A CARNIVAL OF MURDER--PRECEDING JAMESON'S RAID AND CHAMBERLAIN'S
CONSPIRACY.
Having remained in Johannesburg for just thirty days, I secured four
pack donkeys, and in company with three friends, started for this
fabulously rich country, Golden Rhodesia. It was the rainy season, and
it was rain, rain, rain, day and night, but we were determined not to
be balked by anything; we would see Buluwayo, the gold center, 600
miles away, or go down in the attempt. We had before us eight swollen
rivers, wicked rivers at this season, but almost dry beds at any other
time of the year. We had to swim all of them, and what a struggle it
was for us! I can't understand now just how we succeeded, and do not
know how we escaped the crocodiles, yet we landed safely in Victoria,
Mashonaland, on Easter Sunday, in the early part of April.
[Illustration: CECIL J. RHODES
Notorious for his greed and inhumanity.]
Here I found about 600 people sleeping in the graveyard, and about
300 lying on cots and on the counters in the stores and various other
places, all down with the fever. I did not like the situation at all.
To buy anything one had to help himself and then hand the money to the
sick man on the counter. I found that Salisbury, Gwelo and Buluwayo
were all practically in the same condition. It was fever, fever,
nothing but fever everywhere, and all this talk of gold, gold, gold,
was entirely misleading. It did not take us but about one minute to
discover that Golden Rhodesia was a golden fraud, and so it was then,
and so it is now, and will forever be. However, I was not satisfied,
so I traversed the whole land, penetrated into the jungles of the
Zambesi, roamed about in company with the elephant, rhinoceros, the
hippopotamus, the savage buffalo, giraffe, zebra, the lion, leopard,
hyena, wild dog, jackal and all the many and various kinds of antelope
that swarm in that far-a-way, God-forsaken, fever-stricken country,
where Livingstone breathed his last, and where the natives, in
thousands, naked as nature made them, swarm about you, and look at you
and treat you royally in their simple way. Here was wild nature, in
all its glory, and here I was supremely happy. Thousands of baboons
and monkeys made music during the day, and at night-fall the lions,
hyenas and jackals took up the strain and kept a curious, nature-loving
white man, with his rifle on his knee, delightfully entertained. After
several months of exploring, I returned to Buluwayo, on March 21st,
1896; and on March 23rd, the Matabeles broke out in rebellion against
the great C.J. Rhodes, and his great fraud, the Chartered Company.
The Matabeles surrounded this miserable, drunken, fever-stricken town,
and, of course, I was one of the victims. These Kaffirs, 15,000 or
20,000 strong, would dance on the ridges about us, make sport of us,
and have a good time generally during the day, and when night came,
all women and children were shut up in the market building, while the
men were in the laager surrounding it. During the night every house
in town was abandoned. False alarm after false alarm was the order
of the night; and how often have I seen loving mothers, with their
arms around the necks of their two, three or four children, moaning,
shrieking, praying, appealing to God and kissing their little ones the
last farewell! Those awful scenes still haunt me, and will till the day
of my death. During the day the men would go out and fight for a while,
and then fly back with the Matabeles after them, and proceed to get on
a big drunk, and then have a riot meeting.
[Illustration: Innocent Matabele Kaffirs hung on the lone tree on Fife
Street in Buluwayo, in 1896, by order of C.J. Rhodes and his Chartered
Co., in order to amuse his fellow British subjects.]
During the siege, many small parties of Kaffirs would come into
Buluwayo for safety, as they would not take any part in the war.
Chartered officials made use of these small parties, as a means to
amuse the people with interesting street scenes. On reaching the town,
the party of two, or three, or four, or possibly ten Kaffirs, would
be arrested and ordered shot. The poor devils would be marched up the
street, lined up, and in the presence of a large crowd, shot down.
After several hours, when all had feasted their eyes and satisfied
their curiosity, the innocent whites, among the Company's convicts,
were made to carry these mangled bodies in their arms to the veldt, and
bury them. These convicts were not allowed to make use of wagons or
carts. In order to have a change of scene, the guards would sometimes
make these refugees climb the big tree on Fife Street, and having
attached ropes to their necks and a limb of the tree, would make them
jump for their lives.
Then again the guards would sometimes take others to the same tree,
and, having tied the ropes to their necks and passing it over the limb
of the tree, would draw them up till their toes would just touch the
ground, that the people might see them struggle and slowly strangle to
death. Again, they would be marched into the street, and many guards
being placed behind and near them, they would be commanded to run
for their lives. Of course, all would be shot down, and the wounded
sometimes shot five or six times before they died. These were horrible
murder scenes, but Rhodesians seemed to enjoy them. Having seen all
this, I do not hesitate to tell the public, that all may know just what
a civilized people the English are.
In June we were relieved, by troops coming from the south, and I said
farewell to the miserable hole, Buluwayo, and returned to Johannesburg
in August, 1896.
I will tell in a few words the causes of that war, because I know
them. The Matabeles had not forgotten that white men had poisoned
their chief, Lobengula. The Chartered Company sent its police and
forcibly took all the cattle from the Kaffirs. This caused the death
of thousands of their little ones, who lived almost exclusively on
the milk of the cows. The Company allowed its police and its people
generally to go to the Kaffir Kraals, and, with their rifles, force
young girls to go to their huts, where they could use them at their
pleasure. This struck the Kaffirs to the very heart, because they
are an extremely moral people, and immorality with them is punished
by death. The Company allowed its Police Commissioners to force the
Kaffirs to work in the mines. The Commissioners received from the
Mining Company $2.50 for each Kaffir, and, in return, guaranteed the
Kaffir to work for three months.
Just before the expiration of the three months, the mine captain would
take his cowhide whip and so slash them that they would run away. He
would then call upon the Commissioners to make good their contract and
bring back the Kaffirs. The Commissioner would then send his police
to arrest the runaways, and, having got them in his possession, would
himself give them twenty lashes and return them to work. Finally the
Kaffir, after running away, would hide in the hills. Then it was that
the Commissioner would arrest the fugitive's wife and children and
hold them as hostages, till he came and gave himself up to receive the
twenty lashes. If the Kaffir left before his three months expired, the
mine captain did not have to pay him any wages. To get his $2.50, the
Commissioner had to make the Kaffir work three months, or put another
one in his place, so that the poor Kaffir must be cut and slashed to
pieces whether he worked or not. So universal was this cutting and
slashing, that life to the Kaffir became worse than hell itself, and
thereupon they rebelled, and killed every white man they could lay
hands on. I said, "Well done." They would have taken the country, but
Rhodes paid them $2,500,000, in kind, and bought peace; and to-day
there is no whipping, no cutting Kaffirs to pieces, and they are as
independent as kings, in Rhodesia, because they are the masters.
While I was enjoying myself in the jungles of the Zambesi, Rhodes
completed all his arrangements for a raid into the Transvaal, but
I must tell why it became necessary for Rhodes to make a raid into
the Transvaal. He had painted Rhodesia yellow, and through flaming
advertisements had led the world to believe that it was the richest
gold bearing country on earth.
He knew there was no gold of any account in the country, and he
knew, too, that the English public had been swindled out of more
than $120,000,000. He knew also that the Chartered Company could not
exist, would fall flat, and prove worse than the South Sea bubble, if
something were not done, and that quickly, too. Now if he could only
manage to seize the world-known, rich gold fields of the Rand, at
Johannesburg, and annex them to Rhodesia, why then he and the Chartered
Company would be safe, and could easily fill their chest with many more
millions.
If the Rand gold-fields were once annexed, then he could advertise
the marvellous gold output of Rhodesia, and would find no trouble in
floating all the sand banks of that desert land, as veritable gold
mines, and thus save and enrich himself and the Chartered Company.
I will say a few words about the Raid.
In December, 1895, Rhodes put about 600 of the Rhodesian police, with
Dr. Jameson in command, on the western border of the Transvaal, near
Mafeking. Of course, Rhodes had every thing arranged in Downing Street,
London, so that at the proper time the English Government could step
in, with its troops, to protect its citizens and thus take the rich
Rand gold-fields from the Boers. Rhodes had a telegram sent to the
London _Times_ that the Boers were about to murder the English women
and children in Johannesburg. Many of Jameson's men refused to cross
the border, but when they were called into line and told they must
go and help protect the English women and children from the savage
Boers, they consented. The raiding column made a rapid march, reached
Doornkop, about twenty miles from Johannesburg and were there captured
by 180 Boers, who had come to meet them on hearing of the raid. There
were some prominent Americans in the Johannesburg Reform Committee of
seventy, who with Rhodes were implicated in this most outrageous piece
of piracy, and when President Kruger refused to put Dr. Jameson and his
staff, together with his seventy members of the Reform Committee, in a
line and shoot them down, (and what a blessing it would have been for
humanity,) he made the fatal mistake of his life and in the end lost
his country, at least, temporarily. It was by wilful lying that Rhodes,
Jameson and the Reform Committee induced those 600 police to make that
raid, and on the tombstones of the twenty-five or thirty men killed at
Doornkop, there should be engraved the words, "Murdered by C.J. Rhodes
and his followers." All the miscreants who were connected with that
infamous raid were soon set free, and they began at once in another way
to create trouble for the Boers, and, as a result of their labor, one
of the greatest wars in the history of man was fought by a handful of
patriotic Boers, against the so-called mightiest empire of the world.
As a result of the raid, the names of something like a hundred low,
greed-loving conspirators were made know to the world, and the
Transvaal still held possession of its precious gold fields.
Rhodes had now failed, and in order to avert the catastrophe, he put
up money himself, and pulled in his faithful allies, Alfred Beit,
Lionel Phillips and several others, and succeeded in preventing a great
financial calamity.
Immediately after Jameson and his 600 men were captured, Rhodes swore
he knew nothing about the raid, and that it was a surprise to him. Of
course Joe Chamberlain knew nothing about it because he _said_ so.
With Jameson, was captured a lot of cipher telegrams, as well as the
keys. These gave Rhodes away, and proved conclusively that he was the
organizer of the raid, and that Chamberlain was implicated with him. I
will give one or two letters, just to show how much faith can be placed
on an English official's word.
30 Mincing Lane, E.C.,
London, February 20th, 1897.
My Dear Grey:
Thanks for your letter of the 9th ult., which I read with great
interest. You will, of course, have heard that the committee was
reappointed and has got to work. I send you official prints of the
evidence already taken. Rhodes has done well, and I think will come
out on top. He was nervous on the first day, though his evidence
was good even then. Yesterday he was simply splendid. I do not think
that we are by any means out of the woods, but there does not seem
an off-chance of the plea of public interest being recognized, and
the cables of the last of the year 1895, or rather the negotiations
of that period, not being disclosed, though I am bound to say that
personally I think the balance of probability is that they will have
to come out. If they do, Mr. Chamberlain will have no one but himself
to thank. I am very sorry I have been such a bad correspondent, but
really the work and anxiety of the last fifteen months, or nearly two
years, that is, since Harris came to England on the subject of the
Protectorate, in July, 1895, have been most trying, and I sometimes
fear that even my constitution will not stand it much longer, though,
happily, I am still very well. I will try and write you more fully
next week.
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
Bouchier F. Hawkesley.
P.S.--Rhodes has received your letter and cable about Lawley.
The Right Hon. Earl Grey.
The following came out in the Select Committee of the House of Commons
that was appointed to investigate the Jameson Raid. The suppressed
cables mentioned were never produced, because Mr. Chamberlain must be
protected. The above letter, however, is pretty strong evidence and
it made Mr. Chamberlain shake in his boots. Mr. Hawkesley is Rhodes'
solicitor, and with him Chamberlain and the London _Times_ were deeply
implicated in the raid.
[PRIVATE]
39 Cadogan Square, London, S.W.
(_No Date_)
Dear Mr. Hawkesley:
So many thanks for yours. I knew you would feel as I do, that we owe
Allingham a great deal, and must give the brother any (or every) help
we could. I will tell him to make an appointment to come and see
you one morning. He sails in the beginning of next month. I quite
agree with you that very little good, if any, can be done with J.C.
He knows what he has to expect, and will have had plenty of time to
think it over, by the time C.J.R. arrives. As long as you make it
impossible for C.J.R. to give away Jameson, he will be loyal to him;
but I am sure from what I've said (heard), that at one time Rhodes
contemplated sacrificing the Dr. The Dr. must never know this, and if
any one can keep Rhodes up to mark, you can. I want to talk to you
one day about the Dr.'s future--to see what you think of my plan,
which he has already taken kindly to.
You do not know how grateful I am to you for all you have done for
him, but I think you can perhaps partly understand how much it means
to me to feel he has got a friend like you.
Can I come and see you one morning about 11.30?
Yours sincerely,
R.L. Chamberlain.
[Illustration: RT HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN
Colonial Secretary, who with Rhodes and Milner is directly responsible
for the death of thousands of innocent people.]
The above shows that C.J. Rhodes was ready to prove traitor to his most
faithful tool, who had done all his dirty work. The initials J.C. stand
for Joe Chamberlain and all want to know what he had to expect. The
initials C.J.R. stand for C.J. Rhodes.
On the arrival of Mr. Tatton Egerton in London after the circulation
of a report that Mr. Chamberlain was cognizant of the plans connected
with the Jameson Raid, this gentleman was confronted by the Colonial
Secretary, and asked who had told him that Mr. Chamberlain was in the
raid. The reply was, "Mr. Rhodes himself." The Colonial Secretary's
answer to this blunt statement of the case was, "The Traitor!"
As neither Mr. Egerton nor Mr. Chamberlain has ever denied the above
report, one can draw his own conclusion. If Rhodes "peached" on
Chamberlain to Mr. Egerton, then I think that he was guilty of treason
to one of his most trustworthy fellow-conspirators.
Rhodes and his crew did not remain idle for a moment, they started more
newspapers in Johannesburg, got possession of all the newspapers in
South Africa, except three or four, and then began a paper war against
the Government, President Kruger, all Boer officials, Hollanders, and
in fact all who were in any way in sympathy with the Boers. There was
nothing too low, too mean, too maliciously false for them to say about
the Netherlands Railroad Company, the Dynamite Factory, the price
of coal or the treatment of some Cape niggers caught in a drunken
brawl. There were many other grievances, among them was the five per
cent tax levied on the gold output, by the Government. Then again,
the capitalists wished to establish the "compound" system, and thus
make slaves of all Kaffirs employed at the mines. This the Government
refused to grant.
In addition to this came the cry for the franchise. It was claimed that
the Uitlanders furnished the money that carried on the Government, that
they were in a majority, and that therefore they were entitled to vote
and hold office. They claimed the franchise by the fact of residence in
the Transvaal. Under no circumstances, were they to forswear allegiance
to their Queen and thus forfeit their British citizenship. They claimed
the right to vote and hold office, as long as they saw fit to reside in
the Transvaal, and at the same time to remain British subjects.
The Government changed the law from fourteen to seven years' residence
necessary for the franchise, with an oath requiring the applicant to
renounce all allegiance to the State of which he was last a citizen.
The press cried this down as an act of impertinence and injustice on
the part of the Government, because no British subject could for one
moment think of giving up his citizenship and Queen for the sake of
becoming a citizen in a country run by an ignorant Boer.
Remember, reader, that all this was purely the work of the press of
South Africa, whose object was to give Joe Chamberlain a chance to put
his mouth into the business. The Uitlanders of the Transvaal, including
Englishmen, Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, in fact, representatives
of all nationalities, took little or no interest in the reports which
the press was spreading, because all knew that they were manufactured
and utterly false; and besides all were freer, happier and making more
money than ever before in any other country. All were making from $5 to
$25 per day of eight hours' work, depending on each one's individual
skill and smartness. I was there, knew them, heard them talk, and I
say, there was not one in a hundred who wanted the franchise, who would
have made use of it if given to him, or who ever discussed the subject.
Each was trying to make his little fortune, that he might leave that
far away land and return to his old home.
The horrible condition of affairs in the Transvaal existed only in the
press and was the work of Rhodes, his crew and his ally in Downing
Street, London. The press continued its dirty work day after day and
month after month, without variation, except in a few instances where
the imagination, under heavy strain, was able to squeeze out a little
more venom. The English pursue the same tactics in their fighting,
they bombard day after day, increasing the number of guns from time
to time, and at last when they have concluded that the Boers are all
killed or so demoralized that they could offer no resistance, they
advance the line for the general attack. Just so the press continued to
spit out its venom and spread it over the civilized world, month after
month, until it was deemed that the time was ripe for making the final
crushing blow that must rob the Boers of their gold fields and their
country. This brings me to that notorious petition of 21,000 names that
was deliberately manufactured in Johannesburg. Excluding women and
children, I think it is safe to say that there were not 2,000 genuine
signatures on that petition.
A hired bar-room specimen would go from house to house and have the
mother put her name down and the names of all her children, first
telling her it was the wish of Rhodes and the so-called big men of
Johannesburg. Cape niggers would give their names, and the bar-room
specimen would write them down, for the niggers could not write their
names. There were men in Johannesburg who made it a profession to get
up petitions, charging so much for every hundred names. The Rhodes
crew employed these fellows at $25 per hundred names. These fellows
would then go to their rooms, write down a few hundred names, as they
came to their minds, and would then turn in the list, receive their
money, and proceed to their rooms to repeat the process. That is the
way that petition was gotten up, and it recited enough grievances
to stagger the world. I used to talk with the people, and many of
them, too, every day, and it was a rare exception when I found one
who ever saw the petition. When completed, it was forwarded to Sir
Alfred Milner, Cape Town. He looked at it, pronounced it correct, and
forwarded it to Downing Street. When Sir Alfred Milner reported that he
had investigated the names on that petition, and found them correct,
he knows, I know, and the people of Johannesburg know, that he was
guilty of a deliberate falsehood. Milner was sent to South Africa for a
purpose. His predecessor would have thrown that petition into the waste
basket. He could not be handled by Rhodes; so it became necessary to
get rid of him, and out he went. Milner was just the man for the place,
for he was an educated man, suave and gentlemanly, and, best of all, he
was easily led by such a moneyed man as Rhodes.
Now you have what I call a trinity, three in one, but apparently three
distinct individuals, Chamberlain, Milner, Rhodes, three names that
will in time appear on the first page of the history of the decline
and fall of the British Empire, as the cause of the beginning of the
end. With Chamberlain in Downing Street, Rhodes and all his money in
South Africa, and weak Mr. Milner in the middle and ready at hand, it
was inevitable that the great struggle must come, in which thousands of
innocent people must fall, and the plains of South Africa be reddened
with their blood.
As a result of this petition, the conference in Bloemfontein between
Presidents Kruger and Stein and Sir Alfred Milner was held. This
conference was simply a farce, as the world knows, for Milner had his
orders and all the concessions made by Presidents Kruger and Stein
were simply declined. Had President Kruger told Milner that he was
willing to cut off the Rand Gold-Fields, and allow them to be annexed
to Rhodesia, why, that would have prevented the war, and war could not
have been avoided in any other way, for Milner positively refused to
let any of their differences go to arbitration. He came there to bring
on war; he succeeded, and what a pity it is that he, Chamberlain and
Rhodes thought it prudent to remain so far removed from the immediate
scenes of action! But that is the way in this wicked world--those
who are responsible for suffering and loss of life in a cruel and
uncalled-for war, are the very ones who escape unharmed, and receive
the congratulations of the civilized world for the masterly way they
have carried out their designs.
[Illustration: KRUGER]
From now on telegrams fly thick and fast, the pot is boiling, and
ready to flow over at any moment. President Kruger is praying for
arbitration and peace, while Chamberlain, as chief of the Trinity,
is clamoring for gold and war. He had lyddite, too much lyddite, and
it must be exploded; and on the mountains of Natal, and the plains
of the Transvaal and the Free State, the explosion must take place.
Every shell exploded means so many dollars to Chamberlain and Co., and
thousands upon thousands were exploded before the bloody struggle came
to an end. I am glad to add, however, that but few Boers owe their
death to lyddite.
If you read the London _Times_ from June to October, 1899, you will
find that the British Government had no intention of going to war
with the Boers. But during this time about 15,000 English Troops were
assembled at Dundee and Ladysmith, on the Transvaal border, and about
the same number on the border of the Free State in Cape Colony.
A goodly number were also sent to Mafeking on the western border. About
$2,000,000 worth of ammunition and war supplies were put into Dundee,
and about $10,000,000 worth into Ladysmith. In Kimberly and Mafeking,
the same provisions were made as regards ammunition and war supplies.
At the same time there were something like 20,000 troops on the water,
bound for South Africa. There can be no question about it, the British
Government had no idea of making war on the Transvaal, for Chamberlain
said so in Parliament, Milner said so in Cape Town, and Rhodes backed
up both of them with his money.
These great bases of war supplies were established, and thousands
of troops landed in South Africa, simply to keep the Commissary and
Quartermaster's Department in good training, and allow the troops to
enjoy some holiday exercises in a far-away land. Long before the war,
many English officers, disguised in civilian clothes, had labored hard
in making military maps of the Transvaal and Free State, showing every
road, path, farm, sluit, hill, etc., and yet the British Government had
no idea of forcing war upon the Transvaal; and this must be true, too,
for the London _Times_ said so, Chamberlain said so, Milner said so,
and all were backed by Rhodes and his millions. We captured so many of
these military maps that I can make the above statement without fear of
contradiction.
[Illustration: M.T. STEYN, PRESIDENT ORANGE FREE STATE]
Years ago, the Orange Free State had been robbed of the Kimberly
Diamond Fields by the English, and thereafter the English Government
never complained of any grievances in that Republic. The South African
Republic and the Orange Free State formed an offensive and defensive
alliance because it was a certainty that if the English took one of
them, it would be but a question of time when an excuse would be
manufactured to take the other; so they wisely concluded to stand
shoulder to shoulder and live as Republics, or fall together and exist
as dependencies.
_They did stand together, they fought together and although they were
brought to their knees, they are not down yet, and the price the
English have so far paid, if the English graves in South Africa are to
be taken as an index, is certainly enough to stagger humanity. How many
graves are yet to be dug on the very same battle-fields, of those two
little countries, in order to keep the Boer on his knees, or to put him
quite down, is the question for the future to answer._
Now I come to the point where the two little Republics are brought
face to face with the military forces of war-prepared England; when
war is inevitable, when the immortal gods could not prevent a clash of
arms; when the first shot is fired in a struggle destined to stir the
world, humiliate the English officer and lord, and destroy the name and
prestige of the great degenerate British Empire.