| Schreiner | W P | | | Mr Schreiner, son of a Lutheran missionary and an English lady, was born in 1859. He was the brother of Miss Olive Schreiner (Mrs Cronwright) the authoress whose anti-British proclivities are well known. Mr Schreiner was educated in England, was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1882, and on his return to the Cape engaged in politics and became Mr Rhodes' Attorney-General. In 1898 he became Premier, but his sympathies were not with the British, and his attitude caused him to be described as "the pro-Boer Premier of an Africander Government”. He was married to the sister of Mr Reitz, formerly President of the Orange Free State. Born in the Wittebergen Native Reserve, new part of the Herschcl District of the Cape Colony, in 1857. He is the youngest son of Reverend Gottlieb Schreiner, a German missionary of the LMS, and brother of the celebrated South African novelist, Olive Schreiner, now Mrs Cronwright Schreiner . Mr Schreiner received his preliminary education at Healdtown, in the Fort Beaufort District, Cradock, Bedford, and Grahamstown, proceeding thence to the Universities of Cape Town, Cambridge, and London, where he distinguished himself in scholarly attainments. He took a Senior in Law Tripos and the Chancellor's Legal Medal in 1881 and was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in the following year, when he was also admitted an Advocate of the Supreme Court of the Cape Colony. In 1885, he was appointed Parliamentary Draughtsman; became Legal Adviser to the High Commissioner in 1887, filling this appointment until 1893, when he joined Cecil Rhodes' second Ministry as Attorney General, having in that year been elected as member for Kimberley in the Cape House of Assembly. He resigned the Attorney Generalship later in 1893; was elected member for Barkly West by the aid of the Bond vote in 1894, and again became Attorney General in Sep of that year. His relations with Mr Rhodes, which had been for many years of a cordial nature, were reluctantly broken off by the Jameson Raid, and he left the Cabinet, declining to accept the same portfolio in the new Ministry under Sir Gordon Sprigg. He became, however, Premier in 1898, retaining that position until June, 1900, the country receiving, under his Premiership, its first taste of Bond rule. How disastrous it proved to the Colony and all South Africa during those two years history painfully records. In the general election in Feb, 1904, rejected by his Bond friends, he failed to be re-elected to the House of Assembly, and he has since given up the idea of re-seeking election, on the grounds that the party organisation is rigidly on racial lines, and he cannot honestly pledge himself to either party, or feel confidence in their leaders. A South African to his heart's core, honest in his own views; and of an unsuspecting nature, he probably believed unreservedly in the integrity of those who used him, until he found how not only the members of his Cabinet were betraying his confidence, but his trusted friend, the President of the OFS, was deliberately contriving the ruin of the Colony. To his own want of suspicion of the motives of those around him is traceable the odium which followed his action—or inaction—at critical moments. He blindly dismissed the possibility of invasion, until his brother-in-law, ex-President Reitz, and his friend President Steyn rudely awakened him to the reality, and their burghers were within the Cape Colonial border. Duped on all sides from within and without, and nauseated by the Afrikander Party, Mr Schreiner resolutely retired from the political arena. To the student of South African politics, it has not always been clear whether Mr Schreiner's attitude was pro-Boer or pro-British. His tendency seemed to waver between the two extremes. Without being an actual member of the Afrikander Bond, he has on occasions been a supporter of and supported by that organisation; in fact, he has in some quarters been suspected of an inclination to follow the extremists in their desire to constitute South Africa an in dependent Republic. However that may be, it may be said that during his Premiership he neither prevented nor promoted the Boer War, though a strong man in his official position might possibly have done either He is said to have resisted British measures of coercion, and to have given no encouragement to anti-British aims. He neither stopped arms going into the Transvaal through Cape Colony, nor permitted an early organised defence of Kimberley and the Cape Colonial frontier, nor did he, by a display of resolution, appear to aim at convincing President Kruger that the Colony would tolerate no disloyal actions on the part of British subjects in the event of his issuing an ultimatum. In short, his halting methods of conciliation in the prewar period stood a very good chance of being misinterpreted by a large section of the British. Generally, he is looked upon as a man of high attainments and character (somewhat hampered as a politician by a crossbench habit of mind), with a racial bias towards the Dutch propaganda, and an intellectual sympathy with British methods and characteristics. Mr Schreiner has been delegated at various times to conferences between South African Govts.; was a member of the Jameson Raid Committee, and gave evidence before the BSA Committee of the House of Commons in 1897: He is a man of the keenest intellect, of brilliant parts, a practised speaker, and a successful lawyer. In fact, he is far better adapted to the business of the Bar and Beech than to the polemics and anxieties of administration. For the former nature and training have admirably qualified him, but for the latter he has neither temper nor tact. As a lawyer he conducted his cases with judicial discrimination, close argument, faultless logic, rich illustration and convincing clearness. Mr Schreiner combines a pleasing appearance with a charming personality, and is persona grata with all who know him, however they may differ from him politically. He is married to a sister of Mr Frank William Reitz , ex-President of the Orange Free State. | Unknown |
