CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONTINUED.
The foreigners’ Reform Association, sometimes called the National
Union, was organized at Johannesburg in 1893. Its professed object was
to secure redress of grievances. This is always allowable in a free
country; but it is matter of record that the spirit and methods of this
particular association were not calculated to propitiate the people to
whom they must look for any relief from the sufferings of which they
complained.
Two incidents will sufficiently illustrate this. In 1894 Lord Loch, the
British High Commissioner for South Africa, visited the Transvaal to
conduct certain negotiations with the executive concerning Swaziland.
The presence of this distinguished Crown Official in the Transvaal was
made the occasion by the association of offering a public insult to
President Kruger in Pretoria, of promoting a violent outburst of
pro-British and anti-Africander sentiment in Johannesburg, and of a
conference between Lord Loch and Mr. Lionel Phillips, a member of one
of the leading financial houses in Johannesburg, in which was
considered the propriety of assembling a body of imperial troops on the
borders of the Transvaal for the support of any revolutionary movement
that might be made. These proceedings were reminiscent to the
Africanders of an earlier demonstration, prior to the forming of the
National Union. In 1890 President Kruger visited Johannesburg to confer
with leading citizens on the mitigation of the grievances complained
of. The foreigners celebrated his coming in that friendly way by
drinking to excess, by singing in his ears “God Save the Queen” as a
suitable song of welcome to the President of the South African
Republic, and by tearing down the national flag of the Transvaal which
was floating in front of the house in which the conference was being
held. With a moderation not to be expected from Paul Kruger, the
president charitably attributed the offensive proceedings to “long
drinks”; but the people in general and their representatives were much
embittered by them, and the effect was unfavorable to the carrying of
any measures for the benefit of the foreigners.
Throughout 1894 and 1895, both on the surface of things and beneath it,
appearances were ominous of coming disturbance. On the surface there
was, from Cape Town, an open advocacy of violent measures in
Johannesburg, should such be found necessary to bring about the desired
changes in favor of the foreigners. Mr. Edmund Garrett, editor of the
“Cape Times,” openly stated at Bloemfontein, in 1895, that his presence
in South Africa was connected with a purpose on the part of Mr. Cecil
Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, and his associates, to “force the
pace.” And it was at this time that, as before stated, the British
authorities suddenly annexed the Tongaland territory, through which the
Africanders had secured a concession and projected a railway to the
sea—thus deepening the impression to a painful and alarming certainty
that the Imperial Government was intentionally unfriendly to that of
the South African Republic.
Under the surface very momentous things were going on. In Rhodesia a
volunteer police force was being enrolled by Sir John Willoughby. This
gentleman, speaking for his superior, Doctor Jameson, assured the men
that they would only be required to serve in a “camp of exercise” once
a year, and that they would not be taken beyond the borders of
Rhodesia.
Fitting in very significantly with this movement, the Bechuanaland
Protectorate—lying next neighbor to Rhodesia on the south and to the
Transvaal on the west—was transferred to the Chartered Company
controlling Rhodesia, a measure that enabled Doctor Jameson to station
his volunteer police force on the Transvaal border without taking them
out of the enlarged Rhodesia.
Meantime, rifles, ammunition and Maxim guns were smuggled across the
border from Kimberley to Johannesburg, to be in readiness for an armed
uprising of the foreigners on a date to be agreed upon. Over in the
British territory of Rhodesia, Doctor Jameson’s force—ostensibly for
local police purposes—was armed and near the border, ready to
co-operate with the revolt about to be initiated at Johannesburg. As a
provision for the sustenance of the invading force, a number of
so-called “canteens,” said to be for the convenience of a projected
stage line, but really stores of food for Jameson’s troopers and their
horses, were established at convenient distances along the road over
which the force was to advance upon Johannesburg.
At the same time, the official opening of the new railway from Pretoria
to Delagoa Bay was made the occasion of such marked congratulation from
the Imperial Government as implied nothing but the most friendly
relations. Afterwards the Africanders held that the Imperial
congratulations were sincere, and that the fact of their being sent was
evidence that the policy of implacable hostility toward the South
African Republic being pursued by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was in no sense the
policy of the British government.
It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the
closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the
subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will
between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it
was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the
Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal
Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight
on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by
ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than
fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of
the through railway of the carrying trade from the border to
Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order
to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the
Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic.
The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and
obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the
“drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be
reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal
government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling
occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the
petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two
Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson
raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all
partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its
option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost
price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the
Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11
per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate
object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a strong
prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained.
As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were
matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the
Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought
down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously,
mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to
be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on
the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary
speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but
there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from
their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this
was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following
reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the
6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It
Is”:
“Master Lionel’s speech has been very foolish, and is likely to do a
great deal of harm and no good—unless his instructions are to incite to
bloodshed—and I can scarcely imagine such instructions to have gone out
while the boom is lasting. If there is anything that is likely to put
Paul Kruger’s back up, it is threats; and unless Cecil Rhodes is
prepared to back up with his Matabele heroes those threats, you will
find the Volksraad of 1896 give an unmistakable answer to what they
will wrongly call ‘British threats.’”
How the real state of things was comprehended locally is evinced in the
answer to that letter, dated December the 10th:
“Your remark concerning Rhodes’ Matabele heroes is probably more
prophetic than you yourself are aware of. South Africa is, as you say,
the land of surprises.”
Among the parties privy to the conspiracy the date of uprising was
spoken of as the “day of flotation.” It was carefully discussed, as was
the use that could be made of the British crown officials at the Cape.
Arms and ammunition for the use of the revolutionists continued to
arrive at Johannesburg, concealed in coal trucks and oil tanks. It
looked like an appointment when, on the 21st of December, Colonel
Rhodes, brother and representative of Cecil Rhodes at Johannesburg,
telegraphed to the Cape that a high official, whom he called the
“Chairman,” should interfere at the earliest possible moment, and that
he and Mr. Cecil Rhodes should start from Cape Town for Johannesburg on
the “day of flotation.”
This telegram has been interpreted to mean that the conspirators wanted
to create just enough of disturbance to justify alarming telegrams and
calls for help, but not so prolonged and violent as to make it
necessary for them to lead a hand-to-hand fight against the burghers in
the streets of Johannesburg. They would have the Jameson force near
enough to take the brunt of the fighting, and the High Commissioner to
come in opportunely to mediate a peace favoring the re-establishment of
British control in the Transvaal.
Strangely enough, at the last moment divisions arose among the local
conspirators at Johannesburg; they hesitated, and were lost. To some,
the project which had been much talked of—that of re-establishing
British rule—became suddenly distasteful, the principal reason being
that the desired control of capital over legislation could not be as
complete under British colonial administration as it might be made
under some other regime. They had appealed to the sentiment of British
loyalty in persuading English recruits to enter their ranks, but they
began to see that this sentiment, carried to its legitimate fruition,
would defeat the chief end of the capitalists in seeking the overthrow
of the Kruger government. Christmas day of 1895 found the Johannesburg
reformers so divided in feeling that most of them were in favor of
postponing all action until some definite assurance could be obtained
as to what, and for whom, they were to fight. To this end the President
of the National Union, Mr. Charles Leonard, was sent off to Cape Town
to confer with Mr. Cecil Rhodes.
In enlisting Doctor Jameson and his police force in this movement an
uncertain and dangerous factor had been included. The situation became
critical. Jameson, who had been warned that he must on no account make
any move until he received further orders, grew restive and eager for
the fray. In Johannesburg the conspirators were in a state of
indecision and alarm. Mr. Cecil Rhodes himself was halting between the
two opinions, whether to abandon the enterprise altogether or to
precipitate the struggle regardless of the divided counsels at
Johannesburg.
Then the factor of danger declared itself. On the night of the 29th of
December, 1895, Doctor Jameson broke his tether and, presumably without
orders, invaded the territory of the South African Republic from the
British territory of Bechuanaland, at the head of about six hundred
men.
Just why Jameson moved at that time probably never will be known. He
has himself assumed the entire responsibility; Mr. Rhodes and Sir
Hercules Robinson, the High Commissioner, have disavowed it utterly.
There are few who believe that his invasion was intended to initiate
the revolution. A probable solution of the mystery is that the
revolutionary programme included (1) a collision between the
conspirators in Johannesburg and the burgher police, (2) the calling in
of the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, as mediator, (3) the
ordering up of Jameson and his force to support the High Commissioner
in any course he might decide upon, and that Jameson thought he could
time his arrival aright without waiting for further orders.
But the skillfully arranged programme was spoiled by the shrewdness of
President Kruger. There was no initial conflict in the streets of
Johannesburg. Penetrating the design, the president withdrew all the
Transvaal police from the streets of the city; there was no one to
exchange shots with, and therefore no reason to justify a call for
outside interference.
By cutting the telegraph wires Jameson made it impossible for friend or
foe to know his whereabouts, but the report got abroad that he was
coming. In Johannesburg some desired, some feared, his coming. A member
of the committee of the National Union assembled a hundred of the
malcontents and attempted to lead them out to co-operate with the
invaders, but they tamely surrendered to a burgher force without firing
a shot. As for Jameson, on Wednesday, the 1st of January, 1896, he was
checked near Krugersdorp by a few hundred burghers hastily collected,
and on the next day was surrounded near Doornkop and forced to
surrender. Thus ended the attempt at revolution.
During the few days which closed 1895 and opened 1896, there was a
state of social, political and financial chaos in Johannesburg. All
that was left visible of the reform association was confined within the
walls of a single clubhouse—a resort of the leading spirits in the
conspiracy. The European population at large seemed to be unaware of
anything connected with the affair but the, to them, unaccountable
situation—full of peril to life and property—which had been created
they knew not how. The state of panic was sustained and intensified by
the wildest rumors of what Jameson was to do, of thousands of burghers
assembling to lay siege to the town, of a purpose to bombard the city
from the forts, of a new government about to be proclaimed—indeed,
anything and everything might happen.
When it leaked out that the principal actors in the revolutionary
movement had secretly removed their families from the city—which was to
be the storm-center of the expected disturbance—there was a general
stampede. Men and women fought for place on the outgoing trains. In one
tragical instance an overladen train left the track, and forty persons,
mostly women and children, perished. To exaggerate the misery and
disaster to innocent and peaceable people, caused by this unfortunate
and abortive uprising, would be impossible.
The immediate effect of the raid was most unfavorable to the return of
anything like good feeling between the British and the Africanders. The
historic cablegram of the German Emperor to President Kruger,
congratulating him on the prompt and easy suppression of the rebellion,
was construed as evidence that the South African Republic was secretly
conniving at a German rivalry to Great Britain as the paramount power
in South Africa. On the other hand, every burgher in the Transvaal saw
in the conspiracy a new indication of the inexorable hostility of the
British to their independence, and of a relentless purpose to subvert
it again by any means necessary to accomplish their end, however unjust
or violent. The effect on the burghers of the raid was much the same as
that of the blowing up of the Maine on the citizens of the United
States—a feeling that relations had been created which nothing could
finally adjust but war.
Notwithstanding the intensified bitterness between the two peoples, no
one was put to death, nor was any one very seriously punished for
taking up arms against the Transvaal government. This is to be credited
not to any doubt or extenuation of their guilt, but to urgent
intercession on the part of the British authorities, and to the wisdom
of those who administered the government whose territory had been
invaded from the soil of a professedly friendly nation, whose very
existence had been conspired against by resident aliens, and which had
in its power both the invaders and the resident conspirators.