THE CAUSE OF QUARREL
Gold had been known to exist in the Transvaal before, but it was only in
1886 that it was realised that the deposits which lie some thirty miles
south of the capital are of a very extraordinary and valuable nature.
The proportion of gold in the quartz is not particularly high, nor are
the veins of a remarkable thickness, but the peculiarity of the Rand
mines lies in the fact that throughout this 'banket' formation the metal
is so uniformly distributed that the enterprise can claim a certainty
which is not usually associated with the industry. It is quarrying
rather than mining. Add to this that the reefs which were originally
worked as outcrops have now been traced to enormous depths, and present
the same features as those at the surface. A conservative estimate of
the value of the gold has placed it at seven hundred millions of pounds.
Such a discovery produced the inevitable effect. A great number of
adventurers flocked into the country, some desirable and some very much
the reverse. There were circumstances, however, which kept away the
rowdy and desperado element who usually make for a newly-opened
goldfield. It was not a class of mining which encouraged the individual
adventurer. It was a field for elaborate machinery, which could only be
provided by capital. Managers, engineers, miners, technical experts, and
the tradesmen and middlemen who live upon them, these were the
Uitlanders, drawn from all races under the sun, but with the
Anglo-Celtic vastly predominant. The best engineers were American, the
best miners were Cornish, the best managers were English, the money to
run the mines was largely subscribed in England. As time went on,
however, the German and French interests became more extensive, until
their joint holdings are now probably as heavy as those of the British.
Soon the population of the mining centres became about as numerous as
that of the whole Boer community, and consisted mainly of men in the
prime of life--men, too, of exceptional intelligence and energy.
The situation was an extraordinary one. I have already attempted to
bring the problem home to an American by suggesting that the Dutch of
New York had trekked west and founded an anti-American and highly
unprogressive State. To carry out the analogy we will now suppose that
that State was California, that the gold of that State attracted a large
inrush of American citizens, that these citizens were heavily taxed and
badly used, and that they deafened Washington with their outcry about
their injuries. That would be a fair parallel to the relations between
the Transvaal, the Uitlanders, and the British Government.
That these Uitlanders had very real and pressing grievances no one could
possibly deny. To recount them all would be a formidable task, for their
whole lives were darkened by injustice. There was not a wrong which had
driven the Boer from Cape Colony which he did not now practise himself
upon others--and a wrong may be excusable in 1835 which is monstrous in
1895. The primitive virtue which had characterised the farmers broke
down in the face of temptation. The country Boers were little affected,
some of them not at all, but the Pretoria Government became a most
corrupt oligarchy, venal and incompetent to the last degree. Officials
and imported Hollanders handled the stream of gold which came in from
the mines, while the unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the
taxation was fleeced at every turn, and met with laughter and taunts
when he endeavoured to win the franchise by which he might peaceably set
right the wrongs from which he suffered. He was not an unreasonable
person. On the contrary, he was patient to the verge of meekness, as
capital is likely to be when it is surrounded by rifles. But his
situation was intolerable, and after successive attempts at peaceful
agitation, and numerous humble petitions to the Volksraad, he began at
last to realise that he would never obtain redress unless he could find
some way of winning it for himself.
Without attempting to enumerate all the wrongs which embittered the
Uitlanders, the more serious of them may be summed up in this way:
1. That they were heavily taxed and provided about seven-eighths of the
revenue of the country. The revenue of the South African Republic--which
had been 154,000_l._ in 1886, when the goldfields were opened--had
grown in 1899 to four million pounds, and the country through the
industry of the new-comers had changed from one of the poorest to the
richest in the whole world (per head of population).
2. That in spite of this prosperity which they had brought, they were
left without a vote, and could by no means influence the disposal of the
great sums which they were providing. Such a case of taxation without
representation has never been known.
3. That they had no voice in the choice or payment of officials. Men of
the worst private character might be placed with complete authority over
valuable interests. The total official salaries had risen in 1899 to a
sum sufficient to pay 40_l._ per head to the entire male Boer
population.
4. That they had no control over education. Mr. John Robinson, the
Director-General of the Johannesburg Educational Council, has reckoned
the sum spent on the Uitlander schools as 650_l._ out of 63,000_l._
allotted for education, making 1_s._ 10_d._ per head per annum on
Uitlander children, and 8_l._ 6_s._ per head on Boer children--the
Uitlander, as always, paying seven-eighths of the original sum.
5. No power of municipal government. Watercarts instead of pipes, filthy
buckets instead of drains, a corrupt and violent police, a high
death-rate in what should be a health resort--all this in a city which
they had built themselves.
6. Despotic government in the matter of the Press and of the right of
public meeting.
7. Disability from service upon a jury.
8. Continual harassing of the mining interest by vexatious legislation.
Under this head come many grievances, some special to the mines and some
affecting all Uitlanders. The dynamite monopoly, by which the miners had
to pay 600,000_l._ extra per annum in order to get a worse quality of
dynamite; the liquor laws, by which the Kaffirs were allowed to be
habitually drunk; the incompetence and extortions of the State-owned
railway; the granting of concessions for numerous articles of ordinary
consumption to individuals, by which high prices were maintained; the
surrounding of Johannesburg by tolls from which the town had no
profit--these were among the economical grievances, some large, some
petty, which ramified through every transaction of life. These are the
wrongs which Mr. W. T. Stead has described as 'the twopenny-halfpenny
grievances of a handful of Englishmen.'
The manner in which the blood was sucked from the Uitlanders, and the
rapid spread of wealth among the Boer officials, may be gathered from
the list of the salaries of the State servants from the opening of the
mines to the outbreak of the war:
L
1886 51,831
1887 99,083
1888 164,466
1889 249,641
1890 324,520
1891 332,888
1892 323,608
1893 361,275
1894 419,775
1895 570,047
1896 813,029
1897 996,959
1898 1,080,382
1899 1,216,394
which shows, as Mr. FitzPatrick has pointed out, that the salary list
had become twenty-four times what it was when the Uitlanders arrived,
and five times as much as the total revenue was then.
But outside and beyond all the definite wrongs from which they suffered,
there was a constant irritation to freeborn and progressive men,
accustomed to liberal institutions, that they should be despotically
ruled by a body of men some of whom were ignorant bigots, some of them
buffoons, and nearly all of them openly and shamelessly corrupt. Out of
twenty-five members of the First Volksraad twenty-one were, in the case
of the Selati Railway Company, publicly and circumstantially accused of
bribery, with full details of the bribes received, their date, and who
paid them. The black-list includes the present vice-president, Schalk
Burger; the vice-president of that date; Eloff, the son-in-law of
Kruger; and the secretary of the Volksraad. Apparently every man of the
executive and the legislature had his price.
A corrupt assembly is an evil master, but when it is narrow-minded and
bigoted as well, it becomes indeed intolerable. The following tit-bits
from the debates in the two Raads show the intelligence and spirit of
the men who were ruling over one of the most progressive communities in
the world:
'Pillar-boxes in Pretoria were opposed on the grounds that they were
extravagant and effeminate. Deputy Taljaard said that he could not see
why people wanted to be always writing letters; he wrote none himself.
In the days of his youth he had written a letter and had not been afraid
to travel fifty miles and more on horseback and by wagon to post it--and
now people complained if they had to go one mile.'
A debate on the possibility of decreasing the plague of locusts led to
the following enlightened discussion:
'_July 21._--Mr. Roos said locusts were a plague, as in the days of King
Pharaoh, sent by God, and the country would assuredly be loaded with
shame and obloquy if it tried to raise its hand against the mighty hand
of the Almighty.
'Messrs. Declerq and Steenkamp spoke in the same strain, quoting largely
from the Scriptures.
'The Chairman related a true story of a man whose farm was always spared
by the locusts, until one day he caused some to be killed. His farm was
then devastated.
'Mr. Stoop conjured the members not to constitute themselves terrestrial
gods and oppose the Almighty.
'Mr. Lucas Meyer raised a storm by ridiculing the arguments of the
former speakers, and comparing the locusts to beasts of prey which they
destroyed.
'Mr. Labuschagne was violent. He said the locusts were quite different
from beasts of prey. They were a special plague sent by God for their
sinfulness.'
In a further debate:
'Mr. Jan de Beer complained of the lack of uniformity in neckties. Some
wore a Tom Thumb variety, and others wore scarves. This was a state of
things to be deplored, and he considered that the Raad should put its
foot down and define the size and shape of neckties.'
The following note of a debate gives some idea of how far the
legislators were qualified to deal with commercial questions:
'_May 8._--On the application of the Sheba G. M. Co. for permission to
erect an aerial tram from the mine to the mill,
'Mr. Grobelaar asked whether an aerial tram was a balloon or whether it
could fly through the air.
'The only objection that the Chairman had to urge against granting the
tram was that the Company had an English name, and that with so many
Dutch ones available.
'Mr. Taljaard objected to the word "participeeren" (participate) as not
being Dutch, and to him unintelligible: "I can't believe the word is
Dutch; why have I never come across it in the Bible if it is?"
'_June 18._--On the application for a concession to treat tailings,
'Mr. Taljaard wished to know if the words "pyrites" and "concentrates"
could not be translated into the Dutch language. He could not understand
what it meant. He had gone to night-school as long as he had been in
Pretoria, and even now he could not explain everything to his burghers.
He thought it a shame that big hills should be made on ground under
which there might be rich reefs, and which in future might be required
for a market or outspan. He would support the recommendation on
condition that the name of the quartz should be translated into Dutch,
as there might be more in this than some of them imagined.'
Such debates as these may be amusing at a distance, but they are less
entertaining when they come from an autocrat who has complete power over
the conditions of your life.
From the fact that they were a community extremely preoccupied by their
own business, it followed that the Uitlanders were not ardent
politicians, and that they desired to have a share in the government of
the State for the purpose of making the conditions of their own industry
and of their own daily lives more endurable. How far there was need of
such an interference may be judged by any fair-minded man who reads the
list of their complaints. A superficial view may recognise the Boers as
the champions of liberty, but a deeper insight must see that they (as
represented by their elected rulers) have in truth stood for all that
history has shown to be odious in the form of exclusiveness and
oppression. Their conception of liberty has been a narrow and selfish
one, and they have consistently inflicted upon others far heavier wrongs
than those against which they had themselves rebelled.
As the mines increased in importance and the miners in numbers, it was
found that these political disabilities affected some of that
cosmopolitan crowd far more than others, in proportion to the amount of
freedom to which their home institutions had made them accustomed. The
Continental Uitlanders were more patient of that which was unendurable
to the American and the Briton. The Americans, however, were in so great
a minority that it was upon the British that the brunt of the struggle
for freedom fell. Apart from the fact that the British were more
numerous than all the other Uitlanders combined, there were special
reasons why they should feel their humiliating position more than the
members of any other race. In the first place, many of the British were
British South Africans, who knew that in the neighbouring countries
which gave them birth the most liberal possible institutions had been
given to the kinsmen of these very Boers who were refusing them the
management of their own drains and water-supply. And again, every Briton
knew that Great Britain claimed to be the paramount Power in South
Africa, and so he felt as if his own land, to which he might have looked
for protection, was conniving at and acquiescing in his ill-treatment.
As citizens of the paramount Power, it was peculiarly galling that they
should be held in political subjection. The British, therefore, were the
most persistent and energetic of the agitators.
But it is a poor cause which cannot bear to fairly state and honestly
consider the case of its opponents. The Boers had made, as has been
briefly shown, great efforts to establish a country of their own. They
had travelled far, worked hard, and fought bravely. After all their
efforts they were fated to see an influx of strangers into their
country, some of them men of questionable character, who threatened to
outnumber the original inhabitants. If the franchise were granted to
these, there could be no doubt that, though at first the Boers might
control a majority of the votes, it was only a question of time before
the new-comers would dominate the Raad and elect their own President,
who might adopt a policy abhorrent to the original owners of the land.
Were the Boers to lose by the ballot-box the victory which they had won
by their rifles? Was it fair to expect it? These new-comers came for
gold. They got their gold. Their companies paid a hundred per cent. Was
not that enough to satisfy them? If they did not like the country, why
did they not leave it? No one compelled them to stay there. But if they
stayed, let them be thankful that they were tolerated at all, and not
presume to interfere with the laws of those by whose courtesy they were
allowed to enter the country.
That is a fair statement of the Boer position, and at first sight an
impartial man might say that there was a good deal to say for it; but a
closer examination would show that, though it might be tenable in
theory, it is unjust and impossible in practice.
In the present crowded state of the world a policy of Thibet may be
carried out in some obscure corner, but it cannot be done in a great
tract of country which lies right across the main line of industrial
progress. The position is too absolutely artificial. A handful of people
by the right of conquest take possession of an enormous country over
which they are dotted at such intervals that it is their boast that one
farmhouse cannot see the smoke of another, and yet, though their numbers
are so disproportionate to the area which they cover, they refuse to
admit any other people upon equal terms, but claim to be a privileged
class who shall dominate the new-comers completely. They are outnumbered
in their own land by immigrants who are far more highly educated and
progressive, and yet they hold them down in a way which exists nowhere
else upon earth. What is their right? The right of conquest. Then the
same right may be justly invoked to reverse so intolerable a situation.
This they would themselves acknowledge. 'Come on and fight! Come on!'
cried a member of the Volksraad when the franchise petition of the
Uitlanders was presented. 'Protest! Protest! What is the good of
protesting?' said Kruger to Mr. W. Y. Campbell; 'you have not got the
guns, I have.' There was always the final court of appeal. Judge Creusot
and Judge Mauser were always behind the President.
Again, the argument of the Boers would be more valid had they received
no benefit from these immigrants. If they had ignored them they might
fairly have stated that they did not desire their presence. But even
while they protested they grew rich at the Uitlanders' expense. They
could not have it both ways. It would be consistent to discourage him
and not profit by him, or to make him comfortable and build the State
upon his money; but to ill-treat him and at the same time grow strong by
his taxation must surely be an injustice.
And again, the whole argument is based upon the narrow racial
supposition that every naturalised citizen not of Boer extraction must
necessarily be unpatriotic. This is not borne out by the examples of
history. The new-comer soon becomes as proud of his country and as
jealous of her liberty as the old. Had President Kruger given the
franchise generously to the Uitlander, his pyramid would have been firm
upon its base and not balanced upon its apex. It is true that the
corrupt oligarchy would have vanished, and the spirit of a broader, more
tolerant freedom influenced the counsels of the State. But the republic
would have become stronger and more permanent with a population who, if
they differed in details, were united in essentials. Whether such a
solution would have been to the advantage of British interests in South
Africa is quite another question. In more ways than one President Kruger
has been a good friend to the Empire.
At the time of the Convention of Pretoria (1881) the rights of
burghership might be obtained by one year's residence. In 1882 it was
raised to five years, the reasonable limit which obtains both in Great
Britain and in the United States. Had it remained so, it is safe to say
that there would never have been either an Uitlander question or a war.
Grievances would have been righted from the inside without external
interference.
In 1890 the inrush of outsiders alarmed the Boers, and the franchise was
raised so as to be only attainable by those who had lived fourteen years
in the country. The Uitlanders, who were increasing rapidly in numbers
and were suffering from the formidable list of grievances already
enumerated, perceived that their wrongs were so numerous that it was
hopeless to have them set right seriatim, and that only by obtaining the
leverage of the franchise could they hope to move the heavy burden which
weighed them down. In 1893 a petition of 13,000 Uitlanders, couched in
most respectful terms, was submitted to the Raad, but met with
contemptuous neglect. Undeterred, however, by this failure, the National
Reform Union, an association which was not one of capitalists, came back
to the attack in 1894. They drew up a petition which was signed by
35,000 adult male Uitlanders, as great a number probably as the total
Boer male population of the country. A small liberal body in the Raad
supported this memorial and endeavoured in vain to obtain some justice
for the new-comers. Mr. Jeppe was the mouthpiece of this select band.
'They own half the soil, they pay at least three-quarters of the taxes,'
said he. 'They are men who in capital, energy, and education are at
least our equals. What will become of us or our children on that day
when we may find ourselves in a minority of one in twenty without a
single friend among the other nineteen, among those who will then tell
us that they wished to be brothers, but that we by our own act have made
them strangers to the republic?' Such reasonable and liberal sentiments
were combated by members who asserted that the signatures could not
belong to law-abiding citizens, since they were actually agitating
against the law of the franchise, and others whose intolerance was
expressed by the defiance of the member already quoted, who challenged
the Uitlanders to come out and fight. The champions of exclusiveness and
racial hatred won the day. The memorial was rejected by sixteen votes to
eight, and the franchise law was, on the initiative of the President,
actually made more stringent than ever, being framed in such a way that
during the fourteen years of probation the applicant should give up his
previous nationality, so that for that period he would belong to no
country at all. No hopes were held out that any possible attitude upon
the part of the Uitlanders would soften the determination of the
President and his burghers. One who remonstrated was led outside the
State buildings by the President, who pointed up at the national flag.
'You see that flag?' said he. 'If I grant the franchise, I may as well
pull it down.' His animosity against the immigrants was bitter.
'Burghers, friends, thieves, murderers, new-comers, and others,' is the
conciliatory opening of one of his public addresses. Though Johannesburg
is only thirty-two miles from Pretoria, and though the State of which he
was the head depended for its revenue upon the goldfields, he paid it
only three visits in nine years.
This settled animosity was deplorable, but not unnatural. A man imbued
with the idea of a chosen people, and unread in any book save the one
which cultivates this very idea, could not be expected to have learned
the historical lessons of the advantages which a State reaps from a
liberal policy. To him it was as if the Ammonites and Moabites had
demanded admission into the twelve tribes. He mistook an agitation
against the exclusive policy of the State for one against the existence
of the State itself. A wide franchise would have made his republic
firm-based and permanent. It was a minority of the Uitlanders who had
any desire to come into the British system. They were a cosmopolitan
crowd, only united by the bond of a common injustice. The majority of
the British immigrants had no desire to subvert the State. But when
every other method had failed, and their petition for the rights of
freemen had been flung back at them, it was natural that their eyes
should turn to that flag which waved to the north, the west, and the
south of them--the flag which means purity of government with equal
rights and equal duties for all men. Constitutional agitation was laid
aside, arms were smuggled in, and everything prepared for an organised
rising.
It had been arranged that the town was to rise upon a certain night,
that Pretoria should be attacked, the fort seized, and the rifles and
ammunition, used to arm the Uitlanders. It was a feasible device, though
it must seem to us, who have had such an experience of the military
virtues of the burghers, a very desperate one. But it is conceivable
that the rebels might have held Johannesburg until the universal
sympathy which their cause excited throughout South Africa would have
caused Great Britain to intervene. Unfortunately they had complicated
matters by asking for outside help. Mr. Cecil Rhodes was Premier of the
Cape, a man of immense energy, and one who had rendered great services
to the empire. The motives of his action are obscure--certainly, we may
say that they were not sordid, for he has always been a man whose
thoughts were large and whose habits were simple. But whatever they may
have been--whether an ill-regulated desire to consolidate South Africa
under British rule, or a burning sympathy with the Uitlanders in their
fight against injustice--it is certain that he allowed his lieutenant,
Dr. Jameson, to assemble the mounted police of the Chartered Company, of
which Rhodes was founder and director, for the purpose of co-operating
with the rebels at Johannesburg. Moreover, when the revolt at
Johannesburg was postponed, on account of a disagreement as to which
flag they were to rise under, it appears that Jameson (with or without
the orders of Rhodes) forced the hand of the conspirators by invading
the country with a force absurdly inadequate to the work which he had
taken in hand. Five hundred policemen and two field-guns made up the
forlorn hope who started from near Mafeking and crossed the Transvaal
border upon December 29, 1895. On January 2 they were surrounded by the
Boers amid the broken country near Dornkop, and after losing many of
their number killed and wounded, without food and with spent horses,
they were compelled to lay down their arms. Six burghers lost their
lives in the skirmish.
Determined attempts have been made to connect the British Government
with this fiasco, and to pretend that the Colonial Secretary and other
statesmen were cognisant of it. Such an impression has been fostered by
the apparent reluctance of the Commission of Inquiry to push their
researches to the uttermost. It is much to be regretted that every
possible telegram and letter should not have been called for upon that
occasion; but the idea that this was not done for fear that Mr.
Chamberlain and the British Government would be implicated, becomes
absurd in the presence of the fact that the Commission included among
its members Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Sir William Harcourt. Is it
conceivable that these gentlemen held their hands for fear of damaging
the Government, or that Mr. Chamberlain could afterwards have the
effrontery to publicly and solemnly deny all knowledge of the business
in the presence of gentlemen who had connived at the suppression of the
proofs that he _did_ know? Such a supposition is ridiculous, and yet it
is involved in the theory that the Commission refrained from pushing
their examination because they were afraid of showing their country to
have been in the wrong.
Again, even the most embittered enemy of Mr. Chamberlain must admit that
he is a clear-headed man, a man of resolution, and a man with some sense
of proportion as to the means which should be used for an end. Is such a
man, knowing the military record of the burghers, the sort of man to
connive at the invasion of their country by 500 policemen and two guns?
Would he be likely, even if he approved of the general aim, to sanction
such a harebrained piece of folly? And, having sanctioned it, would he
be so weak of purpose as to take energetic steps, the instant that he
heard of the invasion, to undo that which he is supposed himself to have
done, and to cause the failure of his own scheme? Why should he on such
a supposition send energetic messages to Johannesburg forbidding the
British to co-operate with the raiders? The whole accusation is so
absurd that it is only the mania of party spite or of national hatred
which could induce anyone to believe it.
Again, supposing for an instant that the British Government knew
anything about the coming raid, what is the first and most obvious thing
which they would have done? Whether Jameson got safely to Johannesburg
or not there was evidently a probability of a great race-struggle in
South Africa. Would they not then, on some pretext or another, have
increased the strength of the British force in the country, which was
so weak that it was powerless to influence the course of events? It is
certain that this is so. But nothing of the kind was done.
Mr. Chamberlain's own denial is clear and emphatic:
'I desire to say in the most explicit manner that I had not then, and
that I never had, any knowledge, or until, I think it was the day before
the actual raid took place, the slightest suspicion of anything in the
nature of a hostile or armed invasion of the Transvaal.'--(British South
Africa Committee, 1897. Q. 6223.)
The Earl of Selborne, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, was no
less explicit:
'Neither then nor at any subsequent period prior to the raid did we know
of what is now called "Jameson's plan," nor that the revolution at
Johannesburg was being largely controlled and financed from Cape Colony
and Rhodesia.... Sir Hercules Robinson had no suspicion of what was
impending, nor apparently President Kruger, nor Mr. Hofmeyr, nor any
public man in South Africa, except those who were preparing the plan. At
any rate the fact remains that from no quarter did the Colonial Office
receive any warning. I submit, therefore, it would have been a most
extraordinary thing if any suspicion had occurred to us.'
The finding of the Committee--a Committee composed of men of all
parties, some of whom, as we know, were yearning 'to give Joe a
fall'--was unanimous in condemning the raid and equally unanimous in
exonerating the Government from any knowledge of it. Their Report said:
'Your Committee fully accept the statements of the Secretary of State
for the Colonies, and of the Under-Secretary, and entirely exonerate the
officials of the Colonial Office of having been in any sense cognisant
of the plans which led up to the incursion of Dr. Jameson's force into
the South African Republic....
'Neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies, nor any of the
officials of the Colonial Office received any information which made
them, or should have made them, or any of them, aware of the plot during
its development.'
And yet to this day it is one of the articles of faith of a few
crack-brained fanatics in this country, and of many ill-informed and
prejudiced editors upon the Continent, that the British Government was
responsible for the raid.
The Uitlanders have been severely criticised for not having sent out a
force to help Jameson in his difficulties, but it is impossible to see
how they could have acted in any other manner. They had done all they
could to prevent Jameson coming to their relief, and now it was rather
unreasonable to suppose that they should relieve their reliever. Indeed,
they had an entirely exaggerated idea of the strength of the force which
he was bringing, and received the news of his capture with incredulity.
When it became confirmed they rose, but in a half-hearted fashion which
was not due to want of courage, but to the difficulties of their
position. On the one hand the British Government disowned Jameson
entirely, and did all it could to discourage the rising; on the other,
the President had the raiders in his keeping at Pretoria, and let it be
understood that their fate depended upon the behaviour of the
Uitlanders. They were led to believe that Jameson would be shot unless
they laid down their arms, though, as a matter of fact, Jameson and his
people had surrendered upon a promise of quarter. So skilfully did
Kruger use his hostages that he succeeded, with the help of the British
Commissioner, in getting the thousands of excited Johannesburgers to lay
down their arms without bloodshed. Completely out-man[oe]uvred by the
astute old President, the leaders of the reform movement used all their
influence in the direction of peace, thinking that a general amnesty
would follow; but the moment that they and their people were helpless
the detectives and armed burghers occupied the town, and sixty of their
number were hurried to Pretoria Gaol.
To the raiders themselves the President behaved with generosity. Perhaps
he could not find it in his heart to be harsh to the men who had managed
to put him in the right and won for him the sympathy of the world. His
own illiberal and oppressive treatment of the new-comers was forgotten
in the face of this illegal inroad of filibusters. The true issues were
so obscured by this intrusion that it has taken years to clear them, and
perhaps they will never be wholly cleared. It was forgotten that it was
the bad government of the country which was the real cause of the
unfortunate raid. From then onwards the government might grow worse and
worse, but it was always possible to point to the raid as justifying
everything. Were the Uitlanders to have the franchise? How could they
expect it after the raid? Would Britain object to the enormous
importation of arms and obvious preparations for war? They were only
precautions against a second raid. For years the raid stood in the way,
not only of all progress, but of all remonstrance. Through an action
over which they had no control, and which they had done their best to
prevent, the British Government was left with a bad case and a weakened
moral authority.
The raiders were sent home, where the rank and file were very properly
released, and the chief officers were condemned to terms of imprisonment
which certainly did not err upon the side of severity. In the meantime,
both President Kruger and his burghers had shown a greater severity to
the political prisoners from Johannesburg than to the armed followers of
Jameson. The nationality of these prisoners is interesting and
suggestive. There were twenty-three Englishmen, sixteen South Africans,
nine Scotchmen, six Americans, two Welshmen, one Irishman, one
Australian, one Hollander, one Bavarian, one Canadian, one Swiss, and
one Turk. The list is sufficient comment upon the assertion that only
the British Uitlanders made serious complaints of subjection and
injustice. The prisoners were arrested in January, but the trial did not
take place until the end of April. All were found guilty of high
treason. Mr. Lionel Phillips, Colonel Rhodes (brother of Mr. Cecil
Rhodes), George Farrar, and Mr. Hammond, the American engineer, were
condemned to death, a sentence which was afterwards commuted to the
payment of an enormous fine. The other prisoners were condemned to two
years' imprisonment, with a fine of 2,000_l._ each. The imprisonment was
of the most arduous and trying sort, and was embittered by the harshness
of the gaoler, Du Plessis. One of the unfortunate men cut his throat,
and several fell seriously ill, the diet and the sanitary conditions
being equally unhealthy. At last, at the end of May, all the prisoners
but six were released. Four of the six soon followed, two stalwarts,
Sampson and Davies, refusing to sign any petition and remaining in
prison until they were set free in 1897. Altogether the Transvaal
Government received in fines from the reform prisoners the enormous sum
of 212,000_l._ A certain comic relief was immediately afterwards given
to so grave an episode by the presentation of a bill to Great Britain
for 1,677,938_l._ 3_s._ 3_d._--the greater part of which was under the
heading of moral and intellectual damage. It is to be feared that even
the 3_s._ 3_d._ remains still unpaid.
The raid was past and the reform movement was past, but the causes
which produced them both remained. It is hardly conceivable that a
statesman who loved his country would have refrained from making some
effort to remove a state of things which had already caused such grave
dangers, and which must obviously become more serious with every year
that passed. But Paul Kruger had hardened his heart, and was not to be
moved. The grievances of the Uitlanders became heavier than ever. The
one power in the land to which they had been able to appeal for some
sort of redress amid their troubles was the law courts. Now it was
decreed that the courts should be dependent on the Volksraad. The Chief
Justice protested against such a degradation of his high office, and he
was dismissed in consequence without a pension. The judge who had
condemned the reformers was chosen to fill the vacancy, and the
protection of a fixed law was withdrawn from the Uitlanders.
A commission appointed by the State was sent to examine into the
condition of the mining industry and the grievances from which the
new-comers suffered. The chairman was Mr. Schalk Burger, one of the most
liberal of the Boers, and the proceedings were thorough and impartial.
The result was a report which amply vindicated the reformers, and
suggested remedies which would have gone a long way towards satisfying
the Uitlanders. With such enlightened legislation their motives for
seeking the franchise would have been less pressing. But the President
and his Raad would have none of the recommendations of the commission.
The rugged old autocrat declared that Schalk Burger was a traitor to his
country for having signed such a document, and a new reactionary
committee was chosen to report upon the report. Words and papers were
the only outcome of the affair. No amelioration came to the new-comers.
But at least they had again put their case publicly upon record, and it
had been endorsed by the most respected of the burghers. Gradually in
the press of the English-speaking countries the raid was ceasing to
obscure the issue. More and more clearly it was coming out that no
permanent settlement was possible where half the population was
oppressed by the other half. They had tried peaceful means and failed.
They had tried warlike means and failed. What was there left for them to
do? Their own country, the paramount power of South Africa, had never
helped them. Perhaps if it were directly appealed to it might do so. It
could not, if only for the sake of its own imperial prestige, leave its
children for ever in a state of subjection. The small spark which caused
a final explosion came from the shooting of a British subject named
Edgar by a Boer policeman, Jones, in Johannesburg. The action of the
policeman was upheld by the authorities, and the British felt that their
lives were no longer safe in the presence of an armed overbearing
police. At another time the incident might have been of no great
importance, but at that moment it seemed to be taken as the crowning
example of the injustice under which the miners suffered. A meeting of
protest called by the British residents was broken up by gangs of
workmen under Boer officials. Driven to desperation the Uitlanders
determined upon a petition to Queen Victoria, and in doing so they
brought their grievances out of the limits of a local controversy into
the broader field of international politics. Great Britain must either
protect them or acknowledge that their protection was beyond her power.
A direct petition to the Queen praying for protection was signed in
April 1899 by 21,000 Uitlanders.
The lines which this historical petition took may be judged from the
following excerpt:
'The condition of Your Majesty's subjects in this State has indeed
become well-nigh intolerable.
'The acknowledged and admitted grievances of which Your Majesty's
subjects complained prior to 1895, not only are not redressed, but exist
to-day in an aggravated form. They are still deprived of all political
rights, they are denied any voice in the government of the country, they
are taxed far above the requirements of the country, the revenue of
which is misapplied and devoted to objects which keep alive a continuous
and well-founded feeling of irritation, without in any way advancing the
general interest of the State. Maladministration and peculation of
public moneys go hand-in-hand, without any vigorous measures being
adopted to put a stop to the scandal. The education of Uitlander
children is made subject to impossible conditions. The police afford no
adequate protection to the lives and property of the inhabitants of
Johannesburg; they are rather a source of danger to the peace and safety
of the Uitlander population.
'A further grievance has become prominent since the beginning of the
year. The power vested in the Government by means of the Public Meetings
Act has been a menace to Your Majesty's subjects since the enactment of
the Act in 1894. This power has now been applied in order to deliver a
blow that strikes at the inherent and inalienable birthright of every
British subject--namely, his right to petition his Sovereign. Straining
to the utmost the language and intention of the law, the Government have
arrested two British subjects who assisted in presenting a petition to
Your Majesty on behalf of four thousand fellow-subjects. Not content
with this, the Government, when Your Majesty's loyal subjects again
attempted to lay their grievances before Your Majesty, permitted their
meeting to be broken up, and the objects of it to be defeated, by a body
of Boers, organised by Government officials and acting under the
protection of the police. By reason, therefore, of the direct, as well
as the indirect, act of the Government, Your Majesty's loyal subjects
have been prevented from publicly ventilating their grievances, and from
laying them before Your Majesty.
'Wherefore Your Majesty's humble petitioners humbly beseech Your Most
Gracious Majesty to extend Your Majesty's protection to Your Majesty's
loyal subjects resident in this State, and to cause an inquiry to be
made into grievances and complaints enumerated and set forth in this
humble petition, and to direct Your Majesty's representative in South
Africa to take measures which will insure the speedy reform of the
abuses complained of, and to obtain substantial guarantees from the
Government of this State for a recognition of their rights as British
subjects.'
From the date of this direct petition from our ill-used people to their
Sovereign events moved inevitably towards one end. Sometimes the surface
was troubled and sometimes smooth, but the stream always ran swiftly and
the roar of the fall sounded ever louder in the ears.