One of the greatest difficulties with which the
Imperial Government found themselves confronted when relations between Great
Britain and the Transvaal became strained was the influx of refugees who at
the first hint of impending trouble left Johannesburg and the Rand, and
flocked to Cape Town.
The greater number were aliens. From Russia in
particular they had flocked to the Transvaal when they heard of its
treasures. Adventurers from other parts of Europe, with a sprinkling of
remittance men, also deserted Johannesburg. Only the few were real English
residents who, from the time the Rand had begun to develop, had been living
and toiling there in order to win sufficient for the maintenance of their
families. All this mass of humanity, which passed unnoticed when scattered
over wide areas in the vicinity of Pretoria or Johannesburg, had lived for
many years in the expectation of the day when the power of the Transvaal
Republic would be broken. They had discounted it perhaps more than they
should have done had the dictates of prudence been allowed to take the lead
against the wishes of their hearts.
When war became imminent the big mining houses
considered it wiser to close their offices and mines, and for these
unfortunate beings, deprived of their means of existence, the position
became truly a lamentable one. They could not very well remain where they
were, because the Burghers, who had never taken kindly to them, made no
secret of their hostility, and gave them to understand very clearly that as
soon as war had been declared they would simply turn them out without
warning and confiscate their property. Prudence advised no delay, and the
consequence was that, beginning with the month of August, and, indeed, the
very first days which followed upon the failure of the Bloemfontein
Conference, a stream of people from the Transvaal began migrating toward
Cape Colony, which was supposed to be the place where their sufferings would
find a measure of relief that they vainly imagined would prove adequate to
their needs. At the Cape, strangely enough, no one had ever given a thought
to the possibility of such a thing happening. In consequence, the public
were surprised by this persisting stream of humanity which was being poured
into the Colony; the authorities, too, began to feel a despair as to what
could be done. It is no exaggeration to say that for months many hundreds of
people arrived daily from the north, and that so long as communications were
kept open they continued to do so.
At first the refugees inundated the lodging-houses in
Cape Town, but these soon being full to overflowing, some other means had to
be devised to house and feed them. Committees were formed, with whom the
Government officials in the Colony worked with great zeal and considerable
success toward alleviating the misery with which they found themselves
confronted in such an unexpected manner. The Municipal Council, the various
religious communities, the Medical men—one and all applied themselves to
relief measures, even though they could not comprehend the reason of the
blind rush to the Cape. Nor, in the main, could the refugees explain more
lucidly than the one phrase which could, be heard on all sides, no matter
what might have been the social position: "We had to go away because we did
not feel safe on the Rand." In many cases it would have been far nearer to
the truth to say that they had to go because they could no longer lead the
happy-go-lucky existence they had been used to.
The most to be pitied among these people were most
certainly the Polish Jews, who originally had been expelled from Russia, and
had come to seek their fortunes at Johannesburg. They had absolutely no one
to whom they could apply, and, what was sadder still, no claim on anyone; on
the English Government least of all. One could see them huddling together on
the platform of Cape Town railway station, surrounded by bundles of rags
which constituted the whole of their earthly belongings, not knowing at all
what to do, or where to go to. Of course they were looked after, because
English charity has never stopped before differences of race and creed, but
still it was impossible to deny that their constantly increasing number
added considerably to the difficulties of the situation.
A Jewish Committee headed by the Chief Rabbi of Cape
Town, the Rev. Dr. Bender, worked indefatigably toward the relief of these
unfortunate creatures, and did wonders. A considerable number were sent to
Europe, but a good many elected to remain where they were, and had to be
provided for in some way till work could be found for them, which would at
least allow them to exist without being entirely dependent on public
charity. Among the aliens who showed a desire to remain in South Africa were
many in possession of resources of their own; but they carefully concealed
the fact, as, upon whatever it amounted to, they counted to rebuild their
fortunes when Britain became sole and absolute mistress on the Rand.
The most dangerous element in the situation was that
group of easygoing loafers who lived on the fringe of finance and picked up
a living by doing the odd things needed by the bigger speculators. When
things began to be critical, these idlers were unable to make money without
working, and while prating of their patriotism, made the British Government
responsible for their present state of penury. These men had some kind of
instruction, if not education, and pretended they understood all about
politics, the government of nations, and last, but not least, the conduct of
the war. Their free talk, inflamed with an enthusiasm got up for the
occasion, gave to the stranger an entirely incorrect idea of the position,
and was calculated to give rise to sharp and absolutely undeserved
criticisms concerning the conduct of the administration at home, and of the
authorities in the Colony. They also fomented hatred and spite between the
English and the Dutch.
The harm done by these people, at a moment when the
efforts of the whole community ought to have been directed toward allaying
race hatred, and smoothing down the differences which had arisen between the
two white sections of the population, is almost impossible of realisation
for one who was not in South Africa at the time, and who could not watch the
slow and gradual growth of the atmosphere of lies and calumny which
gradually divided like a crevasse the very people who, in unison, might have
contributed more than anything else to bring the war to a close. One must
not forget that among these refugees who poisoned the minds of their
neighbours with foundationless tales of horror, there were people who one
might have expected to display sound judgment in their appreciation of the
situation, and whose relatively long sojourn in South Africa entitled them
to be heard by those who found themselves for the first time in that
country. They were mostly men who could talk well, even eloquently; and they
discussed with such apparent knowledge all the circumstances which,
according to them, had brought about the war, that it was next to impossible
for the new-comers not to be impressed by their language—it seemed bubbling
over with the most intense patriotism.
The observer must take into account that among these
people there happened to be a good many who, as the war went on, enrolled
themselves in the various Volunteer Corps which were formed. These gave the
benefit of their experience to the British officers, who relied on the
knowledge and perception of their informants because of themselves,
especially during the first months which followed upon their landing, they
could not come to a clearly focused, impartial judgment of the difficulties
with which they found their efforts confronted. One must also remember that
these officers were mostly quite young men, full of enthusiasm, who flamed
up whenever the word rebellion was mentioned in their presence, and who,
having arrived in South Africa with the firm determination to win the war at
all costs, must not be blamed if in some cases they allowed their minds to
be poisoned by those who painted the plight of the country in such a
lugubrious tint. If, therefore, acts of what appeared to be cruelty were
committed by these officers, it would be very wrong to make them alone
responsible, because they were mostly done out of a spirit of self-defence
against an enemy whom they believed to be totally different from what he was
in reality, and who if only he had not been exasperated, would have proved
of better and healthier stuff than, superficially, his acts seemed to
indicate.
There was still another class of refugee, composed of
what I would call the rich elements of the Rand: the financiers, directors
of companies; managers and engineers of the different concerns to which
Kimberley and Johannesburg owed their celebrity. From the very first these
rightly weighed up the situation, and had been determined to secure all the
advantages which it held for anyone who gave himself the trouble to examine
it rationally. They came to Cape Town under the pretence of putting their
families out of harm's way, but in reality because they wanted to be able to
watch the development of the situation at its centre. They hired houses at
exorbitant prices in Cape Town itself, or the suburbs, and lived the same
kind of hospitable existence which had been theirs in Johannesburg. Their
intention was to be at hand at the settlement, to put in their word when the
question of the different financial interests with which they were connected
would crop up—as it was bound to do.
The well-to-do executive class forming the last group
had the greatest cause to feel alarmed at the consequences which might
follow upon the war. Although they hoped that they would be able to maintain
themselves on the Rand in the same important positions which they had
occupied previous to the war, yet they had enough common sense to understand
that they would not be allowed under a British administration the same free
hand that President Kruger had given, or which they had been able to obtain
from him by means of "refreshers" administered in some shape or other. It is
true that they had always the alternative of retiring from South Africa to
Park Lane, whence they would be able to astonish Society, but they preferred
to wait, in case the crash were still delayed for some little time.
The big houses, such as Wernher, Beit and Co.—the head
of which, at Johannesburg, was Mr. Fred Eckstein, a man of decided ability,
who perhaps was one of those in South Africa who had judged the situation
with accuracy—would have preferred to see the crisis delayed. Mr. Eckstein
and other leading people knew very well that sooner or later the Transvaal
was bound to fall to England, and they would have felt quite content to wait
quietly until this event had been accomplished as a matter of course, by the
force of circumstances, without violence. President Kruger was such an old
man that one could, in a certain sense, discuss the consequences which his
demise was bound to bring to South Africa. There was no real necessity to
hurry on events, nor would they have been hurried had it not been for the
efforts of the Rhodesians, whose complaints had had more than anything else
to do with the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference, and all that followed
upon that regrettable incident. It was the Rhodesians, and not the big
houses of the Rand, who were most eager for the war.
The exploitation of Rhodesia, the principal aim of
which was the foundation of another Kimberley, had turned out to be a
disappointment in that respect, and there remained nothing but making the
best of it, particularly as countless companies had been formed all with a
distinctly mineral character to their prospectuses. Now, if the Rand, with
all its wealth and its still unexplored treasures, became an appanage of
Kimberley, it would be relatively easy to effect an amalgamation between
gold and diamond mines, which existed there, and the Rhodesian companies.
Under these conditions it was but natural that despite an intelligent
comprehension of the situation, Sir Alfred Milner was nevertheless unable to
push forward his own plans in regard to the Transvaal and its aged
President, Mr. Kruger.
The misfortune of the whole situation, as I have
already pointed out, was that the men who had attempted to play a high game
of politics, in reality understood very little about them, and that instead
of thinking of the interests of the Empire to which they professed
themselves to be so deeply attached, they thought in terms of their personal
outlook. Rhodes alone of those not in official position saw the ultimate aim
of all these entangled politics. But unfortunately, though he had the
capacities and experience of a statesman, he was not a patient man; indeed,
throughout his life he had acted like a big spoiled child, to whom must be
given at once whatever he desires. Too often he acted in the present,
marring the future by thinking only of the immediate success of his plans,
and brutally starting to work, regardless of consequences and of his
personal reputation. Though his soul was essentially that of a financier and
he would ride rough-shod over those who conducted their business affairs by
gentler methods, yet at the same time, by a kind of curious contrast, he was
always ready, nay, eager, to come to the material help of his
neighbour—maybe out of affection for him; maybe out of that special sort of
contempt which makes one sometimes throw a bone to a starving dog one has
never seen before. The greatest misfortune in Rhodes' life was his faculty,
too often applied upon occasions when it were best suppressed, of seeing the
mean and sordid aspects of an action, and of imagining that every man could
be bought, provided one knew the price. He was so entirely convinced of this
latter fact that it always caused him a kind of impatience he did not even
give himself the trouble to dissimulate, to find that he had been mistaken.
This happened to him once or twice in the course of his career.
The English party in the Colony regretted until the end
of Rhodes' life the strange aberration that allowed the Raid, and made him
sacrifice his reputation for the sake of hastening an event which, without
his interference, would almost surely soon have come to pass. The salient
feature of the Raid was its terrible stupidity; in that respect it was worse
than a crime, for crime is forgotten, but nothing can efface from the memory
of the world or the condemnation of history a colossally stupid political
blunder.
After the foolish attempt to seize hold of their
country, the Boers distrusted British honour and British integrity; and
doubting the word or promises of England, they made her responsible for this
mistake of Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes, however, refused to recognise the sad fact.
The big magnates of Johannesburg said that the wisest thing Rhodes could
have done at this critical juncture would have been to go to Europe, there
to remain until after the war, thus dissociating himself from the whole
question of the settlement, instead of intriguing to be entrusted with it.
The fact of Cecil Rhodes' absence would have cleared
the whole situation, relieved Sir Alfred Milner, and given to the Boers a
kind of political and financial security that peace would not be subject to
the ambitions and prejudices of their enemies, but concluded with a view to
the general interests of the country.
