Government had felt it incumbent to advocate the cause of coloured
British subjects and to remonstrate against their ill-usage. The matter
was ultimately submitted to arbitration at Bloemfontein, under the
umpireship of Sir Henry de Villiers, whose award, contrary to
expectation, was adverse to the coloured people. Here was indeed a
unique occasion for the Transvaal Government to exercise geniality upon
a point sorely felt by the British Government; but the very contrary
course was adopted under the ægis of that notorious award, and upon the
untenable plea that sanitation and regard to public health necessitated
that measure of segregation.
Despite the fact that no royalty was yet exacted upon the gold output,
probably to please French, American, and German investors, there seemed
to exist a veiled hostility against the representatives of mining
capitalists, as if the Government regretted to have allowed the
exploitation of the mines to fall into private hands and would welcome
an opportunity to take them under State control altogether.
The Uitlander Press vented public sentiment and denounced the Government
attitude in unmistakable terms; there were besides some angry public
demonstrations. It was an alarming time of impending crisis, rife with
signs of open revolt; the Government looking calmly on awaiting
developments. It was then that the President's since famous saying was
pronounced, viz., "that the tortoise must first be allowed to put out
its head before it could be struck off, and that he was ready for any
emergency."
The situation had a truly anomalous aspect. More discoveries of gold and
even of diamonds followed apace, and the scope for mining, commercial
and industrial enterprises expanded to an incalculable magnitude. All
that was needed was a stable and good Government to encourage the
needful investments. A most tantalizing picture indeed, based upon
undeniably well-grounded facts.
As it was, the situation was one of alarm for capital already
invested--a stake then of over 300 millions sterling in a country where
more than half of the population were in almost open revolt against a
Government commanding very large repressive forces, and resolved to
maintain its stand.
British intervention appeared to be the only means of salvation to
restore security, and to give a fillip to the brilliant prospects of the
country, for the good of the burgher estate as well as for the sake of
Uitlanders.
As the Government continued deaf and obdurate to representations, other
means were sought for. No wonder the Uitlanders longed for a change,
not by any means with the object of altering the style of Republican
status, but to get the Augean stable of misgovernment cleansed, to
escape oppressive and rapacious Boer domination.
The farcical failure of Dr. Jameson was the outcome of those endeavours.
The unspeakable cowardice of his Johannesburg confederates was the chief
feature of that puny attempt. Laurels, like those gained by Lord
Peterborough, Warren Hastings, or Lord Clive, were not decreed to that
ill-advised emulator.
Nothing could have been more propitious than that very Jameson incursion
to fan race hatred and to advance the projects of the Afrikaner
Bond--"Afrika voor de Afrikaners," for, whilst no one acquainted with
the facts can for a moment doubt the guilt of the Transvaal Government
for having systematically provoked that attempt at revolution, "Bond"
propaganda and paid journalism had a rare chance to set up the theory
that annexation on behalf of Great Britain had been foully planned--the
Prince of Wales even being an abettor of the attempted _coup d'état_
purely to gratify the lust of greed for the gold and diamonds of the
poor innocent Boers. No terms were too vituperative to denounce the
enormity. Millions of honest persons all over the world were
deluded--there was a bitter cry of almost universal indignation. The
Boer Government posed as innocent; the designs of the Afrikaner Bond
were not even suspected--its ranks, in sympathy with those delusions
sped on filling up faster than ever, and the father of lies was scoring
another very sensible triumph.
In lieu of reforms, Bond projects and armaments were secretly pursued
with redoubled vigour towards the climax which should install
Afrikanerdom supreme in South Africa, financially as well as
politically.
BLOEMFONTEIN FRANCHISE CONFERENCE--BOER ULTIMATUM
Capitalists had already begun to feel nervous about the final security
of their investments; operations and credit became restricted, fresh
projects were abandoned and a persistent withdrawal of capital set in.
Trade and prosperity were progressively waning, accompanied with still
more ominous portents for the Uitlanders' future. It all meant a very
extensive weeding out of investments under enormous losses, except such
as stood in relation with dividend-paying mines. England, though
apparently apathetic and inactive, was not inattentive to the situation.
Whoever had a stake, whether in South Africa or abroad, looked to Great
Britain as the Power upon whom the duty devolved to provide a peaceable
remedy. The suzerainty controversy was then followed by other questions
of diplomatic difference, among which that of the franchise reform.
Upon this matter English intervention took an insistent form. It clearly
turned all upon that--and once it were satisfactorily arranged, the
amicable solution of other questions might in turn be expected to
follow. As to suzerainty, that claim appeared relegated to remain in
abeyance. A conference was convened at Bloemfontein early in June, 1899,
for the discussion of those topics between the Colonial Governor, Sir
Alfred Milner, and the Presidents of the two Republics. The outcome was
a final demand for the right of representation of the Uitlander
interests in the legislative bodies of the Transvaal, amounting to
one-fifth of the total aggregate of members, the voting qualifications
to consist in the usual reasonable conditions and a residence in the
State of five years, operating retrospectively.
We may here consider whether such a demand contained any real feature of
unfairness to warrant refusal.
Three-fifths of the entire white Transvaal population were Uitlanders,
the majority of them English. They own four-fifths of the total wealth
invested in the State. About half of them have been domiciled, with
house and other fixed property, for periods of from five to ten years
and more.
The preponderance is not only in numbers and wealth, but also in
intelligence and in contributing at least four-fifths of the total State
revenues.
Is it right or prudent to exclude such interests and such a majority
from legislative representation?
Could a minority of one-fifth, that is to say, twelve Uitlander members
against forty-eight Boer members, be said to constitute a menace to the
status or to the conservative interests of State?
Do Uitlanders not deserve equal recognition with the burghers in respect
to intrinsic interest in the land, seeing that the former supplied all
the skill and the capital to explore and exploit the mine wealth, all at
their risk, and without which it would all have remained hidden and the
country continued fallow and poor?
Though one-fifth would be so small a minority, it would at least have
afforded the constitutional method of declaring the wishes of
Uitlanders, and have done away with the disquieting and less effective
practices of Press agitations, public demonstrations, and petitions. The
measure could also have been expected to open up the way towards
reconciling relations between the English and Boer races, beginning in
the Transvaal, where it was hoped that the burghers would be gained over
as friends, and so to stand aloof from the Afrikaner Bond. These were
the supreme objects for peaceful progress and not for annexation. Solemn
assurances from highest quarters were repeatedly given that no designs
existed against the integrity of the Republic, that nothing unfriendly
lurked behind the franchise demand, but that necessity dictated it for
general good and the preservation of peace. Nor were other diplomatic
means left unemployed to ensure the acceptance of the franchise reform.
In addition to firmness of attitude and a display of actual force, most
of the other Powers, including the United States of America, were
induced to add their weight of persuasion in urging upon the Transvaal
the adoption of the measures demanded by England for correcting the
existing trouble. It may be urged that the display of force in sending
the first batches of troops would have afforded grounds for
exasperation, and be construed by the Transvaal as a menace and actual
hostility, tending to precipitate a conflict which it was so earnestly
intended to avoid. To this may be replied that the 20,000 men sent in
August were readily viewed as placing the hitherto undermanned Colonial
garrisons upon an appropriate peace effective only; but not so with
respect to the army corps of 50,000 men despatched in September--this
was felt as an intended restraint against "Bond" projects, to enforce
the observance of any agreement which the Transvaal might for the nonce
assent to, and above all it was tending, unless at once opposed by the
Bond, to weaken its ranks by producing hesitation and ultimate defection
from that body; the die was thus to be cast, duplicity appeared to be
played out--the ultimatum of 9th October was the outcome; and England,
though unprepared, could not possibly accept it otherwise than as a
wilful challenge to war.
As the pursuit of our study will show, the success of Mr. Chamberlain's
diplomacy to avert war depended upon the very slender prospects that the
Transvaal Government might have been induced to waver, and finally to
break with the Afrikaner Bond--a forlorn hope indeed, considering the
perfection which that formidable organization had reached. Its cherished
objects were not meant to be abandoned. The advice of "Bond" leaders
prevailed. War was declared and the Rubicon crossed in enthusiastic
expectations of soon realizing the long-deferred Bond motto: "The
expulsion of the hateful English."
It is true the Transvaal had made a show of acquiescence to British and
foreign pressure. This first took the shape of an offer of a seven
years' franchise, and then one of five years, exceeding even Mr.
Milner's demands as to the number of Uitlander representation. That of
seven years was so fenced in with nugatory trammels and conditions that
it had for those reasons to be rejected; whilst that at five years was
coupled with the equally unacceptable conditions that the claim of
suzerainty should be renounced, and that in all other respects the
Transvaal should be recognised as absolutely independent in terms of the
Sand River Convention of 1852.
Those offers could hardly have been made in sincerity, but rather as a
temporary device and to meet the susceptibilities of the advising
Powers, for all the time preparations for war were never relaxed for a
moment, but were pushed on with extreme vigour. On the other hand, the
British programme seeking to ensure peace by the franchise expedient had
been strictly followed without deviation. When the Transvaal Government
professed irritation over the disposition of some British troops too
near the Transvaal border, they were promptly removed to more remote and
less strategic positions, rather than incur the risk of rupture. During
the month preceding the outbreak of the war, some large continental
consignments of war munitions were, as usual, permitted to reach the
Republics unhindered through several Colonial ports, portions being
actually smuggled over the Colonial railways as merchandise addressed to
a well-known Pretoria firm, but on arrival were secretly delivered,
under cover of night, at the various forts and arsenals. These
proceedings were carried out with the connivance of the Colonial Bond
authorities, and though known to the British Governor, it was all winked
at rather than hazard the momentous objects of peace by the introduction
of another knotty subject. To sum up the situation, it was a diplomatic
contest on the part of Great Britain aiming at peace and to safeguard
her possessions and prestige, while the Afrikaner Bond, on the other
part, continued active in the work of sedition and preparing for a war
of usurpation. Every one must admit that the demand of the British
Ministry for an immediate and adequate representation proceeded from the
necessity and the desire to overcome the South African crisis in a just
and pacific way. The measure was counted upon to effect conciliation
between the Uitlander and burgher elements, and as a further result was
earnestly hoped to bring about the secession of the Transvaal from the
Afrikaner Bond, and so reduce that dangerous confederacy to a somewhat
negligible impotence. To discover other objects of a sinister sort
lurking behind needs a more than inventive genius. A united Afrikaner
Bond, persistent to carry out its fell project, definitely meant war
sooner or later. Its first step in launching out to it was that
notorious ultimatum, which was tantamount to snatching back the feigned
offers of the seven and five years' franchise. According to original
programme, the very next step to accomplish the _coup d'état_ was the
immediate seizure of all Colonial ports, and to complete a general and
irrevocable Boer rising all over the Colonies.
All the while the old device had been put into practice of hiding Bond
guilt by accusing England of designs against the integrity of the Boer
Republics. But directly after, in the exultation of victorious
invasions, the mask was shamelessly dropped, and Boerdom stands out
defiantly and nakedly self-confessed, aiming at conquest and supremacy
over all South Africa. Will the ensuing century have in store an
instance to match that record plot of artifice and dissimulation, and
see half the world duped into partisanship with it--by journalistic
craft?
It may well be imagined that Mr. Chamberlain and his noble colleagues
had anything but beds of roses whilst pursuing the diplomacy adopted to
checkmate the Bond. They had to gain national support without divulging
their own proceeding, and were at the same time reduced to a situation
which imposed a spartan fortitude in concealing and repressing
involuntary perturbation in the presence of an impending national
crisis, and also the stoical endurance of bitter recriminations on the
part of an opposition comprising a large and honourable but poorly
informed section of the English nation.
BOER LANGUAGE
We come now to the topic of language, which will be found relevant,
showing Hollander and Bond influence in using that also as a hostile
weapon. What the Boers still speak is a vernacular or dialect so far
removed from High Dutch as to be unintelligible to the uninitiated
Hollander. It took its form from the dialects brought to the Cape of
Good Hope by unlettered Dutch colonists and a large admixture of locally
produced idioms, with a slight trace of the structure of the French
language in expressing negations. In the two Republics High Dutch rules
for official purposes, but in common intercourse the vernacular Dutch is
still about the same as it had been a hundred years ago. For an
English-Dutch interpreter the thorough knowledge of the vernacular is
essential. Preachers and teachers have to adapt their speech by
combining High Dutch with the dialect, the one or the other
predominating according to the capacity of the hearers. Hollanders
follow the same method when learning the vernacular Dutch.
In towns and villages, not only in the Colonies, but also in both
Republics, English is almost exclusively used. The Boers, and especially
the younger generation, have a much greater aptitude and penchant for
learning English than for High Dutch; and generally it has been held
more important by the parents that their children should become
proficient in English, that language being more easily acquired and of
vastly greater use than Dutch. The latter, it was truly averred, would
be learnt as they grew up quite sufficiently for all purposes.
The feeling thus existed some twenty years ago that English would become
general, and ultimately oust both Dutch and the vernacular. Numerous
Boer patriots then devised the remedy of preserving the vernacular by
raising it to the standard of a written and printed language for
official as well as common use. The Rev. du Toit, later appointed
Minister (or Superintendent) of Education in the Transvaal, worked
tenaciously towards making that movement a national success. He had the
co-operation of many other educated patriots likewise. The _Paarl
Patriot_, a journal published in the vernacular, is one of the
surviving efforts. Vocabularies, school books, etc., etc., were printed
in that dialect, and the translation of the Bible had also been brought
to an advanced stage, when the project had to be abandoned, principally
through Hollander influence, aided by some of the Republican leaders and
Bond men. Dr. Mansfeld, the present Superintendent of Education in the
Transvaal, was subsequently appointed--a very able Hollander, but also a
very strong advocate in the general Hollander Bond movement for
proscribing the use of the English language, and making High Dutch the
compulsory medium of instruction. Since then, and during the past ten
years, considerable progress has been made by the average Boer children,
and even the grown-up people, in approaching a better knowledge of High
Dutch. Before 1880 hardly any Boer cared to read a newspaper except,
perhaps, the _Paarl Patriot_, the vernacular journal referred to. High
Dutch and English papers were equally beyond his ready knowledge, but
since then the interest in politics gave an impulse to a reading
tendency, and at this moment the majority of the Boers manage to read
and understand fairly well what is presented in simply written High
Dutch by the local Press. They also are fond of simply written books of
travels, and especially of narratives of a religious trend. With the
Bible they are most familiar from childhood, but literature in High
Dutch is beyond them as yet. Greater pains have of late years been taken
to qualify Boer sons for the administrative service of the Republics,
where imperfect knowledge of High Dutch is an obvious bar to
advancement, and Hollanders would otherwise continue to monopolize the
better positions.
Taking the fairly educated Free State and Transvaal youth, the average
proficiency in English compared to that in High Dutch is as two to one,
whilst many possess even a literary mastery in English whilst quite poor
in the other language.
In the Cape Colony the above comparison among the Boer section is still
more in favour of English.
It may be judged what an important _rôle_ the educated Hollander group
can take in those Republics, and are yet aiming at in the Colonies.
It is also worthy of reflection why and how the Dutch language has been
raised to equality with English in the Cape Colony, seeing English was
more generally understood by the Boers there than High Dutch, and none
of the Boer legislators or members of Parliament even now know more
than the Dutch vernacular, the High Dutch language having actually yet
to be learnt by the Boer population--an important step thus gained by
Afrikanerdom under the indulgent ægis of self-government, the thin end
of another wedge to nurse sedition and treason introduced by that odious
Bond under pretence and veil of Boer patriotism and loyalty.
As one of the world's languages, Dutch figures under a very sorry _rôle_
indeed. It had been ignored everywhere outside of Holland and her
distant Colonies. The consequence to Hollanders is that they are of
necessity subjected to the ordeal of learning several other continental
languages for commercial intercourse, and in order to keep at all
abreast with the progress of science, literature, and culture. Dutch is
in the moribund stage; its salvation from imminent extinction consists
in the expansion of its sphere. Boer successes in South Africa would
just accomplish that.
THE DUTCH COTERIE: ITS SEAT IN HOLLAND
As has been shown, the conditions of the two Boer Republics, with High
Dutch as the official language, lent themselves to favour the
immigration into those States of educated Dutchmen (Hollanders, as they
are styled, to distinguish them from the old-established Boer Dutchmen).
These were indeed indispensable, as none of the Boers possessed the
competence in High Dutch requisite for the conduct of the more important
portion of the clerical work in the administration. The professional
branches were recruited from Holland likewise, in natural sequence. They
were men of high attainments and possessed of energy and astuteness and
of various qualifications--doctors, lawyers, editors, clergymen,
teachers. Those who did not receive Government appointments quickly
found lucrative positions in their vocations. The scope increased as
time went by and as those States developed with the growth of the
populations and the establishment of numerous towns and villages,
especially after the discovery of the diamond-fields in 1870. Every year
brought fresh contingents from Holland, including also the commercial
class, artisans, and even servants of both sexes, and agriculturists.
Preserving a constant intercourse with their native country, those
Hollanders also maintained cohesion and clanship among themselves in
their newly-adopted homes. Nor did Holland fail to realize the great
advantages accruing to that country and its people from the new South
African outlets--regular preserves with almost unlimited scope for
further extension and for increasing permanent, profitable connections.
A formidable barrier presented itself in the gradually ascendant
tendencies of the English language and English trade, with corresponding
neglect of the Dutch factors. Regretful forebodings aroused energetic
efforts to check rival interests. The prize was too valuable, and
increasing each year in importance. A dyke needed to be erected to stem
the English encroachments and to preserve and consolidate the Hollander
position of vantage. The ablest men in Holland and South Africa
exercised themselves with that task with an ardour impelled by jealous
hatred against the English and intensified by successive revelations of
more startling discoveries of gold and other mineral wealth in the
Transvaal. It was then, about thirty years ago, that a well-informed,
influential and unscrupulous coterie in Holland devised the fell
projects which developed into that potential association since known as
the Afrikaner Bond.
The building of the Transvaal railway lines brought other large
accessions of educated Hollanders, and as they were completed some
thousands more were added to serve as permanent staff. Dutch influence
was thus attaining strength to assert and consolidate its interests with
an expanding impulse. The monopolized railway company promoted
immigration from Holland by largely increasing the salaries to such of
the staff who were married. The Transvaal Government, under the advice
of their educational chief, Dr. Mansfeld, provided similar premiums to
secure married teachers from Holland and by raising the salaries of
married Hollander officials already placed. The Hollander population
attracted to the Transvaal since 1850, and which did not number above
500 in 1870, had increased by 1898 to fully 12,000, representing, as
ranged with the Boers, by far the largest factor of educated
intelligence, attached to and dependent upon the Government and its
staunch allies. The men received full burghership as a rule soon after
arrival, exempt from the formalities and probation prescribed by law.
Holland being the locality of the inception, I may say the ingestion, of
the Afrikaner Bond, one's thoughts are apt to retrace, by way of
contrast, that little nation's creditable past. The view presents those
dykes, monuments of labour's heroism; then that glorious resistance
against the mighty persecutor of religion, those unsurpassed
performances in the arena of culture, arts, and sciences, and that long
epoch of success in exploits of colonization, finance, and commerce.