoly laid the heaviest burden on the mining industry was the Netherlands South African Railway Company. The Commission recommended that the company should ultimately be expropriated, and that meanwhile a reduction in tariffs of ^500,000 a year, or 25 per cent., should be immediately required. Several other matters involving maladministration by the Transvaal Government were boldly exposed by the Commission. For instance, they found it proved that owing to ' faulty adminis- tration ' gold thefts to the amount of 10 per cent, of the output, equivalent to an amount of ;£75o,ooo a year, were committed with impunity. For the better regulation of such matters as this, the Commission recommended the appointment of an Advisory Board, to consist of five nominees of the Government and four representa- tives of the mining industry. Such a Board might greatly assist the Government, and its appointment would have been a proof of the President's willingness to deal fairly with the chief industry of his State. In conclusion, ' your Commission fervently hope that they truly and faithfully interpreted the object of the inquiry, and that their suggestions and recommendations, if acted upon, will confer a lasting benefit on Land en Volk' The Commissioners were right in their latter expression, but wrong in their former. Their report was received with lively relief and satisfaction on the Rand, and had their recommendations been adopted, a long step would have been taken towards meeting the grievances of the people, and thus securing the safety of the land. But the hopes of the mining industry were rapidly undeceived. The Commissioners had not correctly interpreted the object of their appointment. Either Mr. Kruger had not desired the truth to be set out, or he found it unpalatable, since it saddled the blame, not on the capitalists, but on himself. He charged Mr. Schalk Burger with being a traitor for having signed such a report, and set to work at once to retrace his steps. A Committee of the Volksraad was appointed to sit on the report of the Commission. They did it. PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 8i They left very little of the Commission's recommendations stand- ing, and what the Committee spared the Volksraad destroyed. A few characteristic * reforms ' were, indeed, made. Some reduc- tion was obtained in the tariffs of the railway company, amounting nominally to ;£"2oo,ooo, instead of the ;£'5oo,ooo recommended by the Commission ; but it was alleged that a great deal of what the company conceded in one way was taken back in another,* and by the concession, such as it was, the company staved off any further inquiry into its privileges. Also a reduction was made in the import duties on certain articles, amounting to ;;^T 00,000. But those on other articles were increased, and the increase amounted to ;£2oo,ooo.t The more serious scandals were left untouched, but, on the other hand, the Volksraad found time to impose, without notice and within twenty-four hours, a new tax of 5 per cent, on the net profits of the gold-mines. The Chamber of Mines did not object to the principle of the tax in itself, but they did very naturally object to its application under present circumstances, when the Government's own Industrial Commission had recommended instant relief for the industry as required in the best interests of the country. Such, in brief outline, is the story of Mr. Kruger's dealing with the mining industry during the years of grace which followed the Raid. ' No reforms, but rather a set-back,' was the summary given by M. Rouliot, the President of the Chamber of Mines. In the Transvaal itself, the mining industry became consolidated under the pressure of disgust and disappointment. Mr. J. B. Robinson, hitherto a fast friend of President Kruger, now threw in his lot with the other capitalists,! and the Chambers of Mines, which had been split in two by the Raid, fused again into one body. Abroad, the President's oppressive policy caused much discontent, for shares in the gold-mines were, and are, largely held on the Continent. The fact that the President of the Chamber of Mines was a Frenchman showed the importance of French holdings, and French newspapers began to deplore the * See on this point tlie speech of M. Rouliot (a Frenchman), President of the Chamber of Mines, in C. 9345, p. 34. t See M. Rouliot's speech (C. 9345, p. 46). \ For the immediate causes of this step, see FitzPatrick, p. 314. 6 82 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR inactivity of Great Britain in view of the serious financial interests at stake (Paris correspondent of the DaiVy News, January ii, 1899). Some of the German papers published similar lamenta- tions. The semi-official Nord-deutsche Zeitung reproduced an article from the Journal des Debats, in which the writer charged President Kruger with bad faith in disregarding the report of his Industrial Commission when he discovered that it was not to his taste (May 23, 1898). The Kblnische Zeitung published letters from Johannesburg declaring that, 'even with the greatest sympathy for the Boers, it was impossible to spread the cloak of Christian charity over the doings of their Government' ' What makes embitterment more bitter,' said another article in the same journal, ' is the unfortunate policy of promising and not perform- ing. Since the " forgiving and forgetting," which was proclaimed after Dr. Jameson's raid, nothing has been done to give effect to these fine words' (Berlin correspondent of the Daily News^ May 24, 27, July 27, September 23, 1898). Fine words and hard deeds were Mr. Kruger's policy. In relation to the political status of the Uitlanders generally it was the same. Instead of utilizing the respite from agitation to remedy the grievances of the people, he left the old disabilities unremoved, and added others to them. The vote was still denied, and taxation was increased. The irritation thus caused was aggravated by the notorious corruption of the officials. Large sums of money were spent and not accounted for, while the avowed expenditure on secret service went up to an extraordinarily high figure. Some show had been made of establishing municipal government in Johannesburg, but it was a show only. Half the Council had to be enfranchised burghers, although the burghers formed only a very small proportion of the inhabitants. The Burgomaster was appointed and paid by the Govern- ment, and every regulation had to be submitted by him to the executive. Equally delusive were the reforms of the educational system. The Uitlanders still had to pay for an education by which it was almost impossible for their children to profit. The system was, indeed, ' more directed to forcing upon the Uitlander population the habitual use of the Dutch language than to imparting to them PRESIDENT KRUGER'S YEARS OF GRACE 83 the rudiments of general knowledge.'''' The Uitlanders remained without any voice in the general politics of the State, and with no effective voice in local affairs. Such other means of seeking redress as were left to them were, in the years following the Raid, appreciably reduced. By the Press Laws of 1896 and 1898, the President was empowered to prohibit the circulation of any printed matter which, in his opinion, was a danger to peace and order in the Republic. The Aliens Expulsion Law, to which we have already referred, gave him a similar power to banish persons objectionable to him on the same ground.! Finally, the law of 1897, under which Chief Justice Kotze was dismissed, placed the High Court at the mercy of the Executive, and enabled the Volksraad (in which the majority of the inhabitants were unrepre- sented) to interfere by resolution even in cases pending at the time in the courts. | The Uitlanders had thus no security for impartial justice in the courts, no freedom of speech outside, and no voice within Parliament. Such was the last state of the ' absolute equality ' which Mr. Kruger had promised in 1 881, of the generous policy of * forget and forgive' which he had promised in 1896. The Raid, as we saw in the last chapter, gave him some excuse, and the mistakes made by the British Government for a while strengthened the excuse. But excuse is not justification. Mr. Kruger might have been slow and suspicious, and nobody could have blamed him- But his time of grace extended to three years and more. He made use of it, not to heal open sores and apply permanent * Mr, Chamberlain's despatch of May 10, 1899, in C. 9345, p. 228. Justification will be found earlier in the same Blue-Book, Section III. See also p. 184 in the same Blue-Book. t It has been represented that this law was passed 'in consequence of the rebellion at Johannesburg' (Mr. F. Mackarness in the Times, November 22, 1899). This is not so. The law had been suggested in 1894 by a Hollander newspaper, and in the summer of 1895 the Volksraad, after a hot debate, had affirmed the necessity of it, and had passed a resolution instructing the Government to bring up a Bill to make provision for the expulsion of aliens without trial. This is mentioned in the manifesto prepared in connection with the rebellion. X The ' Documents and Correspondence relating to the Judicial Crisis in the Transvaal' were published by Mr. Kotze in English in 1898 (Clowes and Son). See also 'The Judicial Crisis in the Transvaal,' by J. W, Gordon, reprinted from the Law Quarterly (Stevens and Sons). 6—2 84 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR remedies, but to exasperate. It must, however, be added that, having thus decided on a policy of conflict, he pursued it with unflinching forethought. This will be the subject of our next chapter. CHAPTER X MR. KRUGER's preparations Alliance and armaments — The tragedy of the Orange Free State — Earlier attempts by the Transvaal to secure its alliance — Sir John Brand's opposi- tion — Mr. Reitz's succession and renewed overtures — The Raid, and election of Mr. Steyn — The offensive and defensive alliance of 1897 — Mr. Fraser's protest and forecast — Mr. Balfour's blindness — The policy of armaments — When it was inaugurated, and why. The policy of repression and exasperation described in the last chapter obviously involved Mr. Kruger in serious risks. He knew it, and prepared for it with a far-seeing thoroughness which the British Government might well have imitated. Mr. Kruger often said that he had to take precautions against another Raid. Most people thought that herein he was insincere, for the steps taken by the British Government in clipping the wings of the Chartered Company rendered any repetition of Dr. Jameson's adventure impossible. But there was a sense in which Mr. Kruger was quite right. The Raid was a symptom of the un- settled state of affairs caused by misgovernment in the Transvaal. Mr. Kruger neglected to take the opportunity of removing that underlying cause. Therefore it was certain that in some form or other, and at some period more or less near, the trouble would recur. So the British Government had told him."*^ They do not seem, on their part, to have laid the lesson to heart. But Mr. Kruger did. He set himself at once, and on an elaborate scale, to take precautions against the next crisis. This he did in two * Mr. Chamberlain's despatch to Lord Rosmead, January 4, 1896 : ' I am aware that the victory of the Transvaal Government over the Administrator of Mashona- land may possibly find them not willing to make concessions. If this is the attitude they adopt, they will, in my opinion, make a great mistake ; for the danger from which they have just escaped was real, and one which, if the causes which led up to it are not removed, may recur, although in a different form ' (C. 7933, p. 19). MR, KRUGER'S PREPARATIONS 85 ways at least.* He made a valuable alliance and he piled up formidable armaments. The fate of the Orange Free State is one of the saddest tragedies of the war. The State was described by Mr. Bryce when he visited the country as * the most idyllic community in Africa.' It was admirably governed. The strangers within its gates were well treated. There were no religious animosities. Education, and with it prosperity and contentment, were widely diffused. There had never been any war between the Free State and Great Britain. British citizens had no grievances against the Free State, and a few years ago its continued independence seemed safe from all dangers. How changed are the conditions and outlook to-day ! What is the real meaning of the Free State's action ? The answer to this question is sometimes looked for entirely, and is undoubtedly to be found in part, in the Jameson Raid. It is not the least lamentable of the many evil results of that criminal undertaking that it fed the slumbering ashes of racial animosity in the Orange Free State, and made it possible for unscrupulous politicians to work on the feeling of the burghers to their own undoing. But here, as in other directions, the Raid was the occasion, not the cause. The Raid gave Mr. Kruger a lever for capturing the Free State. The desire to capture it was long antecedent to the Raid. The scheme to tie the Free State * I say ' in two ways at least ' because in the text I confine myself to matters of demonstration. It is probable that Mr. Kruger adopted also what he hoped would be a third line of defence, namely, the pursuit of Continental alliances and the purchase of Continental opinion. To some extent this is certain. On March 4, 1898, the 'Transvaal Volksraad considered the foreign consular representations. The Government asked for £ij,^co for the whole service beyond the borders of the State, but a difference of opinion was apparent among members, some of whom thought the amount too high. Dr. Leyds defended the item, which, he said, was necessary to secure a good diplomatic service in Europe. Moreover, it would be a proof of the independence of the State, over which there was no suzerainty ' (Reuter's telegram). In 1897 Dr. Leyds had been appointed to Europe. The significance of this move was thus appreciated by Mr. Stead. ' The Boer ideal,' he said, ' was " Ami- British Federation in South Africa," Mr. Secretary Leyds,' he added, ' has been appointed a kind of Boer Minister in Europe, where he will no doubt do his utmost to encourage the idea that the federated Dutch Republics can be relied upon by any- one who wishes to destroy British supremacy in South Africa ' {Review of Reviews ^ April, 1897). 86 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR hand and foot to the Transvaal was as old as the dream of a Re- publican United States of South Africa. It was the first step that had to be taken to realize that dream, the dream which Mr. Kruger's Secretary of State, himself an ex-President of the Orange Free State, has openly avowed (see anfe, p. 31). At first Mr. Kruger had little success, for under the enlightened adminis- tration of President Brand the little Republic enjoyed a prosperity which required no external props, and which was consistent with the most cordial relations with Her Majesty's Government. In 1887 Mr. Kruger endeavoured to draw President Brand into an offensive and defensive alliance. During that year two secret conferences took place to discuss the commercial and political questions outstanding between the two Republics. The delegates met at President Kruger's house at Pretoria on May 31 and June 2. The minutes of these conferences, to which the correspondent of the Times at Bloemfontein has had access,'^ show clearly enough what Mr. Kruger's designs were. Mr. Fraser, on behalf of the Free State, desired to advance the interests of his own State without provoking the hostility of others. Mr. Kruger's arguments to the contrary are very signifi- cant. To Mr. Fraser's remarks that, if the Transvaal succeeded in obtaining a harbour on the sea-coast, it would require to be fortified and garrisoned, or it would be at the mercy of any passing warship. President Kruger replied that if once the Transvaal had a harbour Foreign Powers could intervene in its affairs, and that the Transvaal must get into touch with Foreign Powers in view of eventualities. 'The strength of our position,' he said, Mies in our making the British Government understand that the Republics hold together. Then we can be sure that we will be taken into account. . . . Let us speak frankly. We are not going to be dependent on England. Take no railway union— remain without a railway. That is better than to take of their money. The future will provide greater blessings if you work with us. Let them keep their money. Let them not bind you. The Lord reigns— none other — the deliver- ance is near at hand.' Mr. F. Wolmarans spoke to like effect : * See Times of May 25, 1900. MR. KRUGER'S PREPARATIONS 87 ' We must look at the matter from the political standpoint of our independence. We have had much experience of Her Majesty's Government, and we will and must shake ourselves free and become independent. We are still insufficiently prepared {ongerust). We wish to get to the sea, more especially with an eye to future complications. Let us first get to the sea and achieve our independ- ence. . . . You know our secret policy. We cannot treat the Colony as we would treat you. The Colony would destroy us. It is not the Dutch there that we are fighting against. Time shall show what we mean to do with them ; for the present we must keep them off.' The following October President Kruger and a deputation went to Bloemfontein to urge upon President Brand the urgent necessity of an offensive and defensive alliance. President Kruger asserted that, in view of the common enemy and the dangers threatening the Republics, such an alliance was an essential preliminary to any other form of closer union. President Brand replied that, as far as the offensive was concerned, he would never be a party to attacking anybody's territory ; and as for the defensive, where was the pressing danger or the common foe? The Free State was on excellent terms with all its neighbours, nor would the Transvaal have any need for such an alliance if only its policy remained peaceful and cautious. The arguments of the Transvaal delegates lacked nothing, it will be seen, in explicitness. But they did not prevail. The point of view of the Free State politicians during the pre-Reitzian era was that of the prosperity of South Africa under the existing state of things. But in July, 1888, Sir John Brand died. He was succeeded in the presidency by Mr. Reitz, with whose aspirations we are already familiar, and who was one of the founders of the Afrikander Bond in 1882. Almost the first act of the future Secretary of State for the Transvaal was to revive the negotiations for closer union. On March 13, 1889, at Potchefstroom, he concluded a conditional defensive alliance with the South African Republic. This was as far as Mr. Reitz felt able at the time to carry matters. The traditions of Sir John Brand, ably represented by Mr. Fraser, still survived. Mr. Fraser knew that the avowed ambitions of the Transvaal, to say nothing of its misgovernment, would involve sooner or later a rupture with Great Britain. The Raid undermined the ground 88 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR on which Mr. Fraser had taken his stand, and gave Mr. Kruger his long-wanted opportunity. An election for President took place in the beginning of 1896. Mr. Fraser, member for Bloemfontein in the Raad, was a candidate. * He was one of the most experienced, able and reliable men in the State, but now was completely deserted in favour of a young lawyer, whose views appeared so much to coincide with those of President Kruger that, when Mr. Steyn was sworn in on March 4, 1 896, the former sent a telegram of sincere congratulation, and at the same time expressed a hope that the two Republics would now be more united than heretofore.'* The hope was soon fulfilled. In March, 1897, Mr. Kruger went to Bloemfontein, and a definite offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between the two Republics. By this treaty ' the Orange Free State and the South African Republic bind themselves to support each other with all available strength and means in case the independence of one of the two States is threatened or attacked, unless the State that has to render assistance shows the injustice of the cause of the other State. It is understood between the Governments of the two States that it is desirable that they should, as soon as possible, inform each other of matters which might endanger the peace or independence of one or both States. 't To this arrangement, con- cluded between Mr. Kruger and Mr. Steyn, Mr. Fraser was strongly opposed. He opposed it because it put the Free State at the mercy of the Transvaal ; because it supported a Government in that State which was shamefully corrupt, and which thereby was a source of perpetual unrest in South Africa ; and because, lastly, it jeopardized the friendly relations of the Free State with Great Britain, and thereby endangered its independence. It is interest- ing to cite a few of Mr. Fraser's remarks under each of these heads. They may serve, for one thing, to show that many of our * Wilmot's ' History of Our Own Times in South Africa,' iii. 276. The votes were : for Steyn, 7,572 ; for Fraser, 1,405. The part played by Mr. Steyn in subse- quent affairs was probably larger than appeared on the surface. According to Lord Loch : ' There can be no doubt now that all the warlike preparations of years past arose from the influence of persons in the Free State who desired the extension of Republican power in South Africa' (Speech at the Imperial Institute, Times, December 8, 1899). + Bloemfontein Gazette Extraordinary, March 22, 1897. MR. KRUGER'S PREPARATIONS 89 ' Pro-Boers ' over here are a good deal more Boer than some of the burghers themselves. Mr. Fraser opposed the policy of Messrs. Kruger and Steyn, first because it reduced the Free State to a position of ' vassalage to the South African Republic, a State which will give you the extreme privilege of fighting its enemies and pro- tecting its citizens, without giving you a voice in its affairs.' And what kind of Government was it, Mr. Fraser went on to ask, which was thus to be 'able to dispose of the bodies and the rifles' of the Free Staters ? We are sometimes told that the British case against the Transvaal Government was unsubstantial, and that the Uitlanders had no solid grievances. That was not Mr. Fraser's opinion, as the following extract from his speech will show : ' Only go back,' he said, 'twelve months; look at the reports which have been placed before the Volksraad of the South African Republic, and ask yourselves the question whether our people for one moment would tolerate the misrule and the misgovernment which exist there, when their own Commission report such a fact as that three millions of money have been squandered within the last fifteen years, for which no vouchers were obtainable. And if you look at what has been done to affect the administration of justice, and look at the high-handed action which has followed this, I ask you if you would like to have such actions here, as conducive to the safety of your lives and property. If you look at the monopolies, concessions and jobbery, and reckless expendi- ture which have been reported to the Volksraad within the last few years, I ask you if the burghers of our country would be satisfied to hitch on to the Government there.' (Speech at Bloemfontein, reported in the S^ar weekly edition, March 19, 1898.) Mr. Fraser saw very clearly that the existence of such a Govern- ment was a standing menace to peace and security in the country, and that his own State would, sooner or later, be dragged into a conflict in support of the Transvaal oligarchy. Unhappily, Mr. Fraser's views did not prevail. Partly by the acts of ' shameless mendacity ' denounced by Mr. Van der Lingen, and partly by an adroit playing upon what Mr. Fraser called ' a spurious sentiment,' Mr. Steyn and Mr. Reitz succeeded in ' hitching on ' the Free State to Mr. Kruger. Mr. Fraser had no illusions as to the ultimate result. * I do not wish,' he said, ' to see this country placed in a position whereby its independence will be inevitably jeopardized.' ' I do not consider,' he added, 'that the Government of the South African Republic is in a position to maintain our independence against any Great 90 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Power, nor do I consider that the Government of the Orange Free State is in a position to maintain the independence of the South African Republic against any Great Power by force of arms with the slightest chance of success. With regard to both these countries, I say our strength lies in our weakness, our strength lies in the recognition of the position which we hold and the Conven- tions we have with the mightiest Power in the world, a Power which is guided by a sense of justice and righteousness, and a Power which will not interfere with what has been conceded to us in the Convention to which they are parties so long as we act up to the conditions this Convention imposes upon us.' What was the real motive force on the part of Mr. Fraser's opponents? What schemes or ideas and ambitions had Mr. Kruger and Mr. Steyn in their minds? Mr. Fraser dropped a hint of what seems to be the true solution when he spoke of the danger of interfering with the Conventions. His speech was delivered on March 17, 1898, and at that time Mr. Kruger and Dr. Leyds were elaborating in voluminous despatches their claim to the status of a Sovereign International State. From first to last this has been Mr. Kruger's ambition. He avowed it in 1883; he has struggled for it in a hundred ways ever since. At the time when the claim was first elaborated in formal despatches it was known and felt that a conflict might ensue. * Let come what may,' said Mr. Kruger in the Volksraad, ' we must show that we are an independent State. The Volksraad can depend upon myself, the Executive Council, and the Commandant-General.' What he fought for, he himself has told us in his so-called over- tures of peace (Chapter XXXV.) : it was his claim to be the Sovereign of a Sovereign International State. The Rev. R. J. Campbell, in a letter to the Dai7y News, written at Bloemfontein on April 24, 1900, and pubHshed on May 21, recorded an interesting conversation with Mr. Fraser : • ** We are the victims," said Mr. Fraser, " of a policy not our own. Now that we are to be incorporated in the British Empire, I am reconciled to the change, for otherwise we should have been in vassalage to the South African Republic, by which I mean the Transvaal, not the larger dominion Kruger aimed at. What our place in that would have been I don't know." " Then you believe that Mr. Kruger aimed at nothing less than a United States of South Africa under his own flag ?" ** Certainly I do. I first saw through his policy at the Potchefstroom Conference in 1887. When Kruger held out for an offensive and defensive alliance as the sine qua non for negotiations as to a MR. KRUGER'S PREPARATIONS 91 Customs Union, I soon saw what he had in his mind. He has never ceased to work for it, and he almost succeeded.'" For the realization of Mr. Kruger's schemes, the offensive and defensive alliance with the Orange Free State was an indispensable preliminary. It is an amazing illustration of the state of wilful blindness and fecklessness in which the British Government chose to hve that Mr. Balfour, in a speech at Dewsbury (November 28, 1899), could say: * If I had been asked two months ago whether it was likely we should be at war with the Orange Free State, I should have said : " You might as well expect us to be at war with Switzerland."' Mr. Balfour's ignorance, real or affected, with regard to the meaning of the alliance between President Kruger and President Steyn is on a par with Lord Salisbury's about the extent of the armaments which had been amassed for their joint use. Replying to Lord Kimberley in the House of Lords on January 30, 1900, he said : ' When the noble lord says that we must have known, that it is impossible we should not have known, about the artillery and munitions of war that the Republics were introducing, I ask. How on earth were we to know it ? I believe, as a matter of fact — though I do not give this as official — that the guns were generally introduced in boilers and locomotives, and the munitions of war were introduced in pianos. It was not our territory, we had no power of search, we had no power of knowing what munitions of war were sent in, and we certainly had no power of supervising their importation into the Republics. . . . But the noble lord seems to think that that is an elementary matter which we were bound to know. You cannot see through a deal board. We had no means of knowing the extent of the preparations, although every- body knew they existed to a certain extent.'* * The Prime Minister was in the same debate contradicted by the War Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, who said: 'The noble Earl (Lord Rosebery) claimed that we were without information as to the military preparations of the South African Republic. I think that he has done us an injustice. There are, no doubt, many cases in which munitions of war have passed through Lorenzo Marques under the various disguises indicated by the Prime Minister, but I am able to tell the House that the InteUigence Branch has been able from time to time to supply us with infor- mation which I beheve to be extremely correct as to the extent and the nature of the Boer preparations. The estimate made by the Intelligence Branch of the number of armed men to be found in the two South African Republics is, I believe, a correct estimate, and one which our experience of these military operations has not in any way falsified. . . . When I come to the question of guns, I believe in the same way that they were able before the war began, or became inevitable, to tell us, at any rate with approximate accuracy, what was the nature of the armaments in the 92 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR The questions have been much discussed when the Transvaal began to arm, and why. It is said on the pro-Boer side that the arming began after the Raid, and that it was caused only by the necessity of preparations against a renewal of that lawless attempt. One is a question of fact, the other of inference. With regard to the fact, it is quite certain that the arming began before the Raid, though it is equally certain that it proceeded on a yet larger scale after the Raid. What we may call the policy of armaments was certainly not a result of the Raid. The manifesto drawn up by the Johannesburg Reformers before the Raid had already called attention to the new policy, and protested against it : • We now have openly the policy of force revealed to us. ;i^250,ooo is to be spent upon the completing of a fort at Pretoria, ;i^ioo,ooo is to be spent upon a fort to terrorize the inhabitants of Johannesburg, large orders are sent to Krupp's for big guns, Maxims have been ordered, and we are even told that German officers are coming out to drill the burghers. Are these things necessary, or are they calculated to irritate the feeling to breaking-point? What necessity is there for forts in peaceful inland towns? Why should the Government endeavour to keep us in subjection to unjust laws by the power of the sword instead of making themselves live in the heart of the people by a broad policy of justice? What can be said of a policy which deliberately divides the two great sections of the people from each other, instead of uniting them under equal laws, or the policy which keeps us in eternal turmoil with the neighbouring States ? What shall be said of the statecraft, every act of which sows torments, discontent, or race hatred, and reveals a conception of Republicanism under which the only privilege of the majority of the people is to provide the revenue, and to bear insult, while only those are considered Republicans who speak a certain language, and in greater or less degree share the prejudices of the ruling classes ?' (Transvaal National Union Manifesto, December 27, 1895). It is absurd that the expenditure which the Reformers alleged as one of the causes for their revolt should be defended by the Krugerites as its consequence ; but it is indisputable that after the revolt the expenditure was greatly increased. Statistical informa- tion on this point is not complete. It is certain that the heading ' Military Expenditure ' in the Transvaal Budgets does not cover the whole of such expenditure. The rest is to be found under the headings ' Special Payments,' ' Public Works,' and ' Sundry hands of the two Republics' (January 30, 1900, Hansard, 4th series, vol. Ixxviii., cols. 40 and 41). MR. KRUGEIVS PREPARATIONS 93 Services.' Adding these items together, we arrive at the follow- ing table : £ 1889 ••• •.. ... ... ... 605,410 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 189s 1896 1897 742,439 739,001 525,095 500,559 782,848 741,645 2,007,372 1,793.279 1,253,510 It will be seen that there was a large increase in 1894, that a high rate of expenditure was maintained in 1895, and that in 1896 it became very much higher. Was this increase really due to fears of another Raid, or was it part of a settled policy which the Raid served to excuse and strengthen ? The latter seems to me the conclusion which is supported both by the figures and by the probabilities of the case. Obviously, heavy orders had been placed in Europe before the Raid.* Was that due to a prophetic suspicion of the Raid ? The Transvaal Government said they had no such suspicion. Was the subsequent expenditure due to an attack of ' nerves ' induced by the Raid ? President Kruger had not found the chopping off of the ' tortoise's head ' very costly. In the case of the armaments, as of the repressive laws against the Uitlanders, the Raid fiasco destroyed the occasion for them, while it supplied the excuse. The real occasion for the armaments was different. Mr. Kruger's consistent line of policy involved a constant risk of internal disturbance and external conflict. This risk required to be insured against, and the wealth poured into Mr. Kruger's exchequer by the enterprise of the Uitlanders provided him with the insurance money. Lord Loch's visit in 1894 had first brought the imminence of the risk home to Mr. Kruger. The Drifts crisis in 1895 must have enforced the warning ; yet there would have been a risk also * In answer to a question in the House of Commons, on February 12, 1900, Mr. Powell Williams said, on behalf of the Government : ' It is known to be the case that orders for armaments were placed by the Boers in Europe as early as 1894.' 94 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR in insuring too obviously. The British Government might have wanted to know the reason why, if on no colourable occasion Mr. Kruger had proceeded to make his Republic the arsenal of South Africa. The Raid furnished the excuse.* Mr. Kruger seized it, to what good purpose the armaments which have * staggered humanity ' have shown. CHAPTER XI BEFORE THE STORM : LORD MILNER's APPOINTMENT Reasons for a pause — Hope that President Kruger might introduce reforms — Possible pressure from the Dutch — Waiting on Lord Milner — General approval of his appointment— His study of local conditions — Learning the ' Taal ' — Plain-speaking at Graaff Reinet — Appeal to the Dutch — The situation at the end of 1898 — Lord Milner and Sir William Butler — Accumulating disputes with Mr. Kruger. The Raid| provided \Mr. Krugerhwith a 1 magnificent [opportunity] and also with a magnificent excuse. The opportunity was for peace ; the excuse was for conflict. Mr. Kruger, as we have shown, chose the latter. Having chosen his course, he pursued it with uncompromising thoroughness. The very fact that he might possibly take the conciliatory course extended and increased his impunity in taking the other. We have seen how in 1896 the High Commissioner reassured the Home Government with regard to the Transvaal armaments. ' In my opinion,' added Lord Ros- mead, ' our best policy is to sit still.' The High Commissioner's advice was at the time, as we have seen, sound and prudent. The mistake made by the British Government was in playing further into Mr. Kruger's hands — first by delaying their inquiry into the Raid, and then by conducting it half-heartedly. The reasons against forcing the issue in 1896 were clear. The struggle with Mr. Kruger to secure justice for the Uitlanders was sure to be severe, whether it was to lead to actual war or not. It was * Mr, Chamberlain, in March, 1896, did want to know the reason why. Lord Rosmead replied that ' the military preparations were defensive, and not offensive, Boers generally believe that the recent Raid was, if not instigated, at all events connived at, by Her Majesty's Government, and that an attack upon their inde- pendence will be renewed on the first favourable opportunity ' (C. 8063, p. 17). BEFORE THE STORM : LORD MILNE R 95 essential that the arm of Great Britain should not be paralyzed, as it was in 1 880-81, by the sense of being in the wrong. It would certainly have been wrong to ' cover up ' the trail of the Raid by an immediate insistence upon reform. All fair-minded men, all who hoped for peace, felt that after the Raid there must be a time of grace. External pressure had been discredited, and it was right to wait and see what other agencies would accomplish. One was the spontaneous action of Mr. Kruger, who had promised the Reformers that he would consider their grievances. These promises led, as we have seen, to nothing. But a second possible agency was the influence of the Afrikander Bond, and of the Government in Cape Colony which rested on the Bond. Mr. Schreiner had told the South Africa Committee to hope great things from this agency. All was to come right from *a policy of friendly hand-shake.' Indications of this sort did not, unhappily, appear ; for as late as March, 1898, Lord Milner was exhorting the Afrikanders to begin. * Their goodwill, at least,' he said, in a speech at Graaff Reinet, ' cannot be suspected across the border ; and if all they desire — and I believe it is what they desire — is to preserve the South African Republic, and to promote good rela- tions between it and the British Colonies and Government, then let them use all their influence, which is bound to be great, not in confirming the Transvaal in unjustified suspicions, not in encouraging its Government in obstinate resistance to all reform, but in inducing it gradually to assimilate its institutions, and, what is even more important than institutions, the temper and spirit of its administration, to those of the free communities of South Africa.' We were, then, waiting first for Mr. Kruger, and secondly for the Afrikander Bond. A third consideration may be added : we were waiting for the matured opinions of Lord Milner himself, a man whose level head and sound judgment were generally recognised. Sir Alfred (now Lord) Milner had been appointed, in February, 1897, to succeed Lord Rosmead as High Commissioner and Governor of Cape Colony. The confidence felt in the new High Commissioner by all sorts and conditions of politicians was shown by the attendance and the speeches at a dinner given to him before he left for South Africa (March 28, 1897). Mr. Asquith, who was 96 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR in the chair, expressed the general opinion of the company when he said that ' Sir Alfred Milner took with him as clear an intellect, as sympathetic an imagination, and, if the need should arise, a power of resolution as tenacious and inflexible as belonged to any man of their acquaintance.' The opinion of the press on his appointment was equally eulogistic, and those journals which were afterwards strongest on the other side were among the loudest in recognition of Sir Alfred Milner's eminent fitness for the post. ' The appointment,' wrote one, * is an ideal one, and the news of it is the best we have been able to chronicle in the interests oi South Africa through a weary and afflicting controversy. . . • Sir Alfred Milner may be trusted to do justice, and to do it with firmness, with tact, with good sense. His knowledge is great, his experience of affairs is great, in spite of his comparative youth, and he possesses, we think, the practical wisdom which is better than the most elaborate mental equipment. He has undertaken a most difficult task, in which, however, we are convinced that he will not fail. In many respects we doubt not that his views differ from those put forward in this journal, but that fact does not affect our conviction that he is essentially the right man in the right place. It is the duty of all sections of his countrymen to assist him when he wants assistance, and in any case to give him that warm and unstinted sympathy which his character and attainments, as well as the exceeding magnitude of his work, demand ' {Daily Chronicle^ February 15, 1897). * That Sir Alfred Milner is the best man for the post there is,' wrote another, ' no manner of doubt. ... A man with a better judgment, a leveller head, and a kinder heart, you will not find easily in a long day's march. ... Sir Alfred Milner was born, I believe, and educated as a boy in Wurtemburg, and he is therefore peculiarly qualified for dealing with the South African Question ; for it is more and more clearly becoming visible to all men that the Jameson Raid was a thrust in the dark, directed, with more energy than discretion, at the German intrigues which were aimed at ousting Great Britain from her paramount position in South Africa. To Milner German is his mother-tongue, and he has that cosmopolitan breadth of view which enables him to defend and BEFORE THE STORM : LORD MILNER 97 advance the cause of British Imperialism much more effectively than a mere John Bull bred and born. The key to South Africa lies in North Africa, and his experience in Egypt . . . gives him many advantages now that he is to be transferred to the other end of the continent, where he stands charged by his Queen and his country with seeing that the interests of Britain suffer no harm ' (Review of Reviews, March, 1897). And again in May Mr. Stead wrote : ' It will be for him (Sir Alfred Milner) to decide as to the opportune moment of action, and for no other person. The others may wind up the clock, but they will have to wait for Milner's leave before the clock can strike' {Review of Reviews, May, 1897). Such expressions of opinion did not, of course, debar the writers from thinking and saying afterwards that they had been disappointed in their man, and from criticising his policy in the strongest terms. But, in recording such differences, it might have been recognised that Lord Milner was not likely to form opinions lightly, or to approach the problems presented to him in a spirit of prejudice. On his arrival in South Africa, the new Governor set to work to learn the conditions of those problems on the spot. He took the greatest pains to study them at first hand. That he started with no preconceived views is shown by the policy of patience and conciliation which he advocated in his speeches, and by the trouble he took to come into direct contact with Dutch ideas. Among other things, he devoted himself to learning ' the taal,' the South African form of the Dutch language. This undertaking was the subject of a complimentary reference when the High Commissioner went on a visit to Bloemfontein, in 1898. 'I wish to refer,' said the chairman at a banquet, ' to the pleasure it gives me to know of His Excellency's desire to cultivate a knowledge of the language of our country. I may say this is the only means of His Excellency knowing our views, the views of the Dutch-speak- ing population of South Africa, with reference to the burning questions of the day.' How far Lord Milner's studies extended, I do not know ; but certainly far enough to enable him to read the Dutch papers in the original. Gradually Lord Milner formed definite views with regard to the 7 98 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR situation in South Africa, and he expressed them in clear terms. In March, 1898, he visited Graaff Reinet, and received there an address from the local branch of the Afrikander Bond. The Bond protested its loyalty. The High Commissioner, in reply, made a notable speech. He took the loyalty of the Bond for granted : ' Why should I not ? What reason could there be for any disloyalty ? Of course you are loyal, Under that Government you have, at least as regards the white races, perfect equality of citizenship, and these things have not been won from a reluctant Sovereign. They have been freely and gladly bestowed upon you because freedom and self-government, justice and equality, are the first principles of British policy, and they are secured to you by the strength of the Power that gave them, and whose navy protects your shores from attacks without your being asked to contribute one pound to that protection unless you yourselves desire it. Well, gentlemen, of course you are loyal. It would be monstrous if you were not.' Where, then, and why, the High Commissioner went on to inquire, does any doubt about Dutch loyalty come in ? 'If we had only domestic questions to consider, no such doubt,' he said, 'would arise.' But there was another question : * I mean the relations of Her Majesty's Government to the South African Republic, and that whenever there is any prospect of any differences between them a number of people in the Colony at once vehemently, and without even the semblance of impartiality, espouse the side of the Republic' Such espousal, the High Commissioner went on to say, was not in itself proof of disloyalty. It sprang from ties of close relationship, and from a fear that Great Britain had aggressive designs on the Transvaal : * But that assumption is the exact opposite of the truth. So far from seeking causes of quarrel, it is the constant desire of the British Government to avoid causes of quarrel, and not to take up lightly the complaints — and they are numerous — which reach it from British subjects within the Transvaal, for the very reason that it wishes to avoid even the semblance of interference in the internal afifairs of that country ; and as regards its external relations, to insist only on that minimum of control which it has always distinctly reserved, and has reserved, I may add, solely in the interests of the future tranquillity of South Africa. That is Great Britain's moderate attitude, and she cannot be frightened out of it. It is not any aggressiveness on the part of Her Majesty's Government which now keeps up the spirit of unrest in South Africa. Not at all. It is that unprogressiveness — I will not say the retrogressiveness — of the BEFORE THE STORM : LORD MILNER 99 Government of the Transvaal and its deep suspicion of the intention of Great Britain which make it devote its attention to imaginary external dangers, when every impartial observer can see perfectly well that the real dangers which threaten it are internal.' And that being so, the High Commissioner made the appeal to the Dutch which I have quoted above (p. 95), to bring their influence to bear in the direction of internal reform in the Transvaal. This was plain speaking, and from that moment Lord Milner became a marked man among the extreme section of Afrikanders.* His plain speech gave offence, also, in the eyes of all those who confuse impartiahty of temper with indefiniteness of judgment, and whose ideal of statesmanlike utterances is to say, * On the one hand, yes,' but ' on the other hand, no.' To this matter, * He fell still more into their bad books after Bloemfontein. He was polite to Mr. Kruger, but he knew too much. The Afrikander Bond afterwards organized a campaign against the High Commissioner, which was also actively taken up on this side. It had been long expected, as the following letter from Cape Town, received early in 1900, will show : ' An Afrikander friend of mine has just been in. He tells me that the main object of the Bond now is to discredit Sir Alfred Milner. The resolution to be submitted to the coming Bond Congress is only a beginning. The Cape Dutch will probably go to the extent of passing resolutions all over the country con- demning the High Commissioner's policy. In fact, every possible effort will be made to get Milner removed before the time for the settlement comes. Hofmeyr would like the settlement to be left in the hands of some military man who cannot be expected to know anything about the real politics of South Africa. If, after the resolutions have been passed at the Bond Congress, and in the various Dutch districts, condemning the High Commissioner's policy, nothing is done by the Imperial Government, then the Bond will petition specifically for the removal of Sir Alfred Milner. One of the leading members of the Bond has offered to bet my friend that Milner will be cleared out of South Africa at the end of the war ' {Daily News, June 12, 1900). The pro-Boer campaign in England, and Liberal policy (so far as it was influenced by that campaign), followed in the wake of the Afrikander Bond. In the autumn of 1901, the ' effort to get Milner removed before the time for the settlement comes' was adopted as a plank in the Liberal platform. In a speech at Plymouth on November 19, 1901, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman ' despaired ' of the future ' as long as the present High Commissioner is at Pretoria.' At a special meeting of the General Committee of the National Liberal Federation at Derby on December 4, 1901, a resolution was passed 'that the time has now arrived when negotiations should be entered upon with a view to the conclusion of an honourable and durable peace, and that for that purpose it is essential that a special Commissioner should be despatched to South Africa.' In a speech at Chesterfield on December 16, 1901, Lord Rosebery dissociated himself from this attempt ' by an indirect method to get rid of Lord Milner.' 7-2 100 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR however, we shall have to recur by-and-by. For the present, what we have to notice is that the High Commissioner's appeal produced n© tangible effect in ameliorating the condition of things in the Transvaal. The situation at this time, then — at the end of 1898 — was this : The British Government was 'sitting still,' but three years had elapsed since the Raid, and nothing had been done to remedy the state of things out of which that adventure had grown. President Kruger, on his side, had made no serious attempt to meet the political grievances of the Uitlanders ; the industrial grievances also remained unredressed ; and questions of disagreement between the two Governmients were multiplying. The Chamber of Mines was protesting against the new gold tax. (A report of the protest was received by the Colonial Office on December 19.) On the same day the Colonial Office received news through the British Agent at Pretoria that Johannesburg was greatly irritated by a concession for a drainage-scheme granted by the Government to one of the proprietors of the Government organ, the Standard and Diggers' News (C. 9345, p. 76). Mr. Chamberlain was at the same time (December 15) continuing his protests against the Transvaal's breach of the Convention in the matter of foreign treaties. Another question was of additional interest as revealing a serious antagonism in matters of policy between the High Com- missioner and Sir William Butler, the Commander-in-Chief. Lord Milner was absent from Africa on leave from November, 1898, to February, 1899. In the absence of the High Commissioner, the Commander-in-Chief becomes, ex-officio, his locum tenens. Among the questions in dispute between the Transvaal and the British Government was the maltreatment of coloured British subjects (C. 9345, pp- 82-104). This was not a new grievance. It had formed the subject of a special arrangement with the Transvaal Government in 1897. In November, 1898, during Lord Milner's holiday, fresh outrages occurred. The British Agent at Pretoria took a very serious view of them, and the Transvaal Government itself promised redress, and ' expressed strong disapproval of the action of the Field Cornet respecting Cape Boys.' A Commission was appointed, and its proceedings were published. The decision of the Transvaal Government thereon was in suspense, and in BEFORE THE STORM : LORD MILNER loi these critical circumstances Sir William Butler penned the follow- ing despatch to the Secretary of State : ' A perusal of the newspaper reports of the sittings of the Commission of Inquiry leaves the general impression on the reader's mind that a considerable amount of rough usage was experienced by certain coloured persons at the hands of the police in Johannesburg during night raids which took place in the month of October last, but it still remains matter for doubt how far the necessities of order and police regulation in a place such as Johannesburg, where so many people of suspicious character and doubtful antecedents are liable to come together, may call for exceptional vigilance and supervision by those who are responsible for the preservation of order. * It is not improbable that the action taken by the Field Cornet in relation to a more rigorous application to certain persons of the provisions of the law governing passes and badges among natives may have been influenced by considerations such as those suggested by Mr. Fraser, but in my opinion it would be quite as much within the region of probability to suppose that the attitude of the officials of the South African League in Johannesburg, in i elation to police and other authority there, was responsible for much of the tone and temper adopted by the Field Cornet and his officials towards the Cape Boys and other strangers in the city. Be that as it may, I am convinced by the knowledge of facts which it is impossible to ignore that it is necessary to receive with caution, and even with a large measure of suspicion, statements emanating from the officers of this organization. ' I have, etc., 'W. F. Butler, ' Lieutenant-General, 'Administrator and Acting High Commissioner.' The date of this despatch was January 1 1. Whether its contents were officially or unofficially allowed to leak out, whether Sir William Butler made any secret or not of his attitude, I cannot say. But it should be observed that, at the time of writing his despatch, he was more Krugerite than Mr. Kruger. Mr. Kruger had ex- pressed strong disapproval of the action of the police. General Butler palliated it. A fortnight later, Mr. Kruger came round to General Butler's view, and reinstated the Field Cornet, who had previously been suspended on the representation of the British Agent. Shortly afterwards Lord Milner returned to his post. His feelings on discovering how, in his absence, the Acting High Com- missioner had sought to undermine and counteract the efforts being made by the High Commissioner and the British Agent to obtain redress for the ill-treatment of British subjects may be better 102 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR imagined than described.'" The High Commissioner, in subse* quently reviewing the transaction, protested strongly against the Field Cornet's reinstatement. The treatment of these coloured subjects of the Queen had been the subject of remonstrance for some years. ' It is impossible,' he said, ' that a persecution so systematic and persistent as that directed against these coloured people could take place if the Government were firmly resolved that it should cease.' The Transvaal Government, it was clear, had no such resolve ; its policy in all directions was, as we described in Chapter IX., one of exasperating all existing sores. The inci- dents referred to here were not of first-rate importance, but they show the general drift and tendency of events. In December, 1898, three years had elapsed since the Raid. The South African situation was the same then as it was in 1895 before the Raid, and in 1894 when Lord Loch visited Pretoria: the political atmosphere was charged with electricity ; any spark might cause an explosion. CHAPTER XII THE STORM BURSTS : THE EDGAR CASE The shooting of Edgar — Agitation at Johannesburg — Petitions to the Queen — Importance of the appeal — Mr. Kruger's secret negotiations with the capitalists — Attempt to secure their approval of the dynamite monopoly — A nine-years franchise scheme — Mr. Kruger's Toryism — Hollowness of the scheme — Rejected by the Uitlanders — Rupture of the negotiations with the capitalists. The spark that caused the explosion was the shooting of Edgar. Edgar was a British artisan employed in Johannesburg. There had been a street brawl in which he was engaged. The police without a warrant broke into Edgar's house. There was a scuffle, and a policeman shot Edgar dead. He was liberated on small bail. His trial was very unsatisfactory according to English * It may reasonably be conjectured that the one despatch printed in the Blue- Book did not stand alone. But, even if it did, it was sufficiently obvious that either the High Commissioner or the Acting High Commissioner would sooner or later have to be recalled. General Butler was recalled in August, 1899, and succeeded by Sir F. W. Forestier- Walker. On his return General Butler was appointed to the command of the Western District. THE STORM BURSTS: THE EDGAR CASE 103 notions of justice. The judge charged for an acquittal ; the jury found it, and the judge in conclusion hoped the police would in like cases always do their duty. All this was unpleasant, but it would be a mistake to make very much of the Edgar case.* It was the kind of blunder that might occur anywhere, and by itself it was not enough to cause or justify any violent outcry. But it was not an isolated incident : it was symptomatic of many deep- seated grievances, and it served to introduce a new era in the history of South Africa. The conduct of the police was one of the grievances which most rankled in the hearts of the Uitlanders. The police were incompetent to deal with gross scandals like the illicit liquor trade, and harsh and arbitrary in dealing with individual cases. It now appeared that the armed police were to be free to shoot unarmed Uitlanders at sight if any resistance were offered. Again, confidence in the administration of the law had been shaken by the President's dealing with the High Court. In this case it was certainly not restored. At the shooting of Edgar the smouldering discontent in Johannesburg burst once more into flame. Committees were formed and indignation meetings were held. At one of these a very strongly-worded petition to the Queen was adopted. The Acting British Agentt declined to accept it, on the ground that its terms had been previously communi- cated to the press. Another meeting, called with the knowledge and consent of the Government, was broken up at the instigation of the authorities.! This was on January 14, 1899. Two months later (March 24) a new petition to the Queen, signed by 21,684 British subjects at Pretoria, was presented to the British Agent. It was accepted by him and forwarded to the High Commissioner, who on March 28 posted it to the Secretary of State. In doing so, Lord Milner vouched for its general good faith, and in a later despatch warmly supported its plea. It was received at the Colonial Office on April 14. Upon the treatment of it by Her Majesty's Government great issues were to depend. * Full particulars will be found in the Blue-Book of 1899, C. 9345. Lord Milner's opinion of the case is given at p. 210 ; Mr. Chamberlain's at p. 229. t Mr. E. Fraser. Sir William Conyngham Greene was at the time away on leave. X The affidavits justifying this statement are given in C. 9345, No. 54. 104 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR The importance of the petition was well understood at Pretoria, where interesting events were taking place. We may leave the petition in the post while we follow the course of these proceed- ings. They will introduce us to one of the questions which was to play a prominent part in the negotiations immediately preceding the war. They will also show us some of the factors which Her Majesty's Government had to take into account in considering the petition. In the early months of 1899 President Kruger made an ingenious attempt to give ' Master Joe a fall,' as Mr. Labouchere would call it, or, as we may prefer to say, to corner the British Government and reduce the Imperial factor in South Africa to impotence. The scheme was as bold as it was ingenious and comprehensive. Mr. Kruger was being hard pressed at the time over his favourite Dynamite Concession, which was falling in for renewal. The Volksraad had no reason to be equally enamoured of it. Mr. Chamberlain had sent a despatch declaring it to be a violation of the Convention (January 13, 1899).* The capitalists had offered to provide the Government on favourable terms with the money necessary for cancellation. That was the dynamite situation. The local political situation was, as we have seen, one of considerable tension, and the petition to the Queen threatened further complication. Apart from this, discussions with the Imperial Government were becoming more and more acrimonious. In this situation Mr. Kruger and those about him bethought themselves of a scheme which, if it were to succeed, would at one and the same time save the Dynamite Concession, silence the political Uitlanders, and leave the Imperial Govern- ment in the lurch, and yet in no way really touch the existing regime at Pretoria. Divide et i7npera was the maxim on which the scheme turned. The idea was to divide the capitalists from the bulk of the Uitlander population. The capitalists were to be promised some concessions, in return for which they were {a) to tolerate the dynamite scandal, and {b) to damp down the political agitation. This latter course was to be made possible by the promise of some political concessions — concessions which would * See the 'Correspondence relating to the Explosives Monopoly in the South African Republic' (Blue-Book, C. 9317). THE STORM BURSTS: THE EDGAR CASE 105 look as if they gave something, but which really would have given nothing. If the scheme had come off, Mr. Kruger's victory for the moment would have been complete. The Imperial Government would have protested against the dynamite monopoly, only to find that the persons immediately concerned had in the meanwhile approved it. The Imperial Government might take up the petition to the Queen, only to find that the petitioners were either divided among themselves or were satisfied for the time. It was a very clever scheme. If two favourite theories of the pro-Boers had been true, it might have succeeded, namely, that the agitation at Johannesburg was all 'a put-up job' of the capitalists, and that the capitalists cared for nothing except their immediate pecuniary interests. If these things had been so. President Kruger's scheme would have gone through. But these things were not true. The capitalists declined to accept any settlement on the political side unless the people of Johannesburg approved of it. And the people of Johannesburg did not approve of it, because the settle- ment offered by Mr. Kruger was a palpable sham. He could not bring himself — he probably had no intention — to make any real concession at all. That was why this local attempt to patch up a settlement came to grief. The same reason explains, as I think we shall find, why the subsequent negotiations with the Imperial Government also proved abortive. The negotiations with the capitalists Mr. Kruger desired to keep secret. When they were disclosed, and his failure to separate the capitalists from the rest of the Uitlanders was made patent, he tried, not very successfully, to repudiate all direct responsibility for them. The capitalists were prepared to saddle themselves with a continuance of the dynamite scandal — on somewhat modified terms — as the price of a settlement satisfactory in other respects ; but they insisted that the political proposals must be agreeable to the general body of the Uitlanders.* Mr. Kruger's promises in the political sphere were public. They were made in a series of speeches. The principal speech was delightfully characteristic of the man. It was racy. It was plausible. But it was the speech * Documents in which the whole story may be traced in detail will be found in C 9345, section vi. See also FitzPatrick, chap. xi. io6 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR of a hopeless Tory. Lord Salisbury is so far an opportunist that his Toryism only occasionally outcrops, as they say on the Rand. Mr. Kruger's solid reef of Toryism never disappears beneath the surface — not even when he is promising reforms. There had been petitions for redress of grievances. ' If people said they were oppressed or had grievances, it meant,' said President Kruger, * that they wished to get away from this Government.' That is the Tory philosophy of politics. No one has any reason to have a grievance. If he has, it shows that he is a bad man and the dupe of wicked agitators. There had been talk about taxation without representation. President Kruger's was the good old Tory creed that the only thing people have to do with taxes is to pay them. ' They must go to their homes,' he said, ' and do their work, and he would do everything'Tor them.' It had been complained that the Transvaal was a close oligarchy, and that the original squatters enjoyed a monopoly of political power, to the exclusion of all other inhabitants. Why not ? replies the President. ' He would not be worthy to be head of the State if he did not guard the burghers ' — against the inrush of democracy. ' He made no distinctions of nationalities — only between loyal and disloyal people ' (Speech at Johannesburg, April i, 1899). The disloyal people, no doubt, were those who were deprived of burgher rights, and who presumed to agitate for them. As for the substance of the reform promised by Mr. Kruger, it consisted merely in reducing the term of nationalization from fourteen years to nine. This, as I pointed out at the time, was a mockery. For (i) in the first place, even if other points had been satisfactory, nine years was still an unreasonably long term. But other points were not satisfactory. (2) The operation of the con- cession, such as it was, was not to be retrospective. It would still be impossible for a man not hitherto naturalized to attain full citizenship in less than nine years from the date of the new law, even though he might already have been resident for fifteen years in the country. (3) After, as before the new law, a man could only be naturalized — i.e., admitted to the period of probation, in which he had lost one citizenship without attaining another — by an oath, in which he not only swore fealty to the South African RepubHc, but renounced, with offensive emphasis, his existing THE STORM BURSTS: THE EDGAR CASE 107 allegiance. It is quite true, as Mr. Kruger said, that there could be 'no bigamy.' A man, if he determined to wed himself to the Transvaal, must divorce himself from Great Britain. For a cer- tainty of an effective franchise in the Transvaal he might be ready to renounce his old allegiance ; but, in fact, it was not a right to the franchise at all that Mr. Kruger offered him, but only a prospect. And, in the next place (4), the prospect was not very promising; for his admission to full citizenship, even after his renunciation and the nine years following it, was still to be de- pendent upon the consent of two-thirds of the burghers of his district, and also upon the approval of the Government. The caprice of the Executive might, after all, deprive him of his vote. The consent of two-thirds of the burghers would be difficult to obtain. Nor is that all ; for (5) a simple resolution of the First Raad, passed at twenty-four hours' notice, might still at any time upset the proposed arrangement. What value could be attached to a promise in 1899 to admit a man to the franchise in 1908, when at any time during the intervening nine years the law might be altered ? Besides (6), Mr. Kruger's promise included at this time no mention of any redistribution. Therefore, even if all the Uitlanders in Johannesburg had been naturalized, and had out- numbered the old burghers in the whole of the Transvaal, they would still only return one member in a Raad of twenty-eight. The so-called reforms amounted, it will, then, be seen under examination, to nothing at all. It was not retrospective. It was surrounded by barbed-wire impediments. It was accompanied by no redistribution. The representatives of the Uitlanders to whom the capitalists submitted the scheme rejected it as entirely valueless. A deputa- tion of working men which waited on the British Agent expressed the same opinion. President Kruger's scheme, therefore, came to nothing. The next move still rested with Her Majesty's Government, to whom the Uitlanders had appealed. PART III NEGOTIATIONS AND ULTIMATUM: March— October, 1899 CHAPTER XIII THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN Prayer of the petition — Its bona fides — Status of the petitioners — Support of the petition in Cape Colony and Natal — Lord Milner endorses the petition — Criticisms of his ' helots ' despatch considered — Three courses open to the Home Government — Objections to pigeon-holing the petition or taking it up half-heartedly — Decision of the Government to take it up resolutely — British despatch of May 10 — Bloemfontein Conference arranged. The petition to the Queen reached the Colonial Office on April 14. It recited the course of affairs since 1895, enumerating the various grievances which have been noticed in previous chapters,* and concluded with the following paragraphs : * The condition of Your Majesty's subjects in this State has indeed become well-nigh intolerable. ' The acknowledged and admitted grievances of which Your Majesty's subjects complain, prior to 1 895, not only are not redressed, but exist to-day in an aggravated form. They are still deprived of all political rights, they are denied any voice in the government of the country, they are taxed far above the requirements of the country, the revenue of which is misapplied and devoted to objects which keep alive a continuous and well-founded feeling of irritation, without in any way advancing the general interest of the State. Maladminis- tration and peculation of public moneys go hand-in-hand, without any vigorous measures being adopted to put a stop to the scandal. The education of Uitlander children is made subject to impossible conditions. The police afford no adequate protection to the lives and property of the inhabitants of Johannes- burg ; they are rather a source of danger lo the peace and safety of the Uitlander population. * The text of the petition will be found at pp. 185-189 of C. 9345. THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN IC9 ' A further grievance has become prominent since the beginning of the year. The power vested in the Government by means of the Public Meetings Act has been a menace to Your Majesty's subjects since the enactment of the Act in 1894. This power has now been applied in order to deliver a blow that strikes at the inherent and inalienable birthright of every British subject, namely, his right to petition his Sovereign. Straining to the utmost the language and intention of the law, the Government have arrested two British subjects who assisted in presenting a petition to Your Majesty on behalf of four thousand fellow-subjects. Not content with this, the Government, when Your Majesty's loyal subjects again attempted to lay their grievances before Your Majesty, permitted their meeting to be broken up, and the objects of it to be defeated, by a body of Boers, organized by Government officials and acting under the protection of the police. By reason, therefore, of the direct, as well as the indirect, act of the Government, Your Majesty's loyal subjects have been prevented from publicly ventilating their grievances, and from laying them before Your Majesty. ' Wherefore Your Majesty's humble petitioners humbly beseech Your Most Gracious Majesty to extend Your Majesty's protection to Your Majesty's loyal subjects resident in this State, and to cause an inquiry to be made into grievances and complaints enumerated and set forth in this humble petition, and to direct Your Majesty's representative in South Africa to take measures which will insure the speedy reform of the abuses complained of, and to obtain substantial guarantees from the Government of this State for a recogni- tion of their rights as British subjects.' The reception of this petition by Her Majesty's Government was a landmark in the history of the South African question. Who, then, were the petitioners ? Was it a bona-fide petition ? Were the promoters of it responsible men entitled to consideration? There is no doubt whatever that both these questions must be answered in the affirmative. Some holes were picked in the signatures in the petition, and a counter-petition was organized. But it was clearly established by affidavits published in the Blue- Books that the original petition was the bona-fide expression of opinion on the part of persons whose signatures were properly secured.* It was promoted by the Johannesburg branch of the South African League. Who were the men composing it ? Here is the report of the British Agent at Pretoria on this point : • Generally speaking, the president and members of the committee may be described as belonging to a highly-educated professional class, and, as it happens, perhaps not unnaturally here, they are almost all professional mining * See C. 9518, pp. 32, 34, 48, 59 ; also C, 9514, p. 60. no RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR engineers, some of them in the employment of the largest financial houses, and all of them in receipt of salaries of from ;i^2,ooo to ;i^6oo a year. The president himself (Mr. Wybergh) last week was compelled to sever his connection with one of the most influential and richest corporations on account of what the latter stated to be its duty to its shareholders not to mix itself up in Transvaal politics. He is establishing himself now as a consulting-engineer, as his professional merits are recognised even by those who condemn his political views, and recently by the Government organ itself. All the other leaders are, without doubt, in different degrees, most honourable members of the professions to which they belong. . . . They are not, as has been alleged, men in the political service of capitalists ; indeed, they have no large funds at their disposal, the highest subscription being one of ;!^50, and that from England, as announced at a recent meeting. Nor are they poor men with nothing to lose, but rather, as they have openly announced, fathers of families of the pro- fessional class, who desire to see the progress here which would hereafter render the Transvaal a fit field for the occupation of their sons ' (C. 934Sj PP- 135. 136). The High Commissioner's testimony with regard to the back- bone of this new reform movement in Johannesburg was to like effect : * As you are well aware, it is a favourite device of the Government organs in the South African Republic, and of the apologists of the Government else- where, to attribute the Reform movement, which is once more assuming such formidable proportions, to the intrigues of capitalists. . . . Some of them, whose only desire is to get out of the country as soon as possible, are in favour of peace and quiet on any terms, simply because they reckon on making money faster, and therefore getting away faster, than they could do in a time of political unrest. But those who from necessity or from choice foresee a longer sojourn or permanent residence in the country are less tolerant of a mis- government that may affect them and their children for long years. These are the men — and they number many thousands — who of all the Uitlanders would probably make the best citizens of the State, yet whose admission to citizenship is at present subject to conditions which render it difficult and almost impossible ' (C. 9345. P- 207). The secretary of the League was the late Major T. R. Dodd : ' Born agitator he was ; but. Radical and democrat to the core, he was just the man to be found on the labour side if and when, in the new Transvaal, Capital versus I^abour becomes a real and not a bogus issue. Dodd came from working men's politics on Tyneside to working men's politics at Johannesburg in 1895, or thereabouts. He was a mechanical engineer by profession, an enthusiast by nature, a lay-preacher and stump-orator by habit. Dodd had a passion of ambition — the right, clean, frank kind. Calling on a friend who THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN in had settled in South Africa about the same time as himself, and entered the Cape Parliament, he exclaimed, after listening to his friend's plans of public work : " How long will it be before we can do this sort of thing in the Trans- vaal ? Public work is the only life worth living !" Chafing at inaction during the war, he was largely instrumental in getting a lot of Outlanders, who were no riders, and were stranded in Cape Town, formed into a new battalion of the Railway Pioneer Corps a few months ago, of which he became Major, and so went to the front. Only a few weeks ago I had a letter from him, full of a civilian's new martial ardour, and smiling at himself for it, in which he says : *' Our chaps are very good : the flower of the Rand workmen ' playing the game.' It will give us a good start both with volunteer organization and with politics." "The flower of the Rand workmen " were always the central idea in Dodd's political dreams for the Transvaal ' (F. E. Garrett in the Westminster Gazette^ March 12, 1901). Major Dodd afterwards died from enteric while on active service with his battalion near Johannesburg. * The silent eloquence of the hospital tent answers all arguments and silences all sneers. It is the best of perorations.' It may be added that the Uitlanders generally have done yeoman's service in the Transvaal War, and proved that they were quite willing to shed their blood for the cause. Thousands joined the irregular troops, and such forces as the Imperial Light Horse were largely made up of the Uit- landers who had been the backbone of the Reform movement in Johannesburg before the war. Among them special mention should be made of Colonel Wools Sampson and Major Karri Davies, the Reformers of 1896, whom Mr. Kruger kept in prison for months because they would not promise to abstain from sub- sequent agitation. Colonel Sampson won special distinction in the later stages of the war as Chief Intelligence Officer attached to General Bruce Hamilton's command. It is to be hoped that the Imperial Light Horse will find some competent chronicler. The record of its doings would form one of the most striking chapters in any history of the war, nor can any regiment include more men of marked and interesting character. The petitioners were not, then, capitalist tools, nor were they the riffraff of a mining-camp.* They were potential citizens of * It is often claimed, I believe with perfect justice, that the population of Johannesburg was unusually law-abiding and well-behaved considering the nature of the employment of the majority of its inhabitants (' Impressions of South Africa,' p. 384). Olive Schreiner regards this as a proof of the extraordinary political 112 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR character and position. They were British subjects, who had settled in the Transvaal under a Convention granted by the British Government. Denied redress of grievances by the Trans- vaal Government, they appealed to the Queen. Their appeal met with widespread sympathy throughout British South Africa, and the petition may thus be said to have carried with it far more than the names actually appended. Working men's meetings were held at the mines supporting the petition (C. 9345, pp. 203, 204, 209). In Natal, a town's meet- ing was held at Pietermaritzburg * to express its strong sympathy with British subjects in the South African Republic in the grave difficulties and dangers under which they are suffering,' to 'support the demands by British subjects in the Transvaal for a recognition of their rights, the refusal of which is a menace to the peace of South Africa, and respectfully petitions Her Majesty's Government to intervene to remove this cause of South African unrest ' (/^/^., P- 135)- In Cape Town and the other leading cities in Cape Colony resolutions were afterwards passed at public meetings endorsing the Uitlanders' petition (C. 9415, p. 26 ef se^.). Another petition to the Queen, endorsing the one from the Transvaal, was circu- lated in Natal, and received over 6,000 signatures. An identical petition was signed by 38,500 British subjects in Cape Colony and 2,000 in Rhodesia (C. 9415, p. 47, C. 9518, p. 15). Sym- pathy with the Uitlanders extended also to the other colonies (see Chapter XXXIII.). It will thus be seen that the Uitlanders' petition did not merely represent the views of the signatories in the country. Rather was it the expression of the views of the British colonists throughout South Africa. What action should the Queen's Government have taken thereon ? Lord Milner, the High Commissioner, did not leave adaptability of the Boers ('Words in Season,' p. 62). A more scientific and less sentimental reason seems to be that the Witwatersrand gold-reefs are of a peculiar kind. Their yield and extent can be calculated with astonishing accuracy, and so gold-seeking on the Rand early became an affair of finance and settled industry, and not of adventure ('The Inevitable in South Africa,' Contetnporaiy Review, October, 1899). The real riffraff of Johannesburg was the intensely anti-British Rand proletariat belonging to various European nationalities (see Lord Milner's despatch, Cd. 547, p. 55). THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN ii3 the Government in any doubt about his advice. On May 4 he sent home a long telegraphic despatch, in which he reviewed the whole situation (C. 9345, p. 211). After referring to the Edgar matter and other recent incidents, and stigmatizing as ' a wilful perversion of the truth ' the attempt to represent the agitation as the work of scheming capitalists or professional agitators, he went on to press the petition upon the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government. This part of the despatch is so important that we must have it textually before us : * A busy industrial community is not naturally prone to political unrest. But they bear the chief burden of taxation ; they constantly feel in their business and daily lives the effects of chaotic local legislation and of incompe- tent and unsympathetic administration ; they have many grievances, but they believe all this could be gradually removed if they had only a fair share of political power. This is the meaning of their vehement demand for enfran- chisement. Moreover, they are mostly British subjects, accustomed to a free system and equal rights ; they feel deeply the personal indignity involved in a position of permanent subjection to the ruling caste, which owes its wealth and power to their exertion. The political turmoil in the Transvaal Republic will never end till the permanent Uitlander population is admitted to a share in the Government, and while that turmoil lasts there will be no tranquillity or adequate progress in Her Majesty's South African dominions. 'The relations between the British Colonies and the two Republics are intimate to a degree which one must live in South Africa in order fully to realize. Socially, economically, ethnologically, they are all one country, the two principal white races are everywhere inextricably mixed up ; it is absurd for either to dream of subjugating the other. The only condition on which they can live in harmony, and the country progress, is equality all round. South Africa can prosper under two, three, or six Governments, but not under two absolutely conflicting social and political systems, perfect equality for Dutch and British in the British Colonies side by side with permanent subjec- tion of British to Dutch in one of the Republics. It is idle to talk of peace and unity under such a state of affairs. ' It is this which makes the internal condition of the Transvaal Republic a matter of vital interest to Her Majesty's Government. No merely local question affects so deeply the welfare and peace of her own South African possessions. And the right of Great Britain to intervene to secure fair treat- ment of the Uitlanders is fully equal to her supreme interest in securing it. The majority of them are her subjects, whom she is bound to protect. But the enormous number of British subjects, the endless series of their grievances, and the nature of those grievances, which are not less serious because they are not individually sensational, makes protection by the ordinary diplomatic means impossible. We are, as you know, for ever remonstrating about this, 8 114 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR that, and the other injury to British subjects. Only in rare cases, and only when we are very emphatic, do we obtain any redress. The sore between us and the Transvaal Republic is thus inevitably kept up, while the result, in the way of protection to our subjects, is lamentably small. For these reasons it has been, as you know, my constant endeavour to reduce the number of our complaints. I may sometimes have abstained when I ought to have protested from my great dislike of ineffectual nagging. But I feel that the attempt to remedy the hundred and one wrongs, springing from a hopeless system, by taking up isolated cases, is perfectly vain. It may easily lead to war, but will never lead to real improvement. * The true remedy is to strike at the root of all these injuries — the political impotence of the injured. What diplomatic protests will never accomplish, a fair measure of Uitlander representation would gradually, but surely, bring about. It seems a paradox, but it is true that the only effective way of protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our subjects. The admission of Uitlanders to a fair share of political power would, no doubt, give stability to the Republic. But it would, at the same time, remove most of our causes of difference with it, and modify, and in the long-run entirely remove, that intense suspicion and bitter hostility to Great Britain which at present dominates its internal and external policy. ' The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted answer is that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in fact, the policy of leaving things alone has been tried for years, and it has led to their going from bad to worse. It is not true that this is owing to the Raid. They were going from bad to worse before the Raid. We were on the verge of war before the Raid, and the Transvaal was on the verge of revolution. The effect of the Raid has been to give the policy of leaving things alone a new lease of life, and with the old consequences. 'The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in the position of helots,* constantly chafing under undoubted grievances, and calling vainly to Her Majesty's Government for redress, does steadily undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain and the respect for the British Government within the Queen's dominions. A certain section of the press, not in the Transvaal only, preaches openly and constantly the doctrine of a republic embracing all South Africa, and supports it by menacing references to the armaments of the Transvaal, its alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which in case of war it would receive from a section of Her Majesty's subjects. I regret to say that this doctrine, supported as it is by a ceaseless stream of malignant lies about the intentions of the British Government, is producing a great effect upon a large number of our Dutch * Lord Milner was much criticised for the use of the word ' helots.' It was not original in this connection. At the meeting of the Transvaal National Union on July i6, 1894, Mr. J. W. Leonard, Q.C, had said: ' We protest lastly, as children of a proud race and of proud fathers, against being made pariahs and helots ' (C. 8159, p. 49). THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN 115 fellow-colonists. Language is frequently used which seems to imply that the Dutch have some superior right even in this Colony to their fellow-citizens of British birth. Thousands of men peaceably disposed, and, if left alone, perfectly satisfied with their position as British subjects, are being drawn into disaffection, and there is a corresponding exasperation on the side of the British. ' I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous propaganda but some striking proof of the intention of Her Majesty's Government not to be ousted from its position in South Africa. And the best proof alike of its power and its justice would be to obtain for the Uitlanders in the Transvaal a fair share in the government of the country which owes everything to their exertions. It could be made perfectly clear that our action was not directed against the existence of the Republic. We should only be demanding the re- establishment of rights which now exist in the Orange Free State, and which existed in the Transvaal itself at the time of, and long after, the withdrawal of British sovereignty. It would be no selfish demand, as other Uitlanders besides those of British birth would benefit by it. It is asking for nothing from others which we do not give ourselves. And it would certainly go to the root of the political unrest in South Africa, and though temporarily it might aggravate, it would ultimately extinguish the race feud which is the great bane of the country.' The tone of this despatch, which was pubh'shed by Mr. Chamberlain on June 14, was subjected to a good deal of hostile criticism. Part of the criticism was founded on misrepresenta- tion or misunderstanding. ' I can see nothing,' the High Com- missioner had said, ' which will put a stop to this mischievous propaganda but some striking proof of the intention of Her Majesty's Government not to be ousted from its position in South Africa.' * What have we here ?' ask the commentators ; * striking ! ahj you see, the High Commissioner wanted to strike ; he wanted instant war.' But in the very next sentences of the despatch he proceeded to explain what he meant. 'The best proof . . . would be to obtain for the Uitlanders in the Transvaal a fair share in the government of the country which owes everything to their exertions.' This despatch was telegraphed, as its opening words show, in view of the ' likelihood of early reply by Her Majesty's Government to petition.' It was written, that is to say, in order to let the Government know what the High Commissioner thought should be done with the petition."^ * The policy of publishing the despatch at the particular moment selected is another matter, and one for which Mr. Chamberlain only was responsible. 8—2 ii6 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR It might be taken up by the Government, or it might be shelved. The High Commissioner thought strongly, and said strongly, that it ought to be taken up. 'Oh,' but it was said, ' Milner has lost his head. His despatch is so strong — so passionate even. This is not at all what we expected of him. We thought he was so cool, so impartial, so patient.' And so indeed he is. The High Commissioner is eminently cool, in the sense that it takes a great deal to heat him ; and impartial, in the sense that he starts with no prepossessions, and forms no opinion until he has carefully weighed all sides ; and patient also, in the sense — as every reader of his work on Egypt must be aware — that he sees that short-cuts are sometimes the longest way home. These characteristics of the High Commissioner ought to give the greater weight to what he says when he lets himself go. They should not, as some of his critics seemed to suppose, incapacitate him for letting himself go at all. ' He speaks straight out, and all on one side ; therefore,' say they, ' he must have lost his head.' What a curious idea these critics must have of the real meaning of sound judgment and impartial temper ! The virtue of these qualities consists in the ability with which evidence is weighed, not in inability to form a clear judgment on the evidence. True statesmanship consists in clearness of vision, not in the futile art of adding for ever ' yet on the other hand ' to 'while on the one hand.'* What made Lord Milner's decisive judgment so weighty was the amount of evidence on which it had been formed, and the careful temper in which that evidence had been weighed. What, then, was the policy of the Government to be ? We have seen what Lord Milner's advice was. But with the Govern- ment lay the responsibility for decision. The usual three courses were before them. The petition might have been pigeon-holed. It might have been received in a half-hearted way. It might be received and a strenuous effort made to obtain justice for the * Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman objected that Lord Milner did not adopt this impartial attitude during the war, ' The representative of the Crown ought,' he said, 'to be a man who does not favour either the anti-Dutch or the anti-British faction' (Speech at Dunfermline, December lo, 1901). This seems a curious rule of conduct to lay down for the representative of the Crown, in face of war and rebellion against his Sovereign. THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN 117 petitioners. There were dangers in all courses. The first was the easiest. It was the course which some politicians advocated. There were two dangers in the other courses which the politicians to whom I refer thought conclusive. One was that intervention to secure justice for the Uitlanders would probably be unacceptable to the Dutch in Cape Colony. It was very unfortunate, we must all admit, that the Dutch party, then in office at the Cape, was not behind the Imperial Government. We must all agree that the ideal solution of the crisis would have been one in which the Dutch at the Cape should secure for the British in the Transvaal those same rights and liberties, that same equality, which the Dutch themselves enjoy in the British Colonies. But, unhappily, the ideal was not attained. The Uitlanders at last appealed to the Queen. What at this stage ought Her Majesty's advisers to have done? Were they to have replied to the petitioners, 'I must not help you, because the Dutch in Cape Colony would not approve of my interfering with the Dutch in the Transvaal '? The British in Cape Colony, the Colony of Natal, the majority in the Transvaal itself, were all on the other side ; were the Dutch majority at the Cape to be given the deciding voice, and to rule the Imperial factor out of South Africa altogether? Such a policy would not have been consistent, it seems to me, either with the interests or the duty of the British Empire at large, or with the maintenance of British influence in South Africa. The second danger was war. It was a terrible risk, but it was one which an Empire such as ours has sometimes to face."*^ But might there not have been a middle course — pressure up * Some remarks made by Lord Kimberley in 1881 may be recalled in this con- nection. They occur in a letter to the first Lord Selborne, published in his •Memoirs': ' I entirely agree with you that we ought to maintain a firm attitude ; but there is a disposition in so many members of our party to imagine that an Empire can be, and ought to be, maintained without ever resorting to force, that I foresee difficulties when it comes to the real pinch. We have, as you justly say, to consider our position, not only in South Africa, but all over the world. South Africa itself is viewed with far too much indifference by many of our politicians. Everyone who has considered the question knows that the route to India by the Suez Canal and Egypt cannot be relied upon in case of a great war. The Cape route will then be of enormous importance to us, and it is an entire delusion to imagine that we could hold Cape Town, abandoning the rest. If we allow our supremacy in South Africa to be taken from us, we shall be ousted before long from that country altogether.' ii8 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR to ultimatum point and no further ? This course also found some supporters. Their answer to the Uitlanders' petition would have been substantially this : ' Your grievances are just, and the situa- tion in the Transvaal is a standing menace to the peace of South Africa. But we dare not redress the grievances or deal resolutely with that menace. Mr. Kruger might prefer to fight us. We will make representations, if you Hke ; but if Mr. Kruger stands firm we shall have to give way. It is better, therefore, to trust to time and to the chapter of accidents.' The war, which has come about from the adoption of a different policy, is a great evil. But can it be said that peace on the terms stated above would not have been an evil at least equally great ? Time, it must be remembered, was not on our side. It would have been if natural forces in South Africa had free play. But they had not. In the States where the Dutch were in a numerical majority, self-government was at work. In the Transvaal, where the British were in a majority, it was not. Under the existing order, the Boers would have become more and more a dominant fighting caste.* In this condition of things, the middle course of taking up the Uitlanders' petition, and then, if faced by resistance from the Boers, of drop- ping it, would, perhaps, have been the worst of the three. To have done nothing would conceivably have done no irreparable injury to our position, for it might still be thought that 'a time would come.' To have done something and then drawn back would have been to proclaim our recognition of the Transvaal as de facto the paramount Power in South Africa. We should have * ' There were authorities of great weight, for whom he personally felt the greatest respect, who contended that, grave and intolerable as the situation had become, the time for intervention was not yet ripe. He himself was unable to take that view. It was true President Kruger was an old man, and it seemed to him (Mr. Asquith) that whatever might have been the case some years ago, his personality had ceased to be the main obstacle to reform. There had grown up a network of vested interests, including an ambitious and intelligent official caste imported from abroad, whose power and privileges were bound up with the main- tenance of the existing system. The almost ostentatious impotence of the British majority had begun to react in an unfavourable way on the racial relations through- out the whole of South Africa. It was all-important in that part of the world that the two white races upon which the future of South Africa depended should live on peaceful and friendly terms. That was a state of things which could only be per- manently brought about by the giving and receiving of equal rights and by reciprocal self-respect' {Mr. Asquith's speech at Ashington, November 25, 1899). THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN 119 admitted our obligation to obtain justice for British subjects in that State, but have proved our inabiHty or unwiHingness to fulfil it. The issue raised by the petition was, as we have seen, a South African one, and it was raised in the sight and hearing of the whole Empire. If the Queen's Government had failed to support the Uitlanders' petition, the colonies elsewhere, who were closely watching the course of events, could only have concluded one of two things : either the Mother Country did not obtain redress because she could not, or because she would not. The first alternative would send a thrill of horror and dread through the outermost nerves of the Empire. * Every colony would feel that its security had received a swinging blow. The other possibility would be that she could help, but wouldn't. In that case she would not be the Mother we had fondly imagined her. But now that England has spoken, the very self-interest of the colonies, not to speak of their loyalty, impels them to support her, for they know that disaster and failure in South Africa would change the very face of the British Empire. The Transvaal Question is not alone a South African question, but an Australian question and a Canadian question' (Rev. W. H. Fitchett in the Dai7y News, October 26, 1899). Nor was it only the British Empire that was listening to hear what answer would be given to the petition of British subjects in distress. There was a world, not too friendly, waiting outside. Abdication in such circumstances might have been disastrous. It cannot, therefore, be matter of surprise that the Government adopted the remaining and third course, that of taking up the Uitlanders' position in a determined spirit. The determination included a readiness to face the risk of war, but did not exclude moderation and patience. The end was to obtain a real, as opposed to a sham, settlement. The means might be, should have been, and in the main were (as I beHeve) characterized by conciliation and reasonableness. The decision of the Government was formulated in Mr. Chamberlain's despatch of May 10, 1899 (C. 9345, p. 226). The despatch began with acknowledging the receipt of the petition, and saying that ' Her Majesty's Govern- ment cannot remain indifferent to the complaints of British 120 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR subjects resident in other countries,' and least of all in the present case. * The ordinary right of all Governments is strengthened in the present case by the peculiar relations established by the Con- ventions between this country and the Transvaal, and also by the fact that the peace and prosperity of the whole of South Africa, including Her Majesty's possessions, may be seriously affected by any circumstances which are calculated to produce discontent and unrest in the South African Republic' The despatch then pro- ceeds to investigate the subject of the petition, and states the British case under the various heads, financial, political, and ad- ministrative, with which the reader is already familiar. The conclusion was as follows : * It results from this review of the facts and conditions on which the Petition is founded, as well as from the information derived from your despatches and from other official sources, that the British subjects and the Uitlanders gener- ally in the South African Republic have substantial grounds for their complaints of the treatment to which they are subjected. It is fair to assume that these complaints are directed, not so much against individual cases of hardship and injustice, which may occur in even the best governed States, as against the system under which the sufferers are debarred from all voice in the legislation under which such cases are possible, and all control of the administration through the inefficiency of which they occur. They may be summarized in the statement that under present conditions, all of which have arisen since the Convention of 1884 was signed, the Uitlanders are now denied that equality of treatment which that instrumisnt was designed to secure for them. The conditions subsisting in the South African Republic are altogether inconsistent with such equality, are in striking contrast to those subsisting in all British Colonies possessing representative institutions, where white men of every race enjoy equal freedom and equal justice, and new-comers are, after a reasonable period of residence, admitted to full political rights. In the Orange Free State, where similar privileges are conceded to all aliens resident in the Republic, the Dutch burgher and the foreign immigrant who enjoys the hospitality of the State live in harmony and mutual confidence ; and the inde- pendence of the Republic is secured as well by the contentment and loyalty of all its citizens as by the good relations which prevail between the Government and those of other parts of South Africa. * Unfortunately, the policy of the South African Republic has been conducted on very different lines, and but for the anxiety of Her Majesty's Government to extend every consideration to a weaker State which in recent years has had just reason to complain of the action of British subjects, and may therefore be naturally prone to suspicion and indisposed to take an impartial view of the situation, the state of affairs must have led to the most serious protest and THE PETITION TO THE QUEEN 121 remonstrance. Recognising, however, the exceptional circumstances of the case, Her Majesty's Government have refrained, since their despatch of February 4, 1896 (C. 7933, No. 220), from any pressure on the Government of the South African Republic, except in cases in which there has been a distinct breach of the provisions of the Convention of 1884 ; and they have sincerely hoped that the Government of the Republic would voluntarily meet the expec- tations raised by the President, and would take the necessary steps to secure that willing loyalty of all the inhabitants of the State which would be the best guarantee for its security and independence. ' They are most unwilling to depart from their attitude of reserve and expec- tancy, but having regard to the position of Great Britain as the paramount Power in South Africa, and the duty incumbent upon them to protect all British subjects residing in a foreign country, they cannot permanently ignore the exceptional and arbitrary treatment to which their fellow-countrymen and others are exposed, and the absolute indifference of the Government of the RepubUc to the friendly representations which have been made to them on the subject. They still cherish the hope that the publicity given to the present representations of the Uitlander population, and the fact, of which the Govern- ment of the South African Republic must be aware, that they are losing the sympathy of those other States which, like Great Britain, are deeply interested in the prosperity of the Transvaal, may induce them to reconsider their policy, and, by redressing the most serious of the grievances now complained of, to remove a standing danger to the peace and prosperity, not only of the Republic itself, but also of South Africa generally. * Her Majesty's Government earnestly desire the prosperity of the South African Republic. They have been anxious to avoid any intervention in its internal concerns, and they may point out in this connection that if they really entertained the design of destroying its independence, which has been attributed to them, no policy could be better calculated to defeat their object ihan that which, in all friendship and sincerity, they now urge upon the Government of the South African Republic, and which would remove any pretext for inter- ference by relieving British subjects of all just cause of complaint. With the earnest hope of arriving at a satisfactory settlement, and as a proof of their desire to maintain cordial relations with the South African Republic, Her Majesty's Government now suggest, for the consideration of President Kruger, that a meeting should be arranged between His Honour and yourself for the purpose of discussing the situation in a conciliatory spirit, and in the hope that you may arrive, in concert with the President, at such an arrangement as Her Majesty's Government could accept and recommend to the Uitlander population as a reasonable concession to their just demands, and the settle- ment of the difficulties which have threatened the good relations which Her Majesty's Government desire should constantly exist between themselves and the Government of the South African Republic' The British Government's proposal for a Conference had been anticipated by President Steyn and Mr. Hofmeyr, who had 122 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR arranged with President Kruger to meet the High Commissioner at Bloemfontein, if the proposal were accepted on this side. Mr. Chamberlain at once agreed, and the meeting was fixed for May 31. CHAPTER XIV THE BLOEMFONTEIN CONFERENCE Misconceptions as to issues at the Conference — Summary of the real position — Why Lord Milner put franchise first — Basis of the Conference — The British game — President Kruger's counter-game — Sir Henry de Villiers' fears— Lord Milner's franchise proposals — 'Home Rule for the Rand' proposed by him as an alternative and rejected — President Kruger's counter- proposals — Not * a mere difference between five years and seven,' but a difference between a real settlement and a sham — Failure of the Conference. We are now coming to a very complicated and perplexing chapter in our history. The negotiations which began at Bloemfontein on May 31 were not finally broken off till October 9, the date of the Transvaal's ultimatum. The intervening eighteen weeks were occupied with discussions which sometimes descended to small details, so that men's minds were often confused, and they wondered what all the other bother was about. Lord Milner ' made at the Bloemfontein Conference certain proposals for Franchise Reform in the Transvaal — proposals for altering the conditions on which British subjects in that State might become Transvaal burghers. People fixed on these proposals as if they covered the whole ground of controversy between the two countries, and as if they were regarded by the British Government as affording in themselves a complete and instant cure for all the evils of the situation. With this idea in their minds, some people -^ asked if there were ever so much ado about so little. Was there ' ever so paradoxical a situation as that a Government should be '^ on the verge of war in order to enable a body of its subjects to become the subjects of another State ? Again : One item in Lord Milner's suggestions at Bloemfontein was the adoption of five years as the period of residence necessary for entitling a new- comer in the Transvaal to a vote. This item also was seized on as containing the whole gist of the controversy ; and when at one THE BLOEMFONTEIN CONFERENCE 123 time Mr. Kruger seemed to offer a seven years' term, many good people wanted to know if it was really worth bothering about * a mere difference of two years.' They addressed their question always to the British Government. If they had turned round and addressed it to President Kruger, they would, perhaps, have perceived the misconception under which they were labouring. For if it was ridiculous of Lord Milner to insist on merely saying 'five' instead of 'seven,' it must also have been ridiculous of President Kruger to insist on saying 'seven' instead of 'five.' Were, then, both sides quarrelling over mere nothings ? Not at all. Each side was contending for essential points. Those who asked the questions described above had lost hold of the vital issues. It may be well, therefore, even at the cost of some re- petition, to take precise stock of the situation as it stood during the critical weeks between June and October, 1899. The two Governments, said Mr. Kruger, in a speech after the Conference, are 'at loggerheads.' Lord Milner, at the Con- ference, had said that the situation was very grave. Wherein consisted this gravity ? What were the parties at loggerheads about ? The stages by which, and the reasons for which, the two Governments had reached a position of acute conflict have been traced in the earlier chapters of this book. The immediate - subjects of controversy were of three kinds : (i) First, there had^ been for many years a series of disputes over breaches of the Convention of 1884. On three occasions such breaches had brought us to the verge of war already. The discussion of these matters had raised the wider question of Great Britain's suzerainty, and had led to suggestions of arbitration. (2) Secondly, there were the grievances of the Uitlanders — grievances which were indeed contrary to the spirit, though not, for the most part, infringements of the letter, of the Convention. These grievances, which had already caused disturbances in 1894 and 1895, had once more come to a head in the Uitlanders' petition to the Queen. (3) Thirdly, there were various questions which did not fall under either of the foregoing heads, but which were a source of constant friction between the Governments — questions such as the treatment of British Indians and other coloured British subjects, and the claim of British subjects generally to the ' most 124 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR favoured nation ' treatment. The friction between the two Governments was, it will be seen, cumulative. In the case of the Uitlanders' grievances, take any one of them, and you may say * they were making much noise over very little.' So with the whole body of differences between the two Governments, it was the mass of them that made them so serious. The British Government saw in the accumulating mass evidence of deliberate bad will and bad faith. The Transvaal Government, on its side, saw in the constant agitation of the Uitlanders and repeated remonstrances of the British Government evidence of a design upon the internal independence of the Republic. In this state of things, Lord Milner, when he met President Kruger in conference,* had two alternatives before him. He might have gone seriatim through the whole list of contentious questions. One shudders to think how long this would have taken, and into what quagmires and sidepaths it would have led. Moreover, it would inevitably have had the appearance of inter- ference here, there, and everywhere in the Transvaal's affairs, and was thus likely to irritate President Kruger. Lord Milner, there- fore, adopted the other course. This was to put in the forefront of the discussion some one question which would serve as a test of the President's wilUngness to meet the British Government and the Queen's subjects in the Republic in a really friendly and con- ciliatory spirit. The question he selected was the franchise. In dealing with it, he had to remember the purpose with which Her Majesty's Government had sent him to Bloemfontein. The basis of the Conference was • the purpose of discussing the situation with a view of arriving at such an arrangement as Her Majesty's Government could recommend to the Uitlander population as a reasonable concession to their just demands ' (Mr. Chamberlain's statement in the House of Commons, May i8, 1899. See also his despatch of May 12, No. 91 in C. 9345). In adopting the policy of ' franchise first,' Lord Milner's idea was to put the Uit- •^ landers in a position gradually to work out their own salvation. ^ This would avoid the necessity, known to be distasteful to Presi- * Lord Milner's statement of his policy at the Conference, and of his attitude to the subsequent negotiations, will be found in the following Blue- Books : C. 9404, p. 13; C. 9521, No. 51. THE BLOEMFONTEIN CONFERENCE 125 dent Kruger, of intervention by the British Government in a number of separate matters. If President Kruger were to meet the British Government in a broad and friendly spirit in this crucial matter, it would reduce the number of outstanding questions, it would be evidence of his general goodwill, and would thus greatly facihtate the solution of other difficulties. It was essential that* any arrangement on the franchise question should be such as Her Majesty's Government could accept and recommend to the Uit- landers as a reasonable concession to their just demands. The . arrangement had, therefore, to be of such a. kind as would (i) provide some immediate rehef — i.e., admit some Uitlanders to the franchise immediately; (2) secure the gradual enfranchisement of others ; (3) create equality of political privilege between old burghers and new; and (4) be coupled with some reasonable measure of redistribution. It was a reasonable concession to Mr. Kruger that ' his burghers ' should not be entirely swamped ; but it would not be a reasonable concession to the Uitlanders if they were to be placed in a contemptible minority in the Raad. The principle for which Lord Milner was fighting at the Conference was this : * The substitution of the power of self-protection on the part of the Uitlanders, through their becoming members of the State, for the imperfect protection they at present enjoy from the Convention or from whatever diplomatic action Her Majesty's Government may take, outside the Convention, for such of them as are British subjects. My idea was to enable the Uitlanders, or a large number of them, to become, if they chose, citizens of the State, exactly on the same ■footing as the old citizens, undertaking the same responsibilities, but endowed with the same privileges. No half citizenship was, from my point of view, and having regard to ray main object, admissible, even for a time, much less permanently. "For those British subjects," I said, "who want to make that country their home, I say it is the best thing to go in heartily as burghers of the Republic ; but then, if they are to resign their British citizenship, let them be really equal citizens of their new State." In one respect alone was I dis- posed to depart from this principle of absolute equality of new and old citizens, namely with regard to their relative voting power. ... It was a necessary corollary of a large admission of new citizens in a limited area that that area should have some increase of representation, and it was equally necessary, having regard to the intense strain resulting from the prolonged disregard by the Government and the Volksraad of Uitlander grievances, that the voices of Uitlander representatives should be heard at an early date in the ruling Council of the Nation. But, on the other hand, I felt, and feel, that, in view of the 126 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR populousness of the district mainly inhabited by Uitlanders, contrasted with the scanty white population of most of the Boer districts, the demand for an exactly equal proportion of members in the two classes of constituencies would not be justified, at any rate at first, as the old population could not be expected to face with equanimity the prospect of being at once outnumbered ' (C. 9521, p. 61). The conditions of a real settlement from the British point of view were, then, an appreciable and immediate measure of enfranchise- ment, free from restrictive and vexatious limitations, and accom- panied by an appreciable measure of redistribution. Such, then, was the British game at the Bloemfontein round table. What was President Kruger's ? It was, I think we may fairly conclude, to defeat the British game. Mr. Kruger's object at the Conference and in the subsequent negotiations seems to me to have been this : First, to draw out Sir Alfred Milner to make some proposals, and then on his side to suggest a ' compromise ' thereon ; secondly, to rush the British Government into accepting some plausible scheme which, though it might seem liberal at first sight, would in reality have left the stronghold of the Krugerite system untouched ; and thirdly, in return for such a scheme, to obtain a quid pro quo by tying the hands of the British Govern- ment for the future, or by securing an abandonment of their claims to ' suzerainty.'"^ How far this is a correct account of President Kruger's aims, I must leave the reader to decide from a considera- tion of the previous negotiations detailed in the last chapter, and from the account of those that are to follow. That it is not an unduly uncharitable account, that Lord Milner on his side was well justified in exercising the most vigilant caution, is shown, I think, by the views which, as we now know, were entertained in quarters the best disposed on general grounds to Mr. Kruger. I refer in this connection to the letters from Sir Henry de Villiers and others published in August, 1900 (Cd. 369). The circum- stances of the publication have been the subject of severe, and in some cases well-deserved, criticism. The letters themselves are of the utmost importance and interest. On the eve of the Bloem- * A South African authority, already quoted (p. 21), says : 'The direct demand for a renunciation of the suzerainty was the President's trump card ; for years he had looked forward to playing it. When he had played it and lost, there was no course open to him but surrender or war ' {Quarterly Review, January, 1900). THE BLOEMFONTEIN CONFERENCE 127 ontein Conference Sir Henry de Villiers wrote to President Steyn, congratulating him on having arranged the meeting, but expressing at the same time grave forebodings : ' I sometimes despair of peace in South Africa,' he wrote, * when I see how irritating and unjust the press is on the one side, and how stubborn the Trans- vaal Government is on the other. On my recent visit to Pretoria I did not visit the President, as I considered it hopeless to think of making any impres- sion on him, but I saw Reitz, Smuts, and Schalk Burger, who, I thought, would be amenable to argument, but I fear that either my advice had no effect on them, or else their opinion had no weight with the President. . . . The franchise proposal made by the President seems to be simply ridiculous. . . . If the five years' term were offered by the Transvaal, with a retrospective operation, the Uitlanders would be bound to take it, subject to the restrictions. I fear there would always be a danger of the Volksraad revoking the gift before it has come into operation. ... I have always been a well-wisher to the Republic, and if I had any influence with the President, I would advise him no longer to sit on the boiler to prevent it from bursting. Some safety-valves are required for the activities of the new population. In their irritation they abuse the Government, often unjustly, in the press, and send petitions to the Queen, but that was only to be expected. Let the Transvaal Legislature give them a liberal franchise, and allow them local self-government for their towns, and some portion of the discontent will be allayed. . . . My sole object in writing is to preserve the peace of South Africa. There are, of course, many unreasonable demands ; but the President's position will be strengthened, and, at all events, his conscience will be clear, in case of war, if he had done every- thing that can be reasonably expected from him. I feel sure that, having used your influence to bring him and Sir Alfred together, you will also do your best to make your efforts in favour of peace successful. I feel sure also that Sir Alfred is anxious to make his mission a success, but there can be no success unless the arrangement arrived at is a permanent one, and not merely to tide over immediate difficulties' (Cd. 369, pp. i, 2). The measure of Sir Henry de Villiers' fears is the measure of the caution and close scrutiny with which the British Government were bound to examine any proposals put forward by Mr. Kruger. The cynical advice given by other and less scrupulous friends of the Republics confirms my point. ' I most strongly urge you,' wrote Mr. Merriman to Mr. Fischer (May 26, 1899), ' to bring your utmost influence to bear on President Kruger to concede some colourable measure of reform, not so much in the interests of out- siders as in those of his own State.' The interest of the British Government was not to be put off with a colourable measure of reform, but to secure a real measure of reform that would wash 128 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR and wear. *We must now,' wrote Mr. Te Water to President Steyn, * play to win time. Governments are not perpetual ' (May 8, 1899). ' It is honestly now the time,' he writes again, * to yield a little, however one may later again tighten the rope ' (May 27). It was the time, therefore, for the British negotiators to secure guarantees that the rope should not be tightened again. It will be seen, then, that the theory of Mr. Kruger's game given by me above is not unreasonably suspicious. The attitude it assumes was what Sir Henry de Villiers feared and Mr. Te Water advised. The attitude was soon revealed when the Conference met. The proceedings of the Conference have been fully published, and are easily accessible in ' Correspondence relating to the Bloemfontein Conference,' 1899, C. 9404. They need not, there- fore, be detailed here; a summary of the essential points will suffice. Lord Milner began by explaining the standpoint from which he entered the Conference : * I said that the number of open questions between the two Governments was increasing as time went on, and the tone of the controversy was becoming more acute. It was a deplorable situation. In my personal opinion, the cause of many points of difference, and the most serious, was the policy pursued by the South African Republic towards the Uitlanders, among whom many thousands are British subjects. The bitter feelings thus engendered in the Republic, the tension in South Africa, and the sympathy throughout the Empire with the Uitlanders, led to an irritated state of opinion on both sides, which rendered it more difficult for the two Governments to settle differences amicably. It was my strong conviction that if the South African Republic would, before things got worse, voluntarily change its policy towards the Uitlanders, and take steps calculated to satisfy the reasonable section of them, who after all are the great majority, not only would the independence of the Republic be strengthened, but there would be such a better state of feeling all round that it would become far easier to settle outstanding questions between the two Governments' (p. i). After long discussion, President Kruger asked the High Com- missioner to propose a scheme. The heads of his scheme were these : ' The full franchise to be given to every foreigner who— * (a) Had been resident for five years in the Republic. * {!>) Declared his intention to reside permanently. THE BLOEMFONTEIN CONFERENCE 129 ' (ai/y Neivs first on May 2, 1896, and often subsequently. It was said that I laid too much stress on the point. It is quite true that Mr. Kruger's word turned out to be a different thing from his bond. He was believed so implicitly at the time, that the promise was not explicitly embodied in the Convention, and on that ground Mr. Reitz repudiated all obligations in the matter. In the Swaziland Convention, which Lord Loch concluded in 1894, the political privileges of a Transvaal burgher were expressly reserved for all bona fide white male residents. It is greatly to be regretted that British negotiators in 1881 and 1884 were so confiding as to accept Mr. Kruger's verbal promise as sufficient guarantee.! The 'rural simplicity' of the Boer was too sharp for some of our most eminent administrators and statesmen. Suppose that to Lord Rosmead's question, ' Will equal privileges be * Transvaal Royal Commission Proceedings, Part II., C. 3219, p. 25. t It is, however, arguable whether, in view of the fact that the Uitlanders were not aliens but lawful inhabitants, any express provision was necessary (see Professor Dove Wilson's article referred to above). He maintains that in law an express provision was required in the Convention if equal rights were to be denied. 234 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR given to all comers ?' Mr. Kruger had replied, * Certainly not !' would he have obtained the Convention ? I do not for a moment believe it. The matter has now been clenched by the testimony of one of the British Commissioners — testimony all the more striking because the witness is himself an Afrikander. * I am quite certain,' wrote Sir Henry de Villiers to President Steyn on May 21, 1899, 'that if in 1881 it had been known to my fellow- Commissioners that the President would adopt his retrogressive policy, neither President Brand nor I would ever have induced them to consent to sign the Convention. They would have advised the Secretary of State to let matters revert to the condi- tion in which they were before peace was concluded, in other words, to recommence the war ' (Cd. 369, p. i, and in a letter to Mr. Fischer, July 31, 1899, p. 3). Mr. Kruger, then, obtained the restoration of the Transvaal by promising equality of treatment to all comers, and as to their right to come, they had it by the Conventions. (3) But this is not all. When gold began to be discovered in the country, Mr. Kruger's Government, being anxious (like other Governments) to have their resources augmented, invited the Uitlanders to come in, and promised them every assistance in their work. In December, 1883, President Kruger and a deputation of the Transvaal were in London for the purpose of petitioning Her Majesty to remove certain grievances under which the South African Republic professed to labour by reason of certain pro- visions contained in the Convention of 1881. Some discussion was proceeding in the newspapers at the time as to the good faith of the Transvaal Government towards those who were prepared to develop the mineral resources of that country, then in their infancy. In order to obtain a definite and authoritative state- ment as to the future intentions of the Transvaal Government, should the new Convention be agreed to, the Lisbon-Berlyn Company addressed a letter to the Transvaal delegates requesting that the anxiety of the public might be allayed on the subject. The following reply (in which the italics are mine) was there- upon received and pubHshed in the newspapers (Times, Decem- ber 22, 1883): THE RIGHTS OF THE UITL ANDERS 235 •Albemarle Hotel, Albemarle Street, W. December 21st, 1883. •Sir, • I am directed by the President and deputation of the Transvaal to acknowledge your letter of December 19th, inquiring whether the Transvaal Government will view with satisfaction the development of the properties on which concessions have been granted, and whether the com- panies acquiring concessions can count upon Government protection. In reply, I am to state that the President and deputation cannot refrain from expressing surprise and indignation at your directors thinking such an inquiry necessary, as it is absurd to suppose that the Government of the Transvaal would grant a concession on the Lisbon and Berlyn or any other farm or plot of ground and then refuse to protect the rights conveyed thereby. The Government desire to see the mineral resources of the Transvaal developed to their fullest extent, and will give every assistance incumbent on them to that end. • I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, • EWALD Esselen (Secretary). •J. Davies, Esq., ' Secretary to the Lisbon-Berlyn (Transvaal) Gold Fields [Limited) . ' So far, therefore, from its being true (as has often been alleged) that the Uitlanders ' well knew the disabilities under which they would labour if they entered the Transvaal,' they were assured in 1883 by the deputation from that country (at the head of which was President Kruger) that * the Government desire to see the mineral resources of the Transvaal developed to their fullest extent, and will give every assistance incumbent on them to that end.' The Uitlanders in after-years claimed no more than the same franchise and other fundamental laws of the Republic as governed that country at the time they received this distinct invitation of the Transvaal authorities to develop the mineral resources of that State. It is remarkable that just as the Convention of 1881 was obtained by Mr. Kruger promising political equality, so the Con- vention of 1884 was preceded by a promise of industrial en- couragement. The Uitlanders, then, were in the Transvaal by natural right, by Convention right, under promises (for which valuable consideration was given) and by express invitation. The contention that the Uitlanders were in the country on sufferance is, therefore, a complete fallacy. That it should have deceived many Liberals is astonishing, for the great Liberal 236 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR leader's policy in the Transvaal rested for its justification on the contrary case. Mr. Gladstone's policy in the retrocession of the Transvaal was fiercely assailed. How did he defend it? By explaining that no Boer ascendancy would be set up, but that all the white races would be in a position of equality. The ' loyalists,' who were the Uitlanders of that day, had appealed to him against the retrocession. The following was his reply : ' The memorialists (the loyalists, or Uitlanders) estimate the proportion of settlers not Transvaal Boers at one-seventh. Nearly, though not quite, the whole of the Boers have appeared to be united in sentiment ; and Her Majesty's Government could not deem it their duty to set aside the will of so large a majority by the only possible means — namely, the permanent maintenance of a powerful military force in the country. Such a course would have been inconsistent alike with the spirit of the Treaty of 1852, with the grounds on which the annexation was sanctioned, and with the general interests of South Africa, which especially require that harmony should prevail between the white races. ' On the other hand, in the settlement which is now in progress, every care will be taken to secure to the settlers, of whatever origin, the full enjoyment of their property and of all civil rights.' Mr. Gladstone's principle, it will be seen, was respect for the will of the majority of the inhabitants. His ultimate policy was to secure harmony between the two races. His pledge was that the Uitlanders (then a minority) should be secured in ' the full enjoyment of all civil rights.' It is said that Mr. Gladstone did not foresee the inrush of the gold-seekers. He did not. But sound principles are good for all cases, and can it for a moment be believed that Mr. Gladstone would have denied the existence of rights, which he intended to secure, because the persons entitled to them had become more numerous than he expected ? When Mr. Gladstone gave his answer to the loyalists, he was relying on the fulfilment of Mr. Kruger's promises. There was to be * no difference so far as burgher rights are concerned.' The settlement of 1881 was challenged in the House of Commons. A vote of censure was moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach (July 25). Mr. Gladstone met the censure not by a direct negative, but by an explanatory amendment. It was moved by Mr. Rathbone, and the terms of it were settled by Mr. Gladstone THE RIGHTS OF THE U IT LANDERS 237 himself. ■**■ According to this amendment the concession of limited independence to the Transvaal was intended * to provide for the full liberty and equal treatment of the entire white population,' ' to guard the interests of the natives,' and ' to promote harmony and goodwill among the various races in South Africa.' Every one of those intentions was frustrated by the action of the Transvaal Government. So far from equal treatment being the rule in the so-called South African 'Republic,' Mr. Kruger divided the population into two classes : a British majority, paying nearly all the taxes, but enjoying no representation and carrying no arms ; and a Dutch minority enjoying all political power, and combining with the monopoly of the vote the monopoly of the gun. The amazing thing is that followers of Mr. Gladstone should have been found to apologize for this flouting of their leader's purposes, and to declare that the Uit- landers had no right to be in the Transvaal at all. CHAPTER XXVI THE TRANSVAAL AS A * REPUBLIC ' False coins in political terminology — American sympathy with ' Re- publics ' — Confusion of ideas — ' Republics ' not necessarily demo- cratic — 'The South African Oligarchy' — Abuses of oligarchical institutions. Great in human affairs is the influence of high-sounding names. Mr. Kruger, whatever other mistakes he may have made, always kept a firm hold of this fact. Among the terms which have formed the most valuable portion of his political stock-in-trade are ' Republic ' and ' Arbitration.' It was not for nothing that he obtained from Lord Derby in 1884 the right to use the title ' South African Republic' I have said something already about the adjective (p. 33). The noun has also been a valuable asset to Mr. Kruger. There is something in the word * Republic ' which appeals to the sympathies of lovers of liberty. People on the spot, and others who had taken the trouble to learn the facts, * My authority for this statement is Sir Henry Fowler, who seconded the amendment. See his speech at Wolverhampton, November 9, 1899. 238 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR knew, of course, that the South African Republic was the negation of what is commonly understood by Republican government. But terms have more influence over the minds of the unreflecting majority than the facts behind the terms. It was enough for thousands and thousands of otherwise well-informed persons that the Transvaal was a * Republic' This convinced them that the issue was between Republican freedom and monarchical tyranny. It is very absurd, but it is not unintelligible. Mr. Kruger knows well how to trade with the false coins of political terminology. Nowhere has this false coin — the South African Republic — passed more widely current than in America. The Venezuelan message of President Cleveland showed how much sympathy could be evoked for any country which called itself a RepubHc, how much animus could be stirred up against our own country because it is nominally a Monarchy. The same spectacle has been exhibited in the present case. To a considerable extent American opinion has been on the side of the Transvaal, sub- stantially for no other reason than that it called itself a Republic, while Great Britain calls itself a Monarchy. The similarity of names misled men's minds. It was supposed that the South African ' Republic ' corresponded to the democratic State which Americans associate with the term. Mr. Kruger knew well how to play up to this fallacy. ' I send my greetings,' he wrote, ' to the President and people of the United States. . . . The great American nation, which had more than a hundred years ago to fight the same British nation to secure their liberty, will know how to sympathize with a little sister Republic ' (message to the JVew York Journal^ December 24, 1899). The appeal was to a confusion of ideas and an ignorance of the facts. The terms ' Republic ' and ' Monarchy ' are not true opposites, except in the limited extent that they refer respectively to different methods of providing a Head to the State. A Republic may be monarchical, oligarchic, or democratic. Rome was nominally a Republic, both under the oligarchic Senate and the Imperial tyranny. The Re- public of Venice was an aristrocratic oligarchy. In the modern world there are twenty nominal Republics, but only three of them are really democratic States — namely, France, Switzerland, and THE TRANSVAAL AS A 'REPUBLIC 239 the United States. ' There is not a Republic in the whole world,' says an American writer, * not even including France and Switzerland, in which an American citizen is as justly and liberally treated as he is under the Monarchies of Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Great Britain ; while the treatment of Americans in France and Switzerland is not one whit better than it is under the Imperial Governments of Austria and Germany. . . . Would anyone, desiring to cite a case of a free and well- ordered community, go to Hayti, or San Domingo, or Guatemala just because these States are called Republics ? There is not a Republic on earth, except Switzerland and our own United States, in which there is even an approximation to the honesty of administration found in at least six European Monarchies ; nor anything like the combination of governmental honesty, judicial impartiality, equality of rights, personal liberty, and liberality towards Americans, which can be found in those Monarchies and in all of the British Colonies ' (Thomas B. Shearman in the North American Review for April, 1900). It is clear to anyone who knows the facts that the self-governing Cape Colony, which is part of a Monarchy, corresponds far more closely to the American ideal of a Republic than did the close oligarchy which was called the South African Republic* For what are the facts? A country as large as France was ruled by President Kruger and a Volksraad of twenty-four members, in which two-thirds of the population, who owned half the land and a larger proportion of all the other property, had absolutely no voice whatever. Mr. Kruger was last elected President in 1898. He received 12,800 votes. But there were in the Transvaal more than 60,000 adult white males. The vast majority of the inhabitants had no votes. Nor is that all. The disfranchised were precisely those who in other communities would be held to be the most fit for citizenship. Here is the summary of the matter given by Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson : ' Those who have no votes hold nearly all the mines, houses, mercantile businesses, freeholds in town, etc. Probably of the wealth of the country * It was with the idea of combating the confusion of ideas above explained that I tried to put into currency the phrase ' The South African Oligarchy ' {Daily News, March 25, 1896). 240 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR not nearly one-tenth is possessed by the holders of political power. Some people would say the best educated should rule. Apply this test. The Boer farmers, who have the majority of the votes, are notoriously ill- educated ; not only are many of them unable to read and write, but they live in remote districts, and take no interest in any but local affairs. On the Rand there are many of the most intelligent citizens the world can produce belonging to many nations — Americans, Germans, French, and Austrians, as well as English. Engineers and chemists, financiers, men engaged in large mercantile businesses — all these are considered unfit to take any share in public business in the Transvaal You have accord- ingly an extremely curious and abnormal state of things. You have the wealth, the education, the energy, the knowledge of the world, the large majority in numbers of the white population on one side, and a small minority, possessing neither education nor wealth, nor knowledge of afiairs on the other, who claim a Divine right to govern the majority, and to dispose of their property as they please ' {Nineteenth Century, February, 1898). The term 'South African Republic' was very misleading as applied to such a State. The real form of government was that of a rigid oligarchy. There are some who say — • For forms of government let fools contest ; Whate'er is best administered is best.' The oligarchic constitution of the Transvaal might have been tolerable if the administration had been good. But it was bad. The corruption and inefiEiciency associated with Mr. Kruger's regime were an insult to the best Republican ideals. His Industrial Commission recognised the point, and made it in so many words. ' Your Commission entirely disapprove,' they said (C. 9345, p. 3), 'of the concessions through which the industrial prosperity of the country is hampered. Such might have been expedient in the past, but the country has arrived at a stage of development that will only admit of free competition according to Republican principles. This applies more especially to the gold industry, that has to face its own economical problems, without being further burdened with concessions that are irksome and injurious to the industry, and will always remain a source of irritation and dissatisfaction.' Mr. Merriman, friendly though he was to the Transvaal, saw clearly enough the absurdity of its posing as a ' Republic' ' The greatest danger of the future,' he wrote to Mr. Steyn (March 11 THE TRANSVAAL AS A 'REPUBLIC 241 1898), * lies in the attitude of President Kruger and his vain hope of building up a State on the foundation of a narrow, unen- lightened minority, and his obstinate rejection of all prospect of using the materials which lie ready to his hand to establish a true Republic on a broad, liberal basis. The report of recent discussions in the Volksraad on his finances and their mismanage- ment fill one with apprehension. Such a state of aff'airs cannot last. It must break down from inherent rottenness, and it will be well if the fall does not sweep away the freedom of all of us. I write in no hostility to Republics. My own feeUngs are all in the opposite direction ; but the foes of that form of government are too often those of their own household' (Cd. 369, p. 6). The confusion of ideas and ignorance of facts by which the South African Republic traded on the sympathies of lovers of liberty were intelligible enough in the case of those far removed from the scene and devoid of direct interest in the dispute. It is less easy to understand why this Republican fallacy should possess the minds and disturb the consciences of Englishmen. It is a sad thing, we are still told, that free England should be engaged at the beginning of a new century in snuffing out a Republic. There are elements of pathos in the situation, certainly, and war at all times and in any case is a terrible calamity. But we need not suppose that the sacred cause of liberty is in peril. We may sum up in the words of one of many American writers who perceived the hollowness of the Transvaal's appeal to the United States as 'a sister Republic' ' The war is on,' said the Outlook, one of the most prominent and influential religious papers in the United States, ' and the present question is not, How might it have been avoided ? but. What is its result likely to be, and what its effect on the continent of Africa? Upon that question there can be no doubt. It is a war between progress and inertia. Republicanism and oligarchy, civilization and — not barbarism, but intellectual sloth. Let us not be confused because the Transvaal is called a Republic and Great Britain is called an Empire. The Transvaal is not a Republic. Calling it so does not make it so. . . . A true Republic, where there is now an oligarchy, a living commerce encouraged by law where now commerce is overtaxed and un- 16 242 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR represented, these, we anticipate, will be the results of the war in the Transvaal' (October 31, 1899). 'We believe that neither justice, liberty, nor civilization would be favoured by victory of the Boers, and all three will be at the last the gainers in the victory of the British.' CHAPTER XXVII MR. KRUGER AND ARBITRATION Contention that the war was caused because the British refused arbitra- tion — The Transvaal and the Hague Congress — British offered limited arbitration to Mr. Kruger — Foreign element to be excluded : reason for this — Mr. Kruger' s attempt to get foreign arbitration in 1883 — Recapitulation of the 1899 despatches on this subject — Scope to be limited, but Lord Milner otherwise favourable to the idea — Accepted by British Government — Continuously offered by them — Transvaal's shifty treatment of the question. The fallacies with which we have been dealing in the last three chapters are connected with the general rights and wrongs of the war. We have now to examine some others, which are concerned with particular aspects of the negotiations, in detail. The word ' arbitration ' played some part in those negotiations. The war came about, it is represented, because the British Government would not listen to that blessed word. And herein, it was added, on the Continent and elsewhere, observe what hypocrites these British be ! Lord Salisbury sent delegates to the Hague to support pious resolutions in favour of arbitration, and then, as soon as there was a case in point, he declined to arbitrate. Now, it may be remarked at the outset that the Transvaal, not being a Sovereign Power, was not one of the parties to the Hague Convention, and that therefore the resolutions of the Convention do not apply. But apart from this point, it is simply not true to say without qualification that the British Government ' decHned to arbitrate.' The British Government agreed to arbitrate, but with two limitations. It excluded foreigners, and excluded some subjects. The reason for the first limitation is obvious ; it goes right down MR. KRUGER AND ARBITRATION 243 to a fundamental issue in this controversy. The Transvaal claimed to be a Sovereign International State. Great Britain absolutely repudiated that claim. Disputes between the two Governments are of the nature of internal quarrels, and must be decided by a tribunal limited to Great Britain and South Africa. The limitation required by Great Britain in the scope of the tribunal was clearly explained by Lord Milner in his despatch after the Bloemfontein Conference : ' I expressly guarded myself against the idea that arbitration was applicable to all differences. I was thinking, as I indicated, more especially of the question whether the laws of administration of the South African Republic were fair towards its foreign residents. It is, of course, absurd to suggest that the question whether the South African Republic does or does not treat British subjects resident in that country with justice, and the British Government with the consideration and respect due to any friendly, not to say " suzerain," Power, is a question capable of being referred to arbitration. You cannot arbitrate on broad ques- tions of policy any more than on questions of national honour ' (C. 9404, P- 5. § 35)- Here is a clear issue. Those who taunt Great Britain with refusing arbitration must not confine themselves to generalities ; they must say that she ought to have referred to an arbitrator the question how much redress she is to ask for the ill-treatment of her subjects in a State of which she was in some sort the suzerain. Does anybody really think this ? The two limitations insisted upon by Great Britain were, then, entirely reasonable. With regard to the latter — the limitation of scope — the Transvaal Government itself, as we shall see, at one stage of the negotiations proposed such limitation. With regard to the former limitation— the exclusion of a foreign element— this, no doubt, was very distasteful to Mr. Kruger. It was precisely the foreign element that he most wanted, because its introduction would have negatived the paramountcy of Great Britain in South Africa, and have implied the status of the Transvaal as a Sovereign International State. What Mr. Kruger desired was shown in the Draft Treaty which he submitted in 1883 to Lord Derby. Articles of the Draft was as follows (C. 3947, p. n) : ' Any controversies which may arise respecting the interpretation or he execution of the present Treaty, or the consequences of any violation 16 — 2 244 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR thereof, shall be submitted, when the contracting parties cannot come directly to a satisfactory arrangement, to the decision of a Commission of Arbitrators. ' The Commission of Arbitrators shall be selected by both parties, so that each of the parties shall nominate an arbitrator, or an equal number of arbitrators, as the case may require. ' If the arbitrators, or a majority of them, cannot agree, the controversy shall be submitted to the decision of the President of the United btates of America, and, on his refusal, to the decision of the head of another inde- pendent Power. * The decision of the arbitrators, and if they cannot agree, the decision of the President of the United States of America, or of the substituted Power, shall be binding upon both contracting parties.' The proposal was too much even for Lord Derby, and he summarily rejected it. Do those who say that the war came about because ' England refused arbitration ' mean that England ought to have agreed to (i) unlimited arbitration (2) by a foreign arbitrator ? England did not ' refuse arbitration.' It is true that she refused unlimited foreign arbitration ; but, with this limitation, she assumed throughout the negotiations an attitude favourable to arbitration. A study of the despatches must already have con- vinced the candid reader that on this question a large measure of agreement had apparently been reached. That the appearances were deceptive, that they did nothing to bring about a general agreement, was demonstrably not the fault of the British Govern- ment. Let us bring the documents together and see. Mr. Kruger brought up the subject of arbitration at the Bloem- fontein Conference. Lord Milner's policy thereon, which was adopted by the British Government, was very clearly defined. He decUned in any case to entertain the idea of arbitration by any Foreign Power, and there were some questions which he declined in any case to regard as arbitrable. To this extent, then, he ruled arbitration out. But he stated at the Bloemfontein Conference, and he explained more fully in subsequent despatches, that he was decidedly favourable to the idea of arbitration in some cases and under some conditions. In his despatch of June 14 he says : • It could not be supposed that in future {i.e., if an amicable settlement were now arrived at) questions of difference would not occasionally arise MR. KRUGER AND ARBITRATION 245 between us — seeing the intimacy and complexity of the relations between the South African Republic and Her Majesty's South African dominions — where such questions were not general questions of policy, but differences as to the interpretation of a particular clause of a particular document. . . . What was to be done to solve them ? Arbitration of some sort would appear to be inevitable, although the constitution of a suitable tribunal would always be a matter of difficulty.' What the High Commissioner desired was 'a regular and automatic settlement of future differences.' In another despatch (June 10) he expressed his readiness to submit to the same tribunal ' even some questions which exist at present.' The High Commissioner, then, was distinctly favourable to the idea of arbitration. What he objected to was mixing up the question of arbitration on other matters with the primary and essential matter of the franchise. The Conference proved abortive, not because the British Government declined arbitra- tion, but because Mr. Kruger declined to come to terms about the franchise. On June 9, immediately after the Conference, the Transvaal Government resumed the subject of arbitration — of ' arbitration on differences arising out of the varying interpreta- tions of the terms of the London Convention.' To this principle Mr. Reitz expressly said in his despatch that the High Com- missioner had at the Conference shown himself to be favourable. Mr. Reitz proceeded to submit a scheme. We need not go into all the details. But particular attention should be given to these three points : (i) What the Transvaal asked for at this stage was arbitration, as above said, on the terms of the Convention ; (2) * On the understanding, however, that no matters of differ- ences of trifling importance shall be submitted to arbitration '; and (3) * That each side shall have the right to reserve and exclude points which appear to it to be too important to be submitted to arbitration.' It is represented now that the war came about because Mr. Kruger asked, and the British Government refused, arbitration. The representation in the light of this despatch of June 9 is quite farcically untrue. Mr. Reitz's scheme was a sham scheme on the face of it. So far from wanting universal arbitration, even on the 246 RIGHTS AND fVRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Convention, he wanted to exclude both * trifling ' matters and ' important ' matters. ' Trifling ' matters, according to Mr. Kruger, would, we suppose, have been all complaints of the British Government. It will be remembered that he referred at the Conference to ' the little coolie matter,' meaning thereby (as Lord Milner said) the grievance of Her Majesty's Indian subjects, which had been a burning controversy for ten years. We can attach no interpretation to the despatch other than this, that Mr. Kruger wanted to reserve complete liberty of action, while at the same time talking about the blessings of arbitration. The British Government, however, took up the discussion as in good faith. They objected to foreign arbitration (a point which Mr. Kruger himself had waived at the Conference, but reintroduced on June 9), but they expressed their willingness to consider a scheme. In his reply of July 27, Mr. Chamberlain said : • Her Majesty's Government recognise that the interpretation of the Conventions in matters of detail is not free from difficulty. While, on the one hand, there can be no question of the interpretation of the preamble of the Convention of 1881, which governs the Articles sub- stituted in the Convention of 1884, on the other hand there may be fair differences of opinion as to the interpretation of the details of those Articles, and it is unsatisfactory that in cases of divergence of opinion between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the South African Republic there should be no authority to which to refer the points at issue for final decision. If, therefore, the President is prepared to agree to the exclusion of any foreign element in the settlement of such disputes, Her Majesty's Government would be willing to consider how far and by what methods such questions of interpretation as have been above alluded to could be decided by some judicial authority whose independence, impartiality, and capacity would be beyond and above all suspicion ' (C. 9518, p. 11). In the face of this explicit pledge, it is absurd to say in round terms that Her Majesty's Government * refused arbitration.' In their despatch of August 19, the Transvaal Government inserted as one of their conditions ' to agree to arbitration.' On August 28 Her Majesty's Government agreed to a discussion of the form and scope of a Tribunal of Arbitration, from which foreigners and foreign influence were excluded. They agreed also that an Orange Free Stater should not count as a foreigner. MR. KRUGER AND ARBITRATION 247 On September 2 the Transvaal Government was * pleased to see that Her Majesty's Government is ready to enter on negotiations touching the scope and form of a Court of Arbitration,' though it wanted to know what subjects would be excluded. On Septem- ber 8 Her Majesty's Government expressed their readiness 'to make immediate arrangements for a further conference to settle all the details of the proposed Tribunal of Arbitration.' The fairness, reasonableness, and moderation of the British despatch of September 8 were recognised at the time on all hands, and on all hands Mr. Kruger was advised to accept its proposals — though with an amazing lack of principle, which has never been explained, many persons in this country turned round when Mr. Kruger rejected the despatch, and declared that he was right and the British Government wrong. Up to this point, it will be seen, the discussion on arbitration had proceeded satisfactorily, and the British Government had thought to arrive at a conclusion accept- able to the Transvaal. Nor at the next stage was arbitration made to appear as the hitch. On September 15 the Transvaal Government 'welcomed with much pleasure prospect disclosed by Her Majesty's Govern- ment of the introduction of a Court of Arbitration for the decision of all (sic) points of difference and points to be discussed at the Conference.' What precisely this means we do not know, but at any rate the Transvaal Government went on to say that it was ' ready and willing to co-operate towards the composition of such a Court.' It is monstrous, in view of these facts, to represent the British Government as having made peace and good relations impossible by their ' refusal of arbitration.' The final reply to the despatch of September 8 was the ultimatum drafted on September 26, and presented in a revised form on October 9. In the revised draft a condition about arbitration — and this time arbitration ' on all points of mutual difference' — was inserted. But (i) it was coupled with other conditions which made the rejection of the whole ultimatum absolutely certain, and (2) in the original draft (if the Times historian, who quotes it, be correctly informed) no mention was made of arbitration whatever. It was a fitting finale to the chapter of the Transvaal's shifty and tricky diplomacy on this 248 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR point. But arbitration is a blessed word, and of what avail are facts when the emotions are stirred ? The truth will prevail in the end ; but in the meanwhile many worthy people will doubtless remain under the comforting but utterly false persuasion that the peace-loving President of a Government administered on Repub- lican principles was driven to go to war because the British Government had decHned to listen to the idea of arbitration. CHAPTER XXVIII THE * NINE-TENTHS ' FALLACY Sir Edward Clarke's speech — Mr. Chamberlain's remark that he had accepted ' nine-tenths ' of the conditions attached by the Transvaal to their proposals of August 19 — Myth founded on this that Transvaal had conceded nine-tenths and ' war for a tenth ' — Metaphors and fact — Real issues involved — Why Mr. Kruger drew back from the offer of August 19. Another set of fallacies tending to obscure the rights and wrongs of the Transvaal War has grown up around the franchise question. We went to war, it is sometimes said, on a mere matter of two years' difference in the terms of the franchise. We went to war, it is said at other times, for a mere tenth. These numerical juggles have deceived many persons. The former of them, the two years fallacy, has been so fully dealt with in the course of our general argument that we need not recur to it here (see, e.g., pp. 131, 140). The other, the 'nine-tenths' fallacy, is perhaps worth a few words of explanation. The origin of it is curious. It shows what a clever cross- examiner can do. In the course of a debate in the House of Commons on October 19, 1899, the following colloquy occurred : ' Sir Edward Clarke : I agree with the hon. member for West Monmouth (Sir W. Harcourt) that there was good reason why the con- ditions attached to the five years franchise proposal should have been accepted. The extraordinary incident which has marked the proceedings of this evening has been the statement of the Colonial Secretary that the answer to that proposal might have been taken as an acceptance. That was the phrase he used, but it is an ambiguous phrase, and I should like to know, Was that answer intended for an acceptance ? THE 'NINE-TENTHS' FALLACY 249 ' Mr. Chamberlain : At the time we thought the proposal of the Transvaal extremely promising. We intended to send a most conciliatory answer, accepting, as far as it was humanly possible for us to do so, their proposal, and as the only point of difference was the internal intervention, I thought myself it would have been accepted. ' Sir Edward Clarke : Then we may take it it was intended to be an acceptance of that proposal ? . . . 'Mr. Chamberlain: The hon. member harps upon the word "ac- ceptance." He must remember he asked me the question whether we intended to accept. I myself should have thought the Boers would have taken it as an acceptance, but I suppose it may be properly described as a qualified acceptance. We did not accept everything, but we accepted at least nine-tenths of the whole' (Hansard, 4 S., vol. Ixxvii., cols. 308 and 311). On this passage the following legends have been built : That Mr. Kruger had promised to remedy nine-tenths of the Uitlanders' grievances, or that he had conceded nine-tenths of the British Government's demands, and that only a pedantic and perverse insistence on the remaining tenth stood in the way of a settlement.^ The legend passed from mouth to mouth, and was adopted even by eminent politicians, until many people came to believe that there had been a series of British demands (i, 2, 3, and up to 10), that Mr. Kruger had accepted the nine, and that then there was only one little tenth left. The legend bears no resemblance to the facts. There were no such demands. The nine-tenths were figurative only. It was not Mr. Kruger who conceded the * nine.' What it all means is this : To their offer of August 1 9 the Transvaal Government attached certain conditions. The British Government, as in duty bound under the circumstances fully described in Chapter XVIII., scrutinized the offer and the con- ditions closely, and replied to them in the despatch of August 28. * ' The war is justified on the ground of the grievances of our countrymen in the Transvaal. These grievances have never been denied by me, nor do I deny that we had the right to exert the most strenuous diplomatic pressure in our power in putting these things right. Yes ; but please recollect that, on the admission of Ministers themselves, you had got nine-tenths of these demands satisfied, and there was only one- tenth left over, which was not worth fighting about. I beg of you, do not let that slip out of your minds when you are turning over this question — that, by the admission of Ministers themselves, nine-tenths of the proposals which the Boers would have accepted and which we would have accepted were there before us' (Mr. Morley at Forfar, January 24, 1900). 250 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Was this an acceptance or a refusal? Sir Edward Clarke, like the clever cross-examiner he is, made great play with this question. The true answer is that it was both and neither, because it accepted some parts of Mr. Kruger's proposals, and did not, without con- siderable qualification, accept others. The part accepted is the nine-tenths ; the part rejected is the remaining tenth. The one- tenth reserved was, as we have shown, the reservation of all that the British Government had left as a means of securing the rights of British subjects, and as a test of the sincerity and genuineness of the Boer proposals. As for the general character of the despatch of August 28, I may cite the opinion of a journal which at that time was credited with * pro-Boer ' leanings. Mr. Kruger's note of August 19 and Mr. Chamberlain's reply of August 28 were published in the newspapers on September 2. * They clear away,' said the Daily Chronicle^ ' many misconceptions. The tone and substance of these despatches on both sides appear to us to form the most hopeful basis for peace which has been before the two countries for some weeks past.' That seemed exactly to hit off the situation. Mr. Kruger's despatch appeared to make important concessions. The conditions he attached required careful examination, and could not be accepted straight off. But the exchange of notes seemed to offer a hope of an adjustment. This is the diplomatic transaction which has been perverted into the nine-tenths myth. It is true that Mr. Chamberlain might have made his despatch of August 28 clearer. It is true, also, that his ' squeezed sponge ' speech was very ill-advised. Certainly Mr. Chamberlain made a mistake, as he made other mistakes in the course of the negotiations. But what we have to ask, as Sir Edward Grey said (Glasgow, October 25, 1899), is if those mistakes were the cause of the war. Does anybody seriously maintain that the reason why Mr. Kruger did not accept the moderate and conciliatory proposals of September 8 was that Mr. Chamberlain, on August 26, had called him a sponge? In 1896 the Colonial Secretary adopted a different tone, and used to ask, ' How is Mrs. Kruger ?' He did not get any reforms out of Mr. Kruger thereby ; and it is surely contrary to common-sense to suppose that he has failed now because he called Mr. Kruger names. The real causes of the rupture were altogether inde- THE 'NINE-TENTHS' FALLACY 251 pendent of personal considerations. The broad facts disclosed by the Blue-Books were well put by Sir Edward Grey. 'The question you ask yourself again and again,' he said, ' in going through them is this : Does President Kruger mean a real reform or does he not ? I have looked at the whole of the negotiations by the light thrown upon them by what went before in the history of the Transvaal, and it is clear to my mind that all through the negotiations Sir Alfred Milner pressed for a real reform, and President Kruger tried to put him off with a sham reform.' This is one of the essential truths of the case. If it be not so, why did not Mr. Kruger accept the proposals of September 8 ? None of his defenders or apologists has ever given a reasonable answer. And this is not to be wondered at, for the real reason is plain enough. Mr. Kruger was bent first, as Sir Edward Grey says, on giving a sham reform instead of a real reform ; or, if any real reform were given, then on bartering it for a concession towards the realization of the dream of his life — the dream of destroying the paramount power of Great Britain in South Africa. CHAPTER XXIX LIBERALISM AND THE WAR Mr. Kruger ' waiting for the Opposition ' — The Boers and pro-Boer encouragements — Liberalism and the Transvaal — The appeal to Mr, Gladstone — His Transvaal policy — Conditional independence — The conditions broken — Mr. Gladstone on the peace party — On the ' trust and function ' of the British Empire — Krugerism the antithesis of Liberalism — The idea of nationality — Not an end in itself — The growth of larger conceptions — Nationalism and Home Rule. 'What we have to do,' said Mr. Kruger once when discussing with his colleagues the relations of his country with Great Britain, ' is to wait for the Opposition, for with them if one side says black the other side says white.' The past history of British policy in South Africa gave much justification to Mr. Kruger's maxim. What amount of influence it has had in shaping Boer policy during the present events it is impossible to say. That the idea and the hopes it encouraged were still active among some of 252 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Mr. Kruger's friends, we know. 'We must now play,' wrote Mr. Te Water to President Steyn on May 8, 1889, ' to win time. Govern- ments are not perpetual, and I pray that the present team, so unjustly disposed towards us, may receive their reward before long' (Cd. 369, p. 10). To 'wait for the Opposition' was Mr. Te Water's specific. In the present struggle the hopes were to some extent disappointed. From the first there was a body of opinion in the Opposition which saw through the surface of party politics to the national issues, and which was not afraid to postpone party to national considerations. From the date of the ultimatum and Lord Rosebery's appeal — ' be one people '* — there was some measure of national unanimity. But at earlier stages of the controversy, the Liberal Opposition often spoke with an ambiguous voice which might once more have encouraged Mr. Kruger to wait for the Opposition,! and to the end the so- called 'pro-Boer ' sentiment has been largely and loudly vocal in Liberal quarters. To what extent such utterances had effect in encouraging the prolongation of the war it is impossible to say. It is certain, how- ever, that ^newspapers reached the Boers, and that the leaders had their ears on the ground to hear the least whisper of en- couragement. In May, 1901, Mr. Reitz wrote to Mr. Steyn counselling surrender. Mr. Steyn in his reply adduced various arguments in favour of continuing the struggle, and among others the following : • I hope the Commandant-General received my last letter in which I sent him the Natal Witness, from which it appears that Milner is going to Europe, nominally on leave owing to bad health, but really in consequence * Speech at Bath, October 27, 1899. f ' In a telegram dictated by Mr. Kruger himself in July, 1899, he said : " There will be no war ; the Government will never go to war. If the Government wished for war the Liberal party would not permit it, and even if they did the Queen would not sanction war." This was President Kruger's belief, and behind this the conviction that at the worst he had the means for a successful war ' (Speech by Lord Loch, Times, December 8, 1899). At the beginning of 1902 ' General Botha sent a note to all the Boer Commandants requesting them to keep on fighting, as the English Parliament meets early in January, when a vote for more money to carry on the war will come on. The English people, says General Botha, will not have it, and will consequently withdraw their troops from the country ' (Telegram in the daily papers, January 4, 1902). LIBERALISM AND THE WAR 253 of his not getting a free hand, according to a later English paper which I saw. It seems that he and Kitchener could not pull well together. This is also to be gathered from the leading article of the said Witness, and the con- cluding sentence of the said article winds up with the following words : " From private information we learn that the public mind in England is getting very uneasy about South African matters, and that there are possi- bilities which we are not at liberty to mention, and which if we were we could not " — or words to that effect. This appears in the Natal Witness of the 20th ultimo. I hope and trust that you received this report. All these things lead me to believe that we shall be guilty of national suicide if we give in now' (Cd. 903, p. 56). Slender encouragement, it must be admitted; but desperate men catch at straws. The burghers on commando found many similar straws, and also some encouragement of a more substantial kind. * I captured a Captain Zunnisen,' wrote a British officer to Major Rasch, M.P., 'who told me his commando had all read " Mr. Bannerman's speeches," and they had the most encouraging effect' (letter to the Times, January 16, 1902). 'The Boer women who were allowed to endeavour to bring in their husbands before September 15 report,' said Mr. Bennet Burleigh in the Daily Telegraphy * that they found the commandoes reading the speeches of the chairman and others at the Queen's Hall meeting. ■**■ The burghers refused to come in, saying it is evident that England is verging on civil war.' The evidence produced at the trials of Mr. Broeksma at Johannesburg and Dr. Krause at the Old Bailey showed that the former sent over material which the latter inserted in English pro-Boer papers. The papers were then sent over to the Boers either through the post, various devices being adopted to pass the censorship, or via Delagoa Bay. ' Trooper Broadfoot, of Steinacker's Horse, captured Coventry Howard, a despatch rider from Lorenzo Marquez, on August 29, while Howard was on his way to Botha. Among the despatches which he carried were two packets of cuttings from English and German pro. Boer publications ' {Morning Post telegram from Pretoria, Sep- tember 13, 1901). These illustrations, which might be largely multiplied, suffice to * This was a meeting ' to hear Mr. Sauer on the South African crisis,' June 19, 1901, A resolution was passed condemning the war, and demanding the ' imme- diate offer of peace' on the basis of 'the complete independence of the two Republics.' There was some disorder. 254 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR show that pro-Boer utterances did reach the Boers, and were not entirely without effect. Patriotic Liberals would not have lent themselves to such possibilities of encouraging the enemy unless they had felt under a very strong obligation to denounce the war. Why was this ? With some of the feelings and ideas which in- spired the pro-Boer party I have already dealt (Chapters XXIV., XXVI., XXVII.). But in addition to the sympathy which the Boers drew from prejudice against ' capitalism,' from the ' Re- publican ' idea, and from the word ' arbitration,' there were other forces at work to identify in many minds the cause of Mr. Kruger with the cause of Liberalism. I believe, and from the first maintained, that the identification was neither historically nor philosophically justifiable. Some discussion under this head will form the subject of the present chapter. A remark frequently made in some Liberal circles during current debates has been ' Oh for an hour of Gladstone !' The appeal is to Caesar ; to Caesar, then, let us go. Mr. Gladstone, it is implied, was historically the friend of the Boers ; he was the friend of peace and the enemy of ' Imperial sentiment ' ; and lastly, he was the friend of nationalism. Let us examine these points in order. I think they cover a large portion of the ideas which underlie the proposition that Liberalism must pronounce the rights of the war to be with the Boers and the wrongs with the British. The appeal to Mr. Gladstone is made, first, on the ground of his policy in 1881. On the strength of that reference, it is maintained that Mr. Gladstone would have opposed the war, and if he had not prevailed, would have been in favour of restor- ing after the war the state of things which existed before it. Now, no form of argument is cheaper or less conclusive than to assume to one's own satisfaction what a departed politician would have said or done in a state of facts which was not before him. Such an argument is particularly out of place with Mr. Gladstone. He was an 'opportunist,' in the best sense of that term,* which * There is an interesting defence of such opportunism in Busch's ' Bismarck ': ' Whoever,' said the Prince, ' has held the post of Minister for any considerable time can never absolutely, unalterably maintain and carry out his original opinions. He finds himself in the presence of situations that are not always the same— of life and growth — in connection with which he must take one course one day, and then, perhaps, another on the next day. I could not always run straight ahead like a LIBERALISM AND THE WAR 255 means that he was a practical statesman. He never committed himself to hard-and-fast generalities ; he changed his views with changes of conditions. He did so in the case of the Transvaal. We cannot know what Mr. Gladstone would have done now. But we know what he did then, and what principles he laid down. The following remarks are very apt, I think, to the present situation : * Looking to all the circumstances, both of the Transvaal and the rest of South Africa, and to the necessity of preventing a renewal of disorders which might lead to disastrous consequences, not only to the Transvaal, but to the whole of South Africa, our judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish her sovereignty over the Transvaal, but, con- sistently with the maintenance of that sovereignty, we desire that the white inhabitants of the Transvaal should, without prejudice to the rest of the population, enjoy the fullest liberty to manage their local affairs. We believe that this liberty may be most easily and promptly conceded to the Transvaal as a member of a South African Confederation.' That is what Mr. Gladstone told Messrs. Kruger and Joubert when he took office in 1880. The Transvaal revolt and Majuba followed, and Mr. Gladstone restored after the war that measure of independence which he had refused before. But it was restored on conditions, as we have already seen (Chapter XXV.). Not one of those conditions was fulfilled. We cannot know what Mr. Gladstone would have done in the crisis therefrom resultant. But what Mr. Gladstone did in 1884 everybody knows. The Boers, as we have seen, had infringed the Convention by annexations in Bechuanaland. There was some delay on the part of the British Government in dealing with the various matters in dispute — a delay which was partly due to the Government's desire to obtain the previous consent of the Cape Government to the step proposed (see debate of October 29, 1884). But in the end, Mr. Gladstone sent out Sir Charles Warren at the head of an armed force ; he made the district which the Boers had invaded into a Crown Colony, and in the following year forestalled any further en- croachments by proclaiming a British protectorate over the whole northern country as far as the borders of Matabeleland. cannon-ball. Had I done so, I should have knocked my head against a wall' {Hi. 95). 256 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR According to the doctrines now preached by some Liberals, British subjects, even in a State under the suzerainty, or semi- suzerainty, of Great Britain have no right to look to the British Government for protection against broken promises and gross oppression. That is not the doctrine of 'historic Liberalism.' It was not a doctrine preached either by Lord Palmerston or by Mr. Gladstone. 'A British subject,' said Lord Palmerston, ' in what- ever land he may be, should feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.' ' Wherever your subjects go,' said Mr. Gladstone (House of Commons, March 17, 1882), ' if they are in pursuit of objects not unlawful, you are under moral obligations towards them that you cannot possibly forget or ignore ; and, their objects being lawful, you afford them all the protection which your powers enable you to give.' But, it is said, Mr. Gladstone would have stopped at 'ultimatum point.' He would have maintained the sacred cause of peace. Here again nobody can know what Mr. Gladstone would have done in particular circumstances. But what his principles were, we know. He might have succeeded in solving the Transvaal Question satisfactorily without any war. But if he had once put his hand to the plough, the risk of war would not necessarily have caused him to turn back. Here is what Mr. Gladstone said on this subject in his Fourth Midlothian : ' There is an allegation abroad that what is called the ' ' Manchester School " is to rule the destinies of this country if the Liberals come into power. I will endeavour to tell you a portion of the truth upon that subject. What is called the Manchester School has never ruled the foreign policy of this country — never during a Conservative Government, and never especially during a Liberal Government. Do not let me be supposed to speak of what is called the Manchester School, or sometimes the Peace party, as if I were about to cast disrespect upon them. I respect them even in what I think to be their great and serious error. I think it is, I will venture to say, like many errors in our mixed condition. It is not only a respectable, it is even a noble, error. Abhorring all selfish- ness of policy, friendly to freedom in every country of the earth, attached to the modes of reason, and detesting the ways of force, this Manchester School, this Peace party, has sprung prematurely to the conclusion that wars may be considered as having closed their melancholy and miserable history, and that the affairs of the world may henceforth be conducted by LIBERALISM AND THE WAR 257 methods more adapted to the dignity of man, more suited both to his strength and to his weakness, less likely to lead him out of the ways of duty, to stimulate his evil passions, to make him guilty before God for inflicting misery on his fellow-creatures. But no Government of this country could ever accede to the management and control of affairs without finding that that dream of a Paradise upon earth was rudely dis- pelled by the shock of experience. However we may detest war — and you cannot detest it too much — there is no war — except one, the war for liberty — that does not contain in it elements of corruption, as well as of misery, that are deplorable to recollect and to consider ; but however deplorable wars may be, they are among the necessities of our condition ; and there are times when justice, when faith, when the welfare of man- kind, require a man not to shrink from the responsibility of undertaking them. And if you undertake war, so also you are often obliged to under- take measures which may lead to war.' Not less emphatic was his speech at the Palmerston Club (on January 30, 1878) : ' A gentleman who spoke just now referred to a section of the Liberal party which professed the principles of universal peace, and he argued that it was unwise to proclaim to the world that on no occasion were they disposed to draw the sword. Now, it is quite true that there is in exist- ence such a party in this country, but we all know that theirs has not been the position taken up by the Liberal party. It has not been on the principle of keeping the peace at all times and under all circumstances that the Liberal party have proceeded. I do not scruple to say that the policy we have taken up in regard to this question has never been a policy opposed to the interest of peace. It has been a policy in favour of the highest interest of all — the interest of honour. It was said the other day by a Minister of the Crown that the first interest of England was the interest of peace. Well, even that sentiment was heard with satisfaction, because people knew the meaning of it. But the sentiment in itself is not wise or true. The interest of peace is not the first interest of England. The interest of duty and of honour is the first interest of England. The redemption of engagements is the first interest of England. A regard for justice is the first interest of England ; and to attend to the full extent of one's means to the calls of humanity is the first interest of England.' It is interesting that * a gentleman ' who furnished Mr. Gladstone with his text was a young graduate — the present Lord Milner. We cannot know what view Mr. Gladstone would have taken of Imperial responsibilities in South Africa. What we do know is that he was passionately attached to the Empire — this 'pirate Empire,' as some of his faithless disciples have called it — and 258 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR firmly persuaded of its mission (speech at Edinburgh, March 17, 1880) : ' I believe that we are all united — indeed, it would be most unnatural if we were not — in a fond attachment, perhaps in something of a proud attachment, to the great country to which we belong — to this great Empire, which has committed to it a trust and a function given from Providence as special and as remarkable as ever was entrusted to any portion of the family of man. Gentlemen, when I speak of that trust and that function I feel that words fail me ; I cannot tell you what I think of the nobleness of the inheritance that has descended upon us, of the sacred- ness of the duty of maintaining it. I will not condescend to make it a part of controversial politics. It is a part of my being, of my flesh and blood, of my heart and soul. For those ends I have laboured through my youth and manhood till my hairs are gray. In that faith and practice I have lived ; in that faith and practice I will die.' In view of all this, what right has anybody to invoke the name of Mr. Gladstone against the policy of maintaining, even at the direst sacrifice, the British Empire in South Africa ? Least of all is such an appeal well-founded when it is remem- bered that the maintenance of that Empire involves the oppor- tunity of applying throughout the British sphere the elementary principles of Liberalism. What many Liberals have forgotten is that the idea of self-government which caused us to sympathize with the Boers in 1881 compelled us logically to sympathize with the inhabitants of the country now. The inhabitants then were the Boers (with a minority of ' Outlanders,' for whom Mr. Glad- stone thought he was securing equal rights in perpetuity). The inhabitants in 1899 were the Outlanders (with a minority of Boers, who monopolized all political power). There is nothing, I hope, in the principles of Liberalism which compels us to renounce an advocacy of justice and freedom when the oppressed are of our own people, and to pursue it only when they are of an alien race. To me it seemed that the Transvaal Question appealed with special force to Liberals, both because Liberal policy in the past was (by its misfortune, rather than by its fault) responsible for much of the trouble, and because the system against which Great Britain was protesting in the Transvaal was the very negation of Liberalism. The pivot upon which the whole system turned was the principle that the duty of an exclusive party — political, racial, LIBERALISM AND THE WAR 259 or religious — to its own members is higher than that elementary duty which men owe to men as members of the same citizenship or commonwealth. This is the principle against which Liberalism has for centuries throughout every country in Europe waged deadly and unrelenting war. This has been the principle against which — in that sphere in which religion impinges upon politics, as it does still in the under-life of South Africa — English Noncon- formity and English Liberalism have fought their fiercest fights and made their noblest sacrifices. Some Liberals have appealed on behalf of the Boers to * the eternal principles of justice, truth, and freedom.' Better appeal can no man lay. But what 'justice, truth, and freedom ' were to be found in the rule of Mr. Kruger ? Freedom, according to Mr. Kruger, meant liberty on the part of the minority to deny it to the majority. What peace was possible with a State whose misgovernment was a standing incentive to disorder, whose ambition was to become free of all Conventions, whose actual policy was to convert ' a pastoral community ' into an armed camp ? There has been a similar confusion of thought in another appeal which Liberals have made. They appealed on behalf of the Transvaal to 'the sacred principle of free and independent nationalities.' But what ' nationality ' was it desired to establish in the Transvaal ? The British nationality of the majority of its inhabitants, or the Dutch nationality of the minority ? In Cape Colony the Dutch and the British are nearly equally numerous. What nationality is to be set up therein ? Surely the true object of statesmanship in South Africa should be the fusion of the two nationalities by securing to both an equal measure of freedom and justice. With regard to the 'independent' nationalities, there was a vital difference between the British and the Boer contention. Mr. Kruger contended that he had an inherent right to be a Sovereign International State. Successive British Governments had always maintained that the measure of independence enjoyed by the Transvaal was derived from Conventions, whereby (as Lord Derby put it in 1883) the Queen laid down ' conditions under which, and the extent to which, Her Majesty could permit them to manage their own affairs without interference.' The British contention, and not the Boer, is historically the true one. When 17 — 2 26o RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR the Boers declared war against the Queen, they tore up all Con- ventions. When the war is over, the old question will recur : Under what conditions and to what extent will His Majesty permit the inhabitants of the two States to manage their own affairs without interference ? It will be a question of more inde- pendence or less independence. What Mr. Gladstone sought to provide in 1881 was equal liberties for 'the entire white popula- tion.' I believe, as Mr. Gladstone believed in 1880, that such liberty can be guaranteed only, and can be enjoyed most fully, under the British flag. The question of nationality requires, however, some further discussion. The rights and wrongs of the Transvaal War go deep down, from this point of view, to first principles of politics. On one side is the principle of nationality as an end in itself ; on the other, the principle of what, for want of a better term, must be called 'Imperialism.' I think that many Liberals have been misled by the analogy of earlier struggles for the principle of nationality — struggles which at the time and under particular conditions were also struggles for freedom and civilization. The struggle for the independence of the Boer nationality in the Transvaal was altogether different. It was a struggle for the maintenance of a lower type of civilization in the midst of a higher, of the political ascendancy of a minority as against the majority of the inhabitants. The national ideal was in its time, and in its place may still be, the law of progress. ' The civic, the feudal, or the oligarchic State passes into the national f but also, in due course, the national into the Imperial. ' It is necessary,' says the ' League of Liberals,' * to support and stimulate the independence of small nationalities.' It is never necessary to fight against the inevitable, and those Liberals who cling to the idea of small nationalities as an end in themselves are being left high and dry, I think, by the appointed order of social evolution. It is so in the economic sphere, where ' historical progress has consisted mainly in the establishment of ever larger and larger communities, in the place of small, as the controllers of economic policy.' It is so in the sphere of international law, wherein a growing network of treaties is tending to realize gradually, if slowly, the idea of ever larger and larger groups. Is it not so LIBERALISM AND THE WAR 261 also in politics ? Is not the idea of nationality destined to be merged in a larger idea ? * Surely,' said Dr. Spence Watson,* ' we have not fallen so low as deliberately to destroy two free and independent nationalities.' To destroy them in an unjust cause would indeed have been base. But the destruction is not necessarily and in itself an evil. Injustice is not sanctified by use, nor the denial of liberty by nationality. The ideal of a South Africa united under the British flag is higher than that of a South Africa split into ' independent nationalities,' governed under contradictory systems and armed against each other. The success of the British cause in South Africa will destroy ' the independence of a small nationality '; but it will at the same time be ' the triumph for all time of those principles which Imperial Britain represents, that larger freedom, that higher justice, beneath whose sovereign sway the trader of every land may increase his bales on all her shores, unhindered, the devout of every race pray to God in his own accents unafraid. For this Empire is built upon a design more liberal even than that of Athens or the Rome of the Antonines. Britain conquers ; but by the testimonies of men of all races who have found refuge within her confines, she conquers less for herself than for humanity. 'The earth is Man's ' might be her watchword, and as if she had caught the ocean's secret, her Empire is the highway of nations. That province, that territory, that State which is added to her sway, seems thereby redeemed for humanity rather than conquered for her own sons.'t What, on the other hand, would the triumph of the Transvaal have meant ? It would have meant a perpetuation of the racial theory of government, a strengthening of militarism and a military caste, and a set-back to industrial progress. Professor Mommsen, Anglophobe in this matter though he be, is constrained as a historian to recognise the accuracy of the thesis here developed. * In the Transvaal War two conceptions of life,' he says, * wrestle * At the Nottingham meeting of the National Liberal Federation, March 27, 1900. f ' Reflections on the Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain. ' By J. A. Cramb. P. 139. SchmoUer's ' Mercantile System ' contains some interesting remarks on the expansionist idea in the field of economics. See also Kidd's ' Social Evolu- tion.' 262 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR with one another. The battle is fought between the sixteenth and the twentieth century.'* The idea of nationahty, then, as an absolute end can no longer compel the devotion of Liberalism. Its desirability is relative to other factors. But the larger idea of ' Imperialism ' which is to some extent superseding ' nationalism ' includes one thing which many Liberals confuse with nationalism — I mean the principle of Home Rule, or local self-government. The Irish Question perplexes many minds, and the Home Rule movement makes slow progress, because two different ideals are confused. Is it Home Rule within the Empire, or Home Rule without the Empire, which is really desired ? So long as the Irish leaders themselves speak with an uncertain voice, English opinion is kept back from supporting Imperial Home Rule for fear that it is desired only as a lever for obtaining nationalist independence. The Irish party, in their enthusiasm for the nationalism of the Boers, have necessarily been false to the idea of Home Rule, for that is the idea which the Uitlanders stood for. The result of British policy in South Africa will be, it is true, to supersede the Transvaal nationality, but in doing so it will not diminish, but will increase, the area of Home Rule ; it will add to, and not take from, the total of political liberties. * See Professor Mommsen's reply to Professor Max Miiller in the Deutsche Revue for April, 1900. PART V IN THE LIGHT OF THE WAR CHAPTER XXX MR. KRUGER'S hopes Mr. Kruger and the British Empire — England the Unready — Mr. Rhodes' miscalculation — The Boer contempt for the British redcoat — Mr. Reitz's levity — Mr. Wessels on Boer conceit — Spirit of the Young Afrikanders — Cape rebels — Expectations of help from the Cape Government — Hope of foreign complications — Dr. Kuyper on the approaching downfall of England — Mr. van Kretschmar's Diary — Mr. Kruger's belief in himself and in special Providence. It is not within the scope of this book to follow the course of the war or to deal with the many lessons which may be deduced from it in the military and in the political sphere. Our concern is only with the rights and wrongs of the quarrel. On this question, however, the actual course of hostilities and facts which have come to the surface during them have thrown back some instructive light. This will be the subject of the next few chapters. Mr. Kruger on the eve of the war declared* that he meant to ' stagger humanity.' He has kept his word. Before the war broke out many people believed that it would never come because the strength of the two combatants seemed so unequal. More * In a message to the New York World, dated October ii : ' War is certain. The Republics are determined, if they must belong to England, that a price will have to be paid which will stagger humanity. They have, however, full faith that the sun of liberty will arise in South Africa as it arose in North America.' The last words are familiar to us (see p. 31). 264 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR believed that if it did come it would be of very short duration. None foresaw that it would be so severe and so prolonged as it actually was. These popular misconceptions caused, among other things, an impression which in many minds materially affected their view of the rights and wrongs of the struggle. It seemed incredible to them that ' a little Republic of herdsmen ' should deliberately challenge one of the mightiest empires in the world. If Mr. Kruger went to war at all, it could only be because he was driven to it of direst necessity by an aggressive enemy. The course of the war speedily took all force out of this contention. It showed that Mr. Kruger might have had hopes, and not entirely unreasonable hopes, of winning the day. There were many grounds for such hopes. Mr. Kruger himself was prepared. He had against him a powerful England, it is true, but also England the Unready and England the Contemp- tuous. The British Government, as we all know, ludicrously underestimated the fighting strength of the Boers. Their initial move was calculated not to impress Mr. Kruger with the strength of England, but rather with her weakness or (which comes to much the same thing) her unwillingness or unreadiness to put out her strength. ■**■ Prominent Englishmen in South Africa shared, if they did not prompt, the miscalculations of the Government at home. Mr. Rhodes, in some speeches which will weaken his reputation for foresight, already sufficiently damaged by the fiasco of the Raid, put these miscalculations in a most striking form. ' When I am told,' he said, ' that the President of the Transvaal is causing bother, I cannot really think about it. It is too ridiculous. If they were to tell me that the native chief in Samoa was going to cause trouble to Her Majesty's Government, then I would discuss the proposition that the Transvaal was a danger to * Lord Ripon put this point in a speech at Bolton on November 22, 1899 • ' He believed the Government had been deceived by those who told them in the beginning that President Kruger would never go to war, who told them that if they would only be firm, would only press with sufficient courage and continuity their demands, he would hold out until the last, and then give in. Then they were also told that the Boers had forgotten how to shoot, but that did not appear to be the case. He believed these men would not be listened to again. The force of ten thousand troops that were sent out from India was either too little or too much. It was just enough to irritate the Boers, to excite the passion of their young men, but not enough to give security to our colonies.' MR. KRUGER'S HOPES 265 the British Empire. ... I am sure that the President is going to give Her Majesty the terms which Her Majesty now demands. . . . Before I leave the subject, I will say that there is not the slightest chance of war ; but Her Majesty's Government are going to get the terms which are demanded as being fair and right to the Uitlanders. I will leave that question now, because, as I have said, it is only a temporary trouble in Africa ' (Speech at Claremont, July 20, 1899). At another time Mr. Rhodes is reported to have said : ' The armed strength of the Boers is the greatest unpricked bubble in the world.' Mr. Rhodes is colossal in his blunders as well as in other things."**" Unhappily, the British Government more or less shared his blunder, and made their preparations on an entirely inadequate scale.! Mr. Kruger knew, then, that Great Britain underestimated his strength. It is certain, also, that he underestimated /lers. The utter fiasco of Dr. Jameson's Raid had lowered the already low opinion entertained by the Boers of the English as fighters. We have seen how Mr. Kruger, when urged by the Netherlands Government to be moderate and conciliatory, referred the Consul- General to the fact that 'defeats such as the English had suffered had never been suffered by the Boers.' Mr. J. B. Robin- son, whose long residence in the country and intimate acquaint- * It has often been said that Lord Milner shared this particular blunder. There is no evidence for that. On the eve of the war Mr. James Molteno had a con- versation with the High Commissioner, ' As regards the war,' wrote the latter in giving his account of the interview, ' should it come, and its after-effects, I took a very different view from Mr. Molteno. He seemed to me to think the war itself would be a comparatively small matter, in view of the disproportion of power on the two sides. I, on the other hand, have always regarded war with the Republics as a very formidable war indeed, owing to the colossal armaments of the South African Republic. In view of these armaments, I could not but anticipate a terrible struggle, the last thing in the world which I or any man could look forward to otherwise than with the gravest solicitude' (Cd. 43, p. 240). f As was allowed by Mr. Balfour. ' When,' he said, ' these two Colonies invaded our dominions they did so not as men who took offensive action as a last despairing effort, but rather as the first step in a great military drama, which was to make them masters in South Africa. He had had no prejudice in favour of this belief, for he thought for a long time that from a military point of view it was childish and impossible. He had taken the view that the military problem in South Africa was incomparably easier than it had turned out to be ' (House of Commons, June 19, 1901). 266 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR ance with the Boers lend authority to his words, has described conversations which throw much Hght on Mr. Kruger's words : ' They feel confident, because of their experience in the War of Inde- pendence, that they can easily put to flight any force we may send against them. I have heard many of the old Boer warriors describe the Battle of Laing's Nek. "The red-jackets left their white tents in the morning about nine or ten, after they had had their breakfast, and formed up," they say. "Their red coats could be seen by everyone, their bayonets glittering in the sunshine. The surveyors went and measured out spots where they had to stand in lines, and then they formed up, every man straight. The Adjutant came and cocked his eye down along the ranks to see no one was an inch behind the others. They numbered. He asked them if they felt comfortable and had had a good breakfast, and when they said ' Yes ' the Colonel rode up. The Colonel was on a fine horse, and had a beautiful sabretache. 'Men,' he said, * you see those rocks? The enemy are behind them. You are to go and drive them out.' Then the men put their helmets on their bayonets and waved them and cheered. They marched up in rows. All this time we were sitting quietly smoking, laughing, and joking together. As they got near, the commandant called out: 'Defend yourselves, men.' Then we put our gun-muzzles from behind a shelter of rocks, took aim, picked out the officers, and fired. Soon there came a rattle, and lead pattered all round ; but it all went over our heads, for we were sheltered. We just picked off all the leaders as they came up." ' Such experiences convinced the Boers that, however brave English soldiers may be, they are no match for Boers behind hills. They believe our men will fight the same way now. It is useless to tell them, as I often have, that our troops are now trained to fight them on their own methods. I have seen the British troops trained after the Boer method near my estates by Cape Town. But the Boer will not believe that. "No," he says, "the English redcoat does not fight that way. He comes out in lines for us to shoot at " ' {Daily News, October 3, 1899). In England many people pictured Mr. Kruger and the Boers as quaking in their shoes at the idea of a rupture, or as solemnly taking up a forlorn hope. Very different was the impression made upon visitors to Pretoria. ' The Pretoria people,' wrote Sir Henry de Villiers to his brother, ' do not seem to realize the position. When I was there, Reitz seemed to treat the whole matter as a big joke ' (Cd. 369, p. 4). Other people have pictured the Boers as taking up arms, not gladly though resolutely, in defence of their hearths and homes. The following extract from a letter written by a member of the Transvaal Volksraad to MR. KRUGER'S HOPES 267 a member of the Legislative Assembly of Cape Colony puts matters in a somewhat different light : ' Our plan is, with God's help, to take all that is English in South Africa, so, in case you true Afrikanders wish to throw off the English yoke, now is the time to hoist the Vierkleur in Cape Town. You can rely on us ; we will push through from sea to sea, and wave one flag over the whole of South Africa under one Afrikander Government, if we can reckon on our Afrikander brethren.'* The Boers were not destined to succeed in their plan, but as soon as they had the chance they annexed portions of British territory.! When war was on the eve of breaking out, Canon Farmer, of Pretoria, prepared to take his departure. The Chief Justice (Mr. Gregorowski) tried to dissuade him. * Is it really necessary for you to go ?' he asked. ' The war will be over in a fortnight. We shall take Kimberley and Mafeking, and give the English such a beating in Natal that they will sue for peace' (Interview with Renter, published in the papers of February 2, 1900). The testimony of many other South African residents is to like effect. The Boers were convinced that they would easily be able to ' drive the English into the sea.' ' To get to the sea,' said Mr. Schreiner in the Cape Parliament (September 24, 1900), 'was the life and hope of President Kruger.' The ' young blood' among the burghers in the two Pv.epublics had made sure of an easy victory, and the only thing they were afraid of, on the eve of hostilities, was ' that Chamberlain, with his admitted fitfulness of temper, would cheat them out of the war, and, consequently, the opportunity of annexing the Cape Colony and Natal, and forming the Republican United States of South Africa.' J At the out- break of war such hopes could not have seemed extravagant. * Quoted by Lord Kitchener in his letter of September 22, 1901, to Mr. Schalk Burger (Cd. 903, p. 95). f By a proclamation of July 13, 1901, Commandant Kritzinger declared ' the annexation of certain districts of the Cape Colony, which occurred in the month of November, 1899, by order of the Government of the Orange Free State,' to be still in force (Cd. 903, p. 137). t From a letter from Mr. J. N. Blignaut, discovered in the Landdrost's office at Bloemfontein {Cd. 420, p. 86), 268 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Mr. Schreiner had clung to the belief that the Orange Free State at least harboured no aggressive designs ; but events undeceived him. 'All the friends of the Repubhcs,' he said (September 24, 1900), 'were deeply surprised at their action, that, instead of maintaining a purely defensive attitude against external attack, they immediately took the initiative and made their war to assume an offensive character. Districts north of the Orange River at first, and, later on, to the south, were not merely occupied by the burghers of the Republic for military purposes, but were declared to be annexed to these Republics. He said to the President that he would not believe he would invade south of the Orange River, l^resident Steyn's reply was, " Can you give me a guarantee that no troops will come to the border ?" Of course, he could give no such guarantee, and he did not then believe that, although such a guarantee could not be given, the Free State would invade British territory with the object of endeavouring to promote the establishment of one Republic in South Africa, as the Prime Minister had said. Such a Republic was not thought of in the days of old, and when it first began to be thought of it beat him to guess.' Mr. Wessels, on the other hand, was not surprised. He had lived long among the Transvaal Boers, and knew their ambitions. Nothing could shake the belief of the Transvaalers in their invincibility. ' I tried to persuade them that war with Great Britain was suicidal, and that when the first shot was fired the independence of both Republics would be gone. The Volksstefn^ the Government organ, told me that I was a fool, and that I knew nothing of the might of these young Republics. It was not only the Boer of the back-country that thought the Afrikander invincible : a most intelligent man, a friend of mine, wrote to me from the Boer camp that they were sure of victory, and that many of them had vowed not to wash until they reached the Indian Ocean. Nay, he would even visit me in Cape Town. The worst feature of all this is that they really believed that their hopes would [)e fulfilled. Was not the God of the Transvaal greater than the God of the British Empire ?' (Speech at the inauguration of the Paarl branch of the Guild of Loyal Women of South Africa, June 6, 1900.) MR. KRUGER'S HOPES 269 It is often said, in discussions on the policy of the war, that time was on the British side, that Mr. Kruger was an old man, and that with the disappearance of the President from the scene Krugerism and the ambitious ideal of Afrikanderdom would have disappeared also. This view of the situation ignores the growing strength of the Young Afrikander movement. The anti-British feeling^ — or, rather, the resolve to assert and win Afrikander independence — was strongest among the youngest men. Many of them had been well educated in South African colleges, where the Afrikander idea was in the atmosphere. Several had been in England, at one of the Universities or the Inns of Court. Such men may, or may not, have received an impression of British power; they were certainly impressed with the conviction that such power would never be successfully asserted in South Africa. Mr. Farrelly has recorded an instructive series of conversations with a fellow-student of his, who afterwards held a judicial post in South Africa, and led a commando in the war. They were walk- ing in the Temple Gardens, and Mr. Farrelly was discoursing on the modern tendency towards political consolidation. ' But in South Africa,' exclaimed his friend, ' we shall drive the British into the sea !' A few years later the friends met again at Bloem- fontein. The Afrikander referred to their former conversation; but the British, he said, could keep Simon's Town and the Bay. This meeting took place in Confederation Week of 1897, when the Orange Free State had linked its fortunes to the Transvaal. Once again the two friends met. It was at Johannesburg in September, 1899, during the exodus of the Uitlanders. 'Good- bye,' said the young Afrikander. ' We should have preferred this war twenty years later ; we may fail, but we shall do our best. You did not believe my prophecies years ago ; you believe them now.'* Other Britishers who were on terms of personal intimacy with young Afrikanders have similar conversations to recount. Early in 1899, long before the situation was critical on the surface, two friends — British and Boer respectively — were discussing the future. * I see two great black clouds approaching,' said the young Boer, who occupied an influential position. ' There will be a crash, and * ' The Settlement after the War,' by AI. J. Farrelly, LL.D., p. 97. 270 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR then the storm.' The Briton spoke of the terrible calamity this would be to South Africa, and of the certain ending. The Boers would be beaten and their independence lost. Now, while yet there was time, the Boers should think of conciliation and reform. ' Your certain ending,' replied the Boer, ' is quite wrong. If the worst came to the worst, we should be able to drag the war on among the mountains for seven years ; and long before that there would be European complications. Besides, you forget that Governments do not last for ever, and with a change of Govern- ment in England, English policy in South Africa would be changed.' The younger generation of Afrikanders grew up, it must be remembered, since Majuba, and in the atmosphere created by British policy at that time. ' Nurtured by the tales of heroism of their fathers, they grew up with the firm conviction that England was afraid of the Boers, and therefore always gave in. I remember one day,' writes an old Swiss resident in the Transvaal, * when I happened to tell to a Boer the story of the Battle of Waterloo, and how the French were beaten there by the English, he quite naively remarked : " Och, net vigftig van ons mensche by de Fransche, en de zaak war anders om uitgekom " (Just fifty of our men with the French, and the result would have been just the opposite). When the last meetings were held here before the outbreak of this present war, one would have thought that the Boers were going to a picnic. None thought of the possibility of a defeat. Sitting at my table for breakfast, one sturdy Boer said, in full earnest : '' Net een slag en ons is Klaar met die Rooinekke " (Just one engagement, and we're finished with the Rooineks) ' (Letter to the Rev. W. Hazenberg, an American formerly resident in the Transvaal, com- municated by him to the Times, February lo, 1902). The burghers in the two Republics counted, of course, on assistance from the colonies. It is clear that the Republics had fomented rebellion, and had laid in arms and ammunition to serve it. How far the reality fell short of their hopes it is impossible to say, but the reality, as Great Britain found to her cost, was serious enough. At the beginning of 1900, Lord Milner was 'forced to the conclusion,' from local inquiries, ' that, in round figures, not less than 10,000 of those now fighting MR. KRUGER'S HOPES 271 against us in South Africa, and probably somewhat more, either are, or till quite recently were, subjects of the Queen ' (Cd. 264, p. 5). In some cases these men were perhaps rebels against their will, owing to the lack of efficient protection afforded by ^he Imperial forces ; but in other cases rebellion had been pre- pared beforehand, and the Republican invaders were invited in (see the Blue-Books, Cd. 43 and 264). Sir W. F. Hely- Hutchinson, the Governor of Cape Colony, reported on Octo- ber 22, 1 90 1, that in the Rhodes district of the colony all the officials of the Afrikander Bond had been convicted of high treason ; in the Barkly East district all but one, and that one had absconded ; in the Dordrecht district six out of twelve were accused, of whom four were convicted and one absconded (Cd. 903, p. 119). In one respect, however, the hopes, reasonable or otherwise, of President Kruger and his advisers were disappointed by the event. They thought that the Cape Ministry, no less than individual sympathizers, would be willing and able to assist them. ' I found,' says Sir Henry de Villiers, ' that Reitz and others had the most extraordinary notions of the powers and duties of a Cape Ministry in case of war. They are Ministers of the Crown, and it will be their duty to afford every possible assistance to the British Government. Under normal conditions, a responsible Ministry is perfectly independent in matters of internal concern, but, in case of war, they are bound to place all the resources of the colony at the disposal of the British Crown ; at least, if they did not do so they would be liable to dismissal ' (Cd. 369, p. 4). The complaisance of the Cape Government in allowing arms and ammunition to pass through the colony into the Free State probably helped to mislead Mr. Reitz and the rest as to the attitude which Mr. Schreiner would ultimately adopt. Mr. Schreiner, as we have seen, could not bring himself to believe that the Orange Free State harboured any offensive designs against the colony, and accord- ingly, he allowed, 'in the usual course,' enormous quantities of arms and ammunition to pass through so Tate as in July, 1899. The Imperial Government did not intervene to prevent this free traffic in material of war until the end of August (Cd. 43, pp. 10, 12, 14). Mr. Schreiner's aim was, in his own words, ' to maintain 272 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR this colony as a little place of peace, a little port in South Africa that is not to be riddled and rent by storm and thunder ' (Debate, August 28). When the war came, however, Mr. Schreiner did his duty to the Queen, and became in consequence 'the rejected of the Bond.' Mr. Reitz and Mr. Steyn hoped, no doubt, for better things (as they would think them) from the then Cape Premier. But it was not only from Cape Colony that the Boers believed help would come. They believed, also, in help from outside. Mr. Kruger, as we have seen, was warned before he declared war to expect no help from Germany. In reply to the Consul- General of the Netherlands, who communicated the warning to him, he said it was not his intention to appeal to a Great Power (Cd. 547, p. 10). But it was not through a direct appeal that help was expected. The idea was that England would become embroiled with some other Power, and that even if she were not, the fear of it would prevent her from putting out her full strength in South Africa. 'They were taught by their newspapers,' said Mr. J. B. Robinson, ' that once we are engaged in a quarrel with them, Germany, Russia, France — in fact, all the world— will take advantage of the moment to fly at us ' {Daily News^ October 3, 1899). And not by their own news- papers only. The same idea was sedulously inculcated by one of the chief inspirers of the pro-Boer propaganda in this country. Such writings continued to find their way, as I have already shown, into the Boer camps, and hopes of foreign intervention were for a long time kept alive. ' Hitherto,' wrote Mr. Reitz on May 10, 1901, 'the Government and the people have expected that through the co-operation of our deputation, and owing to complications in European affairs, there might be some hope of saving our cause' (Cd. 903, p. 55). There is something almost pathetic in the absurdity of the tales which were circulated to encourage the burghers. An ' official despatch ' issued at Vryheid in May, 1900, announced that France and England were on the eve of war. Another despatch, contained in an intercepted letter, announced that ' the French are block- ading the Channel harbour.' A more daring invention was at one time palmed off : ' Russia has blockaded all the harbours of Cape MR. KRUGER'S HOPES 273 Colony ' (see a pamphlet issued at Vryheid by Mr. C. J. Davery, and Times correspondence from Pretoria, September 14, 1901). The ideas which during the progress of the war prevailed even in hi'-'xiy-educated and influential quarters throw a curious light back upon what may reasonably have been Mr. Kruger's hopes before the war. An article full of instruction upon this point, as well as upon others, was published early in 1900, in the leading French review : 'All our prayers,' he said, 'are that England may yet recover." Her reverses maybe her salvation. Already one of her Archbishops has raised the cry of repentance and humiliation. A group of eminent men, giving proof of a moral courage that commands our sincerest admiration and is instinct with the best traditions of Gladstone — I refer to the Morleys, the Harcourts, the Courtneys, the Steads, the Clarks, the Laboucheres, and the Harrisons, and many others — watch over the most sacred treasures of their nation, disputing the ground inch by inch with the Jingoes, and raising so loud a cry that soon their vox clamantis in deserto will be heard even to the Highlands of Scotland. All possibility of arrangement is not yet excluded. The fall of Mr. Chamberlain would give the signal of salva- tion. And if a Cabinet, better advised, abandoning all idea of vengeance and making light of military susceptibilities, were to offer full indepen- dence to a Confederated South Africa, reserving to Great Britain only the eastern part of the colony of the Cape, properly so-called, and certain indispensable points on the coast : in that case, England might perhaps convert her redoubtable enemy into an unequalled ally. But she must not delay. Now is the supreme moment {Revue des Deux Mondes, tom. clvii., i8go, p. 524). The awarder of this brief respite to England before immediate dissolution was Dr. Kuyper, an old friend of Mr. Kruger, who was afterwards, as Dutch Premier, to offer intervention as an impartial outsider. To hopes of foreign intervention Mr. Schreiner, for one, attributed the chief influence in causing the war. We have noticed in an earlier chapter (p. 164) the sudden and ominous change in the negotiations which took place between August 19 and 21. Sir Henry de VilHers, as we have also seen, had heard of some information from Europe as causing the change. It was that change which first opened Mr. Schreiner's eyes to the probability of war, and he ascribed it to bad advice from Europe. 'They wanted,' he said, 'no more embassies in Europe sent 18 274 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR to try and stir up ill-feeling and hostility against the British Empire. That unfortunate embassy had been more than anything else responsible for this war. There were limits to tolerance, and that limit was almost reached when one considered the part that the head of that embassy had played. He firmly believed that the unfortunate Republics had been led to suppose that the Great Powers in Europe were about to interfere on their behalf, and they must have been misled by the assumptions and assurances conveyed to them by their emissaries."^ Mr. Schreiner has always believed in Dr. Leyds as the root of all evil in the Transvaal. He told the South African Committee (March 26, 1897) that with Dr. Leyds' departure for Europe better things might be hoped for in the Transvaal. He was doubly wrong. Mr. Reitz was no improvement on Dr. Leyds as State Secretary, and Dr. Leyds in Europe was so much to the bad. I think, however, that we may well doubt whether Dr. Leyds was so largely responsible as Mr. Schreiner thinks. I do not believe that Mr. Kruger was made of putty. My impression is that Dr. Leyds was Mr. Kruger's instrument quite as much as Mr. Kruger was Dr. Leyds' dupe. But certainly the Hollander element in the Transvaal was a powerful factor both in the administration, which was the true cause of the war, and in the intrigues which immediately precipitated it. Nobody can doubt this who has read the remarkable disclosures made before the Concessions Commission. The great ' Hollander ' organiza- tion in South Africa was the Netherlands Railway Company. Long before the negotiations had reached their final stage. Mr. van Kretschmar, the managing director of the line, urged the Transvaal Government to prepare for war, and, suiting his action to his advice, he himself prepared a ' Construction Commando.' The object of the corps was to destroy the property of the shareholders in order to impede the progress of the British forces. He suggested, also, to the Government a scheme for combining Germany, Holland, and the Transvaal against Great Britain. When war was declared, the Netherlands Railway was promptly organized as an * effective ' in the field. * It cannot have been Germany from whom help was expected, for the German Foreign Office sent a message to the contrary on August 15 (see above, p. 156). MR. KRUGER'S HOPES 275 The staff was commandeered for special service in destroying bridges, another staff was appointed to exploit the Natal railways, a*- u later, the colonial railways in the Colesberg district. When the war turned in favour of the British, the directors appear to have become uneasy. The manager did not spare them. * We have compromised ourselves,' he wrote, ' by deed, and word, and writing. We have made cannon and ammunition, destroyed bridges on English territory. We have paid our staff on commando, and assisted the Free State with persons and materials. There are letters, telegrams and witnesses that will prove all this. I have endeavoured to get orders as far as possible, but not always successfully. Neutrality,' he concluded, ' was now im- possible.' It certainly was (see Reports of the Transvaal Con- cessions Commission, Cd. 623). The diary of Mr. van Kretsch- mar (published in an appendix to the Commission's report) throws a vivid light on the hopes of the Hollanders. He was in daily and confidential communication with the Transvaal Government, and his entries for the week preceding the war show what hopes were active in the inner circle at Pretoria. A few extracts may be given : 'September 10 (1899). In the afternoon I was at Smit's with Lombard J. Botha, and we had a talk with him over the situation. Smit was of opinion that it was time to send an ultimatum to England. . . , This would be a daring step, but Smit was of opinion that England would not go to war, but would shift her position. If she did not do so, it would be an advantage to the Boers to take the first step in the conflict, for the English troops in Natal were far too weak to take the field. Once in Natal, it would not be easy to get the Boers out again. . . . The fire is smouldering everywhere. England is at issue with the United States as to the boundaries of Canada and Alaska ; in China she has to be constantly on the watch not to tread on the toes of Russia. In Abyssinia Menelik is growing unruly. In Ireland the tone of the Press grows daily more violent in opposition to the Government policy in the Transvaal ; and in England itself their policy is condemned by the Labour party, which sees in it nothing but the baneful influence of capital. . . . Nothing but good can come out of it to the Dutch race in this part of the world, although in the beginning it entail a heavy expenditure of life and money. The fall of England shall be the crown of the end of the nineteenth century. It is now nearly four years since I wrote to Heer Bake, after the Jameson Raid, that I looked forward to the end of the supremacy of the English in South 18—2 276 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Africa, and I believed that we were drawing near its conclusion ' (Cd. 625, P- 57)- The Hollander atmosphere of Pretoria, into which Mr. Van Kretschmar's diary admits us, may well have contributed something to the warlike feeling there. To the considerations above adduced in explanation of Mr. Kruger's willingness to challenge Great Britain to conflict we must add, I think, the old man's belief in himself and faith in his God. A theory which finds favour in some quarters is that Mr. Kruger is nothing but an ' old hypocrite.' He knew well, it is true, how to play on the religious beliefs of his people for political purposes, as other ambitious men have done. That is no evidence of insincerity. His faith in himself and in the God whose appointed agent he believed himself to be was sincere, and it was not unreasonable. Looking back over the history of himself and his burghers, remembering the perils and wanderings through which they had passed until they had become a rich and powerful State, the old man may well have convinced himself that a special Providence would direct and defend his enterprises to the end. But if sincerely religious, Mr. Kruger was never a dreamer. He trusted in God, but also, as we shall see in the next chapter, he kept his powder dry. CHAPTER XXXI THE TRANSVAAL ARMAMENTS The ' poor herdsmen ' fallacy — The Boer artillery — The Transvaal as the arsenal of South Africa — Apathy of the British Government — Against whom were the armaments directed ? — Cumulative evidence. In the days before the war, visitors to Pretoria often described the spectacle of the old President sitting on the stoep with one hand on the Bible and another on the marble lions, the gift of the late Mr. Barnato, which guarded his portals. The picture was typical of the man. He believed in God, but he believed also in force. He put his faith in Maxims no less that in texts, in Krupp and Creuzot as well as in Heaven. We have discussed already the question when Mr. Kruger THE TRANSVAAL ARMAMENTS 277 began to arm. We saw that the policy of armaments was antecedent to the Raid, but that it was greatly extended after that event, which gave to it some sort of colourable excuse (Chapter X.). The point to which we have now to direct atten- tion is the extent and strength of the armaments as disclosed by the war. We all know the theory which was once in favour with a certain school of politicians in this country, and which even now occasionally appears in speeches and in print. The Boers were a community of ' poor herdsmen,' requiring, indeed, to be able to protect themselves against the possibility of a native attack, and after the Raid awaking to the necessity of being fore- armed against a repetition of that lawless enterprise, but for the rest desiring only to live in peace and quiet within their own borders. How this theory has managed to survive the war I do not know. For what did the outbreak of hostilities show ? It was seen immediately that for a nation of poor herdsmen the military equipment of the Boers was singularly complete. As the war went on, the demonstration became more and more effective. The Boers were found to have enormous supplies of small arms and ammunition of all sorts, and a most formidable equipment of heavy artillery.* It is not within my province to note the technical questions which have been debated upon this point. At any rate it is agreed that the Boer artillery in some respects outclassed the British. Mr. Kruger had turned the Uitlanders' gold into guns of the very best and latest types, and this, we may suppose, was one of the advantages on which he most counted. It is idle to suppose that the great armaments of the Transvaal were procured as a protection against the natives or a second Dr. Jameson. The remarks of an ex-Cape Minister in this con- nection are much to the point. ' The Transvaal,' he said, ' is armed almost like a European Power. Six field-pieces would be adequate for its protection against all the natives who at any time could threaten it. What, then, can it want with fifty, sixty, or * ' It has now become an ordinary thing when you open your paper in the morning to see that so many hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition have been dug out of the ground. Well, they did not grow there' (Lord Salisbury's speech to the Nonconformist Unionist Association, May 13, 1901). 278 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR eighty modern Krupp guns of the best type ? . . . The rapid march of events has compelled them to throw off the mask without further delay. This is fortunate for us, because otherwise we might have had to face two hundred guns instead of sixty or eighty' {Daily News, October 30, 1899). The simple truth is that the Transvaal, so far from being a pastoral or industrial State, had converted itself into a huge arsenal, and the only arsenal, be it remembered, in South Africa. There are leagues in these days 'against militarism.' There is abundant work for them to do, but they neglected a great opportunity in not addressing their protests to Pretoria. South Africa, secured from foreign aggression by the navy of the Paramount Power, was a country from which the curse of militarism should and could have been banished. Its internal conditions called for nothing but such arms as might be necessary to guard against native risings. It is a country of great resources which cry out for peaceful development by the joint efforts of the two white races to whom its destinies are committed. In the British colonies and protectorates complete equality of oppor- tunity was granted to Dutch and British and all white races alike. In British South Africa the garrison in normal times consisted of no more than a couple of regiments of cavalry and five battalions of infantry. It was the Transvaal, the peaceful Arcadia of imaginative politicians, that introduced militarism into South Africa. By railing off a huge tract of territory as a reserve for the political ascendancy of one race, Mr. Kruger sowed the seeds of discord. Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jameson completed the evil by a resort to force which gave Mr. Kruger his excuse, and the * Arcadia ' was turned into an arsenal. Against whom was it directed ? It must have been, it could only have been, directed against England. As Mr. Lecky says, the Transvaal ' raised an annual revenue greatly in excess of what was required for its internal government from unrepresented Englishmen, to whom the prosperity of the State was mainly due, and it employed that revenue in accumulating a great armament which could only be intended for use against England. The events of the last months have shown that it had become incom- parably the most powerful State in South Africa, and that if we THE TRANSVAAL ARMAMENTS 279 had been engaged in a serious European war the English colonies would have been at its mercy ' {Daily News^ March 10, 1900). Mr. Kruger knew all this, and he knew something else which may have contributed to his confidence in pursuing a policy of aggression. I refer to the supineness under provocation of the British Government. For years the Transvaal Government had been piling up armaments against Great Britain ; but Great Britain took no notice : she neither protested nor took precautions against the armaments. It has been urged in defence of the Government (as, e.g.^ by Lord Robert Cecil, Times, September 25, 1900) that Great Britain was powerless to prevent the import of warlike stores by Delagoa Bay. But could she not have brought friendly pressure to bear upon Portugal, who had the power ? By the Treaty of 1875 between Portugal and the Transvaal, which afterwards received Her Majesty's approval under the Convention of 1884, ' His Majesty the King of Portugal reserves the right of prohibiting the importation of arms and munitions of war, and of subjecting the transport thereof to special regulations ; but he binds himself to allow the free importation and transit of arms and military stores intended for the South African Republic and applied for by the Government of that Republic, upon the guarantee necessary to remove all doubt as to their destination being given! Now, during the year 1897 more than 147,000 Mauser magazine rifles passed into the Transvaal via Delagoa Bay. The number of burghers capable of bearing arms was given in the Staatsalmanak at the time as 29,500. The natural inference was that these vast supplies of rifles were required to arm Boers of the Orange Free State and Dutch rebels within our own colonies. The British Government took no step to prevent or protest against the importation any more than it did against that of heavy cannon. Yet the suggestion might surely have been made to Portugal to inquire as to the destination of consignments of arms so vastly in excess of any legitimate requirements. In August and September, 1899, immense consignments of Mauser cartridges arrived in Delagoa Bay. Then for the first time an eifort was made to bring pressure to bear on the Portuguese. The goods 28o RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR were removed to lighters and impounded pending further inquiries. This step excited lively apprehension in Pretoria, for Mr. Kruger knew that, without this timely supply, his Mauser rifles would be useless, and his burghers driven to fall back upon their Martini-Henrys — weapons admittedly inferior to our Lee- Metfords. But the Foreign Office made no sustained attempt to delay the transit by diplomatic measures. The local authorities suddenly released the cartridges, and fifty truck-loads, weighing ten tons each, were permitted to be entrained for Pretoria. The plea was that Mr. Schreiner, the Cape Premier, himself had just allowed a million Mauser cartridges to pass into the Orange Free State via Port Elizabeth. This, it must be admitted, was an argumentum ad hominetn not without some force. In both cases there was most unfortunate negligence on the British side. Ministers, when challenged on this point, have at different times — and on one occasion at the same time — set up contra- dictory pleas. One is that they did not know of the armaments, the other is that they did know, but that for various reasons they could not say or do anything. I have quoted already Lord Salisbury's famous piano-cases speech (p. 91). The guns, he said, were imported as pianos, and the Government ' could not see through deal boards.' I think it was rather a case of wooden heads. At another time Lord Salisbury gave a different account. The Government knew that ' year by year the accumulation of munitions of war was made,' but they were hampered by the Conventions, ' by which we deliberately permitted a community that was obviously hostile to enjoy an unbounded and unlimited right of accumulating the munitions of war to be used against ourselves ' (Guildhall Speech, November 9, 1899). Here, it will be seen. Lord Salisbury threw back the blame on the Liberal Government which concluded the Conventions. At other times Ministers threw hypothetical blame on the Liberal Opposition of to-day. The Government might have increased the African garrisons ; but had they done so. Opposition speakers would have denounced them as firebrands. Some members of the Opposition would have done so, no doubt ; but the duty of Ministers is to take on their own responsibility whatever steps they deem THE TRANSVAAL ARMAMENTS 281 necessary for the due protection of the Empire. They cannot shift any portion of their responsibility by the hypothetical plea that the Opposition would not have consented to share it. A third defence put forward by the Government has been already noticed (p. 59) ; it was that their hands were tied by the Raid. We are not concerned here to analyze further any of these con- tradictory explanations. The point with which we are concerned is this, that the British Government must have known, and in fact did know, about the armaments, that Mr. Kruger knew they knew, and that the British Government did nothing to check the importation. It was not unnatural that he continued to make hay while the sun shone. None of the ministerial defences above given is adequate. The Government should have known, for the Intelligence Department supplied full reports. They had no right under the Convention to interfere ; but they had an inherent right to ask for explanations. The Raid may have prevented them from taking immediate action, but it could not tie their hands for ever. In any case there was no reason why they should not have taken precautions by strengthening the defences of the colonies. At the Bloemfon- tein Conference Lord Milner ' took the opportunity of observing that we were continually receiving reports of Transvaal preparations, which had already caused considerable alarm on the Natal border, and I added that the large increase in the military forces and equipment of the Republic in recent years had produced a bad impression, both in Great Britain and among the British inhabitants of South Africa ' (C. 9404, p. 2). Even after Bloemfontein the Government took only small and inadequate steps. The real reason seems to be that they under- estimated Mr. Kruger's strength, and did not believe he would fight. Mr. Kruger knew what he meant, and the signs of blind- ness or scepticism which he detected on the other side may have confirmed his decision. What, then, did he mean ? The process of inference is cumu- late, but seems to me conclusive. We have seen that ever since 1 88 1 a hostile policy towards England was unswervingly pursued by the Transvaal. Ceaseless attempts were made, in some cases successfully, to violate the conditions on which Mr. Gladstone 282 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR had restored the internal independence of the Republic. Claims were put forward in the negotiations of 1883 which showed the ultimate ambitions of the Transvaal. The English inhabitants of the country were disfranchised ; they were unrepresented, but they were taxed, and the money was used to convert the Republc into a powerful military State, and at the same time to provide for a large expenditure in Secret Service, both in Europe and in Africa. The war has revealed to us on the Transvaal side a formidable combination of military equipment, complete organiza- tion, experienced tactics, and a vast accumulation of artillery and ammunition. This combination was thrown by the two Boer States into an invasion of the British colonies, after they had refused terms which their most ardent defenders in this country admitted to be reasonable and conciliatory, and after the British Government had offered, if those terms were accepted, ' to give a complete guarantee against any attack upon the independence of the South African Republic, either from within any part of the British dominions, or from the territory of any foreign State ' (C. 9530, p. 16). Is it possible on this collocation of facts to resist the conclusion that the final declaration of war was the culmination of a deter- mined policy, deliberately planned and strenuously pursued ? CHAPTER XXXII THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR An argument from authority — Value of the opinion of ministers of religion in South Africa — Unanimity of the Free Churches — Resolutions and manifestoes cited — The Archbishop of Cape Town's letter — The Dutch Reformed Church and the Republics — Incompatibility of ideals. The conclusion suggested at the end of the last chapter, as rendered necessary by the evidence, has on its side a powerful argument from authority. The war in South Africa is represented by the pro-Boers as one involving and originating in every wicked and un-Christian sentiment, as conceived in fraud, avarice, and hate. If this be so, it is a terrible reflection on the Christian THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR 283 churches founded by Great Britain in South Africa that, ahuost without exception, their ministers have been among the strongest supporters of the war. Some of the critics above referred to have the courage and the logic of their convictions, and denounce those ministers of rehgion as fools and knaves. But an indictment against a whole Christian ministry is a serious thing, and it is not easy to believe that practically all the ministers of all the de- nominations should simultaneously have lost their heads or have deliberately said to themselves, 'Evil, be thou my good.' The ministers of religion in South Africa are akin in training and creed, in instincts and sympathies, in politics and rehgion, to their brethren at home. They differ in two things. First, they are on the spot, and have thus had practical experience of the conditions and circumstances which prevailed before the war ; secondly, they had much to lose by war. Take, for instance, the ministers of various denominations who were settled in the Transvaal : they have seen their congregations scattered, their houses and all other belongings exposed to devastation ; their interests, as well as their religious convictions, must have been on the side of peace. If these were overruled by their local knowledge, is there not a strong presump- tion that there was reason in their judgment ? These men, at any rate, preaching the Gospel for small stipends, and exposed often to many risks and dangers, cannot collectively be accused of 'capitalist intrigue,' or 'greed of territory,' or 'blatant militarism.' Among these men there has been hardly a dissentient voice. * We all believe ' (in the words of one of them) ' that this war was inevitable ; that, whatever may be the defects of our diplomacy, it did not cause the war ; that the object of it has been the dream of a quarter of a century — a dream that seemed likely to be only a dream, until the Uitlanders provided for them the sinews of war; that since then there has been steady, persistent, unfaltering pre- paration for the present conflict.'* With regard to the future, they all believe that ' only under annexation to the British Crown can the blessings of peace, prosperity, and goodwill be permanently secured.' A few extracts from resolutions passed by the various churches * Letter of the Rev. Charles Phillips (Congregational minister, Johannesburg) in the Daily News, January 10, 1900. 284 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR will bring home to the reader their unanimity in these matters. The Cape Town and District Congregational Association ' regards the war as having been unavoidable,' and is of opinion * that in any settlement the absolute paramountcy and control of the country must be in the hands of Great Britain.' The Congrega- tional Union of Natal, in an address to the Union of England and Wales, says : ' As Christians, they deeply deplore the present war, bringing with it the invasion of the Colony of Natal, with looting and plundering of hundreds of homes in towns, villages, and farmsteads. The authentic reports which they hear on this matter from scores of friends who have been ruined are simply heartrending. And yet, humanly speaking, the conflict was inevitable.' ' They hold that when the settlement comes there should be no longer two Republics in the heart of South Africa, forming a focus of intrigue and secret preparations for another trial of strength against British supremacy, when Great Britain may have her hands tied in some other part of the world. They deem it of vital and transcendent importance that government on British lines should be established in every State of South Africa, under one flag, as in Canada and Australia. ' They trust that this statement of the views and convictions of the Natal Congregational Union will command your sympathy, and that you will unite with them in prayer that the terrible struggle may soon be brought to an end, and that the fruits of it will be peace, prosperity, and freedom from the Cape to the Zambesi.' The Evangelical Church Council of Port Elizabeth and District is of opinion ' That the persistent refusal of the Government of the South African Republic to redress grievances and to give to Uitlanders reasonable parti- cipation in the government of the country, its continuous increase of armaments and building of forts, its dissemination of inflammatory and seditious literature, and distribution of arms and ammunition among many of Her Majesty's colonial subjects, its invasion and proclaimed annexation of large portions of Her Majesty's colonial territory, together with its wholesale raiding of stock and ruthless destruction of individual and State property, all indicate a deep-seated and long-cherished purpose of a most malignant and hostile character against British interests and British authority in South Africa. ' The Evangelical ministers of Kimberley have issued a memo- randum to the like effect. The Cape Town Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church is of opinion that 'it is only through the THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR 285 predominance and supremacy of Great Britain in South Africa that true Hberty can be maintained and peace made permanent, and that it is absolutely necessary, in the interests of white and black races alike, that imperial control should, for some years to come at least, be continuous and effective.' The Presbyteries of King William's Town and of Natal have passed similar resolutions. The latter, ' recognising the moral and religious issues involved in the conflict, declares its profound and firm conviction of the righteousness of the cause for which the former has been compelled to take up arms and fight.' At the Wesleyan Synod of the Cape of Good Hope district the following resolution was passed unanimously : ' This Synod desires to place on record its entire approval of the policy now being pursued by the Imperial Government in South Africa, and it is the earnest prayer of members of the Synod that the operations now being undertaken may speedily result in the success of the British arms, and that peace and righteousness may be assured to this land, which it is believed will be attained through the unquestioned supremacy of Great Britain in South Africa.' In transmitting the resolution, the Chairman of the Synod wrote to the High Commissioner as follows : ' As your Excellency is aware, our Synod represents not only a large section of the European community, but also a numerous body of Dutch- speaking coloured people in the Western Province, to whose unfaltering loyalty to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen we can bear the most emphatic testimony. ' I may add that the Synod views with the utmost detestation the course being pursued by the opponents and enemies of your Excellency, who not merely insinuate the unworthiness of your motives and aims, but cause to be circulated basest calumnies which are evidently intended to discredit your Excellency in the eyes of the civilized world. ' We fervently pray that Almighty God will graciously sustain you in the faithful administration of the onerous duties of your exalted office, and that the principles of equality, righteousness, and good government, for which your Excellency has stood throughout, may be firmly established in a united South Africa, under the supremacy of our beloved Queen.' The Wesleyan Methodist Church has many adherents among the natives, and its native synods passed similar resolutions. With regard to the Baptists, the following resolutions were signed by officials of the Baptist Union of South Africa : 286 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR • I . In our opinion the war now being waged has been mainly brought about by the action of the South African Republic in its intolerant attitude towards the rights, liberties, and interests of British subjects and native races. ' 2. We have noticed with regret the rise of a deep anti-English feeling, not only in the Republics, but in Her Majesty's colonies, and are con- vinced that this has contributed considerably to the causes of the present struggle. ' 3. We do not believe that Her Majesty's forces are fighting on behalf of capitalists or for the purpose of acquiring new goldfields for our Empire, but in defence of British colonies, in the interests of good government, and to secure justice and liberty for all races in this land. ' 4. We desire to express our approval of the policy of which Her Majesty's representative. His Excellency Sir Alfred Milner, has been the exponent, and to affirm our belief that His Excellency endeavoured by all possible means to bring about a peaceful settlement of the questions at issue between Great Britain and the South African Republic. ' 5. We are convinced that the interests of the Empire demand the predominance of the British policy all over South Africa, and that the future independence of either of the Republics, or both, would be inimical to the peace, the progress, and the material and spiritual development of the peoples of this country. ' 6. We earnestly commend these resolutions to our brethren in the Baptist ministry of Great Britain and Ireland, in the assurance that the interests of the kingdom of Christ, especially in relation to the native races of this continent, are intimately associated with the success of the British arms, and with such development and extension of civilization as in- variably accompany British rule wherever it obtains.' It would be tedious to give further extracts from the resolutions of the several Free Churches. It should, however, be added that what they said severally they also said collectively. Here, for instance, are some passages from a manifesto issued by the Durban Church Council in the Colony of Natal, consisting of ministers and laymen representing nearly all the Churches and congregations in the borough and district : ' That, in common with all Christians, we deplore war, with all its attendant circumstances and results, and would have rejoiced to see a just and stable settlement effected without it. But the attitude of the Trans- vaal Republic for years past has gradually made it manifest that a peaceful settlement was impossible, except upon the basis of Dutch domination throughout the whole of South Africa. ' That we earnestly appeal to the Free Church Councils, and to Christian people of all communions in the United Kingdom, to take a THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR 287 comprehensive and generous view of the present situation in this country. There has been in some quarters, where the reverse might have been looked for, a strange lack of knowledge and of sympathy. Still, it is believed here that in this terrible crisis the vast majority of people at home, of all shades of religious and political opinion, are convinced of the justice of the cause represented by those who are now bravely fighting for the Queen. Many of our fellow-colonists are taking part in the strife ; not a few of them have been killed or wounded, and amongst these some of our own relatives and friends. They have given or risked their lives, not for greed or conquest, as has been cruelly alleged, but for freedom, for just and honest government, and for the honour of the British name. ' As a Council representing thirty congregations, we are convinced, and we feel sure, that the great body of British Christians all over South Africa share the same opinion — viz.. that with the thorough success of the British arms, and the establishment of a sound and honest Govern- ment based on British principles and modes of government, are bound up not only justice to the white races, but also humane treatment of the natives, and all that makes for peace and for the building up of a prosperous and united Commonwealth.'* Other such documents might be cited, but enough has been said to show the unanimity of the Free Churches. That the Anghcan Church was of the same mind may be gathered from a letter addressed by the Archbishop of Cape Town to the High Commissioner : ' BisHOPScouRT, Claremont, ' April 21, 1900. •Sir, ' I feel that the absence of any official expression of opinion on the part of members of the English Church during the present crisis, at a time when other religious bodies have combined in addressing your Excellency, is likely to lead to an erroneous inference as to that Church's attitude in respect of the future of South Africa. I therefore hope that I may be permitted to express to your Excellency my firm conviction that no enduring peace can be secured to this country so long as the Northern Republics are allowed to retain their independence and to remain outside the limits of the Queen's Sovereignty. I believe that the cause of freedom, righteousness, and progress, as well as of justice to the native * Published in the Daily News, December 25, 1899. Most of the other resolu- tions, etc. , are given in No. i of the ' Vigilance Papers ' issued by the South African Vigilance Committee. Several may also be found in a Blue-Book of 1900, Cd. 261. 288 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR races, depends upon the establishment of British rule throughout South Africa. ' In saying this, I feel no doubt whatever that I am expressing the decided and deliberate views of an overwhelming majority of those over whom I have the honour to preside as Metropolitan, and that they, like myself, entertain the fullest confidence in your Excellency's prudence, wisdom, and courage in dealing with the momentous issues now at stake. ' I remain, etc., W. W. Capetown.'* The British Churches throughout South Africa were then, and are, unanimously of opinion that in the struggle right was on the side of Great Britain. On the other hand, the Dutch Reformed Church — ' one in creed, language, membership, and blood relationship with the burghers of the two Republics ' — took the other side. It protested against the war as an attack on the independence of the two Republics, and petitioned Her Majesty's Government to desist from it. In a long manifesto it argued some of the political points, and defended itself from the charge of indifference to the natives, t The Churches thus ranged them- selves, in the words of diplomatic jargon, on the side of their respective * nationals.' If we concede to each side an equal weight and an equal measure of disinterested sincerity, the diametrical opposition of their conclusions would be another illustration of that conflict of ideals and ambitions which has confronted us at every stage and in every aspect of this history. To the Christian Churches animated by British ideals the cause of Great Britain presented itself also as the cause of right and justice and Christianity. Were they wrong herein ? Let us consider once more one of the fundamental ideas on the Boer side — the idea, namely, that the land in which they had settled was theirs by right Divine to govern wrong. The Transvaal was a new country so far as Europeans are concerned. It is as large as Great Britain and Ireland. ' Of course,' as Mr. Robson has put it, ' if any nation or race is strong enough to seize and hold so great a portion of the earth's surface and to exclude the rest of mankind from it, they may do so, but do not let them talk of * Blue-Book, Cd. 261, p. 94. A similar letter was addressed by the Archbishop to Sir Gordon Sprigg. t See pp. 31-41 of the Blue-Book, Cd. 261. THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR 289 their " right" to do so. No law, human or Divine, gives any such right, and the position of the conquerors depends on force alone. But what is to be said of a race which has bound itself not to exclude the rest of mankind, and which is entitled, therefore, merely to share the new territory with others, claiming to reduce those others to political and civic servitude ? If they are strong enough to do it, there is nothing more to be said, but do not let them be told they have a right to do it. The attempt to do it should meet with the reprobation of every lover of freedom, no matter what his race may be. It is an attempt to apply to the undeveloped portions of the earth the most odious form of tyranny known to the old world, a race tyranny. The tyranny of a King or a class was bad enough, but at least it was mitigated by sense of a common country, while a race tyranny adds national hate to class selfishness. The very patriotism which tempers one tyranny inflames the other. Imagine what the civilized world would say if America or Australia or New Zealand were to act on the lines laid down by Mr. Kruger !' (Letter to the Times, November 9, 1899). To the Free Churches of Britain, Mr. Kruger's theory was naturally and inevitably repellent. To those churches the principle of liberty and equality is of the elements in which they live and move and have their being. The Congre- gational Union of Natal, in its address, sought ' to impress upon its fellow-Christians in England that the Boer ideal of government is a military oligarchy, while the British ideal is based upon the equality of all white men and the humane and just treatment of the native races.' It was for this object, the address added, * that large numbers of the colonists of Natal, very many of whom belong to the Churches and Sunday-schools of the Union, are now fighting at the front.' And to like effect the Cape Town Presbytery 'earnestly appealed to the Presbyterian Church throughout the Empire to help in striving for those principles of liberty and equality and justice for which our Church has striven and suffered all through its history.' 19 290 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR CHAPTER XXXIII THE NATIVE QUESTION Importance of the native question — Sympathy of the natives with the British in the war — Resolutions and subscriptions — The case of Esau, the black blacksmith — Ill-treatment of Kaffirs during the war — Treat- ment of the natives in the Transvaal and Cape Colony — The com- pound system: Mr. Moffat's views — Ill-treatment under the Transvaal ' Pass ' Law — Great Britain as protector of the native races. Do Englishmen always remember, I wonder, when writing, speak- ing, or thinking about South Africa, that the vast majority of its inhabitants are neither Dutch nor English, but Hottentots and Kaffirs? We think of it as 'a white man's country,' and so it is in the sense that the white men govern and can work and thrive in it. But in population it is a black man's country. In the Transvaal there are, roughly speaking, three black men to every white man. In Cape Colony the blacks are four to one ; in Natal twelve to one. If we include the native populations of other regions within the British sphere, we may say that the people whom most of us probably in thinking of the future of South Africa leave out of account altogether, are considerably more than 80 per cent, of the population. And in South Africa the black races do not dwindle, but increase and multiply. The * native question,' often lost sight of in recent years, has been the root in the past, as we have already seen (Chapter III.), of much of the conflict between Dutch and English. It will be in the future one of the most difficult of all the many problems which confront British and Colonial statesmanship in South Africa. It has been in the presence and before the sight of the preponderating black population that the war between the two white races has been waged. With what eyes, then, and with what thoughts did the black spectators in various parts of the scene of war regard the combat? Occasional glimpses into the black mind have been afforded us. They are among the most interesting and to us British the most satisfactory lessons of the war. In Natal a remarkable meeting, attended by representatives of the natives in all parts of the colony, was held on June i, 1900, on THE NATIVE QUESTION 291 the Lower Tugela. The delegates, who were chiefly educated natives, numbered sixty, and a series of resolutions which was submitted to the meeting was adopted unanimously. The first resolution, which attested the continued and unwavering loyalty of the natives to 'our beloved Queen,' was carried by the whole assembly standing up and singing the National Anthem, after which lusty cheers were given. Other resolutions expressed an earnest prayer that Her Majesty's Government, in arranging a settlement, would safeguard the natives from restrictive legislation in the matter of education, and would grant a certain amount of direct representation in the Legislature and other privileges ; ex- tolled the policy of Lord Milner, and expressed the hope that he would be retained in office as Administrator of South African affairs ; thanked Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson, the Governor, for the interest he had shown in the native population, and Lord Roberts and Sir Redvers Buller for freeing Cape Colony and Natal of ' our enemies the Boers ' ; and, finally, advocated the annexation of both Republics (Reuter's telegram in the papers of June it, 1900). The natives of Natal did not confine their sympathy to resolutions ; they subscribed to the charitable war funds. The terms in which the subscription was sent by the Chief Ncwadi are interesting : • In this bag you will find a small token of the gratitude of myself and my people for the protection afforded us by the Government and the army of Her Majesty the Queen. We were told to stay at home, and we have done so. The Queen's soldiers have fought, have been wounded, and have died for us, whilst we remained unscathed in our homes. Many of them are wounded and sick. This small gift from me and my people may furnish some needful comfort for them, and for this purpose I have brought it. We have just paid our hut tax and dog tax ; we have had anxiety and much expense to provide for ourselves and families ; my people have not been able to work and earn money as they might have done. If it were not for these things, your table would be red with Amangwane money for the use of the sick and wounded soldiers of Her Majesty the Queen * (Cd. 261, p. 158).* * The news of the successes of the British arms has been received by the natives,' the Governor reported, * with universal expressions of delight ' (Cd. 261, p. 155). * Particulars of other native subscriptions will be found in a later Blue-Book, Cd. 547, p. 68, 19 — 2 292 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Let us turn now to the other side of the theatre of war. The Rev. R. J. Campbell, who made a tour of South Africa during the earlier stages of the war, was much struck by the intense earnestness with which loyalty to Queen Victoria was everywhere expressed. ' The very natives,' he said, ' share it. They hear Britons speak of their Queen as they would of a Divinity, and they catch the inspiration. The Rev. " Tom " Brown, London Missionary Society missionary at Kuruman, told me of the diffi- culty he experienced in keeping the natives from rising against the Boers. Mr. and Mrs. Brown were badly treated by their captors after the fall of Kuruman, and yet, had they so chosen, a word would have let the tribes loose, and a frightful massacre would have resulted. Owing to the efforts of the missionary, they were induced to remain quiet, and wait patiently for the coming of the British troops. " The old mother is slow," the chiefs declared to their restive followers, " but her arm is long. She has many sons. They will come by-and-by. Sit still ! Sit still !" To see and hear these things,' says Mr. Campbell, and most readers will agree with him, 'makes one rejoice in Greater Britain' (Z?«//y News, May ii, 1900). In Cape Colony the treatment of the natives is entirely in the hands of the Colonial Government ; in Natal it is partly reserved by the Imperial Government ; in Basutoland it is entirely in the hands of the latter. The Resident Commissioner reported on the attitude of the Basutos as follows : ' Maseru, March 25, 1900. ' The paramount Chief with his sons and other chiefs have been here for the last few days. Lerothodi requests respectfully to be allowed to express to you, and ask you to forward, his thankfulness and congratula- tions for the victories gained by Her Majesty's Government over the Queen's enemies, to reiterate his expressions of loyalty on behalf of him- self and people. I beg your Excellency will be pleased to accept the message, which was announced in public and cordially greeted. — Lagden ' (Cd. 261, p. 52). The loyalty of the coloured subjects of the Queen sometimes cost them dear. ' Their attitude and behaviour throughout,' says the Governor of Natal, * has been worthy of high praise. Many of them have suffered for their loyalty. Some have been killed, THE NATIVE QUESTION 293 and others wounded or injured by the enemy, on account of the assistance they have rendered to His Majesty's troops ' (Feb. 13, 1 90 1, Cd. 547, p. 68). The case of Esau, the coloured black- smith of Calvinia, in Cape Colony, is worth citing. Here is a letter he sent to the Imperial Secretary in February, 1900 : ' I really felt ashamed by given you so much trouble, but my loyalty to the British Crown forced me to do so. I have already handed in a letter by a private man, named Isaacs, and I hope you have received ; but I want to put it once more to your notice that we loyal British subjects of Calvinia are in a dangerous position. I myself have been strongly warned by my friends not to go out of town because I'l be shot by the farmers, and as true as there is a living God, I'l remain a true loyal British subject to the British Crown, and not I alone, but the whole coloured nation, are proofd their loyalty ; so we coloured earnestly beg you, dear Honble. Sir, to be protected by the Imperial Government. (Here follows imputations of disloyalty on various individuals.) And, dear Honble. Sir, it is no several times that we colored people of Calvinia offered our little assist- ance to the British Crown, please let me know if there is chan no chance for our colored people to go to the front, if possible, let us then have a show. No I conclude with the best hope that you will take my letter in consideration and do anything in your power to protect us. Please correct my mistakes, because I'm not well educated, but a true British subject. • I am, etc., ' Abraham J. Esau.' His loyalty cost him his life. A year later the Boers occupied Calvinia. They took brutal vengeance on Esau, but his loyalty stood the strain even of the most terrible suffering. He was stripped, tied to a tree, and beaten unmercifully. He was then brought before one of the Dutch rebels, and commanded to give information about the British ammunition and guns. He refused, and, after some further buffeting and kicking, was taken to gaol. On the evacuation of the town by the Boers, he was called out from his cell and made to march in front of armed guards, and, though exceedingly weak and almost unable to walk, was forced forward by the guards, who made free use of the sjambok, and trampled him with their horses whenever he showed signs of flagging. After proceeding along the highroad for about three miles, he was marched out in charge of one guard into the veld, and there was shot dead. The murder of Esau was particularly cold-blooded, because 294 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR there could be no charge of * spying ' against him, since he had not left the town."**" Upon that systematic murdering of the Kaffir by the Boers, which, as Dr. Conan Doyle says, has been 'the most savage and terrible feature in the whole business,' I need not here dwell, nor is it within my scope to enter into the accusations brought by each party against the other of arming or encouraging the natives. The general facts are not in dispute. Each army had its black ' hewers of wood ' and diggers of trenches, its Kaffir teamsters, servants, and scouts. At first the black scouts on the British side were unarmed, but when they were shot by the enemy they were given weapons in self-defence. Some armed Kaffirs were also employed, it seems, in watching the railway line. But, with some exceptions on both sides, the blacks were kept out of actual hostilities. There is honour among the fiercest of white combatants in a black man's country, and to have taught the black man to rise against his white masters, on the one side or on the other, would in South Africa have been the unpardon- able sin. It was for this reason that the British held back the Basutos and other natives who were eager to pay off old scores against the Boers. It was from the same point of view that the British Government had to refuse the repeated request of the Maoris to be allowed to send a contingent to South Africa, and declined all offers of assistance from coloured subjects of the Crown in other parts of the Empire. To the black scouts employed by the British, and, indeed, to Kaffirs who in any manner whatever stood in their way or might conceivably do so, the Boers showed ruthless cruelty. Page after page might be filled with notes of duly-authenticated cases of floggings and murders. Lord Kitchener has even reported that Boer commandoes have sometimes covered their tracks by putting to death every Kaffir who might give information. (Cases collected from the official papers are summarized in chapter x. of Dr. Conan Doyle's ' The War in South Africa : its Cause and Conduct' See also a later paper, Cd. 888.) It is one of the curiosities of public sentiment in England that this terrible and deliberate cruelty has found no place in pro-Boer denunciations of * The details of this case will be found in two of the Blue-Books, Cd. 547, pp. i, 60, 70, 73, 74 ; Cd, 903, pp. 17-25. THE NATIVE QUESTION 295 * methods of barbarism in South Africa.' The Boers themselves once had among them a leader to prophesy of judgment to come. ' You have ill-treated the natives, you have shot them down, you have sold them into slavery, and now you have to pay the penalty ' (President Burgers in an address to the Raad, March 3, 1877). And in these present times there must be some whose conscience tells them that cruelty and murder cannot be made 'right again at night with a prayer of three yards long.'* It would, as I have said before^ be absurd to pretend that all British people treat the natives well. There are cruel English as well as cruel Boers. The real and vital difference is this : that under British rule there is protection, justice, and some measure of equality before the law for the black man, whereas under Boer rule the black man is outside the law. The following statements, drawn up by the Rev. Charles Phillips, show how the two systems compare in these respects : In the Transvaal. • I. In the IXth Article of the Constitution it is affirmed that there shall be absolutely " no equality, either in Church or in State, between white and coloured." The natives are the " zwartgoed," black goods or pro- perty, the " schepsels," mere creatures, the Gibeonites, to be used as the " hewers of wood and drawers of water " for the white people. ' 2. They may not walk on the side-paths or occupy other than the trucks or carriages on the railway specially built for them. ' 3. They may not engage in any kind of trading, such as hucksters or costermongers. No license could be obtained even by an educated and respectable coloured man for the purpose. • 4. In the land formerly their own, from which they were expelled or subjugated by a gigantic raid, they may not own even a foot of land. ' 5. Till two years ago there never was such a thing as a legal marriage among coloured people. When it was granted, lest it should be thought that there was the shade of equality at the hymeneal altar, the preamble introduces the IXth Article of the Grondwet, quoted above. It then insisted upon a fee of £s to the Government, and so hedged it round with other restrictions as to put a premium on immorality, insomuch that all branches of the Christian Church sent deputations to Pretoria and worked des- perately for its aboUtion, preferring the old condition of things. ' 6. A maximum is done for the education of every Boer child ; a minimum for every Uitlander child ; nothing whatever for the native • A phrase, used in another connection, from the letter of Assistant- General Tobias Smuts to Commandant-General L. P. Botha (Cd. 933). 296 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR child. Yet all contribute to the revenue. The native 3 per cent., the Boer 7^ per cent., the Uitlander 89^ per cent., so that the anomalous condition exists that the native helps to educate the Boer child, but gets nothing in return. '7. It is difficult to compress into a paragraph the iniquitous working of the Pass Law. Each native, through his " Baas," must pay two shillings for a pass, and wear a metal badge on his left arm above the elbow. But many in the times of depression during the last two years were often out of work. Now, no work meant no " Baas," no " Baas " no pass, no pass imprisonment or fine.'* In Cape Colony. ' I. The Constitution of the country allows no difference whatever, either in Church or State, on account of colour. • 2. The natives can walk where they like. • 3. Can trade on the same conditions as Boer and British. ' 4. Can own land to full extent of their purchasing power. '5. Can marry by the marriage law, which applies to all classes alike, and without paying any fee to the Government. • 6. Can obtain a grant for every properly-conducted school. I myself at one time had seven such in the Cape Colony under my charge, not one of which could have been kept open apart from the Government grant. • 7. But what is more important still, they have the franchise on the same conditions as the whites. Sir A. Milner asked far less at the Bloem- fontein Conference for the Uitlanders than is freely granted to the natives in the Cape Colony.' The more educated of the coloured people in Cape Colony thoroughly appreciate the differences set out in the above tables. A deputation representing 100,000 of them in the Western Province presented an address to the Governor at the beginning of 1901, and in this they said : ' As British subjects, we desire to assure you of our high appreciation of the liberty and justice which our people have always enjoyed under the British Government. With regard to the position to be occupied by Her Majesty's coloured subjects in the Transvaal Colony and the Orange River Colony, we feel that we can with full confidence leave it to your Excel- lency to secure for the coloured people that protection and freedom to which they are entitled. We trust that everything will be done in these colonies to secure liberty and freedom for all civilized people, and that every opportunity will be given to the uncivilized to raise their status and come within the ranks of Her Majesty's civilized subjects.' • Mr, Phillips' article appeared in the Daily News, April 10, 1900. He spoke of all the regulations of the Pass Law as still in force. Its operation had, in some respects, been mitigated shortly before the war. THE NATIVE QUESTION 297 Lord Milner, in reply, ' thoroughly agreed that it was not race or colour, but civilization which was the test of a man's capacity for political rights' (Cd. 547, No. 37). More 'morbid love of the natives,' it will be seen ! In the treatment of native labourers the advantage was also largely on the side of the Colony. No better testimony can be cited in this matter than that of the Rev. J. S. Moffat. He belongs to a family famous in the annals of missionary enterprise. His father was Dr. Robert Moffat, who laboured so long and so heroically as a missionary among the native tribes. Mr. Moffat himself was born among them, and grew up in their midst. For twenty years he has worked for them as a missionary. He has also had fifteen years' experience as a Government official among them. From the earliest days the missionaries have been the protectors and defenders, as well as the educators, of the natives of South Africa. The future of the coloured races depends more upon the missions and mission-schools than upon any other civilizing agency. Mr. Moffat, therefore, speaks as a friend of the natives, and as one who regards their just treatment as of paramount importance. Here is a summary of what he says : ' In Cape Colony the native is well treated. The laws are just, and any abuses which may happen from time to time are exceptions. They are not the outcome of the laws which are on the Statute Book. Speaking as a missionary who has seen Kimberley before and after the compound system was established, I must say that I very strongly approve of the system. It has been the salvation of the natives in Bechuanaland. Before it was put in force they were plundered right and left by the public-house keepers, who got rich by exploiting the natives. The compound system has done away with most of the abuses which existed. A native must now sign a contract for three months. During that time he is as much a prisoner as a sailor on board ship. He lives on the company's premises, and is not allowed to leave them. He is well fed and well housed; he has nothing to complain of. The minimum wage of the raw Kaffir is 15s. a week. At the end of the week he pays the manager 5s. for his food. The remaining los. are also entrusted to the manager, and are paid to the native in a lump sum when he leaves the compound at the end of his term. At the end of three months he may either leave or renew his contract for a fresh period. The system works well. I have seen its results both in Kimberley and in the native villages in Bechuanaland in which I have lived and worked. Many of the young men go regularly to the mines and work there all the year round, only returning to their villages at the season 298 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR of ploughing. They bring with them money and presents for their families which have remained behind. At Kimberley the welfare of the natives is looked after by a Government official, who is known as the Protector of Natives. He puts his heart and soul into his duties. Any complaints may be made to him, and he has both the power and the will to prevent abuses. ' In the Transvaal the natives were treated well enough when at work in the mines. As soon as they left them, however, they fell into the hands of the Johannesburg police, who robbed and oppressed them in a shameful fashion. Some of the laws dealing with the treatment of the natives on the Rand were good, but they were of no more value than wastepaper. The natives who lived in the Transvaal were the worst sufferers from the exactions of the police. They were helpless. •The influence of the Imperial Government has been almost always exercised to secure just treatment for the natives and to protect them against oppression. The Dutch regard them as inferior beings who are practically the slaves of their masters. There is also a danger that the young colonists may adopt the Dutch view, and the working man in South Africa objects to the native because he will work for lower wages than a white man can do. In the past the Imperial Government has redressed the balance and has looked after the interests of the natives. It is to the Great White Queen over the sea that the coloured people always turn their eyes, and to whom they are devoted. It is very important that, both in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, the Imperial Government should keep a strict watch over the treatment of the natives. The native question is peculiarly an Imperial question, and in the new territories especially it is our duty to see that the war shall have brought them better treatment. The future prosperity and peace of South Africa depends upon whether the natives are contented or not. To follow the Boer policy of sitting on the safety-valve is very short-sighted, and is certain to end, sooner or later, in catastrophe. The natives are learning many things. In Cape Colony, for instance, they have two native newspapers, edited by native editors. They are also very good fighting men. The part they played in the colonial wars has often been overlooked. If you encourage them to learn and allow them the rewards of their industry and perse- verance, they will be good friends and firm allies' {Daily Neivs, Feb- ruary 15, 1900). So far Mr. Moffat. The ill-treatment to which the natives in the Transvaal were exposed under the Pass Law deserves some little illustration. It was made a means of organized extortion and robbery of the most flagrant kind. Absolute power was placed in the hands of any burgher, policeman, or official of the State to stop any native, especially a native coming home from working on the Rand, and inquire for his pass. Their passes THE NATIVE QUESTION 299 were demanded by any Boer who met them ; they were questioned even if their passes were in order, and often threatened to have their passes torn up if they did not make a gift. Travelling in the Transvaal, Mr. Bovill (from whom I am quoting*) gave one of the natives in charge of his waggon permission to go to a Sunday service of native Christians. On his way a policeman asked for his pass. The native pointed to the waggon, and said his pass was there, as it was for the three of them, the oxen and the waggon. In spite of his explanation, he was taken off to the Field Cornet, and charged with being at large without a pass. He was locked up in an outhouse until Monday morning, questioned by the Field Cornet, and fined ^i or twenty lashes. He asked to be allowed to go to the waggon with the policeman and get the money, but was told he would not be permitted, so he had to take the twenty lashes. Of the cruelty shown by the Boers to the natives, sometimes under forms of law and sometimes without, the pages of South African history are full. ' It was long,' said Dr. Livingstone, * before I could give credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, but when I found the Boers themselves glorying in the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors, I was compelled to admit the validity of the testimony.' ' The Boers have persuaded themselves,' said John Mackenzie, * by some wonderful mental process, that they are God's chosen people, and that the blacks are the wicked and condemned Canaanites, over whose heads the Divine anger lowers continually. . . . They shot them down like vermin.' The ameliorating influences of Christianity have, I do not doubt, told among many of the Boers. Some missionary work has been done by the Dutch Reformed Church, and there have always been good masters among the Boers, as also bad masters among the British. That horrible cruelties are still sometimes perpetrated may be seen from the story of the Chieftainess Toeremetsjani and Commandant Cronje which is set forth in Mr. FitzPatrick's book (Appendix K). My object, however, has * The Rev. J. H. Bovill, Rector of the cathedral church at Louren90 Marques. See his ' Natives under the Transvaal Flag' (1900). 300 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR been not to cite individual cases of ill-treatment, but to illustrate the fundamental differences of system and ideas between Boer and Briton. I think enough cause has now been shown to explain why native sympathies should have been on the British side in this struggle. It is the Boer treatment of the natives which explains, also, much of the fervour* with which the British Churches in South Africa have unanimously supported the British arms. The war was not undertaken for the sake of the natives, but the victory of the British arms will do something to ameliorate their lot,t and the question cannot be left out in any general account which seeks to cast off the rights and wrongs of the war. To the honour of Great Britain it stands recorded, as a South African writer has said, on the page of history that from the first assumption of the Government of the Cape of Good Hope, Great Britain has resolutely set herself the task of meting out justice between the conflicting claims of colonists and natives ; and that, in the face of difficulties and bitter opposition, she has again and again compelled the most stubborn of European offenders to deal righteously with the coloured races whose champion and protector she is. * The reader may fruitfully consult Mrs. Josephine Butler's * Native Races and the War," and an impassioned appeal to Christian people by Mrs. Lewis, sister of ' Olive Schreiner,' in the Methodist Times, January 5, 1900. t An excellent beginning has already been made in amendments in the Pass Law, "in a general regulation of the labour traffic, and in suppression of the liquor traffic. See the Blue-Books, Cd. 714 and Cd. 904, and ttierein especially Lord Milner's despatch of December 6, 1901 (No. 20 in Cd. 904). THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 301 CHAPTER XXXIV THE COLONIES AND THE WAR The Empire ' discovered itself ' on the battlefields of South Africa — The war a cement, not a dissolvent — Reasons for Colonial support in the war — Mutual insurance — Appeal to Canadian and Australian ' nation- hood ' — Conviction of the justice of the British cause — Help promised from the first — Public opinion in Australia favourable to the U it- landers — Debates in the Australian Parliament — Resolutions in the Canadian House of Commons — Sir Wilfrid Laurier's speeches — De- tachment of Colonial opinion — Colonial experience and the real issues of the war — Colonial contributions — Personnel of the contingents — Foreign opinion and Colonial — True significance of the latter. Nothing has been more remarkable in the Transvaal War than the deep and widespread spirit of patriotism which it has called forth even in the most distant portions of the British Empire. It has been said with truth that on the battlefields of South Africa ' the British Empire has discovered itself.' Historians of the future may probably see in this fact the most important and significant of all the aspects of the struggle. And, what is more remarkable, the emergency which has thus illustrated the solidarity of the Empire was the very case which twenty years ago was adduced as likely to prove its ruin. The strain of war, which it was predicted would be a dissolvent, has in fact, turned out to be cement. In 1883, the late Sir John Seeley, in one of his lectures on 'The Expansion of England,' had suggested that in the future ' some organization might gradually be arrived at which might make the whole force of the Empire available in times of war.' Seeley's book was sub- jected to severe criticism by Mr. John Morley in one of his charm- ing ' Miscellanies.' One of his principal contentions was that Australian attachment to the Imperial connection would not bear the strain of serious war.* It is true that the contingency taken by Mr. Morley in the course of his argument was *of Great Britain being involved in a war with a Foreign Power of the first class.* The present struggle, arduous and severe * Lord Rosebery, it may be remarked, was a truer prophet. He was at Melbourne at the time, and in a public speech challenged the gloomy prognostica- tions of separatists. See ' The Foreign Policy of Lord Rosebery,' Appendix IL 302 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR though it is, and though it has required the largest British force ever put into the field, does not fully satisfy Mr. Morley's imaginary case. But the conditions are sufficiently near to it to form an instructive test of his argument. We may trace in the enthusiastic support accorded to the Mother Country by the Colonies on this occasion the operation of motives drawn both from interest and from sentiment. We may see also, as I hope to show, the opera- tion of convictions which are not without their bearing on the rights and wrongs of the Transvaal War. The motives of interest and sentiment are easily traced. In these days of universal expansion, when Great Britain is no longer the only State which pursues a world policy, when other countries are eagerly acquiring oversea possessions and building great fleets wherewith to take or defend them, the Britons beyond the sea may feel well that their best, and perhaps for the time their only, security lies in connection with the first naval Power in the world. From this point of view, the support now accorded by them to Great Britain may be described as a kind of mutual insurance. When Mr. Kruger and Mr. Steyn declared war, it was seen that the authority and even the existence of the British realm was involved in the enemy's defeat. What concern, it has been asked, had Australia or New Zealand or Canada in South Africa ? Why did they not mind their own affairs ? The answer is. That this was their affair. It is the affair of each member of the British body politic that when one member suffers all should suffer with it ; that in a just and sufficient cause the whole force of the Empire should be exerted to secure the redress of local grievances ; and that when the King's dominions are anywhere attacked, they should from everywhere be defended. Another factor which contributed, I believe, to the solidarity of the British Empire in South Africa is not quite so obvious. Canada was already a nation. Australia was at the time in the act of becoming a nation. In each case the opportunity was seized to show proof of nationhood. The opportunity was thus favourable to the despatch of Australian contingents to South Africa. Local patriotism powerfully contributed to the wider patriotism of Empire. The Canadian Dominion, each component State of the new Australian Commonwealth, and New Zealand, which at present THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 303 stands outside as a careful and friendly watcher, were anxious to show to themselves, to each other, to the Empire and to the world of what stuff they were made, of what sacrifices these new nations within the British Commonwealth were capable. This is the point of view taken by Mr. Brunton Stephens in the poem which he wrote for the Federation of Australia :* ' Ah ! now we know the long delay But served to assure a prouder day. For while we waited came the call To prove and make our title good — To face the fiery ordeal That tries the claim to nationhood. And now in pride of challenge we enrol, For all the world to read, the record's roll, Whose bloody script attests a nation's soul.' It is a remarkable indication of the interconnection of different parts of the British Empire that the South African War should thus have lent some consecration to Australian Federation, and Australian Federation have assisted the movement for sending contingents to South Africa. But this analysis does not exhaust the matter. We may find also beneath the enthusiasm of the self-governing Colonies a deep conviction of the justice of the British cause. Attempts have been made, I am aware, to obscure this patent fact. It has been said, for instance, that the Colonies merely went to the assistance of the Mother Country because she was seen to be in difficulties. This * An eloquent passage in one of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's speeches puts the same point (March 14, 1900) : ' In many breasts there was a fugitive sense of uneasiness at the thought that the first facing of musketry by raw recruits is always a severe trial. But vk'hen the telegraph brought us the news that such was the good im- pression made by our Volunteers that the Commander-in-Chief had placed them in the post of honour, in the first rank, to share the dangers with that famous corps the Gordon Highlanders — when we read that they had justified fully the confidence placed in them, and that they had charged like veterans, that their conduct was heroic, and had won for them the encomiums of the Commander-in-Chief and the unstinted admiration of their comrades who had faced death on a hundred battle- fields in all parts of the world — was there a man whose bosom did not swell with pride — that pride of pure patriotism, the pride of consciousness of our rising strength, the pride of consciousnesss that that day it had been revealed to the world that a new power had been born in the West ?' (vociferous cheers, in which both sides of the House joined). 304 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR explanation does not square with the dates. It is perfectly true that as the difficulties of the struggle increased the enthusiasm of the Colonies waxed higher and higher. And this fact, I may incidentally remark, disposes of another suggestion, namely, that the youth of Australia and Canada merely rushed into the affair as into a military picnic. We were told in some quarters that the Canadian and Australian troopers would return to their homes thoroughly disillusionised, and I believe it to be true that in some cases men of the Colonial contingents were surprised and disap- pointed. But such feelings did not kill the devotion to the British cause; many of those offering themselves for service in the later contingents had already fought in South Africa. Of the last Canadian contingent, for instance, recruited in December, 1 90 1, the majority had already served there. Such men could no longer have been under any illusion as to the meaning of * glorious war.' The recrudescence of the war caused also a recrudescence of the patriotic spirit in the Colonies. But that spirit began to show itself from the very first, before the real difficulties of the struggle had been revealed, before, even, hostilities had actually broken out."^ The Colonial contingents signified, then, something more than a desire to help the Mother Country through a period of storm and stress. They signified a desire to stand shoulder to shoulder with her from the first and in any event. A further attempt has been made to ignore the full political significance of this fact by representing the Colonies as ignorant or careless of the merits of the controversy. ' The Colonies,' said Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (House of Commons, October 20, 1899), * did not inquire very much as to the reason why, but they came forward and helped the Mother Country when the Mother Country desired it' Sir Henry was here misinformed. The * The actual dates on which first offers of assistance were made are as follows : Queensland, July ii, 1899; Victoria, July 12; Federated Malay States, July 17; Lagos, July 18 ; New South Wales, July 21 ; Hong Kong, September 21 ; New Zealand, September 28 ; South Australia and Canada, before October 3 ; Western Australia, October 5 ; Tasmania, October 9. The ' Correspondence relating to the Despatch of Colonial Military Contingents to South Africa' was issued in November, 1899, Cd. 18. It was on October 3 that Mr. Chamberlain telegraphed on behalf of the War Office, to the Australian Governments, that, * in view of numbers already available, infantry most, cavalry least serviceable ' (p. 6). THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 305 Colonies did inquire as to the reason why. The Colonial con- tingents were not in the position of simple soldiers — 'theirs but to do and die, theirs not to reason why.' They were volunteers and representatives of communities which felt and expressed the keenest sympathy with the cause of the quarrel. The Colonies first voted resolutions of sympathy with the Uitlanders and of confidence in Lord Milner, and then, when war was seen to be the issue, trans- lated their votes into acts. The support of the Colonies, their co-operation in the war, would be important and significant in any case, as an evidence of the solidarity of the British Empire. It is made the more significant and the more satisfactory by the fact that it proceeded from a reasoned conviction of the justice of the British cause. The growth of this conviction was antecedent to the outbreak of hostilities ; it was no ex post facto justification of an unreasoning war-fever or a tidal wave of patriotic enthusiasm. From New South Wales the Mayor of Sydney telegraphed in May, 1899, that a public meeting had expressed ' its sympathy with their fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal, and hoped that Her Majesty may be pleased to grant the prayer of her subjects ' (daily papers, May 13). From Victoria the Governor reported on August i that ' the justice of the claims of the Uitlanders, on which Her Majesty's Government insist, is fully recognised by popular opinion in Victoria, and several public meetings have been held in support of the policy of the Government' (Cd. 18, p. 3). In Perth (Western Australia) a great public meeting, presided over by the Mayor, was held on May 19 to the same purport. The mover of the resolution * stated, amid great enthusiasm and applause, that when any portion of Her Majesty's subjects in a foreign country were harshly treated, it was the duty of all Britons to stand shoulder to shoulder, determined to see that their fellow-subjects secured justice. Meetings had been held throughout Australia, and the voice of united Australia would assuredly assist to strengthen the hands of the British Government in seeing that its subjects secured justice' (Renter's telegram, daily papers. May 20). Australian politicians, as everybody knows, are very sensitive to public opinion. The Colonies are intensely democratic, and the popular will makes itself instantly and urgently felt. Australia is a land of short Parliaments. The shrewd men who administer 3o5 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR her public affairs were only following up an already existing public opinion when they afterwards proposed the sending of contingents to co-operate with the British troops.* The debates in the Australian Parliaments when the votes for the contingents were submitted show as much familiarity with the Transvaal Question as our own debates at home. ' The vast majority of Australians,' said the Australian Review of Revieivs (October, 1899), in summarizing the debates in the Colonial Parliaments, ' long since made up their minds that, in her efforts to secure a small instalment of justice for the Uitlanders of the Transvaal, Great Britain was only facing the manifest responsibility devolving upon her. Surely her honour is as much engaged to see that the white subjects of the Queen are not oppressed anywhere in South Africa as it is to see that blacks are not enslaved.' It is said that this is * a capitalists' war.' But the democratic statesmen of Australia do not think so. They defend it both as a necessary vindication of British influence in South Africa, and also as a struggle for the application of the elementary principles of Liberalism. ' If asked,' said Mr. Playford in the South Australian Parliament, ' in whose interest he should be voting by supporting the Colonial contingent, he would unhesitatingly reply. In the interest of the people.' There was sentiment, as I have said, and also enlightened self-interest behind the action of the Colonies in this matter — sentiment for the flag which they respect, which gives them protection, and under which their liberties have grown up. But it was sentiment of a lofty and of a reasoned kind. In denying the imputation that Australians would, like Emile Ollivier, rush light-heartedly into conflict, Mr. Murray Smith, in the Victorian Assembly, concluded with the following passage, which is well worthy of quotation : ' God knew his heart would be heavy enough when the war commenced . He hated war ; he knew what it was, and what it would be. The Trans- * The strength of the popular feeling in the case of the Federal contingent raised at the end of 1901 led almost to a constitutional crisis. The Federal Ministry were accused of holding back, and so strong was the feeling on the point that Lord Hopetoun, the Governor-General, assumed part of the responsibility ; he had advised Ministers, he said, that further help from AustraHa was unnecessary. Lord Hopetoun' s chivalry was generally recognised, but objection was taken on the ground that in making such an explanation he exceeded his constitutional functions. THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 307 vaal was inhabited by a brave and stubborn people, and it was no light task that Britain was undertaking to subdue the country. Lives would be lost ; there would be lonely graves in the distant South African bush, and he knew the mourning there would be in British and Australian homes, amongst the wives and mothers and other dear ones far from the place where the young heroes slept. He deprecated the war if it could be safely and honourably averted, but if we did give some of our bravest and best to help the Mother Country, and if they did not all return, they would fall in a just cause; their country would honour their names and sanctify their memories.' Mr. Seddon, in New Zealand, is the head of the most democratic Government, I suppose, within the British Empire. ' He said the demands of the British Government were righteous.' In a later speech he remarked that, ' though New Zealand was radical and democratic, and termed by some socialistic, there was in the present emergency an amount of Imperial patriotism in the country which was unsurpassed in any part of Her Majesty's dominions' (daily papers, January i, 1900). This speech was the more significant from his having been recently returned to power after a General Election. The Federal Parliament of Australia, upon which devolved the responsibility of sending the last Australian contingent, was not less enthusiastic than the several States had previously been. The resolution of Mr. Barton, the Federal Premier, 'that this House affirms the readiness of Australia to give all requisite aid to the Mother Country to end the war,' was carried with only five dissentients (January 14, 1902). Mr. Barton on the same occasion dwelt in emphatic terms on the justice of the war. Mr. Reid, the leader of the Opposition, was no less emphatic. ' If ever/ he said, ' a war was righteous, this war was so, and no power on earth could have prevented it, but it was to be hoped that the war would be so settled that there would never be another' (February 17, 1902). Clearly in the Colonies there is nothing incompatible between democracy and an enlightened imperiaUsm. The reasoned conviction of Canada in the justice of the British cause was expressed in a series of resolutions unanimously adopted by its House of Commons on July 31, 1899. The resolutions were these : • I. Resolved, that this House has viewed with regret the complications which have arisen in the Transvaal Republic, of which Her Majesty is 20 — 2 3o8 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR suzerain, from the refusal to accord to Her Majesty's subjects now settled in that region any adequate participation in its government. ' 2. Resolved, that this House has learned with still greater regret that the condition of things there existing has resulted in intolerable oppression, and has produced great and dangerous excitement among several classes of Her Majesty's subjects in her South African possessions. ' 3. Resolved, that this House, representing a people which has largely succeeded, by the adoption of the principle of conceding equal political rights to every portion of the population, in harmonizing estrangements, and in producing general content with the existing system of government, desires to express its sympathy with the efforts of Her Majesty's Imperial authorities to obtain for the subjects of Her Majesty who have taken up their abode in the Transvaal such measure of justice and political recogni- tion as may be found necessary to secure them in the full possession of equal rights and liberties' (C. 9518, p. 58). Canada, it will be seen, first inquired into the reason why ; then found that the principles for which the Imperial Government was contending were right and just; and finally came forward, in support of what she believed to be a just cause, to help the Mother Country. By no one has the justice of that cause been more eloquently defended than by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Liberal Premier of Canada. ' I am fully convinced,' he said, * in heart and conscience that there never was a juster war on the part of England than the present one' (March 14, 1900). In another speech he ' expressed the hope that the war would end in a victory that would take away from the Dutch population of South Africa none of the rights which they enjoyed to-day, but which would compel them to give to others the same treatment as they had always insisted upon for themselves, a victory which would probably bring about a South African Confederation in which there would be justice and freedom for all, and absolute equality before the law.' In conclusion, Sir Wilfrid Laurier said : ' With these grand ideals, these aspirations, these principles before them, the Colonies of Great Britain to-day stand behind her, not to give her assistance — she does not need that — but to affirm to the world that the unity of the British Empire is a real and hving fact, and is based upon and derives its strength from the most complete local autonomy and unbounded respect for the rights and privileges of all its subjects. It is this which has inspired our policy, and that policy we submit with confidence for the approval of Parliament' THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 309 (February 5, 1900). The despatch of the Canadian contingent was approved with only ten dissentient votes. It was the expression of a matured conviction about the rights and wrongs of the Trans- vaal War. The enthusiasm which despatched the first contingent continued to the end. The departure of the Mounted Rifles from Montreal on December 13, 1901, was the occasion of a great patriotic demonstration. The Mayor, Mr. Prefontaine, in address- ing the men, said that 'all Canadians, who enjoyed freedom under the British flag and the blessings of self-government, should pray for the success of the British arms in the most just war of the Empire's history.' It is not difficult, I think, to understand how it was that the Colonies appreciated so quickly and so clearly the issues involved in the war. For one thing, their position of detachment enabled them to disentangle the more easily the superficial from the real issues. They did not follow perhaps so closely as we did at home the minutiae of the long controversy by despatch. They fastened from the first on salient facts. They saw British settlers in a country to which Great Britain had granted self-government de- prived of the elementary rights of citizenship. They saw the Mother Country make an eff'ort to obtain justice. They felt that the success of this effort was essential to the maintenance of the British Empire. The experience of the Colonies as new countries themselves must, in the second place, have brought the South African situation vividly home to them. Many Australians, it may also be remarked, had gone to the Transvaal, and one of them. Major 'Karri' Davies, had endured long imprisonment as a Reformer. The contrast between Australia and the Transvaal was very marked. Each is a country with pastoral and mining communities. In South Africa a racial difficulty existed, but so also it did in Canada. In Canada a solution was found in equality of rights. Canadians wanted to know why that equality was denied in the Transvaal. Australian Colonists, again, know from practical experience the feelings and the ideals which British settlers take with them into new countries. They know that the secret of peace and order and contentment is self-government and equal rights. They do not understand a form of self-government under which a minority, 310 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR alike in numbers, in wealth, and intelligence, are allowed, by means of a monopoly of the vote and of the gun, to keep in political sub- jection the majority of the inhabitants of the country. Australia was claimed in its entirety for the British Crown, but the continent was thrown open on equal terms to all white people. The same has been the case in America. Neither there nor in Australia has there been any dominant and exclusive caste. ' Uitlanders ' from all parts of the world settle in Australia. They enjoy equal rights with the original squatters. Naturalization has been easy ; the franchise has been freely open to all. But in South Africa there has been a huge territory within which an entirely different order of ideas has prevailed. The theory of government in the Transvaal was racial, not territorial. There was no system of equal rights for all inhabitants. In the United States, in Australia, and in the British South African Colonies • outlanders ' have been freely admitted, have become * inlanders,' and have merged in the common stock of citizens, In the Transvaal the dominant race kept a monopoly of the work of governing, and that although the so-called ' Outlanders ' were inlanders by right and by promise, were a majority of the inhabitants, and were of the more progressive civilization. Australia has been occupied in trust, as it were, for general civilization. The Transvaal was occupied by Mr. Kruger and his original burghers as an exclusive possession. Colonial opinion was thus able to go straight to the heart of the matter so far as British rights in the Transvaal were concerned. When Mr. Kruger launched his ultimatum and invaded British Colonies, the people of all the other Colonies grasped in a moment the vital importance of the conflict. In this connection I may quote a striking summary of Colonial opinion from the Australian Review of Reviews, January, 1900 : ' The entire thought and imagination of Australia has been focussed upon South Africa during the month or more that the grim game of war has been in progress. Colonists can, somehow, regard certain of Great Britain's wars with a semi-detached interest. The Indian Frontier campaigns represented war upon a big scale, but their details were followed with a sort of philosophic calm. The Soudan reconquest stirred Australian pulses more as being stronger in picturesqueness. Moreover, it involved the wiping out of an old humiliation which Australia had resented as passionately as any part of the Empire. But the present THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 311 Boer War is watched as though the thunder of the guns were within earshot. Australians hang breathlessly upon news from the front. The gallant resistance of Kimberley and Mafeking, the vicissitudes of the campaign in Natal, have aroused every bit as keen admiration here as in London. • What is the explanation of the phenomenon ? First and foremost, no doubt, is the consciousness that Australia has given hostages in this South African quarrel, and stands, in fact as well as in spirit, by the side of the Mother Country. But the unanimous action of the Colonies in sending contingents to the seat of war is itself the effect of a cause, that cause being the intimate sympathy felt for Imperial aims in South Africa. Communities here, which have the best reason to know that British rule means the reign of freedom, are set in the view that it should and must be established in South Africa, one of the three great centres of our over- seas Empire. The spectacle of a great Dutch league, animated by the thinly-disguised purpose of driving the British flag from the Southern outpost where it has floated for a century, has awakened Australia to a real sense of crisis. The question in that aspect appeals to her with special force. She certainly chafed at the thought of British subjects, many of her own people among them, degraded to the status of an inferior race in the Transvaal. . . . But this irritation pales before the concern aroused by the deliberate menace to British authority from the Cape to the Zambesi. South Africa is the half-way house to Australia, as well as India, and we are nearly concerned that the house shall be set in order.' It is often argued in pro-Boer circles that the Colonial con- tingents signify very little, because the Colonial Governments did not pay for them. Colonial loyalty was of that which cost them nothing. The Imperial Government paid, and paid well, and out-o'-works enlisted by way of getting into a good thing. The facts on which this amiable hypothesis is based are not quite correctly stated. The inference I believe to be quite false. It is true that the Imperial Government has in all cases borne the charge of the men's pay, and in some cases that of their transport. But in other cases the cost of transport has been borne by the Colonies, and that of equipment by public or private funds therein. It is worth noting also that the voluntary contributions to the War Funds in the Colonies have been on a very generous scale, larger in some instances, than, proportionately to population, the contributions in the Mother Country herself. The following facts and estimates are based on trustworthy information. The Canadian Parliament voted 2,000,000 dollars, and up to the end of March, 1 90 1, slightly over 1,900,000 dollars had been spent. To this we 312 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR may add private subscriptions in Canada, which have been con- siderable ; in particular a very large expenditure out of the pocket of Lord Strathcona. A safe estimate puts the money contribution of Canada to the war at ;£"6oo,ooo sterling. The contribution of New South Wales has probably been ;£'5 00,000, of which a sum of ;^4oo,ooo has been expended by the Government. The Victorian contribution has been less. The Government appropria- tions for the three years 1899-1 901 were ;^ 124,000. Victoria's share in the expenditure, public and private, has probably been ;^2oo,ooo. The cost to New Zealand was stated by Mr. Seddon (March 12, 1902) to be ;£^3o7,coo, besides ;£^3,ooo yearly for pensions. This figure includes the Government votes (which, before the last two contingents were enrolled, amounted to ;^75,ooo) and various Patriotic Fund subscriptions. Thus, the third and fourth New Zealand contingents and a portion of the sixth were paid for entirely out of private subscriptions. In the case of South Australia, the expenditure charged to the revenue for the contingents amounted to ;^43,267 for the two years ending June 30, 1 90 1. Subse.quent expenditure and private contributions have probably brought up South Australia's total to ;£'7 0,000. Western Australia's appropriations have been ^^30,000. There have also been considerable private subscriptions. There remain to be included the contributions of Queensland and Tasmania, with regard to which I have been unable to find any figures. But, making a proportionate estimate and adding the various sums together, we arrive at a total of over ;£"2,ooo,ooo. As compared with the expenditure of the Imperial Government and the British public, the Colonial contribution is small. * If,' said Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 'our contributions were to be compulsory, I should say to Great Britain, " Call us to your councils." ' But a free expen- diture of ^2,000,000 sterling on the South African War by Australia, Canada, and New Zealand is a sign of the times which cannot be disposed of by taunts that it was not more. The contribution in men has been more remarkable. Twenty years ago few would have believed that Australia, Canada, and New Zealand would find 23,000 men"* for a war waged by the * The numbers of the contingents (rank and file) embarked for South Africa in 1899 and 1900 were as follows : Canada, 2,928 ; New South Wales, 1,282 ; Victoria, THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 313 Mother Country in a distant part of the Empire. Of the fighting quality of the Colonial contingents I need say nothing here. Their valour, skill, and endurance are written in all the annals of the war, and will henceforth be among the common traditions of the British race. With regard to the classes from whom the men were drawn, I will give, by way of illustration, some particulars from New Zealand : 'The men represent,' says a local correspondent, 'some of the best types of our scattered population — which, by the last returns, numbers for the whole colony about 800,000 people, just as many as would fit comfortably in a second or third rate city in England — that these young men also are drawn from all ranks, and that they are not only men of industry and character, but some of them men of wealth. Included in the first and second contingents are farmers' sons and men who are farmers themselves, schoolmasters, Oxford and Cambridge men, lawyers, blacksmiths, coal and gold miners, clerks, storemen, and so on — dwellers in both town and country. Since these two forces have left New Zealand, it has been realized that troopers accustomed to rough work in the bush would be far more useful for South Africa, and accordingly the third contingent, which is to leave Lyttelton to-morrow for the seat of war, will comprise men who have spent their lives on farms and stations, or in the bush country, and may be said to be more at home on a horse's back than off it. This force of Yeomanry owes its existence largely to the public spirit of Mr. G. G. Stead, of Christchurch. He offered ;^5oo towards the formation of a troop from Canterbury, and, stimulated by his example, the people of that district worked so zealously that the troop was equipped in record time. This was the origin of the third contingent. 487 ; Queensland, 394 ; South Australia, 231 ; Western Australia, 222 ; Tasmania, 121 ; Australian ' Bushmen,' 3,279 ; New Zealand, 1,705 ; India, 289 ; Ceylon, 122. In 1901, the fifth and sixth Australian contingents, and the sixth and seventh New Zealand contingents, embarked. The numbers (rank and file) were : New South Wales, 2,144; Victoria, 1,337; Queensland, 958; South Australia, 418; Western Australia, 440 ; Tasmania, 243 ; New Zealand, 1,118. In 1902 (up to March lo), there embarked a further Canadian contingent, 473 ; the seventh Australian contingent, 750 (approximately) ; the eighth New Zealand contingent, 750. Bringing these figures together, and adding in the officers (of whom I have been unable to obtain the number by contingents), we arrive at the following totals ; 1899 and 1900, 11,062 ; 1901, 6,658 ; 1902 (up to March 10), 1,973 > officers, 899 : total, 20,592. The ninth New Zealand contingent (1,000) sailed on March 14. The offer of a tenth (1,000) was accepted on March 18. An eighth Australian contingent is talked of. In addition to the contingents, a considerable number of men from various States of the Empire have proceeded to South Africa on their own account, and there entered various corps. The grand total given above (23,000) is, therefore, likely to be well within the mark. 314 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR ' All these fine fellows of the four New Zealand contingents are offering their lives in no grudging spirit. On the contrary, it has been a most difficult task for the authorities to choose the forces, such has been the embarrassment of riches offered them. Applications to be allowed to serve in South Africa have come pouring in from all parts of the Colony, and there is now no doubt that had New Zealand resolved to send 1,000 men in the first contingent, instead of 200, that number could easily have been secured, and the moral effect achieved in despatching such a force from this Colony would have been incalculable. As I have shown, these fighting men of ours are not adventurers or soldiers of fortune, tired of life in New Zealand, and anxious to try their luck elsewhere. There are, perhaps, a few of this class, but the majority are men who, having set themselves to the great task of developing the industries of this splendid Colony, have cheerfully and at great sacrifice abandoned this duty, and left home and kindred in order to assist the Empire in its hour of need. ' Nor is the spirit of self-abnegation wholly on the side of the men themselves. New Zealand sacrifices a great deal in thus parting with such magnificent specimens of her sons. Yet she is doing this willingly — nay, eagerly— and is cheering and encouraging her soldiers on their way to the war. The selfsame spirit is manifested by all the Colonies, and this is the kind of spirit which makes for Imperial Federation in the broadest sense of the word ' (Letter from Christchurch in the Daily News, March 25, 1900). From first to last, New Zealand has contributed over 5,500 men and horses. Allowing for the difference in population, this is equivalent to a volunteer levy of 260,000 mounted men from the United Kingdom. This, surely, is a fine thing, even though the Imperial Government pays far the greater share of the cost. The bias of anti-patriotism has been responsible for many curious exhibitions during the war. None of them is more curious than the insistence of a considerable number of people upon foreign opinion hostile to England, and their obliviousness of the true significance of Colonial opinion favourable to her. We have been told to humble ourselves before the hostile criticisms of European public opinion — before such expressions, I suppose, as ' fiendish yells of delight ' which, as one of the Paris correspon- dents reported, resounded on the boulevards one night in conse- quence of rumours of the fall of Ladysmith. Even in cases of more reasoned and weightier arguments, foreign opinion of English policy must always be subjected to heavy discount. THE COLONIES AND THE WAR 315 Foreign ideals in politics are not always ours, and foreign interests are not British interests. This is why Mr. Gladstone, in one of his Midlothian speeches,"*" declared that to foreign criticism he was 'absolutely deaf.' But, however this may be, we may surely attach greater weight to the opinion of our own Colonies — to the opinion [of men who share our ideals and our interests, and yet whose position of detachment enables them to judge our policy with some measure of impartiality. In this case the opinion ot the Colonies has been unanimous. Many years ago, when Imperial Federation was being actively discussed, it was predicted that such practical co-operation as we have now witnessed among the far-sundered British Colonies was extremely im- probable. It must, I think, be accepted as highly probable that the very diversities of interest and environment which the Empire includes would forbid the allied action of the Colonies with the Mother Country for any wanton and unnecessary enterprise. But is not their unanimity on the present occasion also significant ? A poet, who has been unable to seize the true significance of present events, was well inspired when he sang with prophetic eloquence of a day when ' the new nations fostered in her shade/ forgetting not ' whence the breath was blown that wafted them afar,' would support the Mother Country in consciousness of common aims and common ideals. Is it not clear from the facts and considerations adduced in this chapter that it is the Liberalism of the British Colonies that has brought them to the side of England to fight the battle of Liberalism in South Africa ? * ' I want to know what British Minister ever was the object of so much obloquy in this same foreign press as was Lord Pahnerston ? And what happened in that debate? Member after member appealed to Vienna, to St. Petersburg, to Berlin, for authority to condemn Lord Palmerston ; and Lord Russell made a reply which I well remember, and which deeply impressed me at the time. He said, "All these references to your foreign newspapers and foreign opinion, what do they show? They show that my noble friend has not been the Foreign Minister of Austria, has not been the Foreign Minister of Russia, has not been the Foreign Minister of Prussia, but has been the Foreign Minister of England." I care not whether it be language of intimidation, language of censure, language of flattery — to one and all I am absolutely deaf. No foreign press, no foreign declamation, be it what it may, should induce us to deviate one inch from the path which is a path of regard — steady, unflinching regard — to the interests of our own Empire ; and above all which is a path of undeviating respect for its duty and its honour' (Ninth Midlothian Speech, March 30, 1880). PART VI CONDITIONS OF SETTLEMENT CHAPTER XXXV THE REASONS FOR ANNEXATION • Never again ' — Presidents Kruger and Steyn's telegram to Lord Salis- bury — Analysis of ' the second ultimatum ' — Lord Salisbury's reply — • Reasons for annexation — Limited independence impracticable — Charge of inconsistency against the British Government — ' We seek no goldfields ' — Logic of the stricken field. The last and most important lesson of the war refers to the con- ditions of settlement. It is summed up in a phrase employed by Lord Milner in reply to an address of confidence presented to him by the Nonconformist clergy at the Cape (April 12, 1900) : ' The longer the struggle lasts, the greater the sacrifices which it involves, the stronger must surely be the determination of all of us to achieve a settlement which will render a repetition of this terrible scourge impossible. "Never again" must be the motto of all thinking, of all humane, men. It is for that reason — not for any lust of conquest, not from any desire to trample on a gallant, if misguided, enemy — that we desire that the settlement shall be no patchwork and no compromise; that it shall leave no room for misunderstanding, no opportunity for intrigue, for the revival of impossible ambitions, or the accumulation of enormous armaments. President Kruger has said that he wants no more Conventions, and I entirely agree with him. A compromise of that sort is unfair to everybody. If there is one thing of which, after recent ex- periences, I am absolutely convinced, it is that the vital interests of all those who live in South Africa, of our present enemies as much as of those who are on our side, demand that there should not be two dissimilar and antagonistic political systems in that which Nature and history have irrevocably decided must be one country. To agree to a compromise THE REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 317 which would leave any ambiguity on that point would not be mag- nanimity ; it would be weakness, ingratitude, and cruelty — ingratitude to the heroic dead, and cruelty to the unborn generations. ' Into the phrase ' never again ' the High Commissioner com- pressed a conviction which had been gradually forming itself in men's minds as the war proceeded. The price of war is in any case terrible. It is at best a cruel and an awful necessity. To exact the sacrifices of blood and treasure which it entails, and then to provide no adequate compensation in the form of security against a recurrence of the evils which necessitated it, would be an intolerable crime. This was the conviction in the minds of the British people which dictated Lord Salisbury's reply to the remarkable telegram which President Kruger and President Steyn addressed to him on March 5, 1900. The text of this telegram was as follows (Cd. 35): ' The Presidents of the Orange Free State and of the South African Republic to the Marquess of Salisbury. ' Bloemfontein, ' March 5, 1900. ' The blood and the tears of the thousands who have suffered by this war, and the prospect of all the moral and economic ruin with which South Africa is now threatened, make it necessary for both belligerents to ask themselves dispassionately, and as in the sight of the Triune God, for what they are fighting, and whether the aim of each justifies all this appalling misery and devastation. ' With this object, and in view of the assertions of various British states- men to the effect that this war was begun and is being carried on with the set purpose of undermining Her Majesty's authority in South Africa, and of setting up an Administration over all South Africa independent of Her Majesty's Government, we consider it our duty solemnly to declare that this war was undertaken solely as a defensive measure to safeguard the threatened independence of the South African Republic, and is only continued in order to secure and safeguard the incontestable independence of both Republics as Sovereign International States, and to obtain the assurance that those of Her Majesty's subjects who have taken part with us in this war shall suffer no harm whatsoever in person or property. ' On these conditions, but on these conditions alone, are we now, as in the past, desirous of seeing peace re-established in South Africa, and of putting an end to the evils now reigning over South Africa ; while, if Her 3i8 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Majesty's Government is determined to destroy the independence of the RepubHcs, there is nothing left to us and to our people but to persevere to the end in the course already begun, in spite of the overwhelming pre- eminence of the British Empire, confident that that God who lighted the unextinguishable fire of the love of freedom in the hearts of ourselves and of our fathers will not forsake us, but will accomphsh His work in us and in our descendants. ' We hesitated to make this declaration earlier to your Excellency, as we feared that as long as the advantage was always on our side, and as long as our forces held defensive positions far in Her Majesty's colonies, such a declaration might hurt the feelings of honour of the British people ; but now that the prestige of the British Empire may be considered to be assured by the capture of one of our forces by Her Majesty's troops, and that we are thereby forced to evacuate other positions which our forces had occupied, that difficulty is over, and we can no longer hesitate clearly to inform your Government and people in the sight of the whole civilized world why we are fighting, and on what conditions we are ready to restore peace.' This despatch was described in advance as 'peace overtures.' In fact, it was more like a second ultimatum. Her Majesty's dominions had been invaded, her loyal subjects in South Africa had been put to great loss and suffering, her Government had had to call upon her people for heavy and grievous sacrifices. The valour and constancy of her troops had carried Her Majesty's arms to victory. In these circumstances, what were the condi- tions proposed by Mr. Kruger ? They were a return to a modified sfafus quo ante belhim, the modification being very much in Mr. Kruger's favour. He would only agree to peace, he said, on the two following conditions : First, that Her Majesty's Govern- ment should recognise ' the incontestable independence of both Republics as Sovereign International States,' and secondly, that Her Majesty's Government should promise him that 'those of Her Majesty's subjects who have taken part with us in this war shall suffer no harm whatsoever in person or property.' These conditions were ridiculous. As Mr. Kruger knew very well, the 'independence of the Transvaal as a Sovereign International State' was not 'incontestable.' His claims to that status had been contested and absolutely repudiated. Rather than admit the claim, although accommodating on other points, we had deliberately faced the risk of a rupture. The second condition THE REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 319 was equally impossible. The idea that Mr. Kruger had a right to dictate to Her Majesty how she should treat her subjects was pre- posterous. This despatch of March 5 seemed to show that he was still at the standpoint of his ultimatum of October 9. He still claimed to speak as one invested with authority on behalf of all South Africa, and still put forward the pretension, which it has been the avowed and persistent object of his life to establish, that the Transvaal was a Sovereign International State. That preten- sion had been resisted before war broke out. It could not be admitted after the verdict of the stricken field. The same inability to realize the plain facts of the situation is conspicuous in the whole wording and argument of the despatch. Mr. Kruger begins by asking himself ' dispassionately and in the sight of the Triune God ' for what he is fighting. But that question came a little late in the day. His rejection of the British proposals of September 8 caused ' the blood and tears of thousands.' But he should have weighed the consequences before he sent his ultima- tum. He should have considered what war meant before he declared it. There was little sign of any real desire to seek peace in this despatch of the Presidents. They did not ask for peace at all. They offered conditions on which they were ready to restore peace. They abstained, they declare, from making their offer before in order not to * hurt the feelings of honour of the British people.' In view of certain statements made by Dr. Leyds and Mr. Montague White while the Boer arms seemed to be victorious, it is not uncharitable to think that there may have been another reason.''' To a despatch so worded, and containing such conditions, there could be only one answer. It was given by Lord Salisbury in the following terms : * Dr. Leyds, while on his visit to Berlin at the end of January, 1900, said : ' I believe that England will have to give us back a good part of the territory formerly snatched away from us. . . . The Boers will probably demand the cession of the strip of coast between Durban and Delagoa Bay, with the harbours of Lucia and Kosi, The Orange Free State and the Transvaal are to be united and to form one State, together with parts of Natal and the northern districts of Cape Colony ' (see messages of the Daily News Berlin correspondent, February i and March 16, 1900). 320 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR ' The Marquess of Salisbury to the Presidents of the South African Republic and Orange Free State. ' Foreign Office, ' March ii, igoo. • I have the honour to acknowledge your Honours' telegram dated the 5th of March from Bloemfontein, of which the purport is principally to demand that Her Majesty's Government shall recognise the " incontestable independence " of the South African Republic and Orange Free State " as Sovereign International States," and to offer, on those terms, to bring the war to a conclusion. ' In the beginning of October last peace existed between Her Majesty and the two Republics under the Conventions which then were in exist- ence. A discussion had been proceeding for some months between Her Majesty's Government and the South African Republic, 'of which the object was to obtain redress for certain very serious grievances under which British residents in the South African Republic were suffering. In the course of those negotiations the South African Republic had, to the knowledge of Her Majesty's Government, made considerable armaments, and the latter had, consequently, taken steps to provide corresponding reinforcements to the British garrisons of Cape Town and Natal. No infringement of the rights guaranteed by the Conventions had up to that point taken place on the British side. Suddenly, at two days' notice, the South African Republic, after issuing an insulting ultimatum, declared war upon Her Majesty, and the Orange Free State, with whom there had not even been any discussion, took a similar step. Her Majesty's dominions were immediately invaded by the two Republics, siege was laid to three towns within the British frontier, a large portion of the two colonies was overrun, with great destruction to property and life, and the Republics claimed to treat the inhabitants of extensive portions of Her Majesty's dominions as if those dominions had been annexed to one or other of them. In anticipation of these operations, the South African Republic had been accumulating for many years past military stores on an enormous scale, which by their character could only have been intended for use against Great Britain. ' Your Honours make some observations of a negative character upon the object with which these preparations were made. I do not think it necessary to discuss the questions you have raised. But the result of these preparations, carried on with great secrecy, has been that the British Empire has been compelled to confront an invasion which has entailed upon the Empire a costly war and the loss of thousands of precious lives. This great calamity has been the penalty which Great Britain has suffered for having in recent years acquiesced in the existence of the two Republics. ' In view of the use to which the two Republics have put the position THE REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 321 which was given to them, and the calamities which their unprovoked attack has inflicted upon Her Majesty's dominions, Her Majesty's Govern- ment can only answer your Honours' telegram by saying that they are not prepared to assent to the independence either of the South African Republic or of the Orange Free State. ' The reasons for abolishing the independence of the two Re- publics are clear. They carried conviction to the minds of the British public, and the Government's decision was heartily sup- ported not only in South Africa, but in all the Colonies. There were, indeed, some who advocated a modified independence, and other conciliators wished to see the sfa^us quo ante bellum restored. The fatal objection to any such schemes was that they would plant the seeds of future trouble by leaving in South Africa a nucleus round which the old ideas might gather. ' We do not want,' said Sir James Rose-Innes at a public meeting in support of the annexation of the Republics, ' to see the misery and the suffering and the loss which a war of this kind entails. We do not want to see our sandy plains drenched with the best blood of England again, fighting against white men in this country. We do not want to see the flower of Colonial manhood shot down on the plains of the Orange Free State and the Karoo, and neither do we want to see brave men, born in South Africa, dying in heaps, dying for what we know is a hopeless ideal. Therefore we say, " In Heaven's name give us peace !" Have a settlement, but make no settlement which shall not be calculated, as far as human foresight can provide, to secure a permanent peace.' The same sentiment was well expressed in this country by Mr. Birrell. ' It was not for him,' he said, ' to say anything about the terms of settlement, but he would say that, unless the settlement was one that rendered a repetition of the horrors of the past few months, humanly speaking, impossible, the loss of life and of money which had been involved would have been wantonly squandered.' But the securing of this certainty was incompatible with the independence of the Republics. It was impossible to give any independence which would not be a sham, and which would prevent the Republics from being a menace to the peace of South Africa. To restore the status quo, with a franchise scheme and other conditions, would have been ludicrous. As Sir James Rose-Innes said, ' If you were to try that and put the Uitlanders 21 322 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR back again, and have a new President there, and equal votes, and equal rights of bearing arms, the sections of the community would be at each other's throats before the British troops were fairly out of the country, friction and trouble would arise, and the same ghastly business would have to be gone through all over again.' One condition of independence, it was suggested, might be com- plete disarmament. * But,' he continued, ' what does the history of Africa show ? — that you cannot keep arms out of Africa. Our statute-books are full of legislation trying to keep arms from getting into the hands of the native races, but we have not succeeded. The pigeon-holes of the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office are full of papers in regard to the regulation of the sale of arms in South Africa, but they have not succeeded. And if you put the Transvaal on its legs as an independent State in their sense of the term, with all the paper guarantees and all the provision you may make, you cannot prevent their arming and again becoming a danger to the peace of South Africa.' Some suggested that, short of annexation pure and simple, the Republics might be set up in the position of protected States. Such a policy would have been a fatal encouragement to future hopes, ambitions, and intrigues. The conditions and limitations might have been as strict as anyone pleased, but the danger would still be there. What was the foresight of our politicians worth in the Conventions of 1881 and 1884? They were supposed to guard against all dangers ; but they did not. They left out of account the possibility of a great influx of settlers, though the story of the Kimberley Diamond Fields was then past, and though at the very time when Mr. Kruger negotiated the Convention of 1884 he was inviting British settlers to come and search for gold. What guarantee could there be that similar blunders would not be committed again, and that the recon- stituted Republics would not be equally ready to take advantage of them ? In any case, the situation would still have been left open, as Mr. Westlake said, to 'the difficulty which uniformly dogs the attempt to maintain restrictions on any State acknow- ledged to be one ' : ' The right of Russia to emancipation from the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris was put by many on the ground that restrictions on what THE REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 323 a State may do to its own territory are contrary to nature — a contradiction in logic, and therefore never to be justified except for a temporary purpose. Those who remember 1848 will call to mind how, when tearing up the treaties of 18 15, the satisfaction of the French in proclaiming themselves free to fortify Huningue seemed at least equal to that which they felt from claiming an increased liberty of action in Europe. So we may be sure that if the Republics continue to exist, it will not be long before they, with the support of their sympathizers in all parts of the world, will not only try, but will claim as of right, to shake off all fetters to which they may be subjected. And they will have the further support of those who, while unable to deny the attempts which the Transvaal has made from 1881 to shake off the successive Conventions, justify them on the ground that the independence taken from them in 1877 ought to have been fully restored. There are never wanting those who contend that a State is not prevented by its signature from re-opening the question whether the conditions which it signed were just, and their arguments will be backed by the fallacy that no permanent restrictions on a State can be just. . . . Our statesmen are in such a matter under the peculiar liability of being misled by our Indian experience. For reasons of policy, the reality of which I am far from dis- puting, we have built up in the peninsula a system of our own, of which the result is that the relations between the United Kingdom and the native States cannot be expressed without contradiction in the terms of European international law. That does not matter, for there is no neighbour to take advantage of the circumstance, and it has been officially notified in the Indian Government Ga-s-f/^^ of August 21, 1891, that "the principles of international law have no bearing upon the relations between the Govern- ment of India as representing the Queen-Empress on the one hand, and the native States under the suzerainty of Her Majesty on the other. ' ' But in South Africa we dare not follow such precedents. If the evident mind of the nation is to be carried out, it must be made clear to those who take their stand on European international law that the Dutch States have ceased to exist, even as dependent ones ' (Letter in the Times, March 14, 1900). The situation admitted, in a word, of no more disputes about Conventions, protectorates, and suzerainties. And so by process of exhaustion, the conclusion was reached that the necessary securities could only be obtained by the establishment throughout the British sphere of influence in South Africa of one political system under the British Crown. The Orange Free State was accordingly annexed by proclamation as the Orange River Colony on May 28, 1900. The South African Republic was annexed on September i, 1900. (For the terms of the pro- clamations, see Cd. 261, p. 153, and Cd. 420, p. 87.) Of course this policy of annexation exposed Great Britain to 21 — 2 324 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR charges of perfidy. ' We know very well,' said Sir James Rose- Innes, ' that England will be charged with making war in order to take these territories. But,' he added, ' we know also perfectly well that the charge is absolutely false. We know that neither the English Government nor the English people wanted this war or these lands.' For the war she was unprepared, and she made long and careful efforts to offer terms which might have prevented it. Among others she offered an absolute guarantee of the inde- pendence and integrity of the South African Republic. This is the justification for Lord Salisbury's speech at the Guildhall on November 9, 1899, when he said, 'We seek no goldfields; we seek no territory.' But the context should be given : • With respect to the future, I shall not dare to say anything except to deprecate some very strange assertions which I see occasionally in the Continental press. I saw it stated the other day, not by a chance writer, but by a man who had been a member of a French Government, that this war had for its object the gratification of the lusts of the greedy lords who desire to share in the participation among themselves of the gold and the diamonds of the Transvaal. I beg to assure that gentleman that the Cabinet have not had one farthing from the Transvaal or any other goldfield. ... I would go farther, and say that England as a whole would have no advantage from the possession of gold-mines, except so far as her Government conferred the blessings of good government upon those who had the prosecution of that industry. . . . But that is the limit of our interest. We seek no goldfields ; we seek no territory. What we desire is equal rights for all men of all races, and security for our fellow- subjects and for the Empire. I will not ask by what means those results are to be obtained ; the hour for asking that has not yet come.' It is to be regretted that Lord Salisbury did not guard himself more carefully against misrepresentation. It is clear enough, how- ever, that what he was defining in that speech was the motive with which the British nation had entered into the struggle. And in denying the allegation that we had entered into it from lust of gold or territory, he was perfectly right. If the territories are now annexed, it is because no other means could be found for obtain- ing the things we did go to war for — namely, ' equal rights ' and 'security for our fellow-subjects and for the Empire.' Terms that would have been readily and unreservedly accepted by this country in order to avert war became impossible by the logic of the stricken field. THE KITCHEN ER.BOTH A NEGOTIATIONS 325 CHAPTER XXXVI THE KITCHENER-BOTHA NEGOTIATIONS The ' sealed question of incorporation ' — Lord Kitchener's overtures to General Botha — Interview at Middelburg — The British terms — Foreign opinion of their liberality — Rejected by the Boers — De Wet's mani- festo : ' Fighting for independence ' — Mr. Chamberlain's alterations in Lord Kitchener's proposals — The Four Points discussed — Incorpora- tion or independence. When Lord Rosebery, in a speech at Chesterfield (December 16, 1 901), spoke of the question of incorporation as 'closed and sealed,' he expressed the clearly settled policy of the British nation. The reasons for that policy have been explained in the last chapter. The fact of its adoption is the key to the negotiations with which in the present chapter we have to deal. It has often been asserted — so often that some people may even have believed it — that the policy of the British Government towards the Boers was one of 'unconditional surrender.' It has been added that the object of this policy was to secure the ruin and annihilation of the Boers. "^^ Against these assertions it is sufificient to recall the facts of the case. They are (i) that no overtures were submitted by the Boers except on the basis of independence,! and (2) that overtures for surrender on conditions were submitted by the British. In February, 1901, it was suggested to Mrs. Botha, who was residing within the British lines at Pretoria, that she should sound her husband, the Commandant-General, with regard to the possi- bilities of peace. She undertook the mission, bearing a message from Lord Kitchener that he would meet General Botha, if the latter desired it, in the hope thereby of bringing the war to an end. The invitation, it will be seen, came from the ' unconditional ' and ' annihilating ' British authorities. A conference between Lord * ' Whether that policy had for its object the ruin and practical annihilation of the Boer race — and things have been done which I must say can bear no other interpretation— or whether the object be — and It would be a more avowable object — to beat the Boers to their knees and place them at our mercy— in either case, I say, it is a policy mischievous, and, if persevered in, fatal' (Sir Henry Campbell- Banner- man at Leicester, February 19, 1902), t Up to March, 1902. 326 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Kitchener and the Commandant-General took place on February 28 at Middelburg. Various points were discussed between them (to which I shall presently return), and Lord Kitchener undertook to let General Botha know the views of the British Government. After telegraphic correspondence between Lord Kitchener, Lord Milner, and Mr. Chamberlain, the following letter was despatched by Lord Kitchener to Commandant-General Botha : ' Pretoria, ' March 7, 1901. ' Your Honour, ' With reference to our conversation at Middelburg on February 28, I have the honour to inform you that, in the event of a general and com- plete cessation of hostilities, and the surrender of all rifles, ammunition, cannon, and other munitions of war in the hands of the burghers, or in Government depots, or elsewhere. His Majesty's Government is prepared to adopt the following measures : ' His Majesty's Government will at once grant an amnesty in the Trans- vaal and Orange River Colony for all bond fide acts of war committed during the recent hostilities. British subjects belonging to Natal and Cape Colony, while they will not be compelled to return to those colonies, will, if they do so, be liable to be dealt with by the laws of those colonies specially passed to meet the circumstances arising out of the present war. As you are doubtless aware, the special law in the Cape Colony has greatly mitigated the ordinary penalties for High Treason in the present case. •All prisoners of war now in St. Helena, Ceylon, or elsewhere, being burghers or colonists, will, on the completion of the surrender, be brought back to their country as quickly as arrangements can be made for their transport. ' At the earliest practicable date military administration will cease, and will be replaced by civil administration in the form of Crown Colony Government. There will therefore be, in the first instance, in each of the new Colonies a Governor and an Executive Council, composed of the principal officials, with a Legislative Council consisting of a certain number of official members to whom a nominated unofficial element will be added. But it is the desire of His Majesty's Government, as soon as circumstances permit, to introduce a representative element, and ultimately to concede to the new Colonies the privilege of self-government. More- over, on the cessation of hostilities a High Court will be established in each of the new Colonies to administer the laws of the land, and this Court will be independent of the Executive. ' Church property, public trusts, and orphan funds will be respected. ' Both the English and Dutch languages will be used and taught in public schools when the parents of the children desire it, and allowed in Courts of Law. THE KITCHENER-BOTHA NEGOTIATIONS 327 ' As regards the debts of the late Republican Governments, His Majesty's Government cannot undertake any liability. It is, however, prepared, as an act of grace, to set aside a sum not exceeding one million pounds ster- ling to repay inhabitants of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony for goods requisitioned from them by the late Republican Governments, or subsequent to annexation, by commandants in the field being in a position to enforce such requisitions. But such claims will have to be established to the satisfaction of a Judge or Judicial Commission appointed by the Government to investigate and assess them, and, if exceeding in the aggregate one million pounds, they will be liable to reduction /ro rata. ' I also beg to inform your Honour that the new Government will take into immediate consideration the possibility of assisting by loan the occu- pants of farms, who will take the oath of allegiance, to repair any injuries sustained by destruction of buildings or loss of stock during the war, and that no special war tax will be imposed upon farms to defray the expense of the war. ' When burghers require the protection of firearms, such will be allowed to them by license and on due registration, provided they take the oath of allegiance. Licenses will also be issued for sporting rifles, guns, etc., but military firearms will only be allowed for purposes of protection. ' As regards the extension of the franchise to Kaffirs in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, it is not the intention of His Majesty's Govern- ment to give such franchise before representative Government is granted to those Colonies, and if then given it will be so limited as to secure the just predominance of the white race. The legal position of coloured persons will, however, be similar to that which they hold in the Cape Colony. ' In conclusion, I must inform your Honour that if the terms now offered are not accepted after a reasonable delay for consideration, they must be regarded as cancelled ' (Cd. 663, No. i). No reasonable man can deny that these terms were fair and even generous. Even those who were least predisposed to regard British policy favourably were impressed by the moderation of the British terms. They breathed no spirit of vindictiveness ; they disclosed no purpose of annihilation. According to the Cologne Gazette^ ' the terms of peace offered by the British Government to the Boers must make it clear even to the most inveterate Anglophobes that England has left nothing undone in order to bring the long and terrible war to an end. The British Government has been charged with waging a war of rapine in order to oppress those who have hitherto been in possession and to hand over the Transvaal to be the prey of British enterprise. The terms of peace to which even Mr. Chamberlain gave his consent constitute, in the opinion 328 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR of the Rhenish organ, a final and decisive refutation of this charge {Times, March 25, 1901). There seemed, therefore, hopes of a settlement. But these hopes were doomed to disappointment. On March 1 6 Lord Kitchener telegraphed home the following reply which he had received from Commandant-General Botha : ' I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your Excellency's letter stating what steps your Excellency's Government is prepared to take in the event of a general and total cessation of hostilities. I have advised my Government of your Excellency's said letter, but after the mutual ex- change of views at our interview at Middelburg on February 28 last, it will certainly not surprise your Excellency to know that I do not feel dis- posed to recommend that the terms of the said letter shall have the earnest consideration of my Government. I may add also that my Government and my chief officers here entirely agree to my views ' (Cd. 528, No. 11). This letter was the subject of much discussion in Parliament and on the platform in England ; but the main fact is clear enough. The British Government had proposed terms of great liberality. The Boer leaders had refused them. The British terms were generous. For all bona fide acts of war committed in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony there was to be full amnesty. Cape rebels were to be subject only to the mitigated penalties of the special law passed for the purpose. (By this law all acts of rebellion committed between October, 1899, and April, 1901, are punishable under the special Treason Act. Only prominent offenders — men of special influence or of official position — were left amenable to the ordinary penalties. The rank- and-file rebel was to be subject only to disfranchisement for five years.)"*^ The prisoners of war were to be brought back with all possible speed. The colonies were, as soon as circumstances ad- mitted, to enjoy the privilege of self-government. High Courts of Justice, independent of the Executive, were to be established. The Dutch language was to be respected. A sum of ^1,000,000 was to be set aside for repaying burghers for goods requisitioned from them by the Boers for fighting the British. We were thus to pay in part the expenses of our enemies, and we promised further * The text of the Act is printed as an appendix to a Blue-Book of December, 1900, Cd. 420. THE KITCHENER-BOTHA NEGOTIATIONS 329 to assist farmers in repairing the ravages of the war which their Government had made. Strange methods these, it must be ad- mitted, for * annihilating ' the Boer race. But the terms were refused, and refused with emphasis. ' The spirit of Lord Kitchener's letter,' said General Botha in an address to burghers, ' makes it very plain to you all that the British Government desires nothing else but the destruction of our Afrikander people, and acceptance of the terms contained therein is absolutely out of the question ' (Cd. 663, p. 3). ' As you will see for yourself,' wrote Mr. Schalk Burger to Mr. Steyn, ' from the correspondence between Lord Kitchener and Commandant- General Botha, there is no mention of terms which meet us in any way, therefore I keep to the decision to surrender unconditionally, if this must happen, which I trust God forbid' (Cd. 903, p, 73). 'No terms which meet us in any way.' Let us examine this statement. In one matter the Boer demands were not met at all, as we shall see. But General Botha had raised many matters, and on all these other points the British terms met him a long way. (i) He had asked about the nature of the future govern- ment of the colonies. ' He would have liked representative government at once.' He did not get that, but he got assur- ances. To this subject we shall have to return. (2) He asked 'whether a Boer would be able to have a rifle to protect him from natives.' He was told yes. (3) ' He asked whether Dutch language would be allowed.' Yes, (4) The Kaffir question. He was given assurances against any sweeping or immediate Kaffir enfranchisement. (5) He asked, and was promised, that Dutch property should remain untouched. (6) ' He asked whether the British Government, in taking over assets of Re- public, would also take over legal debts.' Up to ;^t, 000,000, yes. (7) ' He asked if any war tax would be imposed on farmers.' No. (8) * When would prisoners of war return ?' ' As quickly as arrangements could be made for their transport' (9) 'He referred to pecuniary assistance to repair burnt farms,' etc. He was promised assistance by loan, not by free gift. This is a distinction to which we shall have to return. (10) 'Amnesty to all at end of war.' To all in Transvaal and Orange Colony, yes ; to Cape rebels returning to the Cape, treatment under the special 330 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Treason Law. This point also I reserve for later discussion. It is clear from this summary that on most of the points General Botha was met in a spirit of accommodation. On one point — a point, as I submit, which overrode all the rest — compromise was impossible. General Botha 'tried very hard for some kind of independence, but I declined,' said Lord Kitchener,^ ' to discuss such a point, and said that a modified form of independence would be most dangerous, and likely to lead to war in the future.' ' He told me that they could go on for some time, and that he was not sure of being able to bring about peace without independence.' General Botha himself * showed very good feeling, and seemed anxious to bring about peace.' Why did he fail ? Is not the obvious conclusion deducible from the above remarks and from his subsequent letter that the Boer leaders were still bent on independence, and that this was the point on which the British terms did ' not meet them in any way'? It was certainly the point on which both at the time and afterwards the leaders based their determination to continue the struggle. On April i Head Commandant De Wet issued a manifesto 'to all officers and burghers of the Orange Free State': ' Again (he said) our enemy has demonstrated most clearly that his only object in this war is to annihilate the Afrikander people.' And then, after detailing the negotiations, he added : ' But, in short, what is the use of examining all the points, as the only object for which we are fighting is the independence of our Republics and our national existence ? On this ground, and on this ground only, will, can, and may we give up the conflict ' (Cd. 663, p. 9). Brave and sensible men will fight for independence, even against heavy odds. They could not so easily be persuaded to fight for the forms of representative councils, or for the amount of grants in aid. At this stage of the war, as in its inception, the reasonable conclusion is that a desperate struggle had deep causes. That there has been any opening for misconception in this * This quotation and the foregoing are from No. 4 in Cd: 528, containing Lord Kitchener's account of the Middelburg interview. THE KITCHENER-BOTHA NEGOTIATIONS 331 matter is due to mismanagement on the part of the British Government. In the negotiations with Botha, as in the negotia- tions preceding the war, the British Government was substantially in the right, but did not altogether go the right way to work. It was remarked — I think by Sir Edward Grey — that a man's view of the ' papers relating to negotiations between Botha and Kitchener ' varied somewhat according as he read them back- wards or forwards. If he began with the last despatch — the British Government's formal offer, printed on a previous page (p. 326) — he would be content to think that large and hberal terms had been offered ; but if he began at the beginning and worked through to the end, he would have to regret that the terms were not the same throughout. The mistakes, it seems to me, were two. First, it was most unwise not to have placed Lord Kitchener in full possession of the views of His Majesty's Government before he communicated with General Botha. The result was that Lord Kitchener offered terms — informally, of course, and expressly * subject to confirmation from home ' — more liberal in some respects than those which the Government sanctioned. This proceeding was likely to leave on the minds of the Boers an impression of indecision among the British authorities which it was very desirable to avoid. It also confused the issue. It left the Boer refusal of the ultimate terms open to two interpreta- tions. General Botha wrote, as we have seen, * After the mutual exchange of our views at our interview at Middelburg, it will certainly not surprise your Excellency to know that I do not feel disposed to recommend' the ultimate terms. This has been taken by some to mean that ' Botha based his refusal upon his own views as expressed in the original interview with Kitchener ; and we have his own authority, therefore, to show that they were not determined by any changes which Chamberlain may have made in the terms.'* But obviously there is another thing which General Botha may have meant — namely, that in view of his reluctant consent to Lord Kitchener's suggestions as a minimum, he naturally could not accept the Government's less favourable * Conan Doyle, ' The War in South Africa: its Cause and Conduct,' p. 80. 332 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR conditions. What the Commandant-General really meant must be gathered from all the circumstances of the case. But it was logically open to people to say, and they did say, that what pre- vented the establishment of peace at this stage was the alteration made by the British Government in Lord Kitchener's proposed terms. What were these alterations ? Some of them were undoubtedly necessary, and were distinct improvements. ' It is desirable at this stage,' said Mr. Chamberlain, in communicating to Lord Milner the Government's alterations, ' to be quite precise in order to avoid any charge of breach of faith afterwards.' With the minor and formal alterations made in the interests of precision we need not concern ourselves. The substantial alterations involving questions of principle require some discussion. These were four in number, dealing respectively with the questions of (i) amnesty, (2) form of government, (3) assistance to Boer farmers, and (4) natives. With regard to the latter question. Lord Kitchener had said nothing about the position of the natives except in the matter of the franchise. The British Government was willing, as we have seen, to reassure the Boers with regard to the Kaffir vote ; ' but the legal position of Kaffirs will be similar,' it added, 'to that which they hold in Cape Colony.' ' We cannot consent,' Mr. Chamberlain explained, 'to purchase peace by leaving the coloured population in the position in which they stood before the war, with not even the ordinary civil rights which the Government of the Cape Colony has long conceded to them.' In view of Lord Salisbury's pledge with regard to the native question (p. 9), few will be found to quarrel with this addendum. The alteration introduced by the Government in Lord Kitchener's promise of 'pecuniary assistance to repair burnt farms and to enable farmers to start afresh ' is more open to criticism. For a free gift the Government substituted a loan : ' the new Government will take into immediate consideration the possibihty of assisting by loan,' etc. If the thing were to be done at all, if it were advisable in policy, and if it were to be stated as an inducement to peace, the introduction of any grudging note was a mistake. This was the view strongly taken by the Govern- THE KITCHENER.BOTHA NEGOTIATIONS 333 merit's agents on the spot, as will be seen from the following telegram from Lord Milner (March 9, 1901) : 'While the changes which His Majesty's Government desired to intro- duce into Kitchener's letter were improvements in many cases, there were some which I regretted. But none of these appeared to me of much im- portance except the introduction of the words "by loan" in the passage referring to assistance to farmers after the war. I am certainly opposed to giving such assistance indiscriminately, but I think there will be cases in which expenditure not directly recoverable would be justified and politic. Also I think introduction of these words calculated to weaken effect of message, though I hope this may not be serious, having regard to its great liberality on other points. ' Kitchener was even more strongly opposed than I to introduction of the words "by loan," because, in view of the suspicious nature of the Boers, he thought it would be regarded as a way of getting farmers into the clutches of the Government, ' At the same time he and I were quite agreed that disadvantages of delay would not be counterbalanced by any improvement of message which might result from further discussion ' (Cd. 528, No. 8). It is impossible not to regret that Lord Kitchener and Lord Milner were overridden on this point, but it is difficult to believe that the introduction of the words ' by loan ' was a vital cause of the failure of the negotiations. Still more difficult is it to attach any transcendent importance to the alteration introduced by the Government into Lord Kitchener's explanation about the future administration of the colonies. Lord Kitchener had spoken of ' Crown colony administration, consisting of nominated Executive, with elected assembly to advise adminis- tration, to be followed after a period by representative government.' Botha, said Lord Kitchener, ' would have liked representative government at once, but seemed satisfied with above.' Lord Kitchener seems, however, to have felt that he had perhaps gone too far ; for in the letter which he submitted to the Government he revised his statement into ' civil administration, which will at first consist of a Governor and a nominated Executive, with or without an advisory elected assembly.' The Government said ' without.' The difference between peace and war is not likely to have been caused by the difference between an elected and a nominated council, both of which were to be limited in the first stage to advisory functions. 334 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR The question of amnesty remains. Lord Kitchener's note of his conversation on this point was this : ' Amnesty to all at end of war. We spoke of colonials who joined Republics, and he seemed not adverse to their being disfranchised.' To this proposal Lord Milner was opposed, and suggested the following limitation : ' British subjects of Cape Colony or Natal, though they will not be compelled to return to those colonies, will, if they do so, be liable to be dealt with under the laws of those colonies specially passed to meet the circumstances arising out of the present war, and which greatly mitigate the ordinary penalties of rebellion.' ' While willing,' explained Lord Milner, ' to concede much in order to strengthen Botha in inducing his people to submit, the amnesty of rebels is not, in my opinion, a point which His Majesty's Government can afford to concede. I think it would have a deplorable effect in Cape Colony and Natal to obtain peace by such a concession.' The Home Government accepted this view of the case. ' They feel that they cannot promise to ask for com- plete amnesty to Cape and Natal rebels, who are in a totally different position to burghers, without injustice to those who have remained loyal under great provocation.' Into the merits of this matter we must enter presently. Here, where we are concerned with the nature and effect of the Government's alterations of Lord Kitchener's terms, it is only necessary to point out that this particular alteration was not very great in extent, though it in- volved a matter of principle. Lord Kitchener proposed amnesty for all Cape rebels qualified by disfranchisement (term not stated). The Government were ready to grant unqualified amnesty to such rebels as were not in, and might not return to, the Cape. Others were to be subject to disfranchisement (for various terms) and to the other penalties of the Special Treason Courts. It was these other penalties — in most cases fines and terms of imprisonment — that were alone at issue as between Lord Kitchener's proposals and the Government's terms. The British Government attached importance to this difference as a matter of principle, and the Boers undoubtedly attached importance to the question of amnesty also and for the same reason. But was it on this difference, or on all the differences together, that the Kitchener-Botha negotiations came to grief? I do not THE KITCHENER-BOTHA NEGOTIATIONS 335 think that such a conclusion is reasonable. General Botha, as we have seen, expressly warned Lord Kitchener that ' he was not sure of being able to bring about peace without independence.' In the end he rejected the British overtures curtly and absolutely. If the basis of incorporation had been accepted, and only points of detail, such as we have been discussing, stood in the way of peace, why in the world did not General Botha make counter-proposals ? The Boers themselves based the rejection of the British terms on the ground that they were fighting only for the independence of the Republics. Some months later that, as we shall see, was still their temper. With the British the question was ' sealed and closed ' in favour of incorporation ; the Boer leaders were still bent on independence. CHAPTER XXXVII SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS Mr. Reitz proposes surrender — Mr. Steyn's answer — Communications with Mr. Kruger — Decision to continue the war — The policy of the Refugee Camps — Lord Kitchener and General Botha — ' Lord Kitchener's Proclamation ' — Replies from Botha, De Wet, and the Boer Governments — Intervention of the Netherlands Government — Lord Lansdowne's reply — Why the war continued. The negotiations discussed in the last chapter took place in February and March, 1901. Three months later some of the Boer leaders had lost heart. The Orange Free State leaders, both military and civil, seem throughout to have been the backbone of resistance to the end. The Transvaal leaders were more inclined to bow to the inevitable. On May 10, Mr. Reitz, the State Secretary, to whom once the whole thing was a joke, was in a more sober and sombre mood. From the * Government Office in the Field ' at Ermelo he addressed the following letter to ' The Government Secretary, O.F.S.' : * Sir, ' I have the honour to inform you herewith that the following officers met the Government here to-day — viz., the Commandant-General, General B. J. Viljoen, General J. C. Smuts (State Attorney), the last-mentioned of whom represented the Western Districts. 336 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR ' Our position was fully discussed, and, inter alia, the following facts were considered : 'I. That numbers of burghers are continually surrendering to the enemy, and that this danger is hourly becoming more threatening, in consequence of which we run the risk of our cause coming to a discreditable end, as it may result in the Government and the officers being left in the field without burghers. The consequence is that a heavy responsibility rests on the Government and the officers, seeing that they represent the people and not themselves. ' 2. That our supply of ammunition is so exhausted that we shall not be able to engage in another big fight, and we shall consequently be reduced to a state of helpless flight before the enemy. This also makes it im- possible for us to any longer protect our people with their stock, and they are becoming poorer and more disheartened, and we shall soon be no longer able to supply our forces with the necessaries of life. ' 3. Owing to the above facts the authority of the Government is gradu- ally becoming more and more weakened, and there is a danger of the people losing all respect for their lawful rulers and of lapsing into a state of disorganization, and further prolongation by us of such a struggle can only tend to overwhelm them more and more in ruin, and to make it clear to them that the only authority in the land is that of the enemy. • 4. Not only is our nation becoming broken up in the manner above- mentioned, but it will also certainly come to pass that the leaders of the people, whose personal influence has hitherto kept them together, will be looked upon with suspicion by them and lose all their influence, and in consequence all hope of the resuscitation of the national sentiment in the future will be lost. • 5. The people are continually pressing for an answer to the question as to what prospect there still is of continuing the struggle with any success, and they have a right to expect that, when it has become clear to the Government and the leaders that there is no longer any definite hope for our cause, this should be honestly and frankly made known to them. ' Hitherto the Government and the people have expected that through the co-operation of our deputation, and owing to complications in European affairs, there might be some hope of saving our cause, and the Government feels strongly that before taking a decisive step another attempt should be made to obtain assurances on this point. ' After considering the above-mentioned points the Government and the aforesaid officers resolved : • Firstly, that a request be addressed to Lord Kitchener that., by means of emissaries from us to Europe, His Honour State President Kruger be informed of the state of our country, these emissaries to return as speedily as possible. 'Secondly, that if this request be refused, or if it lead to negative results, an armistice be asked for, by means of which an opportunity SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 337 will be afforded us, in conjunction with your Government, of con- sulting the people of both States in order to decide finally what action to take. ' This is, however, subject to any other solution which your Govern- ment, taking into consideration the above-mentioned difficulties, may be able to suggest. ' The Government feels very strongly that the time has now passed for simply allowing our cause to drift, and that the time has come for taking decisive steps, and will be glad to receive an answer from your Govern ment as soon as possible.'* To this letter Mr. Steyn sent a reply of bitter reproaches, fiery patriotism, and vague reassurance. Milner and Kitchener were falling out. There were rumours of strange things about to happen. Reports from Cape Colony were encouraging. To leave the Colonial burgher in the lurch would make the name of the deserters stink in the nostrils of every right-thinking person. European complications would occur within two months. ' More- over,' said Mr. Steyn, ' knowing as I do the members of our deputation, I cannot believe that they will simply sit still there, knowing how we are suffering and struggling here, if they know that there is nothing further for us to hope from Europe.' Mr. Steyn added some remarks which emphasize the possibility of danger against which the policy of ' never again ' was directed as a safeguard. ' It is scarcely necessary to point out to you how disastrous it will be for our national existence if the Orange Free State, which has sacrificed for the sister Republic, not only her property and blood, but also her freedom, is now left in the lurch by that sister Republic. All confidence and co-operation between Afrikanders will for ever be destroyed, and to think that we shall afterwards, when European complications arise, rise up again is madness. It is a mere phantasy. If we wish to remain a people then, now is the time to persevere.' Mr. Steyn's letter was dated May 15, but the Transvaal Govern- ment had already taken action. On May 10 General Botha wrote to Lord Kitchener saying that he was ' very desirous of terminating the war,' and asking permission to send two persons * This document, with the one next referred to, was found in Mr. Steyn's baggage, which fell into the hands of Lord Kitchener on July 17, Lord Kitchener published the documents in a pamphlet for the information of burghers. They are printed in a BIue-Book of January, 1902, Cd. 903, No. 21. 22 338 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR to President Kruger in Europe^ in order to acquaint him with the condition of affairs (Cd. 663, p. 17). General Botha said that it was impossible to take any steps in the direction of peace with- out consulting Mr. Kruger. Nothing had been said about this condition in the negotiations of March. It looks as if the Boer delegates and Government in Europe were indispensable or negligible according as the interests of the Boer leaders in Africa required. On the present occasion, it may have been that General Botha wanted to get some expression of opinion in favour of peace from Mr. Kruger and the delegates, in order thereby to bring the Free Staters to listen to surrender. If that was his hope, it was, as we shall see, disappointed. Lord Kitchener, in reply to General Botha, stated that he could ' only deal with you and your superior officer in the field with regard to the cessation of hostilities,' and that he ' did not recognise the official status of any other persons in the late Republics of the Orange River and Transvaal.' He offered, however, to forward to Europe any telegram General Botha desired, and to let him have the reply. This offer was accepted, with the result that the continuance of the war was once more energetically pursued. * As His Honour the State President Kruger and the Deputation in Europe have not heard anything direct from our Government since the conference between Commandant-General Botha and Lord Kitchener at Middelburg, and as the Government of the South African Republic deemed it advisable that they should be acquainted with tlie state of affairs here, therefore, at request of the Commandant-General, and with the kind compliance of Lord Kitchener, a private telegram was sent to them, in which the entire state of affairs was fully described and in- tentionally put in the worst light, for the means of making the advice of His Honour and the Deputation the more weighty. ' On this His Honour informed us that he and the Deputation have still great hopes of a satisfactory end of long struggle, that after material and personal sacrifice we should continue the struggle, and that on their part all steps are already taken and will still be taken for proper provision for the captive women and children and prisoners of war. ' For discussing and considering this answer of His Honour, a con- ference of the Governments of both Republics was arranged, at which were present Chief Commandant C. R. De Wet, Commandant- General L. Botha, and Assistant Commandant J. H. De la Rey. * Mr. Kruger had fled the country after Lord Roberts's advance. He arrived at Marseilles on November 22, 1900. SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 339 On June 20 the Boers issued a notice in the following terms : ' After a full revision of the condition of military affairs represented by these chief officers, and thorough discussion of our whole cause by both Governffients, the following resolution was taken by both Governments, with the advice of the said chief officers : ' The Governments of the South African Republic and Orange Free State, with the advice of the said chief officers, and taking into consideration the satisfactory report of His Honour State President Kruger, and the Deputation in the foreign country, and considering the good progress of our cause in the Colonies, where our brothers oppose the cruel injustice done to the Republics more and more in depriving them of their independence, considering further the invaluable personal and material sacrifices they have made for our cause, which would all be worthless and vain with a peace whereby the independence of the Republics is given up, and further consider- ing the certainty that the losing of our independence after the destruction already done and losses suffered will drag with it the national and material annihilation of the entire people, and especially considering the spirit of unbending persistence with which the great majority of our men, women, and children are still possessed, and in which we see with thankful acknowledgment the hand of the Almighty Protector, resolve, that no peace will be made and no peace conditions accepted by which our independence and national existence, or the interests of our Colonial brothers, shall be price paid, and that the war will be vigorously prosecuted by taking all measures necessary for maintenance of independence and interests.' (Cd. 663, p. 17.) ' S. Burger and Steyn.' Mr. Kruger and the Deputation had, it will be seen, strongly supported Mr. Steyn as against Mr. Reitz, and all hopes of peace were once more destroyed. There was no mention of objections in detail to the British Government's previous overtures ; no suggestion of any counter-proposals. The appeal was made to the independence of the Republics, for which alone, as General De Wet had said, they were fighting. By what false hopes Mr. Kruger and the Deputation buoyed up the drooping spirits of the Transvaalers, and condemned their long-suffering fellow-countrymen to further sacrifices and struggles, we know not. But one passage in the above manifesto is very significant. It throws valuable light on a topic on which there has been a vast amount of misunderstanding and misrepresentation. Mr. Kruger and the Deputation stated that ' on their part all steps 22 — 2 340 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR are already taken, and will still be taken, for proper provision for the captive women and children and prisoners of war.' What steps, it may well be asked, had Mr. Kruger taken, or could he take, to provide for the captive women and children and prisoners of war ? The prisoners were in the custody of the British, either at Bermuda or Ceylon or in the South African camps, and there also were the women and children lodged, fed, educated, nursed, and, alas ! too often buried, at the expense of the British Govern- ment. And herein we may probably perceive what was the meaning of the passage cited above. The struggle was to continue, it seems to have meant, without undue anxiety for the women and children, for whom provision was otherwise made. The burghers might hold themselves free to go on fighting the British, because the British were looking after the women and children. That the Boer leaders were fully alive to the advantage that this arrangement gave them is clear from Lord Kitchener's communications with General Botha. The following is the text of Lord Kitchener's despatch on this subject (Cd. 902, No. 12) : ' Army Headquarters, Pretoria, 'December 6, igoi. •Sir, In forwarding the enclosed correspondence with regard to the refugee camps, I have the honour to submit the following brief statement of the actual facts, which are, I need hardly say, widely at variance with those set forth by Mr. S. W. Burger. ' 2. Numerous complaints were made to me in the early part of this year by surrendered burghers, who stated that after they had laid down their arms their families were ill-treated and their stock and property confiscated by order of the Commandants-General of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. These acts appear to have been taken in consequence of the circular dated Roos, Senekal, 6th November, 1900, in which the Commandant-General says : ' ' Do everything in your power to prevent the burghers laying down their arms. I will be compelled, if they do not listen to this, to confiscate everything movable or immovable, and also to burn their houses." •3.1 took occasion at my interview with Commandant-General Louis Botha to bring this matter before him, and I told him that if he continued such acts I should be forced to bring in all women and children and as much property as possible to protect them from the acts of his burghers. I further inquired if he would agree to spare the farms and families of neutral or surrendered burghers, in which case I expressed my willingness SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 341 to leave undisturbed the farms and families of burghers who were on commando, provided they did not actively assist their relatives. The Commandant General emphatically refused even to consider any such arrangement. He said, " I am entitled by law to force every man to join, and if they do not do so, to confiscate their property and leave their families on the veldt." I asked him what course I could pursue to protect surrendered burghers and their families, and he then said, "The only thing you can do is to send them out of the country, as if I catch them they must suffer." After this there was nothing more to be said, and as military operations do not permit of the protection of individuals, I had practically no choice but to continue my system of sweeping inhabitants of certain areas into the protection of our lines. My decision was conveyed to the Commandant-General in my official letter dated Pretoria, i6th April, 1901, from which the following is an extract : ' As I informed your Honour at Middelburg, owing to the irregular manner in which you have conducted and continue to conduct hostilities, by forcing unwilling and peaceful inhabitants to join your commandos, a proceeding totally unauthorized by the recognised customs of war, I have no other course open to me, and am forced to take the very unpleasant and repugnant step of bring- ing in the women and children. ' I have the greatest sympathy for the sufferings of these poor people, which I have done my best to alleviate, and it is a matter of surprise to me and to the whole civilized world, that your Honour considers yourself justified in still causing so much suffer- ing to the people of the Transvaal by carrying on a hopeless and useless struggle. ' From the foregoing it will, I believe, be perfectly clear that the re- sponsibility for the action complained of by Mr. Burger in his letter of the 2ist November, 1901, rests rather with the Commandants-General of the Transvaal and Orange Free State than with the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in South Africa. '4. It is not the case that every area has been cleared of the families of burghers, although this might be inferred from the despatch under discussion. On the contrary, very large numbers of women and children are still out, either in Boer camps or on their farms, and my Column Commanders have orders to leave them alone unless it is clear that they must starve if they are left out upon the veldt. •5. In addition to the families of surrendered burghers who either came in of their own accord, or were brought in solely to save them from the reprisals of the enemy, there are three other classes represented in our refugee camps : • {a) Families who were reported to be engaged in a regular system of passing information to the enemy. 342 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR ' (b) Families from farms which were constantly used by the enemy as places from which to snipe at our troops. ' (c) Families from farms which were used as commissariat depots by the enemy. ' (A) and (b) speak for themselves. Mr. Burger seems to consider that c) is in conflict with the statement that such families would have suc- cumbed to hunger if not removed. If, however, a Boer commissariat depot is found with perhaps regular messing arrangements for thirty men, and thousands of pounds of flour and mealies, of course these supplies have to be withdrawn, leaving only a margin of a few weeks' food for the resident inmates of the farm. At the close of those few weeks, the family runs danger of starvation and has to be brought in, so that the want of logic complained of is merely an attempt on the part of Mr. Burger to make a clever point upon paper . ' 6. The majority of the women and children in the refugee camps are those of surrendered burghers ; but neither they, nor the wives of prisoners of war, nor of men on commando, make any serious complaint, although they are constantly being invited by commissions, inspectors, etc., to say something, however little it may be, against the arrangements made for their comfort, recreation, and instruction. ' 7. Mr. Burger is anxious that a Boer commission should be permitted to visit the women's camps and render a report upon them. Indeed, this is the one practical suggestion contained in his letter. It is strange, to say the least of it, that no mention is made by Mr. Burger of the fact that I have already told the Commandant-General I would permit a representa- tive appointed by him to visit the refugee camps in order that an inde- pendent report might be furnished upon the subject. Nor is there any reference to the inspection of these camps which was actually carried out by Captain Malan. It will be remembered that I immediately acceded to General B. Viljoen's request that he might depute an officer for this purpose. He selected Captain Malan, who went around asking if there were any complaints, and who afterwards expressed his entire satisfaction with the arrangements which had been made on behalf of the Boer women and children. I take this opportunity of stating that I would make no objection to Commandant-General Botha himself, accompanied if he likes by General Delarey and Mr. Steyn, visiting these camps, provided they undertake to speak no politics to the inmates, who, as a rule, appreciate the general situation much better than their husbands or brothers on commando. ' 8. Finally, I indignantly and entirely deny the accusations of rough and cruel treatment to women and children who were being brought in from their farms to the camps. Hardships may have been sometimes inseparable from the process, but the Boer women in our hands them- selves bear the most eloquent testimony to the kindness and consideration shown to them by our soldiers on all such occasions. SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 343 • 9. I enclose a copy of letters which I have just despatched on this subject to Mr. Burger, Mr. Steyn, and to General De Wet, offering to return to them any women who may be willing to rejoin the Boer com- mandos in the field.' Of Lord Kitchener's offer no advantage (or rather disadvantage) was taken. General Botha's policy in the matter, the policy of driving upon the British the responsibility of looking after the women and children, is confirmed by a letter from Assistant- General Tobias Smuts to the Commandant-General which fell into Lord Kitchener's hands (Cd. 933). • In connection with the transport of women,' he wrote, ' we took up the same standpoint as a principle, but still I got the order from you to send the women away against their wish ; and when I asked you what to do if the English refused to take the women, your answer was that in that case I had to load them off within the lines of the enemy.' In the face of these facts, to accuse the British military authorities of barbarity for maintaining the refugee camps, or to represent the camps as instruments in a policy of annihilation, makes heavy calls, it must be admitted, on the bias of anti- patriotism. The Boers, it is clear, were bent on continuing their struggle for independence, and were quick to perceive the advantage which the British policy of refugee camps gave to them. That the struggle was for independence was shown once more in communi- cations with Lord Kitchener about a proclamation issued in his name in August, 1901. This document, after reciting various facts to show the cruelty and futility of further resistance on the part of the Boers, * proclaimed and made known as follows ' : ' All Commandants, Field-Cornets, and leaders of armed bands, being burghers of the late Republics, still engaged in resisting His Majesty's forces, whether in the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal or in any other portion of His Majesty's South African dominions, and all members of the Governments of the late Orange Free State and the South African Republic, shall, unless they surrender before the 15th of September next, be permanently banished from South Africa ; the cost of the maintenance of the families of all burghers in the field who shall not be surrendered by 15th September shall be recoverable from such burghers, and shall be a charge upon their movable and immovable property in the two colonies.' This proclamation, which appears to have been suggested by 344 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR the Government of Natal* in the hope of procuring surrender from the enemy, did not have that efifect. It was a brutum fulmen. Subsequent legislation would be necessary to give it any validity, and very few burghers, if any, paid heed to it. The ensuing correspondence was, however, interesting. Lord Kitchener sent copies of the proclamation to the various leaders. ' I do not understand,' wrote General Botha in reply, ' how your Excel- lency can allege that a people who are striving for their independence are fighting without a purpose. As further proof of what the purpose is for which the strife is being continued by the two Republics, I enclose for your Excellency's information a copy of the joint resolution ' [cited above, p. 338] taken on the 20th June last by both Republics, with which resolution the people is aware and unites. The alleged "aimless pro- longing of bloodshed " by your Excellency can at any time be stopped by your Government by acknowledging our right of existence as a free and independent people ' (Cd. 903, p. 75). General De Wet replied to the same effect. * Respectfully I give your Excellency the assurance that my officers and I have but one purpose for which we are fighting — i.e.^ the independence of the RepubHcs, which we in no way, and for nothing in the world, can, and will, give in exchange ' {ibid.^ p. 81). The Boer Governments wrote at greater length than the generals, but to the same effect. Mr. Steyn, after a review of the whole situation, concluded by assuring His Excellency that • nobody is more anxious than I am to see peace re-established, and I am therefore prepared to meet your Excellency at any time to discuss terms on which peace can be brought about ; but, not to mislead your Excel- lency, I must state that no peace will be acceptable to us whereby the independence of the two Republics and the interest of the Colonial brothers who have joined us are not maintained ' {jhiA., p. 85). Mr. Schalk Burger's letter was to the same purpose : * See the ' Correspondence relating to the Prolongation of Hostilities in South Africa," August, 190T (Cd. 732). The proclamation was severely criticised by the Opposition at home. On February 27, 1902, Mr. Chamberlain made the following statement in the House of Commons : ' Lord Milner and Lord Kitchener are not prevented by the proclamation from submitting any proposals for surrender from any of the Boer leaders. I understood that Lord Kitcliener, acting on his own authority, has already accepted the surrender of some minor leaders on the under- standing that the liability to banishment under the proclamation will not be enforced in their case. His Majesty's Government have made no objection.' SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 345 • We all long for peace, and I may assure your Excellency that I shall do everything in my power to bring about that peace, but only on the basis of the independence of the two Republics and amnesty for all our Colonial brothers who have joined us. This Government is now discuss- ing the desirability of sending in a joint proposal for peace to your Excel- lency's Government, and I am convinced that if we can meet each other it will be possible to re-establish peace by a mutual discussion to the honour of both parties — a peace for everlasting friendship between England and the two Republics and for everlasting rest in South Africa ' {ibid., p. 94). It is worth remarking that Mr. Burger here says nothing about the necessary condition of consulting Mr. Kruger. He wished to meet Lord Kitchener and arrange terms with him. The obstacle to peace was not the difficulty about communicating with the Boer delegates ; it was that the Boer leaders still insisted on in- dependence, and made the maintenance of the two Republics an essential preliminary. They insisted, also, in the second place on amnesty for the Cape rebels. With this point I shall deal in the next chapter. But the main rock on which all suggestions of peace spht was independence. 'I beg to inform your Honour,' wrote Lord Kitchener to Mr. Steyn, ' that, although I am always willing to do my utmost to end the present war, I cannot meet your Honour to discuss any possible independence of the late Republics ' (th'd., p. 86). In a similar letter to Mr. Burger (p. 95) Lord Kitchener explained the reason : • After seeing the results of that declaration of war, as your Honour has done for the past two years, I ask your Honour, Can you truly and justly object to Great Britain declaring that, whatever happens, this shall never occur again in South Africa ? The solemn Deed of Annexation of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State to the British Empire was, therefore, promulgated, and many, trusting in the British people, have shown their loyalty to the new regime thus created. Does your Honour think that Great Britain will break faith with these people and again allow South Africa to be convulsed with war ?' What Mr. Burger thought we cannot know ; but the Boers have long memories. The instability of British policy in South Africa has profoundly impressed them, and there is nothing so unreason- able from their point of view, as it may seem from ours, in the determination to go on fighting to the last in the hope of tiring 346 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Great Britain into another change of policy. Twenty-one years before, as Mr. Burger may very likely have remembered, Lord Wolseley had used language like Lord Kitchener's. * I am told,' said Lord Wolseley at Pretoria, ' that the Boers are told to keep on agitating in this way, for a change of Government in England may give them again the order of things. Nothing can show greater ignorance of English politics than such an idea. I tell you there is no Government, Whig or Tory, Liberal, Conservative, or Radical, who would dare, under any circumstances, to give back this country' (December 17, 1879). But there was a Government which was made to do so, under compulsion, as the Boers always thought, from them. ' The sun,' said Lord Wolseley, again, in a picturesque phrase, ' would forget to shine in heaven, and the Vaal River would run backwards, sooner than the British flag would cease to fly over the Transvaal ' {Times^ November 3, 1879). But the Boers know what happened. Lord Wolseley's ' bragging * was visited upon the British at Majuba, and under threat of hostilities from the Free State the British Government hastened to make peace on the basis of independence. Such, we must remember, is the accepted Boer view of those events.* It is well to recall them. They may help us to understand the persistent hopes of the Boers in the present struggle. They explain why on the British side the determination was fixed to make no peace which should contain any element of weakness or ambiguity. These considerations governed the reply which the British Government returned to all suggestions of foreign intervention. The Prime Minister had stated at the Guildhall Banquet in 1899 that the British Government ' would not accept interference by anybody ' \ and in the following year, when the United States Government offered its good offices. Lord Salisbury again ex- plained that * Her Majesty's Government does not propose to accept the intervention of any Power in the South African War ' (statement in the House of Commons, March 15, 1900). In 1902 good offices were tendered by the Netherland Government in the form of the following Aide-Memoire communicated by the Netherland Minister on January 25 : * See the passage quoted on p. 6 from Dr. Kuyper's article of 1900. SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 347 ' I. In the opinion of the Government of Her Majesty the Queen, the exceptional circumstances in which one of the belligerent parties in South Africa is placed, and which prevent it from communicating directly with the other belligerent, constitute one of the reasons for the prolongation of the war, which is still raging without pause or end in that country, and which is the cause of so much misery. '2. It is, in fact, an exceptional circumstance that one of the belligerent parties is completely shut in and separated from the rest of the world, and that the Boer Representatives in Europe are deprived of all means of com- municating with the Generals commanding their forces. The difficulty thus arises that the authorities who ought to negotiate on the Boer side are divided into two sections, which are deprived of all means of de- liberating together. It is evident that the Boer Delegates in Europe can do nothing, because they do not know the state of affairs in Africa, and that the Boers in the field are obliged to abstain from taking any steps, because they are not cognizant of the state of affairs in Europe. ' 3. Moreover, the Delegates in Europe are bound by their letters of credence, which were drawn up in March, igoo, and which bind them so strictly to the independence of the Republics that they would not even be permitted to accept the re-establishment of the status quo ante helium if the mode of settling disputes which might arise were not laid down at the same time. ' 4. These circumstances give rise to the question whether an offer of good offices could not usefully be made by a neutral Power, in order to render at least possible negotiations which could not otherwise be opened. • 5. For this reason, it would be important to ascertain whether it would be agreeable to His Britannic Majesty's Government to make use of the good offices of a neutral Power if such good offices were confined to the task of placing in communication the negotiators to be appointed by the two parties. • 6. The Government of Her Majesty the Queen might perhaps be con- sidered as indicated for the performance of this task, seeing that the Boer Delegates are in Netherland territory and are accredited to that Govern- ment alone. ' 7. If His Britannic Majesty's Government should agree in this view, the Government of Her Majesty the Queen would have to inquire of the Boer Delegates whether they would be willing to proceed to Africa to deliberate with the Boer leaders on the spot, returning to Europe after a stay of fixed length (say a fortnight), armed with adequate full powers, providing for all eventualities, and authorizing them to conclude a Treaty of Peace which should bind absolutely both the Boers in Europe and the Boers in Africa. ' 8. In the event of an affirmative reply, it would be necessary for His Britannic Majesty's Government to hand to the Netherland Government three safe-conducts permitting the Boer Delegates to proceed freely to Africa, to remain there freely for the time agreed upon, and to return 348 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR freely to Europe. It would further be necessary for the British Govern- ment to allow the use of a telegraph code with a view to appointing the place where the said Delegates could meet the Boer leaders. ' g. On their return, the Government of Her Majesty the Queen could place them in communication with the Plenipotentiaries appointed for the purpose by His Britannic Majesty's Government, and would willingly undertake to place at the disposal of these gentlemen the accommodation necessary for their meetings. ' 10. The Government of Her Majesty the Queen would then consider their task as at an end. 'II. It is quite evident that, in spite of everything, the negotiations thus begun might lead to no result ; but the possibility of the contrary is also not excluded, and in this condition of affairs it appears desirable to endeavour to open negotiations in the hope that they may be successful. And in face of the difficulty which exists for all belligerent parties of taking the first step in this direction, it might be useful that a third party should undertake the matter and serve as an intermediary.' Most of the points in this note were dealt with in the British reply. To one point not so discussed I have already incidentally referred. The Boers were not so completely shut off from their friends in Europe as the Dutch Government represented. Lord Kitchener, as we have seen, had put them into communication six months before (p. 338), and the result was to inspire the Boer leaders in South Africa with greater ardour in continuing the struggle. Nor do the facts bear out the contention that the Boer leaders in South Africa could do nothing without consulting their delegates in Europe. It is true that on one occasion General Botha raised the point (p. 338), but on other occasions (pp. 325, 344) no difficulty was suggested in the way of direct negotiations between the leaders in the field and Lord Kitchener. The reply of the British Government, in the form of a despatch from Lord Lansdowne, the Foreign Secretary, to the Netherland Minister, was as follows : • Foreign Office, 'January 20, 1902. 'Sir, ' You were good enough to lay before me on the 25th instant a communication from the Netherland Government, in which it was proposed that, with the object of bringing the war to an end, His Majesty's Government might grant a safe-conduct to the Boer Delegates now in Holland for the purpose of enabling them to confer with the Boer SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 349 leaders in South Africa. It is suggested that after the conference the Delegates might return to Europe with power to conclude a Treaty of Peace with this country, and the Netherland Government intimate that, in this event, they might at a later stage be instrumental in placing the Boer Plenipotentiaries in relation with the Plenipotentiaries who might be appointed by His Majesty's Government. ' The Netherland Government intimate that if this project commends itself to His Majesty's Government, they will inquire of the Delegates whether they are prepared to make the suggested visit to South Africa. ' It may therefore be inferred that the communication which I received from you was made on the responsibility of the Netherland Government alone, and without authority from the Boer Delegates or leaders. ' His Majesty's Government have given it their best consideration, and, whilst they entirely appreciate the motives of humanity which have led the Netherland Government to make this proposal, they feel that they must adhere to the decision, adopted and publicly announced by them some months after the commencement of hostilities by the Boers, that it is not their intention to accept the intervention of any foreign Power in the South African War. ' Should the Boer Delegates themselves desire to lay a request for safe conduct before His Majesty's Government, there is no reason why they should not do so. But His Majesty's Government are obviously not in a position to express an opinion on any such application until they have received it and are aware of its precise nature, and the grounds on which the request is made. ' I may, however, point out that it is not at present clear to His Majesty's Government that the Delegates retain any influence over the Representatives of the Boers in South Africa, or have any voice in their councils. They are stated by the Netherland Government to have no letters of credence or instructions later in date than March, 1900. His Majesty's Government had, on the other hand, understood that all powers of government, including those of negotiation, were now completely vested in Mr. Steyn for the Boers of the Orange River Colony, and in Mr, Schalk Burger for those of the Transvaal. ' If this be so, it is evident that the quickest and most satisfactory means of arranging a settlement would be by direct communication between the leaders of the Boer forces in South Africa and the Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces, who has already been instructed to forward im- mediately any offers he may receive for the consideration of His Majesty's Government. ' In these circumstances His Majesty's Government have decided that if the Boer leaders should desire to enter into negotiations for the purpose of bringing the war to an end, those negotiations must take place, not in Europe, but in South Africa. ' It should, moreover, be borne in mind that if the Boer Delegates are to occupy time in visiting South Africa, in consulting with the Boer 350 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR leaders in the field, and in returning to Europe for the purpose of making known the results of their errand, a period of at least three months would elapse, during which hostilities would be prolonged, and much human suffering, perhaps needlessly, occasioned. 'I have, etc., • (Signed) Lansdowne.' The Dutch Government, it will have been noticed, did not claim to have any credentials. The proposition, therefore, amounted to this, that Great Britain should accept foreign intervention in the hope, or rather on the chance, of thereby ending the war. This was not a course which she could properly have adopted. Either the Boers were in a mood to discuss terms on the basis of in- corporation or they were not. If they were not, then the Dutch Government's scheme might well have tended to prolong hostihties by encouraging the idea that the British were at least weakening in their determination. If the Boers were in a mood to discuss possible terms, the Dutch proposal would have deferred, rather than hastened, the cessation of hostilities. Direct communica- tion between the Boer leaders and the British Government, through Lord Kitchener, would have been the quickest way. That the way was always open must have been well known, for the papers issued in July, 1901, contained the following despatch from Mr. Chamberlain to Lord Milner : ' igth April. — As our terms have been refused by Botha, they are, of course, withdrawn, and His Majesty's Government do not think it advisable that you or Kitchener should reopen negotiations. Should Botha or other leaders make any further suggestions of their own accord, Kitchener will, of course, forward them to us without expressing any opinion upon them to those who make them. But neither Mrs. Botha nor anyone else should be led to suppose that we could consider terms more favourable to the Boers than those which have been rejected ' (Cd. 663, No. 2). But, it may be said, perhaps the Boer delegates desired to make overtures or to suggest to the Boer leaders so to do. If so, there was nothing whatever to prevent them from approaching the British Government. Lord Lansdowne, it will have been seen, promised to consider on its merits any direct request from them for a safe-conduct. The reply of the Boer delegates to this invita- tion was to set sail for the United States, with the object (as was SUBSEQUENT NEGOTIATIONS 351 announced in the papers) of stirring up American opinion on behalf of the Boers. It was, however, still open to the Boer leaders to approach Lord Kitchener, had they desired to make overtures on any basis other than independence. It had been open to them all along. This they seem well to have understood. Indeed, General Botha, in justifying to the burghers his refusal of Lord Kitchener's terms of February, 1901, explained that they would be sure of getting as good terms at any time. 'Virtually,' he said, 'Lord Kitchener's letter contains nothing more, but rather less, than what the British Government will be obliged to do should our cause go wrong ' (Cd. 663, p. 3). Lord Kitchener had expressed his readiness at any time to confer with the Boer leaders if they would waive the claim to indepen- dence, and had given repeated proof of his desire for peace. The reason of the continuance of the war was not that the British Govern- ment insisted on unconditional surrender,"^ but that the Boer leaders would not recognise the necessary condition. On English * It was argued, ^.^., by Lord Rosebery at Chesterfield (December 16, 1901) that Lord Milner had committed himself to a policy of enforcing unconditional sur- render, but this criticism was founded on a misreading of Lord Milner's speech in Natal. Lord Milner ' wished he could congratulate them that the war w as over, but he had come to the conclusion that it was no use waiting till the war was ever. In a formal sense it might never be over, but it might just slowly burn itself out, as it was now doing. He instanced huge conflagrations suddenly breaking out, but having nothing to feed on, dying out directly the hose was applied. They must be prepared for such experiences. Regrettable as it was that such precious lives should still be lost, and that large parts of South Africa should still be in a state of ruinous disorder, it would be a great mistake to allow these circumstances to pre- vent them gradually resuming their normal life and gradually starting in the conquered territory, not only industry, but to some extent agriculture ' {Cape Times, November i, 1901). 'This speech meant,' said Lord Rosebery, 'and it can bear no other meaning, that there must be no formal close to the war, no peace signed at the end of the war, no settlement to close the war.' Lord Rosebery changed Lord Milner's might into must, which is a different thing. That there might be no formal end is obvious, for the Boers might decline to come to terms. Recognising this possibility. Lord Milner said it was no use waiting any longer before resettling the country. What he had desired was the same that Lord Rosebery and every- body desired. ' There is,' wrote Lord Milner on February 6, 1901, ' a very general desire that no effort should be spared to make the generous character of our intentions known, and to encourage any disposition on the part of the enemy to parley, with the object of making them better acquainted with the terms on which we are prepared to accept their submission' (Cd. 547, p. 60). 352 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR platforms a great deal was said about the importance of a regular settlement by a regular peace. But it takes two parties to make a peace, and the Boer leaders declined, except on their own terms, to be one of the parties. In so doing they were out of sympathy with a section, at any rate, of the Boer people, for many of the surrendered burghers took up arms on the British side as the one practical way open to them of hastening the cessation of hostilities.* Summing up the rights and wrongs of all the negotiations and affairs discussed in this and the preceding chapters, two or three conclusions seem to be established. Ihe British Government made mistakes. It was a mistake not to have placed Lord Kitchener in full possession of their views with regard to a possible settlement ; as things were, the British authorities spoke with two voices. Some of the alterations made by the British Government in Lord Kitchener's terms were in themselves a mistake. The proclamation of August, 1901, was also a mistake. It did no good, and it may have done some harm. On the other hand, it is not correct to say that the British Government insisted on unconditional surrender or deliberately persevered in the war for the mere sake of vengeance or annihilation. The British Government made overtures of peace ; the Boer leaders did not. Nor, when they rejected the British terms, did they put forward any counter-proposals of their own. The reason why the war continued is, therefore, very simple. The British were determined to make peace only on the basis of incorporation. The Boers were not convinced that it was as yet hopeless to fight on for independence. It is not for anyone on the British side to say hard things about the Boer leaders for prolonging a struggle against fearful odds in defence of interests which they considered vital. We can only admire their courage and tenacity, while regretting that they did not so read their duty as to accept the responsibility which the fate of war had imposed upon them, and, like General Lee in the great American struggle, 'to decide in * The experience of those who took pacific means of urging peace was not en- couraging. The murder of Mr. Morgendal, who went on a peace mission at the end of 1900, is one of the worst incidents in the war. The terrible story is told in a Blue- Book of 1902 {Cd. 903, p. 80). Lord Kitchener declined to enter into any communications with General De Wet ' until he is cleared from complicity in the brutal murder of Mr. Morgendal ' i^ibid., p. 87). THE QUESTION OF AMNESTY 353 favour of a new national life, even if slowly and painfully to be built up by his own people under conditions arbitrarily and by force imposed upon them.' There were Steyns and De Wets in the Confederate army, men who wished to fight on when all hope of victory was gone. ' No,' said Lee, ' that will not do. You must remember we are a Christian people. We have fought this fight as long and as well as we knew how. We have been defeated. For us, as a Christian people, there is now but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation ; these men must go home and plant a crop, and we must proceed to build up our country on a new basis.'* CHAPTER XXXVIII THE QUESTION OF AMNESTY Amnesty as a bait for surrender — No guarantee that it would have suc- ceeded — A case in point from Sir James Rose-Innes — The Canadian precedent : immunity and recrudescence of rebellion — Injustice to the loyalists — The case of Mr. Herholdt — Mercy and justice : A quotation from Mr. Gladstone — The Canadian case examined — The Cape rebels had no grievances — Securities for leniency — Conditions of amnesty. We have seen in our survey of negotiations and discussions in preceding chapters that importance was attached by the Boer leaders to the question of amnesty. Much importance was attached to it also in political discussions at home. Did Great Britain put herself in the wrong by refusing the full measure of amnesty demanded? Why, asked some, if there was to be no vindictiveness in the settlement, should not an immediate promise of full amnesty to all Cape rebels have been made — just as a promise of amnesty to all other burghers for bona fide acts of war was promised ? The answer is that such a promise would neither have been expedient nor just ; it would have conformed neither with security nor with honour. * ' Lee's Momentous Choice ' — viz. , the choice between implacable resistance by means of guerilla warfare and a recognition of the complete defeat of the regular forces of the Confederacy. A lecture by C. F. Adams (reported in the New York Tribune, October 31, 1901). 23 354 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR The suggestion was that an amnesty to all Cape rebels should have been held out as a sort of bait to the Republican commandoes to surrender. But who could guarantee that the result of this policy would not simply have been to encourage Cape colonists to assist the Boers, without in any way causing the latter to weaken in their demand for independence ? In this connection, Sir James Rose-Innes has told an instructive tale : ' A short time ago, when the Boers were threatening one of the midland districts of the Cape Colony, a young Dutch farmer rode into the village in order to consult his lawyer. His object was to ascertain whether, under the Treason Act, a sentence of five years' disfranchisement was the only penalty which could be imposed upon a rank-and-file rebel. The man of law expounded the Act, and the farmer went back, shouldered his rifle, and joined the enemy, safe in the prospect that even if he were captured he would merely lose his vote for a time. I cite this case because I know it to be true, and because it illustrates, not only the light manner in which a penalty of disfranchisement is regarded, but also the danger of offer- ing amnesty to men who are hesitating on the verge of rebellion. Would Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman propose to grant full and immediate civic rights to the young midland farmer and to others who have acted in the same spirit?'* (Letter in the Times, July 15, 1901). Reference was often made in discussions on the subject to the precedent of the Canadian rebelhons of 1837 and 1838. On the point now under consideration the reference is certainly instructive. Lord Durham had proclaimed complete amnesty except for the ringleaders, but an Ordinance passed by him included, infer a/i'a, the banishment of eight rebels to Bermuda, and was disallowed on the ground that it was uUra vires. Lord Durham resigned in dudgeon. Immediately after his departure the rebellion in Lower Canada broke out afresh. The Lieutenant-Governor was Sir John Colborne, a man whose sober judgment was generally admitted, and who was very anxious to temper justice with all wise mercy. Here is his opinion of the cause which led to the recrudescence of rebellion : * I do not remember that Sir Henry replied to Sir James's question. Here, as on many other points, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and those who shared his views followed in the wake of the Afrikander Bond ; and, as Sir James said, ' of course the Bond leaders and agitators are very eager that the rank and file should be amnestied. They want the votes of these people, and are horrified at the idea of placing them under any disability. ' THE QUESTION OF AMNESTY 355 ' It is scarcely necessary for me to mention to your Lordship how painful is the duty which devolves on me at this moment. Convinced, however, that the safety of both provinces depends on the firmness and unhesitating decision of the Executive Government, and persuaded that the insurgents were in a great degree encouraged in the second revolt by the recollection of past immunity and the hope of future amnesty, and receiving daily proof of the infatuation by which a large portion of the population have been drawn into a belief in the impotence of justice, I feel that severe examples have become indispensable, and it only remains for me seriously to consider how the cause of public justice can be vindi- cated with the least possible sacrifice of human life' (Despatch of Dec. 19, 1838, to Lord Glenelg*). Any such promise of amnesty, any such bait as was proposed in the case of South Africa, might, then, and in all probability would, have failed to produce the result desired. Other results it would have produced of a most undesirable kind. The actual penalty imposed in the case of the rank-and-file rebels was, as we have seen, very slight in proportion to the offence. They may have killed and wounded many of the King's troops. They may have invited hostile commandoes into the Colony to loot and slay. The penalty was five years' disfranchisement. ' Were they to be asked,' said Sir James Rose-Innes, * to go to the polls red-hot from the field, and continue, with the aid of the ballot-box, the policy which they began with the aid of the rifle ? If so, what would be the feelings of their loyal neighbours whose persons and property they have injured by their conduct ?' It is customary among some British politicians to sneer at the colonists who remained sincerely faithful to their Sovereign as 'so-called loyalists.' Such persons forget that more than 30,000 of the ' so-called loyalists ' themselves took up arms in defence of the Colony, and that of the others very few were not in one way or another heavy sufferers from the rebellion. Let us take a particular instance. One of the Afrikander Ministers who stood by Mr. Schreiner in active loyalty to his Sovereign was Mr. A. J. Herholdt. He became, in consequence, a marked man. He was pulled out of bed, and his house was looted and burnt to the ground by a rebel * The Cape Ministers, in their minutes on the Canadian precedent, give extracts from this despatch. They do not include the passage cited above. Compare Cd. 264, p. 32, with Cd. 420, p. 12. 23—2 356 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR commando under Scheepers.* What would be his feeUngs if his kind friends and neighbours who did these things to him had been allowed to return from commando, amnestied, and free to vote with him at the ballot and to settle down and grin at him repairing his ruins ? Mr. Herholdt might be possessed of suffi- cient Christian magnanimity to love those who despitefuUy used him, and to respect the Government which allowed them to escape all punishment. But it is not on a basis of injustice that mutual respect and conciliation can among ordinary men be established. Thousands and thousands of South Africans have been ready to suffer for England. If England makes no difference between them and the men who have taken up arms against her, what right has she to count in the future on that loyalty which she showed that she did not value? To conciliate our enemies is well, but not at the expense of alienating our friends. And would a policy of complete amnesty have even conciliated our enemies? It may well be doubted. Let us make every allowance for the rebel's point of view, let us assume that he was a high-principled and unselfish patriot, impelled to break his fealty to his lawful Sovereign by pressure of race-feeling : if such a man rises and fails, he will not necessarily bear enmity against those who, with justice but without animosity, visit his treason upon him, I was struck by a remark made by one of the cleverest and most influential of the burghers. ' We have fought/ he said, ' for a great stake, and we have lost ; we must bear our defeat like men.' It is when contempt is added to defeat that bitterness is engendered. Dutch and English have to live side by side in Cape Colony. The process of reconciliation must, in any case, be slow and painful. It would not be hastened by exposing the loyalists to the taunts of the rebels, and by showing the rebels that we dared not do justice. Justice freed from all vindictiveness, mercy not inconsistent with justice — that is the foundation on which mutual respect * Mr. Schreiner on this occasion sent the following telegram to his old colleague : ' The news of the destruction of your home is published to-day. Accept my deep sympathy, old friend. But your suffering crowns your manly stand last year against those who are wrecking the welfare of this colony, and working ruin for South Africa' {Cape Times, July 16, 1901). THE QUESTION OF AMNESTY 357 may be raised. I ask the reader's attention to the following passage : • I am not prepared, be the consequences what they may, to be a con- senting party to advising the Crown — as might be done by the tacit acqui- escence of Parliament — to assent to any act of a colonial legislature which I believe to be essentially dishonourable to Imperial rights. There may be some who look on the honour of the Crown as a mere phrase — a phrase involving no substantial or intelligible idea — who think it is a romance, or possibly regard it as a plea urged for persistence in bad ends, when pride or shame forbid you to take the manly course of avowing that you have done wrong. In that sense I have no respect for the phantasm or mis- chievous dream of national honour. When I speak of national honour I mean something very different. When I speak of the honour of the Crown, I mean neither more nor less than a faithful discharge of the duties of government, for the honour of the Crown consists in that ; and one of the first duties of a Government is that which appertains to the mainten- ance of public order, and which requires you to draw a clear line of dis- tinction between those who rise up against the Government and endeavour to overturn it by violence and those who respect its laws and are ready to support it with their lives and substance. But if you obscure that line of demarcation, if you allow the loyal man and the rebel to be confounded, if you pervert the principles of mercy, which makes punishment lenient, and erect them into a law against the principle of justice, which determines between right and wrong, then you sin against the honour of the Crown, and abandon the most sacred duties of a Government.' The speaker was not one whom even the most fanatical of pro- Boers would condemn as a ' lost mind.' It was Mr. Gladstone.* The principle of mercy, we see, is not to be erected into a law against the principle of justice. What the principle of mercy requires is that punishment should, as far as may be consistent with security, be lenient, and in all cases should be free from vindictiveness. The Canadian precedent, to which I have already referred, is here also much to the point, though its true bearing is not always perceived. It is often said that the case of Canada, where peace and contentment followed the rebellion, shows the desirability of giving impunity to rebels. It is forgotten, first, that general impunity was not given, but that, on the contrary, severe and exemplary punishments were enforced ; and, secondly, that the * In the House of Commons, in a speech on the Canadian question (Hansard, June 14, 1849). 358 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Canadian rebels had real grievances, the redress of which, far more than any recollection of impunity, tended to pacify the country. The insurrection which broke out in Canada in November, 1837, lasted for twenty-two days. The renewal of the revolt in November, 1838, was crushed in a week. Nevertheless, it was found necessary to execute twenty-five ringleaders, and to transport 158 others. In South Africa the numbers concerned have been much larger, and the danger beyond all comparison greater. But the sentences imposed on ringleaders have been lenient — exceedingly so under the Special Act of 1900 — and still lenient under the martial tribunals. Rebels have, it is true, been shot, whether rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, but not for mere treason. In all such cases the offence was murder, or some other contravention of the usages of civilized warfare. The Canadian parallel has, therefore, nothing to suggest on the score of leniency in the case of ringleaders. In the case of rank-and-file rebels, who in South Africa were under the Special Act subjected only to disfranchisement, the Canadian parallel has nothing to suggest, because the circum- stances were entirely different. The Canadian revolt, which took place during peace, was founded on grievances which were afterwards recognised as legitimate, and were removed by legis- lation. They were due to the absence of those very consti- tutional privileges which the Cape rebels had enjoyed for a generation. The Cape rebels had no grievance, no case, no excuse, of their own whatever. ' Yours is not the case,' said the Judge-President of the Special Court, 'of subjects rising in and going into rebellion in order to obtain redress of grievances, or in order to secure necessary reforms in the government of the country, I do not think that any of you would even suggest that you were suffering under any grievance at all. You went into rebellion in order to assist the enemies of the Queen, who were at war with Her Majesty, and who had invaded a portion of Her Majesty's dominions' (address by Mr. Justice Solomon at Colesberg, December 17, 1900). Not one Cape rebel has adduced in his defence any single grievance. In some cases the plea was that the British authorities gave inadequate protection, and that acts of rebellion were therefore committed under THE QUESTION OF AMNESTY 359 pressure by the enemy. This defence was by the Special Treason Act (§51) admitted as valid. Under all these circumstances, a policy of full amnesty in Cape Colony would have been alike unjust and inexpedient. The large measure of leniency admitted even during the continuation of the war was a guarantee of the leniency that would ultimately be extended. ' When peace is restored,' said Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons (January 20, 1902), ' it is wise to offer the largest possible amnesty that can be offered in view of justice to those who have suffered, in view of our own future security, and in view of the general policy of nations in such circumstances. And it will be a very large amnesty. There will be no extermination of the people. The utmost that will be done will be to deal with those who have committed military offences or military crimes ; and to deal in a more lenient way, probably by reference to the franchise, with those who have shown themselves unworthy to use it.' That is the merciful policy which commends itself to the temper of the British people. ' What is more,' as Lord Rosebery said at Chesterfield (December 16, 1 901), 'no other policy is practicable. Can you imagine a British Government, responsible to a British Parliament, when it is, in the twentieth century, endeavouring to resettle South Africa, carrying on for months, possibly for years, after peace, a sort of bloody assize, calculated to stir up the dying embers of civil strife, and undo all the good that it is endeavouring in other ways to effect ? I do not believe it is practicable. I do not believe it is desirable, and therefore I, for one, declare myself in favour of the promptest and the most liberal amnesty which security will allow you under the circumstances of the pacification.' The requirements of security enforce two conditions upon the manner in which amnesty, with the restrictions already mentioned, can be granted. It must be the King's amnesty, and it must be an amnesty resulting from pacification. The first condition was put by Lord Kitchener in one of his letters to Mr. Schalk Burger (September 22, 1901) : ' Your Honour mentions the question of amnesty to Cape rebels — traitors to their allegiance to their Sovereign. Your Honour's Govern- ment have not, I think, shown an example of clemency in this respect. 36o RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR You have tried and shot down those whom you look upon as traitors. The Commandant-General has threatened with burning farms and con- fiscation of property all those who, after surrendering and taking the oath of neutrality, do not break that oath and rejoin his forces and fight for your cause. Clemency is the prerogative of the ruler of the State, and your Honour must see that, under present circumstances, the discretion of the ruler, as regards his misguided subjects, should be left unfettered ' (Cd. 903, p. 95). One reason is obvious. We do not want any Boer leader to be able to say to his * colonial brethren ' at some future opportunity, * Remember, we extorted your safety before, and we will do so again if you will join us again.' The utmost he ought to be able to say is, ' We did our best for you. We held out many long months after our object was lost in order to safeguard you. We have assurances of mercy as soon as things settle down. More we could not do. We are beaten.' A potential rebel might say to such a speech, * For this, I'll never follow thy palled fortunes more ' ; which is exactly what we want him to say in the interests of future peace and security. Therefore it is that the amnesty must be the King's amnesty, and not Botha's or another's. Again, it must be amnesty as resulting from pacification, not amnesty extorted before pacification. We all know that there will be a gradual letting out when the country is settling down ; but the country must be settling down first, and the friends of those who are suffering terms of imprisonment for treason must have that obvious motive for showing that the country is settling down. A most wholesome influence this would be during the very ticklish time of repatriation. In what temper the thousands of prisoners would return from their island guard-houses could not be foreseen. Much bitterness, much unsettlement of mind, were certain. The idea that rebellion was as a matter of course pardon- able, and that pardon had been secured as the price of peace, could not but militate against a speedy and a lasting settlement. Pardon must be not the price of peace paid by us, but its reward given as an act of grace. CONCLUSION 361 CHAPTER XXXIX CONCLUSION The settlement as the test of British professions — The proper scope for magnanimity — The two essentials : permanent peace and equal rights — Impossibility of fixing a date for representative institutions — The argument from difficulty — Conclusion. The best answer to charges of bad faith against this country, the true test of our sincerity, will be sought, and I hope will be found, in the ultimate settlement of the two territories added to the King's dominions. The point was well put by Lord Milner in a speech already quoted (p. 316). He denied that a patchwork settlement would be true magnanimity, and then continued : ' When I say that, do not think that I wish to join in the outcry, at present so prevalent, against the fine old virtue of magnanimity I believe in it as much as ever I did, and there is plenty of room for it in the South Africa of to-day. We can show it by a frank recognition of what is great and admirable in the character of our enemies ; by not maligning them as a body because of the sins of the few, or perhaps even of many individuals. We can show it by not crowing excessively over our victories, and by not thinking evil of everyone who, for one reason or another, is unable to join in our legitimate rejoicings. We can show it by striving to take care that our treatment of those who have been guilty of rebellion, while character- ized by a just severity towards the really guilty parties, should be devoid of any spirit of vindictiveness or of race prejudice. We can show it, above all, when this dire struggle is over, by proving by our acts that they libelled us who said that we fought for gold or any material advantage, and that the rights and privileges which we have resolutely claimed for ourselves we are prepared freely to extend to others, even to those who have fought against us, whenever they are prepared loyally to accept them ' (April 12, 1900). The conditions, then, of a settlement which shall conform to the view of the rights and wrongs of the Transvaal War which has been presented in this book are two. On the one hand, the burden which the British Empire has undertaken must be carried through unfalteringly to the end, so that no possibility of any recurrence of the scourge of war may remain. On the other hand, there must be no vindictiveness in the immediate settlement, 362 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR when the war is over, and no unnecessary delay in establishing free institutions in the territory rescued from the oligarchic misrule of Mr. Kruger. A few remarks under the latter head will bring our argument to an end. It is impossible to say when the conditions will admit of repre- sentative government being established in the two new colonies. The idea that self-government should have been offered immedi- ately on the conclusion of hostilities is so unreasonable as to require only the briefest discussion. The conditions of self- government would not exist, for the people who were to govern themselves would not be there. Some people have been misled in this matter by accepting the language of the Boers about giving them the right to govern ' their country.' It is self-govern- ment for all the white inhabitants — as Mr. Gladstone long ago intended — that has ultimately to be established in the Transvaal, and before it can begin Boer and British must both be there, and conditions of some approach to, or appearance of, harmony must prevail. But upon the cessation of hostilities a large portion of the British would still be refugees, and of the Boers, prisoners in distant islands. It is equally unreasonable to suggest that Great Britain was wrong in not promising self-government within a certain time. Nobody could possibly foresee the times, seasons, and circumstances. The British population could not be back in its former strength for many a day after the war ended. The Boer population might have to wait longer, for they could hardly be given precedence over the British refugees whom they expelled. As for a proper register on which to take elections, that would have to wait longer still. How long nobody could tell. A second condition of self-government was equally uncertain. Self- government can only be granted when the population has settled down. The war has accumulated stores of bitterness not only between Boer and Briton, but between the irreconcilable Boers and those whom they contemptuously call * hands-uppers.' The resumption of industry, the pressure of everyday avocations, good government, and the healing influence of time must be trusted to assuage the bitterness, and to make representative institutions workable. But, again, nobody could foresee when such conditions would come into being, and therefore the British CONCLUSION 363 Government was entirely right to make no specific promises. To have made promises in good faith, and with the best intentions in the world, which we might afterwards have been unable to fulfil in the letter, would have been a fatal blunder. It is obvious that between the cessation of military administra- tion and the ultimate establishment of representative government there must be a middle period of what is called Crown Colony administration. The system has a bad name, but in many respects a good record. The obvious advantage of it is that it is elastic, and admits of gradual abolition in favour of responsible government. The steps in this direction should be taken as rapidly as circumstances may make possible. Some faith and courage should be found in the precedent of Canada, where equal rights have enabled two races to live and thrive together. In South Africa there need be no agrarian question, and there can hardly be any religious question, to fear. The language question will be settled by the gradual predominance of English, but the admission of Dutch on equal terms with English, wherever the option is really necessary. There may be as much danger in delaying free institutions as in giving them. The experience of 1877 is full of instruction. As Mr. Fitz Patrick puts it : ' The real mistakes of the British Government began after the annexa- tion. The failure to fulfil promises ; the deviation from old ways of government ; the appointment of unsuitable officials, who did not under- stand the people or their language ; the neglect to convene the Volksraad or to liold fresh elections, as definitely promised ; the establishment of personal rule by military men, who treated the Boers with harshness and contempt, and would make no allowance for their simple, old-fashioned ways, their deep-seated prejudices, and, if you like, their stupid opposition to modern ideas — these things and others caused great dissatisfaction, and gave ample material for the nucleus of irreconcilables to work with ' (' The Transvaal from Within,' p. 24). The British settlers, it must be remembered, will be impatient for self-government no less — perhaps even more — than the Boers. The British, who will flock into the Transvaal, will not long be content with Downing Street rule. These questions are, however, for the future. As I write, the war still continues, and men's minds are still concentrated on the 364 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR necessity of 'seeing the thing through.' It has been urged against this policy that the struggle is an 'unequal' one, and can bring us ' no glory.' But how and why does a superfluity of strength on the British side absolve a British Government from the duty of protecting its subjects and maintaining its rights? The contest between law and disorder is often an unequal one : the organized forces of the police are immeasurably the stronger ; but that is not generally held to be a reason why the weaker party should not be sent to the wall. This contest is in one aspect of it a question of South African police. It is in no aspect a prize- fight in a ring. And as for the absence of any glory in the end of it, that also must be taken in the day's work. The forces of the British Empire are employed not for glory, but of necessity. The wages she seeks are but ' the wages of going on, and still to be.' But, say some, if the difficulties of the struggle had been foreseen, this country would never have embarked upon it ; and now that the bills are coming in, say others, opinions about the war will change. It may be so. That the Government of the day grossly miscalculated the difficulties of the war and made inadequate preparations for it, is certain. If men were once of opinion that the British Government foresaw everything and prepared for what they foresaw, their opinions may well be changed. But I do not think that the argument from difficulty tells in any way against the view of the rights and wrongs of the war which has been presented in this book. A sonnet of Archbishop Trench has often been quoted, and it expresses a thought which must have been in many minds : ' Yes, let us own it in confession free, That, when we girt ourselves to quell the wrong, We deemed it not so giant-like and strong. But it with our slight effort thought to see Pushed from its base ; yea, almost deemed that we, Champions of right, might be excused the price Of pain, and loss, and large self-sacrifice. Set ever on high things by Heaven's decree. What if this work's great hardness was concealed From us, until so far upon our way That no escape remained us, no retreat — Lest, being at an earlier hour revealed. CONCLUSION 365 We might have shrunk too weakly from the heat, And shunned the burden of this fiery day ?' If we had known the difficulties in the way it is possible that we should have shrunk from the task. But in so shrinking, might we not have laid up for ourselves yet more formidable difficulties in the future ? The armaments which the Dutch Republics had accumulated in South Africa, the ambitions of which those armaments were the instrument, were intended for use against the British Empire. They have been so used, as the fates have decreed, at a time when the Empire was compara- tively free from complications elsewhere and was at liberty to ' muddle through somehow.' It is not pleasant to contemplate what might have happened if Mr. Kruger had been able to throw down his challenge at some moment when the British Army or British Navy or both had been engaged elsewhere. However this may be, the argument from difficulty is of no avail to affect the inherent justice and necessity of the struggle. It appeals neither to Christians whose religion is one of sacrifice, nor to patriots who know that on the same foundation has the British Empire been built up. ' Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake, But a soul goes out on the east wind that died for England's sake.' It is for British statesmanship to secure in South Africa what British valour and constancy have won. The war will fail of its final justification, the sacrifice of so much love and life and hope throughout the Empire will have been in vain, alike if permanent peace be not obtained, and if the sphere of justice and liberty and equal rights be not in due course extended throughout those regions of South Africa which are henceforth to work out their destiny under the British flag. APPENDIX I AM sometimes asked for copies of two valedictory articles which appeared in the Daily News at the time of the severance of my connection with that paper. I take the opportunity to reprint them here, because they describe the standpoint from which the preceding pages are written : * South Africa : A Retrospect. {Daily News, January 9, 1901.) * Five years ago to-day the country was at once startled and relieved by the news that Her Majesty's Government had given orders for the immediate despatch of a flying squadron to South Africa. The announcement was in response to the German Emperor's telegram to President Kruger, which in its turn was an echo of the Jameson Raid — one of the most discreditable and calamitous events in the recent history of the British Empire. There are those who go further and attribute to the Raid the whole and the sole cause of all the troubles that have since over- taken South Africa. That it has greatly aggravated them is beyond all question. But it was not their true cause. The Raid did not spring straight from the head of Mr. Rhodes or Dr. Jame- son. It was the perversion of a legitimate agitation of a kind which always has arisen and, it is to be hoped, always will arise when British people are subjected to oppression. To the philo- sophic historian the Raid must thus present itself as a symptom, rather than as a cause. * But corruptio optimi pessitna. The perversion of the Reform agitation from within into a lawless raid from without was a crime APPENDIX 367 and a blunder which had the worst possible consequences. It imposed, however, upon the British Government a duty, and afforded Mr. Kruger's Government an opportunity. The duty was to make searching and remorseless inquiry into the origin and secret history of the Raid. Mr. Kruger's opportunity was to use the years of grace which that colossal blunder had given him for the introduction of some instalment of genuine reform. The Daily News did all that the force of iteration could do to present this double aspect of the question. Unhappily for the peace of Africa, the British Parliament, through its Select Committee, neglected the duty, and Mr. Kruger neglected his opportunity. The inquiry into the Raid was closed just at the point of greatest interest and importance. The Committee was on that account christened in this column " The Committee of No Inquiry." But the Liberal press was not supported by the Liberal leaders. The representatives of the Liberal Front Bench upon the Committee agreed to the suspension of the inquiry. This was an irreparable blunder. It was the loss of one of those golden moments which, as Mr. Gladstone said of another and greater issue, ' do not return.' No amount of subsequent vituperation of Mr. Chamber- lain was able to wipe out the consequences of the blunder. The inquiry closed with suspicions still left to lurk in unexplored corners, and the closure was with the approval, or without the protest, of the leading Liberal representatives on the Committee. * Mr. Kruger's blunder was even greater than that of the British Government and the British Parliament. Never was so favourable an opportunity afforded for wise statesmanship. The Imperial Government was for the time powerless. Mr. Chamberlain for some brief moments thought still to press for reforms. Sir Hercules Robinson promptly suppressed the attempt, and moderate reformers, both here and in South Africa, were on the whole disposed to agree with him. The Uitlanders themselves were divided and cowed. Even a very small instalment of genuine reform must have secured to Mr. Kruger a further lease of unchallenged authority, and to South Africa a period of uninterrupted peace. The Industrial Commission appointed by Mr, Kruger himself, which reported at the same time as our own Select Committee, showed him the way. But it was not to be. The influences of corruption and the instincts 368 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR of Conservatism were too strong. Unhappily, Mr. Kruger found false friends in this country to encourage him in hardening his heart. The industrial grievances were virtually ignored, and the political grievances were on the whole aggravated. Like a good Conservative, Mr. Kruger set to work on the principle that coercion is the best remedy. He became more autocratic than ever, so that even his own Chief Justice was compelled to denounce him. He introduced fresh measures of oppression, and he spent the taxes, levied upon the unrepresented majority of the population, in the purchase of enormous armaments. ' Particulars were published in the Dat'/y News yesterday with regard to these armaments, and another correspondent sends us some further information to-day. The " apathetic laxity " of Her Majesty's Ministers in face of this menace to the "kwaaje vrouw,"* as Mr. Kruger called the Queen, should have formed one of the main indictments against the British Government. The menace did not stand alone. What were the excessive armaments wanted for ? The answer, of course, is to arm the Orange Free State, as well as the Transvaal. Mr. Steyn had concluded with Mr. Kruger an offensive and defensive alliance. This alliance was opposed with singular prescience by Mr. Steyn's rival, Mr. Fraser. He opposed it, as he said in a speech to his constituents (see Daily Netvs leader, March 27, 1900), because it put the Free State at the mercy of the Transvaal ; because it supported a Government in that State which was shamefully corrupt, and which, thereby, was a source of perpetual unrest in South Africa ; and because, lastly, it jeopardized the friendly relations of the Free State with Great Britain, and thereby endangered its independence. Every word of Mr. Fraser's forecast has come true. Nor is that all. At the time when Mr. Fraser spoke, Mr. Kruger and Dr. Leyds were elaborating in voluminous despatches their claim to the status of a Sovereign International State. From first to last this has been Mr. Kruger's ambition. He avowed it in 1883, and he repeated it even in his so- called overtures of peace last year. " Let come what may," he said in the Volksraad, " we must show that we are an independent State. * There is no reason to suppose that the epithet was meant to be uncompli- mentary. ' One who insists on her rights ' appears to be the meaning. APPENDIX 369 The Volksraad can depend on myself, the Executive Council, and the Commandant-General." ' What came in 1899 was the revival — inevitable, as Mr. Fraser saw — of the Uitlander agitation ; the petition to the Queen, and action upon it by Her Majesty's Ministers. The policy of the Government in taking the matter up was approved in these columns. It seemed to us that the honour and the interests of Great Britain as an Imperial Power were alike involved ; that the British hegemony in South Africa was at stake ; and that, if any backwardness or fear were displayed, the confidence in the Mother Country of other British States than those in South Africa might be fatally shaken. This view of the matter was soon to be confirmed by the outburst of enthusiastic support which the British policy in South Africa evoked in all parts of the Empire. This was a popular outburst by demo- cratic communities, expressed in resolutions and meetings and by popular pressure in Australasia, and by unanimous votes passed in the Canadian Parliament. ' Mr. Chamberlain's despatches in the earlier stages of the contro- versy were often far from happy, and his speeches were nearly always mischievous and ill-advised. But at the final and critical stage the Government's despatches met with approval from the leading men and the principal newspapers of all parties and sections. The offer contained in the despatch of September 8 was recognised on all sides as moderate, conciliatory, and reasonable, and Mr. Kruger was told even by the most stalwart among his supporters that he would have no excuse for rejecting it. When he failed to accept it, plenty of excuses were forthcoming from the very same quarters. We were unequal to this agility, but we felt and wrote strongly that time should be gained and another attempt made to stave off the terrible calamity of a rupture. We compiled what we called "an interim despatch." The despatch was in substance adopted by the Government, and once more everybody was united. The despatch, it was generally agreed, afforded "a golden bridge." Mr. Kruger declined to walk on it. His ultima- tum, as we now know, was even then being drafted, A fortnight later it was launched, and war broke out. •With the issue of the ultimatum the Liberal party, with some few exceptions, was united in support of the Government. The support 24 370 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR was given not because full confidence was felt in the Government. No sensible man, of any party, could feel such confidence. The Government had not succeeded in presenting the British case in its most favourable light. They had miscalculated the magnitude of their task. Their conduct of the war was marked by blunders and omissions at every turn. We had hoped that this aspect of the case would be prominently and boldly placed before the country by the united forces of the Opposition. We thought and said at the time, and subsequent events must be held to have strengthened our con- tention, that a mistake was made at the beginning of the last Session of the last Parliament in attacking the policy of the war, which divided the Liberal party most, instead of challenging the conduct of the war, which would have divided the Liberal party not at all, and which — a no less important point — might have effected same useful national purpose. However, there will be plenty of time and opportunity for such criticism in the future. For the im- mediate moment, the country is united, we must hope, in the policy so well laid down by Mr. Gladstone, the chief Liberal Whip, last week : " There must be no recurrence of the war. The country must be settled and governed under the British colours. That policy is accepted. If we are to exist as an Empire, we cannot go back from it." * Such, in briefest summary, is the view of the South African problem which has been presented in this column during the last five years. It has been presented, we hope, with courtesy and toleration. That it has been presented with intense conviction, we know. We would fain believe that it has been presented also with a constant reference to facts, and with an avoidance of any appeal to passion and prejudice.' ' The New Liberalism : A Forecast. {Daily News^ January lo, 1901.) ' What a pity it is that so many people can never be persuaded to believe a truism ! Someone delivered himself the other day — we think it was Sir Robert Giffen — of a truism on that question of " Imperialism " which has so greatly vexed the Liberal party. "There the British Empire is," he said, "and we have to make APPENDIX 371 the best of it." If all Liberals could only be induced actively to believe in this incontrovertible proposition, how many misunder- standings and heartburnings might be removed ! There the British Empire is, and it is the duty and the necessity — and, as some of us would add, the privilege — of every Government and every party to maintain it, and "make the best of it." By the concurrent force of many causes at work in the world, it seems destined that Imperial questions shall occupy a large place in the politics of the immediate future. The process of expansion, it may be hoped, has nearly reached its limits ; the task of con- solidation has yet to be taken up. We may note incidentally in this connection the remarkable speech of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, reported this morning. " The result of the present system," he says, " has been to lead us to thoughts of closer union than ever before." The direction in which the Canadian Premier's thoughts are running is that which shall combine " the strictest lines of Canadian nationality with British citizenship." In the solution of all Imperial problems there is a great part for Liberalism to play. The British Empire means nothing, or nothing good, unless it be built upon the principles of self-government, of equal rights, of political and commercial freedom. But if the Liberal party is to take its proper part in the discussion and solution of Imperial problems, it must show itself in sympathy with the national feeling at home and abroad ; and for this two things are neces- sary. One is a frank acceptance of imperial burdens, and the other is the cultivation of a sympathetic tone and temper in approaching Imperial questions. The bias of patriotism may easily be 'carried to excess ; but the bias of anti-patriotism is worse. It is worse because it means loss of faith in that Imperial " trust and function " of which Mr. Gladstone spoke in his memorable Fourth Midlothian, and a party that has lost faith and hope can never be a true party of progress. ' It is often said that devotion to foreign and colonial questions necessarily means stagnation at home. If this were true, it would be so much the worse for home affairs, for those other questions present themselves for the most part of necessity, and will not be denied. Of Tory Governments, the statement often is true. Of a policy of sane Imperialism, such as it is the duty of the New 24 — 2 372 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Liberalism to formulate, the statement is profoundly untrue. On any broad and Liberal view of the matter, social reform and sane Imperialism are closely linked together. There is one deep truth in what is nicknamed " Little Englandism." It is this, that the fabric of Empire must in the last resort depend, in principal measure, upon the strength, the happiness, the prosperity of these little islands of the Empire-home. This thought was admirably put by Mr. Morley at Glasgow, in 1896, in a passage which we will once more quote. " I have never felt," he said, " that I for one am a Little Englander. I believe that the most beneficent work for humanity has been done, and is being done, by Great Britain, but I am for a safe England, a strong England, a just England, a right-doing England, and then the bigger the better." There is no lesson written more clearly upon the pages of history than this: that an Empire which is rotten or stagnant at the heart is doomed to dissolution. We want, therefore, for a sane Imperialism, a safe England, a just England, a right-doing England, a happy and contented England, and, we may add, a business-like England. It is to the Liberal party that the nation and the Empire ought to look for the securing of these things. We want administrative and political reform to open yet more fully a free career to talent and to put the right men in the right places. We want a better system of education to equip British citizens more adequately for the keen industrial competition of these new times. We want industrial reforms which shall at once secure to the workers better conditions of life, and relieve the trade of the country from the losses caused by industrial warfare. Above all, we want social reforms which shall do whatever by Act of Parliament can be done to save little children from the terrible start in life which is the lot of too many of them, to rescue a large proportion of the people from the thraldom of drink, to provide the labouring classes with decent houses for their work- ing life, and with homes of honourable refuge in old age. An esteemed correspondent. Dr. Guinness Rogers, wrote an article the other day on what he called "The False Gospel of the Antl" It is not enough, he meant, if we understood him aright, for Liberals to oppose and to destroy — not enough to be anti- Chamberlainite, or anti-this and anti-that. They must find also, APPENDIX 373 and place before the country, a constructive policy of social amelioration. In so doing, they will be a patriotic party in the fullest sense of the term, for patriotism, as Ruskin teaches, is nearer to a vice than to a virtue unless the patriot strives to make the country of which he is proud happier, stronger, and better. ' It is on these lines that we have endeavoured during the years permitted to us to conduct the DaiVy News. No one can be more conscious than the conductor of this newspaper of the meagre array which any accomplishment shows by the side of his opportunities. But there are occasions when it is permissible, perhaps, to avow one's aims and intentions. Our object, then, has been to keep steadily in view the larger interests and duties of the country as an Imperial Power, and to sink, in some measure, mere party considerations in the face of national emergencies. But at the same time we have tried — and, thanks to able writers and special correspondents, we have sometimes not wholly failed in the attempt — to criticise as it deserved the class legislation and administrative blundering of Lord Salisbury's Government ; to contribute on one or two occasions towards the solution of industrial strife ; to arouse public attention to social evils, and to promote social reforms. It is on these lines of "sane Imperialism " and social reform — and, as we believe, on no others — that the New Liberalism may hope to regain the com- manding position of the Old, and to render effective service, in its time, to the country and the Empire.' INDEX ' Africa for the Afrikander,' use of the formula by Mr. Kruger in 1881, 31; by Mr. Reitz in 1899, 31 ; ambiguity of the phrase, 31 Afrikander, Afrikanderdom, ch. iv. ; ambiguity of the terms ; analysis of them, pp. 24-32 Afrikander Bond, foundation of, 26; objects of its founders, 27 ; Pro- gramme of Principles (1882), 27; amalgamation with ' Farmers' Protection Association ' (1883), 27 ; Mr. Schreiner thereon, 27 ; its esoteric and exoteric aims, 28 ; Mr. Bryce thereon, 28; Mr. Merriman, 28 ; Mr. Cronwright- Schreiner, 29 ; conversations be- tween Mr. Reitz and Mr. T. Schreiner on aims of the Bond, 30 ; and between Mr. Borcken- hagen and Mr. Rhodes, 31 n. ; attitude on the Drifts crisis, 48 ; possibility of its bringing influence to bear in favour of Transvaal reforms, 95 ; Lord Milner's appeal at Graaff Reinet, 95 Aliens Expulsion Law, 74, 83 Aliens Immigration Law, 75 American opinion on the war, 238, 241 Amnesty Question, ch. xxxviii. ; Lord Kitchener's proposal, 329 ; Lord Milner's objections to, 334 ; British Government adopts Lord Milner's view, 334 ; terms offered to Botha, 328 ; provisions of Cape Treason Act, 328 ; amnesty sug- gested as a bait to rebels to sur- render, 354 ; Sir James Rose- Innes thereon, 354 ; Canadian precedents discussed, 354, 357, 358 ; policy of, discussed, 355-359; Mr. Gladstone on, 357 ; Mr. Chamberlain on, 359 ; Lord Rose- bery on, 359 ; Lord Kitchener on, 360 ; conditions of, 360. Annexation of British territory by Boers, 267, 268 ; by the British of the Orange Free State, 323 ; of the Transvaal, 323 ; reasons for, 321 Applebe, Mrs., murder of, 79 n. Arbitration, ch. xxvii. ; proposed clause in Draft Convention of 1884, 243 ; not accepted by the British, 146; proposed arbitration by President of the Swiss Con- federation, 148 ; refused by the British, 149, 152 ; Mr. Kruger proposes arbitration at Bloem- fontein Conference, 243 ; Lord Milner favours the principle, but makes limitations, 243 ; foreign element to be excluded, 243 ; in- applicable to some subjects, 243 ; Mr. Reitz proposes a scheme, 245 ; arbitration made a condition of a five years franchise, 164 ; British reply, 169, 181 ; Mr. Chamberlain agrees to limited arbitration, 246; offer to discuss establishment of a tribunal, 247 ; arbitration inserted in Mr. Kruger's ultimatum, but not in the original draft, 247 Aristotle on occasions and issues in politics, I Armaments (Transvaal) : when the policy of armaments began, 92 ; reasons for it, 93 ; Lord Rosmead on, 94 n. ; more than required by INDEX 375 experience of Raid, 93, 277 ; for- midable nature of, 277 ; large im- portations through Cape Colony and Delagoa Bay, 279 ; why the British Government did not pro- test, 59 n. ; inconsistent explana- tions, 230 ; Lord Salisbury on ' piano-cases,' 91 ; on armaments unearthed in the Transvaal, 277 n. ; argument from the armaments, 281 Asquith, Right Hon. H. H., pre- sides at dinner to Lord Milner, 95 ; on necessity of intervention in the Transvaal, 118 n. Austin, Alfred, on the Raid, 59 ft. Australia : Australian Federation and the South African War, 303 ; sympathy with the Uitlanders, 305 ; debates on the war, 306 ; public opinion on the war, 310 ; See also ' Colonies and the War ' Australian Review of Reviews cited on Australian view of the war, 306, 310 Balfour, Right Hon. A. J., on Trans- vaal armaments, 59 n. ; on unex- pectedness of war with Orange Free State, 91 ; on miscalcula- tions about the war, 265 n. Banishment Proclamation, 343, 352 Barolong territories, negotiations about, in connection with the Raid, 62 Basutos' congratulations on British victories, 292 Biblical texts in South African his- tory, 204 n. Birrell, Augustine, K.C., on condi- tions of settlement, 321 ' Birth of the Bond ' pamphlet cited, 26, 27 Bismarck on opportunism, 254 Blignaut, J. N., letter cited, 267 Bloemfontein Conference : proposed by President Steyn and Mr. Hof- meyr, 121 ; proceedings at, ch. xiv. ; aim of British policy at, 125; situation after failure of, 133 Blue-Books. See end of Index Boers : religious ideas, 5,9; treat- ment of natives, 9 ; political ideas, II ; contempt for British army, 266 ; belief in their own success, 267, 268. See also 'Boers and British ' Boers and British, relations of : racial animosities, ch. i. ; the annexation of 1814, 3 ; annexation of 1877, II ; mutual prejudices, 5 ; mutual underestimates, 266 ; religious differences, 5 ; influence of Majuba on, 6, 11, 270 ; conflict of ideals, ch. ii. ; the Great Trek (1836), 8 ; different views on the native question, 9; discovery of gold and its effects, 13, 17; con- flict of political ambitions, ch. iii. ; feud between, fomented by foun- ders of Afrikander Bond, 27 ; state of controversy in 1899, 123 Boeschoten, C. van (Acting State Secretary, Transvaal), 148 Borckenhagen, Carl (late editor of the Free State Express), founds Afrikander Bond, 26 ; conversa- tion with Mr. Rhodes on a united South Africa under Dutch flag, 31 n. Botha, Commandant- General: inter- view with Lord Kitchener, 326, 340 ; on Kaffirs and the franchise, 10 ; on language question, 183 n. ; reply to Lord Kitchener, 328 ; address to burghers thereon, 329; on independence, 330 ; letter to Lord Kitchener asking for facili- ties to communicate with Mr. Kruger, 338 ; on refugee camps, 341 ; letter to Lord Kitchener in reply to banishment proclamation, 344 Botha, Mrs., Lord Kitchener's in- termediary in overtures of peace, 325 Botha, Paul (Free State burgher), his appeal ' From Boer to Boer and Englishman ' cited, 5 ; on in- stability of British policy in South Africa, 32 w. Bovill, Rev. J. H. (of Laurence Marques), on working of the Pass Law, 299 Brand, Sir John (President of the Orange Free State), hostility of Afrikander Bond to, 31 n. ; Mr, Kruger's appeal to, in 1881, 31 ; ^ rejects Kruger's overtures for al- I liance in 1887, 87 ; death, 87 376 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR British Government (Lord Salis- bury's Administration), postpones inquiry into the Raid, 59 ; adopts the Uitlanders' petition, 119; agrees to a conference with Presi- dent Kruger, 122 ; proposes a ' joint inquiry ' as basis of com- promise, 143, 154 ; underestimates fighting strengtliof the Boers, 264, 281 ; attitude towards Transvaal armaments, 59 n., 91, 280; de- spatch of September 8, 1899, 176 ; of September 22, 197 ; refuses to discuss President Kruger's ul- timatum, 212 ; miscalculations on the war, 265 n. See also ' Cham- berlain ■ and ' Salisbury ' British policy in South Africa, in- stability of, 32 ; on native ques- tion, 5, 9, 298, 300 British South Africa Company Select Committee, delay in appointment of, 59 ; incompleteness of its in- quiry, 61 ; censure of Mr. Rhodes in connection with the Raid, 49 ; in connection with the withheld cables, 67 ; acquittal of Imperial officials of complicity in the Raid, 61 ; failure to probe the matter fully, 65 British Weekly cited on diplomacy and force, 200 Bryce, Right Hon. James, on effects of Majuba settlement, 6 ; on the Great Trek, 8 ; on the Boers and the natives, 9 ; on Afrikander Bond, 28 ; on annexation of coast, 44 ; on political significance of deep-level mines, 52 ; on situation at Johannesburg before the Raid, 52 ; on Orange Free State, 85 ; on population of Johannesburg, iiin. Burger, Mr. Schalk, candidate for the TTransvaal Presidency, 1896, 73 ; Chairman of Industrial Com- mission, 77 ; letter to Mr. Steyn on Lord Kitchener's terms, 329 ; replies to banishment proclama- tion, 344 Burgers, President, on Boer ill- treatment of natives, 295 Burke cited on efficacy of spon- taneous reforms, 72 Butler, Mrs. Josephine, on native question, 300 n. Butler, Major-General Sir William, Acting High Commissioner, 100 ; despatch on ' Cape Boys ' affair and the South African League, loi ; recalled, 102 Cabinet Councils : September 8, 1899, 180; September 22, 197 Cadogan, Earl, on abolition of suzer- ainty in Convention of 1884, 146 Campbell, Rev. R. J. : interview with Mr. Fraser at Bloemfontein, 90 ; on loyalty of the natives, 292 Campbell-Bannerman, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry, assents to closing of Raid Inquiry, 66 n.; on Lord Milner and Afrikanderdom, 24 ; on suzer- ainty, 151 n. ; on rights of inter- vention in Transvaal, 151 «. ; on reality of Uitlander grievances, 134; demands recall of Lord Mil- ner, 99 n., 116 71. : on 'annihila- tion of Boers, ' 325 Canada : Canadianism contrasted with Afrikanderdom, 24, 25 ; reso- lutions of Canadian Parliament on Transvaal Question, 307. See also ' Laurier ' ' Cape Boys ' (British coloured sub- jects), treatment of, in the Trans- vaal, 100 Cape Colony : natives admitted to the franchise, 9, 296 ; franchise and naturalization, 15 ; rebellion in, 270 Cape Ministry, Boer hopes of aid from, 271 ; allows arms to pass through to the Orange Free State, 271 Cape Times quoted, 159 Cape Town, Archbishop of, on the war, 288 Capitalists : grievances, 78 ; hold aloof from the Reform movement in 1892, 222 ; letters from Mr. Lionel Phillips, 223 ; their negotia- tions with Mr. Kruger in 1899, 104, 225 ; Lord Milner on their attitude, 225 n. Cecil, Lord Robert, on Transvaal armaments, 279 ' Century of Wrong.' See ' Reitz ' Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph : proposes sending force to the Cape (1896), 57 n. ; delay in appointing INDEX 377 Raid Committee, 57 ; premature publication of * Home Rule for the Rand ' despatch, 57, 71 ; haste in pressing for reforms after the Raid , 57 ; converted by Lord Rosmead, 57 ; speeches in 1896 on impru- dence of pressing for reform and seriousness of war 58 ; despatch of January 4, 1896, on necessity of reforms, 84 n. ; suggestions of complicity in the ' Raid ' or ' plan ' analyzed, 62-66; his evidence to the Committee, 64 ; his speech white-washing Mr. Rhodes, 67 ; deplorable effect in South Africa, 68 ; despatch on dynamite, 100 ; Edgar case, 103 ; on armaments, 94 n. : education, 83 n. ; breaches of the convention, 76 n. ; Aliens Immigration Law, 75 n.; Aliens Expulsion Law, 75 n. ; publica- tion of Lord Milner's ' helots ' despatch, 115 n.; despatch of May 10 in answer to Uitlanders' petition, 120 ; proposes a Con- ference, 121 ; statement on objects of Bloemfontein Conference, 124 ; on failure of Conference, 133 ; asks Transvaal Government for particulars of proposed Franchise Bill, 138 ; suggests joint inquiry, 143 ; his policy on ' suzerainty ' criticised, 146, 149, 153 ; his despatch of August 28, 1899, criticised, 172 ; his ' squeezed sponge ' speech, 173 ; criticised, 174 ; amendments in Lord Kit- chener's proposed overtures to Botha, 331-334; instructs Lord Kitchener to refer any Boer over- tures home, 350 ; on amnesty, 359. See also ' Despatches ' at end of Index ' Chosen people,' Boers as, 6 w., 10, 26 Churches and the war, ch. xxxii. ; value of opinion of the churches in South Africa, 283 ; unanimously in favour of British cause, 283 ; resolutions and manifestoes cited, 284-28S ; counter -manifesto of Dutch Reformed Church, 288 ; conflict between President Kruger's race 'tyranny and ideas of the British churches, 288 ; opinion on the Native Question, 300 Churchill, Lord Randolph, on Majuba, 12 Clarke, Sir Edward, K.C., on pre- amble of 1881, 149 ; on despatch of August 28, 248, 250 Cloete's ' History of the Great Boer Trek,' 4 n. Colonial contingents : dates at which they were offered, 304 ; coloured contingents refused, 294 ; per- sonnel of the contingents, 313 ; cost of, to colonies, 312 ; numbers of, 313 n. Colonial Office : its alleged com- plicity in or foreknowledge of the Raid, 62-66 Colonies and the War, ch. xxxiv. ; solidarity of the Empire disclosed by the war, 301 ; mutual insur- ance, 302 ; appeal to Canadian and Austi-alian nationhood, 303 ; help promised from the first and continued under stress of war, 304 ; conviction of justice of the British cause, 305 ; public meet- ings in support of the Uitlanders, 305 ; Parliamentary debates on the war, 306 ; detachment of Colonial opinion, 309 ; Colonial experience and real issues in- volved, 310 ; significance of Colonial opinion, 315 ; Australian Federal Ministry aid contingents, 306 n. : debates in the Federal Parliament, 307 ; cost of the con- tingents to the several colonies, 312 ; numbers of the several con- tingents, 313 n. Commandeering of British subjects in the Transvaal in 1894, 22, 39 ; in 1899, 39 n. ; in relation to fran- chise, 40 ' Committee of No Inquiry,' 61 Concessions Commission, report, 227, 275 Conspiracy, theory of a Dutch, 18 Convention of Pretoria (1881) : Presi- dent Kruger's attitude to, 19; pre- amble reserving suzerainty, 144 ; in relation to the Convention of 1884, 149 ; article giving rights to the Uitlanders to reside, etc., 232. See also 'Majuba ' 378 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Convention of London (1884): ac- cepted by Mr. Kruger only as an instalment, 20 ; ratified under pro- test by the Volksraad, 21 ; Article IV. (veto on foreign treaties) ob- jected to, 21 ; Article XIV. (right to enter, travel, and trade), 232 ; breaches of, by Aliens Expulsion Law, 74 ; Aliens Immigration Law, 75 ; extradition treaty with Portugal, 76 ; accession to Geneva Convention, 76 ; extradition treaty with Netherlands, 76 ; Dynamite Concession, 104 Conventions, 172, 199 Courtney, Right Hon. Leonard, on the Raid and Transvaal reforms, 72 w.; on the so-called 'Dutch conspiracy,' 18; in praise of British despatch of September 8, 1899, 186; on Lord Milner as a ' lost mind,' 186 Cramb, Professor J. A., ' Destiny of Imperial Britain ' cited, 261 Cronje, Commandant, 299 Cronwright-Schreiner (Mr. S. C. Cron Wright) on backwardness of Boers, 11 ; on Article IV. of Con- vention of 1884, 20 ; aims of the Afrikander Bond, 29 Daily Chronicle cited on Lord Milner' s appointment, 96 ; on British de- spatches of September 8, 1899, 187 n. ; of August 28, 250 Daily News, author's articles in, cited : on necessity of reforms in the Transvaal, 55; on desirability of early inquiry into the Raid, 55 ; on unsatisfactory proceedings of the Select Committee, 61 ; on Mr. Kruger's 'Years of Grace,' 72 ; suggested draft of an ' interim despatch,' 197; on a 'golden bridge,' 200, 203; suggestions for Government's new proposals, 206 ; on the real issues at stake, 208 ; on President Kruger's promises in 1881, 233; on the Transvaal 'oligarchy,' 239; 'valedictory' articles, 366 Davies, Major ' Karri,' iii, 309 Declaration of war by President Kruger, 212 ; by President Steyn, 212 Deep-level mines, political signi- ficance of, 52, 112 Delegates, Boer, in Europe : Mr. Steyn' s reliance on, 337; com- munications with, 338 ; advise continuance of the war, 339 ; Netherland Government asks for safe conduct for, 347 ; British Government offers to consider direct request, 349 ; delegates go to America, 350 Derby, Lord (Colonial Secretary 1882-1885) : negotiations with Mr. Kruger, 1883-1884, 20, 33, 145 ; rejects Mr. Kruger's draft treaty, 20 ; statement on ' suzerainty ' in House of Lords, 145 ; despatch to the Acting High Commissioner on Convention of 1884, 146 n. Despatches. See end of Index Devonshire, Duke of, speech on the situation, September 30, 1899, 205 Disarmament, impossibility of en- forcing, in South Africa, 322 Dodd, Major T. R. (Secretary of the South African League, Transvaal), III Doyle, Dr. Conan, on Boer ill- treatment of Kaffirs in the war, 294 ; on Kitchener-Botha negotia- tions, 331 ' Drifts ' : story of the crisis caused by the closing of the Vaal River Drifts (1895), ch. vi. Dutch Reformed Church and the war, 288 Dynamite monopoly, abuses of, 79 ; Mr. Chamberlain's despatch of 1899, 104 Edgar case : shooting of Edgar, 102 ; agitation caused thereby, 103, 226; petition to the Queen not received, 103 Education Question in the Trans- vaal, 82 Esau, Abraham (coloured black- smith) : his loyalty to the British, 293 ; flogged and shot by the Boers, 293 Esselen, Ewald, 235 Fallacies examined : That the Trans- vaal deserved sympathy as a ' Re- public,' ch. xxvi. ; on the ground INDEX 379 of Liberal principles, ch. xxix. ; as a community of ' poor herds- men,' i8, 277 ; that the Uitlanders had no rights in the Transvaal, ch. XXV. ; that they wanted the franchise but refused its military obligations, 39 ; that the war was a 'capitalists' job,' 77, 104, no, 113, and ch. xxiv. ; that the British Government ' raised its terms ' during the negotiations, 172 ; that the war was for ' a difference of two years,' 123, 131, 133, 140 ; that it was ' \yar for a consonant,' 172, igg; that it was war when ' nine-tenths ' of the British proposals were accepted, ch. xxviii. ; that the war was caused by the British ' refusing arbitration,' ch. xxvii. ; that Presi- dent Kruger was forced to declare war in order to defend the in- dependence of the Transvaal, 198, 199, 203, 215 Farmer, Canon, on Boer confidence in results of war, 267 Farrelly, M. J., 'The Settlement after the War' cited, 129 n., 137 n., 269 Fatalistic theory of politics, 3 w. Faure, Sir Pieter (member of the Schreiner Ministry), opposed by the Bond after the Drifts crisis, 48; hisspeechon' Africa for all, '48 Fischer, Mr. Abraham (of the Free State) : visit to Pretoria, 137 Fitchett, Rev. W. H., on Colonial aspects of Transvaal crisis, 119 FitzPatrick, J. P.: his 'Transvaal from Within ' cited, 81 n., 105 11., 299. 363 Foreign intervention, Dutch and German Governments warn Presi- dent Kruger against expecting it, 156; hopes of from Dr. Leyds, 164, 274 ; influence of this in causing war, 274 ; and in pro- longing it, 272 Foreign opinion on the war, 314 ; Mr. Gladstone on deductions to be made from foreign criticism, 3 14 Fowler, Right Hon. Sir Henry H., 237 Franchise Question (Transvaal) : ' reforms backward ' from 1883 to 1894, 15 ; state of, in 1899, 14 ; President Kruger' s negotiations with the capitalists in that year, 106, 224 ; nine - years scheme analyzed, 106 ; reasons for Lord Milner's policy, 124, 172 n. ; his five-years scheme at Bloemfon- tein, 128 ; President Kruger 's objection to it, 129; President Kruger's seven-years scheme, 130 ; Lord Milner's objections to it, . 131 ; introduced in the Volksraad, 137 ; amendments in the air, 137; the Law passed, 138 ; accepted as possible basis of settlement, 139 ; necessity for examining it, 140; analysis of it by Mr. Robson, 158 ; five years proposal : Mr. Smuts' overtures, 160 ; Mr. Reitz's de- spatch, 162 ; a postscript two days later, 163 ; importance of it, 164 ; differences between Mr. Reitz's offer and Mr. Smuts', 165; Mr. Reitz declines to discuss differ- ences, 166 ; term of naturaliza- tion and other conditions hang together, 140, 170 ; British Govern- ment asks for inquiry, 169; offer withdrawn by Transvaal, 176 Fraser, John George (member of Orange Free State Volksraad), opposes President Kruger's pro- posals for alliance in 1887, 86; unsuccessfully opposed Mr. Steyn for Presidency in 1896, 88 ; criticism of the alliance with the Transvaal, 87, 89 Froude, J. A., on Afrikander aspira- tions, 33 Garrett, F. Edmund (late editor of the Cape Times and member of the Cape Parliament), on the dis- covery of the Witwatersrand, 13, 112; on the Bond and the Drifts crisis, 48 ; on Dr. Jameson and Clive, 50; on Mr. Chamberlain and the Raid, 63 ; on Major Dodd, no German Government advises Presi- dent Kruger to accept joint in- quiry, 156 ; warns him of improba- bility of foreign intervention, 156 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert, on conditions of settlement, 370 38o RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., refuses to retrocede the Transvaal, 255 ; agrees after Majuba, 12 ; justifies the retrocession by securities for equal rights, 236; his reply to the loyalists, 236 ; reliance on Presi- dent Kruger's promises, 236 ; sends out Sir Charles V/arren's expedi- tion in 1884, 22, 255 ; on moral obligation to protect British sub- jects, 256; on Manchester School, 256 ; on peace not the first interest of England, 257 ; on the Empire as a providential trust and function, 258 ; on worthless- ness of foreign criticism, 314 ; on amnesty, 357. See also ' Majuba ' Goshen and Stellaland, Boer annexa- tions, 37 ; prevented by Sir Charles Warren's expedition, 38 Graaff Reinet, Lord Milner's speech at, 95. 98 Green - Books (Transvaal official papers) cited, 145 n., 222 Greene, Sir William Conyngham (British Agent at Pretoria, 1896- 1 899) , on President Kruger ' s policy of exasperation, 74 ; on the illicit liquor traffic, 79 ; on the South African League, 109 ; approached by Mr. Smuts with overtures for Five Years Franchise Law, 160; his statement of British Govern- ment's probable attitude, 161 ; conversation with Mr. Smuts on language question, 183; Transvaal charge of breach of faith, igo; British reply, 191 ; instructed to ask for his passports, 213 Gregorowski, Chief Justice (Trans- vaal), confidence in result of war, 267 Grey, Sir Edward, on general course of the negotiations, 251 ; on Kitchener-Botha negotiations, 331 Grondwet (Transvaal Constitution) on ' no equality between white and coloured,' 10 Guild of Loyal Women of South Africa, Mr. Wessels' speech to, 26 n. Hague Convention, not applicable to the Transvaal, 242 Harcourt, Right Hon. Sir William, assents to closing of Raid inquiry, 66 n. : arguments on suzerainty question, 145 n., 149, 195 n.; on Transvaal's claim to status of Sovereign International State, 182, 195 n. ; on Uitlander grievances and the Great Trek, 195 n. Hargrove, E., his ' conciliation tour,' 228 Harris, Dr. Rutherfoord : his cables to Mr. Rhodes, 64 ; evidence about his conversations with Mr. Cham- berlain, 64 ' Helots,' term used by Lord Milner, 114 n. Herholdt, A. J., looted by Cape rebels, 355 ; Mr. Schreiner's letter to, 356 n. Hillier, Dr. Alfred, quoted, 224 Hofmeyr, J. H. : his Farmer's Pro- tection Association amalgamates with Afrikander Bond, 27 ; pro- ! poses Bloemfontein Conference, } 121 ; visit to Pretoria, 137 ; on i Lord Milner's desire for peace, I 204 n. I Hollanders : their hopes for ' a I North America for Holland ' in South Africa, 34 ; influence in i favour of war, 274. See also j ' Netherlands Railway Company ' i ' Home Rule for the Rand ' : Mr. ' Chamberlain's suggestion in 1896, j 57, 71 ; revived at Bloemfontein, I 130 , Imperial Light Horse, iii j ' Imperialism,' 260 , Independence of the Transvaal : j British offer of guarantee, 198, j 282 ; British Government decline ' to assent to, after the war, 321 ; j British peace overtures rejected and Boers continue struggle for independence, 330, 335, 339, 343, 344. 345. 351 . . Industrial Commission (appointed by Transvaal Government, 1897) : report summarized, 77-80 ; on concessions and Republican prin- ciples, 240 ; report rejected by President Kruger, 80 ; Mr. Eraser thereon, 89 ; Mr. Merriman, 241 ; Mr. Montagu White, 157 ; Journal des Debats, 82 INDEX 381 Intelligence Department (War j Office) scheme for operations ! in Transvaal, Boer argument j thereon, 213 ; Lord Kitchener's j reply, 214 : • Interim despatch ' (September 22, I i8gg), chap. xxi. ; left door open { for peace on terms of September 8, | 203 j Intervention : British right to inter- j vene in the Transvaal, 150 ; i Transvaal desire to limit it, 170; i British reply, 181, 192 ' Jameson, Dr. L. S., on Transvaal } independence (1895), ^7 • his con- | ception of the Raid, 50. See also \ ' Raid ' 1 Johannesburg, municipal govern- ment of, 82 ; suffering at, caused by state of political tension, 173 «., 226 ; exodus from, 213 Joint inquiry proposed into Fran- chise Law, ch. xvii. Jorissen, Dr., 233 Joubert, General, his letter to Lobengula, 5 Joxirnal des Debuts on President Kru- ger's disregard of Industrial Com- missions Report, 82 Judicial crisis in the Transvaal, 83 ' Kaffir bargain,' 164 Kidd, Benjamin, his ' Social Evolu- tion ' referred to, 261 n. Kimberley, the Earl of, on the settle- ment of 1 88 1, 12 «.; on Transvaal armaments, 91 ; qn importance of firmness in South African policy, 117 n. ; on reality of Uitlander grievances, 134 Kipling, Rudyard, quoted, 365 Kitchener-Botha negotiations, ch. xxxvi. i Lord Kitchener's original terms, 329 ; as amended by British Government, 326; foreign opinion on their reasonableness, 327 ; dis- cussion of the alterations, 332- 335 ; terms declined by General Botha, 328 ; his address to the burghers, 329 ; native question, 332 ; assistance to farmers, 332 ; future administration of colonies, 333 ; amnesty, 334. Kitchener, Lord : reply to Mr. Burger on his argument from War Office's plan of campaign in the Transvaal, 214; cites letter by a member of the Volksraad on objects of war, 267 ; employs Mrs. Botha to sound her husband on peace overtures, 325 ; confers with General Botha at Middel- burg, 326 ; transmits British terms of peace, 326 ; allows Boer Governments to communicate with Mr. Kruger, 338 ; despatch on policy of Refugee Camps, 340 ; conversations with Botha thereon, 341 ; offers to return women to Boer commandos, 343 ; issues banishment proclamation, 343 ; declines to open negotiations on basis of Boer independence, 345 ; declines to communicate with General de Wet, 352 n. ; on amnesty, 360 Kolnische ZeUttng on President Kru- ger' s failure to introduce reforms, 82 ; on Kitchener-Botha negotia- tions, 327 Kotze, Chief Justice : his dismissal, 83 Kretschmar, Mr. Van, his hopes of Boer victory, 275 Kritzinger, Commandant, annexes portions of Cape Colony, 267 n. Kruger, President, (a) character- istics, (b) speeches, (c) policy : (a) his religious beliefs, 6, 276 ; his reliance on force, 276 ; forethought, 84 ; firmness of purpose, 32 ; hatred of the English, 4 ; Toryism, 11, 76 n., 106 ; his ambitions, 21, 22, 31 n., 87, 91, 268; belief in his destiny, 276 ; his wealth, 227 ; use of Biblical texts, 204 n. ; as raider, 38 ip) on ' murderers, thieves, and strangers,' 6 n. ; on ' protests and guns,' 11 ; ' wait for the Opposition,' 251 ; on Uit- lander grievances, 106 ; on the situation after Bloemfon- tein, 133 ; war to be ' totally free of England,' 216 ; to ' stagger humanity,' 263 (c) attitude to the Convention of 1881, 19; his promises re 382 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Uitlanders, 232 ; attitude in the negotiations preceding Convention of 1884, 19, 145 ; invitation to Uitlanders, 235 ; accepts Convention as an in- stalment only, 20 ; endeavours to abrogate Article IV., 21 ; expansionist policy, 22, 37 ; Swaziland, 22 ; why he re- fused to visit London in 1896, 22, 57, 147 ; on franchise and commandeering, 39 ; appeal to Lord Loch not to visit Johannesburg, 41 ; his policy in connection with Delagoa Bay and the Netherlands Railway Company, 46 ; closes the Drifts, 47 ; conversations with Mr. J. B. Robinson on Mr. Chamberlain and the Raid, 68 ; his opportunity for Reform after the Raid, 69; re-election as President, 73 ; his promises to the Uitlanders after the Raid, 73 ; re-elected President 1898, 239 ; policy of exasperation towards British Government, 74-77 ; appoints Industrial Commis- sion, 77 ; denounces its Report, 80 ; increased coercion to- wards Uitlanders, 82 ; ne- gotiations with the Orange Free State, 85-91 ; arms, 92, 93 ; introduces militarism into South Africa, 278 ; attempts to square the capital- ists, 104 ; his policy at Bloem- fontein Conference, 126 ; his franchise scheme at, 129 ; Lord Milner's objections to it, 131 ; Mr. Wessels' analysis of it, 132 ; Mr. Kruger and his burghers as ' Spenlow and Jorkins,' 137 ; Franchise Law of 1899, 137-139 ; Mr. Kruger raises suzerainty question in 1896, 147 ; conversation with Netherlands Consul on joint inquiry, 157 ; delay in answer- ing Mr. Chamberlain's pro- posal for joint inquiry, 159 ; substitutes offer of five years franchise on conditions, ch. xviii. ; reverts to seven years scheme, ch. xix. ; rejects British proposals of Septem- ber 8, 188 ; discussion of his policy in so doing, 208 ; de- clares war inevitable, 213 ; launches his ultimatum, ch. xxiii. ; policy of it considered, 213 ; appeals to the United States as a sister Republic, 238 ; confident of success in the war, 252 n. ; grounds for this, ch. XXX. ; joint telegram, with President Steyn, to Lord Salisbury, 317 ; Boer Govern- ments communicate with him in Europe, 338 ; advises no surrender, 339 ; on captive women and children, 340 Kuyper, Dr., on Majuba, 6 n., 346 ; on the British reverses, 273 Labouchere, Henry, tells Mr. Kruger how ' to give Master Joe another fall.' 157 Labour Question, 297. See also ' Native Question ' Laing's Nek, Boer account of the battle of, 266 Language Question : Afrikander crusade against English, 27 ; dis- cussed between Sir W. Greene and Mr. Smuts, 183 ; British proposal for optional use of English in Volksraad, 181 ; colonial prece- dents, 181, 193 ; Sir H. de Villiers on, 184 ; Transvaal refuses pro- posal, 189 Lansdowne, Marquis of, on Trans- vaal armaments, 91 n. ; reply to note from Netherland Govern- ment, 348 Laurier, Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid, on Canadian contingents in South Africa, 303 ; on justice of the British cause, 308 ' League of Liberals,' 260 Lecky, Rt. Hon. W. E. H., on Transvaal armaments, 278 Lee, General, 352 Leonard, Charles, on the Reform movement in the Transvaal, 222 Leonard, J. W., K.C., on com- mandeering and franchise, 40 ; on Reform agitation in the Transvaal, 51 ; on ' helots,' 114 n. INDEX 383 Lewis, Mrs. {nee Schreiner), on the Native Question, 300 n. Leyds, Dr. W. J., appointed State Secretary, 151 ; appointed Boer Minister in Europe, 85 ; on Trans- vaal's diplomatic service, 85 n. ; holds out hopes of intervention, 164; his press fund, 230 ; on Boer terms of peace, 319 n. ' Liberalism, The New,' 370 Liberals and the War : Mr. Kruger * waiting for the Opposition,' 251, 252 n. : Botha's circular, 252 n. ; Lord Rosebery's speech on ' be one people,' 252; the argument from Mr. Gladstone examined, 254-258 ; Krugerism the denial of Liberal principles, 259 ; the ' League of Liberals,' 260 Liquor Law, abuses of, 79 ; British reforms, 300 n. Livingstone on the Boers and the natives, 8, 299 Lobengula, Joubert's letter to, 5 Loch, Lord (High Commissioner, 1889-1895) : conversations with Mr. Kruger on latter's desire for independence, 21 n. ; the Swazi- land negotiations, 22, 39 ; advises annexation of coast -strip, 23 ; Boer trek into Matabeleland, 38 ; visit to Pretoria, 1894, 39 ; com- mandeering question, 39 ; his per- sonal explanation in the House of Lords, 40 ; charge against him in the Temps, 40 n. ; receives deputa- tion from the Uitlanders, 41 ; letter to President Kruger on Uit- lander grievances, 42 ; despatch to Lord Ripon thereon, 43 ; mili- tary measures taken in connection therewith , 44 ; on Free State ambitions, 88 n. ; on President Kruger and the war, 252 n. Locusts, Boer objections to exter- mination of, II Loieter, Professor de, on question of suzerainty, 150 n. Loyalty of the Dutch, the argument from the Drifts crisis examined, 48 ; argument from the Navy Vote, 48 ; Lord Milner on, 98 Mackarness, Frederick, opinion on question of suzerainty, 149 Mackenzie, Rev. John (of the London Missionary Society), on the ' Transvaal struggle for supre- macy in South Africa,' 29 n. ; urges Mr. Kruger to introduce reforms, 73 n. ' Magnanimity ' in connection with Majuba, 6, 12, 19, 26, 32 ; in con- nection with the settlement, 361 ' Majuba,' settlement after, moral effects of, 6 ; political effects, 12, 32 ; Lord Randolph Churchill on, 12 ; political reasons of, 12 ; Lord Selborne and Lord Kimberley thereon, 12 n. Merriman, J. X. (Treasurer in Schreiner Government), on effects of Majuba settlement, 6 n. ; on Transvaal 'robbery, rapine, and murder,' 23 n. ; on disloyalty of Afrikander Bond, 29, 31 n.; atti- tude towards Reform movement in the Transvaal, 52 n. ; advises • colourable Reform ' at Bloem- fontein, 127 ; on Transvaal ' oli- garchy,' 240 Methuen, A. M. S., ' Peace or War in South Africa ' : his account of the Bloemfontein Conference ex- amined, 129 Mey sey-Thompson , Sir Henry , cited , 239 Military preparations by Great Britain, 213, 215 Milner, Lord : speech at Palmerston Club, 1880, 257 ; appointed High Commissioner, 1897, 95 ; banquet to, 95 ; press opinions, 95 ; his study of the taal, 97 ; visit to Bloemfontein, 97 ; address to the Afrikander Bond at Graaff Reinet, 98 ; Afrikander campaign against him, 99 n. ; taken up by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, 99 n., 116 n. ; alleged remarks on Afrikander- dom, 25 ; differences with Sir William Butler, 100 ; visit to England, 100 ; views on the ' Cape Boys ' affair, 102 ; on the status of the petitioners to the Queen, no ; despatch of May 4, 1899, on the Uitlanders' petition, 113; criticism of it, 115 ; on conduct of the Uit- landers, 225 n. ; choice of policies at Bloemfontein Conference, 124 ; 384 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR on arbitration, 243, 245 ; explana- tion of his reason for taking fran- chise first, 125 ; opening state- ment at the Conference, 128 ; his five years franchise scheme, 128 ; objections to Mr. Kruger's alterna- tive scheme, 131 ; speech on situa- tion after Bloemfontein, 134 ; despatch on the same, 135 ; ' Policy No. I. 'and ' No. 2,' 136; suggests that President Kruger should con- sult with him on proposed Fran- chise Law, 138 ; on suzerainty discussion as only of ' etymo- logical ' interest, 151 ; his view of seven years franchise law, 159 n. ; agrees to receive proposals for five years franchise, etc., on their merits, 162 ; urges British Govern- ment to terminate period of sus- pense, 173 ; extends period for Transvaal's reply to British de- spatch of September 8, 187 ; on alleged breach of faith in Greene negotiations, 192 ; on excessive armaments in the Transvaal, 265 n., 281 ; appeals to President Steyn to prevent war, 204 ; his desire for peace, 204 n. ; on the seriousness of war, 265 n. ; ' never again ' speech, 316 ; on scope for magnanimity in the settlement, 361 ; confidence of the churches in him, 285, 288 ; of the natives, 291 ; on civilization, not colour, as franchise test, 297 ; on British Government's alterations in Lord Kitchener's peace-terms, 333 ; on amnesty, 334 ; on ' war might never be over in formal sense,' 351 n.; on desirability of encourag- ing enemy to parley, 351 n. Mining industry : treatment by Transvaal Government, 77 ; staple industry of the country, 77 ; well managed, 78; tax on profits, 81, 100 Moffat, Rev. J. S., on treatment of the natives in Cape Colony and Transvaal respectively, 297 Molteno, James, Lord Milner's con- versation with, 265 Mommsen, Professor, 262 Morgendal, Mr. (peace envoy), mur- dered, 352 n. Morley, Rt. Hon. John, urges Trans- vaal to accept inquiry into the Franchise Law, 175, 186; says Transvaal cannot withdraw from five years offer, 179, 186, 195 ; on the Transvaal ultimatum and the British calling out of the Reserves, 213 ; and the ' nine-tenths ' fallacy, 249 ; prediction on the Colonies and war, 301 National Liberal Federation de- mands recall of Lord Milner,99;j. Nationality : difficulty of applying this idea in the Transvaal, 259; not an end in itself, 260 ; the growth of Imperialism versus Nationalism, 260 ; Nationalism and Home Rule, 262 Native Question : and the Great Trek, 8 ; England's ' morbid love ofthenatives,'5,8; Viljoenon, 10; just treatment, 298, 300 ; Living- stone on, 8, 299 ; Grondwet on, 9, 295 ; Lord Salisbury on, 10 ; great importance of, in South Africa, 290 ; predominance of coloured population, 290 ; treat- ment of natives in Cape Colony, 9, 10, 296, 297, 300 ; in the Trans- vaal, 295, 298, 299 Natives and the war : expressions of loyalty, 291, 292, 293, 296; sub- scriptions to the charitable war- funds, 291 ; Boer ill-treatment of Kaffirs, 294 Navy : Cape Government's vote in 1898, 48 Ncwadi, Chief (Amangwane tribe), subscription to war-funds, 291 Netherlands Government advises President Kruger to agree to joint inquiry, 156; proposes interven- tion, 346 ; declined, 348 Netherlands South African Railway Company : completion of the line to Delagoa Bay, 46; loan from the Cape Government to complete the railway from the Vaal River to Johannesburg, 46 ; raises the rates on this line, 46 ; its burdens on the mining industry, 80 ; its relations to Transvaal Govern- ment, 228 ; its subsidies to Mr. Hargrove and Mr. Statham, 228, INDEX 385 229; encourages the war party and becomes a combatant, 274 •Never again,' 316 •New Republic,' The (1886), 37 New York Journal, President Kruger's message to, 238 New York World, President Kruger's message to, 263 New Zealand and the war, 307, 313 Occasions and issues in political dis- turbances distinguished, i 'Oligarchy,' term applied to South African Republic, 227, 239 n. Opportunism, 254 Orange Free State : history of its re- lations to Transvaal, ch. x. ; good administration of, 85 ; Franchise Law, 15 ; President Kruger's attempt to secure offensive and defensive alliance, 86 ; opposition by Mr. Fraser and President Brand, 86; President Reitz and the Potchefstroom Treaty, 87 ; election of President Steyn, 88 ; offensive and defensive alliance with the Transvaal, 88 ; declares war against Great Britain, 212 ; annexed, 323 Outlook (American journal) cited, 241 Palmerston, Lord, cited, 256 Pass Law, 296, 298, 300 Patriot, De, cited, 26, 27 Peace overtures : made by the British, not by the Boers, 325 ; British Government prepared to receive fresh overtures, 350. See also Botha, Kitchener, and Kitch- ener-Botha negotiations Petition to the Queen from the Uitlanders cited, 108 ; status of the petitioners, 109 ; sympathy with, on the Rand, 112 ; in Natal, 112; in Cape Colony and Rho- desia, 112 ; in other colonies, 305; Lord Milner's despatch, 113 ; dis- cussion of policy of British Government in relation thereto, 116; Mr. Chamberlain's despatch in reply to the petition, 120 Phillips, Rev. Charles (of Johan- nesburg), opinion of the Free Churches on the war, 283 ; on treatment of the natives in Cape Colony and the Transvaal respec- tively, 295 Phillips, Lionel, conversations with Lord Loch at Pretoria (1894), 40 n. ; his letters from the Trans- vaal on franchise, etc., 222 Play ford, T. (late Premier of South Australia), on the war, 306 Police of Johannesburg : the Edgar case, 103 ; Uitlander feeling, 103 'Policy No. i' and 'No. 2,' 136, 185, 203 Portuguese Government and Trans- vaal armaments, 279 Potchefstroom, Treaty of, 87, 190 Press Laws (Transvaal), 83 • Pro-Boer,' origin of the term, 73; reasons for pro-Boer sentiment, 219, 254 Pro-Boer campaign in England, ggn.; encouragement given to the Boers, 252-254 Quarterly Review on Mr. Kruger's ambitions, 21, 126 «. Queen's Hall meeting, 253 Raid, not the cause of the disturb- ances, 36, 54 ; Lord Chief Justice Russell on evil consequences of, 49 ; how it embarrassed Reform movement, 50 ; its evil conse- quences in South Africa, 53 ; bad effects in Orange Free State, 85, 87 ; in relation to Transvaal armaments, 93 Rand (the Witwatersrand), dis- covery of, 13 ; peculiarities of, 52, 112 n. Rathbone, William, 236 Rebellion in Cape Colony, 270 ' Red-neck,' 5 Refugee Camps, Lord Kitchener's despatch on policy of, 340 ; General Smuts' letter, 343 Reitz, F. W. (State Secretary, Transvaal) : his • Century of Wrong' cited, 4, 8, 31, 39 w.; founds the Afrikander Bond, 26; conversation with Mr.T. Schreiner on its aims, 30 ; on ' Africa for the Afrikander,' 31 ; elected Presi- dent of the Orange Free State, 87 ; concludes Potchefstroom Treaty with Transvaal, 88 ; resigns Presi- 25 386 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR dency, 88 ; appointed State Secre- tary, Transvaal, 153; hisargument on the Conventions, 153 ; refuses Mr. Chamberlain's request for sub- mission of Seven Years Franchise Bill, 138; his levity, 157; mani- festo on the declaration of war, 217; his conduct of the negotia- tions with the capitalists, 225 ; letter to Mr. Steyn counselling surrender (May 10, 1901), 335 Republic, the Transvaal, as one, ch. xxvi. ; misleading analogies, 240 Reserves, calling out of the, 213 Rhodes, Right Hon. Cecil J., on Transvaal independence(i892),i7 ; conversation with Mr. Borcken- hagen on a united South Africa under Dutch flag, 31 n. ; on Presi- dent Kruger as a raider, 38 ; action as Cape Premier on the Drifts crisis, 47; assurance of sup- port to Imperial Government in the event of war, 47 ; action in the Raid : South Africa Committee's censures, 49, 67 ; negotiations with the Colonial Office for cession of Barolong territories, 62 ; white- washed by Mr. Chamberlain, 67; as protagonist against Mr. Kruger, 70 ; on the Boer military strength as an unpricked bubble, 265 Ripon, Marquis of (Colonial Secre- tary, 1892-95) : annexes coast- strip, Kosi Bay, 23, 44 ; despatch to Lord Loch on Uitlander grievances, 1894, 43 ; on Govern- ment's military preparations, 264 11. Robinson, J. B., interviews with Mr. Kruger on Mr. Chamberlain and the Raid, 68 ; throws in his lot with other capitalists, 81; on contempt of Boers for British army, 265 Robson, W. S., K.C., analysis of seven years franchise law, 158; on President Kruger's ' race tyranny, ' 288 Rosebery Administration (1894-95), action of, in South Africa, 38, 44 Rosebery, Earl of, criticism of delay in inquiry into the Raid, 56; 'be one people ' speech, 252 ; dis- sociates himself from demand for Lord Milner's recall, 99 n. ; on necessity for annexation, 325 ; criticism of Lord Milner, and on necessity for a formal settlement, 351 n. : on amnesty, 359 Rose-Innes, Sir J., on situation after Bloemfontein Conference, 136; on capitalism and the war, 220 n. ; on conditions of settlement, 321, 324 ; on amnesty, 354 Rosmead, Lord (Sir Hercules Robin- son), stops Mr. Chamberlain press- ing for reforms, 57 ; advises a policy of 'sitting still,' 94; on Transvaal armaments, 94 n. 'Rotten &gg: 5 Rouliot, M. (President Chamber of Mines), on sham reforms, 1897, 81 ; on treatment of mining in- dustry, 81 ; on attitude of capital- ists, 223 Ruskin, on occasions and issues, 2 Russell of Killowen, Lord (Chief Justice), summing up in Dr. Jameson's trial, 49, 60 St. Lucia Bay annexed by England, 37 Salisbury, Marquis of, on name 'South African Republic,' 33 n.; on the Native Question, 9 ; his Aliens Exclusion Bill of 1894, 75 n.; on arms in 'piano-cases,' 91; 'guns do not grow,' 277 n.; on the Conventions, 280 ; reply to Messrs. Kruger and Steyn, 320 ; 'we seek no goldfields,' 324; de- clines American intervention, 346 Sampson, Colonel Wools, iii Schmoller's ' Mercantile System ' referred to, 261 n. Schreiner family, 30 n. Schreiner, Olive (Mrs. Cronwright- Schreiner) : ' A South African Farm ' referred to, 5 ; her un- pleasant picture of the Boers, 5 n. ; on the Boer administration of Johannesburg, 16, iii 11. Schreiner, Theophilus, interview with Mr. Reitz on aims of the Afrikander Bond, 30 Schreiner, W. P. (late Premier of Cape Colony) : on the Afrikander Bond, 27; on the United States INDEX 387 of South Africa, 268 ; action as Attorney-General in the Rhodes Government on the Drifts crisis, 48; evidence to South Africa Com- mittee on policy of ' friendly handshake,' 95; on five years franchise for Transvaal, 137 n. ; on Dr. Leyds, 274 ; on President Kruger's seven years franchise scheme, 137 ; on reason for Trans- vaal's change of attitude between August 19 and 21, 1899, 164, 273 ; appeal for compromise (Sep- tember 22, 1899), 203; British Government's reply, 203 ; on President Kruger's desire to get to the sea, 268 ; believed Orange Free State would not invade the Colony, 268 ; allowed arms to pass through, 271, 280; desired to keep the Colony as ' a place of peace,' 271 ; rejected by the Bond, 272; letter to Mr. Herholdt, 356 w. Seddon, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Premier of New Zealand), on the war, 307 Seeley, Sir John, ' Expansion of England ' cited, 301 Selborne, first Earl of, on ' Majuba, ' 12 n.; on importance of firmness in South Africa, 117 ». Selborne, second Earl of, evidence about conversations at the Colonial Office before the Raid, 64 ; ' put their hands to the plough ' speech, 133 Settlement after the war, ch. xxxv. ; Lord Milner's ' never again ' speech, 316; Lord Salisbury's re- fusal to accede to independence of the Republics, 320; reasons for annexation, 321 ; arguments against limited independence, 321 ; the settlement as a test of British professions, 361 ; the proper scope for magnanimity, 361 ; essential conditions of settlement, 362 ; the argument from difficulty, 364 Shaw, G. Bernard, ' Fabianism and the Empire ' referred to, 231 n. Shaw, Miss Flora, her warning to Mr. Chamberlain about the Raid, 60 n. ; her cables to Mr. Rhodes, 63 w. Shearman, Thomas B., 239 Si ve Wright, Sir James, on alleged complicity of British Government in the Raid, 60 Slachter's Nek, 3, 4 Slater, Josiah (of the Grahamstown Journal), his pamphlet on ' The Birth of the Bond,' 26 11. Smit, J. S. (Transvaal Railway Com- missioner), on race hatred, 4 Smith, Mr. Murray (Victoria) , on the war, 306 Smuts, General Tobias, letter to General Botha on ' loading women off within enemy's lines,' 343 Smuts, J. C. (State Attorney, Trans- vaal), approaches British Agent with overtures for five years fran- chise law, 160 ; reply to Sir W. Greene on difference between those overtures and formal offer, 166 South African League, Sir W. Butler on, loi ; promoted petition to the Queen, 109 ; Lord Milner on, 225 n. South African Republic: the title obtained in 1884, 33 ; political effects of, 33, 238 ; Republic or Oligarchy, 240, 241 ; Mr. Merri- man on the desirability of estab- lishing a true Republic, 240. Sec also ' Transvaal ' ' Sovereign International State ' : germ of Mr. Kruger's claim, 20 ; Transvaal's claims to this status, 148, 153, 182, 318 ; the claim not justified, 150, 152 ; Lord Milner on, 153 ; repudiated by British Government, 171, 180, 198, 259; Sir William Harcourt on, 182 ; in connection with arbitration, 243 Star cited on British despatch of September 8, 1899, 187 n. Statham, F. R., apologist for Mr. Kruger, 77 n. ; employed by the Netherlands Railway Company, 73 «., 228 Stead, W. T., on the Raid, 59 7J. ; on President Kruger as Sultan Abdul Hamid, 134 «. ; on British troops as Bashi Bazouks, 134 n. ; on Dr. Leyds and anti-British Federation in South Africa, 85 n. ; on Lord Milner's appointment, 97 Stellaland. See ' Goshen 25—2 388 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR Stephens, Brunton, verses on Austra- lian Federation quoted, 303 Steyn, President : his election, 88 ; President Kruger's congratula- tions, 88 ; his political ambitions, 88 n. ; concludes a treaty with President Kruger, 88 ; proposes Bloemfontein Conference, 121 ; protests against British military preparations, 212 ; commandeers the Orange Free State burghers, 213; declares war, 212; his pro- clamation to the burghers, 217 ; joint telegram (with President Kruger) to Lord Salisbury, 317 ; encourages Mr. Reitz to continue struggle, 252, 337 ; replies to banishment proclamation, 344 Suzerainty Question discussed, ch. xvi. : word and substance re- tained in Convention of 1881, 144 ; word struck out in Conven- tion of 1884, 145 }i.; Lord Derby's statement on the reason why, 145 ; substance retained, 145, 149 ; Mr. F. Mackarness' opinion, 149 : Pro- fessor de Loieter's, 150 n. ; suzer- ainty discussion raised in 1896 by President Kruger, 147 ; and in- volved in breaches of the Conven- tion of 1884, 148 ; discussions on suzerainty between British and Transvaal Governments, 148, 151, 153 ; Transvaal makes dropping of suzerainty a condition of five years franchise, 161 ; British reply, 168, 180, 182 Swaziland, Lord Loch's negotiations with Mr. Kruger, 22, 39 ; conven- tion about, 200 n., 233 Temps charges against Lord Loch, 40 n. Te Water, T. (Colonial Secretary in Schreiner Government), advises gaining time at Bloemfontein, 128, 252 Times ' History of the War ' cited, 204 n., 215 n., 247 Times on terms of July 27, 1899, 155 ; on President Kruger's negotiations with Orange Free State, 86 Toeremetsjani, Chieftainess, 299 Toit, Rev. J. S. du, editor of De Patriot, 26 ; his articles on the Afrikander Bond, 26, 27 Transvaal (South African Republic): political constitution analysed, 14- 17; aims at being paramount power in South Africa, 19, 31 n. ; size and population, 239 ; rights of the Boers in, 239 ; rights of Uitlanders in, 239. See also ' Fran- chise,' ' Grondwet,' and 'Kruger ' Transvaal National Union, 41 ; founded by professional men, 222 ; capitalists held aloof from it, 222 ; address and deputation to Lord Loch, 41 ; mass meeting at Johan- nesburg (July 14, 1894), 5i> 222 ; manifesto on armaments (1895), 92 Trek, the Great, of 1816, 8, 11 Trench, Archbishop, quoted, 364 Uitlanders : misleading nature of the term, 230 ; inrush after dis- covery of the Witwatersrand, 13 ; their right, by Convention, to come in, 232 ; President Kruger's promise of equal privileges, 233 ; his invitation to them to develop mines, 235 ; disfranchised, 13 ; ob- jection to commandeering without franchise, 40 ; reception of Lord Loch at Pretoria in 1894, 41 ; deputation to him, 41 ; their political grievances, 42, 82, 108, 240 ; Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman on, 134 ; Lord Kimberley on, 134 ; on shooting of Edgar, 103 ; peti- tions to Queen, 103, 108 ; refuse dynamite and franchise com- promise, 105, 225 ; services in the war, hi; character of leading men, no; attitude to joint in- quiry, etc., 155, 170; sympathy with, in the Colonies, 305. See also ' Capitalists ' and ' Mining ' Ultimatum from the Transvaal, 209 ; first draft of, 215 ; why delayed, 215 ; its effect on public opinion, 216 ' Unconditional surrender,' 325, 351 United States of South Africa, 31, 268 United States offers good offices, 346 ; declined by Lord Salisbury, 346 INDEX 389 Villiers, Right Hon. Sir Henry de (Chief Justice, Cape Colony) : on Mr. Kruger's promises in 1881, 234 ; on Mr. Kruger's opportunity for reform, 71 ; on prospects of Bloemfontein Conference, 127 ; on inadequacy of Seven Years Franchise Law, 140 ; on impor- tance of President Kruger agree- ing to joint inquiry, 155 ; on moderation of Mr. Chamberlain's speech, 155 ; on Mr. Reitz's levity, 157, 266 ; on reason for Trans- vaal's change of attitude between August 19 and 21, 1899, 164 ; on Transvaal Government's 'wrig- gling,' 165, 170 ; on language question, 184 ; on alleged breach of faith in the Greene negotia- tions, 192 ; on a war to bolster up President Kruger's regime, 196 ; appeal to the Transvaal for peace, 201 ; on position of Cape Govern- ment in case of war, 271 Viljoen, Ben, appeal to Cape Afri- kanders, 10 Volksraad (Transvaal), constitution of, 14 ; rejection of Uitlander petitions, 11 ; debate on locusts, II ; speech by Chairman of, on war, 216 Walton, J. Lawson, K.C., on pre- amble of 1881, 149; on South African oligarchy, 227 n. Warren, Sir Charles, expedition to Bechuanaland, 1884, 22, 38 Watson, Dr. Spence, on the Trans- vaal nationality, 261 Watson, William, cited, 315 Wessels, Mr. Advocate (Pretoria), on Afrikanderdom, 26 n. ; on Afri- kander conceit, 268 ; on pro- gramme of the Transvaal National Union, 51 ; denounces the apathy of the capitalists, 222 ; on Kru- ger's seven years franchise scheme, 132 n. Westlake, Professor J., K.C., on dangers of limited independence, 322 Westminster Gazette cited, on British despatch of September 8, 1899, 187 n. Wet, Commandant de, manifesto on Kitchener - Botha negotiations, 330 ; letter to Lord Kitchener in reply to banishment proclamation, 344 ; and the case of Mr. Morgen- dal, 352 n. White, Montagu (Consul for Trans, vaal), advises Mr. Reitz to gain time by accepting proposed joint inquiry, 156 Williams, Right Hon. J. Powell, statement on Transvaal arma- ments, 93 n. Wilmot's ' History of our own Times in South Africa ' cited, 88 n. Wilson, Professor J. Dove, on the rights of the Uitlanders, 232, 233 '^• Witwatersrand. See ' Rand ' Wolmarans, F. (Transvaal Execu- tive), speech on objects of alliance with Orange Free State, 86 Wolseley, Lord, declares (1879) that Transvaal will never be retro- ceded, 346 Wybergh, W. (President of the South African League, Trans- vaal), no Young Afrikander tions of, 32, 269 Party, aspira- BLUE-BOOKS REFERRED TO {The numerals after the title of the Blue-Books are those of the pages in this volume on ivhich the papers are referred to.) C. 3219, 1881 : Proceedings of the Transvaal Royal Commission, 233 C. 3947, 1884 : Correspondence respecting the Convention concluded with the South African Republic on February 27, 1884, 19, 243 C 7933. 1896: Correspondence on the subject of the recent disturbances in the South African Republic, 44, 72, 84 n. C. 7962, 1896: Correspondence relative to the visit to this country of the Chiefs Khama, Sebele, and Bathoen, and the future of the Bechuana- land Protectorate, 62 C. 8063, 1896: Correspondence relating to affairs in the South African Republic, 22, 57 n., 94 n., 147 C. 8159, 1896: Papers relating to the commandeering of British subjects in the South African Republic in 1894, and the visit of the High Com- missioner to Pretoria, 22, 40, 42, 43, 222 311,^ 1897 : Report of the Select Committee on the British South Africa Company, 27, 61, 138 n. C. 8423, 1897 '• Further correspondence relating to affairs in the South African Republic, 75 «., 76 n., 148 C. 8474, 1897 : Correspondence relative to the closing of the Vaal River Drifts by the Government of the South African Republic in October, 1895. 45 C. 8721, 1898: Further correspondence relating to affairs in the South African Republic, 75 n., 76 n., 148 C. 8732, 1898 : Correspondence relating to proposed changes in the ad- ministration of the British South Africa Company, 54 C. 9317, 1899 '• Correspondence relating to the explosives monopoly in the South African Republic, 104 C 9345. 1899 : Papers relating to the complaints of British subjects in the South African Republic, 74, 75 n., 78 n., 79, 81 n., 83 n., 105, 108, no, 113, 119, 129 n., 131 n., 224, 225 n., 226, 240 C. 9404, 1899 : Correspondence relating to the Bloemfontein Conference, 1899, 124 n., 129 n., 131 n., 135, 243, 281 C. 9415, 1899 '• Further correspondence relating to proposed political reforms in the South African Republic, 112, 132 n., 138, 155 ^ In Sessional House of Commons Papers BLUE-BOOKS REFERRED TO 39' C. 9507, 1899: Correspondence relating to the status of the South African Republic, 21, 151, 152, 153 C. 9518, 1899 : Further correspondence relating to the proposed political reforms in the South African Republic, 137 n., 139, 155, 159 n. C. 9521, 1899: Further correspondence relating to political affairs in the South African Republic, 124 n., 126, 161, 163, 165 n., 166, 169, 173 n., 178 C. 9530, 1899 : Further correspondence relating to the political affairs of the South African Republic, 164, 172, 178 n., 183, 190, 198, 203, 211, 212, 282 Cd. 18, 1899 : Correspondence relating to the despatch of Colonial military contingents to South Africa, 304, 305 Cd, 35, 1900 : Correspondence with the Presidents of the South African Republic and of the Orange Free State respecting the war, 317, 320 Cd. 43, 1900 : Further correspondence relating to affairs in South Africa, 25, 202, 217, 226, 271 Cd. 261, 1900 : Further correspondence relating to affairs in South Africa, 228, 288, 291, 292, 323 Cd. 264, 1900 : Correspondence relating to affairs of the Cape Colony, 271, 355 ^»- Cd. 369, 1900 : Correspondence relating to the recent political situation in South Africa, 71, 127, 141, 157, 164, 170, 184, 192, 202, 234, 241, 252, 266, 271 Cd. 420, 1900 : Further correspondence relating to affairs in South Africa, 267, 323. 328 w., 355 Cd. 528, 1901 : Papers relating to negotiations between Commandant Louis Botha and Lord Kitchener, 10, 183 n., 328, 330 Cd. 547, 1901 : Further correspondence relating to affairs in South Africa, 112 «., 157, 272, 291 n., 293, 294 n., 297, 351 n. Cd. 623, 624, 625, 1901 : Report of the Commission on Concessions in the Transvaal, 229, 275, 276 Cd. 663, July, 1901 : Further papers relating to negotiations between Com- mandant Louis Botha and Lord Kitchener, 326, 329, 350, 351 Cd. 714, July, 1901 : Papers relating to certain legislation of the late South African Republic affecting natives, 300 n. Cd. 732, August, 1901 : Correspondence relating to the prolongation of hostilities in South Africa, 344 Cd. 888, 1902 : Further correspondence relative to the treatment of natives by the Boers, 294 Cd. 902, January, 1902 : Further papers relating to the working of the refugee camps in South Africa, 340 Cd. 903, January, 1902: Further correspondence relating to affairs in South Africa, 214, 253, 267, 271, 272, 294 n., 329, 337, 344, 345, 352 n., 360 Cd. 904, January, 1902 : Papers relating to legislation affecting natives in the Transvaal, 300 71. Cd. 906, February, 1902 : Correspondence with the Netherland Govern- ment regarding the war in South Africa, 347, 348 Cd. 933, February, 1902 : ' Letters from Assistant-General Tobias Smuts to Commandant- General L. P. Botha,' 295 n , 343 392 RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF THE TRANSVAAL WAR CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE MORE IMPORTANT DESPATCHES REFERRED TO (The final numerals are those of the pages or chapters of this volume on which the despatches are cited or referred to.) February 25, 1896: Mr. Kruger's proposals for superseding Convention of 1884 (C. 8603, p. 13). 147 March 6, 1897 : Mr. Chamberlain's protests against breaches of that Con- vention (C. 8423, Nos. 120 and 121), 148 May 7, 1897: South African Republic's reply to preceding (C. 8721, p. 6), 148 October 16, 1897 : Mr. Chamberlain's rejoinder (C. 8721, No. 7), 148 April 16, 1898 : South African Republic's reply (C. 9507, p. 7), 151 December 15, 1898 : Mr. Chamberlain's rejoinder (C. 9507, No. 6), 152 May 4, 1899 : Lord Milner on the Transvaal situation in connection with the Uitlanders' petition (C. 9345, p. 211), 113 May 9, 1899 : South African Republic claims to be a Sovereign International State (C. 9507, p. 32), 153 May 10, 1899 : Mr. Chamberlain in reply to the Uitlanders' petition and proposing a conference (C. 9345, p. 226), 120 June 14, 1899 : Lord Milner — account of the Bloemfontein Conference (C. 9404), ch. xiv. July II, 1899: Mr. Chamberlain asks for a consultation on the proposed new Franchise Law (C. 9415, p. 43), 138 July 13, 1899 : South African Republic refuses (C. 9518, pp. 40, 58), 138 July 13, 1899: Mr. Chamberlain repudiates the claim of South African Republic to be a Sovereign International State, and refers question of arbitration to general negotiations (C. 9507, No. 8), 153, ch. xv. July 20, 1899: Mr. Chamberlain's statement in House of Commons (see P- 139) July 27, 1899 ; Mr. Chamberlain proposes joint inquiry into seven years franchise law (C. 9518, p. 11), 141 August I, 1899 : Substance thereof communicated by telegram to President Kruger (C. 9518, p. 30), 143 August 15, 1899 : Sir W. Greene transmits proposals for five years franchise and other points (C. 9521, p. 44), 160 August 17, 1899: Lord Milner undertakes that British Government will consider such proposals on their merits (C. 9521, p. 46), 161 August 19, 1899 : South African Republic makes five years offer, etc. (C. 9521, p. 46), 162 August 21, 1899 : Postscript from South African Republic making the offer strictly conditional on other points (C. 9521, p. 47), 163 August 28, 1899 : British reply to the foregoing offer (C. 9521, p. 49), 168 September 2, 1899 : South African Republic withdraws offer, and reverts to seven years franchise {C. 9521, No. 49), 176 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF IMPORTANT DESPATCHES 393 September 8, 1899 : British Government repeats proposals for friendly settlement on five years' basis, and reserves right, in event of rejection, to consider the situation de novo (C. 9521, p. 64), 180 September 16, 1899 : Transvaal Government refuses British proposals, and alleges breach of faith (C. 9530, No. 7), 188 September 22, 1899 : British Government replies to charge of breach of faith (C. 9530, p. 17), 191 September 22, 1899 : British Government recapitulates its offer of Septem- ber 8, offers a guarantee of Transvaal independence, and says new pro- posals will be submitted subsequently (C. 9530, p. 16), 197 October g, 1899 : Ultimatum from the South African Republic (C. 9530, No. 53), 209 October 10, 1899: British rejection of it (C. 9530, No. 57), 212 October 11, 1899: Declaration of war by President Steyn (C. 9530, p. 69), 212 March 5, 1900 : ' Second ultimatum ' from Presidents Kruger and Steyn (Cd. 35). 317 March 11, 1900 : Lord Salisbury's reply (Cd. 35), 320 February 28, 1901 : Interview between Lord Kitchener and General Botha (Cd. 528). 329 March 7, 1901 : British peace proposals to General Botha (Cd. 663), 326 March 16, 1901 : Rejection of them by General Botha (Cd. 528), 328 May 10, 1901 : Request from General Botha to be put into communication with Mr. Kruger (Cd. 663), 338 June 20, 1901 : Subsequent proclamation by Boer leaders declaring con- tinuance of war for independence (Cd. 663), 338 January 25, 1902 : Note from the Netherland Government offering good offices (Cd. 906), 346 January 29, 1902 : Lord Lansdowne's reply (Cd. 906), 348 THE END BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD Selections from /n>r» B^wat^ Hrnolb's Xtst SECOND IMPRESSION. 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' As to the "get up " of the book we can only repeat what we said on the appearance of the first of the set, that the series consists of the most tasteful and charming volumes at present being issued by the English Press, and collectors of handsome books should find them not only an ornament to their shelves, but also a sound investment.' Volume IV. Berkeley. REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. By the Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley. With a Coloured Frontispiece and the original Illustrations by John Leech, and several Coloured Plates and other Illustrations by G. H. Jalland. 'The latest addition to the sumptuous "Sportsman's Library" is here reproduced with all possible aid from the printer and binder, with illustrations from the pencils of Leech and G. H. Jalland. ' — Globe. ' The Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley had one great quality of the raconteur. His self-revelations and displays of vanity are delightful.' — Times. 23 Volume V. Scrope. THE ART OF DEERSTALKING. By William Scrope. 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