εἰς ἀπέραντον δίκτυον ἄτης
ἐμπλεχθήσεσθ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀνοίας.
—Æsch. _Prom._ 1078.
In a boundless coil of mischief pure senselessness will entangle
you.
I
It would almost need the pen of Tacitus or Dante to tell the story of
European power in South Africa. For forty years, said Mr. Gladstone in
1881, “I have always regarded the South African question as the one great
unsolved and perhaps insoluble problem of our colonial system.” Among the
other legacies of the forward policy that the constituencies had
decisively condemned in 1880, this insoluble problem rapidly became acute
and formidable.
One of the great heads of impeachment in Midlothian had been a war
undertaken in 1878-9 against a fierce tribe on the borders of the colony
of Natal. The author and instrument of the Zulu war was Sir Bartle Frere,
a man of tenacious character and grave and lofty if ill-calculated aims.
The conservative government, as I have already said,(10) without
enthusiasm assented, and at one stage they even formally censured him.
When Mr. Gladstone acceded to office, the expectation was universal that
Sir Bartle would be at once recalled. At the first meeting of the new
cabinet (May 3) it was decided to retain him. The prime minister at first
was his marked protector. The substantial reason against recall was that
his presence was needed to carry out the policy of confederation, and
towards confederation it was hoped that the Cape parliament was
immediately about to take (M10) a long preliminary step. “Confederation,”
Mr. Gladstone said, “is the pole-star of the present action of our
government.” In a few weeks, for a reason that will be mentioned in
treating the second episode of this chapter, confederation broke down. A
less substantial but still not wholly inoperative reason was the strong
feeling of the Queen for the high commissioner. The royal prepossessions
notwithstanding, and in spite of the former leanings of Mr. Gladstone, the
cabinet determined, at the end of July, that Sir Bartle should be
recalled. The whole state of the case is made sufficiently clear in the
two following communications from the prime minister to the Queen:—
_To the Queen._
_May 28, 1880._—Mr. Gladstone presents his humble duty, and has
had the honour to receive your Majesty’s telegram respecting Sir
B. Frere. Mr. Gladstone used on Saturday his best efforts to avert
a movement for his dismissal, which it was intended by a powerful
body of members on the liberal side to promote by a memorial to
Mr. Gladstone, and by a motion in the House. He hopes that he has
in some degree succeeded, and he understands that it is to be
decided on Monday whether they will at present desist or
persevere. Of course no sign will be given by your Majesty’s
advisers which could tend to promote perseverance, at the same
time Mr. Gladstone does not conceal from himself two things: the
first, that the only chance of Sir B. Frere’s remaining seems to
depend upon his ability to make progress in the matter of
confederation; the second, that if the agitation respecting him in
the House, the press, and the country should continue, confidence
in him may be so paralysed as to render his situation intolerable
to a high-minded man and to weaken his hands fatally for any
purpose of good.
_July 29, 1880._—It was not without some differences of opinion
among themselves that, upon their accession to office, the cabinet
arrived at the conclusion that, if there was a prospect of
progress in the great matter of confederation, this might afford a
ground of co-operation between them and Sir B. Frere,
notwithstanding the strong censures which many of them in
opposition had pronounced upon his policy. This conclusion gave
the liveliest satisfaction to a large portion, perhaps to the
majority, of the House of Commons; but they embraced it with the
more satisfaction because of your Majesty’s warm regard for Sir B.
Frere, a sentiment which some among them personally share.
It was evident, however, and it was perhaps in the nature of the
case, that a confidence thus restricted was far from agreeable to
Sir B. Frere, who, in the opinion of Mr. Gladstone, has only been
held back by a commendable self-restraint and sense of duty, from
declaring himself aggrieved. Thus, though the cabinet have done
the best they could, his standing ground was not firm, nor could
they make it so. But the total failure of the effort made to
induce the Cape parliament to move, has put confederation wholly
out of view, for a time quite indefinite, and almost certainly
considerable. Mr. Gladstone has therefore the painful duty of
submitting to your Majesty, on behalf of the Cabinet, the enclosed
copy of a ciphered telegram of recall.
II
The breaking of the military power of the Zulus was destined to prove much
less important than another proceeding closely related to it, though not
drawing the same attention at the moment. I advise the reader not to
grudge a rather strict regard to the main details of transactions that,
owing to unhappy events of later date, have to this day held a conspicuous
place in the general controversy as to the great minister’s statesmanship.
For some time past, powerful native tribes had been slowly but steadily
pushing the Boers of the Transvaal back, and the inability to resist was
now dangerously plain. In 1876 the Boers had been worsted in one of their
incessant struggles with the native races, and this time they had barely
been able to hold their own against an insignificant tribe of one of the
least warlike branches. It was thought certain by English officials on the
ground, that the example would not be lost on fiercer warriors, and that a
native conflagration might any day burst into blaze in other regions of
the immense territory. The British government despatched an agent of great
local experience; he found the Boer (M11) government, which was loosely
organised even at its best, now completely paralysed, without money,
without internal authority, without defensive power against external foes.
In alarm at the possible result of such a situation on the peace of the
European domain in South Africa, he proclaimed the sovereignty of the
Queen, and set up an administration. This he was empowered by secret
instructions to do, if he should think fit. Here was the initial error.
The secretary of state in Downing Street approved (June 21, 1877), on the
express assumption that a sufficient number of the inhabitants desired to
become the Queen’s subjects. Some have thought that if he had waited the
Boers would have sought annexation, but this seems to be highly
improbable. In the annexation proclamation promises were made to the Boers
of ’the fullest legislative privileges compatible with the circumstances
of the country and the intelligence of the people.’ An assembly was also
promised.
The soundness of the assumption was immediately disputed. The Boer
government protested against annexation. Two delegates—one of them Mr.
Kruger—repaired to England, assured Lord Carnarvon that their fellow-Boers
were vehemently opposed to annexation, and earnestly besought its
reversal. The minister insisted that he was right and they were wrong.
They went back, and in order to convince the government of the true
strength of feeling for independence, petitions were prepared seeking the
restoration of independence. The signatures were those of qualified
electors of the old republic. The government were informed by Sir Garnet
Wolseley that there were about 8000 persons of the age to be electors, of
whom rather fewer than 7000 were Boers. To the petitions were appended
almost exactly 7000 names. The colonial office recognised that the
opposition of the Boers to annexation was practically unanimous. The
comparatively insignificant addresses on the other side came from the town
and digging population, which was as strong in favour of the suppression
of the old republic, as the rural population was strong against it.
For many months the Boers persevered. They again sent Kruger and Joubert
to England; they held huge mass meetings; they poured out prayers to the
high commissioner to give back their independence; they sent memorial
after memorial to the secretary of state. In the autumn of 1879 Sir Garnet
Wolseley assumed the administration of the Transvaal, and issued a
proclamation setting forth the will and determination of the government of
the Queen that this Transvaal territory should be, and should continue to
be for ever, an integral part of her dominions in South Africa. In the
closing days of 1879 the secretary of state, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, who
had succeeded Carnarvon (Jan. 1878), received from the same eminent
soldier a comprehensive despatch, warning him that the meetings of protest
against annexation, attended by thousands of armed men in angry mood,
would be likely to end in a serious explosion. While putting all sides of
the question before his government, Sir Garnet inserted one paragraph of
momentous import. “The Transvaal,” he said, “is rich in minerals; gold has
already been found in quantities, and there can be little doubt that
larger and still more valuable goldfields will sooner or later be
discovered. Any such discovery would soon bring a large British population
here. The time must eventually arrive when the Boers will be in a small
minority, as the country is very sparsely peopled, and would it not
therefore be a very near-sighted policy to recede now from the position we
have taken up here, simply because for some years to come, the retention
of 2000 or 3000 troops may be necessary to reconsolidate our power?”(11)
This pregnant and far-sighted warning seems to have been little considered
by English statesmen of either party at this critical time or afterwards,
though it proved a vital element in any far-sighted decision.
On March 9—the day, as it happened, on which the intention to dissolve
parliament was made public—Sir Garnet telegraphed for a renewed expression
of the determination of the government to retain the country, and he
received the assurance that he sought. The Vaal river, he told the Boers,
would flow backwards through the Drakensberg sooner than the British would
be withdrawn from the Transvaal. The picturesque figure did not soften the
Boer heart. (M12) This was the final share of the conservative cabinet in
the unfortunate enterprise on which they had allowed the country to be
launched.
III
When the question of annexation had originally come before parliament, Mr.
Gladstone was silent. He was averse to it; he believed that it would
involve us in unmixed mischief; but he felt that to make this judgment
known at that period would not have had any effect towards reversing what
had been done, while it might impede the chances of a good issue, slender
as these might be.(12) In the discussion at the opening of the final
session of the old parliament, Lord Hartington as leader of the
opposition, enforcing the general doctrine that it behoved us to
concentrate our resources, and to limit instead of extending the empire,
took the Transvaal for an illustration. It was now conclusively proved, he
said, that a large majority of the Boers were bitterly against annexation.
That being so, it ought not to be considered a settled question merely
because annexation had taken place; and if we should find that the balance
of advantage was in favour of the restoration of independence, no false
sense of dignity should stand in the way. Mr. Gladstone in Midlothian had
been more reserved. In that indictment, there are only two or three
references, and those comparatively fugitive and secondary, to this
article of charge. There is a sentence in one of the Midlothian speeches
about bringing a territory inhabited by a free European Christian republic
within the limits of a monarchy, though out of 8000 persons qualified to
vote, 6500 voted against it. In another sentence he speaks of the
Transvaal as a country “where we have chosen most unwisely, I am tempted
to say insanely, to place ourselves in the strange predicament of the free
subjects of a monarchy going to coerce the free subjects of a republic,
and to compel them to accept a citizenship which they decline and refuse;
but if that is to be done, it must be done by force.”(13) A third sentence
completes the tale: “If Cyprus and the Transvaal were as valuable as they
are valueless, I would repudiate them because they are obtained by means
dishonourable to the character of the country.” These utterances of the
mighty unofficial chief and the responsible official leader of the
opposition were all. The Boer republicans thought that they were enough.
On coming into power, the Gladstone government found the official evidence
all to the effect that the political aspect of the Transvaal was decidedly
improving. The commissioners, the administrators, the agents, were
unanimous. Even those among them who insisted on the rooted dislike of the
main body of the Boers to British authority, still thought that they were
acquiescing, exactly as the Boers in the Cape Colony had acquiesced. Could
ministers justify abandonment, without far stronger evidence than they
then possessed that they could not govern the Transvaal peaceably? Among
other things, they were assured that abandonment would be fatal to the
prospects of confederation, and might besides entail a civil war. On May
7, Sir Bartle Frere pressed the new ministers for an early announcement of
their policy, in order to prevent the mischiefs of agitation. The cabinet
decided the question on May 12, and agreed upon the terms of a
telegram(14) by which Lord Kimberley was to inform Frere that the
sovereignty of the Queen over the Transvaal could not be relinquished, but
that he hoped the speedy accomplishment of confederation would enable free
institutions to be conferred with promptitude. In other words, in spite of
all that had been defiantly said by Lord Hartington, and more cautiously
implied by Mr. Gladstone, the new government at once placed themselves
exactly in the position of the old one.(15)
The case was stated in his usual nervous language by Mr. Chamberlain a few
months later.(16) “When we came into office,” (M13) he said, “we were all
agreed that the original annexation was a mistake, that it ought never to
have been made; and there arose the question could it then be undone? We
were in possession of information to the effect that the great majority of
the people of the Transvaal were reconciled to annexation; we were told
that if we reversed the decision of the late government, there would be a
great probability of civil war and anarchy; and acting upon these
representations, we decided that we could not recommend the Queen to
relinquish her sovereignty. But we assured the Boers that we would take
the earliest opportunity of granting to them the freest and most complete
local institutions compatible with the welfare of South Africa. It is easy
to be wise after the event. It is easy to see now that we were wrong in so
deciding. I frankly admit we made a mistake. Whatever the risk was, and I
believe it was a great risk, of civil war and anarchy in the Transvaal, it
was not so great a danger as that we actually incurred by maintaining the
wrong of our predecessors.” Such was the language used by Mr. Chamberlain
after special consultation with Lord Kimberley. With characteristic
tenacity and that aversion ever to yield even the smallest point, which
comes to a man saturated with the habit of a lifetime of debate, Mr.
Gladstone wrote to Mr. Chamberlain (June 8, 1881): “I have read with
pleasure what you say of the Transvaal. Yet I am not prepared, for myself,
to concede that we made a mistake in not advising a revocation of the
annexation when we came in.”
At this instant a letter reached Mr. Gladstone from Kruger and Joubert
(May 10, 1880), telling him that there was a firm belief among their
people that truth prevailed. “They were confident that one day or another,
by the mercy of the Lord, the reins of the imperial government would be
entrusted again to men who look out for the honour and glory of England,
not by acts of injustice and crushing force, but by the way of justice and
good faith. And, indeed, this belief has proven to be a good belief.” It
would have been well for the Boers and well for us, if that had indeed
been so. Unluckily the reply sent in Mr. Gladstone’s name (June 15),
informed them that obligations had now been contracted, especially towards
the natives, that could not be set aside, but that consistently with the
maintenance of the Queen’s sovereignty over the Transvaal, ministers
desired that the white inhabitants should enjoy the fullest liberty to
manage their local affairs. “We believe that this liberty may be most
easily and promptly conceded to the Transvaal, as a member of a South
African confederation.” Solemn and deliberate as this sounds, no step
whatever was effectively taken towards conferring this full liberty, or
any liberty at all.
It is worth while, on this material point, to look back. The original
proclamation had promised the people the fullest legislative privileges
compatible with the circumstances of the country and the intelligence of
the people. Then, at a later date (April 1877), Sir Bartle Frere met a
great assemblage of Boers, and told them that they should receive, as soon
as circumstances rendered it practicable, as large a measure of
self-government as was enjoyed by any colony in South Africa.(17) The
secretary of state had also spoken to the same effect. During the short
period in which Sir Bartle Frere was connected with the administration of
the Transvaal, he earnestly pressed upon the government the necessity for
redeeming the promises made at the time of annexation, “of the same
measure of perfect self-government now enjoyed by Cape Colony,” always, of
course, under the authority of the crown.(18) As the months went on, no
attempt was made to fulfil all these solemn pledges, and the Boers
naturally began to look on them as so much mockery. Their anger in turn
increased the timidity of government, and it was argued that the first use
that the Boers would make of a free constitution would be to stop the
supplies. So a thing called an Assembly was set up (November 9, 1879),
composed partly of British officers and partly of nominated members. This
was a complete falsification of a whole set of our national promises.
Still annexation might conceivably have been (M14) accepted, even the
sting might have been partially taken out of the delay of the promised
free institutions, if only the administration had been considerate,
judicious, and adapted to the ways and habits of the people. Instead of
being all these things it was stiff, headstrong, and intensely stupid.(19)
The value of the official assurances from agents on the spot that
restoration of independence would destroy the chances of confederation,
and would give fuel to the fires of agitation, was speedily tested. It was
precisely these results that flowed from the denial of independence. The
incensed Boer leaders worked so successfully on the Cape parliament
against confederation, that this favourite panacea was indefinitely hung
up. Here, again, it is puzzling to know why ministers did not retrace
their steps. Here, again, their blind guides in the Transvaal persisted
that they knew the road; persisted that with the exception of a turbulent
handful, the Boers of the Transvaal only sighed for the enjoyment of the
_pax britannica_, or, if even that should happen to be not quite true, at
any rate they were incapable of united action, were mortal cowards, and
could never make a stand in the field. While folly of this kind was
finding its way by every mail to Downing Street, violent disturbances
broke out in the collection of taxes. Still Sir Owen Lanyon—who had been
placed in control in the Transvaal in March 1879—assured Lord Kimberley
that no serious trouble would arise (November 14). At the end of the month
he still denies that there is much or any cause for anxiety. In December
several thousands of Boers assembled at Paardekraal, declared for the
restoration of their republic, and a general rising followed. Colley, who
had succeeded General Wolseley as governor of Natal and high commissioner
for south-east Africa, had been so little prepared for this, that at the
end of August he had recommended a reduction of the Transvaal
garrisons,(20) and even now he thought the case so little serious that he
contented himself (December 4) with ordering four companies to march for
the Transvaal. Then he and Lanyon began to get alarmed, and with good
reason. The whole country, except three or four beleaguered British posts,
fell into the hands of the Boers.
The pleas for failure to take measures to conciliate the Boers in the
interval between Frere’s recall and the outbreak, were that Sir Hercules
Robinson had not arrived;(21) that confederation was not yet wholly given
up; that resistance to annexation was said to be abating; that time was in
our favour; that the one thing indispensable to conciliate the Boers was a
railway to Delagoa Bay; that this needed a treaty, and we hoped soon to
get Portugal to ratify a treaty, and then we might tell the Boers that we
should soon make a survey, with a view at some early date to proceed with
the project, and thus all would in the end come right. So a fresh page was
turned in the story of loitering unwisdom.
IV
On December 6, Mr. Brand, the sagacious president of the Orange Free
State, sent a message of anxious warning to the acting governor at Cape
Town, urging that means should be devised to avert an imminent collision.
That message, which might possibly have wakened up the colonial office to
the real state of the case, did not reach London until December 30.
Excuses for this fatal delay were abundant: a wire was broken; the
governor did not think himself concerned with Transvaal affairs; he sent
the message on to the general, supposing that the general would send it on
home; and so forth. For a whole string of the very best reasons in the
world the message that (M15) might have prevented the outbreak, arrived
through the slow post at Whitehall just eleven days after the outbreak had
begun. Members of the legislature at the Cape urged the British government
to send a special commissioner to inquire and report. The policy of giving
consideration to the counsels of the Cape legislature had usually been
pursued by the wiser heads concerned in South African affairs, and when
the counsels of the chief of the Free State were urgent in the same
direction, their weight should perhaps have been decisive. Lord Kimberley,
however, did not think the moment opportune (Dec. 30).(22) Before many
weeks, as it happened, a commission was indeed sent, but unfortunately not
until after the mischief had been done. Meanwhile in the Queen’s speech a
week later an emphatic paragraph announced that the duty of vindicating
her Majesty’s authority had set aside for the time any plan for securing
to European settlers in the Transvaal full control over their own local
affairs. Seldom has the sovereign been made the mouthpiece of an utterance
more shortsighted.
Again the curtain rose upon a new and memorable act. Four days after the
Queen’s speech, President Brand a second time appeared upon the scene
(Jan. 10, 1881), with a message hoping that an effort would be made
without the least delay to prevent further bloodshed. Lord Kimberley
replied that provided the Boers would desist from their armed opposition,
the government did not despair of making a satisfactory settlement. Two
days later (Jan. 12) the president told the government that not a moment
should be lost, and some one (say Chief Justice de Villiers) should be
sent to the Transvaal burghers by the government, to stop further
collision and with a clear and definite proposal for a settlement.
“Moments,” he said, “are precious.” For twelve days these precious moments
passed. On Jan. 26 the secretary of state informed the high commissioner
at Cape Town, now Sir Hercules Robinson, that President Brand pressed for
the offer of terms and conditions to the Boers through Robinson, “provided
they cease from armed opposition, making it clear to them how this is to
be understood.” On this suggestion he instructed Robinson to inform Brand
that if armed opposition should at once cease, the government “would
thereupon endeavour to frame such a scheme as in their belief would
satisfy all friends of the Transvaal community.” Brand promptly advised
that the Boers should be told of this forthwith, before the satisfactory
arrangements proposed had been made more difficult by further collision.
This was on Jan. 29. Unhappily on the very day before, the British force
had been repulsed at Laing’s Nek. Colley, on Jan. 23, had written to
Joubert, calling on the Boer leaders to disperse, informing them that
large forces were already arriving from England and India, and assuring
them that if they would dismiss their followers, he would forward to
London any statement of their grievances. It would have been a great deal
more sensible to wait for an answer. Instead of waiting for an answer
Colley attacked (Jan. 28) and was beaten back—the whole proceeding a
rehearsal of a still more disastrous error a month later.
Brand was now more importunate than ever, earnestly urging on General
Colley that the nature of the scheme should be made known to the Boers,
and a guarantee undertaken that if they submitted they would not be
treated as rebels. “I have replied,” Colley tells Lord Kimberley, “that I
can give no such assurance, and can add nothing to your words.” In other
correspondence he uses grim language about the deserts of some of the
leaders. On this Mr. Gladstone, writing to Lord Kimberley (Feb. 5), says
truly enough, “Colley with a vengeance counts his chickens before they are
hatched, and his curious letter throws some light backward on the
proceedings in India. His line is singularly wide of ours.” The secretary
of state, finding barrack-room rigidity out of place, directs Colley (Feb.
8) to inform Brand (M16) that the government would be ready to give all
reasonable guarantees as to treatment of Boers after submission, if they
ceased from armed opposition, and a scheme would be framed for permanent
friendly settlement. As it happened, on the day on which this was
despatched from Downing Street, Colley suffered a second check at the
Ingogo River (Feb. 8). Let us note that he was always eager in his
recognition of the readiness and promptitude of the military support from
the government at home.(23)
Then an important move took place from the other quarter. The Boers made
their first overture. It came in a letter from Kruger to Colley (Feb. 12).
Its purport was fairly summarised by Colley in a telegram to the colonial
secretary, and the pith of it was that Kruger and his Boers were so
certain of the English government being on their side if the truth only
reached them, that they would not fear the result of inquiry by a royal
commission, and were ready, if troops were ordered to withdraw from the
Transvaal, to retire from their position, and give such a commission a
free passage. This telegram reached London on Feb. 13th, and on the 15th
it was brought before the cabinet.
Mr. Gladstone immediately informed the Queen (Feb. 15) that viewing the
likelihood of early and sanguinary actions, Lord Kimberley thought that
the receipt of such an overture at such a juncture, although its terms
were inadmissible, made it a duty to examine whether it afforded any hope
of settlement. The cabinet were still more strongly inclined towards
coming to terms. Any other decision would have broken up the government,
for on at least one division in the House on Transvaal affairs Mr. Bright
and Mr. Chamberlain, along with three other ministers not in the cabinet,
had abstained from voting. Colley was directed (Feb. 16) to inform the
Boers that on their desisting from armed opposition, the government would
be ready to send commissioners to develop a scheme of settlement, and that
meanwhile if this proposal were accepted, the English general was
authorised to agree to the suspension of hostilities. This was in
substance a conditional acceptance of the Boer overture.(24) On the same
day the general was told from the war office that, as respected the
interval before receiving a reply from Mr. Kruger, the government did not
bind his discretion, but “we are anxious for your making arrangements to
avoid effusion of blood.” The spirit of these instructions was clear. A
week later (Feb. 23) the general showed that he understood this, for he
wrote to Mr. Childers that “he would not without strong reason undertake
any operation likely to bring on another engagement, until Kruger’s reply
was received.”(25) If he had only stood firm to this, a tragedy would have
been averted.
On receiving the telegram of Feb. 16, Colley was puzzled to know what was
the meaning of suspending hostilities if armed opposition were abandoned
by the Boers, and he asked the plain question (Feb. 19) whether he was to
leave Laing’s Nek (which was in Natal territory) in Boer occupation, and
our garrisons isolated and short of provisions, or was he to occupy
Laing’s Nek and relieve the garrisons. Colley’s inquiries were instantly
considered by the cabinet, and the reply settled. The garrisons were to be
free to provision themselves and peaceful intercourse allowed; “but,”
Kimberley tells Colley, “we do not mean that you should march to the
relief of garrisons or occupy Laing’s Nek, if the arrangement proceeds.
_Fix reasonable time within which answer must be sent by Boers._”
On Feb. 21 Colley despatched a letter to Kruger, stating that on the Boers
ceasing from armed opposition, the Queen would appoint a commission. He
added that “upon this proposal being accepted _within forty-eight hours
from the receipt of this letter_,” he was authorised to agree to a
suspension of hostilities on the part of the British.
V
(M17) In this interval a calamity, destined to be historic, occurred,
trivial in a military sense, but formidable for many years to come in the
issues moral and political that it raised, and in the passions for which
it became a burning watchword. On the night of Feb. 26, Colley with a
force of 359 men all told, made up of three different corps, marched out
of his camp and occupied Majuba Hill. The general’s motives for this
precipitancy are obscure. The best explanation seems to be that he
observed the Boers to be pushing gradually forward on to advanced ground,
and thought it well, without waiting for Kruger’s reply, to seize a height
lying between the Nek and his own little camp, the possession of which
would make Laing’s Nek untenable. He probably did not expect that his move
would necessarily lead to fighting, and in fact when they saw the height
occupied, the Boers did at first for a little time actually begin to
retire from the Nek, though they soon changed their minds.(26) The British
operation is held by military experts to have been rash; proper steps were
not taken by the general to protect himself upon Majuba, the men were not
well handled, and the Boers showed determined intrepidity as they climbed
steadily up the hill from platform to platform, taking from seven in the
morning (Feb. 27) up to half-past eleven to advance some three thousand
yards and not losing a man, until at last they scaled the crest and poured
a deadly fire upon the small British force, driving them headlong from the
summit, seasoned soldiers though most of them were. The general who was
responsible for the disaster paid the penalty with his life. Some ninety
others fell and sixty were taken prisoners.
At home the sensation was profound. The hysterical complaints about our
men and officers, General Wood wrote to Childers, “are more like French
character than English used to be.” Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues had a
political question to consider. Colley could not be technically accused of
want of good faith in moving forward on the 26th, as the time that he had
appointed had expired. But though Majuba is just inside Natal—some four
miles over the border—his advance was, under the circumstances of the
moment, essentially an aggressive movement. Could his defeat justify us in
withdrawing our previous proposals to the Boers? Was a military
miscarriage, of no magnitude in itself, to be turned into a plea for
abandoning a policy deliberately adopted for what were thought powerful
and decisive reasons? “Suppose, for argument’s sake,” Mr. Gladstone wrote
to Lord Kimberley when the sinister news arrived (Mar. 2), “that at the
moment when Colley made the unhappy attack on Majuba Hill, there shall
turn out to have been decided on, and possibly on its way, a satisfactory
or friendly reply from the Boer government to your telegram? I fear the
chances may be against this; but if it prove to be the case, we could not
because we had failed on Sunday last, insist on shedding more blood.” As
it happened, the Boer answer was decided on before the attack at Majuba,
and was sent to Colley by Kruger at Heidelberg in ignorance of the event,
the day after the ill-fated general’s death. The members of the Transvaal
government set out their gratitude for the declaration that under certain
conditions the government of the Queen was inclined to cease hostilities;
and expressed their opinion that a meeting of representatives from both
sides would probably lead with all speed to a satisfactory result. This
reply was despatched by Kruger on the day on which Colley’s letter of the
21st came into his hands (Feb. 28), and it reached Colley’s successor on
March 7.
Sir Evelyn Wood, now after the death of Colley in chief command,
throughout recommended military action. Considering the disasters we had
sustained, he thought the happiest result would be that after a successful
battle, which he hoped to fight in about a fortnight, the Boers would
disperse without any guarantee, and many now in the field against their
will would readily settle down. He explained that by happy result, he did
not mean that a series of actions fought by any six companies could affect
our military prestige, but that a British victory would enable the Boer
(M18) leaders to quench a fire that had got beyond their control. The next
day after this recommendation to fight (March 6), he, of his own motion,
accepted a proposal telegraphed from Joubert at the instigation of the
indefatigable Brand, for a suspension of hostilities for eight days, for
the purpose of receiving Kruger’s reply. There was a military reason
behind. General Wood knew that the garrison in Potchefstrom must surrender
unless the place were revictualled, and three other beleaguered garrisons
were in almost equal danger. The government at once told him that his
armistice was approved. This armistice, though Wood’s reasons were
military rather than diplomatic, virtually put a stop to suggestions for
further fighting, for it implied, and could in truth mean nothing else,
that if Kruger’s reply were promising, the next step would not be a fight,
but the continuance of negotiation. Sir Evelyn Wood had not advised a
fight for the sake of restoring military prestige, but to make it easier
for the Boer leaders to break up bands that were getting beyond their
control. There was also present in his mind the intention, if the
government would sanction it, of driving the Boers out of Natal, as soon
as ever he had got his men up across the swollen river. So far from
sanctioning it, the government expressly forbade him to take offensive
action. On March 8, General Wood telegraphed home: “Do not imagine I wish
to fight. I know the attending misery too well. But now you have so many
troops coming, I recommend decisive though lenient action; and I can,
humanly speaking, promise victory. Sir G. Colley never engaged more than
six companies. I shall use twenty and two regiments of cavalry in
direction known to myself only, and undertake to enforce dispersion.” This
then was General Wood’s view. On the day before he sent this telegram, the
general already had received Kruger’s reply to the effect that they were
anxious to negotiate, and it would be best for commissioners from the two
sides to meet. It is important to add that the government were at the same
time receiving urgent warnings from President Brand that Dutch sympathy,
both in the Cape Colony and in the Orange Free State, with the Dutch in
the Transvaal was growing dangerous, and that the prolongation of
hostilities would end in a formidable extension of their area.(27) Even in
January Lanyon had told Colley that men from the Free State were in the
field against him. Three days before Majuba, Lord Kimberley had written to
Colley (February 24), “My great fear has been lest the Free State should
take part against us, or even some movement take place in the Cape Colony.
If our willingness to come to terms has avoided such a calamity, I shall
consider it will have been a most important point gained.”(28)
Two memoranda for the Queen show the views of the cabinet on the new
position of affairs:—
_To the Queen._
_March 8, 1881._—The cabinet considered with much care the terms
of the reply to Sir Evelyn Wood’s telegram reporting (not
textually) the answer of the Boer leaders to the proposals which
Sir George Colley had sent to them. They felt justified in
construing the Boer answer as leaving the way open to the
appointment of commissioners, according to the telegram previously
seen and approved by your Majesty. They were anxious to keep the
question moving in this direction, and under the extreme urgency
of the circumstances as to time, they have despatched a telegram
to Sir Evelyn Wood accordingly. Mr. Gladstone has always urged,
and still feels, that the proposal of the Boers for the
appointment of commissioners was fortunate on this among other
grounds, that it involved a recognition of your Majesty’s _de
facto_ authority in the Transvaal.
_March 12._—The cabinet determined, in order to obviate
misapprehension or suspicion, to desire Sir E. Wood to inform the
government from what quarter the suggestion of an armistice
actually proceeded. They agreed that the proper persons to be
appointed as commissioners were Sir H. Robinson, Sir E. Wood, and
Mr. De Villiers, chief justice of the Cape; together with Mr.
Brand of the Free State as _amicus curiæ_, should he be willing to
lend his good offices in the spirit in which he has hitherto
acted. The cabinet then considered fully the terms of the
communication to be made to the Boers by Sir E. Wood. In this,
which is matter of extreme urgency, they prescribe a time for the
reply of the Boers not later than the 18th; renew the promise of
amnesty; require the dispersion of the Boers to their own homes;
and state the general outlines of the permanent arrangement which
they would propose for the territory.... The cabinet believe that
in requiring the dispersion of the Boers to their homes, they will
have made the necessary provision for the vindication of your
Majesty’s authority, so as to open the way for considering terms
of pacific settlement.
On March 22, under instructions from home, the general concluded an
agreement for peace. The Boers made some preliminary requests to which the
government declined to assent. Their proposal that the commission should
be joint was rejected; its members were named exclusively by the crown.
They agreed to withdraw from the Nek and disperse to their homes; we
agreed not to occupy the Nek, and not to follow them up with troops,
though General Roberts with a large force had sailed for the Cape on March
6. Then the political negotiation went forward. Would it have been wise,
as the question was well put by the Duke of Argyll (not then a member of
the government), “to stop the negotiation for the sake of defeating a body
of farmers who had succeeded under accidental circumstances and by great
rashness on the part of our commanders, in gaining a victory over us?”
This was the true point.
The parliamentary attack was severe. The galling argument was that
government had conceded to three defeats what they had refused to ten
times as many petitions, memorials, remonstrances; and we had given to men
with arms in their hands what we refused to their peaceful prayers. A
great lawyer in the House of Lords made the speech that is expected from a
great lawyer who is also a conspicuous party leader; and ministers
undoubtedly exposed an extent of surface that was not easy to defend, not
because they had made a peace, but because they had failed to prevent the
rising. High military authorities found a curious plea for going on, in
the fact that this was our first contest with Europeans since the
breech-loader came in, and it was desirable to give our troops confidence
in the new-fashioned weapon. Reasons of a very different sort from this
were needed to overthrow the case for peace. How could the miscarriage at
Majuba, brought on by our own action, warrant us in drawing back from an
engagement already deliberately proffered? Would not such a proceeding,
asked Lord Kimberley, have been little short of an act of bad faith? Or
were we, in Mr. Gladstone’s language, to say to the Boers, “Although we
might have treated with you before these military miscarriages, we cannot
do so now, until we offer up a certain number of victims in expiation of
the blood that has been shed. Until that has been done, the very things
which we believed before to be reasonable, which we were ready to discuss
with you, we refuse to discuss now, and we must wait until Moloch has been
appeased”? We had opened a door for negotiation; were we to close it
again, because a handful of our forces had rashly seized a post they could
not hold? The action of the Boers had been defensive of the _status quo_,
for if we had established ourselves on Majuba, their camp at Laing’s Nek
would have been untenable. The minister protested in the face of the House
of Commons that “it would have been most unjust and cruel, it would have
been cowardly and mean, if on account of these defensive operations we had
refused to go forward with the negotiations which, before the first of
these miscarriages had occurred, we had already declared that we were
willing to promote and undertake.”(29)
The policy of the reversal of annexation is likely to remain a topic of
endless dispute.(30) As Sir Hercules Robinson put (M19) it in a letter to
Lord Kimberley, written a week before Majuba (Feb. 21), no possible course
was free from grave objection. If you determine, he said, to hold by the
annexation of the Transvaal, the country would have to be conquered and
held in subjection for many years by a large force. Free institutions and
self-government under British rule would be an impossibility. The only
palliative would be to dilute Dutch feeling by extensive English
immigration, like that of 1820 to the Eastern Province. But that would
take time, and need careful watching; and in the meantime the result of
holding the Transvaal as a conquered colony would undoubtedly be to excite
bitter hatred between the English and Dutch throughout the Free State and
this colony, which would be a constant source of discomfort and danger. On
the other hand, he believed that if they were, after a series of reverses
and before any success, to yield all the Boers asked for, they would be so
overbearing and quarrelsome that we should soon be at war with them again.
On the whole, Sir Hercules was disposed to think—extraordinary as such a
view must appear—that the best plan would be to re-establish the supremacy
of our arms, and then let the malcontents go. He thought no middle course
any longer practicable. Yet surely this course was open to all the
objections. To hold on to annexation at any cost was intelligible. But to
face all the cost and all the risks of a prolonged and a widely extended
conflict, with the deliberate intention of allowing the enemy to have his
own way after the conflict had been brought to an end, was not
intelligible and was not defensible.
Some have argued that we ought to have brought up an overwhelming force,
to demonstrate that we were able to beat them, before we made peace.
Unfortunately demonstrations of this species easily turn into
provocations, and talk of this kind mostly comes from those who believe,
not that peace was made in the wrong way, but that a peace giving their
country back to the Boers ought never to have been made at all, on any
terms or in any way. This was not the point from which either cabinet or
parliament started. The government had decided that annexation had been an
error. The Boers had proposed inquiry. The government assented on
condition that the Boers dispersed. Without waiting a reasonable time for
a reply, our general was worsted in a rash and trivial attack. Did this
cancel our proffered bargain? The point was simple and unmistakable,
though party heat at home, race passion in the colony, and our everlasting
human proneness to mix up different questions, and to answer one point by
arguments that belong to another, all combined to produce a confusion of
mind that a certain school of partisans have traded upon ever since.
Strange in mighty nations is moral cowardice, disguised as a Roman pride.
All the more may we admire the moral courage of the minister. For moral
courage may be needed even where aversion to bloodshed fortunately happens
to coincide with high prudence and sound policy of state.
VI
The negotiations proceeded, if negotiation be the right word. The Boers
disbanded, a powerful British force was encamped on the frontier, no Boer
representative sat on the commission, and the terms of final agreement
were in fact, as the Boers afterwards alleged, dictated and imposed. Mr.
Gladstone watched with a closeness that, considering the tremendous load
of Ireland, parliamentary procedure, and the incessant general business of
a prime minister, is amazing. When the Boers were over-pressing, he warned
them that it was only “the unshorn strength” of the administration that
enabled the English cabinet, rather to the surprise of the world, to spare
them the sufferings of a war. “We could not,” he said to Lord Kimberley,
“have carried our Transvaal policy, unless we had here a strong
government, and we spent some, if not much, of our strength in carrying
it.” A convention was concluded at Pretoria in (M20) August, recognising
the quasi-independence of the Transvaal, subject to the suzerainty of the
Queen, and with certain specified reservations. The Pretoria convention of
1881 did not work smoothly. Transvaal affairs were discussed from time to
time in the cabinet, and Mr. Chamberlain became the spokesman of the
government on a business where he was destined many years after to make so
conspicuous and irreparable a mark. The Boers again sent Kruger to London,
and he made out a good enough case in the opinion of Lord Derby, then
secretary of state, to justify a fresh arrangement. By the London
convention of 1884, the Transvaal state was restored to its old title of
the South African Republic; the assertion of suzerainty in the preamble of
the old convention did not appear in the new one;(31) and various other
modifications were introduced—the most important of them, in the light of
later events, being a provision for white men to have full liberty to
reside in any part of the republic, to trade in it, and to be liable to
the same taxes only as those exacted from citizens of the republic.
Whether we look at the Sand River Convention in 1852, which conferred
independence; or at Shepstone’s proclamation in 1877, which took
independence away; or at the convention of Pretoria in 1881, which in a
qualified shape gave it back; or at the convention of London in 1884,
which qualified the qualification over again, till independence, subject
to two or three specified conditions, was restored,—we can but recall the
caustic apologue of sage Selden in his table-talk on contracts. “Lady
Kent,” he says, “articled with Sir Edward Herbert that he should come to
her when she sent for him, and stay with her as long as she would have
him; to which he set his hand. Then he articled with her that he should go
away when he pleased, and stay away as long as he pleased; to which she
set her hand. This is the epitome of all the contracts in the world,
betwixt man and man, betwixt prince and subject.”