3544 
 
 S7? 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 South Africa 
 
 A SERIES OF 
 
 CONTRIBUTED BY 
 
 LEADING MEN. 
 
 NOTE. These Articles are collected from various numbers of the- 
 "MEW REVIEW, a desire Jiaving been widely expressed that they sliould 
 appear in a more permanent form. This explains the want of consecutive- 
 irdcr in tlie pagination. 
 
 Price : Two Shillings. 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR 
 
 THE SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION 
 
 BY 
 
 WM. HE1NEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, 
 LONDON, 1896.
 
 The South African Association] 
 
 1 6, GRKAT GKOR<;K STREET, 
 
 WESTMINSTER. 
 
 OBJECTS: 
 
 To uphold British Supremacy and to promote the 
 interests of British subjects in South Africa, with full 
 recognition of Colonial Self-Government. 
 
 o 
 
 METHODS:- I 
 
 The work of the Association will consist in placing 
 before the country the fullest information upon the political, 
 commercial, and other questions which affect the various 
 peoples and communities in South Africa. 
 
 This work will be performed by the publication and 
 distribution of pamphlets and leaflets, and by organising 
 public meetings. These meetings will be addressed by 
 speakers either personally acquainted with South African 
 affairs, or who have made them the subject of their special 
 study. 
 
 Lecturers on South Africa are sent out by this Association. 
 For terms, apply to the Secretary, 16, Great George 
 Street, Westminster, S.W. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 591, line 19, for 400*000 read 140000. 
 
 Page 592, line 6, for " degraded " read " disintegrated.'
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA* 
 
 " The key to the situation in South Africa is the redress of the grievances of the 
 2Uitlanders in the Transvaal." Daily jYews, February gth, 1896. 
 
 ""XURING the last few days so much has been said and written 
 
 _ _ y upon South Africa, in Parliament and in the London Press, 
 
 that it may seem superfluous for any one to say or write more. 
 
 And especially it is urged that silence should at least be maintained 
 
 until the trial of the Reform leaders at Pretoria, and of Dr. Jameson 
 
 and his officers in London, shall have been concluded. This is 
 
 obviously wise and necessary, in respect to all matters which may 
 
 affect the guilt or innocence of the parties incriminated, and it is not 
 
 the habit of Englishmen to prejudge a judicial enquiry. But these 
 
 matters which have been discussed at such length are but accidents, 
 
 unhappy accidents, which have occurred in the midst of a vast region 
 
 comprising several States, whose relations to each other, to England, and 
 
 o to other Powers present a problem of far greater consequence, for good 
 
 - or evil, than the abortive revolution in Johannesburg or Dr. Jameson's 
 
 CO 
 
 rH inroad into the Transvaal. Yet upon these political issues of imminent 
 
 & and far-reaching importance to all, whether of Dutch or English origin, 
 flB 
 
 in South Africa, very little has been said by any Englishman who has 
 
 made South Africa his home. The other parties concerned have not 
 felt themselves constrained to observe a similar silence in so far as their 
 own interests are likely to be affected. President Kruger has repeatedly 
 asserted the conditions which he considers necessary to the welfare of 
 his country, and Mr. Chamberlain has been equally prompt in defining 
 the claims of the " Imperial Factor." It is only the men of English 
 birth, who have lived and worked in South Africa for years, that still 
 hold their tongues, in astonishment, perhaps, at finding so sudden a 
 recognition of facts, fairly obvious, but which hitherto have, none the 
 less, been steadily ignored by English journalists and politicians 
 si absorbed in their domestic controversies. We welcome this new 
 interest, and are quite ready to acknowledge the amount and general 
 accuracy of the information which has been so suddenly acquired : 
 yet it is possible that those who have enjoyed opportunities of studying 
 
 * Copyright. All rights reserved. 
 
 z
 
 33 2 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 these matters at greater length, in closer proximity, and in calmer 
 periods, may still have something to say. We know South Africa as men 
 know the details of a house they have lived in for years, and not as they 
 arc revealed by a lightning flash to casual passers-by. Dr. Jameson's 
 expedition was just such a flash ; and, however deplorable it may have 
 been in its immediate consequences, we may glean from it this much of 
 hope that the attention it has attracted to South Africa will lead to a 
 fuller knowledge at home of the difficulties we have had to contend 
 with, and of the work we have done. But this new knowledge cannot 
 be adequate, unless those who have lived in South Africa tell their own 
 story and put their own case. That is my excuse for writing. We see 
 President Kruger and the Imperial Government fighting their own 
 corners, and of that we make no complaint ; but we must be allowed to 
 fight our corner also ; and we can do so in no selfish spirit, for we 
 hold that the interests of the Empire, and, in the long run, of the 
 Transvaal Republic, are bound up with our own. 
 
 I have lived fourteen years in Africa and during seven I have acted 
 in South Africa as Secretary to the Chartered Company. For the 
 last two years I have sat for the city of Kimberley in the Cape 
 Legislative Assembly. And indeed, it was only the other day that I 
 landed in England in company with Mr. Cecil Rhodes. I do not, on 
 this account, write officially or in any sense as the mouth-piece of 
 the Company, but simply as one whose connexion with it has afforded 
 him unusual opportunities of gauging British sentiment and studying 
 British enterprise in South Africa. Now, a glance at the map included 
 in this article will show that Africa south of the Zambesi consists of 
 several States. And perhaps in the world's history there has never 
 been a congeries of States in juxtaposition presenting so many com- 
 binations and permutations of racial and political characteristics. But 
 the number and complexity of their variations are all the more curious 
 if you consider that only two races, the English and the Dutch, are of 
 any numerical importance in all South Africa, and that, excepting 
 German South- West Africa and the possessions of Portugal, no other 
 race owns the soil or has a share in the Government of any one 
 State. The Cape self-governing Colony has a Dutch majority, and is 
 controlled by Great Britain ; the Transvaal has a British majority and 
 is a Dutch Republic. The Free State is a Dutch Republic with a 
 Dutch majority ; Natal is a British Colony, with an English population ; 
 Rhodesia is a vast region, seven and a half times the size of Great
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 333 
 
 Britain, whose white population is exclusively English. Such is the 
 puzzle, " the key " to which, according to the Daily News, must be 
 found in " the redress of the grievances of the Uitlanders in the 
 Transvaal." It may seem extravagant to claim that the ultimate fate 
 of all these States must be decided by the redress of the grievances 
 in one of the smallest among them. But the ultimate fate of our 
 American Colonies was so decided something more than a century 
 ago, and the question for British statesmen is whether Africa, south 
 of the Zambesi, shall federate into "A United States," hostile to Great 
 Britain ; into a " Dominion of Canada," but with Germany for its 
 Sovereign Power ; or into a " Dominion of Canada," still loyal to the 
 British Throne. To those who have lived in South Africa these are 
 the only three possible issues out of the present complexities, and it 
 is now for Great Britain to choose between them. 
 
 Since the Transvaal is the key to South Africa, let me first examine 
 its racial and political characteristics in greater detail. 
 
 The Transvaal of to-day has an Uitlander population of some 
 120,000 people, the majority of whom are either British born or of 
 British descent, speaking the English language as their mother-tongue. 
 They comprise the intelligence, the wealth, the energy, and all that 
 makes for progress and civilisation in a country as large as Italy. By 
 their resources and determination they have increased the export of 
 gold from nothing until it now amounts to eight millions sterling per 
 annum, and, by the end of this century, now only four years distant, 
 the development of their " deep levels " will increase this export of gold 
 to twenty millions sterling, and thereafter for the next thirty or forty 
 years they will maintain their production at that figure. The Transvaal 
 will, therefore, furnish in the near future two-thirds of the yellow metal 
 of the world, and with this increase of prosperity the present population 
 of 120,000 Uitlanders must increase also until by the year 1900 it may 
 safely be put at 240,000, and a few yeafs later at half a million. At 
 the present moment the Uitlanders own, by actual purchase of the 
 soil, more than one-half of the Transvaal, and contribute nine-tenths 
 of the entire revenue, yet they have no share in the Government of their 
 country. It is not to be supposed that such a position can last. The 
 Uitlanders may now be without political rights, but it is absurd to 
 believe that they will remain for ever without them. From year to year 
 they will own more of the soil and pay more of the revenue : and at 
 some point in this upward curve, tending towards the ownership of all
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 the land and the payment of all the taxes, they must become politically 
 free. A community of 14,000 male Boers may claim the divine right of 
 a pastoral oligarchy and coquet with the power of a military despot, but 
 even so, the laws of political evolution cannot be arrested to humour 
 thcir political intelligence. We may, therefore, take it that sooner or 
 later, and sooner rather than later, the Uitlanders will obtain the politi- 
 cal rights enjoyed by all civilised communities. But this political 
 emancipation of the Transvaal, which is bound to come, must affect 
 every State in South Africa. A country the size of Italy, producing 
 two-thirds of the gold of the world, and inhabited by an English- 
 speaking population of three or four hundred thousand souls, with their 
 restless energy and fixed determination to push their manufactures and 
 develop the resources of their country, must set the tune to the rest of 
 South Africa. The Transvaal, as an opulent and thickly populated 
 State, surrounded by poorer and less favoured neighbours, cannot fail to 
 drag the Free State, the Cape Colony, and Natal, into some closer 
 communion with its political and commercial organisation. There will 
 be a federation of South Africa. But what tune will the Transvaal set 
 to that Federation ? What policy will the States of South Africa adopt 
 towards England and the world ? The answer to these questions 
 depends on the attitude of England during the present crisis. If 
 England does her duty, she will some day have a Dominion of South 
 Africa loyal as the Dominion of Canada ; but, if not, then a dominion 
 loyal to Germany, or a United States of Africa with a " Monroe 
 Doctrine " of their own. I have used Canada as an illustration because 
 the French Canadians appreciate the blessings of British rule, and 
 because the great majority of the Dutch in Cape Colony do and will 
 continue to appreciate those blessings, provided always that Great 
 Britain shall continue to respect the language, religion, and racial 
 sentiment of the Dutch as of equal importance to their own. And 
 in this connexion the question 6f Native labour must not be overlooked. 
 Unless the British people will consent to look a few years ahead and 
 to consider the South African question as a whole, we of British blood in 
 South Africa cannot, with all the good-will in the world, avert a disaster 
 to British power as great as the loss of the American Colonies. We 
 may, some few of us, struggle against the stream, but if the " Imperial 
 Factor " be found wanting in the first elements of Imperial rule, we 
 shall be swept away in a swelling current of Africander patriotism. 
 There is no room for a Roi faineant south of the Zambesi.
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 335 
 
 Great Britain intervened, and rightly, to stop Jameson ; but she 
 intervened again to make the Uitlander lay down his arms. There was 
 no remedy in Jameson's appeal to force ; but neither will the forts now 
 being built on the hilltops round Johannesburg, nor the jack-boot of 
 the German mercenary, avail to relieve the grievances of which the 
 Uitlander complains. This double intervention of the Imperial Factor 
 has left the Uitlander prostrate and helpless. If he is to be abandoned 
 now it may take him years to win his rights, but win them in the end he 
 will, and then? .... What can Great Britain expect, twenty years 
 hence, from the States of South Africa, but the animosity of another 
 America, rendered implacable by another example of her stupid and 
 heartless neglect ? For what are the grievances of the Uitlander ? They 
 have been temperately stated by Mr. Charles Leonard, chairman of the 
 National Union in the Transvaal, in a letter addressed to Ons Land (Our 
 Country), the leading Dutch paper of the Cape Colony and official organ 
 of the Bond. I quote from a translation published in the Cape Times, 
 December 3ist, 1895 : 
 
 " By laws passed gradually they are now really excluded for life from burgher 
 rights, and their children born on Transvaal soil can never obtain the franchise, unless 
 their fathers take an oath which imposes upon them liability to service in war while 
 they do not get burgher rights. 
 
 " The Government have granted one concession after another, with the result that 
 at the present time all the railways are in the hands of a Hollander company. This 
 company has also the right to collect the whole of the import duties at Delagoa Bay,, 
 and to appropriate to its own use a large portion of them. 
 
 " The Government has shown in the clearest possible manner that it would like to 
 crush Cape Colony ; for that reason it puts such heavy duties on the products of the 
 Colony that the market of Johannesburg is, as a matter of fact, closed to the farmers 
 here, while the public of Johannesburg also suffer severely. Further, there is a set 
 plan to divert the trade as far as possible to Delagoa Bay, in order to do injury to the 
 Cape farmers and the Cape railways. 
 
 " The Government has also granted a concession for dynamite to certain foreigners, 
 and the mining industry now groans under an enforced tax of ,600,000 per annum, 
 not for the benefit of the public treasury but of a set of foreign speculators. 
 
 - " Education is in a wretched state. Protection of life and property is no better. 
 Bribery and corruption openly prevail in the public services, and are in no wise 
 punished. The public moneys are squandered in the most shameless manner without 
 being properly accounted for. More than double the amount of money that would be 
 necessary under a proper system is taken out of the public coffers, and is then spent 
 in a wonderful secret service and in other ways. The truth is that the Hollanders 
 are masters of the situation. They rule in all the departments, the State Secretary's, 
 the State Attorney's, the Superintendent of Education, the Director of Railways, all 
 are Hollanders, and what the Hollanders do not control is done by holders of 
 concessions and foreign speculators. They hate all Englishmen and all Afrikanders,
 
 33 6 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 ami try to strengthen the Hollander influence more and more. They arc continually- 
 year in and year out making mischief between the old burghers and their brothers 
 n the Colony, as well as other ' Uitlanders.' To that is to be largely attributed the 
 present state of affairs. That is the reason why Afrikanders are harassed in or driven 
 out of their own country while foreigners enjoy all the advantages. 
 
 " The worst is, alas ! that President Kruger, advised by his false friends, intends 
 by means of force to keep the ' Uitlanders ' in order, instead of by means of love, 
 justice, and fraternity. Cannons, maxims, rifles, and thousands of cartridges, a fort 
 at Pretoria to be built with our money at a cost of ,250,000; another fort at 
 Johannesburg at a cost of ,100,000! German officers to be imported to teach 
 the artillerymen how to shoot down Afrikanders." 
 
 Such arc the grievances, and the remedies demanded for their 
 redress may be read at the end of the Uitlanders' now famous 
 Declaration of Rights : 
 
 We want : 
 
 1. The establishment of this Republic as a true Republic. 
 
 2. A Grondwet or constitution which shall be framed by competent persons 
 
 selected by representatives of the whole people and framed on lines laid 
 down by them, a constitution which shall be safeguarded against hasty 
 alteration. 
 
 3. An equitable Franchise Law and fair representation. 
 
 4. Equality of the Dutch and English languages. 
 
 5. Responsibility to the Legislature of the Heads of the great Departments. 
 
 6. Removal of religious disabilities. 
 
 7. Independence of the Courts of Justice, with adequate and secured remuneration 
 
 of the Judges. 
 
 8. Liberal and comprehensive education. 
 
 9. An efficient Civil Service, with adequate provision for pay and pension, 
 i o. Free trade in South African products. 
 
 This is what we want ! 
 
 For Mr. Leonard's statement that bribery and corruption openly 
 prevail in the public services and are in no wise punished, the back 
 numbers of the Johannesburg Critic and of Land en Volk, published in 
 Pretoria, give chapter and verse. 
 
 Redress the grievances of the Uitlander now, give him the freedom 
 which his kinsfolk enjoy all the world over, and you will bind him to you 
 by links of sentiment and loyalty which stand all strains to-day between 
 the mother country and her great dependencies. The eighteenth century 
 saw the first great rise of Britain's power in India, in Canada, in America, 
 in the West Indies ; and that Imperial expansion aroused the jealousy 
 of the other great European Powers. At the end of that century, 
 therefore, England had to face a world in arms ; and this, when her 
 policy towards the States of America "the old diplomacy" the policy
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 337 
 
 of pigeon-holing and unsympathetic pedantry, had led to the loss of men 
 who would have fought on and worked on for the common inheritance 
 of the English-speaking race. And now, after another century of 
 success, we find again the same jealousy aroused in rival Pov/ers ; the 
 same "splendid isolation." But is there also to be again the same 
 policy towards our kinsfolk and pioneers beyond the sea ; leading again 
 to the same disaffection and distrust ? If so, the danger is imminent. 
 The pace has increased with the lapse of a hundred years, and develop- 
 ments which then were but slowly evolved, may now take the form of 
 sudden catastrophes. The one distinction in the two pictures I have 
 sketched lies in the difference between Lord North and Mr. Chamber- 
 lain. Mr. Chamberlain has the chance of intervening earlier than the 
 younger Pitt, who was born too late to save America, and only just in 
 time to save England. Mr. Chamberlain may yet make a Dominion of 
 South Africa, one of the most important creations of the British Empire. 
 In his difficult position he may say and do things which some of us who 
 have worked in South Africa might wish otherwise said and done, but at 
 least he says and does something ; he believes in " promptitude and 
 vigour " ; he comes out into the open, and exhibits his sympathy with 
 all that Englishmen care for in his every word and act. His despatches 
 to Sir Hercules Robinson reveal his clear grasp of the facts ; and his 
 suggestion that he and President Kruger should, in friendly agreement, 
 determine the conditions of justice for the Uitlanders, leaves nothing to 
 be desired. For this reason we welcome his " new diplomatic method," 
 and we rejoice that at last a great statesman stands at the head of 
 Britain's Colonial Empire. 
 
 Those who have worked at the development of South Africa still 
 take their stand on the closing words of Mr. Rhodes's speech at the 
 Imperial Institute Meeting held in 1894. But whilst our attitude has 
 not changed, the attitude of certain sections of the British Public has 
 been rendered uncertain by rumour and scandal. It has been said 
 that the Jameson incident was a move on the part of the Capitalists 
 to rehabilitate the rotten finances of the Chartered Company, and that 
 the object was to seize the Johannesburg Mines and incorporate them 
 with Rhodesia. Can any sane man believe such pernicious nonsense ? 
 The finances of the Chartered Company have never before, in the 
 six short years of its existence, been in such a sound and solvent 
 condition as they are to-day. The Company has not only repaid a 
 six per cent, debenture loan of over "700,000, and thus saved a heavy
 
 338 THE FATE OP SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 annual charge, but has discharged all its other liabilities, and stands 
 to-day with a cash surplus in hand of 600,000, a sum more than 
 sufficient for many years' development This balance is altogether 
 independent of sums subscribed for railway construction from the 
 south and from the east, amounting to upwards of 1,200,000. The 
 annual revenue of the Company, apart from its interest in subsidiary 
 Companies, amounted, at the close of its last financial year, March, 
 '95 to .112,000. The sale of town lots held since that date realised 
 203,095 ; this item is not included in the revenue return mentioned 
 previously, of .112,000, but if added to the current revenue would show 
 for the financial year, March, '95, to March, '96, a revenue return of 
 some .300,000. The returns of revenue during the year, March, '94-'95, 
 under the heads of Postal Revenue, Revenue Stamps and Licenses, 
 and Telegraph, as compared with the previous year, '93~'94, show the 
 great progress the country has made : 
 
 For the 12 months ending For the 12 months 
 3 ist March, 1894. ending 3131 March, 1895. 
 
 s. d. s. d. 
 
 Postal Revenue 1,682 18 4 4,609 15 o 
 
 Revenue Stamps and License 
 
 Department 12,395 X 7 2 30,221 II 8 
 
 Telegraph Department 370 7 6 3>268 16 7 
 
 These figures indicate a rapid increase of the population and com- 
 merce of Rhodesia, and the figures for this year will again show a 
 much greater increase. So that even an object cannot be alleged for the 
 crimes of which we are accused ; we are charged with committing 
 them gratuitously to effect a purpose already achieved. Let it be 
 remembered that Rhodesia of to-day is about 2,000 miles long and 
 nearly 1,000 miles broad; that as yet it is only in its infancy; that 
 it contains a native population of probably far over 2,000,000 of natives, 
 who to-day want nothing and buy nothing ; but the time is not far 
 distant when these natives will be brought into the ordinary condition 
 of civilised beings, needing their annual millions of pairs of boots, 
 shirtings, clothes, &c. There is no fear that orders from Rhodesia 
 will be placed with German firms, or that the Administration of 
 Rhodesia will boycott English goods and English manufactures in 
 their Government contracts, as has been done persistently by the 
 Transvaal Government. 
 
 The charge that Dr. Jameson was ordered by Mr. Cecil Rhodes to
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 339 
 
 steal gold-mines is almost equalled in absurdity by the charges that 
 the London Press and the British House of Commons have been 
 bought wholesale by gamblers on the London Stock Exchange 
 " salted " was, I think, the elegant phrase applied by one Member of 
 Parliament to his colleagues. It is not for me to intervene in this 
 dispute between Messrs. Forster and Labouchere and the gentlemen 
 who sit with them in the House. I am content to echo the words of 
 Sir William Harcourt, who has declared, from his place in the House of 
 Commons, that Mr. Rhodes, whom he knows personally, is incapable of 
 any mean or sordid motive. In the early days, owing to the unforeseen 
 difficulties and expenditure attaching to so vast an Imperial expansion, 
 under circumstances which precluded any profit earning, Mr. Rhodes has 
 come forward over and over again with heavy subsidies from his private 
 purse to keep going the work of opening up the interior of Africa to 
 British enterprise. And where in the history of the world can any 
 parallel be found for so successful an opening up of a scarcely-explored 
 continent ? " Greater Germany " contains, it is said, a population of 
 seven hundred and fifty people, of whom one-third are paid officials 
 this population is concentrated somewhere within an area of 900,000 
 square miles. Not a railway, not a telegraph, hardly a post office, is 
 known in that huge expanse. Rhodesia of to-day is six years old, it 
 has a population of some six to seven thousand people. It has com- 
 pleted and built nearly three hundred miles of railway, and has the funds 
 subscribed for a nearly similar extent. On the Vryburg-Mafeking section 
 of this line the nett earnings have been equal to four per cent. The 
 Company has constructed some 1,354 miles f telegraphs, and the line 
 will very shortly be worked on the duplex system, owing to the great 
 increase of traffic. For the six months ending September, '95, the receipts 
 showed an approximate total of .7,631, and the expenditure 3,389. 
 There are in Southern Rhodesia, that is the portion south of the 
 Zambesi, no less than twenty-two telegraph offices. There are thirty- 
 orre separate money order offices, post offices, and postal agencies. The 
 average weekly weight of correspondence is as follows (these figures 
 apply only up to March, 1895, since then there has been a remarkable 
 increase): received, 2,167 Ibs. ; despatched, 508 Ibs. Rhodesia, that is 
 to say. receives in every week a ton of letters, book-packets, parcels, and 
 newspapers, and sends away nearly a quarter of a ton during the same 
 period. 
 
 All this is the work of six years, and when we commenced in 1889
 
 340 TffE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 we were nearly eleven hundred miles distant from the nearest railway- 
 station, and had not constructed a mile of our telegraph system. Let 
 the public but glance at the General Annual Report just issued by 
 the Company, and they can form but one opinion of the great and 
 wonderful success achieved by Mr. Rhodes, Dr. Jameson, and the 
 Directors of the British South Africa Company. While I am able 
 thus fully to refer to the British South Africa Company's work, it 
 will be evident, I think, to any impartial reader, that I cannot now go 
 into the facts connected with the Jameson incident. The case is sub 
 judice. Our late Administrator, who to this moment still commands 
 the respect and affection of thousands, is to be tried. He is my friend, 
 and has been my friend for the last twelve years, since we were fellow 
 doctors together at Kimberley ; and while, therefore, it is not for me to 
 join in the well-nigh universal praise of his courage, his honesty, and his 
 capacity, neither can I now do less than say that there is a public aspect 
 of the case far more important than the personal one. I believe that 
 when all the facts are known, he and his friends will be well content 
 to abide by any opinion which the British public are at all likely to 
 pronounce ; and by all the facts, I mean all the facts of the present 
 South African situation. The Jameson incident is but one element in 
 a complex problem. South Africa is not in the Home Counties. Let 
 me, therefore, recall some of the incidents, certainly not abnormal, of 
 the evolution of South Africa as we see it to-day. Since Great Britain 
 handed back the Transvaal in 1 880-81, perhaps few remember that 
 there have been five separate raids directed against British territory, 
 with the distinct object of adding territories to the Transvaal State, 
 on its eastern, western, and northern boundaries. In 1884 the raids 
 into Stellaland and Rooiground (lately the Crown Colony of British 
 Bechuanaland) cost Great Britain a million of money to repress and 
 defeat. The Boers who formed the forces unquestionably had the tacit 
 assent and good-will of President Kruger, and it is quite certain that 
 he never punished and never had the slightest intention of punishing 
 any of the parties concerned. After suffering the loss of many lives 
 at Isandlwana, Great Britain defeated the Zulus and annexed their 
 country to the British Crown. This war, which the Boers were incom- 
 petent to wage, was fought in the interest of South Africa as a whole. 
 But again it was followed by the inevitable Boer raid, and a most 
 successful raid it was : for the best two-thirds of Zululand was seized 
 and proclaimed for a new Republic. In due course, the new Republic
 
 3O C 
 
 4.0" 
 
 10 
 
 aul de Loaxida. 
 
 Scale of English Miles 
 
 100 200 MO 400 SCO 
 
 IB lare figures afford 
 of Area, with that of Gi 
 
 nflish Railways, thus 
 
 German Dutch ... . Portuguese *+* OH TH! SAME SCALE 
 
 ^curtr of Green, - 2O* 
 
 London, StomftriUs Geographical fsfai*
 
 34 a THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 merged itself in the Transvaal Republic, its President, in I.S86, 
 becoming one of the progressive citizens of the Boer community. In 
 1891 no sooner had the pioneers of the Chartered Company occupied 
 Salisbury than an armed body of some four hundred to five hundred 
 Boers appeared on the border at Tuli, claiming that a considerable 
 portion of the country successfully occupied belonged to them. Only 
 by Dr. Jameson's tact and diplomacy on the spot, backed by the 
 loyalty and good faith of the Cape Colony Afrikander, was bloodshed 
 avoided. The Imperial Police had not long ago to be despatched in 
 hot haste to occupy Amatongaland and the strip of coast line south 
 of Delagoa Bay, over which an English Protectorate had been pro- 
 claimed, because there were strong grounds for belief that another 
 invasion of Boers was to take place with the object of acquiring a strip 
 of coast line for President Kruger, from which he could at last shake 
 hands with the German marine on board the German men-of-war. But 
 these successive raids into the territory of a Power which, with a 
 splendid generosity, had handed him back his country after the bitter 
 defeat of Majuba, are not the only contributions of Boer statecraft to 
 the recent evolution of South Africa. For years there has been a 
 constant intrigue to obtain from Portugal by purchase or arrangement 
 either the territory of Delagoa Bay, or a working arrangement, by 
 which the magnificent harbour and the railway thence to the Transvaal 
 border, should be controlled by and placed at the disposal of the South 
 African Republic : a violation of the spirit, if not of the letter, of the 
 MacMahon award. 
 
 Dr. Leyds's journeys to Lisbon have only been defeated by the 
 vigilance of the Foreign Office and Sir Percy Anderson. This intrigue 
 continues, and will never cease until Delagoa Bay is put once and for 
 all beyond the reach of Dr. Leyds and his German allies. A more 
 determined effort on the part of President Kruger to throw off his 
 connexion with Great Britain in favour of Germany has only recently 
 been brought to light by Dr. Jameson's raid. Dr. Leyds's mission to 
 Berlin, the nearly-executed manoeuvre of landing German marines, the 
 German Emperor's telegram, are now matters of common knowledge. 
 But fewer people are aware that Dr. Leyds, when ostensibly going to 
 Berlin to consult an expert on throat diseases, was met on landing at 
 Plymouth by a gentleman, who at once introduced himself as an attache 
 of the German Embassy. So that while two wrongs do not make one 
 right, no one can understand the situation in South Africa who does not
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 343 
 
 appreciate the full irony of President Kruger's arraignment of Dr. 
 Jameson. It is important for Englishmen to realise how intimate the 
 alliance between the Transvaal and Germany had become, and how 
 very cleverly it has worked to the detriment of British influence, 
 British trade, and British manufacturers. Let me adduce some facts, 
 first going back to show that the German policy has been no sudden 
 effort, but a carefully thought out plan, and carried out step by step 
 along an undeviating course. German East Africa is four and a half 
 times, German West Africa four times, the size of Great Britain ; and 
 these two vast expanses have been secured by the dexterity of two 
 German emissaries Dr. Peters and Herr Luderitz, who at first were, 
 need I say, unacknowledged by the German Foreign Office, and merely 
 allowed to pursue their course, until one fine day the German Foreign 
 Office presented credentials of treaties and concessions acquired on 
 behalf of Germany, which rendered any objection on our part almost 
 impossible. We managed, however, to retain Walfisch Bay, the only 
 port of entry into German South-West Africa, where to-day, out of 
 mere good nature, the Cape Colony imposes no duties on the import of 
 German goods. Whether this forbearance should now continue will 
 doubtless be a matter for consideration. Thus Germany, without any 
 pioneering developments, without the expenditure of any sums at all 
 comparable to those expended by Great Britain, with no results to show 
 for the past, and no promise of successful colonisation in the future, has 
 to-day in Africa, south of the Equator, territory larger than the whole of 
 Rhodesia. Her original plan was to connect German South-West 
 Africa with German East Africa, by what might probably have been 
 known as German Central Africa. But the gap has been filled up by 
 the Rhodesia of to-day. From actual observation and residence I can 
 describe Mashonaland and Matabeleland, forming together Southern 
 Rhodesia, as a well-watered, timbered, and fertile land, rich in mineral 
 wealth. What Rhodesia north of the Zambesi is like remains to be 
 seen. There is, however, a plateau of high ground, some 300 miles 
 by 300 miles, which promises well. Altogether, " the British red " 
 covers some 2,000 miles in length by 1,000 miles in breadth, and it is 
 owing to the foresight, determination, and patriotic liberality of one 
 man Mr. Cecil Rhodes that the largest British possession south of 
 the Equator in Africa is not to-day under the German flag. 
 
 In 1886-87 Count Pfeil came out to South Africa, and his intention 
 of proceeding to Buluwayo to obtain from Lobengula a concession of
 
 U4 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 rights in his country became known. But after proceeding as far as 
 Pietersburg, some 200 miles north of Pretoria, he fell ill and returned to 
 Europe. It was the knowledge of Count Pfeil's intention which urged 
 Mr. Rhodes in 1887-88 to hurry on the well-known mission to Lobengula 
 which laid the foundations of the Chartered Company, and secured to 
 Great Britain and to her manufacturers the best and richest portion left 
 open in South Africa. German policy and diplomacy, beginning with 
 the missions of Luderitz, Pfeil, and Dr. Peters, have continued unbroken 
 down to the day on which the German Emperor despatched his telegram. 
 To balance the loss of Rhodesia, Germany has been unceasing in her 
 efforts to displace English influence and English commerce in the 
 Transvaal ; and her efforts have been only too successful. The Govern- 
 ment bank of the Transvaal is largely in German hands, because 
 Germany supplied nearly all the capital. The Dynamite Monopoly, 
 which costs the Mines of the Randt .600,000 per annum more than 
 they should pay, is another German monopoly. The Government 
 contract for lighting electrically the town of Pretoria specifically limited 
 the tenders to four German firms, to the total exclusion not only of 
 English, but even of American firms, who probably are the best 
 manufacturers of electrical plant. 
 
 But the understanding between President Kruger and Germany has 
 perhaps been most successful in manipulations of the Transvaal railways, 
 deliberately contrived to thwart British interests, and hinder British 
 trade. And, as it happens, British interests in this matter coincide with 
 the interests of South Africa as a whole. It is not, as some allege, in 
 the financial operations of the London Stock Exchange, but in the 
 intrigues of the Transvaal Government, that we must look for the causes 
 of disturbance in the peaceful development of South Africa. The 
 railway struggle in South Africa is in the form of a race for the 
 Johannesburg market, and a glance at the map will show what are 
 the British, the Dutch-German, and the Portuguese lines. Given 
 fair play, the English-Colonial lines have the best of it, and hence 
 commenced that series of obstructions to English-Colonial lines, 
 carrying British manufactures to the Johannesburg market, which 
 culminated in President Kruger closing the drifts on the Vaal River to 
 British merchandise, if imported at a Colonial port, and for some weeks 
 utterly blocked the Colonial railway system. His object was to force 
 trade from British Colonial ports and British Colonial railways to his 
 own port at Delagoa Bay and on to his own Dutch-German Railway.
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 345 
 
 This being a clear violation of the 1884 Convention, Mr. Chamberlain 
 sent an ultimatum, with the result that the drifts were opened, and 
 the traffic resumed its normal course. In this case the Cape Colony 
 and the Free State are both indebted to the Imperial Factor. Turning 
 now to the Netherlands Railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay, we 
 find a foreign Company, domiciled in Amsterdam, owning and con- 
 trolling the Transvaal State Railway, thanks to a concession granted 
 by Kruger. The shares or debentures of this Railway Company are 
 largely held by the Transvaal Government, and in my mind there 
 is no doubt that the real control of the policy of the railway is in 
 the President's hands, although, to avoid the provisions of the 1884 
 Convention, it suits his purpose to transfer the apparent control to 
 a corporate body seemingly independent. This foreign Company has 
 also the right to collect all the customs dues on goods imported 
 at Delagoa Bay. The Company first deducts ten per cent, of the 
 customs dues to form part of its sinking fund, and of the sum 
 remaining after this deduction, the Transvaal Government takes 
 eighty-five per cent, and the Company appropriates fifteen. Now, as 
 it has been the settled policy of President Kruger, by his Pretoria- 
 Delagoa Bay line of railway, to isolate his country, and to be 
 independent of British ports as far as possible, the prosperity of the 
 Cape Colony, which depends largely upon the revenue derived by its 
 carrying trade to the Transvaal, is deeply affected. Keen competition 
 has therefore sprung up between the Cape, Natal, and Delagoa Bay, and 
 the question of rates over the lines from these ports is of the most 
 serious moment both to South African and British interests. A local 
 line of forty miles along the Randt. worked for the supplying of coal 
 to the gold mines, is owned by the Company which controls the Delagoa 
 Bay-Pretoria line. By charging the mines the astounding rate of three- 
 pence per ton per mile, the profit earned suffices to pay the interest on 
 the long line to Delagoa Bay, and Mr. Middelberg, the General Director 
 of the Netherlands Railway, in an unguarded moment, stated that as 
 the local coal line (the Boksburg line) paid more than the interest of 
 the two railways, he could, in any struggle with the Cape and Natal, 
 afford to carry goods over the Delagoa Bay line for nothing. An 
 appeal to the Government to take over the railways, was met by 
 Kruger's stock reply that " the independence of the Republic was 
 involved." What can this mean ? unless that the preferential rates 
 levied by the Company would, if levied by the Government, constitute
 
 34 6 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 an infringement of the 1884 Convention ? But Qui facit per aliumfacit 
 per se, and the Government cannot delegate a greater power than it 
 lawfully enjoys. By thus diverting trade to a foreign port and a foreign 
 line, grave injuries are inflicted on British and Cape Colonial interests. 
 It has been publicly advertised in Delagoa Bay that German goods 
 brought in German bottoms to the port would be conveyed to 
 Johannesburg at a special and lower rate ; they could then be put 
 upon the market at a price prohibitive to British competition. 
 
 On the other hand President Kruger replies that he cannot control 
 the railway. But his Government gets eighty-five per cent, out of all 
 the profits available, after a slight deduction paid to sinking fund, and it 
 is incredible that it cannot avert this breach of its treaty obligations. 
 The rebate is given, I believe, on the German railway lines, between 
 the town of manufacture and the port of departure, Hamburg. Again, 
 Mr. Lingham was granted a preferental rate for timber on condition that 
 he disembarked at Delagoa Bay and not at a British Colonial port. As 
 South Africa grows in importance and wealth, it will be seen what good 
 corn the German rat can consume in our Colonial granaries. In par- 
 ticular I would draw attention to these words of Baron von Marschall's 
 recent speech: " We desire to uphold the status quo in Delagoa Bay 
 above all with regard to the territorial sovereignty ; we cherish the same 
 wishes with regard to the ownership (besitzsand) of our railways." 
 
 But these anti-British manipulations of traffic are but symptoms of 
 a general policy. As The Westminster Gazette observes, the German 
 White Book contains a far more serious menace to the independence 
 and integrity of British South Africa than even the Emperor's telegram. 
 In reading the White Book we rub our eyes and ask, Have the English 
 held the Cape for a century ? Do we really export and import seven- 
 eighths of the whole trade of all South Africa ? Did we own the Transvaal 
 and hand it back on certain conditions ? For Baron von Marschall lays 
 down a policy in the Transvaal of maintaining the status quo ; and what 
 is this status quo ? One by which, with the President's aid, a fence is 
 to be set round the Transvaal and the country exploited by a ring of 
 German monopolists ? A status quo by which Government tenders are 
 open only to German firms ? A status quo by which capital floated 
 at Amsterdam and financed at Berlin is to build State railways closed 
 to British trade, since all trade is to be diverted into German steamers 
 disembarking at Delagoa Bay? If this is not the status quo desired 
 by Baron von Marschall there is no force in his contention that German
 
 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 347 
 
 interests block the way to that union of South African States by which 
 they shall agree at least on one policy in respect of their railways, 
 their customs, their posts and telegraphs, and the free interchange of 
 the products of their soil. Such an union has been the aim of English 
 statesmanship from Lord Carnarvon's time to this day, and it is still 
 the aim of progressive Afrikanders in every State. With such an 
 agreement among the South African States, the manufactures of all 
 nations would be put on an equal footing, and in proportion to our 
 excellence of manufacture should we in all certainty have the greatest 
 share of the trade. 
 
 No W9nder, then, that the German Government is for a status quo 
 by which England is boycotted and Germany preferred. Dr. Jameson, 
 who is accused of " British greed," advocated, in his address at the 
 Imperial Institute, not annexation, but only such a commercial 
 federation of the South African States, and Baron von Marschall states 
 that this policy runs counter to German interests. The States of 
 South Africa must never federate for their mutual advantage, since 
 it does not suit Germany, who wishes to continue a monopoly in the 
 Transvaal. And remember that this German policy does not commend 
 itself to the Dutch majority at the Cape. Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr, incensed 
 as he was by Dr. Jameson's attack, never wavered in his preference for 
 England as the guardian Power rather than Germany. He characterised 
 the Emperor's cablegram as mere bluster, and a blunder only likely 
 to raise false hopes in the Transvaal ; adding that if war broke out 
 and Germany lost, in consequence, her South-West African possessions, 
 it would not be an unmixed evil for the Colony. 
 
 The other point in the German White Book that is interesting will 
 be found in reading Despatches 11, 12, and 14: 
 
 TELEGRAM No. u. 
 
 "Berlin, December 31. 1895. 
 
 * "Euer Hochwohlgeboren wollen im Nothfalle die Landung des Seectdler, so 
 
 lange die Unruhen andauern, requiriren. 
 
 ." MARSCHALL. 
 " An den Deutschen Konsul, 
 " Pretoria." 
 
 "Berlin, December 3ist, 1895. 
 
 " Your Excellency is authorised to requisition, as long as the disturbances continue 
 the landing of men from the Seeadler. 
 
 " MARSCHALL. 
 " To the German Consul, 
 
 " Pretoria,"
 
 34 8 THE FATE OF SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 TELEGRAM No. 12. 
 
 "Berlin, December 31. 1895. 
 
 " Euer Hochwohlgeboren ersuche ich, die dortige Regierung sofort hiervon 
 
 in Kenntniss zu setzen und dabei zu bemerken, dass uns ein anderer Weg, fiir 
 
 den Schutz unserer dortigen Reichsangehorigen zu sorgen, nicht zur Verfugung ist. 
 
 " MARSCHALL. 
 
 " An den Deutschen Gesandten, 
 " Lissabon." 
 
 " Berlin, December 3ist, 1895. 
 
 " I request your Excellency to immediately inform the Portuguese Government 
 and to add that we have no other means at our disposal for the protection of our 
 
 subjects on the spot. 
 
 " MARSCHALL. 
 
 " To the German Ambassador, 
 " Lisbon." 
 
 TELEGRAM No. 14. 
 
 " Berlin, December 31. 1895. 
 
 " Die portugiesische Regierung ist um Genehmigung ersucht worden. 
 
 " MARSCHALL. 
 "An das Deutsche Konsulat, 
 " Delagoa Bay." 
 
 " Berlin, December 3 ist, 1895. 
 " The Portuguese Government has been asked to grant permission. 
 
 " MARSCHALL. 
 " To the German Consulate, 
 " Delagoa Bay." 
 
 On the same day, December 3 ist, that the German Consul at Pretoria 
 was informed that German marines were at his disposal in certain 
 eventualities, and the German Agent at Delagoa Bay similar!}' 
 instructed, the consent of Portugal was asked for their landing. 
 Now, the answer from the Portuguese Government to this request 
 that, for humanity's sake (einem auschliesslich humanen Zwecke) 
 solely, Portugal would allow Germany to land troops at Delagoa Bay 
 and send them to Pretoria, did not reach Berlin until the fourth day 
 afterwards, and then only to say that all danger had passed. During 
 the whole of this period the instructions to land marines remained 
 uncancelled, although no permission had been received from Lisbon. 
 
 I have tried to show that the real importance of recent incidents in 
 the Transvaal does not consist in any appreciation of the moral guilt 
 or innocence of those who took part in them : that is a matter for 
 judicial enquiry in the future. The present and greater need is that 
 Great Britain should understand the facts of South Africa, and that 
 South Africa should be convinced of British sympathy. 
 
 F. RUTHERFOORD HARRIS.
 
 THE BALLADE OF THE ANTHROPOID 
 
 ["The Professor represented that it was impossible to carry on the 
 work of the department without the assistance of a demonstrator and 
 a boy." Educational Times .] 
 
 [" Now the roots of the tree go to meet the central fires of the 
 earth ; but in its branches the apes do chatter." Book of Wisdom.'} 
 
 When Man sat high upon a tree 
 Ah, sacred days, before the Fall ! 
 And gibbered of the things to be 
 In accents aboriginal ; 
 Did dreams or visions e'er forestall 
 The time when he should walk, and coy 
 Obsequious at his tail should crawl 
 A Demonstrator and a Boy? 
 
 Majestic mammal ! Now doth he 
 
 Two-footed pace this flying ball ; 
 
 He bleeds the young examinee, 
 
 And scouts the supernatural : 
 
 What matters it to quote St. Paul ? 
 
 Who cares what deeds were done in Troy ? 
 
 Two things are not apocryphal, 
 
 A Demonstrator and a Boy. 
 
 From out the vasty depths of sea 
 The mage of old could spirits call, 
 A task of no utility ; 
 Far wiser he, to dredge and trawl 
 For weeds and shells and fishes small, 
 And summon, should the labour cloy, 
 To range the pickles on the wall 
 A Demonstrator and a Boy. 
 
 Envoy. 
 
 Prince ! In Thy happy, heavenly hall 
 To tune his harp with holy joy 
 Grant him Thy grace ; and therewithal 
 A Demonstrator and a Boy. 
 
 WALTER RALEIGH.
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 
 
 stirring events which have occurred in South Africa, and the 
 fact that those events are indissolubly bound up with the 
 liberties and sentiment of a very large number of British 
 subjects, with the material interests of thousands of shareholders in 
 Europe, and possibly nay, probably with much greater destinies, 
 cause me to think that a short statement of facts may help towards the 
 formation of a just public opinion and a solution of some of the 
 existing difficulties. It may be well for me to state who I am. Born in 
 South Africa, I settled in the South African Republic nearly eight years 
 ago, and in 1892 I helped to form the political association called " The 
 Transvaal National Union," of which I have been the Chairman for a 
 considerable time. I was sent by my associates from Johannesburg 
 to Cape Town a few days before the Jameson incident occurred, and 
 was, therefore, prevented from taking any part in the events which 
 happened at that time. I am precluded, in view of the impending 
 trials in London and Pretoria, from discussing those events ; but as 
 one who, from the first, has been a leader in the struggle for liberty, I 
 conceive it to be my duty to make public the broad facts connected 
 with that struggle, as I find there is still a great deal of misconception 
 prevailing in regard to the situation. The Jameson Raid is an incident 
 which does not affect the rights or the wrongs of the Uitlanders : 
 although it has to some extent become connected with them : I shall, 
 therefore, consider the political situation as it existed before Jameson 
 crossed the frontier : with a view to determining who is responsible 
 for the friction between the Government and the people. 
 
 I find that a good many people think that the Uitlanders have 
 not much to complain of, and that the movement in Johannesburg 
 was caused by a few unscrupulous financiers for purely selfish ends. 
 If this view were permitted to prevail, not only would it affect the 
 liberties of large numbers of Englishmen, Americans, and even 
 Germans, who have striven for simple right, but it might influence 
 the destinies of South Africa for all time ; while it would certainly
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 455 
 
 enable the enemies of England's children to triumph in the future still 
 more than they have done in the past. The fact is that for years the 
 struggle for the simple right to vote has been carried on by the general 
 body of Uitlanders, and their bitterest cry was that the great capitalists 
 " sat on the rail " and refused to help them. Only in '95 did those 
 capitalists join the movement. Yet it is now stated that they " created 
 a situation " for their own ends ! As matter of fact, they threw in their 
 lot in '95 because they were at last satisfied that their material interests 
 were in the gravest danger, and that there was no hope of averting the 
 further results of misgovernment unless combined action were taken. 
 If the capitalists only took an active part in politics in '95, and if they 
 then " created the situation," how comes it that in '92, at a meeting 
 attended by thousands of enthusiastic and eager citizens, the " National 
 Union" was formed by a unanimous vote (the big capitalists not being 
 present) ? Its objects were : (a) " The maintenance of the indepen- 
 dence of the Republic " ; and () " To obtain, by all constitutional 
 means, equal rights for all citizens of this Republic and the redress of 
 all grievances." I had the honour to move the first resolution at the 
 meeting of citizens referred to, in the following terms : 
 
 "That regard being had to the great influx of population into this State, the 
 magnitude of their interests, the fact that the greater portion of the public revenue 
 is contributed by them, while they have no voice in the legislation of the country, 
 that many grievances and abuses call for redress, and that there is reason to fear 
 that exclusion from political rights may develop into a source of weakness and 
 danger to the State, it is desirable to form a Union to obtain political rights and the 
 redress of grievances." 
 
 It was also resolved : 
 
 "That this meeting of the National Union regards the great number of persons 
 who have taken up their abode in this Republic, and who contribute mainly to its 
 support as entitled to participate in the Government, and consider that the right 
 of voting for members of the Legislature and the office of President should be 
 extended to all male white citizens of full age, who have resided for two years in the 
 State, and who occupy or own property, freehold or leasehold, to the value of ^100, 
 ( or who are earning a salary of ,100 per annum." 
 
 It followed as matter of course, under the law, that those who claimed 
 the rights of citizens must take the oath of allegiance and accept the 
 obligations of citizenship, including military service. 
 
 The men who formed that Union were sincere and earnest in their 
 endeavours to secure true equality, to strengthen the Government, to 
 establish confidence and goodwill among all sections of the community,
 
 456 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 
 
 and to guard against the dangers which have threatened, and still 
 threaten, the Republic. But, from the first, the Union was bitterly 
 opposed by Mr. Kruger and the groups of foreign concessionaires who 
 surround him, its every act and word were distorted, and the most 
 unworthy suspicions were sown in the minds of the simple burghers, 
 who are brave, hardy, illiterate, and comparatively uneducated men, 
 animated by a passionate love for independence, and being prone to 
 fear the loss of it only too ready to believe those who are their greatest 
 enemies. It is a striking fact that those who value liberty so much 
 should permit the denial of it to others. 
 
 The Union published in Dutch and circulated amongst the burghers 
 a pamphlet setting out its objects and dealing, in moderate language, 
 with the causes which led to its formation. Mr. Kruger answered by a 
 manifesto so violent and abusive that the Union, desiring moderation, 
 did not deem it wise to translate it to the English-speaking public. 
 Then Mr. Kruger solicited an interview with the leaders of the Union. 
 I was present, and from that day became, and have remained, convinced 
 that he is animated by intense hostility to the Uitlanders and a 
 determination at all hazards to exclude them from a share in the 
 government of the country. During the discussion it was pointed out 
 to him that, if he gave us the vote, the old burghers would still retain a 
 majority in the Legislature, as we Uitlanders were all congregated in 
 two or three districts, and, consequently, we should only be able to 
 elect (say) six members out of twenty-four ; but he was obdurate. He 
 said too that, if we could vote, we would also elect our own President, 
 the election being determined by the majority of votes cast in the 
 whole country. In reply we offered, if he would give us the vote for 
 the Chamber, to leave the right to elect the President in the hands of 
 the Old Burghers for the present, trusting to time to prove our fitness for 
 citizenship in the fullest sense. In vain ! Before that interview ended 
 an interview which I then described as historic he said to us in anger, 
 
 o 
 
 " Go back, and tell your people I will never give them anything. I 
 shall never change my policy ; and now let the storm burst ! " That he* 
 told the truth in anger is manifest from the character of the Acts which 
 he has since caused to be placed on the Statute Book. 
 
 Let me say here that the Union's proceedings were always public ; 
 that all its resolutions were promptly forwarded to the Government ; 
 that never at any time did it do anything unconstitutional. After its 
 formation it steadily pursued the constitutional course : it endeavoured
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 457 
 
 to influence Boer thought by moderate pamphlets ; it held meetings to 
 illustrate the justice of its claims and the danger of denying them ; 
 and it presented petition after petition, couched in respectful, moderate 
 language, to the Volksraad praying for an amelioration of the lot of 
 the Uitlanders. It never was violent or disrespectful. Some seven or 
 eight men in the Raad of higher patriotism and broader views than 
 the others, supported the plea for reforms, but the majority, led always 
 by Kruger, resisted change in our favour, and, as I shall show in detail, 
 passed law after law to make our position worse instead of better. 
 
 In '94 a petition to the Volksraad, signed by thirteen thousand men, 
 was received with "contemptuous laughter and jeers." In '95 a petition 
 signed by thirty-eight thousand men, praying that they might "under 
 reasonable conditions be admitted to the full rights of citizens," was 
 rejected by a majority inspired by Mr. Kruger. A few Liberal 
 members supported the prayer, and spoke, in solemn warning, of the 
 dangers of refusal. Other members opposed it with violence, one 
 (Mr. Otto) saying we should have to fight to get our rights. It must 
 be added that for years we had been deluded by President Kruger 
 with fair words and promises of reforms which were never fulfilled. 
 For instance, in '92 he sent us a written message promising to introduce 
 a measure which would provide for the admission of " trustworthy 
 persons" to the rights of citizenship. The fulfilment of that promise 
 came in '93, when he introduced, and induced the Raad to pass, a law 
 the virtual effect of which was to exclude us all from civic rights for 
 ever ! He had admitted that there were some " trustworthy persons " : 
 yet by his own act he deprived them of the rights he had acknowledged 
 to be theirs a manifest injustice and a breach of faith combined. I 
 may add that on more than one occasion Mr. Kruger had spoken in 
 public of the Uitlanders as if they were a community of thieves and 
 murderers. 
 
 I have dealt at length with the history of the movement in order to 
 show that it proceeded from the great body of the people ; and that it 
 was conducted with eminent moderation. How widely the grievances 
 were felt may be inferred from the readiness of thousands of men, with 
 everything to lose and nothing save liberty and justice to gain, to 
 take up arms, and from the fact that those who assumed the responsi- 
 bilities of leaders of the Reform Movement represented all classes 
 of society. I am not a capitalist, but a plain man, nurtured in the 
 traditions of English liberty, who have made considerable sacrifices fo
 
 458 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 
 
 what I believe to be the right. But I have yet to learn that capitalists 
 are not entitled to agitate for the rights which the poorest man in 
 England enjoys, and I am only concerned to show that there was, to 
 use Mr. Balfour's words, " nothing mean, or sordid, or personal " in the 
 motives which animated the Uitlanders and those leaders who for years 
 had ungrudgingly given their time and labour to the work of achieving 
 liberty. We have a just cause, and it is our duty whatever mistakes 
 may have been made to prevent the real issues from being obscured, 
 and to see that justice is done all round, lest the very gravest conse- 
 quences ensue. 
 
 Let me now turn to the conditions under which we Uitlanders have 
 to live. In '81 England, though smarting under military disaster, gave 
 back the Transvaal to the Boers in terms of a Convention. At that 
 time the Constitution conferred the right to acquire full citizenship after 
 two years' residence. The Convention did not guard against the 
 Republic's altering the "status quo as it was present to the minds of 
 Her Majesty's advisers when they negotiated " it. To Mr. Chamberlain 
 we are indebted for raising the point as to the validity of that change. 
 Indeed, the nation which treated the Boers thus generously could scarce 
 have foreseen that they would so use the powers given to them as, within 
 a few short years, to reduce her sons to the position of helots. 
 
 The Convention stipulated for the right of strangers to enter and 
 reside in the country ; and it must be assumed that this was intended 
 to carry with it the right to acquire civic equality on the basis of the 
 Constitution as it then existed. Nominally carrying out the Conven- 
 tion, the Republic failed to observe the spirit of good feeling and good 
 faith which had, so far as England was concerned, brought it into 
 existence. It made, indeed, the sorriest return for " magnanimity." 
 In '82 the period of residence before acquiring the franchise was 
 increased to five years. After the retrocession, the fortunes of the 
 country were for some time at so low an ebb that at one time the 
 Government was compelled to raise five thousand pounds from a private 
 individual, on mortgage of State lands, at twelve per cent, interest, to 
 pay its civil servants. Then came discoveries of gold, by which a large 
 population was moved to settle the country, and to invest millions 
 sterling in the development of its resources. This development could 
 never have been done by the Boers, who had not the money, nor 
 the enterprise, nor the knowledge for the work. But, then, for the 
 Uitlander, the Transvaal would have been where it was prior to the
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 459 
 
 gold discoveries. Again, the new settlers made their homes and 
 invested their money on the basis of the Constitution as it existed 
 when they came in : i.e., that they could become burghers after five 
 years' residence. Before, however, that time elapsed, the Legislature 
 increased the period of residence from five years to fifteen. In '90 a 
 Second Chamber was created ; and it was provided that Uitlanders 
 could elect members to this Chamber after a two years' residence, and 
 might themselves be eligible for election after four years. This Second 
 Chamber bears no analogy to " Second " Chambers in other countries : 
 it has no powers in relation to taxation, or any other of the vital 
 functions of government ; it does not consider the subjects dealt 
 with by the First Volksraad ; and, having no veto or voice on those 
 subjects, it is absolutely powerless to control such legislation by the 
 First Volksraad as affects the lives, liberties, and properties of the 
 people whom it affects to represent. It has been very useful to its 
 inventors, for the fact that it exists has made the outer world believe 
 that the Uitlander is represented. But its true character and the object 
 of its creation are now so well understood in Africa that it is laughed at 
 as a snare and a delusion. All real power, including the power to levy 
 taxes, is reserved to the First Chamber ; and from this Chamber the 
 Uitlander is virtually excluded for ever, as I shall show. 
 
 Concurrently with the granting of this mockery, Mr. Kruger induced 
 the Raad to enact a law providing that the right to vote for the First 
 Chamber might be acquired by Uitlanders after ten years, and that 
 Uitlanders should become eligible for election to the First Volksraad 
 after fifteen years. It must be remarked that the probationary period 
 only begins to run from the date on which Uitlanders register their 
 names in the Field Cornets' Lists. In other words, if a. man had been 
 in the country (say) ten years, he could not claim the right to vote 
 unless his name had been for ten years on the Lists ; so that he must 
 " serve " for ten years longer, or do without. The law provides that 
 every one coming to reside in the country shall, within fourteen days, 
 enrol his name on the Field Cornets' books, and, failing this, be liable 
 to a fine of thirty shillings. The average man knows nothing about 
 this, and the Government has never enforced the law. The Field 
 Cornet of Johannesburg sees thousands of men round him for years 
 whose names are not on his Lists, yet he says never a word, and some 
 day they find that, as they have not been enrolled, their years of 
 residence count for nothing. The policy is obvious. If after ten
 
 460 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 
 
 years' residence a man comes to claim his vote, the Government will 
 shrug its shoulders and send him away, with the remark that he has 
 failed to comply with the very law which it has carefully abstained from 
 enforcing. The net result is exclusion from citizenship. The word 
 " Naturalisation," in the Transvaal law, does not mean that the person 
 " naturalised " becomes a citizen : it only means that he has renounced 
 his old allegiance, is liable for military service, and has obtained the 
 right to vote for a sham Chamber. 
 
 The worst change in the original status quo occurred in '93. During 
 the Session of that year President Kruger got the Raad to pass a law 
 providing that a man could only get the right to vote for and become a 
 member of the First Chamber ten years after he had become eligible 
 for election to the Second Chamber. Now, as the law stipulates that 
 no one can be a member of the Second Chamber until he is thirty 
 years of age, it follows that no man could get these rights until he has 
 reached the age of forty, even if he got over the other barriers that 
 have been erected. To get the right to sit in the Second Chamber, he 
 must have taken the oath of allegiance, and this would mean that 
 during twelve years, before he could possibly become a member of 
 the First Chamber, he would be debarred from the enjoyment of full 
 citizens' rights in any state. He would, in short,' get only the right 
 to sit in a sham Chamber and be liable to military service. But, 
 even if he chose to climb this ladder to freedom, he would find at 
 the end that he could not vote for the offices of President and 
 Commandant-General. Can any one doubt that this means virtually 
 exclusion an affectation of giving that which is really denied ? 
 
 At this time there was some hope that the coming election, of twelve 
 new members, would result in the return of men who might reverse Mr. 
 Kruger's policy. To guard against this Mr. Kruger got the Volksraad 
 to insert the following clause in the Act of 1893 : "Extension of the 
 electoral right cannot occur unless a proposal to that effect has been 
 published in the Staats Courant for the period of one year, and at least 
 two-thirds of the said enfranchised burghers have by memorials declared 
 themselves in favour of it." Enfranchised burghers arc those alone who 
 acquired the right of citizenship before '90, or their offspring ! Now, all 
 legislation is, as matter of fact, initiated by the Government the 
 introduction of private bills being unknown ; and it follows that the 
 Government, under this clause, again laid hands on what is virtually 
 the right of preventing any change in a liberal direction. Moreover, it
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 461 
 
 is impossible to suppose that, even if other difficulties could be got over, 
 the consent of two-thirds of the burghers could ever be obtained. The 
 manifest intention of the Raad was to shut its doors for ever.* At last 
 President Kruger was safe, you \yould have thought ? Not so ! In '94 
 he spoke in favour of the Raad's enacting that Uitlander children, born 
 on Transvaal soil, should not enjoy the franchise unless their fathers 
 had taken the oath of allegiance ; and, accordingly, this wish of his 
 became law. 
 
 My readers will probably be astonished to learn that all this 
 legislation was passed by a Volksraad numbering twenty-four members. 
 It therefore follows that thirteen men may control the destinies of 
 a country which is as large as France, and in which two-thirds of 
 the population have no voice ! I need scarce denote the dangers 
 resulting from the smallness in number of the men to be influenced 
 in regard to any measure before the House. It is worthy of mention, 
 however, that in '95 the Raad passed a resolution in favour of increasing 
 the number of its members (to be elected by the Boers, of course) ; 
 and that Mr. Kruger had the assurance, after the prorogation speech, to 
 incorporate in a farewell discourse an almost tearful appeal to members 
 not to push the resolution not to increase the voting strength of the 
 Raad : which shows the value which he sets upon a small and pliable 
 Legislature. 
 
 The whole scheme, which is ingenious and complex, amounts to 
 this : The Uitlander must take an oath of allegiance tw r o years after 
 being registered in the Field Cornets' Lists, if he is ever to look for 
 citizens' rights; it is virtually impossible for him ever to get those 
 rights ; from the time of taking the oath he becomes liable to military 
 service ; and if he declines this one-sided bargain, his children are denied 
 their birth-right. This means that the Boers, and their descendants, 
 shall constitute a privileged caste for all time, enjoying all political 
 power, and controlling the destinies of those who have made their 
 country for them, and are superior to them in numbers, wealth, culture, 
 and enterprise. Contrast with this the liberal institutions of the Cape 
 Colony. A Transvaal burgher could go to that Colony ; and, by 
 merely applying to be made a British citizen, publishing his intention 
 in the Gazette, taking the oath of allegiance, and paying a small fee 
 
 * The Government was, however, care'ul to reserve to itself the power to admit to full 
 citizenship any person whom it might deem desirable to admit a power which has been used, 
 I believe, but never in favour of the Uitlander class. 
 
 Vol. XIV. No. 83. 2 H
 
 462 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 
 
 of office a few shillings he could be admitted to all the privileges 
 of citizenship. Contrast it, too, with the law of the Dutch Orange 
 Free State, where a stranger can get full citizenship after two years' 
 residence. 
 
 Xow, I have no hesitation in saying that for all these, and some 
 other Acts against liberty, President Kruger is primarily responsible. 
 His will has been supreme ever since his assumption of office ; without 
 his approval none of these measures could ever have become law ; and 
 it is essential that this be steadily borne in mind. The idea has been 
 carefully diffused that Mr. Kruger is a liberal-minded statesman, who 
 is always being prevented from carrying reforms by a reactionary 
 Legislature. I challenge him, as I challenge his supporters, to produce 
 the record of one single utterance of his against these measures. 
 When, too, it is remembered apart from other proofs that all 
 legislation is initiated by the Government of which he has been both 
 head and body, it is impossible for the public to discharge him of his 
 grave and indubitable responsibility. No : to Mr. Kruger's policy, 
 and to the administration and operation of the laws for which he is 
 responsible, must be attributed, without hesitation, the exasperation 
 and the abiding sense of wrong which have so moved a community of 
 peaceful citizens ; and only by a complete reversal of that policy can 
 permanent peace and prosperity be assured. 
 
 Let us now turn to the consideration necessarily brief of the 
 relative conditions of Boer and Uitlander. The official handbook 
 issued by the Transvaal Government puts the Boer male population 
 (which includes boys of sixteen) at twenty-five thousand. The male 
 Uitlander population may, I think, be fairly put at fifty thousand. 
 There is no census to guide us ; but we have the fact, that in '95 a 
 petition for the franchise was signed by thirty-two thousand five hundred 
 residents in the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) district alone. It is fair 
 to assume that considerable numbers did not sign it owing to absence, 
 want of opportunity, and the like. If, then, we add these to the 
 Uitlanders in the other gold-bearing districts Barberton, Lydenburg, 
 Klerksdorp, Potchefstroom, &c. the total may fairly be taken at fifty 
 thousand Uitlanders against twenty-five thousand burghers. All the 
 burghers are farmers, living on isolated steadings, hating cities and 
 city ways, able to read and write, but not much more, and reading only 
 newspapers, which to a large extent have persisted in misleading them, 
 and in fomenting race-hatred for selfish ends. (There is one noble
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 463 
 
 exception, Land en Volk : it has done splendid work in the cause of just 
 administration.) They are not gifted with the energy and the habits of 
 work born of older societies, where competition has been keen ; they 
 have had the run of admirable markets for their produce ; they enjoy a 
 practical immunity from taxation ; they love their independence 
 ardently, and are ready to defend it with their lives ; they are kindly 
 natured people, trusting utterly where they have learned to trust ; but 
 they are slow of speech and thought, and they are suspicious of 
 strangers. Their dominant fear is for their independence ; and it is by 
 playing on this fear that President Kruger has kept himself in power. 
 And now, by the irony of fate, he is able to point to consequences 
 which, but for his policy, would never have occurred, and to justify to 
 the Boer, who does not analyse, that policy by those consequences ! It 
 is a strange juggle, but it is a juggle after his own heart. 
 
 The Boers own about half the farms in the Transvaal, having sold 
 the other half to Uitlanders. The Uitlanders own half the land, then, 
 with all the mines and machinery, and the bulk of the town properties. 
 Also, they carry on all the trades, except the agricultural and pastoral 
 industries, which are in the hands of the Boers. It is computed that 
 they and those whom they represent in Europe, own nine-tenths of the 
 aggregate value of property in the State. The Boer levies all the taxes ; 
 the Uitlander pays nearly all the taxes. The Boer knows very little 
 from books, and what he has gained by experience of business relates 
 only to stock-breeding and agriculture. Yet he legislates by Divine 
 Right on all the intricate questions raised by a complex modern 
 civilisation, which has come upon him almost as suddenly as if it had 
 dropped from the moon. In this legislation he is assisted by advisers 
 from Europe whose methods and whose ideas of liberty are distinctly 
 Continental ; yet he wonders that men do not think the effect satis- 
 factory, and calmly suggests that dissatisfied people i.e., the whole 
 Uitlander population should leave the country in which they have 
 been induced to invest their fortunes. He invites strangers to settle 
 and invest under promise of political partnership after a definite time ; 
 and then, when they have struck root in the soil, and cannot get away 
 without ruin, he refuses the partnership ! What are the results ? It 
 seems ridiculous, in the nineteenth century, to have to state to free 
 people the proposition that taxation and representation go together. 
 But it will be well, I think, to state the Uitlander grievances : 
 
 (ist) Taxation in Excess of the Needs of Government. Prior to the
 
 464 THE CASE FOR THE U1TLANDERS 
 
 last financial year Government had a surplus of one million sterling. 
 The financial year now drawing to a close will, it is believed, produce a 
 revenue of over three millions and a surplus of about one million 
 sterling. The total surplus, therefore, will be two million sterling. 
 What this accumulation means to the Transvaal Government is only 
 to be guessed at ; but men say it is for purposes connected with the 
 Delagoa Bay Railway, and with territorial aggrandisement, at the same 
 time that (it is alleged) there is at this moment four hundred and fifty 
 thousand pounds (all Uitlander money) in Europe to be used for secret 
 ends, as to which, whatever their nature, the Uitlander has no say. 
 
 (2nd) Class Taxation. One instance is the Stamp Receipt Law. 
 Only the commercial man (i.e., the Uitlander) is compelled to stamp a 
 receipt the Boer escapes. Another is the recent tax of twenty pounds 
 a year on farms held by companies, syndicates, or partnerships. The 
 Boer holds his land as an individual and escapes. 
 
 (3rd) Unnecessary Taxation on the Necessaries of Life by Means of 
 Import Dues. The articles selected for heavy taxation are those which 
 the Uitlander must use, and which either are not produced or are 
 insufficiently produced in the Transvaal. Flour pays seven shillings 
 and sixpence per one hundred pounds ; mealies, five shillings a bag ; 
 bacon, ham, and butter, one shilling a pound ; eggs, sixpence a 
 dozen ; and so on. These taxes, and the absence of State-aided 
 education in the English language, make it hard for workmen to keep 
 families in the Transvaal. Many of the married men leave their 
 families in England ; while single men stay single. In this way men 
 are compelled to accept conditions undesirable from every point of 
 view ; morality and the State suffer ; and the Government is able to 
 describe the workers as belonging to a floating population, not 
 entitled to civic rights. Do you see the relation of cause and 
 effect, and the use that is made of the effect ? Assuredly no want 
 of revenue can be alleged in justification of this taxation of food- 
 stuffs. A working man, with seven children, told me a short time ago 
 that his breakfast on the previous Sunday consisted of two pounds 
 of ham and some bread, butter, and tea, and that the import dues on 
 it amounted to two shillings and ninepence. He added, that he " was 
 
 d d if he would stand it " : a sentiment which should have many 
 
 echoes in this land of the Free Breakfast Table. 
 
 The Uitlanders further complain of reckless expenditure and no 
 efficient control over public moneys. A large Secret Service Fund is
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 465 
 
 a conspicuous feature in the cost of the Administration. Again, the 
 system of concessions and monopolies has operated to the great 
 prejudice of the country. The railways are held by a foreign Company 
 (it is domiciled in Amsterdam) under a Concession, and are made the 
 means of the greatest extortion. It has been admitted by the Company's 
 Manager that a short coal line forty mites in length is paying more 
 than enough to cover the interest on the whole system, of several 
 hundreds of miles. This Concession vests in a foreign Company 
 the power to influence Uitlander affairs, both internal and external, 
 to an incalculable extent. The recent '' Drifts " question illustrated the 
 spirit which animates both the Government and the Company. The 
 diversion of trade to Delagoa Bay, the crippling of British colonies, the 
 fostering of foreign commerce these ends are kept steadily in view. 
 To compass them, the gold mining industry is made to pay extor- 
 tionate rates for the carriage of coal : in order that the Netherlands 
 Company may carry goods over the Delagoa Bay section of the line 
 at rates which will destroy all chance of Cape and Natal competition, 
 and yet enable it to pay. For it is beyond a doubt that, if the Cape 
 Colony were unable to pay the interest on its lines, and were hampered 
 by hostile tariffs on its produce, it would speedily be reduced to what 
 even Mr. Kruger might deem a " reasonable " frame of mind. 
 
 A Dynamite Concession held by a German group is costing the 
 mining industry six hundred thousand pounds per annum ; and the 
 impost will increase with the increased use of the material. 
 
 It has been calculated that the amount exacted from the Uitlanders 
 under three heads, viz., unnecessary taxation, railway rates, and dynamite, 
 is equal to five shillings per ton on the ore milled on the Rand. There are 
 millions of tons of ore which could be worked at a profit on this margin, 
 which cannot be worked now ; and, where companies are working, it is 
 clear that this sum could be added to dividends. Moreover, the opening 
 out of new mines would necessarily mean the support and the employ- 
 ment of a largely increased population : a consummation devoutly to be 
 avoided, lest the Uitlander should grow too strong ! 
 
 There are many Concessions besides. We only just escaped one on 
 cyanide a most important requisite a monopoly on which was lost by 
 one vote. 
 
 The Silati Railway examples how completely our interests are at 
 the mercy of our rulers. A young country, having boundless resources, 
 grants a group of foreigners the concession to build. The Legislature 
 
 2 If 2
 
 466 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDEKS 
 
 assents to the country's being made guarantor for the capital to be 
 raised for building purposes, with interest thereon, and entrusts the 
 Government with the power to fix the terms. The Government 
 consents to a scheme by which the promoters have only to account for 
 seventy pounds for every hundred-pound obligation issued, and may 
 take for themselves everything subscribed in excess of seventy pounds. 
 They take the Government credit to the Continent, issue at seventy- 
 seven pounds, and pocket seven pounds on every hundred-pound 
 obligation. The sums run to seven figures, and the country is made 
 liable for one hundred pounds against only seventy pounds received ! 
 One member of the Raad gets a large interest in this Concession, and 
 about this time distributes carriages to other members an act the 
 President stoutly defends as moral. The money should have been 
 raised at something near par by the State, and the railway should 
 have been built by and controlled for the people. Yet this is the way 
 some Continental " interests " are created in the Transvaal. 
 
 Johannesburg has been steadily refused those municipal powers 
 which are indispensable to the preservation of health and order. 
 Indeed, the sole " reforms " which Mr. Kruger has, up to the present, 
 shown any intention of carrying are embodied in a draft Act for the 
 government of the city, which is more unacceptable than the existing 
 law, together with a Press Law framed on German lines. The liberty 
 of the Press and the right of public meeting have been placed on a very 
 unsound footing by President Kruger. He has described the Uitlander 
 claim to the franchise as " preposterous," and his henchman, Dr. Leyds, 
 speaking at Amsterdam in February, '96, confirmed my view of the 
 President's policy. "We (i.e., the Transvaal Government) will not (he 
 said) forbid foreigners from coming into the country to make money, but 
 we will not permit intervention in the government of the country." 
 Being interpreted, this means that the Uitlander may go on developing 
 the country and enriching the Government and the burghers, but that 
 he shall never have a vote. 
 
 Only Boers, or those who have taken the oath of allegiance, can be 
 jurors. Now, as I have shown, the Government has made it unprofitable 
 and impossible for Uitlanders to take the oath ; so that, by an effect 
 of reaction, they are deprived of the privilege of being tried by their 
 "peers." In '94 an attempt was made to reduce the High Court to a 
 position subordinate to the Government ; and there have since been 
 several cases of attempted interference by the Legislature with the 
 jurisdiction of the Court.
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 467 
 
 Education by means of English has virtually been denied to those 
 who provide the Republic with nearly all its revenue, and Johannesburg 
 has had to lay itself under voluntary contribution to establish its own 
 Department of Education. 
 
 Police protection is quite insufficient. Glaring crimes have com- 
 monly gone undetected and unpunished. Only burghers or naturalised 
 people may be policemen, and they know little of the wiles of clever 
 criminals. The latest development is the formation of a German corps 
 of police, a small standing army for the repression of Englishmen and 
 the protection of German concessionaires. 
 
 There have been many gross cases of dishonesty in the public 
 service some notorious, and allowed to go unpunished which could 
 never have occurred under an honest Government ; while the bribery of 
 officials has been frequent. 
 
 Lastly, there have been constant plots by certain groups of men 
 against the security of titles ; and officials have been associated in 
 schemes to secure to predatory individuals property rightly belonging 
 to Uitlanders or to the State. 
 
 Official recognition is denied to English in the Courts which 
 greatly increases the cost of procedure in the Public Offices, and in 
 the Railway Service. This, though two-thirds of the people speak 
 English only, and the great bulk of the business done relates to 
 English people. 
 
 An attempt was made in '94 to compel Englishmen to render 
 military service, in the absence of civic rights ; and five men were 
 imprisoned for declining on principle to serve. The Uitlanders very 
 properly said : " Give us equality in right as well as in obligation." 
 
 The President's policy has been gradually to exclude the Uitlanders 
 from all chance of taking part in the Government, to curtail freedom of 
 speech, and to destroy the liberty of the Press. The pursuit of it has 
 necessarily led him on to adopt the policy of force ; and it can scarce be 
 wondered at that Englishmen decline to accept the prospect of being 
 dragooned into submission to the grossest injustice. Nor is it at all 
 astonishing that in the end veiled threats of alliance with Germany, an 
 open preference to German trade, the importation of German guns, the 
 proposed building of forts, exasperated a set of men who had always 
 been obedient to the law, and who asked for nothing but justice and 
 good government. Indeed it was time. Before the Policy of Force was 
 fully revealed, there had come the menace of a piece of legislation in 
 
 J81710
 
 4 68 THE CASE FOR THE U1TLANDERS 
 
 keeping with the whole tyranny. The Volkstem, a. newspaper subsidised 
 by a group of Amsterdam financiers and politicians, proposed to invest 
 the Government with powers to declare a man guilty of sedition and to 
 banish him the country, without trial by the Courts. This proposal 
 found favour, and legislation on these lines was to be attempted next 
 Session. 
 
 The new draft Press Law, published as one of President Kruger's 
 "reforms" after the recent troubles, clearly illustrates the spirit of his 
 Government. Its main features arc these: 
 
 (rt) All articles of a political or personal nature must be signed by 
 the writer ; 
 
 (b) The President (with the advice of the Executive) may at any 
 
 time prohibit, entirely or temporarily, the dissemination of 
 foreign publications which are, in his opinion, contrary to good 
 morals or dangerous to peace and order ; 
 
 (c) Any one who is guilty through the Press of a " libel, slander, 
 
 public violation of decency, or instigates to a punishable 
 offence, shall be punished with a fine not exceeding two 
 hundred and fifty pounds, or with imprisonment not exceeding 
 one year." 
 
 (d) " This laiv does not apply to publications made on behalf, or by 
 
 order of, or witJi consent of the Government" 
 
 In respect of the last extraordinary provision it is fair to add that it is 
 notorious that the Government subsidises journals, and the State 
 Secretary once defended this course by the startling statement 
 that " As soon as journals wrote in favour of the Government the}' 
 became unpopular, and therefore it was just to compensate them." 
 Under Mr. Kruger's Act such journals might publish anything about 
 anybody, and incur no responsibility ; but the independent journal 
 would not dare to expose an abuse, as it would be debarred from 
 pleading the truth and the public good. Now, in '81 the Constitution 
 guaranteed the liberty of the Press. Here is another change in the 
 status quo another infringement of the rights of Englishmen, as 
 secured under treaty. 
 
 I append a schedule showing what the Uitlanders protested against 
 at a meeting held in '94. I am prepared, when required, to amplify and 
 prove what I have here set down in outline. I think it will be apparent 
 from what has been said :
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 469 
 
 () That the troubles in Johannesburg were not created by 
 capitalists in '95 for speculative purposes, but proceeded from 
 a deep-seated and a widespread sense of wrong and danger, to 
 which the great body of inhabitants was keenly alive as far 
 back as '92 ; 
 
 (V) That this sense of wrong is well founded, regard being had to 
 the laws which have been passed, and are in contemplation, to 
 interfere with the elementary rights of citizenship the right to 
 representation, a free Press, free speech, and fair education ; 
 
 (c) That the administration has been hostile, inefficient, and unjust, 
 while there has been great corruptness ; 
 
 (*/) That the fiscal policy of the Government is inconsistent with 
 public rights, while its general policy is fraught with danger 
 not only to Englishmen but to the peace of South Africa ; 
 
 (e) That President Kruger is primarily and mainly responsible for 
 this condition of affairs ; 
 
 (/) That foreign interests, as opposed to English interests, and 
 foreign connexions, as opposed to English connexions, are 
 being unduly fostered, and are used to strengthen Mr. Kruger 
 in his policy of hostility to England ; 
 
 (,) That, apart from mere policy, the burden placed on the 
 Uitlanders' shoulders by means of monopolies and conces- 
 sions is most serious, and is very detrimental to the interests 
 of those who have invested their capital in the Transvaal ; 
 
 (K) That nothing but the franchise and radical reform can be 
 satisfactory ; 
 
 (z) That the rights of Englishmen have of set purpose been 
 destroyed by legislative acts in breach of the Convention 
 which gave back the country to the Boers ; 
 
 (/) That there is no sign of any intention on Mr. Kruger's part to 
 grant reforms. 
 
 Are there not substantial reasons to justify the Uitlanders in raising 
 their voices? If not, we have worked in vain, and Liberty is naught. 
 In brief, the position is this : the Boers are uneducated and suspicious ; 
 they dislike taxation, and love an unfettered life ; they have had a 
 struggle with Englishmen, and fear the loss of Independence. President 
 Kruger knows their weaknesses, and plays on them, with a view to 
 keeping himself in power and to. injure Englishmen and England. To 
 assist him in his policy he grants concessions to foreigners, and creates
 
 47 o THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 
 
 " interests " for foreigners, with the object of playing off their Govern- 
 ments against England in the event of interference on the part of 
 England. (The Boers would hate German rule as they would English 
 (or worse) ; and in pursuing his policy Mr. Kruger may give the 
 German a dangerous footing.) Englishmen respect the Boer, and have 
 no desire to interfere with his flag ; but they resent the hostility of 
 the Boer Government and Volksraad ; ask but fair play and protection 
 for their liberties and properties ; and are angered at the fact of 
 foreigners assisting President Kruger to coerce them. The Boers fear 
 the loss of Independence, and ground their refusal of political equality 
 on this fear. Assure them against this, and they can no longer, 
 honestly or reasonably, persist in this refusal. 
 
 Nothing short of admission to full civic rights can be satisfactory. 
 Inequality in a Republic is inconsistent with Republicanism. Artificial 
 division of the people into two classes is what we have always striven 
 against. Such division must result, sooner or later, in disaster. Nothing 
 but the power to take part in the administration of the Transvaal will 
 ever content the English Uitlander. He feels as he has good reason 
 to feel that there is no safety in mere economic reforms or concessions ; 
 that promises and understandings coming into existence to-day will be 
 evaded to-morrow ; and that there will never be security until he is 
 represented. 
 
 England, by her recent action, has assumed the obligation to see 
 that the Uitlanders' grievances are removed, and the Uitlanders look 
 with confidence to Mr. Chamberlain to discharge that obligation. 
 Apart from the special trust thus undertaken, it is clear that England 
 has the right to protect her citizens. If Germany asserts the right 
 to prevent a change in the status quo as it existed when she concluded 
 a treaty of commerce with the Transvaal, how much stronger a right 
 is England's to insist on the restoration of the Constitution to the 
 terms of '81, when she stipulated that her citizens should have the right 
 of settlement ! She certainly has the right, as she certainly lies under 
 the obligation, to put an end to conditions which may at any moment 
 plunge South Africa into a racial war. How great the danger of this 
 is may be indicated by the resolution of the Orange Free State 
 Legislature to assist the Transvaal with military force, whether to resist 
 invasion or to suppress disturbance. If the Uitlanders should be driven 
 to make another struggle for liberty as they certainly will in the 
 absence of radical reforms there can be no doubt that the march
 
 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 471 
 
 of Free State troops against them would be the signal for the English- 
 speaking people in Natal and Cape Colony to rush to their aid. They 
 would say (very naturally) that if the Free State Dutchmen have the 
 right to help the Transvaal Dutchmen because they are of common 
 race, they also, being Cape Colony and Natal Englishmen, have the 
 right to help Transvaal English more especially in view of the fact 
 that they are oppressed. 
 
 It is clear that the Transvaal Question must be considered in relation 
 to the whole of South Africa. The steady consolidation of Dutch 
 interests, and the undoubted support of those interests by foreigners as 
 against Englishmen, constitute " a grave menace to peace. We have 
 tried, in vain, by conciliation and moderate conduct, to alter 
 Mr. Kruger's policy. We have failed ; and we are powerless. And 
 unless the Paramount Power insists on righting the wrong, the position 
 of the Transvaal Englishman will become intolerable. Already I hear 
 that many are resolved to leave. Nothing would better please the 
 Boers and their foreign allies. But there are thousands who cannot 
 leave without being ruined, and who cannot remain except as political 
 serfs. The honour of England is involved in the fate of these her 
 children ; and I refuse to believe that an appeal to that honour can be 
 made in vain. 
 
 Shelving the question, or merely plastering the sores, can only lead 
 to the direst consequences. There should be no reason why Boers and 
 Britons should not pull together in the Transvaal, as they do in the 
 Cape Colony. The British earnestly desire to do so ; all they want, 
 besides, is to be relieved from injustice and to avoid the shedding of 
 blood. Is it not possible that a way out may be found? The Boer's chief 
 fear is for his independence. Remove that fear and he may be willing 
 to enter into new and happier arrangements. If he still refuse, then he 
 is unreasonable. May I venture to suggest the negotiation of a new 
 treaty, the main heads of which should be these ? 
 
 (1) The recognition of Great Britain as the Paramount Power in 
 
 South Africa ; 
 
 (2) The guarantee to the South African Republic of territorial 
 
 integrity, and complete autonomy in internal affairs ; 
 
 (3) The inclusion of Swaziland in the Republic ; 
 
 (4) The granting of citizens' rights to all foreigners upon a reason- 
 
 able and for a specified time unalterable basis, fair represen- 
 tation being secured by redistribution ;
 
 472 THE CASE FOR THE UITLANDERS 
 
 (5) The placing of the High Court in an unassailable position of 
 
 independence ; 
 
 (6) Liberty of the Press ; the right of public meeting for all lawful 
 
 purposes ; education ; and reasonable concessions to the 
 English language ; 
 
 (7) The removal of religious disabilities. 
 
 If the State would take over the railways, as it has the right to do, 
 secure free trade in all South African products, and adjust railway 
 matters on a reasonable basis, the election of the President might be 
 left in the hands of the present electpratc, for a period to be agreed 
 upon, as a compromise. Perfect equality in trade should be secured to 
 all nations. This should satisfy foreigners that there is no desire to 
 place them at a disadvantage ; and it seems to me that a fair considera- 
 tion of the facts should convince them all, as it has already convinced 
 the French, that reform would be to the highest interest of them all. 
 
 As a South African born, I earnestly hope that a solution, wise and 
 just to all, may be found, and that a grave may be dug for all old 
 animosities. 
 
 CHARLES LEONARD.
 
 THE MOTHER OF JOHN 571 
 
 bespattered his face and the glass shivered into splinters on the fender. 
 He swore at her and raised his hand. She caught up a knife. 
 
 " Put it down," he said. 
 
 " I won't," she answered him. 
 
 " You're behaving like a mad thing." 
 
 " I am mad. You've done it. I was all right before. What did you 
 want to come and tempt me to sin for, you devil ! " He laughed. 
 " I hope some one will treat your sister as you've treated me," she said. 
 
 " I haven't a sister." 
 
 " You wouldn't care if you had." 
 
 " Damn me ! I don't believe I should." 
 
 " What was your mother? She couldn't ha' been a woman . . . . 
 Get away." She flourished the knife, and he retreated. " Now, you 
 coward ! " she said. " I will tell you what your mother was." 
 
 " Go on," he said. " I don't care a damn about my mother, either. 
 I don't care a damn for anything in heaven, or earth, or hell, except 
 myself .... Hark ! " 
 
 He held up a finger and listened. The wind swept by, and a few 
 twigs, snapped from their parent branches by the rain, rattled on the 
 gravel of the garden. There was no other sound. He crossed over to 
 the window and stepped out. The moonlight was on the laurels and 
 the flowers. He looked about, but there was no one. The garden gate 
 stood open. 
 
 Alice Shallers sobbed out her heart in the room behind him ; he 
 could hear the sound of her weeping. Adown the lane his mother, 
 blind with tears, was running through the mire and mist, away from 
 him. He stood, bareheaded, under the stars, and was not ashamed. 
 
 EDWIN PUGH. 
 
 2 P 2
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S INHERITANCE 
 
 " Few, as you say, will now be found to agree with me in this view. Few, I fear, in 
 this generation. But unless my countrymen are much changed, they will some 
 day do me justice. I shall not leave a name to be permanently dishonoured." 
 Sir BARTLE FRERE to Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, Colonial Secretary, 
 September 22nd, 1879. 
 
 " Can a man who, on a distant and exposed frontier, surrounded by difficulties, with 
 invasions of Her Majesty's territories threatening on several points, assumes a 
 responsibility, guided by many circumstances which he can neither record nor 
 remember as they came hurrying on one after the other, be fairly judged of in 
 respect to the amount of responsibility he assumes by those who, in the quiet 
 of distant offices in London, know nothing of the anxieties or nature of the diffi- 
 culties he had to encounter." Sir GEORGE GREY on his recall, 1860. 
 
 " Most of the mistakes in our government of South Africa have been caused by the 
 fatal tendency to try and govern it from England. There, as elsewhere, the 
 English Government has too often failed to place due confidence in its own 
 representatives. It has listened to one-sided evidence and doctrinaire views, and 
 has overruled or recalled Governors and High Commissioners, men of its own 
 choice, who had every qualification for forming a just judgment on the scene of 
 action, where alone a just judgment could be formed. The consequence has 
 been a weak and vacillating policy. It has been this vacillating policy, the 
 fear, founded on sad experience, that the English Government could not be 
 depended upon to stand by its own word, and support its own officers, which has 
 alienated loyal men, both white and black, and has been, and continues to this 
 day to be, the abiding cause of confusion, strife, and bloodshed." The Biography 
 of the late Sir Bartle Frere, by John Martineau. 
 
 "A puppy dog in Bond Street or Fleet Street is bigger and stronger than any 
 elephant in Africa." Sir BARTLE FRERE to Mr. R. W. HERBERT, June 27th, 
 J?79- 
 
 EVERY Conservative firmly believes that our present troubles in 
 South Africa are the absolute harvest of Mr. Gladstone's abject 
 surrender to the Boers in 1881. That Mr. Gladstone's share of 
 responsibility is great and grave will not be seriously contested, "but 
 this article will show, I think, that what is known as the surrender of 
 Majuba Hill was only the crowning folly of an interminable series of 
 follies perpetrated by the Colonial Office and by Parliament, whichever 
 party happened to be in power, almost since the day that we established
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S INHERITANCE 573 
 
 ourselves in South Africa. As Sir Bartle Frerc said of the Pretoria 
 Convention, in a letter dated July 25th, 1881 : " If the gunpowder was 
 laid by the late (Conservative) Government, the match was applied by 
 the present (Radical)." * It is not, then, with a view to indulge in 
 party recriminations that these pages painful to write and equally 
 painful, as I hope, to read have been penned. Indeed such indulgence 
 would be impossible even if it were desirable. Dishonours are about 
 equally divided. Second in responsibility to Mr. Gladstone if second 
 he be stands the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was 
 Colonial Secretary during the latter years of Lord Beaconsfield's 
 Administration ; third in order of condemnation must be placed the 
 distinguished soldier who is now Commander-in-Chief, who neither 
 troubled himself to master the mysteries of the problem he was sent 
 out to solve, nor consulted the one man, Sir Bartle Frere, who had 
 the keys in his keeping ; and, as if to make the division of blame 
 dramatically complete, it was a conspicuous member of the present 
 Unionist Party, Mr. Leonard Courtney, who in conjunction with the 
 late Mr. Dillwyn, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, and others, drafted the memorial 
 which led to the shameful betrayal of Sir Bartle Frere. f 
 
 But if recrimination be impossible and unprofitable, there is at least 
 one justification for digging in the debris and rubbish of ancient history. 
 When we find ourselves marking time before a dead wall, or floundering 
 in a morass, it is not a very recondite inference that we have lost our 
 way, and we may have a deal of tiresome work in uncovering our 
 tracks and finding at what point we diverged from the highway. 
 Truth to say, we have not often been on the strait and narrow path 
 in South Africa. And when at times we have found it or blundered on 
 to it, we have strayed from it with the utmost promptitude. It is 
 difficult to divine what views earlier British Governments held with 
 regard to the future of South Africa. The capture of Cape Town in 
 1795 was an incident of our war with France : the place was restored 
 
 * The quotations throughout this article will be taken, except where otherwise stated, from 
 The Transvaal Trouble, Hc-w it Arose : being an Extract from the Biography of the late Sir 
 Bartle Frere, by John Martineau. Mr. John Murray has rendered a public service by issuing 
 this most painful but most indispensable extract at a popular price. 
 
 t As Frere's biographer truly says : " A more cynically candid document, perhaps, never was 
 penned." It is short enough to give in its entirety : " To the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 
 M.P., First Lord of the Treasury. We, the undersigned members of the Liberal Party, 
 respectfully submit that as there is a strong feeling throughout the country in favour of the recall 
 of Sir Battle Frere, it would greatly conduce to the unity of the party, and relieve many members 
 from the charge of breaking their pledges to their constituents, if that step were taken."
 
 574 -W/f. CHAMBERLAINS INHERITANCE 
 
 to the Dutch under the short-lived Peace of Amiens, and was again 
 occupied by us in 1806, since which date Great Britain has been 
 recognised as the paramount Power in South Africa. Presumably the 
 Imperial Government held, as Mr. Worsfold says in his very valuable 
 work on South Africa, that " it was necessary to prevent a point of 
 such strategical importance forming a convenient base from which 
 India and the Indian trade could be attacked from falling into the 
 hands of France."* But if it regarded Cape Town as an invaluable 
 strategic stronghold, it strangely neglected to give practical effect to 
 its views. When Sir Bartle Frere arrived at Cape Town in 1877, 
 though we had been in occupation of the settlement for over seventy 
 years, " he found that there was not a single gun of modern construction 
 capable of defending Cape Town or Simons Bay from so much as an 
 armed privateer." t It was the same at Port Elizabeth, whence he 
 reported that " at present every warehouse and bank and the shipping 
 are at the mercy of any little steamer that can carry a rifled gun." % 
 Thanks mainly to his efforts these weak points in our defence have 
 been removed. But if the Imperial Government were neglectful of the 
 needs of the Cape as our half-way house to India, still less apparently 
 did they look upon it as the starting-point of a South African Empire. 
 
 So late as 1851, Lord Grey, in a despatch to Sir Harry Smith who 
 was recalled, as was, indeed, nearly every Governor who understood the 
 nature of the African problem laid it down as an absolute rule of our 
 policy that the limits of our expansion in South Africa had been 
 reached. " The ultimate abandonment," he wrote, " of the Orange 
 River territory must be a settled point of our policy. You will 
 distinctly understand that any wars, however sanguinary, which may 
 afterwards occur between different tribes and communities, which will 
 be left in a state of independence beyond the Colonial boundary, are to 
 be considered as affording no ground for your interference." It was a 
 futile instruction, as experience has demonstrated. But it may be 
 pleaded in excuse of the Imperial Government up to the date of Sir 
 George Grey's appointment in 1854, that the Colonial Office were in 
 ignorance of the real conditions of the African problem. Previous 
 Governors had been mostly soldiers selected to cope with the military 
 
 * South Africa, Basil Worsfold, p. 21. 
 
 + The Transvaal Trouble, p. 5. 
 
 J Ibid., p. 31. 
 
 Our northern boundary was then the Orange River.
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S INHERITANCE 5:5 
 
 difficulties which constantly arose ; and South Africa itself or at least 
 British South Africa had as yet produced nothing in the nature of a 
 statesman.* But since the days of Sir George Grey that plea has been 
 no longer available. He came to South Africa fresh from his successful 
 organisation of New Zealand, and soon realised that the problem was 
 neither as simple nor as easy as the authorities at home believed. He 
 saw that if the difficulties arising from the existence, within our borders 
 and beyond them, of a native population with warlike traditions and 
 capacities, and from the jealousy of the English and Dutch settlers, 
 were to be overcome, the Colonies, States, and dependencies must be 
 federated under the paramount authority of Great Britain. f The Orange 
 Free State had, by resolution of the Volksraad, proposed reunion by 
 federation or otherwise with the Cape Colony, and there was every 
 reason to believe that the South African Republicans would have 
 followed the example of their fellow Boers. Sir George Grey urged the 
 Home Government to adopt this policy, and at first it seemed as if he 
 would succeed ; but, as usual, the wisdom of Downing Street prevailed 
 over the knowledge and experience of the man on the spot, and the 
 first golden opportunity of establishing a South African Dominion 
 was thrown away. Things drifted for fifteen years, and might have 
 drifted indefinitely but for the discovery of diamonds on the banks 
 of the Vaal. Within three years (1870) of the chance purchase of 
 the first stone from a farmer of Hopetovvn, there were upwards of ten 
 thousand adventurers diamond-digging on the banks of the Vaal.J The 
 excitement communicated itself even to the languid imagination of the 
 Liberal Government then in power ; and by not too creditable means, 
 the Diamond Fields were wrested from the Orange Free State and 
 were constituted a new territory known as Griqualand West. Within 
 five years of the birth of the diamond industry the revenue of Cape 
 Colony was doubled, and schemes of railroad extension hitherto un- 
 dreamed of were taken in hand. The attention thus called to our 
 valuable asset in South Africa had, amongst other results, that of 
 
 * It was in 1853 that a Parliament was first established in Cape Town. Full constitutional 
 government was not granted till 1872. 
 
 t See his masterly despatch to Sir E. B. Lytton, then Colonial Secretary, dated I9th 
 November, 1858, cited by Mr. Worsfold, South Africa, in text and notes. It would be of great 
 public service if this despatch, as also that of Sir Bartle Frere to Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, of 
 3Oth June, 1879, vindicating his policy, could be republished in a handy form. 
 
 t Worsfold, South Africa, p. 137. 
 
 Ibid., p. 45 et seq.
 
 57 6 MR. CHAMBERLAINS INHERITANCE 
 
 inducing the Home Government to emancipate Cape Colony from its 
 tutelage and to endow it with the full constitutional rights of a self- 
 governing Colony. 
 
 Then occurred the second golden opportunity for consolidating 
 South Africa, which was thrown aside like the first, though more 
 wantonly and more unpardonably. In 1874 Lord Beaconsfield came 
 for the first time into power though he had often enough been 
 in office and Lord Carnarvon became Colonial Secretary. Lord 
 Carnarvon was what is called a "viewy" politician, whose sound 
 Imperial convictions were apt to be marred by a somewhat flabby 
 sentimentalism. But it had been his good fortune six years before 
 to have carried through the great and successful scheme of confede- 
 rating the States of British North America into a compact Dominion. 
 He wisely made up his mind to adopt the same policy with regard to 
 South Africa. But, excellent as were his intentions, he fell into the 
 error, which seems to be inseparable from our dealings with South 
 Africa, of putting the cart before the horse. Cape Colony was in the 
 first enjoyment of its newly granted privileges, and was naturally 
 jealous of any interference with its prerogatives. Instead of sounding 
 the Cape politicians and inducing them to take the initiative in 
 suggesting Federation, Lord Carnarvon forced his schemes upon them, 
 and in an unfortunate moment selected the late Professor Froude as 
 his agent with indefinite powers. Notwithstanding his great intellectual 
 endowments, Froude was utterly unqualified by character or experience 
 for the part he was asked to play. Whatever his intentions, he left 
 the impression in South Africa that the British Government was 
 anxious to establish Dutch ascendency in the Dominion he was sent 
 out to create.* But at last Lord Carnarvon found the right man a 
 man who was destined to be treated by his countrymen and by the 
 Government which employed him at least as badly as Dupleix was 
 by the French. Sir Bartle Frere was a most distinguished Indian 
 statesman, who had lived for his country, with rare success and 
 reputation, through, as he put it, " forty-five years of almost incessant 
 public service." f (This noble record was made the ground of an 
 assertion by Mr. Gladstone in his first Midlothian Campaign, that 
 " Frere had never been in a position of real responsibility," nor " ever 
 imbibed from actual acquaintance with British institutions the spirit by 
 
 * The Transvaal 7 rouble, p. 13. 
 t Ibid., p. 176 ; note, p. 223.
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAINS INHERITANCE 577 
 
 which the British Government ought to be regulated and controlled.") 
 Frere, it must be remembered, was reluctant to forego a spell of rest 
 as thoroughly earned as rest ever was in the world. But the magnitude 
 of the scheme and its affinity with his strong Imperial views attracted 
 him, and he sailed for Cape Town in March, 1877. 
 
 He found the conditions of the problem much the same as they 
 had presented themselves to Sir George Grey, though time and develop- 
 ment, while rendering confederation more necessary than ever, had not 
 made confederation easier. The dismemberment of South Africa, which 
 Sir George Grey had deplored, had not been arrested had, indeed, 
 been aggravated. Cape Colony, rejoicing in its new-born prosperity 
 and its recently granted Constitution, was selfishly indifferent to the 
 dangers which threatened the colonists of Natal from the presence 
 upon their frontiers of the highly-trained warriors now at the absolute 
 disposal of Cetewayo. In Natal itself the colonists were disposed to 
 purchase immunity from invasion by wishing well to, if not by actually 
 encouraging, black man against white. (" I have been shocked," wrote 
 Frere to Mr. R. W. Herbert, " to find how very close to the wind the 
 predecessors of the present (Natal) Government here have sailed in 
 supporting the Zulus against the Boers.") As for the Boers of the 
 South African Republic, their case was desperate. They had failed 
 in an assault upon the stronghold of Secocoeni ; their treasury was 
 bankrupt* ; volunteering had ceased, and recourse was had to 
 filibustering wherein loot was the equivalent for pay. The command 
 of these filibusters devolved on one Von Schlickmann, an ex-Prussian 
 officer, who carried on the war with unrestrained ferocity, frequently 
 ordering the murder of men, women, and children in cold blood. Von 
 Schlickmann dying, his place was taken by Aylward, an Irish Fenian, 
 who boasted, apparently with reason, that he had taken part in "the 
 Manchester Murder," and in the subsequent attempt to blow up 
 Clerkenwell Gaol. It is well worth remembering that this criminal f 
 was one of the promoters of the Boer Revolt in 1879, served on 
 Joubert's staff, and "gloried in being one of the instigators." J If the 
 
 * On the day of the proclamation of annexation by Sir Theophilus Shepstone " there was 
 just twelve shillings and sixpence in the treasury ; taxes were now altogether refused, and 
 salaries and contracts unpaid ; the gaols were thrown open, for there was no money to pay for 
 food for the prisoners ; there was no public credit, and no interest paid on the Debt." The 
 Transvaal 7'ra/>!e, p. 21. 
 
 + Besides his political exploits, Aylward had been tried, convicted, and imprisoned for 
 homicide in the Diamond Fields. 
 
 1 The Transvaal Trouble.
 
 578 MR. CHAMBERLAINS INHERITANCE 
 
 whites in the South African Republic were to be saved from extirpa- 
 tion, Great Britain must annex the Transvaal. It is one of the myriad 
 misfortunes of South African history that this annexation or incor- 
 poration, as Frere would have preferred to call it could not have been 
 effected as part of a general scheme of confederation. But events 
 marched too rapidly. It was a second, and perhaps an even greater 
 misfortune, that the task of taking over the Transvaal did not devolve 
 upon not Shepstone but Frere. Capable and gallant as Shepstone 
 was, he was regarded with distrust by the Boers because he was 
 a sort of political godfather to Cetewayo, and was held in great 
 respect by the Zulus.* That Frere would have conciliated the Boer 
 leaders is evident from the respect in which they held him, even after 
 they had assumed when immediate danger had passed away an 
 attitude of bitter hostility and antagonism to the British Government, f 
 But regrets are vain, and the annexation of the Transvaal was an 
 accomplished fact almost as soon as Frere set foot in Cape Town. 
 
 This, then, was the problem that he was called upon to face. He 
 had to create a general desire for Federation, not only in the Cape 
 Colony and Natal, but in the Orange Free State and in the newly 
 annexed Transvaal, and as a first step towards this consummation, 
 he must break down, by influence or by force, the cruel military organi- 
 sation established on the frontiers of civilised South Africa. \ That he 
 would have succeeded if he had been supported from home in all these 
 measures is beyond reasonable doubt. It is perhaps only necessary 
 to cite one instance of the immense influence he secured in Cape 
 Colony. He dismissed, for persistent disregard of his authority, a 
 Ministry which commanded a large majority in the Cape Parliament 
 a Parliament, be it remembered, which was enjoying for the first 
 time the full measure of constitutional privilege ; and his support 
 and influence enabled the new Minister (and present Premier), Mr. 
 Gordon Sprigg, then an absolutely untried man, not only to carry 
 on with dignity and credit, and to secure a large majority in the Cape 
 
 * See reply of Cetewayo to " my father Somtseu " (Shepstone) when the latter announced the 
 annexation of the Transvaal. The Transvaal Trouble, p. 21. 
 
 t " In the course of our conversation" (with the Boer malcontents) " Kruger said : ' The 
 people and the Committee have all conceived great respect for your Excellency, because your 
 Excellency is the first high official of Her Majesty who has laid bare the whole truth.' " The 
 Transvaal Trouble, p. 143. 
 
 J It has been estimated for instance that Tshaka had, between 1812 and 1828, caused the 
 death of one million human beings, and Cetewayo boasted that he was Tshaka come again.
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S INHERITANCE 579 
 
 Parliament, in the teeth of the bitter opposition of the dismissed 
 Ministry and of a strong anti-English party, but also to carry the 
 subsequent elections in the constituencies. That was a rare and perhaps 
 unparalleled triumph for a Colonial Governor ; and it was an earnest 
 of what Sir Bartle Frere might have achieved had he been loyally 
 even intelligently supported by the Home Government. 
 
 But, even as the critical point in the development of Frere's policy 
 was being reached, an event occurred at home which was destined to 
 mar all his plans and throw back the achievement of South African 
 Federation for an indefinite number of years. England was in the 
 throes of the Eastern Crisis ; Lord Carnarvon, though he was at one 
 with his colleagues as to the policy to be pursued in the East, differed 
 on a relatively unimportant question of means*; and Lord .Carnarvon 
 resigned. With his disappearance from the Cabinet vanished all enthu- 
 siasm for the Federation of South Africa. His successor was Sir 
 Michael Hicks-Beach, who, it may not unfairly be assumed, took more 
 interest in the exciting vicissitudes of the Eastern Question than in 
 the less stimulating, but more permanent, aspirations of his predecessor. 
 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was far more of a party politician than Lord 
 Carnarvon. There is no reason to believe that he had any particular 
 desire, as he certainly had no particular qualification, for the post of 
 Colonial Secretary. He probably accepted the office from a sense of 
 duty to his party ; for, in the critical position in which the Government 
 found itself at home and abroad at that moment, any temporary failure 
 in reconstructing the Cabinet would have been fatal to its existence. 
 Again, it is not unfair to say of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach that he 
 was far more concerned for the Parliamentary fortunes of his party, and 
 for the diplomatic triumph of his colleagues in the Eastern Crisis, than 
 for the success of the African policy of his predecessor in office. And 
 so, while he was prepared to support Frere in realising Lord Carnar- 
 von's dream, it was always with a mental reservation that this support 
 should involve no extraordinary demand upon Imperial resources : for 
 they might have. to be drained to the uttermost in other directions. It 
 was unfortunate, but not unnatural, that this should have been so ; but 
 it was trebly unfortunate that Sir Michael's mental reservation was not 
 communicated to Frere. For Frere was so deeply committed to the 
 execution of the Carnarvon policy for which he had been expressly 
 
 k 
 * Subsequent events proved that Lord Carnarvon's apprehensions were ill-founded.
 
 580 MR. CHAMBERLAIN S INHERITANCE 
 
 chosen, and had so completely laid his plans for its successful accom- 
 plishment, that he could not turn back unless he was directly informed 
 that the policy in question had ceased to command the approval of Her 
 Majesty's Government. And from all that he could gather, and from 
 all that was communicated to him, officially and unofficially, he was 
 assured that the resignation of the author of South African Federation 
 had not impaired the desire of the Home Government to see the policy 
 achieved. 
 
 But Lord Carnarvon's retirement had, as Frere put it, " without any 
 figure of speech taken the heart out of" him. Henceforth he staggered 
 on under an almost intolerable burden : conscious, as he said, that if any- 
 thing went wrong, the Colonial Office would make a scapegoat of him. 
 The Colonial Office did. Though he had kept Sir Michael Hicks-Beach 
 posted no man ever wrote more lucid or exhaustive despatches as to 
 all that was taking place and all the risks involved in the conduct of 
 the policy he was appointed to carry out, and though he had no reason 
 to believe that any change of feeling had occurred at home as to the 
 necessity of crushing Cetevvayo, the moment he asked for help he was 
 rebuffed. He had written home : "The urgency of supporting Thesiger 
 (afterwards Lord Chelmsford) is much greater even than I supposed." 
 And a fortnight later : " The position of affairs is far more critical than 
 
 I expected We shall want all the troops asked for." And 
 
 what was the reply ? The Colonial Secretary stated that " Her Majesty's 
 Government are not prepared to comply with a request for a reinforce- 
 ment of troops. All the information that has hitherto reached them, 
 &c." All the information ! Why, Frere's despatches had deluged them 
 with information, both as to the necessity of putting down the military 
 despotism of Cetewayo and of the sacrifices this step might involve ! 
 And all this time Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had appeared to concur, if 
 not to lend enthusiastic support ! However, reinforcements were sent, 
 but with instructions (too late to be intelligible in the circumstances) 
 that they were only to be used for protecting the lives and properties of 
 the Colonists. As if Frere's whole policy had not been directed to that 
 end ! 
 
 Then followed the disastrous day of Isandhlwana the saddest, 
 probably, in Frere's life which was to be made the pretext for such an 
 unscrupulous attack upon and such a pusillanimous defence of a public 
 servant, as are happily unparalleled in English history. Frere was not 
 a soldier, nor could he be held responsible for the blunders of that fatal
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAINS INHERITANCE 581 
 
 day. As a civilian he did his best ; and knowing the familiarity 
 possessed by Kruger and Joubert with Zulu warfare, he induced 
 them to lend their experience to Lord Chelmsford.* But the disaster 
 was a far more complete justification of Frere's warnings and of his 
 policy than he desired. The defeat of a very considerable force of 
 trained soldiers in the open must have convinced everybody that the 
 inhabitants of Natal, with only a small garrison and a few volunteers 
 to rely upon for protection, had been living for years on a very thinly 
 crusted and lightly slumbering volcano. But in England party spirit 
 was running higher than at any other date within the memory of this 
 generation. Mr. Gladstone was on the war-path,f and Lord Beacons- 
 field's Administration was fighting for life. It is no exaggeration to say 
 that the Opposition Press hailed the news of a national disaster with 
 savage glee. The Ministerialists were depressed, and were not averse 
 from making a Jonah of Sir Bartle Frere. But for the resistance of 
 Lord Beaconsfield he would have been at once recalled. As it was, a 
 despatch of censure was sent by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, coupled 
 with an earnest appeal that he would not resign. When he justified 
 his policy in a reply, he was querulously told that the publication of 
 his despatch would have the inconvenient consequence of reviving the 
 assaults of the Opposition ! He was bitterly attacked in Parliament, 
 and was defended, save for a few creditable exceptions, with a flabby 
 feebleness hardly distinguishable from absolute desertion. Well might 
 his friend, the late Sir Robert Morier afterwards our Ambassador 
 at St. Petersburg write, "denouncing in strong and indignant lan- 
 guage, the ' cowardly and brutal ' attacks made on him in and out 
 of Parliament, and ' the cowardly manner in which the Government 
 has given in to them.' " % Sir Bartle Frere's natural instinct was to 
 resign at once ; but appeals to his patriotism were made by the 
 Cape Prime Minister, Mr. Gordon Sprigg, by Lord Carnarvon, and 
 even, indirectly, by Lord Granville. Perhaps, on the whole, it would 
 have been better had he repaid the ungenerous treatment he had 
 
 * It is curious to note in the light of subsequent events that Kruger said : " Ask what pre- 
 cautions the General has taken that his orders should be carried out every evening, because if 
 they are omitted one evening it will be fatal." 
 
 t See his subsequent description of the Zulu Wars : "the record of ten thousand Zulus, 
 slain for no other offence than their attempt to defend against your artillery with their naked 
 bodies their hearths and homes, their wives and families !" Midlothian Speeches, vol. i, p. 209. 
 
 + The Transvaal Trouble, p. 196. 
 
 Lord Granville was heard to say : "I hope to God Sir Bartle won't take huff and resign." 
 Ibid., p. 156.
 
 582 MR. CHAMBERLAINS INHERITANCE 
 
 received as it deserved ; for he was deprived of all opportunity for 
 usefulness by his ungrateful employers. Sir Garnet Wolseley was sent 
 out to supersede Lord Chelmsford in the command of the army : with 
 Sir H. Buhver to govern Natal, and " for the time " to replace Frerc 
 as High Commissioner of the Transvaal, Natal, and all the adjoining 
 eastern portion of South Africa.* Frere was assured that no slight 
 was intended, and was even told that the task of pressing Confederation 
 at Cape Town would monopolise all his time and energy. At the Cape 
 he was preaching to the converted. At Pretoria, if he had been given 
 a fairly free hand, he might such was his commanding personal 
 influence have persuaded the Boers to adopt some scheme of Federa- 
 tion which would have spared us the shame of Majuba Hill and that 
 long series of embarrassments and humiliations which is not even yet 
 closed. By this partial supersession the Home Government made him 
 powerless for good, and nothing but his intense loyalty kept him in 
 Africa. Even in Cape Town his position was rendered more difficult 
 by a despatch on the subject of Federation from Sir Michael Hicks- 
 Beach (it was based upon the suggestions of an uninfluential Cape 
 politician) which convinced Mr. Sprigg and his colleagues more than 
 ever that the Colonial Office would take advice from any one except its 
 accredited adviser. Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived at the Cape, and was 
 fairly civil to Frere, but never consulted him, or took counsel of his 
 experience. He had come too late to finish off the Zulu War, for 
 Ulundi was fought and won before he could reach the front ; so he was 
 anxious to patch up a settlement a most ridiculous one it proved, and 
 one which would never have been adopted if Frere had been consulted 
 and be off home again. Nor was he more fortunate in his dealings with 
 the Boers. He " majored " through the South African Republic declaring 
 that " the Vaal would flow backward through the Drakensberg before 
 the British would be withdrawn from the Transvaal territory," and that 
 "there is no Government, Whig or Tory, Liberal, Conservative, or 
 Radical, who would dare, under any circumstances, give back this 
 country. They would not dare because the English people would not 
 let them." But he took no steps to redress the legitimate grievances 
 of the Boers, and he declined to censure his private secretary, who, 
 acting as The Times Correspondent, openly charged Frere, of all men 
 in the world, with having been the cause of opposition to Sir 
 
 The Transvaal Trouble ', p. 172.
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S INHERITANCE 583 
 
 Garnet's government.* Still, Frere pegged away at his paramount 
 task, and did his best to awaken the Colonial Office to the real 
 dangers which were menacing British South Africa. When only two 
 months ago a writer in the pages of THE NEW REVIEW pointed to 
 the United States as a warning of the dangers of alienating British 
 Colonial sentiment, he was denounced for indulging in threats. Yet 
 Frere anticipated him by sixteen years! On 28th August, 1879, he 
 wrote to Sir Michael Hicks-Beach that " They (the bitter anti-English 
 opposition) are sedulously courting the Dutch party, and swaying the 
 loyal Dutch (a great majority of the Cape Dutchmen) to swell the 
 already considerable minority who are disloyal to the English Crown 
 here and in the Transvaal, and who would prefer a Holland (z.e., 
 remember, a German t) Government or Protectorate in the Transvaal to 
 an English one, and a Republic here to a Dominion under the English 
 Crown," And he concludes his despatch with words of warning as 
 pregnant to-day as when they were written : " We are, meantime, 
 drifting into very awkward relations with these Colonies. What you 
 are now doing seems to be uncomfortably like what was done more 
 than a century ago, when we drove the American Colonies into war and 
 forcible separation. From the Treaty of Paris in 1763 to the end of the 
 War of Independence in 1783, it took twenty years for the quarrel to 
 arise, culminate, and be fought out in separation. We do things faster 
 nowadays. The whole history of causes of difference the character of 
 the disputes between the British Government and the States, and the 
 mode in which they were carried on, were mutatis mutandis very like the 
 storm now brewing here. I wish you to be warned in time, and having 
 warned you I have done my duty." He repeated the warning once 
 again on I7th January, 1880. "Most men," he wrote to Sir Michael 
 Hicks-Beach, " at present 'j would desire union under the British Crown ; 
 others, both here and in England, would prefer it on the model of the 
 United States of North America, as a South African Republic, which, 
 according to my own convictions, would mean, for many years to come, 
 an internecine knot of Republics, some of them with a filibustering 
 element of the South American or Mexican type, but all under the 
 influence of some great European Power possessing a navy, and 
 
 * The Transvaal 7'ronble, p. 199. 
 
 t The italics are Frere's. 
 
 J The italics again are Frere's.
 
 584 MR. CHAMBERLAINS INHERITANCE 
 
 appreciating as well as, or perhaps better than we do, the dominion 
 of the Southern Ocean, of which the Cape Peninsula is the key." 
 But his warnings were unheeded ; so that one is tempted to wonder 
 (with his biographer) if they were ever read. 
 
 If Frere failed to make any impression upon Sir Michael Hicks- 
 Beach, he could hardly expect better luck with Lord Kimberley, who 
 became Colonial Secretary after the crushing Conservative defeat in 
 1880. Indeed, it is a matter of wonder, after the line taken by the 
 Liberals in Opposition, that Frere was not at once recalled. But the 
 new Government came in, as Lord Beaconsfield put it, " in a blaze of 
 apologies," expressed or implied. Mr. Gladstone had denounced the 
 annexation of the Transvaal as " insane " and " dishonourable to the 
 character of the country " ; but when Kruger and Joubert wrote appealing 
 for a return to sanity and for the effacement of dishonour, Mr. Gladstone 
 replied that "Our judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to 
 relinquish her sovereignty over the Transvaal." Lord Kimberley, 
 moreover, took no steps either to recall Frere or to instruct him to 
 modify or abandon the policy he had hitherto pursued. It is true that 
 Ministers showed their confidence in him by the consummate meanness 
 of reducing his salary to 2,500, on a pretext that was not only flimsy 
 but false. 
 
 It is quite possible such was the invariable ignorance of the 
 Colonial Office ! that Lord Kimberley imagined that Frere could still 
 carry out the scheme of South African Confederation which was the 
 original and main reason of his appointment. He did not realise that, 
 in Frere's own words, " since Sir Garnet Wolseley came out every act 
 of the Government has been to disintegrate and separate instead of 
 combining and uniting." It is as certain as anything can be that if 
 Frere had been given a free hand, if he had but been decently- 
 supported at home, instead of being flouted and censured, he would 
 have consolidated South Africa into a Dominion living contentedly 
 under the British flag. He had the absolute support, even the 
 veneration, of the Cape Government and the majority in the Cape 
 Parliament ; he had won the confidence of the Cape and the Orange 
 Free State Dutch ; and he was the only English official whom the 
 Boers regarded without suspicion and even with some liking. But the 
 edifice he had so laboriously raised was sapped and undermined by the 
 very men who had made him the architect His loyal supporters in the 
 Cape, English and Dutch alike, felt that a Governor, however capable
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S INHERITANCE 585 
 
 and popular, who did not possess the absolute confidence of the Home 
 Government could not carry out so vast and delicate a scheme as that 
 of confederating South Africa ; and so, though their affection for Frere 
 never cooled, their enthusiasm for Confederation evaporated. The 
 result was soon to appear. Kruger and Joubert carried on an active 
 propagandism, perilously akin to sedition, in the Dutch constituencies of 
 Cape Colony ; Frere was recalled* to secure "the unity of the Liberal 
 Party " ; and the sequel is written in the shameful pages which tell of 
 Majuba Hill and the Pretoria Convention. 
 
 That sequel was told in these pages a month or two ago. What 
 it implied to Englishmen and to English interests is bitterly summed 
 up in the two last excerpts I take from Frere's correspondence. The 
 first is from a letter from Colonel Lanyon, at Pretoria, after the 
 surrender to the Boers : " I am ashamed to walk about, for I hear 
 nothing but reproaches and utterances from heretofore loyal men 
 
 which cut one to the very quick How I am to tell the natives 
 
 I know not, for they have trusted so implicitly to our promises 
 
 and assurances One man, who has been most loyal to us 
 
 (an Englishman), told me to-day : ' Thank God, my children are 
 Afrikanders, and need not be ashamed of their country.'" The 
 second is contained in a sentence by Mr. R. W. Murray, then editor 
 of the Cape Times, who wrote to Frere : " Ask your English statesmen 
 if, in the history of the world, there was ever such a cruel desertion of a 
 dependency by a parent State ? How can England hope for loyalty 
 from South Africa ? The moral of the Gladstone lesson is, that you 
 may be anything in South Africa but loyal Englishmen." Bitter words, 
 but who can say they were unwarranted ? 
 
 The story has been long in the telling ; yet it is but one chapter in 
 a history of monotonous mismanagement. The moral may be given 
 in a few lines. It is indeed stamped over the narrative itself; and 
 it is condensed in a sentence which I have chosen as one of the texts 
 of this article : " Most of the mistakes in our government of South 
 Africa have been caused by our fatal tendency to try and govern it 
 from England." To Mr. Chamberlain is given another great oppor- 
 tunity. He is a strong man ; he is a stout believer in the future of 
 
 * " Meanwhile the Boer leaders, Messrs. Kruger and Joubert, were writing to their 
 sympathisers in England: ; The fall of Sir Bartle Frere .... will be useful.'" Worsfold, 
 South Africa, p. 58. 
 
 Vol. XIV. No. 84. 2 Q
 
 586 MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S INHERITANCE 
 
 the Empire; and, though his task has been made harder by the 
 unimaginable blundering of his predecessors, at least that blundering 
 has buoyed the shallows and beaconed the reefs where they made 
 shipwreck. There will be no lasting peace in South Africa till the 
 country south of the Zambesi shall have been confederated into a 
 Dominion under the British Flag, upon lines fair and acceptable to all 
 the races which inhabit South Africa. 
 
 E. B. IWAN-MOLLER.
 
 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 
 
 THE Legislature of the Cape Colony will meet on the 3Oth instant : 
 when the Transvaal Question will enter upon a new and a vastly 
 more difficult phase. 
 
 A resolution is to be moved, and will be carried, giving Parlia- 
 mentary sanction to (i) Mr. Hofmeyr's demand, echoed since by Sir 
 J. Sivewright, for the revocation of the Charter of the British South 
 Africa Company, and (2) the pro-Kruger Declaration of the Afrikander 
 Bond at Burghersdorp, in the Cape Colony, on the I2th of March. 
 The Volksraad of the Orange Free State having already passed a 
 similar resolution, we may expect to witness early in May the com- 
 pletion of the task on which for the last six weeks President Kruger 
 has been busied : the mobilisation of the extreme Dutch element 
 throughout South Africa, under his own leadership, for the furtherance 
 of a policy which, if not aimed at the Cape Colony, is indubitably 
 anti-Imperial. This is certainly the result of the delay which 
 Mr. Chamberlain, solicitous lest he should ruffle Boer susceptibilities, 
 has permitted over the reply to his despatch of the 4th February, 
 although nothing was probably further from his calculations than 
 to become a party to the President's tactics. Two months ago 
 President Kruger was the constitutional ruler of a small State who, by 
 his misgovernment, had provoked the majority of its inhabitants to 
 unconstitutional courses ; to-day he aspires to lead a racial movement 
 embracing the Dutch elements in the two Republics. In the Cape 
 Colony he has, so far, met with less success : for there the Dutch, appre- 
 ciating the justice and equality of British rule, are indisposed to lay 
 their necks beneath the feet of a German-Hollander cabal. While Mr. 
 Chamberlain has been waiting on Mr. Kruger's convenience, Mr. Kruger 
 has been " arming to the teeth " and energetically engineering a solemn 
 league and covenant with his kin beyond the Vaal : and so successfully 
 that he will be able presently to enter the Customs Conference 
 Chamber, not as the discredited representative of a community divided 
 by his own misrule against itself, but as delegate of the Parliaments
 
 588 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 
 
 of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic ! Two 
 months ago a month ago he must have spoken with no more weight 
 than belongs to a ruler so miserably unsuccessful that the bulk and 
 brain of his people are in open revolt. He will now negotiate with all 
 the authority that may be borrowed from the Legislatures of his own 
 and a neighbouring Republic. How he will exercise that authority has 
 been sufficiently indicated by Dr. Rutherfoord Harris and Mr. Charles 
 Leonard in the March and April issues of THE NEW REVIEW. Briefly, 
 it will be turned to account to minimise the concessions (if any) to be 
 made to the Uitlanders, and to extrude the Imperial factor from the 
 South African problem. It becomes important, therefore, to ascertain 
 the origin and significance of the support which President Kruger has 
 sought and found in South Africa, outside his own borders ; and in 
 particular of the support which he hopes to secure from the Parliament 
 of the Cape Colony in the absence of Mr. Rhodes. 
 
 The sudden introduction of Mr. Rhodes's name may surprise the 
 English reader who ingenuously supposes that a suspicion of that 
 statesman's connivance with Dr. Jameson's raid into the Transvaal 
 has proved sufficient to obliterate amongst the Dutch in the Cape 
 Colony all gratitude for the services which he has done the Colony and 
 South Africa. Let me quote from a speech by the Hon. P. Bellingan, 
 a Dutchman, a member of the Afrikander Bond, and of the Upper 
 Chamber in the Cape Parliament. He is reported in The Port Elizabeth 
 Telegraph of 22nd March, 1896: 
 
 He wished as an Afrikander to express his views about Mr. Rhodes. He spoke 
 with great force upon the invaluable services rendered by Mr. Rhodes to South Africa 
 in general, and the Cape Colony in particular. He declined to be a party to the 
 outcry against Mr. Rhodes which some Afrikanders had recently raised, and he said 
 that if even the worst could be proved, and if it were discovered that Mr. Rhodes had 
 sent Dr. Jameson into the Transvaal, one mistake could not undo all his previous great 
 services to South Africa. Mr. Rhodes was a great man, and he admired him, and 
 could not forget what he had done for the Colony. 
 
 The Cape Parliament (to cite only such of its features as have a 
 present interest) consists of two branches : the Legislative Council with 
 twenty-two members, and the Legislative Assembly with seventy-six, 
 elected to serve for five years. The last General Election was in January, 
 1894. There were on that occasion 91,877 registered voters, about 
 76 per cent of whom recorded their vote. The electorate is the same 
 for both Houses, but is differently distributed. But, except in so far as 
 Mr. Rhodes may elect to impress Jiis powerful personality upon it,
 
 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 589 
 
 the factors of South African politics are to be found outside the 
 Cape Parliament in the Afrikander Bond and in Mr. Hofmeyr. 
 Mr. Hofmeyr, it appears, loves the Transvaal more than the Cape 
 Colony and, day by day, is more widely regarded as a bigoted supporter 
 of the one South African State which by its selfish policy is delaying 
 the commercial federation of all the States south of the Zambesi. 
 Sir Gordon Sprigg, the present Premier, has done much good work 
 since 1878, when he succeeded Sir John Molteno, dismissed by the 
 fiat of that " strong man," Sir Bartle Frere. He retains " a certain 
 mediocrity of mind " : which La Bruyere tells us serves not ill in place of 
 wisdom. The Bond has found him a good servant before, and will find 
 him so again. Sir James Sivewright, by virtue of his association with 
 the Johannesburg enterprises of Mr. Barnato, is probably the best-known 
 member of the present Cape Ministry. Assuredly he is the ablest. But 
 he has read Lord Bacon's De Augmentis ; and in the Sabbathless ardour 
 with which he has lived up to the six precepts of the Architecture of 
 Fortune, he has clipped the wings of his ambition beyond recovery. 
 He is an ardent Bondsman, and to show how ardent, he has not 
 hesitated to play the part of Brutus. But, alike in his desertion of Mr. 
 Rhodes, and in the transfer of his allegiance to the policy and person 
 of Mr. Kruger, I believe him to be at least sincere. Business interests 
 and political bias combine to secure his hearty co-operation in all that 
 may be necessary to restrict the authority of the Imperial Government 
 and to promote the paramoncy of the Transvaal in the family of South 
 African States. Other names are heard ; but they are the names 
 of counters, not of players ; or they are the names as those of Sir 
 Thomas Upington and Mr. Sauer of " might-have-beens." I may, 
 then, pass on to the Afrikander Bond, glancing briefly at its history, 
 its purposes, and its methods. 
 
 Founded in Cape Colony immediately after the Boer War, the 
 Afrikander Bond is a formidable organisation, having for its chief 
 purpose "the formation of a South African nationality by means of 
 union and co-operation, as a preparation for the ultimate object, a 
 United South Africa." Nominally open to all whites, irrespective of 
 nationality, it consists, as matter of fact, almost exclusively of men 
 of Dutch blood. A man like Sir James Sivewright finds it to his 
 pleasure, or his profit, to join its ranks ; but no member speaking 
 his mind but would tell you that the Afrikander Bond, despite the 
 inclusiveness of its title, is essentially a league for the conservation 
 
 2 Q 2
 
 590 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 
 
 throughout South Africa of all those peculiarities of method and idea 
 which are characteristically mediaeval, and for their persistent application 
 to the entire round of Politics. There are many in the Bond I have 
 quoted one who resent Mr. Hofmeyr's reactionary ideals, preferring 
 progress under Mr. Rhodes to " the seventeenth century "* under 
 Mr. Kruger. In a letter recently written (dated 25th March, 1896), 
 by a prominent member of the Bond, you may read this : 
 " People here of all nationalities are not eager to throw over the 
 man (Mr. Rhodes) who has opened up the interior and found them 
 new markets. Rhodes will have the solid support of the Dutch yet. 
 I am sure there are quite as many Dutch for him in the Colony as 
 there are English." I have glanced at Mrs. Cronwright-Schreiner's 
 article : partly to give myself the pleasure of paying tribute to its 
 sympathetic insight and grace of style, qualities rare in controversial 
 politics, but mainly : because it is a demonstration from the hand of 
 one who knows the Boer, and admires the Boer, of his utter inaptitude 
 for the governance of any community in which the modern spirit is 
 abroad. 
 
 The discipline exercised by the Bond over its members is severe. 
 Vote and voice are used as it directs under penalty of expulsion. 
 Local Committees, Central Committees in charge of special interests, 
 and Annual Congresses maintain its solidarity and diffuse its influence. 
 Its eye and its hand are felt in every corner of the Colony. In 
 Parliament half the Council and one-third of the Assembly are 
 Bondsmen, speaking and voting under the direction of a Vigilance 
 Committee elected annually at the Congress of the Bond. But the 
 Bond's bidding is obeyed by others than its enrolled members ; and 
 on large questions as Excise, Protection for. Agriculture, Native 
 Labour it commands a sure and overwhelming majority. The 
 Bond can always put a majority into the field on any questions on 
 which Congress has declared its mind. But the Bond, which on local 
 questions may follow Mr. Hofmeyr's parochial policy, looks to Mr. 
 Rhodes when it is face to face with the larger problems of the Cape 
 Colony's relations to other South African States. For, with insignificant 
 exceptions, Bondsmen regard Mr. Rhodes as the only man who has 
 grasped the many elements that make for the prosperity of a United 
 South Africa. A Customs Union, Free Trade in Colonial Products, and 
 
 * Mrs. Cromvright-Schreiner in the Fortnightly for April.
 
 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 591 
 
 a Railway Convention which recognises the Cape lines and ports these 
 in the past have been the main planks of Mr. Rhodes's platform, as they 
 are now the objects of Mr. Kruger's hostility : while to develop Delagoa 
 Bay and its railway by strangling the Colonial route is the Boer-German 
 policy, which Mr. Kruger will seek to impose, and which Mr. Hofmeyr, 
 in his insensate hostility to Mr. Rhodes, must inevitably accept. 
 
 I said a moment ago that the political power of the Bond is large 
 out of all proportion to its numerical strength. A few facts in proof of 
 this. Taking the figures for 1894, the Bond has a membership of 9,748 
 no more out of a white population of (in round numbers) 400,000. 
 The ratio of Dutch to British in the total white population is, as nearly 
 as can be ascertained, as 53 to 43. But in the serviceable manhood of 
 the Colony, v^hich in 1891 constituted 29 per cent, of the total white 
 population, and in the electorate, which in 1 894 numbered 92,000, the 
 British element because it is recruited by immigration is increasingly 
 predominant over the Dutch ; and it is in the light of these considera- 
 tions that the small numbers and large pretensions of the Afrikander 
 Bond should be viewed. I shall not be contradicted if I estimate the 
 male population of the Cape Colony of burgher age at 400,000. Of 
 these not less than 85,000 are British, and, under an active organisation, 
 would be available for political purposes. Against them are at most 
 55,000 males of Dutch affinities, of whom, after sixteen years of 
 energetic propagandism, 9,748 have been persuaded into the circle of 
 the Afrikander Bond. 
 
 How comes it, then, that powers so large are enjoyed by numbers so 
 small ? There are several causes. One is the incoherence of the British 
 atoms for lack' of some common interest, some common danger, 
 sufficiently important to annihilate their pre-occupation with money- 
 making and the disintegrating jealousies of competing business centres. 
 Another cause is found in Mr. Hofmeyr, the Cabinet maker of the Cape, 
 after Mr. Rhodes the strongest statesman in South Africa, and the most 
 interesting as a bit of unusual human nature. He is idealist and 
 opportunist in one. Not less devoted than Paul Kruger to the dream 
 of a South African Nationality whose genius shall be Dutch and not 
 British, he is indifferent as Mr. Rhodes himself as to the methods by 
 which he seeks to realise his dream. Impervious to the little ambitions 
 for place and emolument which move most men, even statesmen, his 
 purchasing power in the matter of allies is necessarily large ; while his 
 absolute indifference to everything which cannot be made to contribute
 
 592 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 
 
 hie et mine to the building up of his South African Nationality has all 
 the value of an imperturbable temper. His treatment of his stubborn, 
 slow-witted following is a marvel of patience and self-effacement. No 
 political leader, with the possible exception of Benjamin Disraeli, has 
 ever suffered fools so gladly. His services to his party have been 
 incalculable : he it is who has saved the Bond from being degraded and 
 paralysed by the diverse educational influences to which in Cape Colony, 
 much more than in the Free State and the Transvaal, its members have 
 been exposed ; he it is too who, by negotiating the Bond's support to 
 men and to measures outside the scope of its interests, has purchased 
 for it in things essential a measure of success out of all proportion td 
 its place in the electorate. Until '90 the bargains struck had involved 
 no great issues. The conditions on one side were maintenance in office 
 and such concessions in the way of public works and educational grants 
 to the Ministerial constituencies as would tend to keep them contented 
 and loyal : the Bond, on its part, exacting a pledge against the 
 introduction of legislation which its leaders might deem inimical to 
 Bond interests. But in '90 this happy humdrum came to an end. 
 Mr. Rhodes, having secured the Hinterland up to the Zambesi, was 
 preparing to take in hand the next item on his programme the 
 Federation of the Communities of South Africa ; and to this end 
 he required the Premiership of the Mother Colony. Up to a 
 certain point his policy obviously coincided with Mr. Hofmeyr's, 
 and an arrangement was accordingly entered into for mutual Parlia- 
 mentary support until the point of divergence should be reached. 
 Sir Gordon Sprigg, who had kicked over the traces, and by means 
 of a scheme of railways running, as one unkind critic phrased it, 
 " from everywhere to everywhere," was endeavouring to create a party 
 which should make him independent of the Bond, was thrown out of 
 office ; and Mr. Rhodes took his place. For a while things went 
 smoothly. A Franchise and Ballot Act was passed, and a little later 
 the Native Question was successfully solved in the Glen Grey Act : a 
 measure, the workmanship of Mr. Rhodes, which sets out a well- 
 conceived, far-reaching policy with regard to Land, Liquor, and 
 Labour in their relations to the 'coloured population. Friction 
 began in '94 with the introduction of legislation for the compulsory 
 eradication of a parasite, the Scab, which is threatening the South 
 African wool industry with ruin. Your Boer is at one with your 
 Anarchist in holding government of any sort for an evil : most of all
 
 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 593 
 
 when it comes to him in the shape of a measure like the Scab Act, as 
 stuck full of the categorical imperative as the Decalogue itself. The 
 Act was passed despite his protest : whereupon he formally notified the 
 authorities that the only animal he would " dip " would be that Govern- 
 ment inspector who should venture among his flocks ; and he began 
 to ask what his leaders were after in ranging him behind a Ministry 
 bent on harrying him after this fashion. During the passage of the 
 Scab Act through Parliament, Mr. Hofmeyr was absent : being one ot 
 the Cape delegates to the Ottawa Conference. He returned to find the 
 Bond disunited, and his policy challenged. More than this, a storm was 
 brewing in the Transvaal, where President Kruger was displaying 
 unexpected hostility to the Railway Union, which had been the hope 
 and aim of Colonial statesmanship of Mr. Hofmeyr's equally with Mr. 
 Rhodes's. He foresaw that, alike in the interests of the Cape Colony 
 and of South Africa as a portion of the British Empire. Mr. Rhodes 
 would be compelled to take measures to constrain the Transvaal into 
 an equitable Railway Union ; and he foresaw, also, that these measures 
 must be such that he could not make himself party to them without 
 foregoing his ideal. So it came to pass that, pleading ill-health, he 
 resigned his seat in Parliament, and went into private life. 
 
 Such is Mr. Hofmeyr such the man who retired when it was made 
 plain that the prosperity of South Africa as a whole, and the commercial 
 federation of its component States, must depend on a policy inconsistent 
 with his dream of Dutch supremacy. The economic objects at which 
 both he and Mr. Rhodes had aimed were, he saw, only to be achieved 
 at the cost of his political ideal and of the political instrument he 
 had forged to secure it. He retired, and Mr. Rhodes held the field. 
 Presently, however, came the Jameson incident, and with it Mr. 
 Hofmeyr's opportunity of rehabilitation. How vigorously he used 
 it : his clamorous indignation the anxiety with which, like another 
 Peter, he hastened to disclaim his friend the unctuous sympathy he 
 proffered to Paul Kruger, well knowing him to be (disloyal to his 
 suzerain and) a traitor to the cause of South African Unity the 
 rapture with which he was received back by the Krugerite section of 
 the Bond: all this we know. It will be judicious to keep the knowledge 
 handy, and to bear in mind that, if he have resumed the leadership of 
 the Afrikander Bond, his late alliance with Mr. Rhodes, though forgiven, 
 is not forgotten among the Bondsmen. No longer may we count on 
 him as an influence making for progress and the integrity of the British
 
 594 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 
 
 Empire. At the Bond Congress the other day, Mr. Advocate Malan, 
 editor of Ons Land, the organ of the Krugerite Party, declared that " for 
 years past the Afrikanders had been fighting the Imperial factor in 
 South Africa." Well, that is what Mr. Hofmeyr must needs do from 
 tliis time forward ; and he may be depended on to do it with all an 
 apostate's zeal. 
 
 He has returned to destroy the edifice which he and Mr. Rhodes 
 united to rear. Although, originally, he fashioned the Bond for a 
 political object, he had consented, at Mr. Rhodes's persuasion, to use 
 it as an instrument for building up a Commercial Union. But he 
 will now seek to use it only as a weapon to enforce political disinte- 
 gration. Will it serve his purpose ? Assuredly not : Mr. Malan does 
 not represent the majority in the Bond. Other members of equal 
 standing or higher have shown by their recent utterances that they 
 will be no party to the perversion of their organisation from commercial 
 objects which they desire to political adventures which they distrust 
 Mr. Hofmeyr's dream is a nightmare to them. For in place of a 
 visionary freedom they perceive a very real subjugation to Hollander 
 and German predominance. And they will turn to the man who has 
 ever preferred the Afrikander of the Cape to the imported Hollander. 
 His object, pursued through twenty years, of welding the English and 
 Dutch races into one prosperous community, linked to the Mother 
 Country, is to their mind eminently practical ; and they are loth to 
 relinquish it for any of Mr. Hofmeyr's chimeras. Indeed the majority 
 in the Bond is only waiting for Mr. Rhodes's return. Of late such 
 representative members as Mr. Venter, of Burgersdorp, and Mr. Bellingan, 
 of Utenhage, have addressed their constituents. Both defended Mr. 
 Rhodes. Both declared that he had been their man in the past, and 
 should be their man in the future. Many others have yet to speak ; 
 but they will certainly speak in the same strain. And many 
 Afrikanders outside the Bond, who have hitherto mistrusted Mr. Rhodes 
 for being, in appearance, too much under its influence, will now rally to 
 his side. A prominent member of the Cape Legislature has written : 
 "If Rhodes were to put up for Cape Town to-morrow he would get 
 three-fourths of the votes. Feeling runs strongly in his favour." But 
 Mr. Rhodes is absent, and while that is so, his adherents in the Bond 
 must be heavily handicapped in their struggle against the machinery 
 of their organisation, over which Mr. Hofmeyr has, for the moment, 
 established a complete control. Outside the Bond, Afrikanders, who
 
 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 595 
 
 regret the check which Mr. Rhodes's commercial policy has encountered, 
 and the British party, which deplores the glorification of Mr. Kruger/ 
 are alike paralysed by the absence of their able and trusted leader. 
 
 In the light of these considerations there will be no difficulty in 
 understanding how it should be that, in the absence of Mr. Rhodes, 
 the decisions of the Afrikander Bond, governed by its extreme section, 
 should become the decisions of the Parliament of the Cape Colony. 
 He alone stood between the two, shaping them both to Imperial ends ; 
 and his withdrawal, owing to the Matabele Revolt, is at the present 
 juncture nothing short of calamitous. Apart from the urgent call for 
 his presence in Rhodesia, there was no occasion for his retirement from 
 his place in the Legislative Assembly ; and, as matter of fact, his 
 colleagues in the late Ministry, with one exception, went so far as to 
 protest against his resignation of the Premiership : this, too, at a time 
 when all the relevant facts of the Jameson-Johannesburg trouble were 
 known to them. But he persisted. And he was wise : because, being 
 out of office and disentangled from his alliance with the Afrikander 
 Bond, he would have been free to gather round him, out of the Moderate 
 Dutch and the British elements, heretofore unorganised and leaderless, 
 a party compacted by a common danger German intrigue and a 
 common aim the development of the British States of South Africa 
 under the security of union with the Empire. He will do it yet. No 
 man is beaten until, of his own free choice, he surrenders his arms ; and 
 this, if I read him rightly, Mr. Rhodes will never do. Unhappily, 
 however, affairs in the North detain him, and make the task for the 
 moment impossible ; so that there will be nothing to counterbalance 
 and to counteract the hostile coalition of the Cape Parliament with the 
 Orange Free State and the Doppers and Hollanders of the Transvaal. 
 Any such coalition, if effected, must be essentially artificial must be a 
 child of accident, springing only from the coincidence of Mr. Rhodes's 
 retirement with Mr. Hofmeyr's return. Yet no one can doubt that it 
 may militate for long, if it be permitted to do so, against Mr. 
 Chamberlain's policy in the Transvaal : a policy conceived in the 
 interest : not only of the Uitlanders, or even of the South African 
 Republic, but : of all South Africa, whose progress is impeded, and 
 whose peace is perturbed, by the selfish and benighted policy which 
 President Kruger has accepted from his Hollander friends. 
 
 In the mission, then, which Mr. Chamberlain undertook when he 
 bade the Johannesburgers lay down their arms, and which he defined
 
 596 MR. RHODES AND THE CAPE PARLIAMENT 
 
 in his despatch of the 4th February, he may, in Mr. Rhodes's absence, 
 expect to meet arrayed against him the several Legislatures of South 
 Africa, save and except, one may hope, the Legislature of Natal. But, 
 in this very challengeable demonstration of sympathy with President 
 Kruger, there is no occasion for dismay, there is no reason for abating 
 by one jot his demands, or, to use his own gentler word, his suggestions 
 for the redress of the Uitlanders' grievances. The interests, political 
 and commercial, of all true Afrikanders and of the Empire are one 
 in South Africa, and no resolution of the Cape Parliament can be 
 permitted to minimise the measures necessary to safeguard them. One 
 such measure, of capital importance, is the redress of the Uitlanders' 
 grievances; for the wrongs which they suffer sufficient, Mr. Chamberlain 
 has said, to command the sympathy of all civilised nations for any 
 spontaneous effort they may make to recover their liberty constitute 
 a wound which, though inflicted only on one member of the South 
 African body politic, will certainly, if it be neglected, spread fever 
 through the whole South African system. It is a festering sore which 
 calls for a physician ! " As regards the internal affairs of the Republic," 
 says Mr. Chamberlain in Clause Thirty-Two of the despatch aforesaid, 
 " I may observe that, independently of any rights of intervention in 
 particular matters which may arise out of the Articles of the Con- 
 vention of 1884, Great Britain is justified, in the interests of South 
 Africa as a whole, as well as of the peace and stability of the South 
 African Republic, in tendering its friendly counsels as regards the new- 
 comers, who are mainly British subjects." That is admirable doctrine; 
 and what is wanted is that Mr. Chamberlain should act up to it and to 
 its implications. He has been patient. He has been polite. He may 
 now and fairly be a trifle peremptory. Yet, with Mr. Rhodes at 
 Bulawayo, his success must be imperilled. With Mr. Rhodes at the 
 Cape his success would be assured. 
 
 A TEN* YEARS' RESIDENT IN THE CAPE COLONY.
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 I. 
 
 ON the afternoon of Saturday 3Oth May, of this year, I had the 
 honour of an interview, by appointment, with President Kriiger. 
 Chief Justice Kotze kindly acted as introducer and interpreter. 
 On the morning of that day, the Executive had resolved at last to set 
 free forty-five of the political prisoners still in gaol upon payment of 
 a ransom of two thousand pounds a-piece, but to reserve for still further 
 consideration the fate of the four leaders Mr. Lionel Phillips, Colonel 
 Rhodes, Mr. George Farrar, and Mr. Hays Hammond. 
 
 I found the President in high good humour. He expressed himself 
 with much emphasis on the political situation, in short set speeches 
 vigorously addressed to all who were in the room. As each topic was 
 introduced, he delivered himself of some forcible opinion, couched often 
 in a homely simile, which came plump out in reply, but without much 
 reference to the remark which had called it forth. When I spoke of the 
 gratitude of the prisoners and their friends, and expressed a hope that 
 their release might prove a first step towards removing the sore feeling 
 between the Boers and the British, he took no notice of the latter point, 
 but replied : " There are some dogs that come up and lick your hand 
 when you have given them a thrashing : there are others who skulk off, 
 and when they have got to a safe distance, turn round and snarl at you." 
 Not seeing the drift of this remark, I returned to some commonplace 
 compliment as to his " clemency." He said : " Yes ; the Boers were by 
 nature a merciful and soft-hearted people. All opinions to the contrary 
 were false. He and his people took their whole policy from the Word 
 jof God," pointing to his Bible as he spoke. I replied that we English 
 went to the same source for our policy ; and longed to add that, on the 
 whole, we preferred the teaching to be found towards the end of that 
 volume to that to be extracted from the beginning of it. He then 
 contrasted the gentleness of the Boers in general, and especially 
 towards natives, with the cruelty of the English ; and spoke vehemently 
 of the barbarities which he alleged were being at that moment perpetrated 
 by the British forces in Matabeleland. I returned to the event of the day. 
 Now that the Government, I said, had punished the guilty men, and
 
 480 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 earned the gratitude of Johannesburg by showing clemency, might \vc 
 not hope that they would go further still, treat the Uitlanders as friends 
 and citizens, and so establish permanent relations of friendship and 
 good-will between our people and the people of the Transvaal ? To 
 this he gave no reply at all ; but proceeded to develop his simile of 
 the dog, more emphatically than before, and with a more obvious 
 application. I may add that this dog had already done good service 
 that week, and had been quoted in various forms to different inter- 
 viewers. " It is all very well," he said, "to kick off the dogs that come 
 yelping at your heels ; but the man who deserves a thrashing is he who 
 keeps at a safe distance himself, and cries Tsal to his dogs!" It 
 was obvious now that Mr. Rhodes was the object against which he 
 was boiling : but having nothing to say on that subject, and taking 
 up his meaning to be that the offence of the Johannesburg prisoners 
 was slight in comparison with that of the men who were responsible 
 for the Jameson raid, I said I had no word of palliation or excuse 
 to offer for Dr. Jameson's inroad ; but I could say for myself, and I 
 was sure I might speak for the great body of my countrymen also, 
 that they had a keen sympathy with the cause of the Uitlanders ; 
 and they would certainly extract from the events of that day a hope 
 that the inequalities under which the Uitlanders laboured would 
 gradually be removed. 
 
 Needless to say, the bait did not take. But though little is 
 to be expected from President Krtiger in the way of real conciliation 
 though his mind is impervious to those constitutional ideas on 
 which the modern conceptions of political justice and liberty are 
 founded it is all the more necessary for that very reason to recall 
 the attention of the British public to the true fons et origo malt, 
 to the healing of which no serious step has been taken up to 
 this moment. The imagination of the British public has been so 
 entirely taken off the scent first by the supposed romance of the 
 Jameson raid, and next by its criminality that it has forgotten the 
 one political problem which has permanent importance in the whole 
 matter the position of the Uitlanders. From the day when the 
 Johannesburg leaders were thrown into gaol, the British public and the 
 British Government have appeared to wash their hands of them. 
 They have not done so in reality. The sympathies of the British 
 Government and people are, and must remain, on the side of those 
 who are making just demands for the ordinary rights of citizenship ;
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 481 
 
 but in consequence of the untoward way in which the Reform movement 
 was developed nay, in consequence of the very moderation and self- 
 command of the men who have been held up to contempt alternately 
 as desperadoes and as poltroons it has unfortunately happened that 
 the merits of the case have been inverted, and the cause of the 
 Reformers, just and sound as a political cause can be, has been 
 for the time put hopelessly in the wrong. Until that wrong was 
 wiped out, the British Government could not take up the championship 
 of the Uitlander cause with honour to themselves or with a clean front 
 before the world ; but now that the Jameson case has been disposed 
 of, now that the Transvaal Government has exacted the penalty which 
 it deemed appropriate from every man within its power whom it could 
 connect with Dr. Jameson's offence, it is time that sympathy and action 
 should veer round to that point from which they have been diverted. 
 
 The story of the raid itself has now been told with the complete- 
 ness and impartiality of an English Court of Law ; but the story of the 
 Reformers has not been told in the same way. What took place inside 
 Johannesburg just before, and after, Dr. Jameson's invasion up to the time 
 of the arrest of the prisoners, the conditions under which the Reformers 
 were arrested, and the story of the trial itself, have been imperfectly 
 reported and appreciated in this country. The astute simplicity of Boer 
 political methods, the convenient flexibility of Transvaal Law and 
 Transvaal legal proceedings, together with the misleading brevity of tele- 
 graphic reports, have obscured the facts of the case, and it is time that 
 they should be fairly and fully stated. Such a statement will do much 
 to modify the somewhat one-sided view which has taken possession of 
 the public mind. The main facts are to be found in our own Blue Books, 
 and in the Transvaal Green Book, by those who have the patience to 
 read them ; but the course which the trial took, and the reticence 
 maintained by the prisoners themselves on all points which might affect 
 the Jameson trial, have left much to be supplied. It so happens that 
 having been on the spot while the prisoners were still in gaol, and 
 having had access to special means of information as to the intentions 
 and acts of the Reformers, I am in a position to throw some new light 
 upon the whole movement. Founding mainly on the facts brought out 
 in the Blue Books, it is my aim to supplement them with others not 
 generally known, and to put the whole into a connected form. 
 
 The Uitlander grievances are real. The commercial policy of the 
 Boers if policy it can be called places an oppressive and continually
 
 4 8z THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 shifting burden upon the one great industry from which the wealth 
 of the country is derived. That industry has been entirely built 
 up by the Uitlander ; yet the Uitlander has none of the rights of 
 citizenship. He has to pay almost all the taxes ; yet he has no voice in 
 their imposition or application. He has to live and work under a 
 system of government which is slow, stupid, ignorant, and corrupt ; 
 however good in letter the law may be, it cannot be got to work unless 
 the good-will of the necessary officials has been secured ; and even then 
 its operation may be suspended by an equal or larger inducement upon 
 the other side. Mr. Chamberlain spoke hopefully the other day of the 
 new liquor law : but it is vain to expect good from any law, however 
 good, if there is no machinery for honestly putting it in force. The 
 existing law as to dispensing liquor to natives is not so bad : but what 
 are you to do when a mine manager has to offer five pounds to the Boer 
 police officer to enforce the law, and the police officer informs him next 
 /day that he is very sorry, but the canteen proprietor has given him ten 
 pounds to let him alone, and that his pay is so small that he must look 
 after himself? It is the same with all transactions up to the most 
 important, and with all officials up to almost the highest, if not with 
 them also. It has been tersely and not untruly said that in the 
 Transvaal everything is possible with money ; without it, nothing. 
 But apart from all question of corruption, it is impossible that an 
 ultra-progressive community, mainly of Anglo-Saxon stock, can remain 
 permanently in subordination to an old-world race which it feels to 
 be, in almost every essential particular, inferior to itself. 
 
 The grievances have been fully acknowledged by Mr. Chamberlain, 
 and the whole state of political affairs inside the Transvaal is admirably 
 stated in his famous despatch of 4th February, 1896. In that despatch 
 he refers with evident approval to the agitation for reform as conducted 
 by the National Union down to the final manifesto issued by them on 
 2/th December last, in which their objects were stated to be " the main- 
 tenance of the independence of the Republic, the securing of equal 
 rights, and the redress of grievances." That manifesto, issued just 
 two days before the starting of Dr. Jameson on his ill-starred expedition, 
 contains a complete statement of the grievances and demands of the 
 Uitlanders, signed by Mr. Charles Leonard as Chairman of the National 
 Union. It will be well to quote his brief summing-up of the case : 
 " We have now only two questions to consider: (a) What do we 
 wartt? (b) How shall we get it? I have stated plainly what our
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 483 
 
 grievances are, and I shall answer with equal directness the question, 
 'What do we want?' We want: (i) The establishment of this 
 Republic as a true Republic ; (2) a Grondwet or Constitution which 
 shall be framed by competent persons selected by representatives of 
 the whole people, and framed on lines laid down by them a Consti- 
 tution which shall be safe-guarded against hasty alteration : (3) an 
 equitable franchise law, and fair representation ; (4) equality of the 
 Dutch and English languages ; (5) responsibility of [? to] the Legis- 
 lature to [? of] the heads of the great departments ; (6) removal of 
 religious disabilities ; (7) independence of the Courts of Justice, with 
 adequate and secured remuneration of the Judges ; (8) liberal and 
 comprehensive education ; (9) efficient Civil Service, with adequate 
 provision for pay and pension ; (10) Free Trade in South African 
 products. That is What we want. There now remains the question 
 which is to be put before you at the meeting of the 6th January, viz. : 
 ' How are we to get it ? ' To this question I shall expect from you an 
 answer in plain terms according to your deliberate judgment." 
 
 Such has been, from first to last, the programme of the Johannesburg 
 reforming party, including its leaders : Independence of the Republic 
 and Redress of Grievances : and such it has remained to this hour. 
 Nothing can be further from the truth than the idea fostered by the 
 Boers, that the Reform leaders had entered into a conspiracy with 
 the Chartered Company to "steal the country," and hand it over to 
 the Company. Nothing so absurd, so contrary to their own interests 
 and to those of the Rand generally, ever entered into their head : not 
 one tittle of evidence tending in that direction has been produced at 
 either trial. No doubt the leaders had arranged, as they themselves 
 openly acknowledged before their arrest, to get assistance from 
 Dr. Jameson in case of necessity ; but that was a very different thing 
 from " stealing the country " for themselves or any one else, and though 
 ready to look in any quarter, if need were, for aid, their aims throughout 
 were those of the manifesto, and those only. 
 
 The idea of a conspiracy to hand over the Transvaal to the Chartered 
 Company was the creation of the Boers, invented apparently for the 
 purpose of throwing dust in the eyes of Sir Hercules Robinson when 
 the Reform leaders were arrested. On I4th January, Mr. Chamberlain 
 telegraphs anxiously to ask particulars about the arrests. He asks : " Of 
 what accused, when brought to trial, whether bail allowed, what penalties 
 prescribed by law." No answer came that day. On the 1 5th he repeats:
 
 484 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 " I am awaiting a reply respecting the alleged wholesale arrests .... 
 made after the surrender of Johannesburg." Sir Hercules replies same 
 day : " Nearly all leading Johannesburg men are now in gaol, charged 
 with treason against the State, and // is rumoured that Government has 
 written evidence of a long-standing and widespread conspiracy to seize 
 government of country on the plea of denial of political privileges, and 
 to incorporate the country with that of British South Africa Company " 
 (Blue Book, c. 7,933, Nos. 147, 153, 154). 
 
 No such evidence has yet been produced ; and the narrative below 
 will show exactly what were the actual charges advanced and proved 
 against the prisoners at the trial. Nor does it appear that Sir Hercules 
 made any attempt to discover at headquarters whether the Government 
 had any evidence to show in support of the " rumour." Yet he makes 
 use of the existence of that rumour as a reason for hesitating to press 
 upon the Government Mr. Chamberlain's strong remonstrances as to the 
 grievances. For Mr. Chamberlain himself never lost sight of the 
 grievances as being the cause and origin of the whole trouble : and so 
 far from thinking that the Jameson raid, or the arrest of the Reform 
 Committee, afforded reasons why the consideration of the grievances 
 should be postponed, he dwells upon them, with renewed insistence, 
 after both those events. Yet this unverified " rumour," skilfully handled 
 by the Boers, innocently accepted by the High Commissioner, and 
 used to throw a sinister colouring over the attitude of the Reforming 
 Party, did much to frustrate Mr. Chamberlain's efforts, and robbed 
 British policy of the success due to the firmness and loyalty which it 
 had exhibited during the Jameson crisis. It is impossible to peruse 
 the correspondence without feeling that it was through the failure of 
 our representatives on the spot to press firmly home upon the Boer 
 Government Mr. Chamberlain's policy, at the critical moment when 
 Sir Hercules Robinson went up to Pretoria as a peacemaker, that 
 Great Britain lost her vantage ground, and was allowed to drift from 
 the position of assertor of her own rights as Paramount Power, and 
 vindicator of those of her subjects, into that of being a supposed 
 accomplice in a treacherous attack upon a friendly neighbour's territory. 
 
 The blame cannot be laid on Mr. Chamberlain. Nothing could be 
 more admirable than the tone of his despatch of 4th January 
 (No. 49), written after the Jameson surrender. Firm but friendly, it 
 contains no threat. It states the grievances tersely, and takes the just 
 ground that Her Majesty's Government, having done everything in its
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 485 
 
 power to stop the raid, and minimise the evils caused by it, is entitled 
 to press the Transvaal Government to remove those grievances which 
 had brought about the raid, and were a constant source of danger to the 
 Republic. This despatch, in fact, only puts into diplomatic language 
 the view more forcibly expressed by the Rev. Dr. Stewart (Christian 
 Express, Lovedale, ist May, 1896): " That the Transvaal Government 
 is the real trouble of South Africa, and the main and always active 
 cause of the unrest which has disturbed the country since 1881." 
 
 On 1 3th January Mr. Chamberlain returns to the charge (No. 
 140), and " now that Her Majesty's Government have fulfilled their 
 obligations," requests that " a permanent settlement of the grievances " 
 may be pressed upon the President. On I5th January (No. 153) 
 he observes that he has received no reply to either of the tele- 
 grams quoted above (4th January and I3th January), but presumes 
 negotiations are in progress : " There can be no settlement until the 
 questions raised by those telegrams are disposed of. The people of 
 Johannesburg laid down their arms in the belief that reasonable con- 
 cessions would be arranged by your intervention ; and until these are 
 granted, or are definitely promised to you by the President, the root 
 of the recent troubles will remain. The President has again and 
 again promised reforms, and especially on the 3Oth December last, 
 when he promised reforms in education and the franchise ; and grave 
 dissatisfaction would be excited if you left Pretoria without a clear 
 
 understanding on these points It will be your duty to use firm 
 
 language Send me a full report of the action you have already 
 
 taken .... and .... propose." 
 
 But Sir Hercules had already left Pretoria. Nothing had been done 
 to press the grievances on the President. He replies, I5th January: 
 " I could, if you consider it desirable, communicate purport {i.e., of 
 above despatch, I3th January] to President by letter. But I myself 
 think such action would be inopportune. Nearly all the leading men 
 of Johannesburg are in gaol," and then follows the passage about the 
 " rumour," quoted above. " The truth of these reports will be tested in 
 the trials to take place shortly. Meantime to urge claim for extended 
 political privileges for the very men so charged would be ineffectual 
 
 and impolitic Until result of trials is known nothing, of course, 
 
 will now be done." 
 
 Thus " the rumour " is used as a reason why the policy of urging 
 reform should be suspended. Mr. Chamberlain does not recognise its 
 Vol. XV. No. 89. 2 I
 
 4 86 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 cogency: "I do not consider," he replies (iSth January, No. 159), 
 " that the arrest of a few score of individuals out of a population of 
 seventy thousand or more, or the supposed existence of a plot among 
 that small minority, is a reason for denying to the overwhelming 
 mass of innocent persons reforms which are just in themselves and 
 
 expedient in the interests of the Republic Nothing can be 
 
 plainer than that the sober and industrious majority refused to 
 
 countenance any resort to violence I do not see that the matter 
 
 need wait until the conclusion of the trial of the supposed plotters." 
 
 Sir Hercules, however, thinks otherwise (i6th January, No. 168,) 
 " as the strongest feeling of irritation and indignation against the 
 Uitlanders exists both amongst the Burghers and Members of 
 Volksraad " ; nor can any information about the charge against the 
 prisoners, bail, penalties, &c. (as asked for in No. 147), " be obtained 
 at this stage, the matter being sub judice" 
 
 Thus were the prisoners quietly left to their fate. The grievances 
 were subsequently dealt with in Mr. Chamberlain's famous despatch of 
 4th February ; but the hope of seeing their early removal seemed to 
 dwindle away on 8th May, when Mr. Chamberlain announced in 
 Parliament that under no circumstances would he dream of going to 
 war with President Kruger in order to force upon him reforms in the 
 internal affairs of the State. Was it necessary to make this announce- 
 ment thus openly ? If there is one thing certain about Boer diplomacy 
 it is that it will never yield a point except under the pressure of superior 
 force. And what sanction has any diplomacy behind it except a sense 
 of strength, which ultimately means a possible resort to war ? 
 
 We see, then, that Mr. Chamberlain, up to the time of the trial, 
 identified himself with the cause of the reformers, and that the approach- 
 ing trial was made a reason for suspending action for the time on their 
 behalf. We now return to the Reform leaders, and have to ask whether 
 the facts brought out since then in regard to their conduct, at either of 
 the two great trials which have taken place, or in any other way, are 
 such as to discredit the cause which they represent ; and what exactly 
 are the offences which have been proved or charged against them ? 
 Every effort was made by the Boer Government to bring out evidence 
 against them ; but none of the grosser charges were established. I am 
 in a position to show, on the contrary, that many extenuating points in 
 their favour were brought out ; that the charges which have raised most 
 prejudice against them have not been proved, and are false ; and that
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 487 
 
 beyond the facts patent to all, and acknowledged by the leaders them- 
 selves when they had no reason to expect arrest, nothing has been 
 proved which should affect our sympathy with their demands. It will 
 further appear that our Government has, in fact, assumed a responsi- 
 bility towards those demands which cannot in honour be ignored. As 
 Mr. Chamberlain himself points out, even if everything charged against 
 a few individuals were true, that would in no way affect the just claims 
 of the mass of the population of Johannesburg. 
 
 Now there are three things which have greatly prejudiced the public 
 mind against the Reformers : (i) The quotation from Mr. Lionel Phillips's 
 letter to his partner, Mr. Beit, discovered by the Boer Government in 
 Mr. Phillips's private letter-book : " As for the franchise, I do not believe 
 many care a fig about it " ; (2) the fact that the movement in December 
 last was mainly organised by a few large capitalists ; and (3) the 
 publication of the cypher telegrams. A few words on each. 
 
 (i) Mr. Phillips's letter was written in July, 1894. The correspondence 
 should be read as a whole, as printed in the Transvaal Green Book. 
 It gives an admirable account of the causes which led to the movement, 
 written in confidence to a partner. It sets forth in detail how the 
 exactions and the bad government of the .Boers are damaging the gold 
 industry, and points out that these exactions, while only irritating in the 
 first palmy days of the industry, will be absolutely disastrous to it as it 
 gets placed on a more normal and solid footing. In the early days of 
 unknown values and big capitalists, there were large margins out of 
 which impositions could be met, and the effects of bad laws and bad 
 administration provided against ; but now that full values have been 
 reached, and the day of the small capitalist is coming, there are no 
 margins to meet any but legitimate expenses. " We do not want to 
 meddle in politics ; we do not want to interfere with government ; we 
 only want good laws, justly administered, and if we can get these, it is 
 no ^object to us to have the franchise." Such is the burden of these 
 letters : and they were written with the immediate view of recommending 
 a project, put before Mr. Phillips by Boer politicians, for assisting in the 
 return to the Volksraad of a party of Boer representatives favourable to 
 reform. The plan failed : for though the " progressive " candidates were 
 elected, they distinguished themselves only, when elected, by their 
 opposition to the demands for reform. It was, perhaps, rather simple 
 on Mr. Phillips's part to suppose that any party or interest can get what 
 it wants from a Government in which it has no representation.
 
 4 88 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 Centuries of experience have taught the nations of Western Europe 
 otherwise. But Mr. Phillips soon discovered his mistake ; the Rand 
 learnt, by bitter experience, that it had no chance of getting just 
 government without the franchise ; and so the leaders gave up the vain 
 hope of influencing a Parliament which treated them as aliens, and saw 
 that the only chance of reform was to agitate for the rights of citizen- 
 ship. Mr. Phillips's view was honestly expressed at the time : further 
 experience forced him to give it up. 
 
 (2) It is no crime to be a capitalist. Not all capitalists are dis- 
 honest men, or incapable politicians. In this case, the popular character 
 of the movement has been impugned, because it was conducted by a few 
 rich men ; and it has been insinuated, and generally suspected, that 
 the combination was one effected for personal gain. But the move- 
 ment was one for which large expenditure would be required, in 
 whatever way it might develop. In a city like Johannesburg, from the 
 moment when any important knowledge descends into the street, it finds 
 its way into the Stock Exchange, and sets all the fires of speculation 
 going. The leaders were fully aware of this danger. But more than 
 that ; I am prepared to say, after minute personal enquiry at first 
 hand, that they had no financial or stock-jobbing aim in view in 
 forming their combination. From first to last, I believe that their 
 movement was an honest political movement, entered into, no doubt, 
 with a view to the general interests of the gold industry, their own 
 interests as well as those of others, but free from the taint of corruption, 
 and covering no scheme for making money out of the movement itself. 
 
 (3) As to the cypher telegrams, Sir William Harcourt thus com- 
 mented upon them in Parliament : " The whole spirit of this trans- 
 action has been the spirit of Mammon." He laughs to scorn, as 
 " mythical," " the account of the Reform Committee, that it was a 
 justifiable combination for the redress of grievances." The whole story 
 is " inexpressibly revolting " ; and the cypher telegrams themselves read 
 " like the prospectus of a set of bookmakers." Cruel words these, at a 
 time when the men attacked were lying in gaol, their sentences as yet 
 undetermined ; and they cannot be justified. The language of the 
 telegrams is that of ordinary Stock Exchange transactions. There 
 is nothing "revolting" in its use. It exactly suited the wants of 
 the telegraphers, because in Johannesburg, where half the telegrams 
 issued or received refer to stocks and companies, it would excite no 
 suspicion. The more important point is, What do the famous telegrams
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 489 
 
 prove ? They are very important in regard to Dr. Jameson's inroad, and 
 in regard to certain payments made to Dr. Wolff through the 
 Chartered Company : but there is not one single word in them 
 which points to money-getting, or to a supposed division of spoils. 
 One telegram only was quoted by Sir W. Harcourt as suspicious : 
 " From Hammond to J. C. Rhodes. Cannot arrange respective 
 interests without Beit." This telegram I am able to explain. It 
 has no reference to money-making, but only to expenditure. As 
 we know, large expenditure was at that time going on in Johannes- 
 burg, for which advances were being made : it was necessary to arrange 
 for their apportionment. It will be noted that the telegram is addressed 
 to Mr. Rhodes, and Sir William Harcourt himself acquitted Mr. Rhodes 
 handsomely of" all mean and sordid motives." 
 
 The Boer Government made the utmost use of the cypher telegrams 
 at the trial of the Reformers : they have fed largely the indignation of 
 the Boers against Mr. Rhodes. But not one point against the prisoners- 
 was made out of them except this : that large payments were made- 
 to Dr. Wolfe in connexion with the New Concessions account, and 
 there was some evidence, though not very clear evidence, to connect: 
 those payments with Dr. Jameson. From first to last the famous 
 cypher telegrams contain no indication of any money- making act or 
 intention on the part of any of the Reformers. 
 
 Having thus cleared the ground on these important points, we return 
 to the story of what took place at Johannesburg after the Jameson 
 bomb exploded. That story will show the extent of the offence com- 
 mitted by the Reformers, and give some measure of the good faith of 
 the Transvaal Government. It will illustrate Boer methods of justice, 
 and set in a clear light the obligations which were undertaken by 
 the British Government towards the Reformers and their cause. It 
 will also dispose of the doctrine held by some Jingo minds that it 
 would have been a sensible or even possible thing (putting aside all 
 question of right) for Johannesburg to march out to Jameson's rescue. 
 
 The news that Jameson had crossed the border reached the 
 Transvaal Government at about 8 A.M. on Monday, 3Oth December. 
 It was known in Johannesburg in the afternoon of the same day, and 
 at once threw the city into a fever of excitement. It was entirely 
 unexpected by the leaders. Their plan had been that Jameson was 
 to be on the border, and was to come in as a support to a move- 
 ment from Johannesburg ; but the movement was not yet started, 
 
 2 I 2
 
 492 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 Commission, they sent for a complete list of the Reform Committee, and 
 presented it to the Commission. 
 
 It was on the basis of the admissions made at this meeting, and 
 from the list of the Committee thus supplied, that the wholesale arrest 
 of its members was made in the week following. 
 
 At the end, Chief Justice Kotze announced that the Commission were 
 not authorised to make a settlement, but would report: what had passed 
 to the Executive. In the afternoon of the same day the two deputations 
 met again. Chief Justice Kotze" then handed in a written minute 
 embodying the decision of the Executive. The original of this minute 
 was, by an unfortunate accident, destroyed ; but it was subsequently 
 referred to by the Government, and the following account of its 
 substance was sworn to and submitted at the. trial, the Government 
 consenting to admit it rather than produce a certified copy of the 
 original : " Sir Hercules Robinson has offered his services with a view to 
 a peaceful settlement. The Government of the South African Republic 
 has accepted his offer. Pending his arrival, no hostile steps will be 
 taken against Johannesburg provided Johannesburg takes no hostile 
 action against the Government. In terms of the proclamation recently 
 issued by the President, the grievances will be earnestly considered." 
 
 The deputation returned to Johannesburg and obtained the 
 acquiescence of the Committee in these terms. Mr. Lace was 
 despatched to inform Dr. Jameson of the agreement. The agree- 
 ment was faithfully observed by Johannesburg ; not only hostilities, 
 but all operations for the defence of the town were suspended. Thus 
 cleverly, at the critical moment, when it was still unknown whai the 
 issue of the Jameson inroad might be, or what were the resources at the 
 disposal of the Reform Committee, did the Transvaal Government 
 succeed in keeping Johannesburg quiet by holding out promises of reform. 
 
 Dr. Jameson surrendered on Thursday morning, 2nd January. 
 The High Commissioner left for Pretoria that same night, and arrived 
 on Saturday, the 4th. The Transvaal Government was now safe ; 
 Dr. Jameson and his men were in gaol ; the burghers were gathered 
 round Johannesburg. The Reform Committee were looking to 
 Sir Hercules's arrival as that of a mediator, who was to effect a 
 " peaceful settlement " and secure earnest attention to their grievances. 
 But the Transvaal Government no longer needed " the services " 
 of the High Commissioner in that capacity. Probably, had they 
 known how easily they would dispose of Dr. Jameson, they never
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 493 
 
 would have asked for his intervention. They warned him earnestly, 
 through the British Resident, while still en route, "to receive no 
 deputation either at Johannesburg or Pretoria until you have met 
 his Honour the President " ; and accordingly he never saw any of the 
 Reformers. When he arrived at Pretoria he seems never to have met 
 the President for discussion or consultation at all. He met the President 
 and the Executive on the following Monday morning : but it was not 
 for conference, it was only to receive the announcement of a decision 
 which had been already arrived at, and to act as transmitter of their 
 ultimatum, by telegraph, to Johannesburg. 
 
 "Pretoria, 6th January, 1896. From H.M. Agent to Reform 
 
 Committee, Johannesburg. (No. 89.) 
 
 " I am directed to inform you that the High Commissioner met the 
 President, the Executive, and the Judges to-day. The President 
 announced the decision of the Government to be that Johannesburg 
 must lay down its arms unconditionally, as a condition precedent to a 
 discussion and consideration of grievances. The High Commissioner 
 endeavoured to obtain some indication of the steps which would be 
 taken in the event of disarmament, but without success, it being 
 intimated that the Government had nothing more to say on that 
 subject than had already been embodied in the President's proclamation. 
 The High Commissioner enquired whether any decision had been come 
 to as regards the disposal of the prisoners, and received a reply in the 
 negative. The President said that as his burghers, to the number of 
 eight thousand, had been collected and could not be asked to remain 
 indefinitely, he must request a reply, yes or no, to this ultimatum within 
 twenty-four hours." 
 
 The ultimatum was considered by the Committee that afternoon and 
 evening. Late in the day, Sir Jacobus de Wet came over by special train. 
 He strongly urged the Committee to lay down their arms, pressing on 
 them two grave considerations: (i) That the lives of Jameson and his 
 followers were practically in their hands ; (2) that they would thereby 
 put themselves into a better position in regard to redressing grievances. 
 There was great excitement. Violent opposition was feared. Sir 
 Jacobus not only addressed the Committee, but also spoke to a great 
 crowd from the windows of the Rand Club. He went a great length in 
 his assurances : how far he went is disputed. He spoke under great 
 excitement ; and he informed me himself, with much earnestness, that it 
 was solely by his influence that day that bloodshed was averted. I
 
 494 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 have questioned at least a half-dozen of those who were present, and 
 they assure me that he used the phrase that " not a hair of the head 
 of any man in Johannesburg would be touched " ; and on some one 
 exclaiming " How about the leaders ? " he replied that applied to the 
 leaders also. The matter has been made the subject of questions in 
 Parliament, and of several letters in The Times, written by eye-witnesses 
 who confirm the above statements. Sir Jacobus has explained (Saturday 
 Review, 4th July, 1896) that he made these assurances in his private 
 not his official capacity : and Mr. Chamberlain has accepted that view. 
 The distinction is a fine one. We are not accustomed to hear of 
 promises made in public by our accredited representatives, on important 
 public occasions, being held as of no account because they were made 
 unofficially : it is certain, at any rate, that the assurances made by Sir 
 Jacobus, who came fresh from the instructions of a High Commissioner 
 who had been called in to bring about a peaceful settlement, were not 
 so interpreted by those who heard them. And we also know, on the 
 authority of his own letter to The Saturday Review, that Sir Jacobus 
 thought he was justified in predicting a free pardon from what he knew 
 of the circumstances and of the attitude of the President. Rightly or 
 wrongly, the Reform Committee, and the people of Johannesburg, 
 believed that their safety, and, what is more important, the discussion 
 and consideration of grievances, had been virtually guaranteed by the 
 British Government : and it is not to be wondered at that they have 
 felt very bitterly on the subject ever since. Even so, the decision was 
 not easily arrived at : the resolution to surrender was not passed until 
 the arrival next morning (the 7th) of the following telegram from the 
 High Commissioner to Sir Jacobus (this telegram is not given in the 
 Blue Book): "Urgent. You should inform the Johannesburg people 
 that I consider that if they lay down their arms they will be acting 
 loyally and honourably, and that if they do not comply with this request, 
 they will forfeit all claim to sympathy from Her Majesty's Government 
 and from British subjects throughout the world, as the lives of Jameson 
 and prisoners are practically in their hands." 
 
 This last appeal we now know to have had no force. The High 
 Commissioner did not know that the lives of Jameson's men had been 
 secured by the conditions of surrender. This fact has now been settled 
 authoritatively by the opinion of our own Secretary for War, Lord 
 Lansdowne, to whom the matter was referred for a military opinion by 
 the Colonial Office.
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 495 
 
 Moved thus by the two considerations ( i ) That they would so best 
 secure the safety of the Jameson prisoners, and (2) that the intervention 
 of Sir Hercules would obtain for them the fulfilment or the promise 
 made as to grievances on 1st January, the Reform Committee 
 unanimously decided to comply with the Government demand. After 
 the friendly character of their meeting with the Government Commission 
 on the ist, and relying on the mediation of the High Commissioner, 
 they had no suspicion of danger to themselves. 
 
 That afternoon, /th January, Sir Hercules telegraphs to Mr. 
 Chamberlain (No. 98) : " I have just received a message from Reform 
 Committee resolving to comply with demand of South African Republic 
 to lay down their arms ; the people of Johannesburg placing themselves 
 and their interests unreservedly in my hands." The surrender was 
 made upon /th January. The disarmament was at once carried out. 
 On the Qth appeared a tortuous proclamation from the President, 
 promising an amnesty to all in Johannesburg " except the leaders." 
 On that same day every member of the Reform Committee whose 
 name was on the list furnished in good faith by the deputation on the 
 1st inst. was arrested and thrown into gaol on a charge of high treason. 
 Many of the members had known nothing of the movement until they 
 put down their names on the Committee formed on 3Oth December. 
 They were all arrested under the name of " leaders." No new facts had 
 been brought out against any of their number since they had " placed 
 themselves unreservedly in the hands of the High Commissioner" : yet 
 the whole of the Committee, sixty-four in number, were thrown into 
 prison without remonstrance. Thus the mission of the High Com- 
 missioner was used by the Transvaal Government, first, to stop all 
 action on the part of the Johannesburghers at the moment when they 
 were still armed and might possibly have used their strength with 
 effect ; and, finally, to strike their arms out of their hands. And the 
 High Commissioner was permitted, or induced, to make his strongest 
 appeal to them with this object on grounds which the Boer Govern- 
 ment, having before them the terms of the Jameson surrender, must 
 have known to be false. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain has recently, in Parliament, drawn a sharp 
 distinction between a promise of protection to " the people of 
 Johannesburg," and one as to the personal liberty of the leaders 
 themselves. Certainly the leaders never drew any distinction between 
 their own interests and those of the city. They had acted throughout
 
 496 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 as the representatives of the city ; and they had practically the whole 
 city at their back during the crisis, in all they did. They had secured 
 perfect order, they had kept faith with the Government, they had made 
 it their one aim to secure for the inhabitants, in the most peaceable 
 manner then possible, the reforms which the community were 
 unanimous in demanding. From the moment when the news of the 
 invasion had reached them, they had done everything in their power to 
 prevent further mischief, and they had prevented it. In a city full of 
 inflammable materials, they had checked all outbreak, they had 
 established an effective organisation whose first act was to repudiate all 
 desire to upset the Government, they had adopted a moderate consti- 
 tutional platform, and had shown themselves ready to meet the first 
 approaches of the Government towards a reasonable settlement. Had 
 they allowed themselves to be carried away by the excitement of the 
 moment, deplorable consequences might have ensued. A false step 
 might then have plunged the country into civil war, with disaster both 
 to Boer and British, and especially to the cause of reform ; for whatever 
 British sympathies might have been, it would have been impossible for 
 the British Government to espouse a movement beginning with an 
 aggression like that of Dr. Jameson. 
 
 Both Governments reaped benefit from the moderation and good 
 sense exhibited by the Reformers during the crisis. Yet no sooner had 
 they yielded to the urgent appeal of the High Commissioner, " placing 
 themselves and their interests unreservedly in his hands," than they 
 found themselves thrown into gaol, charged with a capital offence, and 
 looking in vain for help to the British representative. At the moment 
 when their aims seemed likely to be realised, their hopes of securing 
 reform had been rendered abortive by the expedition of Dr. Jameson. 
 They had been lured into conference by the Boer Government, and, 
 after friendly overtures, they found themselves arrested on the charge 
 of high treason, on evidence innocently furnished by themselves. 
 They had surrendered in the faith that they would be under the 
 protection of the High Commissioner and the British Government : 
 they now found themselves " left severely alone," on the ground of 
 " a rumour " that they had intended to hand over the country to the 
 Chartered Company. 
 
 G. G. RAMSAY.
 
 ENGLAND'S DUTY TO CYPRUS 523 
 
 eager was the anticipation with which the Cypriots awaited the good 
 news which they expected to hear from him at the opening of their 
 little parliament, the Legislative Assembly. And, indeed, it was a 
 piteous thing to watch the hope die out from those expectant faces 
 as the speech continued and closed without the long-looked for 
 announcement ; yet a more grievous thing for the speaker to whom 
 it was not given to utter the words he would ! 
 
 Is the disappointment to endure and the hope to die for ever ? Or 
 will England one day awake to these responsibilities and opportunities 
 in Cyprus which are hers beyond question, and hers alone, in the 
 fulfilment of which no jealous Power or coalition of Powers is either 
 entitled or able to interfere ? 
 
 EDWARD G. BROWNE.
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 II. 
 
 THE narrative of events in Johannesburg between the 29th December 
 last and the 9th January has now shown us : 
 
 (1) That from the moment when the news of the incursion arrived, 
 Johannesburg took no hostile step, except such as were needed for 
 self-defence and the preservation of order. 
 
 (2) That during that exciting week the Reform Committee pre- 
 served excellent order : peace was not broken, not a violent act was 
 committed. 
 
 (3) That the Committee agreed to lay down their arms at the express 
 and earnest solicitation of the High Commissioner, who had offered his 
 services with a view to a peaceful settlement, and of the British 
 Resident, Sir Jacobus de Wet. 
 
 (4) That in laying down their arms, the leaders fully trusted the 
 assurances given them by the Pretorian Government on ist January 
 as to the consideration of grievances, as well as the promises previously 
 made by the President " in regard to education and the franchise " 
 (despatch from Mr. Chamberlain, No. 85). 
 
 (5) That the obligations laid upon the British Government by 
 the circumstances of the surrender were thus acknowledged by the 
 High Commissioner (No. 98) : " The people of Johannesburg placing 
 themselves and their interests unreservedly in my hands, in the fullest 
 confidence that I will see justice done to them." 
 
 (6) That, nevertheless, no sooner was the disarmament effected, than 
 all the members of the Reform Committee, sixty-four in number, were 
 arrested on a charge of high treason, and put in gaol. 
 
 (7) That the character of the charge was represented to the High 
 Commissioner to be such as to make it impossible, in his judgment, 
 for the British Government to extend any special protection to the 
 prisoners ; and highly inopportune to make any further representation 
 as to the grievances, as promised, until the result of the trial should be 
 made known. 
 
 This last point has now to be investigated. Looking to all the
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 525 
 
 circumstances of Sir Hercules Robinson's mission, and the events which 
 followed it, it is evident that nothing could justify the Boer Government 
 in arresting the Committee, or Sir Hercules in abandoning them and 
 their cause, except the discovery that they or their leaders had been 
 engaged in treasonable plots and aims going beyond those which had 
 been admitted by the accused, and were known both to the Govern- 
 ment and Sir Hercules, at the time of the surrender. At that lime, 
 Sir Hercules had no idea that any new mine was going to be sprung. 
 On the 8th January he telegraphs: "Johannesburg has surrendered. 
 You may feel satisfied the crisis is over." Both he and Mr. Chamberlain 
 praise the conduct of Johannesburg and the leaders during the crisis. 
 On the Qth he telegraphs : " I intend, if I find the Johannesburg 
 people have substantially complied with the ultimatum, to insist on 
 the fulfilment of promises as regards prisoners and consideration of 
 grievances." But his whole attitude changes when the new charge 
 is formulated against the prisoners : he feels he can now no longer 
 " insist on the consideration of grievances " ; any attempt to do so, 
 now that " nearly all leading men in Johannesburg are in gaol," would 
 be " inopportune, ineffectual, and impolitic " (No. 1 54). So he is bowed 
 out of the country by the President with " thanks and congratulations " 
 on the "success of his mission"; and the President assures him (with 
 sixty-four prisoners in gaol !) that " the complications in Johannesburg 
 are approaching to an end" (No. 150). 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain was not less taken by surprise : though he did not 
 think that the charges, even if true, afforded any ground for suspending 
 the demand for redress of grievances (No. 159). And so important did 
 he consider the new charges, that, in view of the fact that others besides 
 British subjects were implicated, he caused an official intimation on the 
 subject to be made at once to the Foreign Office for the information of 
 Lord Salisbury (i6th January, No. 167): "It is understood that the 
 proceedings are based on sworn information, and that the trials will take 
 place before the High Court of the South African Republic, and it is 
 alleged that the Government of the Republic are in possession of 
 documentary evidence of the existence of a widespread conspiracy to 
 seize upon the Government, and to make use of the wealth of the 
 country to rehabilitate the finances of the British South Africa 
 Company." 
 
 We have now to see what the " documentary evidence " referred 
 to actually was, and what charges were actually proved against, or
 
 5.?6 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 admitted by, the prisoners at the trial. It is to be noted that the 
 new " documentary evidence " cannot include the famous letter of 
 invitation addressed to Dr. Jameson by the leaders, for that was 
 acknowledged by the deputation at the meeting on ist January, 
 and was known to Sir Hercules himself, and to Mr. Chamberlain, 
 upon that same day. In reply to a question on the subject from 
 Mr. Chamberlain (3ist December, No. n), Sir Hercules wires: ''I 
 have seen a copy of a letter to Jameson, dated 2Oth December, 
 from Messrs. Leonard, Frank Rhodes, Phillips, Hammond, and Farrar, 
 asking him to come to their assistance in case of disturbance in 
 Johannesburg" (ist January, No. 25); and it was on that same day 
 that Mr. Chamberlain suggested the mission of Sir Hercules to 
 Pretoria, " as peacemaker, and with a view to the reasonable settlement 
 of grievances" (ist January, No. 24). And the letter itself was not 
 used as evidence in the case. 
 
 Between the arrest and the' trial no new facts emerged. But 
 immediately after the arrest, several incidents took place which throw 
 light upon Boer methods of diplomacy. 
 
 (i) One method skilfully used by the President on several occasions, 
 when he had a point in diplomacy to gain., was to represent that "the 
 Burghers were getting out of hand"; and that if he did not get his 
 way, he could not answer for the consequences. Thus on 8th January 
 (No. 108) : " Kriiger has behaved very well. .... In opposition to a very 
 general feeling of the Executive Council and of the Burghers, who have 
 been clamouring for Jameson's life, he has now determined to hand over 
 Jameson and the other prisoners." * 
 
 Again, on Qth January (No; 108) : " Matters have not been going so 
 
 * Th : s in spite of the terms of surrender. As even now doubts continue to be cast upon 
 this point, it will be well to quote Lord Lansdowne's official declaration on behalf of the War 
 Office. The question had been laid before him by the Colonial Office, with all the fina 
 explanations offered by the Transvaal Government, on 2ist April. The reply is as follows 
 (No. 98): 
 
 " War Office, London, S.W., 
 
 "27th April, 1896. 
 
 " Sir, I am directed by the Secretary of State for War to acknowledge the receipt of 
 your letter of the 2ist inst., on the subject of the surrender of Dr. Jameson's force to the Boers. 
 
 " In reply, the Marquis of Lan^downe, having consulted with his military adviser, desires 
 me to observe that, whatever position Mr. Cronje may hold in the Transvaal Army, he 
 decidedly, on the occasion in question, acted as an officer in authority, and guaranteed the lives 
 of Dr. Jameson and all his men if they at once laid down their arms. 
 
 " The terms prescribed were accepted by Dr. Jameson's force, and they surrendered and 
 laid down thr ir arms, and no subsequent discussion amongst the Transvaal Officers could retract 
 the terms of this --urrender.
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 527 
 
 smoothly." The Boers had threatened to attack Johannesburg on the 
 pretext that the arms had not all been delivered up in terms of the 
 ultimatum. The accusation was false ; and Sir Hercules made a 
 spirited reply, pointing out that the terms of the ultimatum only 
 required the surrender of arms for which no permit of importation had 
 been obtained, and declaring that if the undertaking, for which he had 
 made himself responsible, were violated, he would at once appeal to 
 Her Majesty's Government. " This had a sobering effect. The order 
 for the attack on Johannesburg was countermanded " ; and Sir Hercules 
 adds : " The explanation of the change, I take it, is that Kriiger has 
 great difficulties to contend with among his own people. The apparent 
 object is to prove that the people of Johannesburg have not fulfilled the 
 conditions which were to precede the handing over of the prisoners 
 and the redress of grievances " (8th January, No. 108). And again 
 next day (No. 105) : "The Boers thought the Uitlanders were acting in 
 bad faith, and threatened to get out of hand." 
 
 Again, on I4th January, when, as we shall see, the President 
 attempted to go back upon his word as to the prisoners : " President 
 states that he was in the greatest embarrassment ; he had stood out 
 almost single-handed against his Executive Council and his Burghers, 
 who were clamorous for the trial and punishment of prisoners in this 
 
 country President replied that .... he did not see how he 
 
 could make his peace with the Burghers if on crossing the border they 
 were set at liberty." 
 
 It does not appear that there was any truth whatever in these repre- 
 sentations as to the attitude of the Burghers. On the contrary, it must 
 be said in justice to them that, with some slight and excusable exception 
 when the prisoners were first brought in, the Burghers never made any 
 kind of demonstration against them, and -accepted the decisions of the 
 Executive with regard to them, as well as in other matters, with perfect 
 acquiescence. 
 
 (2) On several important occasions the Executive showed them- 
 selves ready, when it suited their purpose, and if permitted, to ignore 
 undertakings deliberately entered into. The most notorious instance 
 
 " I am, therefore, to acquaint you, for the information of the Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies, that the Secretary of Slate for War concurs with Mr. Chamberlain in considering 
 that the surrender was completed on Sir John Willoughby's acceptance of Commandant 
 Cronje's terms, and was subject to those terms and conditions. 
 
 " I am, &c., 
 
 "ARTHUR J. HALIBORTON."
 
 528 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 of this was in regard to the surrender of Jameson and his men. From 
 the beginning to the end of the negotiations the Boer Government used 
 the safety of Jameson and his men as their most potent instrument 
 of diplomacy, and obtained by this means the peaceful disarmament of 
 Johannesburg. And yet those lives had been secured by the conditions 
 of surrender. We have seen how, on 9th January, an order for an 
 attack upon Johannesburg, in violation of the ultimatum, was only 
 countermanded in consequence of the firm attitude taken up by 
 Sir Hercules. An instance no less glaring occurred in connexion 
 with the delivery of the Jameson prisoners. The story is best told by 
 the despatches. 
 
 On 4th January Sir Hercules writes : " There is a possibility that the 
 President may offer to hand over all his prisoners to be dealt with by 
 the High Commissioner." Same date, Mr. Chamberlain " would highly 
 appreciate such magnanimity " ; and says in that case he would propose 
 " that all should be sent out of the country, except the ringleaders .... 
 who would be indicted and brought to trial in this country." He 
 desires that the various difficulties of the case may be fully explained 
 to the President. 
 
 On 7th January Sir Hercules is informed by the Executive that 
 " no decision has as yet been come to as regards disposal of prisoners." 
 /th January : " I understand in that case (i.e., if Johannesburg surrenders 
 unconditionally) Jameson and all prisoners will be handed over to me." 
 Same date, after surrender : " President of the South African Republic 
 has intimated his intention to hand over Jameson and the other 
 prisoners to High Commissioner on the border of Natal." 
 
 8th January : " Kriiger .... has now determined to hand over 
 Jameson and other prisoners I shall try to-day to make arrange- 
 ments with Kriiger as to taking over the prisoners (No. 105)." 
 Same day, from Mr. Chamberlain: "Give the following message 
 to the President of the South African Republic from me : ' I have 
 received the Queen's commands to acquaint you that Her Majesty has 
 heard with satisfaction that you have decided to hand over the prisoners 
 to her Government. This act will redound to the credit of your 
 Honour, &c.' " (No. 104). 
 
 9th January the President writes his acknowledgment to Mr. Cham- 
 berlain : " As I had already caused your Excellency to be informed, 
 it is really my intention to act in this sense, so that Dr. Jameson and 
 the British subjects who were under his command may be punished
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 529 
 
 by Her Majesty's Government" (No. 116). gth January, from Sir 
 Hercules : " I expect that to-morrow or next day the President will 
 hand over to me the prisoners at the Natal border. Jameson and the 
 officers to be sent home for trial, the rest to be disbanded." 
 
 But next day, loth January, a new line is taken. From Sir Hercu'es 
 (No. 125) : " Most urgent. After refusing for several days to allow me 
 to make necessary arrangements on border of Natal for reception of 
 prisoners, Government this morning have sent to me to say that they 
 desire the prisoners to proceed at once to Volksrust .... but a serious 
 difficulty has arisen. President of South African Republic says that it 
 is the decision of Executive Council that the whole of the prisoners 
 should be sent to England to be tried according to English law. It has 
 been pointed out that it was only contemplated to send the officers for 
 trial, to which he replied in such case the whole question must be 
 reconsidered." 
 
 Next day, 1 1 th January, Sir Hercules forwards the following letter 
 from the Government of the Republic : " With reference to his Honour 
 the State President's letter to your Excellency of yesterday's date, in 
 which his Honour makes known his intentions later on to acquaint your 
 Excellency with the decision regarding Dr. Jameson his officers and 
 men, subjects of her Britannic Majesty, I am now directed by his 
 Honour and the Executive Council to acquaint your Excellency with 
 the following : Dr. Jameson and his men will be conveyed as prisoners 
 
 to Volksrust They will remain there until they shall be taken over 
 
 as prisoners by or through the British Government They will have 
 
 to be conveyed from Pretoria to England without any demonstration. 
 They will have to be conveyed as prisoners to Durban, Natal, and on a 
 British man-of-war to England, and in England will have to be tried and 
 punished.'" Further particulars are added (No. 129). 
 
 Same date: Sir Hercules adds the inevitable justification that the 
 above " decision is forced upon the Government of South African 
 Republic by their own Burghers, who are inclined to get out of hand " 
 (No. 130). But Mr. Chamberlain will listen to no such suggestion. 
 i ith January (No. 132) : " Referring to your telegrams of loth January, 
 astonished that Council should hesitate to fulfil the engagement which 
 we understood was made by President with you, and confirmed by the 
 Queen, on the faith of which you procured the disarmament of 
 
 Johannesburg. Any delay will produce worst impression here 
 
 I have already promised that all the leaders shall be brought to trial 
 Vol. XV No. 90. 2 M
 
 5^0 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 immediately, but it would be absurd to try the rank and file, who only 
 obeyed orders which they could not refuse. If desired, we may, 
 however, engage to bring to England all who are not domiciled in 
 South Africa ; but we cannot undertake to bring all the rank and file 
 to trial, for that would make a farce of the whole proceedings, and is 
 contrary to the practice of all civilised Governments. As regards a 
 pledge that they shall be punished, the President will see, on considera- 
 tion, although a Government can order a prosecution, it cannot in any 
 free country compel a conviction. You may remind him that the 
 murderers of Major Elliot, who were tried in the Transvaal in 1881, 
 were acquitted by the jury of Burghers. Compare, also, the treatment 
 by us of Stellaland and other freebooters." 
 
 It is to be regretted that this, and other similar despatches, were 
 only presented to the President in a diluted form. The President 
 himself never minced anything he had to say. Nevertheless, thus 
 firmly met, he acquiesced in Mr. Chamberlain's offer: he was just 
 "trying it on." The Burghers did not in consequence get "out of 
 hand." That was a mere pretext : and what made the use of it the 
 more inexcusable was that the Government had deliberately adjourned 
 the Volksraad till the month of May. Having thus deprived themselves 
 of the legitimate mode of ascertaining the opinion of the Burghers, it 
 was a mere ruse of diplomacy to be continually using their supposed 
 opinions as a bogey by means of which to extort approval of a change 
 of front, or acquiescence in the evasion of an obligation. 
 
 (3) Another favourite device of the Boer Government is the use 
 of " sworn informations." All kinds of sharp questions were put to 
 our Government, and explanations demanded, on the basis of "sworn 
 informations," which turned out, on investigation, to be founded on the 
 most trumpery hearsay evidence. Sir Hercules demanded the produc- 
 tion of the " sworn informations," on the strength of which it was 
 proposed to attack Johannesburg on 8th January. One of these was 
 .as follows: "Sworn before me, this 8th January, 1896, H. T. Coster, 
 State Attorney, by F. Wepener : ' I have a sister, Mrs. Bailey (born 
 Wepener) .... who told me on Saturday last that on Thursday or 
 Friday, 2nd or 3rd January, 1896, she saw wagons passing her door 
 
 loaded with cannons My sister left Johannesburg the very 
 
 same day.'" Others were similar in character. And in the first week 
 of May, amongst a heap of sworn falsehoods as to British armaments 
 at Mafeking, the President sent in "a sworn information" detailing a
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 531 
 
 conversation with a British officer who had sailed for England a 
 fortnight before the alleged conversation took place. The Boer believes 
 everything on his own side ; nothing which is advanced from the other. 
 
 We now come to the trial itself, and to the evidence which was 
 produced at it. Here, again, we shall find that Boer ideas of justice 
 and judicial proceedings do not square with our notions of fair play, 
 any more than do their ideas of diplomacy. One great flaw runs 
 through the whole administration of justice in the Transvaal : there is 
 no sense of the necessity which civilised nations feel of keeping apart 
 the Judicial and the Executive functions. We find judges taking part 
 in the deliberations and the decisions of the Executive ; we find 
 throughout the Executive controlling, directly or indirectly, the action 
 of the judges and the decisions of the Courts of Law. 
 
 The preliminary trial began on 3rd February. On i6th January 
 Mr. Chamberlain had wired Sir Hercules Robinson : " Instruct counsel 
 to attend the trials of Johannesburg leaders and watch proceedings, 
 reporting fully to you thereon as regards British, Americans, and 
 Belgians accused" (No. 163^. On 2/th January, Sir Hercules reports 
 that at the unanimous request of the prisoners he had endeavoured to 
 secure the services of Mr. Rose Innes, Q.C., as counsel ; but that the 
 Transvaal Courts had raised a difficulty about recognising his previous 
 admission to the Bar under British regime. He had, therefore, 
 instructed local counsel to be retained (No. 201). On 28th January 
 he forwards a report from the British Resident to the effect that " the 
 prisoners renew their recommendation that Innes be sent to report ; 
 he can sit at table with barristers, and could advise outside the Court. 
 They do not consider any of the available Transvaal advocates com- 
 petent The approximate cost would be ^"1,500" (No. 204). 
 
 The point was conceded by the Boer Government. Mr. Chamberlain 
 telegraphs: "Send Innes" (No. 205). 
 
 The preliminary trial was in the nature of a fishing inquiry. It 
 was held before Mr. Zeiler, Assistant Landdrost of Pretoria. Leading 
 questions of various kinds were put to the witnesses. The following 
 evidence was put in : 
 
 (1) The list of arms, &c., given up by the Reform Committee in 
 accordance with the terms of the surrender, with approximate state- 
 ment as to number, places of storage, &c. This was the list which 
 the Government had impugned as incorrect upon gth January. 
 
 (2) The list of the members of the Reform Committee as supplied 
 
 2 M 2
 
 532 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 by the deputation to the Government Commission upon 1st January. 
 This list was sworn to by Judge Ameshoff, one of the three members 
 of that Commission. 
 
 (3) Evidence to prove the existence of an organisation which 
 assumed Government functions and kept order in Johannesburg during 
 the week 3Oth December, 1895, to 6th January, 189"). 
 
 (4) Dutch witnesses were produced who swore that they had seen 
 armed natives in Johannesburg. This was not true : the State Attorney 
 himself said that he did not believe it, and it was not alluded to 
 subsequently. 
 
 (5) Certain accounts were put in of the " New Concessions Account " 
 and the " Development Syndicate." Some of these contained the 
 name of Dr. Wolff. It was hoped that the payments made under these 
 accounts could be connected with Dr. Jameson's inroad ; but nothing 
 was definitely proved. In connection with these accounts the names 
 of only five out of the sixty-four prisoners appeared. 
 
 On 23rd March Mr. Rose Innes sent in to our Government his 
 report upon the preliminary trial. He discusses the case in all its 
 aspects. I need only quote this : " The question then arises, how far 
 the evidence given at the preparatory examination establishes a prima 
 facie case against all or any of the accused. So far as high treason 
 is concerned, there does not appear, as yet, to be a case against any of 
 them. Even if the Reform Committee had been proved to have been 
 parties to Dr. Jameson's raid, it is doubtful whether the crime of treason 
 would have been constituted as against them. But so far as the 
 evidence at the examination goes, no such proof is forthcoming. No 
 letter of invitation was put in, nor were the Committee shown to 
 have been connected with the erection of storehouses and depots along 
 the line of route (Appendix to Blue Book C. 8,063, P- 108)." 
 
 Yet on the above evidence the whole of the sixty-four prisoners 
 were committed for trial on the charge of High Treason. All were 
 admitted to bail with the exception of the four leaders and Mr. J. P. 
 Fitzpatrick, Secretary to the Reform Committee. On enquiring why 
 bail was refused in their case, they were informed " that theirs was a 
 capital offence." Vet no difference had been made at this trial in the 
 terms of the indictment ; and subsequently, at the main trial, the same 
 indictment was served on all alike. Though not admitted to bail, 
 except Mr. Hammond (who was a citizen of the United States), the 
 leaders were transferred, for sanitary reasons, to a private house, where
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 533 
 
 they enjoyed some privileges, and had to pay for their guard and 
 lodging at a most exorbitant rate. 
 
 Two incidents which occurred at the preliminary trial deserve special 
 notice : 
 
 (1) As above stated, Judge Ameshoff was adduced as a witness to 
 swear to the list of the Committee handed in to the Commission at 
 the meeting on 1st January. But when Mr. Wessels, the counsel for 
 the prisoners, proceeded to put some question to him with a view to 
 bringing out other things which passed at that same meeting, Judge 
 Ameshoff replied : " If you are going to ask me any question as to 
 what took place at that meeting, I cannot answer, because the occasion 
 was privileged." The magistrate sustained the objection. Thus 
 evidence of what passed at that meeting was allowed to be used against 
 the prisoners ; it was not allowed to be used in their favour. 
 
 (2) A witness, Schumacher, who had been Secretary of the Develop- 
 ment Syndicate, was examined as to its objects. Schumacher had 
 passed the payments on instructions, but did not know what the 
 payments were for. He gave evidence to that effect. He was then 
 asked if he had any thoughts on the subject ? He confessed he had : 
 he was pressed to say what he thought. The question was objected 
 to, but the objection was over-ruled. Ultimately, not answering, the 
 witness was committed for contempt of Court, and was actually sent to 
 gaol for twelve hours. Counsel appealed to a Judge in Chambers (Judge 
 de Korte), who sustained the appeal. The Prosecutor then appealed 
 to a bench of three judges (one of whom was the adverse witness, 
 Judge Ameshoff), the Chief Justice presiding. The Court reversed 
 de Korte's decision. In the end, however, the question was not pressed. 
 
 After the preliminary trial it took six weeks to formulate the 
 charge against the prisoners. At length, on 2ist April, the indictment 
 was served. It contained four counts ; all four were charged against all 
 the sixty-four prisoners. Technicalities apart, they were as follows : 
 
 Count i. "In that the accused [here follow the 64 names] some 
 time in the months of November or December (dates unknown) 
 treated, conspired, and agreed with, and urged Leander Starr Jameson 
 .... to make a hostile invasion .... wrongfully and with a hostile 
 intention to disturb, injure, and bring into danger the independence 
 or safety of the Republic." 
 
 Count 2. " In that [the same 64 prisoners], and others unknown, 
 appeared and acted as a Committee, named by them the Reform
 
 531 THE CASE Of THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 Committee, after the above L. S. Jameson .... had made a hostile 
 invasion .... wrongfully, unlawfully, and with a hostile intention, to 
 
 disturb, &c gave, or attempted to give, information to the said 
 
 L. S. Jameson about the defences of Johannesburg, and had armed 
 troops ready to assist and send assistance to him, and subsequently 
 by seditious speeches .... with the object to persuade the people to 
 stand by the afore-mentioned Jameson .... and have assisted him 
 with provisions, forage, and horses." 
 
 Count 3. " In that .... in December or January .... [the same 
 64 prisoners] acting as a Reform Committee, wrongfully and unlawfully, 
 
 &c., distributed .... arms, Maxim guns, &c have enrolled men 
 
 .... and have erected earthworks and fortifications." 
 
 Count 4. " In that [the same names] .... in December or January 
 .... acting as a Reform Committee .... wrongfully and unlawfully, 
 
 &c have arrogated to themselves and exercised the functions 
 
 and powers belonging to the authorities of this Republic .... by 
 violence, or threats of violence, compelled .... the police .... to 
 leave the streets ; have formed .... their own police corps .... have 
 provided that corps with arms .... and .... have appointed as head 
 of that corps Andrew Trimble, who, &c. ... had exercised judicial 
 functions, &c " 
 
 It will be seen at once that Count i was applicable, not to the 
 whole sixty-four prisoners, but only to the leaders who were privy to 
 the arrangement made with Dr. Jameson, and that they had admitted 
 the fact at the meeting on ist January ; that the charges in Count 2 
 were not true, as no assistance had been sent to Dr. Jameson from 
 Johannesburg ; and that the acts charged in Counts 3 and 4, so far as 
 committed (for it was not true that any violence was shown to the 
 police they had been quietly withdrawn by the Government or that 
 Mr. Andrew Trimble had exercised the functions of a magistrate) 
 were acts indispensable to the maintenance of order at the time, for 
 which, under the circumstances, credit, rather than the reverse, should 
 be given to the Reform Committee. The gist and gravamen of the 
 whole charge lay in the words "with a hostile intention to disturb, 
 injure, or bring into danger the independence of the Republic." This 
 intention the leaders had repudiated : and the Reform Committee, as its 
 first act, had proclaimed its desire to maintain the independence of the 
 Republic, and had bound every man, on enrolment, to maintain it. 
 
 The indictment was served on 2ist April. The trial came on upon
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PFISOKERS 535 
 
 the 27th. The judge appointed to try the case was Judge Gregorowski : 
 the circumstances of his appointment were in the highest degree 
 irregular. We have seen that the Government objected to any counsel 
 being employed to defend the prisoners who had not qualified in the 
 Transvaal Courts : Mr. Rose Innes had been allowed to watch the 
 proceedings on behalf of the British Government, but not to take part 
 in them. But the Boer Government had no scruples about importing 
 a foreign judge. Gregorowski had been at one time a judge in the 
 Free State : notorious, as I was informed by a well-known Burgher of 
 that country, for the atrocity of his sentences, especially against natives. 
 He had given up his judgeship, and was at that time State Attorney. 
 It was resolved to pass over all the Transvaal judges and to bring 
 him in to try the case. The legality of the appointment was highly 
 doubtful, for by the Transvaal Constitution judges are appointed by 
 the Volksraad, on the recommendation of the Executive. Now the 
 Volksraad had been adjourned until May ; their approval of the 
 appointment, therefore, could not be obtained before the trial. The 
 Executive nevertheless appointed Gregorowski to try the case, making 
 him a judge of the Transvaal Courts for the purpose whether 
 permanently, or only " on good behaviour," did not appear at the time.* 
 Between the 2ist April and the 2/th the prisoners had to consider 
 their line of action. Should they plead guilty, or let the trial take its 
 course? The leaders were in a position of special difficulty. They had 
 acknowledged the main charge contained in Count i all, save the 
 crucial point of an intention to subvert the State. Of the offence charged 
 in that count they alone were guilty ; the remaining fifty-nine prisoners 
 (for one had by this time been released on the ground of health) were at 
 most chargeable with the lesser offences included in the other counts. 
 But they were all included in the same indictment ; it was evident that 
 a really fair trial could not be hoped for ; that the whole strength of the 
 Government would be used to procure a verdict of guilty, whatever the 
 ' evidence might be ; and, if the case were bitterly contested, all might be 
 involved in a common condemnation. It was soon conveyed to them 
 that a plea of guilty would be acceptable in high quarters, and that a 
 modified plea would be accepted. Hopes were raised that in this case 
 the Government would be satisfied with a lesser penalty. If the trial 
 
 * Mr. B. Barnato had a warm altercation on the subject with Gregorowski after the trial 
 was over. Mr. Parnato having used some strong language, Gregorowski exclaimed : " You re 
 no gentleman ! " " You're no judge '. " was the reply.
 
 536 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 went on, irritation would certainly be increased. It was not known 
 what evidence the Government possessed, and it was not desirable to 
 provoke the production of documents (such as the cypher telegrams) 
 which might prejudice the cause of others as well as their own. Moved 
 by these considerations, and acting on the advice of their counsel, they 
 resolved to put in a modified plea of guilty, which they had been 
 assured by the State Attorney would be accepted by the Court. 
 
 So when the trial came on, the four leaders Colonel Rhodes and 
 Messrs. Phillips, Farrar, and Hammond pleaded guilty to Count \ as it 
 stood, while Counts 2, 3, and 4 were, by previous agreement, withdrawn; 
 in the case of the remaining fifty-nine prisoners Counts \ and 2 were 
 withdrawn, and they pleaded guilty to Counts 3 and 4 only, but the 
 words in Count 4 as to assuming the functions of Government, &c., were 
 struck out, and this most important qualification was coupled with the 
 plea: "Without hostile intention to the State." The four leaders had 
 earnestly desired that the same modification should be introduced into 
 their own plea ; but this was not allowed. As it was, the addition of 
 the modifying words reduced the crime of the fifty-nine prisoners, in 
 the language of the State Attorney, " to a merely technical offence." 
 
 Along with the plea of guilty, the four leaders were allowed to put 
 in a statement of all they had done, and of the negotiations which had 
 passed between themselves and the Government, from the time of 
 Dr. Jameson's inroad to their own arrest. The statement included the 
 Minute of the Executive handed to them on the afternoon of 1st January, 
 and quoted in Part I of this article (NEW REVIEW, October, p. 492). 
 This was not challenged by the State Attorney. The statement 
 concluded thus : " We admit responsibility for the action taken by us. 
 We practically avowed it at the time of the negotiations with the 
 Government, when we were informed that the services of the High 
 Commissioner had been accepted with a view to a peaceful settlement. 
 We submit that we kept faith in every detail of the arrangement. We 
 did all that was humanly possible to protect the State and Dr. Jameson 
 from the consequences of his action, and we have committed no breach 
 of the law which was not known to the Government at the time that 
 the earnest consideration of our grievances was promised. 
 
 (Signed) " LIONEL PHILLIPS. 
 
 "FRANCIS RHODES. 
 
 " GEORGE FARRAR. 
 
 "JOHN HAYS HAMMOND. 
 "Pretoria, 24^ April, 1896."
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 537 
 
 Before sentence was passed, the following documents were handed 
 in to the Court by the prosecution : 
 
 (1) Copy of the whole proceedings at the preliminary trial. 
 
 (2) Copy Minutes of what passed at the meeting held with the 
 Government Commission on ist January. The counsel for prisoners 
 objected to these as imperfect ; but admitted they were fairly accurate 
 as far as they went. 
 
 (3) List of Reform Committee as handed in on ist January. 
 
 (4) List of arms surrendered, as above. 
 
 (5) The Minute of the Executive Council of same date was certified 
 to have been handed to the prisoners, but no copy of the Minute was 
 produced. 
 
 (6) Lastly, the cypher telegrams. 
 
 The publication of the cypher telegrams came on the prisoners as 
 a surprise. It had been presumed that they would not be put in 
 in the event of a plea of guilty. The plea having been accepted and 
 the summary of evidence thus put in, it remained for sentence to be 
 passed. Here, again, the prisoners had been led to expect one thing, 
 and were doomed to experience another. They had naturally hoped 
 that the plea of guilty would be- followed by lenient sentences, more 
 particularly for those fifty-nine who had committed only "a technical 
 offence." But there was a further ground for the expectation. Under 
 the Transvaal Law, the crime of treason, as contained in Count i of the 
 indictment, is punishable by a very moderate penalty, whereas under the 
 severe Roman-Dutch Law, it is punishable with death. It was thus of 
 vital importance to the prisoners to know under which law they would 
 be sentenced, and the best legal opinion they could get was to the effect 
 that they should be tried, not under the Roman-Dutch Law, but under 
 the Transvaal Statute Law. 
 
 Shortly put, the case stands thus : The fundamental documents of 
 the Transvaal Constitution are " the thirty-three Articles " passed in 
 1849, an d the Grondwet or Fundamental Law passed in 1858. The 
 Grondwet declares in general terms that : " In all cases in which 
 these Articles may be found deficient, the Roman-Dutch Law shall 
 form a basis, but in a moderate form, and in accordance with the 
 customs of South Africa, and for the benefit and prosperity of the 
 community." Thus, the Roman-Dutch Law is to be used in cases not 
 provided for by the Transvaal Law. But " treason," the offence
 
 538 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 committed by the prisoners, is exactly provided for by the " thirty- 
 three Articles" of 1849, Clause 9: "All who shall have entered into 
 negotiations with foreign Powers, their rulers or agents, with a view to 
 inducing them to become hostile, or to make war upon this Republic, 
 or of procuring them the means of doing so, shall be punished with 
 a fine of five hundred rixdollars, and exiled from our community." 
 Again, in 1877, a further law was passed by the Volksraad, "to 
 punish the attempts with which some evil-disposed persons are 
 continually seeking to destroy the independence of the State and to 
 create disturbance." By this law all persons are to be " accounted 
 guilty of the crime of high treason, and subjected to the punishment 
 laid down for that crime," who, " without permission from the Volksraad 
 enter into any negotiations with a foreign Power or its agents, with a 
 view of depriving the State of any part of its independence, or of 
 bringing it under the power, administration, or influence of such foreign 
 Power," but " Nothing in the foregoing Articles shall be held to abrogate 
 or repeal any of the existing laws concerning the crime above- 
 mentioned." 
 
 Now " the existing laws " here mentioned can be none other than 
 the clauses of the thirty-three Articles which have been quoted above. 
 The prisoners, therefore, had good ground for believing they would 
 be sentenced under the mild Transvaal Law. More than that : the 
 opinion of Mr. Coster himself, the State Attorney, was understood to 
 be to the same effect. The point was mooted between the counsel 
 before the plea of guilty was given in : Mr. Coster declined to give any 
 assurance on the point, but expresed his intention not to press for any 
 severe penalty, if the arrangement as to pleading guilty should be 
 carried out. 
 
 But his note changed at the trial itself. At the close of the 
 proceedings, Mr. Wessels made a telling appeal for a lenient sentence. 
 Thereupon, contrary to the custom, it is said, of the Transvaal Courts, 
 the prosecutor rose to have the last word, and making a most bitter 
 speech against the accused, called upon the judge to apply the Roman- 
 Dutch Law, and to impose the severest penalty prescribed by law, not 
 only on the leaders, but on all the sixty-three prisoners. 
 
 The State Attorney had probably been admonished by the Govern- 
 ment to take this severe line. A similar thing had happened on the 
 question of admitting the four leaders to bail. On 24th March, Sir 
 Hercules had wired to Mr. Chamberlain (Blue Book, C. 8,063, N- 74) :
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 539 
 
 State Attorney had intended, and indeed promised, to release them on 
 oail after preliminary examination, but was prohibited from doing so at 
 the last moment, when the bail bonds were about to be signed, by the 
 Executive Council." Mr. Chamberlain on the 26th requests Sir 
 Hercules to " urge that promise made by State Attorney should be 
 fulfilled." The State Secretary replies 28th March : " The matter 
 belongs to the department of State Attorney, and Government will refer 
 
 it to him Government knows nothing of the alleged promise." On 
 
 2nd April (No. 87), Mr. Chamberlain's request for bail is curtly refused: 
 " His Honour the State Attorney declares that promises were not given 
 by him, and that he cannot comply with the request for further liberty." 
 As a matter of fact, not only was the promise given, but the bail bonds 
 had actually been prepared and submitted to the lawyer of the accused, 
 when the promise was suddenly revoked : the State Attorney saying 
 that it was not his fault that his word should be broken : it was the work 
 of the Executive ! One of the strongest points in Boer diplomacy is 
 that its promises, when convenient, can always be forgotten. 
 
 On Tuesday, 28th April, sentence was pronounced. It became 
 known that before the trial began the judge had endeavoured to borrow 
 a black cap from one of the other judges. The four leaders were 
 solemnly condemned to death ; the remaining fifty-nine were condemned 
 to imprisonment for two years, a fine of two thousand pounds each, to be 
 paid at the end of that term, or, failing payment of fine, another year's 
 imprisonment, and banishment for three years. Whatever may be 
 thought of the deserts of the leaders, the sentence passed on these last 
 was absolutely monstrous. The State Attorney himself had described 
 their crime, under the plea accepted by the Court, as constituting only 
 " a technical offence." 
 
 The sentence was pronounced at twelve o'clock. The four leaders 
 were at once placed in the condemned cell, the remainder in two iron 
 sheds specially built before the trial, which afforded one hundred and 
 forty-five cubic feet of space per man. That same night the Executive 
 determined to commute the sentences : this was communicated to the 
 prisoners at 10 A.M. next morning. All were put upon prison diet, and 
 though this and other matters were soon mended through the good-will 
 and connivance of the gaolers (to be handsomely recognised in due time 
 in the form of cash), no special regulations were laid down to distinguish, 
 their treatment from that of ordinary prisoners. 
 
 But though the death sentences had been commuted, nothing had
 
 540 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 been put in their place. On 29th April Sir Hercules transmits the 
 following from the British Resident : " Dr. Leyds just told me that 
 sentence of death has been taken off from the four prisoners. Not yet 
 decided what punishment to substitute. Executive Council now- 
 engaged with sentences on all the prisoners." Next day he adds : 
 " The Transvaal Boers themselves condemn the severity of sentence on 
 the four, as well as on the other prisoners, and are actively obtaining 
 signatures to petition for mitigation of punishment or free pardon." 
 
 But " mitigation " was not to be got for nothing. A series of 
 semi-official negotiations was now set on foot, through various 
 intermediaries, with the two-fold object of extorting from the 
 prisoners humiliating confessions of guilt, and acknowledgments of 
 the " magnanimity " of the President, and of commuting the death 
 sentences for a good round sum of ready money. Representations 
 were continually pressed upon the prisoners that if they signed such 
 and such form of petition, they would be soon let out of gaol. The 
 Chief Gaoler, the Chief of the Police, and others, were bearers of 
 these messages; the President was always represented as being privately 
 favourable, but nothing absolute could ever be obtained in the way of an 
 assurance, and when Mr. Rose Innes waited on the President himself, 
 to get information for the prisoners' behoof, Mr. Kriigcr declared he 
 would listen to no petitions except such as came from his own 
 Burghers. Yet suggestion after suggestion, on semi-official authority, 
 continued to be made ; the friends of the prisoners kept interviewing 
 everybody of importance, from members of the Executive downwards, 
 and bringing away hopeful assurances ; each day the wives of the 
 prisoners besieged the gaol door, anxious to communicate to their 
 husbands the latest prospects of release ; yet release seemed as far 
 off as ever. Various forms of petition were suggested. The prisoners 
 differed much among themselves as to the policy of signing anything 
 at all. In the end, some signed a mere request for a revision of 
 sentence ; others petitioned in a humbler way ; two refused to submit 
 to what they deemed the humiliation of signing anything at all, and 
 for that reason alone are kept in prison to this hour. It may be 
 imagined how trying, how exasperating, these proceedings were to 
 the prisoners and their friends : some began to break down under the 
 strain, and one unhappily committed suicide in gaol. 
 
 In the course of the third week of May out came a batch of new 
 sentences. The prisoners were divided arbitrarily into categories : some
 
 54* 
 
 were to be let loose at once, others were to get imprisonment for three, 
 five, and twelve months respectively. But the last two categories, 
 which had believed these sentences to be final, were calmly informed, 
 after two days, that all that had been decided was that, after five 
 and twelve months respectively, their cases would be taken into 
 consideration ! The President, like a cat, seemed to be playing with 
 his victims. 
 
 During all this time Johannesburg was restless and uneasy. The 
 indefinite detention of some of her best citizens, many of them leaders 
 of industry, was bringing business to a standstill ; the conflicting 
 rumours, the hopes of release, now held out, now withdrawn, were felt 
 to be humiliating and exasperating by the entire population. And so 
 a cloud seemed to settle down upon that genial and mercurial city, 
 smarting as she was under a sense of political wrong : keenly alive, 
 with a unanimity of feeling such as I have never witnessed in a great 
 city before, to the ignominy as well as the loss involved in the imprison- 
 ment of her best citizens, many of them wholly innocent of wrong : and 
 already depressed by the natural and superadded scourges of the year 
 drought, locusts, rinderpest, famine prices, dynamite and railway 
 disasters all coming in one year, in addition to the political trouble, 
 and all aggravated by the helpless stupidity and ignorance (to use the 
 mildest terms) of the Boer methods of dealing with them. 
 
 But, by this time, even Boer opinion was pronouncing strongly in 
 favour of release. Petitions began to pour in. A great gathering of 
 Mayors from all cities in South Africa was being organised to go up to 
 Pretoria. The Executive sat daily considering the case of the prisoners, 
 but there was always some pretext for delay ; and these continual 
 delays were throwing contempt upon the high prerogative of pardon. 
 The true cause of delay was soon apparent. Liberation had been 
 resolved upon ; but it was intended to make a good profit out of the 
 transaction. It was not yet known how much could be got, and the 
 precise equivalent in cash for a sentence of death had not yet been 
 ascertained. The majority of the prisoners were not rich men at all. 
 There were a few very wealthy men in the number : but not more than 
 fifteen out of the sixty-three could be said to be possessed of even 
 moderate fortunes. The remainder were professional and business 
 men of moderate incomes, many of whom would be unable to pay for 
 themselves the two thousand pounds already imposed. 
 
 At last, on 3Oth May, when even Beer opinion had become roused,
 
 542 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 it was announced, after the usual morning sitting of the Executive, 
 that forty-five out of the fifty-one prisoners still in gaol were to be 
 released at once on certain conditions. Messrs. Davies and Sampson, 
 not having signed the petition for release, were excluded from this act 
 of clemency. The President was loudly cheered as he drove through 
 the Square in his Presidential equipage after the announcement. 
 
 The fate of the four leaders was reserved for still further con- 
 sideration. They were being invited to make a sufficient bid for their 
 release. An intermediate sentence of fifteen years' imprisoment had 
 been announced to them ; but it was understood that, on suitable 
 conditions, this also might be revised. They had been informed, 
 through the chief gaoler, that though the Government could not accept 
 blood-money, or impose a fine in place of the commuted death penalty, 
 yet if they themselves petitioned for a fine in lieu of imprisonment, it 
 might be granted : if not, they might remain where they were, as 
 their punishment had been commuted. At first they demurred. 
 They refused to sign one form of petition which had been shown 
 to the President, acknowledging his " magnanimity." Ultimately, on 
 advice, they signed a simple statement to the effect that, "now that 
 the death sentence had been commuted, they understood the alternative 
 was imprisonment : in lieu of this, they asked for a monetary penalty, 
 and were prepared to go back to their business in good faith." This 
 document was sent in under a covering letter, in which Mr. Du Plessis, 
 the Head Gaoler, and Mr. Van Niekirk, Chief of the Police, were 
 named as their authorities for the understanding. No answer was 
 returned. Soon a suggestion was conveyed through the Under- 
 secretary of State that a particular sum should be named by the 
 prisoners. After some consideration, they agreed to offer ten thousand 
 pounds a-piece : forty thousand pounds in all. The amount was found 
 to be insufficient. The State Secretary took a Rule-of-Three view 
 of the case: "If the prisoners already liberated had paid two thousand 
 pounds in lieu of one year's imprisonment, would not thirty thousand 
 pounds be the proper equivalent for fifteen years?" Unfortunately 
 for the arithmetic of this argument, the other prisoners had been 
 condemned to two years' imprisonment, not one only : and in their 
 case the fine was part of the original punishment, act a substitution 
 for impriscnment. The President, it was reported, liad acknowledged 
 in the Executive that the sum offered was too small : and had suggested 
 that forty thousand pounds a-piece was what the petitioners really
 
 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 543 
 
 intended. The matter was again put off, and referred to the judge 
 for his opinion. It was now privately intimated to the prisoners that 
 if they inserted the sum of forty thousand pounds a-piece into their 
 petition, the Government would magnanimously decline to accept so 
 large a sum, and would certainly be satisfied with the moderate fine of 
 twenty-five thousand. This the prisoners flatly refused to do. Several 
 further emissaries appeared on the scene ; sundry letters were written. 
 A monster deputation was organised to approach the President on 
 1 3th June; when at . last, without further chaffering, on the nth, 
 the final decision was arrived at, and the four leaders were let out on 
 the payment of twenty-five thousand pounds a-piece, coupled with 
 stringent conditions as to taking no part in Transvaal politics, directly 
 or indirectly, for the future. Thus the total authorised bill for the 
 release of the prisoners amounted to some 2 12,000. How many more 
 thousands had to b~ paid in connexion with the release, and to whom, 
 in unauthorised but inevitable payments, by those who could afford to 
 pay, it would not be edifying to tell. 
 
 The story of the Pretoria prisoners affords a fiir example of Boer 
 methods of justice, of government, and diplomacy : many more of a 
 similar character may be extracted from the official papers. As far as 
 diplomacy goes, these methods have been crowned with complete 
 success. In his negotiations with Great Britain, President Kriiger has 
 scored every point in the game. He has removed no grievances : yet 
 he has obtained the fulfilment of every condition which he demanded 
 as antecedent to their removal. He promised to introduce reforms : 
 he has redeemed that promise by passing an Education Law, wlvch 
 aims at first Dutchifying the schools, and ultimately, through them, the 
 entire population ; a severe Press Law ; and now latest of all an 
 Aliens Expulsion Law. He announced in December last that he was 
 waiting "till the tortoise put its head out": he has now made the 
 best men in Johannesburg feel the pressure of his heel. He repelled 
 with rudeness every intercession made on behalf of the prisoners by 
 the British Government : yet he has extracted from some of the 
 prisoners, nay, from some of our own public men, a compliment on 
 his " magnanimity." He has spoken with rough bluntness to Mr. 
 Chamberlain : but a button has been carefully placed on the foil of 
 Mr. Chamberlain's replies. The lives of Jameson and his men were 
 secured by the terms of their surrender : yet he has gained credit 
 with the whole world for sparing them, and to the very last, while
 
 544 THE CASE OF THE PRETORIA PRISONERS 
 
 compelled to admit the genuineness of Cronje's offer to Sir John 
 \Villoughby, and Sir John's acceptance of it, has had the effrontery 
 to persist that that letter could be set aside by a subsequent 
 conference between the Boer commanders. He has been arming 
 the Boers to the teeth ; he has expended 943, 510 (mainly raised 
 from Uitlanders) on war items in the present year, as compared with 
 ,200,000 in the year previous : yet he has sharply interrogated 
 our Government as to the movement of every British soldier in 
 South Africa nay, even of our ships and received soothing, almost 
 apologetic, explanations in reply. And, strangest success of all, a 
 Government which is reactionary in all its policy political, commercial, 
 educational a Government of pure force, which scouts every constitu- 
 tional maxim ; a Government to which the ideas of liberty, equality, 
 and fraternity are so strange that it will not admit that native races 
 can have any rights at all that Government has found champions 
 in this country who appeal in its behalf to the fair names of Liberty 
 and Justice : champions of the sort that believe that, under all circum- 
 stances, the best method of furthering those principles is to oppose the 
 spread of British ideas, and the assertion of British interests, in every 
 corner of the world. 
 
 G. G. RAMSAY. 
 
 UNIVERSITY of GALIFOKNI 
 AT 
 
 ANGELES 
 LIBRABY
 
 MR. HEINEMANN'S SIX SHILLING NOVELS, 
 
 Flora Annie Steel On the Face of I hi Waters. 
 
 M. Hamilton McLe^t of the Came ons. 
 
 Percy White Andria. 
 
 Basil Thomson ... ... ... ... ... A Court Intrigue. 
 
 Henry James .. .. ... ... ... Embarrassments. 
 
 Martin J. Pritchard ... Without Sin. 
 
 Claude Rees Chitn-Ti-Kun. 
 
 C. E. Raimond ... Below the Salt. 
 
 Wolcott Balestier.. .. .... Benefits forgot. 
 
 Rudyard Kipling and W. Ba'e tier ... . The Naulahka. 
 
 Fletcher Battershall 4 Daughter of this World. 
 
 Emma Brooke ... ... A Superfluous Woman. 
 
 Emma Brooke ... Transition. 
 
 Hall Caine .. The Manxman. 
 
 Hall Caine ... ... The Bondman. 
 
 Hall Caine The Scapegoat. 
 
 Hubert Crarkanthorpe Sentimental Studies. 
 
 Ella Hepwoith Dixon ... ... ... ... The Story of a Modern IVowan. 
 
 Harold Frederic ... ... ... ... Illumination. 
 
 Sarah Grand Ideala. 
 
 Sarah Grand .. ... ... ... ... Our Manifold Nature. 
 
 Sarah Grand ... ... ... ... ... The Heavenly Twins 
 
 Maxwell Gray ... ... ... The Last Sentence. 
 
 M. Hamilton ... ... ... ... ... A Self Denying Ordinance. 
 
 Frank Harris Elder Conklin. 
 
 Robert Hichens ... ... ... An Imaginative Man. 
 
 Robert Hichens ... ... ... .. ... The Folly of Eustace. 
 
 Annie E. Holdswoith . -- ... .. The Years that the Locust hath Eaten. 
 
 C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne ... ... .. .. The Recipe for Diamonds. 
 
 Henry James Terminations. 
 
 C. F. Keary ... -. ... ... ... Herbert I'anlenmrt. 
 
 Mrs. Lynn Linton ... ... ... ... In Haste and at Leisure. 
 
 "W. J. Locke ... ... ... ... ... At the Gate of Samaria. 
 
 Francis Macnab Relics. 
 
 Max Nordau The Malady of the Century. 
 
 Max Nordau .. ... ... ... A Comedy of Sentiment. 
 
 W. E. Norris ... ... ... ... ... The Dancer in Yil/civ. 
 
 W. E. Norris ... ... ... ... ...A Victim of Good LUCK. 
 
 "W. E. Nor/ is ,.. ... . ... ... The Countess A'aa'na. 
 
 Mary L. Pendered ... A Fast oral Played Out. 
 
 F. Mabel Robinson Chimara. 
 
 Adeline Sergeant * .. Out of Due Season. 
 
 Adeline Sergeant.. ... ... ... ... 7 'he t-ailure -of Sibyl Fletcher. 
 
 Flora Annie Steel . . .. The Potters Thumb. 
 
 Flora Annie Steel From the five Hirers. 
 
 R. L. Stevenson & L. Osbourne . ...'. The Ebb Tide. 
 
 H. Sutcliffe... ... ... ... . . The Eltvcn'.h Comniandmait. 
 
 W. Edwards Tirebuck ... Miss Grace of All Souls. 
 
 H. G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau. 
 
 Percy White .. Mr Bailey-Mai tin. 
 
 Percy White Corruption. 
 
 I. Zangwill The Master. 
 
 I. Zangwill Children of the Ghetto. 
 
 I. Zangwill... ... ... ... ... ... The Premier and the Pair.ter. 
 
 Emile Zola .. ... ... ... ... ... Stories for Ninon. 
 
 Z. Z.... ... ... ... ... A Drama in Dutch. 
 
 Z. Z... The World and a Mart. 
 
 London: WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 FOUR BOOKS ON AFRICA. 
 
 THE NEW AFRICA. A Journey up tin- ChoW ami down ih 
 
 Okovango Rivers By Arur.i. SCHULZ, M.D., and AUGUSTUS I IAMMAK, ( '. I,. 
 In One Volume, demy fvo. [In Prepartion.] 
 
 Dr. ATKKI Si in i /'s Imnk, "The New Africa, a Journey up l he Chobe and down th#< 
 deab with a portion of S'Mltn Africa hitherto unexplo e<l. Tlie interesting description of tl 
 and Okovango rivers, with a navi^alile \\.iter connect inn lift ween limn, is a feature of much impor 
 to the future development of the c nintry, while the adventures with unruly natives and sporting epi- 
 vaiy the story o r hl^ doings in a pleasuu manner. 
 
 Dr. Sriiri / appears to be in possession of that rare q lal ty, patience, added to a determination U> 
 achieve his object. 
 
 ACTUAL AFRICA; OR, THE COMING CONTINENT. 
 
 A Tour of Exploration. 15 y FRANK. VINCI-: NT, Author of ''The Land of tlu 
 White Elephant." With Map and over TOO lllustiations, demy 8vo, cloth. 
 price 2-p. 
 
 IN THE TRACK OF THE SUN, Readings from the Diary 
 
 of a Globe-Trotter. By FRKDKRICK DIODATI THOMPSON. With many Illustra- 
 tions by Mr. HARRY FKNN and from Photographs. In One Volume, 4to, 255. 
 
 TIMBUCTOO THE MYSTERIOUS. By FELIX Duuois. 
 
 With 153 Illustrations from Photographs and Drawings made on the spot, and 
 ii Maps and Plans. One Volume, demy 8vo, 125. 6J. 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE : ' The excellence of the narrative, the st\h\ tiie information 
 and the illustrations make this the most important bc-ok of travel lliat /;as appeared for 
 many a day." 
 
 MR, HEINEMANN'S PIONEER SERIES, 
 
 Cloth 3-f. net ; pajier 2f. 67. net. 
 
 THE DAILY TELEGRAPH : " Mr. Heineinaniis genial nursery of vp-tc 
 romance" 
 
 JOANNA TRAILL, SPINSTER. By AXXIE E. HOLDSWORTH. 
 GEORGE MANDEVILLE'S HUSBAND. P>y C. E. RAIMOXD. 
 THE WINGS OF ICARUS. 15y LAURENCE ALMA TADKMA. 
 THE GREEN CARNATION. By ROBERT HICHE.V>. 
 AN ALTAR OF EARTH. By THYMOL MONK. 
 A STREET IN SUBURBIA. By EDWIN Puc;n. 
 THE NEW MOON. By C. E. RAIMOND. 
 MILLY'S STORY. By Mrs. MONTAGUE CRACKANTHORI-K. 
 MRS. MUSGRAVE-AND HER HUSBAND. By KICHAKO MARSH. 
 THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. By STEPHEN CRAM:. 
 THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE. By WILLIAM J. LOCKE. 
 HER OWN DEVICES. By C. G. COMPTON. 
 PAPIER MAC HE. By CHARLES ALLEN. 
 THE NEW VIRTUE. By Mrs. OSCAR BI.UINGKR. 
 ACROSS AN ULSTER BOG. By M. HAMILTON. 
 ONE OF GODS DILEMMAS. B<- ALLEN UPWARD. 
 LOVE FOR A KEY, By G. On MORE. 
 
 London: WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
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