Krüger, assisted by President Steyn, took place at Bloemfontein during
the first days of June last (1899), and resulted in the refusal to a
demand of a five years' franchise made on behalf of the Transvaal
Uitlanders, which refusal was some time later modified by enacting a law
admitting them to full burgher rights after a probation of seven years,
but coupled with restrictive forms and conditions which made that
measure unacceptable. Some time before that conference the old Free
Stater already mentioned obtained several prolonged interviews with the
hon. State Secretary Reitz, at Pretoria, with the object of dissuading
the Transvaal Government from conferring with Sir Alfred Milner while as
yet no sufficient friendly _rapprochement_ had been reached and no
advance had been made as to mutually approved bases upon which to
confer. He strongly deprecated the idea of granting "full" burgher
rights to Uitlanders, but held that their needs and wishes could be met
by allowing their interests to be amply represented without impinging
upon the special privileges which should be reserved for the burgher
status proper. He was finally invited by Mr. Reitz to submit his scheme
in writing, with the promise that it should receive careful
consideration. That old Free Stater complied, and supplied President
Krüger with a duplicate separately as well. The scheme ran in substance
as follows:
"_Modus vivendi_"
The population of the Transvaal to be divided into two classes, pending
the continued presence of the large floating portion consisting of
Uitlanders who derive their subsistence from the mining industries,
viz.:--
1st Class.--The fixed or burgher estate.
2nd Class.--The floating or alien estate or Guests.
The 1st Volksraad to be elected by burghers only, and to represent the
highest legislative and administrative powers.
The 2nd Volksraad to be elected by Uitlanders and burghers, and to be
vested with all such reasonable legislative powers as will cover the
domestic, industrial, and vocative interests of both burghers and
guests.
The Uitlander franchise shall be limited to representation in the 2nd
Volksraad, and be extended under usual fair conditions of eligibility to
all white persons after two years' residence, retrospectively reckoned.
Aliens may be admitted to full burgher rights and vote for 1st
Volksraad, President, and Commandant-General, after five years'
residence, if approved of by two-thirds of the burghers of his ward,
possesses landed property to the value of £1,000, and has not been
convicted here or elsewhere of any degrading crime.
Members of both Volksraads and for public service shall be eligible
without respect of creed.
The exploitation of mines shall be subject to a tax of 25 per cent.,
reckoned upon the yearly net profits, such revenue to be applied at the
discretion of the 1st Volksraad solely for the benefit of the burgher
estate--schools, hospitals, universities, pensions, by means of
permanent endowments.
The Government of the Transvaal undertakes:--
1. There shall be no identification or co-operation permitted, on the
part of any of the Transvaal people, with the association known as the
Afrikaner Bond, or any such-like political complot.
2. The recognition of British paramountcy over South Africa, including
the Transvaal, in so far as it does not clash with the intentions and
provisions set forth in the conventions of 1881 and 1884, and does not
extend to interference with or curtailment of complete internal
autonomy.
3. Renunciation of indemnity claim _re_ Jameson incursion.
4. To regulate the question of coloured British subjects resident in the
Transvaal upon a genial basis, irrespective of the Bloemfontein
arbitration award upon that subject.
5. Poll and war taxes shall be abolished.
6. Dual rights equal with the Dutch language shall be accorded to the
English language, similarly as is done in the Cape Colony for Dutch.
7. The railways and dynamite factory to be expropriated as soon as
possible--the loans required thereto to be amortized within twenty
years, and pending those expropriations the freights upon coal and
oversea goods shall be reduced 10 per cent, and the price of explosives
20s. per case, these reductions to be met from the revenue accruing to
the burgher estate from the tax upon mining profits.
8. To join a general Customs union upon equitable conditions.
9. Restore the High Court to independent power in terms of constitution.
The sequel has shown that Bond counsels prevailed over the suggestions
of that old Free Stater. As to the seven years' franchise offered under
the pretence and colour of meeting Sir Alfred Milner's demand, it had
clearly been intended to serve as a decoy and stop-gap pending the
contemplated war of conquest, and to mask Bond duplicity while further
preparations were to be completed in diplomacy abroad and in the
seditious conspiracy in the Colonies. Natal was at that time swarming
with Boer emissaries, and Transvaal artillery officers with Hollander
engineers in disguise were seen inspecting Laing's Nek tunnel and other
strategic points in that colony.
Not knowing at the time that State Secretary Reitz was an inveterate
Bondman, that old Free State patriot had roundly denounced to him the
wickedness of Bond aims, and added the remark that the establishment of
a united Boer Republic apart from British supremacy in South Africa was
a deceptive dream. England has a mission in Africa--that of the Boers
can only be subordinate to it. It would need the aid of a powerful
maritime combination to supplant England. The case of America does not
present an analogy; there England only was actually interested, but here
various other nations were concerned in their respective huge
investments. They would have a voice in the business. Armed intervention
would lead to a big European war and extreme misery to entire
Africa--just what the devil wants, but not the investor. Indiscriminate
franchise will cause the loss of national independence, and so might
ultimately cosmopolize and obliterate their distinctive nationality, but
so would also a war with England, with the total sacrifice of their
independence into the bargain. Let the Government rather prove to
England its sincere friendship and agree to deal well by the Uitlanders,
treating them as privileged guests, then the unhappy strain in relations
will cease. Above all, renounce that wicked Afrikaner Bond with its
motto of conquest. The demand for franchise is England's device of
self-protection against Bond designs. England will desist from that
demand if we renounce the Bond and prove our friendship.
That old Free Stater had moreover expressed his most earnest conviction
that a _modus vivendi_ upon the lines suggested would find ready
consideration as an alternative to the five years' franchise demand,
and that the British Government would hail with the utmost satisfaction
and relief any tentative towards a sound _rapprochement_ based upon the
contentment of the Boer people within the areas of their Republics and
which would terminate Bond aspirations for Boer supremacy in South
Africa. Had he been permitted, the old Free Stater would gladly have
called upon the British agent at Pretoria, Mr. Conyngham Greene, and
felt confident that the _modus vivendi_ would lead finally to a complete
cessation of British interference and to best relations and prosperous
conditions for all instead. He also cautioned the Government at
Pretoria, giving chapter and verse, against counting upon "the arm of
man." They would find they had trusted on reeds--it would be so in
regard to any foreign help, and even in regard to men of their own
nation in the Cape Colony.
During one of the interviews Mr. Reitz had remarked that he had a
special theory in regard to the situation; but it varied from that of
the President, who, in reality, was King, and whose will overcame all
opposition.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S POLICY TO AVERT WAR
Seeing that twenty years of patient, loyal endeavours and friendly
conciliatory proceedings following upon the rehabilitation of the
Transvaal independence had utterly failed in advancing the object of
uniting the English and Boer races, and that instead the existing gulf
was ever widening through the spread of those fell Afrikaner Bond
doctrines, it had become imperative, on the part of British statesmen,
to employ special efforts to overcome the serious menace hanging over
South Africa. The critical situation designedly brought about by the
action of the Transvaal Government and by the influence of the Bond
party indicated the remedy. A liberal franchise in favour of the
Uitlanders would at one stroke correct that evil, and counteract the
other impending danger as well. With a large accession of legitimized
voters working in accord with England's desire for peace and progress,
that good influence would be potent, first to shackle Bond action and
ultimately to reduce it to Colonial limits. The Transvaal would then no
longer be the giant ally, the arsenal, and the treasury of the Afrikaner
Bond, and that organisation would then be checkmated into impotence for
evil.
The success of such a remedial and defensive measure would naturally
depend upon the adequacy of the franchise aimed at. Mr. Chamberlain and
his colleagues were not a little sanguine in expecting that a five
years' qualification for voting and a representation equal to one-fifth
of the total number of seats in the Legislature would be effective for
all that which was needed; nor could it be averred that the Transvaal
burghers would be swamped out thereby.
The Bond chiefs did not fail to at once penetrate the object when the
demand for a five years' franchise was made, and in vain did Sir Alfred
display that firm attitude and exhaust his arguments at the historic
Bloemfontein conference. He had pointed out to President Krüger in a
rudimentary fashion which was no doubt convincing enough--that it was
incompatible with professions of concord and desire for peace while
persisting in excluding from representation a large majority of the
population accustomed to and expecting liberal treatment, and which,
moreover, held four-fifths of the wealth invested in the State. There
could be no other result than a dangerous tension and alienation from
the Government, instead of the peaceful co-operation so essential to
security and progress. In these days of advanced ideas of personal and
political liberty people will resist domination by a minority. They want
to be consulted, and to have at least the opportunity of making their
wishes known by means of representation. The right of petitioning could
not meet that need, and in fact implied the recognition of an inferior
status so repugnant to any one's sensibility. When people are ignored
they resent even light impositions and taxes, but if allowed a voice
will cheerfully submit to heavy burdens, because they then become, in a
manner, self-imposed. Representation is the panacea against popular
disaffection and for assuring governmental stability. To concede to
Uitlanders one-fifth of the seats in the Legislature could not operate
to the prejudice of burgher interests, but less would not meet the case.
It was, however, not President Krüger alone who had to decide--it
affected the Bond as a whole. The diplomatic contest so far proved just
the thing to ripen conditions for the meditated Bond _coup d'état_. An
alternative offer of a seven years' franchise was interposed as a mere
ruse. Never for a moment did the Afrikaner Bond leaders waver or quail
in the face of resolute firmness, display of force, or even of moral
pressure and notes of advice from imposing quarters, as Mr. Chamberlain
had at first still fondly hoped. To the Bond it had all resolved itself
to a mere question of time, of choosing the most opportune moment when
to assume the aggressive. British attitude had only hastened the issue.
Mr. Jan Hofmeyer had indeed been sent for from the Cape so as to assure
that section of the Bond of Transvaal firmness, but he found no sign of
flinching or of renouncing the common object laboured for so long and
then so near fruition. The only difficulty was that British action had
hastened the issue somewhat too fast. Hence the repeated hurried visits
of the Bond leaders--Jan Hofmeyer, Abraham Fisher, and others--the
frequent caucus meetings of the Executive in consultation with those
delegates, the secret midnight sessions of the combined Volksraads and
Executive, the prolonged telegraphic conferences between the two
Presidents, and the final resulting word of "ready" which preceded the
fatal war ultimatum. The Gordian knot had been in evidence many years
ago; it is now recognised with regret that England had deferred action
for cutting it much too long.
But why not agree to arbitration, it will be asked, that peaceable
method so strenuously appealed for by the Transvaal Government and
advocated by her partisans, to adjust all differences, of which the
suzerainty claim and the Uitlander question appeared to be the principal
ones? The reply is not that England was unwilling, but because the
Transvaal was insincere, and the request was a cover for shameless
duplicity, for, while it had been declared by the former that the claim
to suzerainty would be left in abeyance and that infractions of
convention which had been committed by the latter would be overlooked in
consideration of future friendly relations and co-operation, the
Transvaal Government in reality never for a moment meant to be content
with less than British overthrow and complete Boer supremacy in South
Africa, and efforts and intrigues were never relaxed, in concert with
the Bond, to compass those objects.
AFRIKANER BOND GUILT IN GRADATIONS
The promiscuous details and incidents, together with the circumstantial
and _primâ facie_ evidence thus far adduced in arraigning the Afrikaner
Bond combination, point mostly to conditions existent before the war
broke out. We had the smoke before the conflagration--it is a wonder how
people could manage to ignore the menace. Now the war torch is over us
in its full luridness.
Ordinary fires, if not kindled, originate either from accident,
spontaneous combustion, or incendiarism. With war the origin may be
traced to similar causes either singly or in combination, or, when we
cannot hit the exact diagnosis, we explain it with a handy word and call
it evolution, as we may do in the case of the present Anglo-Boer
conflict.
We may for a moment review the material and then also the agencies and
incentives which operated that evolution against harmony and peace, and
to which the conflagration is due. We have noted the legal acquisition
of the Cape Colonies by Great Britain, the equally recognised occupation
under treaties with England of the two Boer Republics, the English and
Boer races in progress of friendly assimilation and in happy prosperity
all over South Africa. This was essentially the position in 1881, until
it became gradually marred by an invidious element. We have further
noted the declining condition of Holland, its moribund language, and
finally the prospects which South Africa presented for that nation's
restoration to powerful significance, the English factor only standing
in the way.
The next aspect brings out the marring manifestations: greed of land and
of conquest with the Pretoria-Bloemfontein combination; malignant
sedition in the Cape Colonies, urged by lust to participate more
directly in the wealth of gold and diamonds in the north and to share
general plunder--both categories of covetousness merged into one
purulent fester by men of conceited ambition, all cemented with
collusion, but the whole of it devised, engineered, and operated by the
most malignant agencies from Holland under the coaching of the evil one
himself.
The reader may be able to assess the degrees of guilt of each
category--of the Republican Boer aspirant for land, the Colonial Boer
rebel seeking his particular profit, the accomplices who for ambitious
ends lead the first two, and the insidious Hollander intriguers who
seduced and actuated all in order to seize the lion's share of the
spoliation.
To sum up, the respective rewards which lured them all are: Plunder for
the Boers and rebels, laurels and "fat" places for the Bond leaders, and
a substantial harvest for entire Holland, with pæans of praise for the
coterie and Dr. Leyds from a grateful people for successfully restoring
the good fortunes of the Dutch nation, and for effecting a retributive
vendetta upon England, all under world-wide, gloating acclaims of
gratified and vindictive jealousy.
The Hollander coterie may plead patriotism which pointed to the duty of
using the tempting opportunity presented in South Africa in saving
Holland from national submersion and political extinction by means of
the Boer nation, but against this stands the unparalleled vileness of
expedients and the treacherous deceptions employed to attain that
object. It involved the wholesale seduction of one section of that
nation into sedition and rebellion against a most beneficent and just
Government under which they prospered and enjoyed the highest
conceivable degree of liberty and even special privileges, and of
pitting the other section into hostility and war against a Power which
meant nothing else than peace and amity towards them, thus placing both
into a position of risk to forfeit all their prosperity, apart from the
inevitable horrors of a war evoked by their rapacious and murderous
Hollander malice.
The Bond scientists in Holland had fully persevered in their craftily
laid programme. After having succeeded in producing race hatred between
Boer and English, the next step had been to convince the Boer leaders
and the people of the inevitableness of a contest for ensuring the
supremacy of the Afrikaners, coupled with the absolute necessity of the
complete expulsion of the entire British element. As arguments were
adduced that the British element had proved itself unassimilable and
irreconcilable, its retention in South Africa would necessitate
continuous provisions to keep it in a state of subjection. The existence
of such conditions would be inconsistent and incompatible with the true
ideal liberty as intended for the whole of South Africa, and which must
be linked with all-round equality and fraternity. The presence of a
British factor would be an unsurmountable bar to that consummation,
hence the necessity of its total removal.
The Bond leaders are the next in guilt; with these the incentive is
principally ambition, which, by degrees, became mis-shaped into a
specious patriotism. It is known how an ardently desired object pursued
for a long period is apt to so monopolize and infatuate the mind as to
totally vitiate and pervert the sense of discernment between right and
wrong, both as to the legitimacy of the object and the means to be
employed for its attainment. As the realization remains deferred and the
efforts are increased, the object from being considered legitimate is by
degrees invested with merit, a halo of virtue is added to the aspect,
its pursuit is viewed as a duty by fair or by questionable means, the
end justifying the latter. All, it is said, is fair in love and warfare.
This diagnosis appears particularly applicable to President Krüger and
State Secretary F.W. Reitz, both men of sincere piety (perhaps also to
Mr. Schreiner), who would have abandoned their project and renounced and
repudiated the Afrikaner Bond if ever they had doubted its legitimacy of
principle. So also with most of the other Boer leaders and their clergy
too. The agencies must have been exceedingly subtle, and the jugglery
and artifice superhuman, to operate such processes of reasoning, such
deception and aberration in honest-minded and even godly persons.
As to the bulk of the Boer people, they are simply led by their chiefs
and superiors, in whom they repose unquestioning confidence. They go
unreasoningly with the stream of opinion under the firm belief that all
is divinely sanctioned, including rebellion and violence, and blindly
obey their call, considering their cause analogous to that of the Jews
of old, who were enjoined to spoil the Egyptians and then to pass over
and conquer their land of promise. No papal bull of indulgence ever
freed people's consciences more than the Boer people now feel in regard
to the warfare in which they are engaged.
RÉSUMÉ
The Boers in the Cape Colonies have been prospering in a marked degree
since the British accession in 1814, enjoying ideal liberty and good
government upon perfect equality with the English colonists.
The people of the Orange Free State fared equally well under best
relations with the British Government up to the outbreak of the present
war.
In the Transvaal the Boers were more handicapped, being furthest removed
from profitable Cape connections, and having to cope with powerful
hostile tribes within their border. The most redoubtable, under
Secoecoenie, was subdued during the British occupation in 1878. Then
followed the short war of 1880, with the voluntary retrocession and
peace of January, 1881. All appeared to progress remarkably well for
about ten years after, until the irrational treatment by the Boers of
British subjects in the Transvaal furnished the first cause of
friction, and engendered at last the Johannesburg crisis with the
Jameson incursion, followed by four years' vain attempts on the part of
England to bring about satisfactory and peaceful relations.
The Afrikaner Bond had been inaugurated some thirty years ago, under the
mask of a constitutional organization, professing loyalty to England;
that body had succeeded in hiding its object, which was no less than the
expulsion from South Africa of all that is English, and which object was
brutally avowed since the outbreak of the war by declarations in the
Press and by incendiary speeches of Colonial Bond leaders and members of
the Cape Parliament.
The British Government did not view very seriously the information it
received regarding the Bond menace until the definite action of the
Transvaal Government partially opened its eyes prior to the Johannesburg
revolt. The hope was, however, still clung to in an undefined way that
patience and forbearance would yet overcome Boer prejudice and disperse
racial antipathies, and with characteristic self-confidence as well,
things were allowed to drift rather out of hand.
The two Republics had been _de facto_ allied some time before the
Johannesburg crisis in 1895. Both were then already provided with very
abundant armaments of up-to-date types, with equipments and preparations
far and away above any conceivable needs except indeed for a _coup
d'état_ against British supremacy and to sustain a Colonial revolt.
On the occasion of the Jameson incursion the Orange Free State promptly
appeared near the scene with best equipped mounted Boer commandoes and
artillery to assist the Transvaal if needed.
Before 1881 and some time subsequently there had been continued progress
towards the assimilation of the English and Boer races in South Africa.
This was marred by Afrikaner Bond doctrines and intrigues proceeding
from a Hollander coterie, the formula being "Afrika voor de
Afrikaners"--the aims including the usurpation of British authority in
the Colonies, supremacy of the Boer nation under one great Republican
federation, and an affiliated status with Holland which should restore
that people, all to the prejudice of England, to a political and
economic significance and power surpassing its former epoch of European
and Colonial eminence. As to the incentives to the Boer nation, these
were principally the plunder of capital investments and land conquests,
which the people had learnt to consider legitimate and in fact
incumbent as a duty to themselves and descendants.
The means employed in that conspiracy were a subtle, so to say, occult
propaganda to seduce a simple people to false convictions, to induce the
creation of gigantic armaments, a secret service employing at a vast
cost journalism, emissaries, and agencies, to gain partisans and allies
outside South Africa, the Transvaal mint to coin the sinews of war from
the appropriation of the mines and their output, the dynamite factory
(that Bond corner-stone for manufacturing ammunition[11]), a system of
immigration from Holland towards supplanting the English factor and to
introduce auxiliaries. Other such means were: laws for admitting
auxiliaries to immediate full burgher rights and privilege to carry
arms, from which Uitlanders were rigorously excluded, the rabid campaign
proscribing the English language and fostering High Dutch instead (which
was much less understood by the entire Boer people, and much harder for
them to learn than English). To the above list of devices came the
exhaustive efforts to obtain an independent seaport for the Transvaal,
first at St. Lucia Bay, then at Delagoa Bay (ostensibly with a German
syndicate, and since by subsidizing Portugal or suborning Portuguese
notables and officials).