The British Government and the British people do not desire any direct
authority in South Africa. Their one supreme interest is that the various
States there should live in concord and prosperity, and that there should be
no need for the presence of a British redcoat within the whole great
peninsula. Our foreign critics, with their misapprehension of the British
colonial system, can never realise that whether the four-coloured flag of
the Transvaal or the Union Jack of a self-governing colony waved over the
gold mines would not make the difference of one shilling to the revenue of
Great Britain. The Transvaal as a British province would have its own
legislature, its own revenue, its own expenditure, and its own tariff
against the mother country, as well as against the rest of the world, and
England be none the richer for the change. This is so obvious to a Briton
that he has ceased to insist upon it, and it is for that reason perhaps that
it is so universally misunderstood abroad. On the other hand, while she is
no gainer by the change, most of the expense of it in blood and in money
falls upon the home country. On the face of it, therefore, Great Britain had
every reason to avoid so formidable a task as the conquest of the South
African Republic. At the best she had nothing to gain, and at the worst she
had an immense deal to lose. There was no room for ambition or aggression.
It was a case of shirking or fulfilling a most arduous duty.
There could be no question of a plot for the annexation of the Transvaal. In
a free country the Government cannot move in advance of public opinion, and
public opinion is influenced by and reflected in the newspapers. One may
examine the files of the press during all the months of negotiations and
never find one reputable opinion in favour of such a course, nor did one in
society ever meet an advocate of such a measure. But a great wrong was being
done, and all that was asked was the minimum change which would set it
right, and restore equality between the white races in Africa. 'Let Kruger
only be liberal in the extension of the franchise,' said the paper which is
most representative of the sanest British opinion, 'and he will find that
the power of the republic will become not weaker, but infinitely more
secure. Let him once give the majority of the resident males of full age the
full vote, and he will have given the republic a stability and power which
nothing else can. If he rejects all pleas of this kind, and persists in his
present policy, he may possibly stave off the evil day, and preserve his
cherished oligarchy for another few years; but the end will be the same. '
The extract reflects the tone of all of the British press, with the
exception of one or two papers which considered that even the persistent ill
usage of our people, and the fact that we were peculiarly responsible for
them in this State, did not justify us in interfering in the internal
affairs of the republic. It cannot be denied that the Jameson raid and the
incomplete manner in which the circumstances connected with it had been
investigated had weakened the force of those who wished to interfere
energetically on behalf of British subjects. There was a vague but
widespread feeling that perhaps the capitalists were engineering the
situation for their own ends. It is difficult to imagine how a state of
unrest and insecurity, to say nothing of a state of war, can ever be to the
advantage of capital, and surely it is obvious that if some arch-schemer
were using the grievances of the Uitlanders for his own ends the best way to
checkmate him would be to remove those grievances. The suspicion, however,
did exist among those who like to ignore the obvious and magnify the remote,
and throughout the negotiations the hand of Great Britain was weakened, as
her adversary had doubtless calculated that it would be, by an earnest but
fussy and faddy minority. Idealism and a morbid, restless conscientiousness
are two of the most dangerous evils from which a modern progressive State
has to suffer.
It was in April 1899 that the British Uitlanders sent their petition praying
for protection to their native country. Since the April previous a
correspondence had been going on between Dr. Leyds, Secretary of State for
the South African Republic, and Mr. Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, upon
the existence or non-existence of the suzerainty. On the one hand, it was
contended that the substitution of a second convention had entirely annulled
the first; on the other, that the preamble of the first applied also to the
second. If the Transvaal contention were correct it is clear that Great
Britain had been tricked and jockeyed into such a position, since she had
received no quid pro quo in the second convention, and even the most
careless of Colonial Secretaries could hardly have been expected to give
away a very substantial something for nothing. But the contention throws us
back upon the academic question of what a suzerainty is. The Transvaal
admitted a power of veto over their foreign policy, and this admission in
itself, unless they openly tore up the convention, must deprive them of the
position of a sovereign State. On the whole, the question must be
acknowledged to have been one which might very well have been referred to
trustworthy arbitration.
But now to this debate, which had so little of urgency in it that seven
months intervened between statement and reply, there came the bitterly vital
question of the wrongs and appeal of the Uitlanders. Sir Alfred Milner, the
British Commissioner in South Africa, a man of liberal views who had been
appointed by a Conservative Government, commanded the respect and confidence
of all parties. His record was that of an able, clear-headed man, too just
to be either guilty of or tolerant of injustice. To him the matter was
referred, and a conference was arranged between President Kruger and him at
Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. They met on May 30th.
Kruger had declared that all questions might be discussed except the
independence of the Transvaal. 'All, all, all! ' he cried emphatically. But
in practice it was found that the parties could not agree as to what did or
what did not threaten this independence. What was essential to one was
inadmissible to the other. Milner contended for a five years' retroactive
franchise, with provisions to secure adequate representation for the mining
districts. Kruger offered a seven years' franchise, coupled with numerous
conditions which whittled down its value very much, promised five members
out of thirty-one to represent a majority of the male population, and added
a provision that all differences should be subject to arbitration by foreign
powers, a condition which is incompatible with any claim to suzerainty. The
proposals of each were impossible to the other, and early in June Sir Alfred
Milner was back in Cape Town and President Kruger in Pretoria, with nothing
settled except the extreme difficulty of a settlement. The current was
running swift, and the roar of the fall was already sounding louder in the
ear.
On June 12th Sir Alfred Milner received a deputation at Cape Town and
reviewed the situation. 'The principle of equality of races was,' he said,
essential for South Africa. The one State where inequality existed kept all
the others in a fever. Our policy was one not of aggression, but of singular
patience, which could not, however, lapse into indifference. ' Two days
later Kruger addressed the Raad. 'The other side had not conceded one tittle,
and I could not give more. God has always stood by us. I do not want war,
but I will not give more away. Although our independence has once been taken
away, God has restored it. ' He spoke with sincerity no doubt, but it is
hard to hear God invoked with such confidence for the system which
encouraged the liquor traffic to the natives, and bred the most corrupt set
of officials that the modern world has seen.
A dispatch from Sir Alfred Milner, giving his views upon the situation, made
the British public recognise, as nothing else had done, how serious the
position was, and how essential it was that an earnest national effort
should be made to set it right. In it he said:
'The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted answer is
that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in fact, the policy of
leaving things alone has been tried for years, and it has led to their going
from bad to worse. It is not true that this is owing to the raid. They were
going from bad to worse before the raid. We were on the verge of war before
the raid, and the Transvaal was on the verge of revolution. The effect of
the raid has been to give the policy of leaving things alone a new lease of
life, and with the old consequences.
'The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in the
position of helots, constantly chafing under undoubted grievances, and
calling vainly to her Majesty's Government for redress, does steadily
undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain within the Queen's
dominions. A section of the press, not in the Transvaal only, preaches
openly and constantly the doctrine of a republic embracing all South Africa,
and supports it by menacing references to the armaments of the Transvaal,
its alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which, in
case of war, it would receive from a section of her Majesty's subjects. I
regret to say that this doctrine, supported as it is by a ceaseless stream
of malignant lies about the intentions of her Majesty's Government, is
producing a great effect on a large number of our Dutch fellow colonists.
Language is frequently used which seems to imply that the Dutch have some
superior right, even in this colony, to their fellow-citizens of British
birth. Thousands of men peaceably disposed, and if left alone perfectly
satisfied with their position as British subjects, are being drawn into
disaffection, and there is a corresponding exasperation upon the part of the
British.
'I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous propaganda but
some striking proof of the intention of her Majesty's Government not to be
ousted from its position in South Africa. '
Such were the grave and measured words with which the British pro-consul
warned his countrymen of what was to come. He saw the storm-cloud piling in
the north, but even his eyes had not yet discerned how near and how terrible
was the tempest.
Throughout the end of June and the early part of July much was hoped from
the mediation of the heads of the Afrikander Bond, the political union of
the Dutch Cape colonists. On the one hand, they were the kinsmen of the
Boers; on the other, they were British subjects, and were enjoying the
blessings of those liberal institutions which we were anxious to see
extended to the Transvaal. 'Only treat our folk as we treat yours! Our whole
contention was compressed into that prayer. But nothing came of the mission,
though a scheme endorsed by Mr. Hofmeyer and Mr. Herholdt, of the Bond, with
Mr. Fischer of the Free State, was introduced into the Raad and applauded by
Mr. Schreiner, the Africander Premier of Cape Colony. In its original form
the provisions were obscure and complicated, the franchise varying from nine
years to seven under different conditions. In debate, however, the terms
were amended until the time was reduced to seven years, and the proposed
representation of the gold fields placed at five. The concession was not a
great one, nor could the representation, five out of thirty-one, be
considered a generous provision for the majority of the population; but the
reduction of the years of residence was eagerly hailed in England as a sign
that a compromise might be effected. A sigh of relief went up from the
country. 'If,' said the Colonial Secretary, 'this report is confirmed, this
important change in the proposals of President Kruger, coupled with previous
amendments, leads Government to hope that the new law may prove to be the
basis of a settlement on the lines laid down by Sir Alfred Milner in the
Bloemfontein Conference. ' He added that there were some vexatious
conditions attached, but concluded, 'Her Majesty's Government feel assured
that the President, having accepted the principle for which they have
contended, will be prepared to reconsider any detail of his scheme which can
be shown to be a possible hindrance to the full accomplishment of the object
in view, and that he will not allow them to be nullified or reduced in value
by any subsequent alterations of the law or acts of administration. ' At the
same time, the 'Times' declared the crisis to be at an end. 'If the Dutch
statesmen of the Cape have induced their brethren in the Transvaal to carry
such a Bill, they will have deserved the lasting gratitude, not only of
their own countrymen and of the English colonists in South Africa, but of
the British Empire and of the civilised world. '
But this fair prospect was soon destined to be overcast. Questions of detail
arose which, when closely examined, proved to be matters of very essential
importance. The Uitlanders and British South Africans, who had experienced
in the past how illusory the promises of the President might be, insisted
upon guarantees. The seven years offered were two years more than that which
Sir Alfred Milner had declared to be an irreducible minimum. The difference
of two years would not have hindered their acceptance, even at the expense
of some humiliation to our representative. But there were conditions which
excited distrust when drawn up by so wily a diplomatist. One was that the
alien who aspired to burghership had to produce a certificate of continuous
registration for a certain time. But the law of registration had fallen into
disuse in the Transvaal, and consequently this provision might render the
whole Bill valueless. Since it was carefully retained, it was certainly
meant for use. The door had been opened, but a stone was placed to block it.
Again, the continued burghership of the newcomers was made to depend upon
the resolution of the first Raad, so that should the mining members propose
any measure of reform, not only their Bill but they also might be swept out
of the house by a Boer majority. What could an Opposition do if a vote of
the Government might at any moment unseat them all? It was clear that a
measure which contained such provisions must be very carefully sifted before
a British Government could accept it as a final settlement and a complete
concession of justice to its subjects. On the other hand, it naturally felt
loth to refuse those clauses which offered some prospect of an amelioration
in their condition. It took the course, therefore, of suggesting that each
Government should appoint delegates to form a joint commission which should
inquire into the working of the proposed Bill before it was put into a final
form. The proposal was submitted to the Raad upon August 7th, with the
addition that when this was done Sir Alfred Milner was prepared to discuss
anything else, including arbitration without the interference of foreign
powers.
The suggestion of this joint commission has been criticised as an
unwarrantable intrusion into the internal affairs of another country. But
then the whole question from the beginning was about the internal affairs of
another country, since the internal equality of the white inhabitants was
the condition upon which self-government was restored to the Transvaal. It
is futile to suggest analogies, and to imagine what France would do if
Germany were to interfere in a question of French franchise. Supposing that
France contained as many Germans as Frenchmen, and that they were
ill-treated, Germany would interfere quickly enough and continue to do so
until some fair modus vivendi was established. The fact is that the case of
the Transvaal stands alone, that such a condition of things has never been
known, and that no previous precedent can apply to it, save the general rule
that a minority of white men cannot continue indefinitely to tax and govern
a majority. Sentiment inclines to the smaller nation, but reason and justice
are all on the side of England.
A long delay followed upon the proposal of the Secretary of the Colonies. No
reply was forthcoming from Pretoria. But on all sides there came evidence
that those preparations for war which had been quietly going on even before
the Jameson raid were now being hurriedly perfected. For so small a State
enormous sums were being spent upon military equipment. Cases of rifles and
boxes of cartridges streamed into the arsenal, not only from Delagoa Bay,
but even, to the indignation of the English colonists, through Cape Town and
Port Elizabeth. Huge packing-cases, marked 'Agricultural Instruments' and
'Mining Machinery,' arrived from Germany and France, to find their places in
the forts of Johannesburg or Pretoria. Men of many nations but of a similar
type showed their martial faces in the Boer towns. The condottieri of Europe
were as ready as ever to sell their blood for gold, and nobly in the end did
they fulfill their share of the bargain. For three weeks and more during
which Mr. Kruger was silent these eloquent preparations went on. But beyond
them, and of infinitely more importance, there was one fact which dominated
the situation. A burgher cannot go to war without his horse, his horse
cannot move without grass, grass will not come until after rain, and it was
still some weeks before the rain would be due. Negotiations, then, must not
be unduly hurried while the veld was a bare russet-coloured dust-swept
plain. Mr. Chamberlain and the British public waited week after week for
their answer. But there was a limit to their patience, and it was reached on
August 26th, when the Colonial Secretary showed, with a plainness of speech
which is as unusual as it is welcome in diplomacy, that the question could
not be hung up for ever. 'The sands are running down in the glass,' said he.
'If they run out, we shall not hold ourselves limited by that which we have
already offered, but, having taken the matter in hand, we will not let it go
until we have secured conditions which once for all shall establish which is
the paramount power in South Africa, and shall secure for our
fellow-subjects there those equal rights and equal privileges which were
promised them by President Kruger when the independence of the Transvaal was
granted by the Queen, and which is the least that in justice ought to be
accorded them. ' Lord Salisbury, a little time before, had been equally
emphatic. 'No one in this country wishes to disturb the conventions so long
as it is recognised that while they guarantee the independence of the
Transvaal on the one side, they guarantee equal political and civil rights
for settlers of all nationalities upon the other. But these conventions are
not like the laws of the Medes and the Persians. They are mortal, they can
be destroyed. . . and once destroyed they can never be reconstructed in the
same shape. ' The long-enduring patience of Great Britain was beginning to
show signs of giving way.
In the meantime a fresh dispatch had arrived from the Transvaal which
offered as an alternative proposal to the joint commission that the Boer
Government should grant the franchise proposals of Sir Alfred Milner on
condition that Great Britain withdrew or dropped her claim to a suzerainty,
agreed to arbitration, and promised never again to interfere in the internal
affairs of the republic. To this Great Britain answered that she would agree
to arbitration, that she hoped never again to have occasion to interfere for
the protection of her own subjects, but that with the grant of the franchise
all occasion for such interference would pass away, and, finally, that she
would never consent to abandon her position as suzerain power. Mr.
Chamberlain's dispatch ended by reminding the Government of the Transvaal
that there were other matters of dispute open between the two Governments
apart from the franchise, and that it would be as well to have them settled
at the same time. By these he meant such questions as the position of the
native races and the treatment of Anglo-Indians.
On September 2nd the answer of the Transvaal Government was returned. It was
short and uncompromising. They withdrew their offer of the franchise. They
re-asserted the non-existence of the suzerainty. The negotiations were at a
deadlock. It was difficult to see how they could be re-opened. In view of
the arming of the burghers, the small garrison of Natal had been taking up
positions to cover the frontier. The Transvaal asked for an explanation of
their presence. Sir Alfred Milner answered that they were guarding British
interests, and preparing against contingencies. The roar of the fall was
sounding loud and near.
On September 8th there was held a Cabinet Council--one of the most important
in recent years. A message was sent to Pretoria, which even the opponents of
the Government have acknowledged to be temperate, and offering the basis for
a peaceful settlement. It begins by repudiating emphatically the claim of
the Transvaal to be a sovereign international State in the same sense in
which the Orange Free State is one. Any proposal made conditional upon such
an acknowledgment could not be entertained.
The British Government, however, was prepared to accept the five years'
'franchise' as stated in the note of August 19th, assuming at the same time
that in the Raad each member might talk his own language.
'Acceptance of these terms by the South African Republic would at once
remove tension between the two Governments, and would in all probability
render unnecessary any future intervention to secure redress for grievances
which the Uitlanders themselves would be able to bring to the notice of the
Executive Council and the Volksraad.
'Her Majesty's Government are increasingly impressed with the danger of
further delay in relieving the strain which has already caused so much
injury to the interests of South Africa, and they earnestly press for an
immediate and definite reply to the present proposal. If it is acceded to
they will be ready to make immediate arrangements. . . to settle all details
of the proposed tribunal of arbitration. . . If, however, as they most
anxiously hope will not be the case, the reply of the South African Republic
should be negative or inconclusive, I am to state that her Majesty's
Government must reserve to themselves the right to reconsider the situation
de novo, and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement. '
Such was the message, and Great Britain waited with strained attention for
the answer. But again there was a delay, while the rain came and the grass
grew, and the veld was as a mounted rifleman would have it. The burghers
were in no humour for concessions. They knew their own power, and they
concluded with justice that they were for the time far the strongest
military power in South Africa. 'We have beaten England before, but it is
nothing to the licking we shall give her now,' cried a prominent citizen,
and he spoke for his country as he said it. So the empire waited and
debated, but the sounds of the bugle were already breaking through the
wrangles of the politicians, and calling the nation to be tested once more
by that hammer of war and adversity by which Providence still fashions us to
some nobler and higher end.
