THE CREED OF THE AFRIKANDER NATIONALISTS[16]
[Footnote 16: "This is our Afrikander character. The
descendants of Hollanders, Germans and Frenchmen
inter-married, and are only known at present by their
surnames. They form the Afrikander nationality, and call
themselves Afrikanders. The Afrikanders are no more
Hollanders than Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Germans. They have
their own language, own morals and customs; they are just as
much a nation as any other."--_De Patriot_, in the course of
an article headed "A Common but Dangerous Error"--the error
in question being the assertion that "the Cape Colony is an
English colony" (translated and reproduced in _The Cape
Times_, September 3th, 1884).]
In the face of the colossal resistance offered to the British arms by
the Boers and their colonial kinsmen in the South African War, it may
seem unnecessary to produce any evidence in support of the contention
that the military strength then displayed by the Dutch in South Africa
was the result of long and careful preparation. But the same inability
to grasp the facts of the South African situation which kept the Army
Corps in England three months after it should have been sent to the
Cape, is still to be met with. This attitude of mind--whether it be a
consciousness of moral rectitude, or a mere insular disdain of looking
at things from any but a British point of view--is still to be
observed in the statements of those politicians who will even now deny
that any trace of a definite plan of action, or of a concerted
purpose, which could properly be described as a "conspiracy" against
British supremacy was to be found among the Dutch population of South
Africa as a whole, prior to the outbreak of the war. It is for the
benefit of such politicians in part, and still more with a view of
bringing the mind of the reader into something approaching a direct
contact with the actual working of the Afrikander mind, that I
transcribe a statement of the pure doctrine of the Bond, as it was
expounded by the German, Borckenhagen, and his followers in the Free
State. It will, however, be convenient to preface the quotation with a
word of explanation in respect both of the text and the personality of
Borckenhagen.
[Sidenote: Carl Borckenhagen.]
The passage, which is taken _verbatim_ from a work entitled, "The
Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed," is a collection of sentences
gathered from Dutch pamphlets and articles "emanating from Holland,"
and translated literally into the somewhat uncouth English of the
text. The author of the work, Mr. C. H. Thomas, was for many years a
burgher of the Free State, where he shared the opinions of President
Brand, and subsequently supported Mr. J. G. Fraser in opposing the
policy of "closer union" with the South African Republic, advocated by
Brand's successor, Mr. F. W. Reitz. The point of view from which the
Dutch of Holland regarded the nationalist movement in South Africa was
succinctly stated in an article published by the Amsterdam
_Handelsblad_ in 1881.
"The future of England lies in India, and the future of Holland
in South Africa.... When our capitalists vigorously develop this
trade, and, for example, form a syndicate to buy Delagoa Bay from
Portugal, then a railway from Capetown to Bloemfontein,
Potchefstroom, Pretoria, Delagoa Bay will be a lucrative
investment. And when, in course of time, the Dutch language shall
universally prevail in South Africa, this most extensive
territory will become a North America for Holland, and enable us
to balance the Anglo-Saxon race."[17]
[Footnote 17: Quoted by Du Toit in _De Patriot_: translation
from the English reprint of _De Transvaalse Oorlog_.]
Carl Borckenhagen, who, with Mr. Reitz,[18] advocated the
establishment of the Bond in 1881, was a German republican. His name
has been associated with Mr. Thomas's summary of the Bond propaganda
in the Free State, because, as editor of _The Bloemfontein Express_ up
to the time of his death, early in 1898, he was probably the most
consistent of all the South African exponents of the nationalist
creed. Certainly it is no exaggeration to say that he converted the
Free State of Brand into the Free State of Steyn.
[Footnote 18: Then Judge, afterwards President of the Free
State, and State-Secretary of the South African Republic in
succession to Dr. Leyds.]
[Sidenote: The doctrine of the Bond.]
"THE BOND PROGRAMME
"The Afrikander Bond has as final object what is summed up in its
motto of 'Afrika voor de Afrikaners.' The whole of South Africa
belongs by just right to the Afrikander nation. It is the
privilege and duty of every Afrikander to contribute all in his
power towards the expulsion of the English usurper. The States of
South Africa to be federated in one independent Republic.
The Afrikander Bond prepares for this consummation.
Argument in justification:--
(_a_) The transfer of the Cape Colony to the British Government
took place by circumstances of _force majeure_ and without the
consent of the Dutch nation, who renounced all claim in favour of
the Afrikander or Boer nation.
(_b_) Natal is territory which accrued to a contingent of the
Boer nation by purchase from the Zulu king, who received the
consideration agreed for.
(_c_) The British authorities expelled the rightful owners from
Natal by force of arms without just cause.
The task of the Afrikander Bond consists in:
(_a_) Procuring the staunch adhesion and co-operation of every
Afrikander and other real friend of the cause.
(_b_) To obtain the sympathy, the moral and effective aid, of one
or more of the world's Powers.
The means to accomplish those tasks are:
Personal persuasion, Press propaganda, legislation and diplomacy.
The direction of the application of these means is entrusted to a
select body of members eligible for their loyalty to the cause
and their abilities and position. That body will conduct such
measures as need the observance of special secrecy. Upon the rest
of the members will devolve activities of a general character
under the direction of the selected chiefs.
One of the indispensable requisites is the proper organisation of
an effective fund, which is to be regularly sustained. Bond
members will aid each other in all relations of public life in
preference to non-members.
In the efforts of gaining adherence to the cause it is of
importance to distinguish three categories of persons:
(1) The class of Afrikanders who are to some extent deteriorated
by assimilative influences with the English race, whose
restoration to patriotism will need great efforts, discretion,
and patience.
(2) The apparently unthinking and apathetic class who prefer to
relegate all initiative to leaders whom they will loyally follow.
This class is the most numerous by far.
(3) The warmly patriotic class, including men gifted with
intelligence, energy, and speech, qualified as leaders, and apt
to exercise influence over the rest.
* * * * *
Among these three classes many exist whose views and religious
scruples need to be corrected. Scripture abounds in proofs and
salient analogies applying to the situation and justifying our
cause. In this, as well as in other directions, the members who
work in circulating written propaganda will supply the correct
and conclusive arguments accessible to all.
Upon the basis of our just rights the British Government, if not
the entire nation, is the usurping enemy of the Boer nation.
In dealing with an enemy it is justifiable to employ, besides
force, also means of a less open character, such as diplomacy and
stratagem.
[Sidenote: Anti-british methods.]
The greatest danger to Afrikanderdom is the English policy of
Anglicising the Boer nation--to submerge it by the process of
assimilation.
A distinct attitude of holding aloof from English influences is
the only remedy against that peril and for thwarting that
insidious policy.
It is only such an attitude that will preserve the nation in its
simple faith and habits of morality, and provide safety against
the dangers of contamination and pernicious examples, with all
their fateful consequences to body and soul.
Let the Dutch language have the place of honour in schools and
homes.
Let alliances of marriage with the English be stamped as
unpatriotic.
Let every Afrikander see that he is at all times well armed with
the best possible weapons, and maintains the expert use of the
rifle among young and old, so as to be ready when duty calls, and
the time is ripe for asserting the nation's rights and being rid
of English thraldom.
Employ teachers only who are animated with truly patriotic
sentiments.
Let it be well understood that English domination will also bring
English intolerance and servitude, for it is only a very frail
link which separates the English State Church from actual
Romanism, and its proselytism _en bloc_ is only a matter of short
time.
Equally repugnant and dangerous is England's policy towards the
coloured races, whom she aims, for the sake of industrial profit,
at elevating to equal rank with whites, in direct conflict with
spiritual authority--a policy which incites coloured people to
rivalry with their superiors, and can only end in common
disaster.
Whilst remaining absolutely independent, the ties of blood,
relationship, and language point to Holland for a domestic base.
As to commerce, Germany, America, and other industrial nations
could more than fill the gap left by England, and such
connections should be cultivated as a potent means towards
obtaining foreign support to our cause and identification with
it.
If the mineral wealth of the Transvaal and Orange Free State
becomes established--as appears certain from discoveries already
made--England will not rest until these are also hers.
The leopard will retain its spots. The independence of both
Republics is at stake on that account alone, with the risk that
the rightful owners of the land will become the hewers of wood
and drawers of water for the usurpers.
There is no alternative hope for the peace and progress of South
Africa except by the total excision of the British ulcer.
Reliable signs are not wanting to show that our nation is
designed by Providence as the instrument for the recovery of its
rights, and for the chastisement of proud, perfidious
Albion."[19]
[Footnote 19: P. 64 _et seq._ of _The Origin of the
Anglo-Boer War Revealed_ (Hodder & Stoughton).]
These brief and disjointed sentences present in their shortest form
arguments and exhortations with which the Dutch population of the Free
State, the Transvaal, and the Cape Colony, were familiarised through
the Press, the pulpit, the platform, and through individual
intercourse and advocacy, from the time of the Retrocession in 1881
onwards. It is in effect the scheme of a Bond "worked out more in
detail by some friends at Bloemfontein," as published by Borckenhagen
in his paper, _The Bloemfontein Express_, on April 7th, 1881, to which
Du Toit, the founder of the Bond in the Cape Colony, referred in the
pamphlet, _De Transvaalse Oorlog_ (The Transvaal War), which he issued
from his press at the Paarl later on in the same year. The nationalist
creed, as thus formulated, was preached consistently in the Free
State; but in the Cape Colony it was modified by Hofmeyr to meet the
exigencies of Colonial politics.
None the less it was in the Cape Colony that the Bond, as a political
organisation, was destined to find its chief sphere of action. In the
Free State it was discouraged by President Brand, and in point of fact
the British population was too insignificant a factor in the politics
of the central republic to make it necessary to maintain a distinct
organisation for the promotion of nationalist sentiment. In the
Transvaal, again, the Bond maintained no regular organisation. And
this for two reasons. Every burgher of the northern Republic was
sufficiently animated by the anti-British sentiments which it was
intended to promote; and the only "constitution" which the Transvaal
Dutch would accept was one which embodied principles so flagrantly
inconsistent with submission to British authority that it could not be
adopted by the branches of the Bond in the Cape Colony without
exposing its members to immediate prosecution for high treason.[20]
[Footnote 20: Under the changed conditions of to-day the Boer
population is organised in the Transvaal into _Het Volk_, and
in the Orange River Colony into the _Oranjie Unie_; both
practically identical with the Bond in the Cape Colony.]
[Sidenote: The origin of the Bond.]
In the politics of the Cape Colony, however, the Bond became the
predominant force; and any picture, however briefly sketched, of South
Africa as it was when Lord Milner's administration commenced, must
include some account of the origin and methods of this remarkable
organisation.
The origin of the Afrikander Bond is to be found in the articles
written by the Rev. S. J. du Toit, a Dutch predikant, in _De Patriot_,
a newspaper published at the Paarl, of which he was the editor. Mr. du
Toit's political standpoint is sufficiently revealed by the fact that
in 1881 he claimed that _De Patriot_ had done more than any other
single agency to secure the successful revolt of the Boers from
British authority accomplished in that year. The inspiration which
drove his pen to advocate the founding of a political organisation,
that should serve to prepare the way for a more general and complete
"war of independence," was the defeat of the British troops by the
Transvaal burghers.
"This is now our time," he wrote, in the same year, "to establish
the Bond, while a national consciousness has been awakened
through the Transvaal War. And the Bond must be our preparation
for the future confederation of all the States and Colonies of
South Africa. The English Government keeps talking of a
confederation under the British flag. That will never happen. We
can assure them of that. We have often said it: there is just one
hindrance to confederation, and that is the English flag. Let
them take that away, and the confederation under the free
Afrikander flag would be established. But so long as the English
flag remains here the Afrikander Bond must be our confederation.
And the British will, after a while, realise that Froude's advice
is the best for them: they must just have Simon's Bay as a naval
and military station on the road to India, and give over all the
rest of South Africa to the Afrikanders."[21]
[Footnote 21: Reprint of a pamphlet (found with the first
leaf torn) containing an English translation of _De
Transvaalse Oorlog_, p. 8.]
This general statement of the purpose of the Bond was supported by
reiterated appeals to racial passion:
"The little respect which the Afrikander had for British troops
and cannons [up to the Majuba defeat]," he writes, "is utterly
done away. And England has learnt so much respect for us
Afrikanders that she will take care not to be so ready to make
war with us again.... The Englishman has made himself hated,
language and all. And this is well."
[Sidenote: The objects of the Bond.]
When, by the use of these and even more violent expressions, the mind
of the Dutch population had been sufficiently aroused, Du Toit
proceeded to unfold his plan of campaign. His _modus operandi_ is
similar to that of Borckenhagen in its main features. The Bond, says
_De Patriot_, must boycott all English traders, except only those who
are ready to adopt its principles. English signboards, advertisements,
shops and book-keepers, must be abolished. The English banks must be
replaced by a National Bank. No land must be sold to Englishmen. The
Republics must "make their own ammunition, and be well supplied with
cannon, and provide a regiment of artillery to work them." And he
cheerfully notices that "at Heidelberg there are already 4,000
cartridges made daily, and a few skilful Afrikanders have begun to
make shells, too. This is right: so must we become a nation." For the
Cape Colony, however, "such preparations are not so especially
necessary." But, most of all, Du Toit insists upon the need of
combating the growing use of the English language. "English
education," he laments, "has done more mischief to our country and
nation than we can express." And, therefore, he urges "war" against
the English language. In the schools, in the Church, and "in our
family life above all," it must be considered a "disgrace to speak
English.... Who will join the war? All true Afrikanders, we hope."
Thus was the Bond, the child of Majuba, quickened into conscious being
by the fiery pen of the predikant, Du Toit. Poor Du Toit! His after
life was a strange commentary upon this early triumph of his brain,
won in the drowsy solitudes of the Paarl. Summoned to be Director of
Education in the Transvaal, he was quickly disillusioned of his love
of his Dutch mother-country by actual intercourse with the
contemptuous Hollanders whom Krueger had invited to serve the Republic.
Later, again, he was rejected by the Bond which he had himself
created, and driven to find comfort in the broad freedom of allegiance
to an Empire-state.
The object of the Bond, as stated by Du Toit in _De Transvaalse
Oorlog_, was the "creation of a South African nationality ... through
the establishment of this Bond in all states and colonies of South
Africa." Its organisation was to consist of a central governing body
(_bestuur_), with provincial, district, and ward _besturen_. The
central _bestuur_ was to be composed of five members, two for the Cape
Colony, and one each for the Transvaal, Natal, and Free State, who
were "to meet yearly in one or other of the chief towns of the
component states." The provincial _besturen_, consisting of one
representative from each of the district _besturen_, were to meet
every six months at their respective colonial or state capitals.[22]
[Footnote 22: _De Transvaalse Oorlog_, pp. 7 and 8.]
The first Congress of the Afrikander Bond was held at Graaf Reinet in
1882. In the draft constitution then drawn up for the approval of its
members, the relationship of the Bond to the British Government in
South Africa was defined with commendable frankness. In the "Programme
of Principles" was the article:
In itself acknowledging no single form of government as the only
suitable form, and whilst acknowledging the form of government
existing at present, [the Bond] means that the aim of our
national development must be a united South Africa under its own
flag.
[Sidenote: Hofmeyr's influence.]
And it was upon the basis of this "Programme of Principles" that the
earliest Bond organisations were formed in the Transvaal, the Free
State, and the Cape Colony. In the year following the Graaf Reinet
Congress, however, the "Farmers' Protection Association" was
amalgamated with the Bond in the Cape Colony, and the influence of Mr.
J. H. Hofmeyr led the joint organisation to adopt a modified
"programme." Mr. Hofmeyr, who was destined afterwards to assume the
undisputed headship of the Bond, was an economist as well as a
nationalist. He was intensely interested in the development of the
country districts, and he saw that the conditions of agriculture could
hardly be improved without the co-operation of the British and more
progressive section of the farming class. He also knew that an
organisation, professing to forward aims of avowed disloyalty, would
rapidly find itself in collision with the Cape Government. With the
growth of Mr. Hofmeyr's influence the policy, though not the aims, of
the Bond was changed. All declarations, such as the clause "under its
own flag," inconsistent with allegiance to the British Crown were
omitted from the official constitution, and its individual members
were exhorted to avoid any behaviour or expressions likely to prevent
Englishmen from joining the organisation. As early as 1884 the Bond
secured the return of twenty-five members to the Cape Parliament, and
it was their support that enabled the Upington Ministry to maintain
itself in office against an opposition which consisted of the main
body of the representatives elected by the British population; and
from this date onwards it was the recognised aim of Mr. Hofmeyr to
control the Legislature of the Colony by making it impossible for any
ministry to dispense with the support of the Bond members, although he
refrained from putting a ministry of Bondsmen into office. To have
done this latter might have united the British population and their
representatives in a solid phalanx, and endangered the success of the
effort to separate the British settlers in the country districts from
the more recent arrivals from England--mostly townsmen--which remained
a fruitful source of Afrikander influence up to the time of the
Jameson Raid. By representing the new British population, which
followed in the wake of the mineral discoveries, as "fortune-seekers"
and adventurers and not genuine colonists, the Bond endeavoured, not
merely to widen the natural line of cleavage between the townsman and
the countryman, but actually to detach the older British settlers from
sympathy with the mother country, and, by drawing them within the
sphere of Afrikander nationalist aspirations, to make them share its
own antagonism to British supremacy.
[Sidenote: Merriman and the Bond.]
But, in spite of the change of policy due to Mr. Hofmeyr, the old
leaven of stalwart Bondsmen remained sufficiently in evidence to draw
from Mr. J. X. Merriman--then a strong Imperialist in close
association with Mr. J. W. Leonard--a striking rebuke. The speech in
question was made, fittingly enough, at Grahamstown, the most
"English" town in South Africa, in 1885. It was reprinted with
complete appropriateness, in _The Cape Times_ of July 10th, 1899. The
struggle which Mr. Merriman had foreseen fourteen years before was
then near at hand; while Mr. Merriman himself had become a member of a
ministry placed in power by the Bond for the avowed purpose of
"combating the British Government."
"The situation is a grave one," he said. "It is not a question of
localism; it is not a question of party politics; but it is a
question whether the Cape Colony is to continue to be an integral
part of the British Empire.... You will have to keep public men
up to the mark, and each one of you will have to make up his mind
whether he is prepared to see this colony remain a part of the
British Empire, which carries with it obligations as well as
privileges, or whether he is prepared to obey the dictates of the
Bond. From the very first time, some years ago, when the poison
began to be instilled into the country, I felt that it must come
to this--Is England or the Transvaal to be the paramount force in
South Africa?... Since then that institution has made a show of
loyalty, while it stirred up disloyalty.... Some people, who
should have known better, were dragged into the toils under the
idea that they could influence it for good, but the whole
teaching of history goes to show that when the conflict was
between men of extreme views and moderate men, the violent
section triumphed. And so we see that some moderate men are in
the power of an institution whose avowed object is to combat the
British Government. In any other country such an organisation
could not have grown; but here, among a scattered population, it
has insidiously and successfully worked.... No one who wishes
well for the British Government could have read the leading
articles of the _Zuid Africaan_, and _Express_, and _De Patriot_,
in expounding the Bond principles, without seeing that the
maintenance of law and order under the British Crown and the
object they have in view are absolutely different things. My
quarrel with the Bond is that it stirs up race differences. Its
main object is to make the South African Republic the paramount
power in South Africa."
This was plain speaking. The rare insight revealed in such a sentence
as this--"in any other country such an organisation could not have
grown, but here, _among a scattered population_, it has insidiously
and successfully worked"; the piquant incident of the reproduction of
the speech on the eve of the war; the fact that the man who made this
diagnosis was to drink the poison whose fatal effects he described so
faithfully, was indeed to become the most bitter opponent of the great
statesman that "kept South Africa a part of the British
Empire,"--these things together make Mr. Merriman's Grahamstown speech
one of the most curious and instructive of the political utterances of
the period.
[Sidenote: Change of Bond policy.]
In the year following (1886) the Bond met officially, for the first
and only time, as an inter-state organisation. Bloemfontein was the
place of assemblage, and in the Central Bestuur, or Committee, the
South African Republic, the Free State, and the Cape Colony were each
represented by two delegates. This meeting revealed the practical
difficulties which prevented the Cape nationalists from adopting the
definitely anti-British programme of the Bond leaders in the
Republics; and the conflict of commercial interests between the Cape
Colony and the Transvaal, already initiated by the attempt of the
latter to secure Bechuanaland in 1884-5, confirmed the Cape delegates
in their decision to develop the Bond in the Cape Colony upon colonial
rather than inter-state lines. The result of the divergences of aim
manifested at Bloemfontein was speedily made apparent in the Cape
Colony. In 1887 Mr. T. P. Theron, then Secretary of the Bond,
delivered an address in which the new, or Hofmeyr, programme was
formulated and officially adopted. In recommending the new policy to
the members of the Bond, Mr. Theron made no secret of the nature of
the considerations by which its leaders had been chiefly influenced.
"You must remember," he said, "that the eyes of all are directed
towards you. The Press will cause your actions, expressions, and
resolutions to be known everywhere. You cannot but feel how much
depends on us for our nation and our country. If we must plead
guilty in the past of many an unguarded expression, let us be
more cautious and guarded for the future."
And he then proceeded to sketch a picture of racial conciliation, when
all "differences and disagreements" between Dutch and English would be
merged in the consciousness of a new and common nationality--pointing
out, however, that the advent of that day depended on "you and me, my
fellow Bond members."
[Sidenote: Rhodes and Hofmeyr.]
Assuming that the predominance of Afrikander ideals could be secured
only by the complete separation of the local governments from the
Government of Great Britain, nothing could be more masterly than the
manner in which the Bond approached the task of reuniting the European
communities of South Africa--the task which the Imperial Government
had abandoned as hopeless. As inspired and controlled by Hofmeyr
during the years between this date (1887) and the Jameson Raid, the
Bond embodied a volume of effort in which the most sincere supporter
of the British connection could co-operate. It was the assistance
afforded by the Bond in moulding British administration in South
Africa upon South African lines that provided the common ground upon
which Rhodes and Hofmeyr met in their long alliance. Hofmeyr probably
never abandoned his belief that a republican form of government was
the inevitable _denouement_ to which the administration of South
Africa on a basis of South African ideas must lead. Rhodes never
wavered in his loyalty to the British connection. But there was a
great body of useful work which both men could accomplish in common,
which each desired to see accomplished, which, when accomplished,
would leave each free to choose the path--Republican or Imperial--by
which the last stage was to be traversed and the goal of South
African unity finally attained.
The character and career of Rhodes afford material for a study of such
peculiar and engrossing interest that any adequate treatment of the
subject would require a separate volume. Fortunately, the broad facts
of his life are sufficiently well known to make it unnecessary to
attempt the almost impossible task of condensing a volume within the
limits of a few pages. None the less, there is one incident in his
political career which must be recalled here, and that for the simple
reason that it establishes two facts, each of which is essential to
the complete understanding of the situation in the Cape Colony as it
developed immediately after the Raid. First, that all through the
years of the Rhodes-Hofmeyr alliance the Bond remained at heart true
to the aim which it had at first openly avowed--the aim of
establishing a united South Africa under its own flag. And second,
that Rhodes was equally staunch in maintaining his ideal of a united
South Africa under the British flag. The incident which exhibits both
these facts in the clearest light is the refusal by Rhodes of the
overtures made to him by Borckenhagen. At the time when these
overtures were made Rhodes was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, the
Chartered Company had been successfully launched, and the alliance
between himself and Hofmeyr was in full operation. The occasion which
led to them was the opening of the railway at Bloemfontein in 1890--a
railway constructed by the Cape Government under a friendly
arrangement with the Free State. And it was one, therefore, which
afforded a conspicuous example of the value of the Bond influence as a
means of securing progress in the direction of South African unity.
The story was told by Rhodes himself in a speech which he made in the
Cape Colony on March 12th, 1898.
[Sidenote: Rhodes and Borckenhagen.]
"I remember," he said, "that we had a great meeting at
Bloemfontein, and in the usual course I had to make a speech. I
think I was your Prime Minister. And this speech pleased many
there, and especially--and I speak of him with the greatest
respect--a gentleman who is dead, Mr. Borckenhagen. He came to me
and asked me to dictate to him the whole of my speech. I said, 'I
never wrote a speech, and I don't know what I said; but I will
tell you what I know about it.' He wrote it down, and afterwards
came to Capetown with me.... He spoke very nicely to me about my
speech. 'Mr. Rhodes, we want a united South Africa.' And I said,
'So do I; I am with you entirely. We must have a united South
Africa.' He said, 'There is nothing in the way.' And I said, 'No;
there is nothing in the way. Well,' I said, 'we are one.' 'Yes,'
he said, 'and I will tell you: we will take you as our leader,'
he said. 'There is only one small thing, and that is, we must, of
course, be independent to the rest of the world.' I said, 'No;
you take me either for a rogue or a fool. I would be a rogue to
forget all my history and traditions; and I would be a fool,
because I would be hated by my own countrymen and mistrusted by
yours.' From that day he assumed a most acrid tone in his
_Express_ towards myself, and I was made full sorry at times by
the tone. But that was the overpowering thought in his mind--an
independent South Africa."[23]
[Footnote 23: _Cecil Rhodes: His Political Life and
Speeches._ By Vindex; p. 533. Borckenhagen had just died.]
The facts here disclosed explain how it was that the apparently
satisfactory situation in South Africa before the Raid so rapidly
developed into the dangerous situation of the years that followed it.
The Raid tore aside the veil which the Rhodes-Hofmeyr alliance had
cast over the eyes alike of Dutch and British, and left them free to
see the essential antagonism of aim between the two men in its naked
truth.[24] From that moment Rhodes was recognised by the Bond as its
chief and most dangerous enemy; and as such he was pursued by its
bitterest hostility to the day of his death; while Rhodes, on the
other hand, was driven to seek support solely in the people of his own
nationality. From that moment the Bond fell back upon the policy of
1881. The Dutch Press, pulpit, and platform commenced an active
nationalist propaganda on the old racial lines; and the advocacy of
anti-British aims increased in boldness and in definiteness as the
Transvaal grew strong with its inflowing armaments.
[Footnote 24: _Ons Land_, reputed to be controlled by Hofmeyr
himself, and certainly the recognised organ of the Bond,
published a paean of triumph over the surrender of Dr.
Jameson's troopers at Doornkop. "Afrikanderdom has awakened
to a sense of earnestness which we have not observed since
the heroic war of liberty in 1881. From the Limpopo, as far
as Capetown, the second Majuba has given birth to a new
inspiration and a new movement amongst our people in South
Africa.... The flaccid and cowardly imperialism that had
already begun to dilute and weaken our national blood,
gradually turned aside before the new current that permeated
our people.... Now or never the foundation of a
wide-embracing nationalism must be laid.... The partition
wall has disappeared ... never has the necessity for a policy
of a colonial and republican union been greater; now the
psychological moment has arrived; now our people have
awakened all over South Africa; a new glow illumines our
hearts; let us lay the foundation-stone of a real United
South Africa on the soil of a pure and all-comprehensive
national sentiment."]
[Sidenote: Effects of the raid.]
We are now in a position to sum up the main features of the situation
in South Africa as Lord Milner found it. British administration,
controlled from Downing Street, had quickly led to what Sir George
Grey called the dismemberment of European South Africa. The Imperial
Government, having found out its mistake, had endeavoured to regain
the lost solidarity of the European communities and its authority over
them, by bringing the Republics into a federal system under the
British Crown. It had been thwarted in this endeavour by the military
resistance of the Boers in the Transvaal, and the fear of a like
resistance on the part of the Dutch population throughout South
Africa. Its impotency had invited, and in part justified, the efforts
made by local British initiative to solve the problem of South African
unity on South African lines, but in a manner consistent with the
maintenance of British supremacy. The early success of these efforts,
prosecuted mainly through the agency of Rhodes, had been obliterated
by the Jameson Raid. All attempts to secure the reunion of South
Africa under the British flag having failed alike under Imperial and
local British initiative, the way was open for the Afrikander
nationalists once more to put forward the alternative plan of a united
South Africa under its own flag, which they had formulated in the year
immediately following the retrocession of the Transvaal.
In proportion as the friends and supporters of British supremacy were
discredited and depressed by the catastrophe of the Raid, the
advocates and promoters of Afrikander nationalism were emboldened and
encouraged. It was not Sir Gordon Sprigg, the Prime Minister of the
Cape who succeeded the discredited Rhodes (January 13th, 1896), but
Mr. Hofmeyr, the veteran leader of the Afrikander Bond, that dictated
the policy which Lord Rosmead must pursue to re-establish the
integrity of the Imperial Government in the minds of its Dutch
subjects. At the next presidential election in the Free State (March
4th, 1896), Mr. J. G. Fraser, the head of the moderate party which
followed in the steps of President Brand, was hopelessly beaten by Mr.
Marthinus Steyn, an Afrikander nationalist of the scientific school of
Borckenhagen, and a politician whose immediate programme included the
"closer union" of that state with the South African Republic, the
terms of which were finally settled at Bloemfontein on March 9th,
1897. In the Cape Colony the Bond organised its resources with a view
of securing even more complete control of the Cape Legislature at the
general election of 1898. And lastly, President Krueger, who had
ceased to rely upon Holland for administrative talent, and opened the
lucrative offices of the South African Republic to the ambitious and
educated Afrikander youth of the Free State and Cape Colony, commenced
methodically and secretly to supply arms and ammunition to the
adherents of the nationalist cause in the British Colonies.
[Sidenote: Situation in 1896.]
But disastrous as was the Jameson Raid in its method of execution and
immediate effects, it produced certain results that cannot be held to
have been prejudicial to the British cause in South Africa, if once we
recognise the fact that the English people as a whole were totally
ignorant, at the time of its occurrence, of the extent to which the
sub-continent had already slipped from their grasp. Something of the
long advance towards the goal of nationalist ambition, achieved by the
Bond, was revealed. The emphatic cry of "Hands off" to Germany, for
which the Kaiser's telegram of congratulation provided the occasion,
was undoubtedly the means of arresting the progress of that power, at
a point when further progress would have gained her a foot-hold in
South Africa from which nothing short of actual hostilities could have
dislodged her. And more important still was the fact that the Raid,
with its train of dramatic incidents, had published, once and for all,
the humiliating position of the British population in the Transvaal
throughout the length and breadth of the Anglo-Saxon world, and
compelled the Imperial Government to pledge itself to obtain the
redress of the "admitted grievances" of the Uitlanders.
[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's policy.]
Against the rallying forces of Afrikander nationalism Mr. Chamberlain,
for the moment, had nothing to oppose but the vague and as yet unknown
power of an awakened Imperial sentiment. Lord Rosmead's attitude at
Pretoria had convinced him of the uselessness of expecting that any
satisfactory settlement of the franchise question could be brought
about through the agency of the High Commissioner. He, therefore,
invited President Krueger to visit England in the hope that his own
personal advocacy of the cause of the Uitlanders, backed up by the
weight of the Salisbury Government, might remove the "root causes" of
Transvaal unrest. But President Krueger refused to confer with the
Colonial Secretary upon any other than the wholly inadmissible basis
of the conversion of the London Convention into a treaty of amity such
as one independent power might conclude with another. Mr. Chamberlain,
therefore, having put upon record that the purpose of the proposed
conference was to give effect to the London Convention and not to
destroy it, proceeded to formulate a South African policy that would
enable him to make the most effective use of the authority of Great
Britain as paramount Power. His purpose was to win Dutch opinion in
the Free State and the Cape Colony to the side of the Imperial
Government, and then to use this more progressive Dutch opinion as
the fulcrum by which the lever of Imperial remonstrance was to be
successfully applied to the Transvaal Government. In the speech[25] in
which he sketched the main lines of this policy he declared
emphatically that the paramount power of England was to be maintained
at all costs, that foreign intervention would not be permitted under
any pretence, and that the admitted grievances of the Uitlanders were
to be redressed:
[Footnote 25: 1896.]
"We have," he continued, "a confident hope that we shall be able
in the course of no lengthened time to restore the situation as
it was before the invasion of the Transvaal, to have at our backs
the sympathy and support of the majority of the Dutch population
in South Africa, and if we have that, the opinion--the united
opinion--which that will constitute, will be an opinion which no
power in Africa can resist."
With the record of the last ten years before us it seems strange that
Mr. Chamberlain should ever have believed in the efficacy of such a
policy: still more strange that he should have spoken of his
"confident hope" of winning the Afrikander nationalists to support the
paramount Power. But it must be remembered that the evidence of the
real sentiments and purposes of the nationalists here set forth in the
preceding pages, and now the common property of all educated
Englishmen, was then known only to perhaps a dozen journalists and
politicians in England; and if these men had attempted to impart
their knowledge to the general public, they would have failed from the
sheer inability of the average Englishman to believe that "British
subjects" under responsible government could be anything but loyal to
the Imperial tie.
But little as Mr. Chamberlain knew of the real strength of the forces
of Afrikander nationalism, he discerned enough of the South African
situation to realise that this policy would have no chance of success,
unless the maintenance of the British cause in South Africa was placed
in the hands of a personality of exceptional vigour and capacity.
When, therefore, Lord Rosmead intimated his desire to be relieved of
the heavy responsibility of the joint offices of High Commissionship
for South Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony no attempt to
dissuade him was made. His health had been enfeebled for some time
past, and he did not long survive his return to England. Both in
Australia and at the Cape he had devoted his strength and ability to
the service of the Empire. In the years 1883-5 he had resolutely and
successfully opposed the attempt of the Transvaal Boers to seize
Bechuanaland. His failure to control his powerful and impatient Prime
Minister is mitigated by the circumstance that it was solely on the
ground of public interest that, upon the retirement of Lord Loch in
1895, he had allowed himself, in spite of his advanced years and
indifferent health, to assume the office of High Commissioner for a
third time.