asked me some very pointed questions, such as what arms we had in
Johannesburg, whether the population could hold the place for six days
until help could arrive, etc., etc., and stated plainly that if there
had been three thousand rifles and ammunition here he would certainly
have come over."
And so on in the same strain. Sir Henry Loch endorsed the truth of these
statements two years later by boasting openly in the House of Lords
about his plans for organising a raid into the South African Republic.
And all this happened while he (Sir Henry Loch) was the guest of our
Government, and engaged in friendly negotiations about the interests of
British subjects. To what a depth had British Policy in South Africa
already degenerated. Within two years, however, a deeper abyss was to
open.
[Sidenote: The conspiracy.]
The secret conspiracy of the Capitalists and Jingoes to overthrow the
South African Republic began now to gain ground with great rapidity, for
just at this critical period Mr. Chamberlain became Secretary of State
for the Colonies. In the secret correspondence of the conspirators,
reference is continually made to the Colonial Office in a manner which,
taken in connection with later revelations and with a successful
suppression of the truth, has deepened the impression over the whole
world that the Colonial Office was privy to, if not an accomplice in,
the villainous attack on the South African Republic.
[Sidenote: The Jameson Raid]
It is unnecessary to dwell at length on the Jameson Raid; the world has
not yet forgotten how the Administrators of a British province, carrying
out a conspiracy headed by the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony,
attacked the South African Republic with an armed band in order to
assist the Capitalist revolution of Johannesburg in overthrowing the
Boer Government; how this raid and this revolution were upset by the
vigilance of the Boers; how Jameson and his filibusters were handed over
to England to stand their trial--although the Boers had the power and
the right to shoot them down as robbers; how the whole gang of
Johannesburg Capitalists pleaded guilty to treason and sedition; how,
instead of confiscating all their property, and thus dealing a death
blow to Capitalistic influence in South Africa, the Government dealt
most leniently with them (an act of magnanimity which was rewarded by
their aiding and abetting a still more dangerous agitation three years
later).
[Sidenote: The Parliamentary Commission.]
Nor has the world forgotten how, at the urgent instance of the
Africander party in the Cape Colony, an investigation into the causes of
the conflict was held in Westminster; how that investigation degenerated
into a low attack upon the Government of the sorely maligned and deeply
injured South African Republic, and how at the last moment, when the
truth was on the point of being revealed, and the conspiracy traced to
its fountain head in the British Cabinet, the Commission decided all of
a sudden not to make certain compromising documents public.
[Sidenote: "Constitutional means."]
Here we see to what a depth the old great traditions of British
Constitutionalism had sunk under the influence of the ever-increasing
and all-absorbing lust of gold, and in the hands of a sharp-witted
wholesale dealer, who, like Cleon of old, has constituted himself a
statesman. Treachery and violence not having been able to attain their
objects, "Constitutional means" were to be invoked (as Mr. Rhodes openly
boasted before the aforesaid Commission), so as to make Capitalistic
Jingoism master of the situation in South Africa.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 29: Olive Schreiner, _Words in Season_, page 62.]
[Footnote 30: Transvaal Green Book No. 1 of 1896.]
[Footnote 31: Transvaal Green Book No. 1 of 1896.]
[Footnote 32: Transvaal Green Book No. 1 of 1896.]
CAPITALISTIC JINGOISM.
SECOND PERIOD.
[Sidenote: National sentiment in South Africa kindled by the Jameson
Raid.]
The foregoing sketch has shown how deeply our people felt and resented
the wrong that was done to them. It was to be expected that such a
treacherous attack on the Republics, emanating from their own leader,
would awaken the Africanders even in the remotest districts, and would
bring fresh energy into the arena of politics. To give an instance of
the measure of the feeling which had been quickened by the raid, a short
extract is given below from an article published in the organ of the
Africander party, _Our Land_, a few months after the Raid, an article
which undoubtedly expressed the feeling of Africanders:--
"Has not Providence over-ruled and guided the painful course of events
in South Africa since the beginning of this year (1896)? Who can doubt
it?
"The stab which was intended to paralyse Africanderdom once and for all
in the Republics has sent an electric thrill direct to the national
heart. Africanderdom has awakened to a sense of earnestness and
consciousness which we have not observed since the heroic war for
Liberty in 1881. From the Limpopo as far as Cape Town the Second Majuba
has given birth to a new inspiration and a new movement amongst our
people in South Africa. A new feeling has rushed in huge billows over
South Africa. The flaccid and cowardly Imperialism, that had already
begun to dilute and weaken our national blood, gradually turned aside
before the new current which permeated our people. Many who, tired of
the slow development of the national idea, had resigned themselves to
Imperialism now paused and asked themselves what Imperialism had
produced in South Africa? Bitterness and race hatred it is true! Since
the days of Sir Harry Smith and Theophilus Shepstone and Bartle Frere to
the days of Leander Jameson and Cecil Rhodes, Imperialism in South
Africa has gone hand in hand with bloodshed and fraud. However wholesome
the effects of Imperialism may be elsewhere, its continual tendency in
this country during all these years has been nothing else but an attempt
to force our national life and national character into foreign grooves;
and to seal this pressure with blood and tears.... This is truly a
critical moment in the existence of Africanderdom all over South Africa.
Now or never! Now or never the foundation of a wide-embracing
nationalism must be laid. The Iron is red hot, and the time for forging
is at hand....
... The partition wall has disappeared. Let us stand manfully by one
another. The danger has not yet disappeared; on the contrary, never has
the necessity for a policy of a Colonial and Republican Union been
greater; now the psychological moment has arrived; now our people have
awakened all over South Africa; a new glow illuminates our hearts; let
us now lay the foundation stone of a real United South Africa on the
soil of a pure and _all-comprehensive national sentiment_."
Such language caused the Jingoes to shudder--not because it was
disloyal, because that it certainly was _not_, but because it proved
that the Jameson Raid had suddenly awakened the Africanders, and that
owing to this defeat of the Jingoes a vista of further and greater
defeats widened out in the future. The Colonial Africanders would
certainly have to be reckoned with, in case an annexation policy were
followed with regard to the Republics.
[Sidenote: Victory of the Africander Party in the Cape Parliament.]
For some time the Jingoes cherished the hope that they would gain the
majority in the Cape Parliament under an amended Redistribution Act. The
General Election of 1898 took place, with the result that the Africander
party obtained a small majority, and later, under a Redistribution Act
forced upon them by the Jingoes, the majority of the former was
considerably increased.
[Sidenote: The cry of disloyalty]
Instead of honestly admitting that the Africander victory was the
natural result of the Jameson Raid, the Jingoes began, not only in South
Africa, but also in England, to shout that the rule and supremacy of
England in South Africa was menaced.
[Sidenote: The Transvaal must be humiliated.]
They contended that South Africa would be lost to England unless
energetic intervention took place without delay, and that this menace to
English rule was due to the Republican propaganda which the South
African Republic had set in motion. That as long as the South African
Republic refused to humiliate itself before British authority, but on
the contrary kept its youthful head on high with national pride, other
parts of South Africa would be inclined to follow its example, and there
would thus be no certainty for British supremacy in this quarter of the
globe. The South African Republic would have to be humiliated and to be
crushed into the dust; the Africanders in other parts of South Africa
would then abandon their alleged hope of a more extensive Republican
South Africa.
[Sidenote: The necessity for constitutional means.]
But how was this humiliation to be brought about, and how, above all,
was it to be brought about by those "Constitutional means," which, since
the failure of the conspiracy, had become a _sine qua non_?
The new Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner of South
Africa, who had enjoyed the distinction of a brilliant university
career, who had learnt humility and moderation at the feet of Mr. W.T.
Stead, and who had learnt by his experience with the fellaheen in Egypt
how to govern the descendants of the Huguenots and the "Beggars of the
Sea," would know very well how to evolve "Constitutional means" in order
to humiliate the South African Republic, and to crush it into the dust.
[Sidenote: The suzerainty.]
There was at any rate the burning question of suzerainty, which the
South African Republic had unconsciously and innocently raised in the
following way:--
After the Jameson Raid the Volksraad had passed certain laws with a view
of removing some of the causes of that movement, as, for example, the
law by which dangerous individuals could be expelled from the State, and
the law by which paupers and people suffering from contagious diseases
could be prevented from entering the Republic.[33] These laws were
declared to be in conflict with Article XIV. of the London Convention.
Violations of Article IV. were also said to have taken place in regard
to certain extradition and other treaties, which had been concluded
between the South African Republic and Foreign Powers.[34] On the 7th
May, 1897, the Government of the South African Republic dispatched a
very important reply to these accusations, in which, after fully stating
the reasons why the Government differed from Her Majesty's Government,
an appeal was made for arbitration as being the most suitable method of
settling the dispute.
This appeal was couched in the following language:
[Sidenote: The appeal for Arbitration.]
[35] "While it respects the opinion of Her British Majesty's Government,
it takes the liberty, with full confidence in the correctness of its own
views, to propose to Her British Majesty's Government the principle of
Arbitration, with which the honourable the First Volksraad agreed, in
the hope that it will be taken in the conciliatory spirit in which it is
made. It considers that it has every reason for this proposal, the more
so because the principle of Arbitration is already laid down in that
Convention in the only case in which, according to its opinion at the
time, a difference could be foreseen, to wit, with regard to Article I.;
because it has already been proposed by Her British Majesty's
Government, and accepted by this Government with regard to the
difference in respect of Article 14 of the Convention arising in the
matter of the so-called Coolie question, which was settled by
Arbitration; because the Right Honourable the Secretary of State, Mr.
Chamberlain, himself, in his letter of the 4th September, 1895, to His
Excellency the High Commissioner at Cape Town, favours this principle in
the same question, where he says: 'After 1886, as time went on, the
manner in which the law was interpreted and was worked, or was proposed
to be worked, gave rise to complaints on the part of the British
Government, and as it seemed impossible to come to an agreement by means
of correspondence, the Marquis of Ripon took what is the approved course
in such cases, of proposing to the South African Republic that the
dispute should be referred to Arbitration. This was agreed to ...,'
because the principle of Arbitration in matters such as this appears to
the Government to be the most impartial, just, and most satisfactory way
out of the existing difficulty, and, lastly, because one of the parties
to a Convention, according to all principles of reasonableness, cannot
expect that his interpretation will be respected by the other party as
the only valid and correct one. And although this Government is firmly
convinced that a just and impartial decision might be obtained even
better in South Africa than anywhere else, it wishes, in view of the
conflicting elements, interests, and aspirations which are now apparent
in South Africa, and in order to avoid even the appearance that it would
be able or desire to exercise influence in order to obtain a decision
favourable to it, to propose that the President of the Swiss Bondstate,
who may be reckoned upon as standing altogether outside the question,
and to feel sympathy or antipathy neither for the one party nor for the
other, be requested to point out a competent jurist, as has already
often been done in respect of international disputes. The Government
would have no objection that the Arbitration be subject to a limitation
of time, and gives the assurance now already that it will willingly
subject itself to any decision if such should, contrary to its
expectation, be given against it. The Government repeats the well-meant
wish that this proposal may find favour with Her British Majesty's
Government; and inasmuch as the allegations of breaches of the
Convention find entrance now even in South Africa, and bring and keep
the feelings more and more in a state of suspense, this Government will
be pleased if it can learn the decision of Her British Majesty's
Government as soon as possible."
[Sidenote: England refuses to arbitrate on ground of suzerainty.]
To this the British Government replied that according to the Convention
of 1884, taken in conjunction with the preamble of the Convention of
1881, the South African Republic was under the suzerainty of Her
Majesty, and that it was incompatible with the subordinate position of
the South African Republic to submit to Arbitration any matters in
dispute as to the construction of the Convention between it and the
suzerain Power.
In order to avoid any misunderstanding as to this very remarkable
document, the exact wording of the British dispatch is
given:--[36] "Finally, the Government of the South African Republic
propose that all points in dispute between Her Majesty's Government and
themselves relating to the Convention should be referred to Arbitration,
the Arbitrator to be nominated by the President of the Swiss Republic.
In making this proposal the Government of the South African Republic
appear to have overlooked the distinction between the Conventions of
1881 and 1884 and an ordinary treaty between two independent Powers,
questions arising upon which may properly be the subject of Arbitration.
By the Pretoria Convention of 1881 Her Majesty, as Sovereign of the
Transvaal Territory, accorded to the inhabitants of that territory
complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her
heirs, and successors, upon certain terms and conditions, and subject to
certain reservations and limitations set forth in 33 articles; and by
the London Convention of 1884, Her Majesty, while maintaining the
preamble of the earlier instrument, directed and declared that certain
other articles embodied therein should be substituted for the articles
embodied in the Convention of 1881. The articles of the Convention of
1881 were accepted by the Volksraad of the Transvaal State, and those of
the Convention of 1884 by the Volksraad of the South African Republic.
Under these Conventions, therefore, Her Majesty holds towards the South
African Republic the relation of a _suzerain_ who has accorded to the
people of that Republic self-government upon certain conditions, _and it
would be incompatible with that position to submit to Arbitration the
construction of the conditions on which she accorded self-government to
the Republic_."
[Sidenote: Reply of the Transvaal Government.]
[37] In its celebrated reply of the 16th April, 1898, the Government of
the South African Republic proved with unanswerable force that the
preamble of the Convention of 1881 had been abolished, that Lord Derby
had himself in 1884 proposed a draft Convention, in which the preamble
was erased (see Appendix B.), and that by the ultimate acceptance of
that proposal, the suzerainty had ceased to exist.
On this account, as well as for other reasons, it contended that as no
suzerainty existed between the two countries, the objection to
Arbitration as a means of settling disputes would disappear, and the
Government reiterated their appeal to have such differences or disputes
disposed of by Arbitration.
[Sidenote: The object of the suzerainty dispute.]
Naturally this was exactly what Mr. Chamberlain did not want. He was
opposed to Arbitration dispute, because it would have probably led to
the humiliation of the British and not of the Boer Government. The
suzerainty question was introduced in the meanwhile as a "Constitutional
Proposal," which might be used for the purpose of humiliating the South
African Republic.
In his answer to the arguments put forward by the South African
Republic,[38] Mr. Chamberlain could only persist in repeating his
contention that suzerainty still existed, and did not even attempt to
refute the statement that Lord Derby had himself erased the preamble of
the Convention of 1881. It was clearly his opinion that Lord Derby had,
through stupidity and thoughtlessness, abandoned the suzerainty in
1884, just as Lord Russell had abandoned the idea of obtaining the
South African Republic in 1852, so that he would now, just as Shepstone
in 1877, have to try and disconcert the Republic by a display of force
and inflexible determination, so as not to be deprived of these
eminently "Constitutional means."
[Sidenote: The Transvaal a sovereign international state.]
[39] His arguments in this dispatch, that both the suzerainty of Her
Majesty and the right of the South African Republic to self-government
were dependent upon the preamble of the Pretoria Convention, and that if
the preamble were null and void, not only would the suzerainty but also
the right to self-government disappear, were clearly designed to
intimidate the South African Republic; but in other respects the
argument was perfectly correct. Accordingly the Government of the South
African Republic replied that it did not base its claim to
self-government on the preamble of the Convention of 1881, nor on the
Convention of 1884 (for no mention is made of self-government in that
document), but simply on the ground of its being a sovereign
international state.
In other words, it contended that the Convention of London implied that
the South African Republic was a sovereign international state, and that
it was therefore superfluous in that Convention to specify or define its
rights. Into this answer, which is not only juridically and historically
correct, but which rests on the basis of common sense, the astute High
Commissioner was able to read a menace to Her Majesty's Government,
although the Government of the Republic distinctly stated in that reply
that it adhered to the Convention of London, an assurance which it had
already made hundreds of times.
[Sidenote: Justice of the Transvaal contention.]
This is the whole history of the suzerainty dispute between the two
Governments. The South African Republic had asked for arbitration on
certain questions, and England, with Mr. Chamberlain as spokesman, had
refused, because a suzerain Power could not be expected to settle
disputes with its vassal by means of arbitration. So that according to
the new principles of International Law, based on the "screw" ethics of
Birmingham, it was to be judge and jury in its own disputes with other
people.
The position taken up by our Government in this remarkable controversy
is substantiated by the actions of Lord Derby during the negotiations
about the Conventions, as well as by the following telegram, which he
sent to the High Commissioner for communication to the two Republics:--
HIGH COMMISSIONER, CAPE TOWN.
_To_ BRITISH RESIDENT, PRETORIA.
Please inform Transvaal Government that I have received the
following from the Secretary of State:--27th February. Convention
signed to-day. New south-western boundary as proposed, following
trade road. British Protectorate country outside Transvaal
established with delegates' consent. They promise to appoint
Border Commissioner inside Transvaal, co-operate with ours
outside; Mackenzie--British Resident. Debt reduced to quarter
million. Same complete internal independence in Transvaal as in
Orange Free State. Conduct and control diplomatic intercourse
Foreign Governments conceded. Queen's final approval treaties
reserved. Delegates appear well satisfied and cordial feeling two
Governments. You may make the above known.
This Convention is also substantiated by the express declarations of
Lord Rosmead and the Rev. D.P. Faure to the effect that it was clearly
understood, at the time the London Convention was concluded, that the
suzerainty was abolished. It is unnecessary to add anything about the
evidence of the Members of the Transvaal Deputation. The suzerainty has
thus not the slightest shadow of existence; and yet, as will be proved,
Mr. Chamberlain is prepared to go to war with the South African Republic
over this question, a war which will, according to his intentions,
result in Annexation.
[Sidenote: Uitlander grievances and Capitalistic agitation.]
While the two Governments were occupied with this question the
Capitalists were not idle. They were busy fanning the flame in another
direction. It was not only a fact that Rhodesia was an unexpected
failure, but it had proved far richer in native wars than in payable
gold mines. The Capitalist groups possessing the greatest interests in
the Witwatersrand gold mines were also the most deeply interested in
Rhodesia, and it naturally occurred to them that their Transvaal mines
ought also to bear the burden of their unprofitable investments in
Rhodesia--an adjustment which would, however, necessitate the
amalgamation of the two countries, especially when the interests of the
shareholders were considered.
In order to attain this object a continual agitation was kept up at
Johannesburg, so that English shareholders living far away should be
prepared for the day when the Annexation would take place on
Constitutional lines.
The argument which was calculated to impress these European shareholders
was that the administration of the South African Republic had created a
situation which was most prejudicial to the financial interests of the
mining industry. Viewed from this standpoint the Uitlander grievances
were an inexhaustibly rich and payable mine.
[Sidenote: The industrial Commission.]
This agitation first of all emanated directly from the Capitalists, and
had assumed such proportions in 1897 that the Government decided to
appoint a Commission of officials and mining magnates in order to
enquire searchingly into the alleged financial grievances. As far as the
Government was concerned, the chief findings of the Commission were:--