Seeing that twenty years of patient, loyal endeavours and friendly
conciliatory proceedings following upon the rehabilitation of the Transvaal
independence had utterly failed in advancing the object of uniting the
English and Boer races, and that instead the existing gulf was ever widening
through the spread of those fell Afrikaner Bond doctrines, it had become
imperative, on the part of British statesmen, to employ special efforts to
overcome the serious menace hanging over South Africa. The critical
situation designedly brought about by the action of the Transvaal Government
and by the influence of the Bond party indicated the remedy. A liberal
franchise in favour of the Uitlanders would at one stroke correct that evil,
and counteract the other impending danger as well. With a large accession of
legitimized voters working in accord with England's desire for peace and
progress, that good influence would be potent, first to shackle Bond action
and ultimately to reduce it to Colonial limits. The Transvaal would then no
longer be the giant ally, the arsenal, and the treasury of the Afrikaner
Bond, and that organisation would then be checkmated into impotence for
evil.
The success of such a remedial and defensive measure would naturally depend
upon the adequacy of the franchise aimed at. Mr. Chamberlain and his
colleagues were not a little sanguine in expecting that a five years'
qualification for voting and a representation equal to one-fifth of the
total number of seats in the Legislature would be effective for all that
which was needed; nor could it be averred that the Transvaal burghers would
be swamped out thereby.
The Bond chiefs did not fail to at once penetrate the object when the demand
for a five years' franchise was made, and in vain did Sir Alfred display
that firm attitude and exhaust his arguments at the historic Bloemfontein
conference. He had pointed out to President Krüger in a rudimentary fashion
which was no doubt convincing enough—that it was incompatible with
professions of concord and desire for peace while persisting in excluding
from representation a large majority of the population accustomed to and
expecting liberal treatment, and which, moreover, held four-fifths of the
wealth invested in the State. There could be no other result than a
dangerous tension and alienation from the Government, instead of the
peaceful co-operation so essential to security and progress. In these days
of advanced ideas of personal and political liberty people will resist
domination by a minority. They want to be consulted, and to have at least
the opportunity of making their wishes known by means of representation. The
right of petitioning could not meet that need, and in fact implied the
recognition of an inferior status so repugnant to any one's sensibility.
When people are ignored they resent even light impositions and taxes, but if
allowed a voice will cheerfully submit to heavy burdens, because they then
become, in a manner, self-imposed. Representation is the panacea against
popular disaffection and for assuring governmental stability. To concede to
Uitlanders one-fifth of the seats in the Legislature could not operate to
the prejudice of burgher interests, but less would not meet the case.
It
was, however, not President Krüger alone who had to decide—it affected the
Bond as a whole. The diplomatic contest so far proved just the thing to
ripen conditions for the meditated Bond coup d'état. An alternative offer of
a seven years' franchise was interposed as a mere ruse. Never for a moment
did the Afrikaner Bond leaders waver or quail in the face of resolute
firmness, display of force, or even of moral pressure and notes of advice
from imposing quarters, as Mr. Chamberlain had at first still fondly hoped.
To the Bond it had all resolved itself to a mere question of time, of
choosing the most opportune moment when to assume the aggressive. British
attitude had only hastened the issue. Mr. Jan Hofmeyer had indeed been sent
for from the Cape so as to assure that section of the Bond of Transvaal
firmness, but he found no sign of flinching or of renouncing the common
object laboured for so long and then so near fruition. The only difficulty
was that British action had hastened the issue somewhat too fast. Hence the
repeated hurried visits of the Bond leaders—Jan Hofmeyer, Abraham Fisher,
and others—the frequent caucus meetings of the Executive in consultation
with those delegates, the secret midnight sessions of the combined
Volksraads and Executive, the prolonged telegraphic conferences between the
two Presidents, and the final resulting word of "ready" which preceded the
fatal war ultimatum. The Gordian knot had been in evidence many years ago;
it is now recognised with regret that England had deferred action for
cutting it much too long.
But why not agree to arbitration, it will be asked, that peaceable method so
strenuously appealed for by the Transvaal Government and advocated by her
partisans, to adjust all differences, of which the suzerainty claim and the
Uitlander question appeared to be the principal ones? The reply is not that
England was unwilling, but because the Transvaal was insincere, and the
request was a cover for shameless duplicity, for, while it had been declared
by the former that the claim to suzerainty would be left in abeyance and
that infractions of convention which had been committed by the latter would
be overlooked in consideration of future friendly relations and
co-operation, the Transvaal Government in reality never for a moment meant
to be content with less than British overthrow and complete Boer supremacy
in South Africa, and efforts and intrigues were never relaxed, in concert
with the Bond, to compass those objects.
