SECURITY OF INDIVIDUALS ACCORDING TO BOER IDEAS.[11]
1.--_The Amphitheatre Case._
Dr. Kuyper proceeds with charming serenity:
"The affair called the 'Amphitheatre Case' is more ridiculous still."
And this is his mode of telling it:--
"One day the _South African League_ wished to hold a meeting in the
Amphitheatre, and, through Mr. Wybergh, intimated to the State
Attorney that they preferred not to be hampered by the presence of
the police. In conformity with this wish, the State Attorney
telegraphed to the Johannesburg police to keep away. But scarcely
had the meeting commenced before the opponents of the League
invaded the hall; and the few police stationed at the door were
unable to separate the combatants quickly enough. There followed
complaints to London ..."
This is Dr. Kuyper's account. I would ask him, in the first place, why
he does not give the date of this meeting, which took place on the 14th
of January, 1899, one month after the death of Edgar. Secondly, what was
the object of this meeting? Dr. Kuyper is silent on these points. He
speaks of the step taken by Mr. Wybergh, but he altogether misrepresents
it, forgetting that Mr. Wybergh has given his own account of it.
In the serious condition of affairs in Johannesburg at that time, he
went to the State Attorney and the Secretary of State, to acquaint them
with his intention to hold a meeting in a large building, called the
Amphitheatre, generally used as a circus. He informed them that the
meeting was convened for three objects: 1. To protest against the arrest
of Messrs. T.R. Dodd and C.D. Webb; 2. To protest against the law of
public meetings; 3. To obtain signatures to a petition praying for the
protection of Queen Victoria.
The State Attorney and Secretary of State replied that "although the
objects of this meeting were naturally distasteful to the Transvaal
Government, they did not forbid the meeting. Only, all persons who
should commit acts of violence, or who should make use of seditious
language, would be held personally responsible."
Ladies were invited to attend the meeting, which was held at four
o'clock in the afternoon. The members of the League were unarmed.
When they arrived, they found the hall already in possession of three or
four hundred burghers, who had been recruited by Papenfus, Acting Road
Inspector, and were acting under the orders of Mr. Broeksma, Third
Public Prosecutor, and Mr. de Villiers, Second Public Prosecutor. These
men were placed in groups about the Amphitheatre. No sooner had the
meeting begun, than, on a signal given by Mr. Broeksma, chairs were
broken, and, under the orders of Sergeant Smith, of the municipal
police, of Erasmus, of the special police, Lieutenants Murphy and Keller
of the secret police, and, with the assistance of policemen in uniform,
they commenced an assault upon the members. Lieutenant Posthuysen, on
horseback in the arena, encouraged the rioters.
Nothing could show Dr. Kuyper's manner of stating and interpreting facts
better than the following sentence:--
"It was simply a matter of the careful protection of British
subjects, or rather of the worthy apostles of Johannesburg, who had
begun by saying to the magistrates of the Transvaal 'keep away your
police!' and who, later, crawling back from this meeting, after
being well thrashed, complained bitterly that the police had not
protected them."
Dr. Kuyper seems to think it highly amusing that the "worthy apostles of
Johannesburg had been well thrashed."
When we find a European Dutchman, a man of letters, showing such animus
in the examination of facts, one may judge of what the Boers are
capable, ignorant and rough as they are, and inflated with the
conviction that they are the elect people.
[Footnote 11: _Le Siècle_, March 31st, 1900.]
2.--_Different modes of estimating bail._
We have seen that one of the objects of the meeting had been to protest
against the arrests of Messrs. Dodd and Webb. These two gentlemen had
been arrested as the organisers of an illegal meeting in the public
market square, a public place, where no speeches had been made, but
where the petition to the Queen had been openly read, before they had
taken it to the British Vice-Consul. To obtain their release they had
each to find sureties of £1,000, while Jones, Edgar's murderer, had been
set at liberty on bail being found for £200 unpaid.
3.--_The Uitlanders' Petition._
These proceedings only resulted in more signatures to the petition
addressed to the Queen. When Sir Alfred Milner, March 28th, 1899,
forwarded a copy to Mr. Chamberlain it contained 21,684 signatures. Sir
Alfred Milner did not undertake to guarantee the authenticity of them
all, but gave reasons for considering the greater number as _bonâ fide_.
Mr. Wybergh in a letter of April 10th, to the British Vice-Consul,
explains the measures that had been taken to collect and verify the
signatures. They were such as to inspire confidence. He states that
among the whole number, only 700 are of illiterate or coloured people;
and adds, that after the dispatch of the petition 1,300 other signatures
were sent in, thus raising the total to 23,000.
The Government of Pretoria, after a lapse of more than a month succeeded
in raising a counter-petition addressed to itself, which, at first, it
stated, contained 9,000 signatures; some time later, on the 30th of May,
the British Government was informed that it numbered 23,000 signatures.
Krüger wished to prove that he had at least the same number of
partisans.
Only he had out-witted himself in the drawing up of this
counter-petition. His signatories affirmed that security of property
and individuals was assured in the Transvaal. Pangloss, himself, would
not have gone so far.
4.--_Security of the Individual according to Boer ideas._
Krüger's petitioners further asserted that the petition to the Queen was
"the work of capitalists and not of the public." As a matter of fact,
incensed at the murder of Edgar--a working man--the men who were the
first to sign that petition were working men. The principal mining
company of Johannesburg had shown an example of that prudence we see too
often among capitalists, and had dismissed Mr. Wybergh, the President of
the _South African League_, who was one of their employés. The President
of the Chamber of Mines, Mr. Rouliot, in his statement of January 26th,
1899, took pains to dissociate it from the campaign of agitation. This
display of weakness availed nothing. The Government of Pretoria took up
the attitude that has succeeded so well in deceiving public opinion:
that of a council composed of honest men, innocent victims of capitalist
rapacity.
5.--_The Murder of Mrs. Appelbe._
Here is a proof of the security enjoyed by the Uitlanders, at the very
time when the Government of Pretoria closed its list of signatures to
the counter-petition. On Friday April 28th, Mrs. Appelbe, the wife of a
Wesleyan minister of Johannesburg, was going to chapel accompanied by a
Mr. Wilson, a chemist. They were set upon by a band of men in the pay,
it is said, of canteen keepers, sellers of liquor to the natives. Mrs.
Appelbe received such severe injuries that she died on the Thursday
following. Mr. Wilson, who was badly wounded in the head, eventually
recovered. On May 8th, the police affected to know nothing of the
outrage; nor did they ever discover the murderers of Mrs. Appelbe, thus
proving the grand irony of the apologist petition which "emphatically"
affirmed the complete security of life and property in the Transvaal.