Chapter IV: Under Which Flag? (1)

Upon his return Lord Milner found that the storm clouds had gathered in the Transvaal. In a despatch of January 13th, 1899, Mr. Chamberlain had informed the Pretoria Executive that the proposed extension of the dynamite contract in its new form (_i.e._ as, in effect, a "privileged importation by one firm," although nominally "a State undertaking") was held by the law officers of the Crown to be as much a violation of the Convention as the original monopoly, which had been cancelled on the representations of the Imperial Government in 1892. Mr. Reitz's reply, which Lord Milner transmitted to the Colonial Office not long after his arrival at Capetown, was a blunt assertion that, in the opinion of his Government, the Imperial Government had no right to interfere. But in the meantime the whole question of the position of the British residents in the Transvaal had been raised directly by the agitation which had arisen out of the shooting of Edgar at Johannesburg on December 18th, 1898.[50] This event was followed by the petition for protection, which Sir William Butler (who was General-in-Command, and during Lord Milner's absence Acting High Commissioner) refused to transmit to the Secretary of State (January 4th, 1899); by the arrest of Messrs. Webb and Dodd and the breaking up of the Amphitheatre meeting (January 14th); by the attempt of the Pretoria Executive to buy off the capitalists (February 27th-April 14th); by the presentation of the second petition to the Queen (March 24th); by the agitation on the Rand in favour of the reforms for which it prayed; and lastly by the public meetings held in the Cape Colony and Natal for, and against, the intervention of the Imperial Government.[51]

[Footnote 50: "On the Sunday night before Christmas, a
British subject named Tom Jackson Edgar was shot dead in his
own house by a Boer policeman. Edgar, who was a man of
singularly fine physique, and both able and accustomed to
take care of himself, was returning home at about midnight,
when one of three men standing by, who, as it afterwards
transpired, was both ill and intoxicated, made an offensive
remark. Edgar resented it with a blow which dropped the other
insensible to the ground. The man's friends called for the
police, and Edgar, meanwhile, entered his own house a few
yards off. There was no attempt at concealment or escape;
Edgar was an old resident and perfectly well known. Four
policemen came.... The fact, however, upon which all
witnesses agree is that, as the police burst open the door,
Constable Jones [there are scores of Boers unable to speak a
word of English who, nevertheless, own very characteristic
English, Scotch, and Irish names] fired at Edgar and dropped
him dead in the arms of his wife, who was standing in the
passage a foot or so behind him."--FITZPATRICK'S _The
Transvaal from Within_.]

[Footnote 51: For particulars of these events the reader is
referred to _The Transvaal from Within_.]

[Sidenote: The Uitlanders' petition.]

Within three months of his return Lord Milner cabled the masterly statement in which he endorsed the petition of the Uitlanders[52] with the memorable words: "The case for intervention is overwhelming." Like the Graaf Reinet speech, this despatch of May 4th was written at white heat, but the opinions which it expressed were in no less a degree the mature and measured judgments of a mind fully informed upon every detail germane to the issue. So much is this the fact that all that is essential for the full comprehension of the second Reform Movement at Johannesburg--the salient features of which have been outlined above--is to be found within the limits of this brief and notable State document:

[Footnote 52: The petition, with its 21,684 signatures,
reached Lord Milner through Sir W. (then Mr.) Greene, the
British Agent at Pretoria, on March 27th. It was forwarded by
the High Commissioner to England in the mail of March 29th.
The same ship, the _Carisbrook Castle_, carried Dr. Leyds,
who was returning to Europe after a visit to Pretoria. Sir W.
Greene had returned to South Africa in the same ship with
Lord Milner (February 14th), and had stayed at Government
Cottage (Newlands) with him for some days, discussing
Transvaal matters, before proceeding to Pretoria on February
19th.]

[Sidenote: The intervention despatch.]

"Having regard to the critical character of the South African
situation and the likelihood of an early reply by Her Majesty's
Government to the Petition, I am telegraphing remarks which under
ordinary circumstances I should have made by despatch. Events of
importance have followed so fast on each other since my return to
South Africa, and my time has been so occupied in dealing with
each incident severally, that I have had no time for reviewing
the whole position.

"The present crisis undoubtedly arises out of the Edgar incident.
But that incident merely precipitated a struggle which was
certain to come. It is possible to make too much of the killing
of Edgar. It was a shocking and, in my judgment, a criminal
blunder, such as would have caused a popular outcry anywhere. It
was made much worse by the light way in which it was first dealt
with by the Public Prosecutor and then by the judge at the
trial. By itself, however, it would not have justified, nor, in
fact, provoked the present storm. But it happened to touch a
particularly sore place. There is no grievance which rankles more
in the breasts of the Uitlander population than the conduct of
the police, who, while they have proved singularly incompetent to
deal with gross scandals like the illicit liquor trade, are harsh
and arbitrary in their treatment of individuals whom they happen
to dislike, as must have become evident to you from the recurrent
ill-treatment of coloured people. There are absolutely no grounds
for supposing that the excitement which the death of Edgar caused
was factitious. It has been laid to the door of the South African
League, but the officials of the League were forced into action
by Edgar's fellow-workmen. And, the consideration of grievances
once started by the police grievance, it was inevitable that the
smouldering but profound discontent of the population who
constantly find their affairs mismanaged, their protests
disregarded, and their attitude misunderstood, by a Government on
which they have absolutely no means of exercising any influence,
should once more break into flame.

"We have, therefore, simply to deal with a popular movement of a
similar kind to that of 1894 and 1895 before it was perverted and
ruined by a conspiracy of which the great body of the Uitlanders
were totally innocent. None of the grievances then complained of,
and which then excited universal sympathy, have been remedied,
and others have been added. The case is much stronger. It is
impossible to overlook the tremendous change for the worse, which
has been effected by the lowering of the status of the High Court
of Judicature and by the establishment of the principle embodied
in the new draft Grondwet that any resolution of the Volksraad
is equivalent to a law. The instability of the laws has always
been one of the most serious grievances. The new Constitution
provides for their permanent instability, the judges being bound
by their oath to accept every Volksraad resolution as equally
binding with a law passed in the regular form, and with the
provisions of the Constitution itself. The law prescribing this
oath is one of which the present Chief Justice said that no
self-respecting man could sit on the Bench while it was on the
Statute Book. Formerly the foreign population, however bitterly
they might resent the action of the Legislature and of the
Administration, had yet confidence in the High Court of
Judicature. It cannot be expected that they should feel the same
confidence to-day. Seeing no hope in any other quarter, a number
of Uitlanders who happen to be British subjects have addressed a
petition to Her Majesty the Queen. I have already expressed my
opinion of its substantial genuineness and the absolute _bona
fides_ of its promoters. But the petition is only one proof among
many of the profound discontent of the unenfranchised population,
who are a great majority of the white inhabitants of the State."

"The public meeting of the 14th January was indeed broken up by
workmen, many of them poor burghers, in the employment of the
Government and instigated by Government officials, and it is
impossible at present to hold another meeting of a great size.
Open-air meetings are prohibited by law, and by one means or
another all large public buildings have been rendered
unavailable. But smaller meetings are being held almost nightly
along the Rand, and are unanimous in their demand for
enfranchisement. The movement is steadily growing in force and
extent.

[Sidenote: The movement not artificial.]

"With regard to the attempt to represent that movement as
artificial, the work of scheming capitalists or professional
agitators, I regard it as a wilful perversion of the truth. The
defenceless people who are clamouring for a redress of grievances
are doing so at great personal risk. It is notorious that many
capitalists regard political agitation with disfavour because of
its effect on the markets. It is equally notorious that the
lowest class of Uitlanders, and especially the illicit liquor
dealers, have no sympathy whatever with the cause of reform.
Moreover, there are in all classes a considerable number who only
want to make money and clear out, and who, while possibly
sympathising with reform, feel no great interest in a matter
which may only concern them temporarily. But a very large and
constantly increasing proportion of the Uitlanders are not birds
of passage; they contemplate a long residence in the country, or
to make it their permanent home. These people are the mainstay of
the reform movement as they are of the prosperity of the country.
They would make excellent citizens if they had the chance.

"A busy industrial community is not naturally prone to political
unrest. But they bear the chief burden of taxation; they
constantly feel in their business and daily lives the effects of
chaotic local legislation and of incompetent and unsympathetic
administration; they have many grievances, but they believe all
these could gradually be removed if they had only a fair share of
political power. This is the meaning of their vehement demand for
enfranchisement. Moreover, they are mostly British subjects,
accustomed to a free system and equal rights; they feel deeply
the personal indignity involved in a position of permanent
subjection to the ruling caste, which owes its wealth and power
to their exertion. The political turmoil in the Transvaal
Republic will never end till the permanent Uitlander population
is admitted to a share in the government, and while that turmoil
lasts there will be no tranquillity or adequate progress in Her
Majesty's South African dominions.

"The relations between the British Colonies and the two Republics
are intimate to a degree which one must live in South Africa in
order fully to realise. Socially, economically, ethnologically,
they are all one country. The two principal white races are
everywhere inextricably mixed up; it is absurd for either to
dream of subjugating the other. The only condition on which they
can live in harmony, and the country progress, is equality all
round. South Africa can prosper under two, three, or six
Governments; but not under two absolutely conflicting social and
political systems--perfect equality for Dutch and British in the
British Colonies side by side with the permanent subjection of
the British to the Dutch in one of the Republics. It is idle to
talk of peace and unity under such a state of affairs.

"It is this which makes the internal condition of the Transvaal
Republic a matter of vital interest to Her Majesty's Government.
No merely local question affects so deeply the welfare and peace
of her own South African possessions. And the right of Great
Britain to intervene to secure fair treatment to the Uitlanders
is fully equal to her supreme interest in securing it. The
majority of them are her subjects, whom she is bound to protect.
But the enormous number of British subjects, the endless series
of their grievances, and the nature of those grievances, which
are not less serious because they are not individually
sensational, makes protection by the ordinary diplomatic means
impossible. We are, as you know, for ever remonstrating about
this, that, and the other injury to British subjects. Only in
rare cases, and only when we are very emphatic, do we obtain any
redress. The sore between us and the Transvaal Republic is thus
inevitably kept up, while the result in the way of protection to
our subjects is lamentably small. For these reasons it has been,
as you know, my constant endeavour to reduce the number of our
complaints. I may sometimes have abstained when I ought to have
protested from my great dislike of ineffectual nagging. But I
feel that the attempt to remedy the hundred-and-one wrongs
springing from a hopeless system by taking up isolated cases, is
perfectly vain. It may easily lead to war, but will never lead to
real improvement."

[Sidenote: Enfranchisement the remedy.]

"The true remedy is to strike at the root of all these
injuries--the political impotence of the injured. What diplomatic
protests will never accomplish, a fair measure of Uitlander
representation would gradually but surely bring about. It seems a
paradox, but it is true, that the only effective way of
protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our
subjects. The admission of the Uitlanders to a fair share of
political power would no doubt give stability to the Republic.
But it would, at the same time, remove most of our causes of
difference with it, and modify and, in the long run, entirely
remove that intense suspicion and bitter hostility to Great
Britain which at present dominates its internal and external
policy.

"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, and the respect for the British Government within
the Queen's dominions. A certain 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 the
British Government, is producing a great effect upon 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 peacefully disposed, and, if left alone,
perfectly satisfied with their position as British subjects, are
being drawn into disaffection, and there is a corresponding
exasperation on the side 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. And the best proof alike of its power and its justice
would be to obtain for the Uitlanders in the Transvaal a fair
share in the government of the country which owes everything to
their exertions. It could be made perfectly clear that our
action was not directed against the existence of the Republic. We
should only be demanding the re-establishment of rights which now
exist in the Orange Free State, and which existed in the
Transvaal itself at the time of, and long after, the withdrawal
of British sovereignty. It would be no selfish demand, as other
Uitlanders besides those of British birth would benefit by it. It
is asking for nothing from others which we do not give ourselves.
And it would certainly go to the root of the political unrest in
South Africa, and, though temporarily it might aggravate, it
would ultimately extinguish the race feud, which is the great
bane of the country."[53]

[Footnote 53: C. 9,345.]

It was Lord Milner's intention that the text of this despatch should have been made public upon its receipt in England. It contained the essential facts of the South African situation; and, what is more, it exhibited with perfect frankness the connection between Dutch ascendancy in the Cape Colony and Dutch tyranny in the Transvaal--a matter which was very imperfectly understood. The circumstance that these essential facts were before the British people, and, moreover, the circumstance that President Krueger knew that they were before the British people, would, he believed, greatly increase the effect of the strong demand for reforms which the Imperial Government had determined to address to the Pretoria Executive in response to the petition to the Queen.

[Sidenote: Hofmeyr's intervention.]

Nor was he alone in this opinion. Mr. Hofmeyr knew that a despatch of grave importance had gone home. He had gathered, no doubt, a fairly accurate notion of its tenor from Mr. Schreiner, whom Lord Milner had warned some time before of "the gravity of the situation."[54] It is not going beyond the limits of probability to assume that the Master of the Bond realised the effect which the publication of these plain truths, backed by the authority of the High Commissioner, would produce upon the mind of the English people, and that he thereupon determined to take steps to prevent a turn of affairs which, as he conceived, would be most unfavourable to the nationalist cause. Surmises apart, it is certain, at least, that five days sufficed to place Mr. Hofmeyr in a position to ask Lord Milner if he would favourably consider an invitation to meet President Krueger in conference at Bloemfontein; and that within three days more (May 12th) a definite proposal to this effect had been made through the agency of President Steyn and accepted by Mr. Chamberlain. Nor, is it any less certain that, in view of the friendly discussion which was to take place so soon, the Secretary of State decided to postpone the publication of Lord Milner's despatch. This is the short history of the Bloemfontein Conference. It was a counter-stroke dealt by one of those "formidable personalities" of which Mr. Asquith spoke, and in all respects worthy of Mr. Hofmeyr's statesmanship. Indeed, the methods which he employed for paralysing the machinery of British administration in South Africa were always subtle: infinitely more subtle than those which Parnell adopted in the not very dissimilar circumstances of the Home Rule campaign.

[Footnote 54: C. 9,345. See forward, p. 155.]

The decision to postpone the publication of Lord Milner's despatch of May 4th was a serious mistake, the injurious effect of which was felt both at the Conference and afterwards. But before we observe the incidents by which this central event was immediately preceded, it is necessary to examine more fully the political environment in which Lord Milner found himself established now that the April elections[55] had given the Afrikander party an assured tenure of power, and, at the same time, the moment had arrived for the Imperial Government to fulfil the pledge given on February 4th, 1896, for the redress of the "admitted grievances" of the Uitlanders.

[Footnote 55: See p. 125.]

[Sidenote: The Bond and the ministry.]

The Schreiner Ministry was the agent of the Bond; it could not exist for a day if the Bond withdrew its support. The Bond majority in the Legislative Assembly had been returned by the Dutch inhabitants of the Colony for the avowed purpose of preventing the intervention of the Imperial Government in the affairs of the Transvaal. The Ministry and its supporters had begun by ranging themselves definitely on the side of the Transvaal. And, therefore, in all that was done by either party from the Bloemfontein Conference to the Ultimatum, it followed, _ex hypothesi_, that, in their opinion, the Transvaal was right, and England was wrong. Twice, as we shall see, Mr. Schreiner, on behalf of the Cape Ministry, hastened to declare publicly that the proposals of the Transvaal were all that was satisfactory, before he even knew what those proposals were. The Cape nationalists represented themselves as "mediators." They had as little intention of mediating between the Pretoria Executive and the British Government as a barrister, heavily feed and primed with his client's case, has of mediating between his client and his client's opponent at the hearing of a case in court.

But the Bond was "loyal." The Bond members of the Cabinet--T. Nicholas German Te Water, and Albertus Johannes Herholdt, no less than William Philip Schreiner, John Xavier Merriman, Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer, and Richard Solomon--had sworn, upon taking office, "to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty."

[Sidenote: The Schreiner ministry.]

The situation in which Lord Milner now found himself was thus one of so extraordinary a character that it would be difficult to find a parallel to it in the annals of our colonial administration. As High Commissioner, he had advocated in the most emphatic terms the exercise of the authority of Great Britain, as paramount Power, in the Transvaal. As Governor of the Cape Colony, he was bound to administer the affairs of the Colony in accordance with the advice tendered by his ministers. And the advice which ministers were pledged to give him was the direct opposite of that which he himself, as High Commissioner, had given to the Imperial Government. To dismiss his ministers--the alternative to accepting this advice--would have been an extreme measure, to be justified only upon clear evidence that they had failed in the duty which they, no less than he himself, owed to the Crown. Whether Mr. Schreiner's Cabinet did so fail is a matter that the reader must determine for himself; possibly it would be difficult to show that, collectively or individually, the Cape ministers did anything more injurious to British interests than was done by the Liberal Opposition--again collectively or individually--in England. One thing is certain: the action of the Afrikander Cabinet, whether within or beyond the letter of its allegiance, lessened--and was intended to lessen--the force of an effort on the part of the Imperial Government, which might otherwise have averted the necessity for war.

And here certain questions which will arise inevitably to the mind that pursues the narrative of the next few months, must be anticipated. What was the position of Mr. Schreiner? What was his real standpoint, and what was his relationship to Lord Milner? How was it that two Englishmen, Mr. Merriman and Sir (then Mr.) Richard Solomon, came to be in this Afrikander Cabinet, and what were their respective motives in thus associating themselves with the objects of the Bond?

[Sidenote: The prime minister.]

Mr. Philip Schreiner was the son of a German by birth, a missionary of the London Missionary Society, who had married an Englishwoman, and afterwards settled in the Orange Free State. He had himself married a sister of Mr. F. W. Reitz, formerly President of the Free State, and now State Secretary of the South African Republic. The Schreiner family was remarkable for intellectual power. Of his sisters one is the authoress of _The Story of an African Farm_, and a second, Mrs. Lewis, like her brother Theophilus, was an active Imperialist and a determined opponent of the Bond. Mr. Schreiner himself was educated at the South African College at Capetown, and subsequently at Cambridge, where he was placed first in the First Class of the Law Tripos, and afterwards elected a Fellow of Downing. After a successful career at the Cape Bar he was appointed Attorney-General in Mr. Rhodes's Ministry, a position which he held at the time of the Raid. He was prevented by his strong disapproval of the part then played by Mr. Rhodes from joining the Progressive party; and, having accepted the position of Parliamentary leader of the Bond, he had become, as we have seen, Prime Minister through the Bond victory in the Cape General Election of 1898. It is characteristic alike of Mr. Schreiner and of his political position that the only word of sympathy with the British connection, uttered from first to last during this election by the Bond candidates or their supporters, was the conventional reference to the greatness of the British Empire which, as we have noticed, occurred in his address to the electors of Malmesbury. With these political and social ties, Mr. Schreiner was compelled to be a South African first and a British subject second. His is precisely the kind of case where true allegiance can be expected only when a federal constitution has been created for the Empire.

"See," said Lord Milner, in his farewell speech at Johannesburg,
"how such a consummation would solve, and, indeed, can alone
solve, the most difficult and most persistent of the problems of
South Africa; how it would unite its white races as nothing else
can. The Dutch can never own a perfect allegiance merely to Great
Britain. The British can never, without moral injury, accept
allegiance to any body politic which excludes their motherland.
But British and Dutch alike could, without loss of integrity,
without any sacrifice of their several traditions, unite in loyal
devotion to an empire-state, in which Great Britain and South
Africa would be partners, and could work cordially together for
the good of South Africa as a member of that greater whole."[56]

[Footnote 56: _The Johannesburg Star_, April 1st, 1905.]

With Schreiner, and such as he, loyalty to the Crown was for the moment the product of intellectual judgment or considerations of policy. All, or almost all, the instinctive feelings, born of pleasant associations with persons and places, which enter so largely into the sentiment of patriotism seem to have drawn him, as they drew his sister, Mrs. Cronwright-Schreiner, into sympathy with the cause of Afrikander nationalism. What his view was upon the particular issue now agitating South Africa may be gathered from an answer which he gave to a question put to him by Mr. Chamberlain in the course of the inquiry into the Raid (1897):

MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I suppose your view is that the Imperial
Government should adopt the same policy as the Cape Government,
and should refrain from even friendly representations as not
being calculated to advance the cause of the Uitlanders?

MR. SCHREINER: Yes, decidedly, so far as purely internal concerns
are concerned.[57]

[Footnote 57: Proceedings of the Select Committee on British
South Africa (Q. 4,385).]

In other words, Mr. Schreiner was a consistent and convinced opponent of Imperial intervention. But there was a difference between his motive and that of the Bond leaders. Schreiner desired to prevent intervention, not because he did not recognise the justice of the claims of the Uitlanders, but because he believed that the Imperial Government was devoid of any right to intervene under the Conventions; while, at the same time, his instinctive sympathy with the Afrikander nationalists made him blind to the existence of any moral right of interference that England might possess, as the Power responsible for the well-being of South Africa as a whole. And so, partly by force of environment and partly by a narrow and erroneous interpretation of the principles of international law,[58] the Boer and Hollander oligarchy in the Transvaal, with all its moral obliquity and administrative incompetence, had become, as it were, a thing sacrosanct in his eyes. Mr. Hofmeyr and the Bond leaders, on the other hand, desired to prevent intervention because they were perfectly satisfied to see the British Uitlanders in a position of political inferiority, and perfectly content with the whole situation, the continuance of which, as they knew, was directly calculated to bring about the supremacy of the Dutch race in South Africa. Therefore Hofmeyr made no effort to improve the state of affairs in the Transvaal until he saw the storm bursting. And when, at a later stage, he set himself to work in earnest to induce President Krueger to grant reforms, he did so to save the cause of Afrikander nationalism and not to assist the British Government in winning justice for the Uitlanders.

[Footnote 58: For the position of Great Britain from the
point of view of international law see some remarks in the
note on page 580 (Chapter XII.).]

[Sidenote: Sir Richard Solomon.]

Sir Richard Solomon, who was a nephew of Saul Solomon, the prominent radical politician chiefly instrumental in carrying the vote for Responsible Government through the Legislative Council of the Cape Colony (1872), was the leader of the Bar at Kimberley. His presence, at first sight, formed a wholly incongruous element in such a ministry. On the native question, in his fiscal views, as a supporter of the Redistribution Bill, and in his sympathy with the Uitlanders, he was in direct conflict with the characteristic principles of the Bond. His one link with the Afrikander party was his distrust of Rhodes; and in view of his unquestioned loyalty to the British connection, his decision to join the Schreiner Ministry is probably to be attributed to his personal friendship for the Prime Minister. On the other hand, his ability, detachment from local parties, and the respect which he commanded, made him a valuable asset to Mr. Schreiner.

[Sidenote: Messrs. Merriman and Sauer.]

Mr. Merriman, whose close political associate was Mr. Sauer, had twice held office under Mr. Rhodes (1890-96); but his separation from Rhodes, consequent upon the Raid, had thrown him into the arms of the Bond. Some of the more striking incidents in Mr. Merriman's political career have been already mentioned.[59] Fifteen years ago more Imperialist than Rhodes, he was soon to show himself more Bondsman than the Bond. Once the resolute, almost inspired, castigator of the separatist aims of that organisation, he was now in close and sympathetic association with the leaders of Afrikander nationalism in the Republics and the Cape Colony. The denunciations of "capitalism" and "capitalists" with which he now regaled his Afrikander allies, had an ill savour in the mouth of the man who had tried to amalgamate the Diamond Mines at Kimberley--failing where Rhodes and Beit afterwards succeeded--and who, attracted by the magnet of gold discovery, for a short time had acted as manager of the Langlaagte Estate and Mr. J. B. Robinson's interests at Johannesburg. With political principles thus unstable and a mind strangely sensitive to any emotional appeal, it is not surprising that Mr. Merriman displayed the proverbial enthusiasm of the convert in his new political creed. His original perception of the imprudence and administrative incompetency of President Krueger's _regime_ was rapidly obliterated by a growing partizanship, which in turn gave place to an unreasoning sympathy with the Boer cause, combined with a bitter antipathy against all who were concerned, whether in a civil or military capacity, in giving effect to the intervention of the Imperial Government on behalf of the British industrial community in the Transvaal. Mr. J. W. Sauer was destined to exhibit his political convictions in a manner so demonstrative that his words and acts, as recorded in the sequel, will leave the reader in no doubt as to the reality of his sympathy with the Boer and Afrikander cause. For the moment, therefore, it is sufficient to notice that, although he shared Mr. Merriman's present abhorrence of "capitalism" and "capitalists," he was for many years of his life a promoter and director of mining and other companies.

[Footnote 59: See pp. 61, 69, and 93.]

Of the two Bondsmen in the Cabinet, Mr. Herholdt was a member of the Legislative Council, and a Dutch farmer of moderate views and good repute; while Dr. Te Water was the friend and confidant of Mr. Hofmeyr, and, as such, the intermediary between the Bond and the Afrikander nationalists in the Free State and in the Transvaal.

The Schreiner Cabinet was the velvet glove which covered the mailed hand of Mr. Hofmeyr. Dr. Te Water had been Colonial Secretary in the Sprigg Ministry up to the crisis of May, 1898. He was now "minister without portfolio" in the Schreiner Ministry. His presence was the sign and instrument of the domination of the Bond; and the domination of the Bond was as yet the permanent and controlling factor in the administration of the Colony under Responsible Government. The fact that only two out of six members of the Ministry were Bondsmen, is to be referred to the circumstance that the actual business of administration had been hitherto mainly in the hands of a small group of British colonial politicians, who were prepared to bid against each other for the all-important support of the Dutch vote. With the majority of these men, to be in office was an object for the attainment of which they were prepared to make a considerable sacrifice in respect of their somewhat elastic political principles. The denial of political rights to the British population in the Transvaal, by threatening the maintenance of British supremacy in South Africa, had now for the first time created a British party in the Cape Colony--the Progressives--strong enough to act in independence of the Bond. The existence of this British party, not only free from the Bond, but determined (although it was in a minority) to challenge the Bond predominance, was a new phenomenon in Cape politics. In itself it constituted an appreciable improvement upon the previously existing state of affairs; since the British population was thus no longer hopelessly weakened by being divided into two parties of almost equal strength, nor were its leaders any longer obliged to subordinate their regard for British interests to the primary necessity of obtaining office by Bond support.

[Sidenote: Policy of the ministry.]

Mr. Schreiner's Ministry, however, in spite of a difference of motives on the part of its individual members, was unanimous in its desire to prevent that intervention of the Imperial Government for which, in Lord Milner's judgment, there was "overwhelming" necessity. The idea of inducing President Krueger to grant such a "colourable measure of reform"[60] as would satisfy the Imperial Government, or at least deprive it of any justification for interference by force of arms, was in contemplation some months before the Bloemfontein Conference took place. On January 1st, 1899, Mr. Merriman wrote to President Steyn with this object in view. "Is there no opportunity," he said,[61] "of bringing about a _rapprochement_ between us, in which the Free State might play the part of honest broker? We, _i.e._, the Colony and Free State, have common material interests in our railway, apart from our anxiety to see the common welfare of South Africa increase from the removal of the one great cause of unrest and the pretext for outside interference."

[Footnote 60: Mr. Merriman's expression. See his letter to
Mr. Fischer at p. 161.]

[Footnote 61: Cd. 369.]

And Lord Milner, very soon after his return from England, was sounded by Mr. Schreiner as to the possibility of settling the franchise question by means of a South African Conference. Early in March--when Mr. Smuts was in Capetown, and the Pretoria Executive was engaged in the abortive attempt to separate the leaders of the mining industry from the rank and file of the Uitlander population by offering them certain fiscal and industrial reforms, if only they would undertake to discourage the agitation for political rights--the same subject was brought before the High Commissioner by Mr. Merriman himself. In pursuance of the real purpose of the Afrikander Ministry--_i.e._ to obtain a fictitious concession from President Krueger, instead of the "fair share in the government of the country" required by the Imperial Government--it was proposed originally to exclude Lord Milner altogether from the negotiations by arranging that the Transvaal Government should bring forward proposals for reform at an inter-State Conference consisting of representatives of the governments of the two Republics and the self-governing British Colonies. But Lord Milner was, happily, High Commissioner as well as Governor of the Cape. As High Commissioner, he declared that at any such Conference the Imperial Government must be separately represented. Neither the Transvaal nor the Free State was willing to enter a Conference on these terms, although they were acceptable to the Cape Government; and the plan fell to the ground.

It was then that Mr. Hofmeyr intervened, in view of Lord Milner's despatch of May 4th; and President Steyn, persuaded with dramatic swiftness to accept the role of peace-maker, which his predecessor, Sir John Brand, had played with such success in 1881, secured the grudging consent of President Krueger to meet the High Commissioner at Bloemfontein.

[Sidenote: Hofmeyr's _tour de force_.]

The incidents which led to the accomplishment of Hofmeyr's _tour de force_ are singularly instructive. Lord Milner's despatch was telegraphed from Capetown about midday on May 4th. It was soon apparent that there was a leakage, legitimate or illegitimate, from the Colonial Office. On Saturday, the 6th, Mr. Schreiner received warning telegrams from trusted sources in London, including "Hofmeyr's best friends"; and on this day he wrote a letter to President Steyn containing a "proposition" of so confidential a character that it could not be telegraphed in spite of the urgent need of haste.[62] On Monday, the 8th, Mr. Schreiner received more warning telegrams, and Dr. Te Water, in writing to President Steyn, expressed his hope that the proposition, made by Schreiner in his letter of Saturday, might by this time "have been accepted, or that something had been done which would achieve the same purpose."[63] On the same day the Cape papers published an alarming telegram reproducing from _The Daily Chronicle_[64] a statement that the South African situation was very serious, and that the British Government was prepared to "take some risk of war." On Tuesday, the 9th, Lord Milner was present at a dinner given by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly; and Mr. Hofmeyr, who was among the guests, in the course of a long conversation with him after dinner, broached the idea of his meeting President Krueger at Bloemfontein. On Wednesday, the 10th, Lord Milner sent for Mr. Hofmeyr and discussed the subject more at length; and, a little later, when he had gone to the Governor's Office, Mr. Schreiner came in with a telegram from President Steyn, in which the Cape Prime Minister was requested to ascertain formally whether the High Commissioner would be willing to accept an invitation to meet President Krueger. This telegram Lord Milner forwarded to Mr. Chamberlain, adding that the Cape Cabinet was "strongly" in favour of acceptance, and that Schreiner himself had declared that the invitation was the result of the "influence which he (Schreiner) had been using with the Transvaal Government ever since I had warned him of the gravity of the situation."[65] Mr. Chamberlain's reply (May 12th), authorised Lord Milner to accept President Steyn's invitation, and in doing so, to state that a despatch was already on its way which contained a similar proposal made by the Imperial Government--

[Footnote 62: Letter of Te Water to Steyn. See forward, p.
162, where this letter is given.]

[Footnote 63: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 64: Then under the editorship of Mr. Massingham.]

[Footnote 65: C. 9,345.]

[Sidenote: The conference arranged.]

"in the hope that, in concert with the President, you may arrive
at such an arrangement as Her Majesty's Government could accept
and recommend to the Uitlander population as a reasonable
concession to their just demands and a settlement of the
difficulties which have threatened the good relations"

between the two Governments. This was the famous despatch of May 10th, in which Mr. Chamberlain reviewed carefully and exhaustively the whole situation as between the Transvaal and the Imperial Government, and formally accepted the Uitlanders' Petition to the Queen. It was not published until June 14th, _i.e._, after the Bloemfontein Conference had been held. It was then issued, together with Lord Milner's despatch of May 4th, in a Blue-book containing the complete record of all discussions of Transvaal affairs subsequent to Lord Milner's appointment.

In the course of the next few days communications passed rapidly between Lord Milner, Mr. Chamberlain, President Steyn, and President Krueger, with the result that, on May 18th, President Steyn's invitation was formally accepted, and on the following day it was arranged that the Conference should begin on May 31st. Never was intervention more effective, or less obtrusive. Mr. Hofmeyr's part in the affair was confined apparently to an after-dinner conversation with the High Commissioner. Nor was the directing hand of the Master of the Bond revealed more fully until Lord Roberts's occupation of Bloemfontein placed the British authorities in possession of part of the communications which passed at this time, and during the four succeeding months, between the Cape nationalists and their republican confederates. And even in these documents Hofmeyr's name is rarely found at the end of a letter or telegram. It is Schreiner or Te Water who writes or telegraphs to Steyn or Fischer, adding sometimes, by way of emphasis, "Hofmeyr says" this or that. In the meantime (May 22nd), Lord Milner had telegraphed, for "an indication of the line" which Mr. Chamberlain wished him to take at the Conference. He himself suggested that the franchise question should be put in the foreground; since it would be useless to discuss other matters in dispute until a satisfactory settlement of this all-important question had been achieved. Mr. Chamberlain replied (May 24th), agreeing with the line indicated by Lord Milner:

"I think personally that you should lay all the stress," he
telegraphed, "on the question of the franchise in the first
instance. Other reforms are less pressing, and will come in time
if this can be arranged satisfactorily, and the form of oath
modified."

Mr. Chamberlain at the same time authorised Lord Milner to inform the Uitlander petitioners that they might rely upon obtaining the general sympathy of the Imperial Government in the prayers which they had addressed to the Queen.

[Sidenote: Motives of Afrikander leaders.]

There was no doubt in Lord Milner's mind as to the real motives which had prompted the Afrikander nationalist leaders to make this effort. They recognised at length that he was in earnest, and that Mr. Chamberlain was in earnest, and they desired, above all things, to avoid a crisis which would force a conflict before their ultimate plans had fully matured. Lord Milner knew that any delay which involved the continuance of the present position--a position which was one of moral superiority for the Dutch--would unite the whole of the Dutch, with a section of the British population, against Great Britain within a measurable period. He recognised that the franchise question was the one issue which could be raised between the paramount Power and the South African Republic in which the whole of the Cape Dutch would not throw in their lot bodily with their republican kinsmen. This very anxiety on the part of Mr. Hofmeyr to prevent the decisive action of the Imperial Government was evidence of the truth of his estimate. But as a response to the appeal of the Graaf Reinet speech, this Afrikander mediation came too late. "Hands off" the Transvaal was the first plank in the platform of the Schreiner Ministry; "reform" was a second and subsidiary plank, adopted in place of the first only when they had been driven to abandon it by Lord Milner's resolution and statesmanship. But the purpose of the Ministry now, no less than before, was to hinder, and not to help, the British Government in obtaining justice for the Uitlanders. Moreover, the Transvaal armaments were well advanced, and the Pretoria Executive was too deeply committed to a policy of defiance to allow it to draw back without humiliation. Nevertheless, Lord Milner felt bound to avail himself of any prospect of peace that the Conference might afford. When, however, Mr. Schreiner, in bringing President Steyn's telegram, had said that he regarded the proposal as "a great step in advance on the part of President Krueger," Lord Milner had replied that he could "hardly take that view, as the invitation did not emanate from President Krueger himself," and contained no indication of "the basis or subject of discussion."

[Sidenote: Krueger's obduracy.]

The High Commissioner was right. The slight degree in which any appeal adequate to the occasion was likely to prove acceptable to President Krueger may be gathered from a passage in a letter of Sir Henry de Villiers to President Steyn (May 21st), in which the Chief Justice of the Cape refers to his recent experience in Pretoria when he was on this very errand of "mediation":

"On my recent visit to Pretoria I did not visit the President, as
I considered it hopeless to think of making any impression on
him; but I saw Reitz, Smuts, and Schalk Burger, who, I thought,
would be amenable to argument: but I fear that either my advice
had no effect on them, or else their opinion had no weight with
the President.

"I urged upon them to advise the President to open the Volksraad
with promises of a liberal franchise and drastic reforms.

"It would have been so much better if these had come voluntarily
from the Government, instead of being gradually forced from them.
In the former case, they would rally the greater number of the
malcontents around them; in the latter case, no gratitude will be
felt to the Republic for any concessions made by it. Besides,
there can be no doubt that, as the alien population increases, as
it undoubtedly will, their demands will increase with their
discontent, and ultimately a great deal more will have to be
conceded than will now satisfy them. The franchise proposal made
by the President seems to be simply ridiculous.

"I am quite certain that if in 1881 it had been known to my
fellow-Commissioners that the President would adopt his
retrogressive policy, neither President Brand nor I would ever
have induced them to consent to sign the Convention. They would
have advised the Secretary of State to let matters revert to the
condition in which they were before peace was concluded; in other
words, to recommence the war....

"I should like to have said a word about the dynamite monopoly,
but I fear I have already exhausted your patience. My sole object
in writing is to preserve the peace of South Africa. There are,
of course, many unreasonable demands; but the President's
position will be strengthened, and, at all events, his conscience
will be clear in case of war, if he has done everything that can
reasonably be expected from him. I feel sure that, having used
your influence to bring him and Sir Alfred together, you will
also do your best to make your efforts in favour of peace
successful. I feel sure also that Sir Alfred is anxious to make
his mission a success; but there can be no success unless the
arrangement arrived at is a permanent one, and not merely to tide
over immediate difficulties."

And again, in writing to his brother, Mr. Melius de Villiers, Chief Justice of the Free State, at a later date (July 31st), he says, in allusion to this same visit to Pretoria:

"From an intimate acquaintance with what was going on, I foresaw,
three months ago, that if President Krueger did not voluntarily
yield he would be made to do so, or else be prepared to meet the
whole power of England. I accordingly begged of Krueger's friends
to put the matter to him in this way: On the one side there is
war with England; on the other side there are concessions which
will avoid war or occupation of the country. Now, decide at once
how far you will ultimately go; adopt the English five years'
franchise; offer it voluntarily to the Uitlanders, make them your
friends, be a far-sighted statesman, and you will have a majority
of the Uitlanders with you when they become burghers. The answer
I got was: We have done too much already, and cannot do more. Yet
afterwards they did a great deal more. The same policy of doing
nothing except under pressure is still being pursued. The longer
the delay, the more they will have to yield."

[Sidenote: Afrikander advice.]

This was plain speaking and sound statesmanship. Nor was Mr. Merriman's appeal, written almost concurrently (May 26th) with Sir Henry's letter to President Steyn, any less emphatic. It was addressed to Mr. Abraham Fischer, a member of the Free State Executive and a convinced nationalist; and it is otherwise remarkable for an estimate of the economic conditions of the Boers which subsequent experience has completely justified:

"I most strongly urge you," he writes, "to use your utmost
influence to bear on President Krueger to concede some colourable
measure of reform, not so much in the interests of outsiders as
in those of his own State. Granted that he does nothing. What is
the future? His Boers, the backbone of the country, are perishing
off the land; hundreds have become impoverished loafers, landless
hangers-on of the town population. In his own interests he should
recruit his Republic with new blood--and the sands are running
out. I say this irrespective of agitation about Uitlanders. The
fabric will go to pieces of its own accord unless something is
done.... A moderate franchise reform and municipal privileges
would go far to satisfy any reasonable people, while a
maintenance of the oath ought to be sufficient safeguard against
the swamping of the old population."[66]

[Footnote 66: All these letters are in Cd. 369.]

But the Schreiner Cabinet contained, as we have seen, a representative of Mr. Hofmeyr in the person of Dr. Te Water. Mr. Merriman could see that the position in the Transvaal was one that could not go on indefinitely--that "the fabric would go to pieces of its own accord, unless something was done." Dr. Te Water was blind even to this aspect of the question. The correspondence found after the occupation of Bloemfontein (March 13th, 1900), from which these letters are taken, contains also certain letters to President Steyn that disclose both the nature of the Afrikander mediation, as it was understood by the nationalist leaders of the Cape Colony, and the faithfulness with which Dr. Te Water served them.

The Te Water correspondence, as we have it,[67] consists of three letters written respectively on May 8th, 17th, and 27th, from "the Colonial Secretary's Office, Capetown," to President Steyn. The replies of the latter have been withheld, not unnaturally, from the public eye. In the first of these letters Dr. Te Water "hopes heartily" that Schreiner's "proposition" for the Conference has been accepted, and then proceeds to impress upon him the advisability of President Krueger's yielding on the ground, not of justice, but of temporary expediency. In so doing, this Minister of the Crown completely identifies himself with the aspirations of the Afrikander nationalists, and he concludes by asking for "a private telegraphic code. The absence thereof was badly felt on Saturday, when Schreiner was obliged to write instead of telegraphing."

[Footnote 67: Cd. 369.]

"Circumstances appear to me now," he writes, "to be such that our
friends in Pretoria must be yielding; with their friends at the
head of the Government here, they have a better chance that
reasonable propositions made by them will be accepted than they
would have had if we had been unsuccessful at the late elections
and our enemies were advisers.

[Sidenote: "Play to win time".]

"Schreiner, who knows more than any one of us, feels strongly
that things are extremely critical.

"Telegrams from people in London, whom he thoroughly trusts, such
as J. H.'s[68] best friends, received by him on Saturday and this
morning, strengthen him in his opinion. We must now play to win
time. Governments are not perpetual, and I pray that the present
team, so unjustly disposed towards us, may receive their reward
before long. Their successors, I am certain, will follow a less
hateful policy towards us. When we hear that you have succeeded
in Pretoria, then we must bring influence to bear here."

[Footnote 68: Mr. Hofmeyr.]

In the second letter Dr. Te Water regrets that he cannot share President Steyn's view that "all the noise about war is bluff." Then there follows a passage showing that Mr. Steyn had entertained expectations of assistance from the Schreiner Cabinet that even Dr. Te Water could not reconcile with his ideas of ministerial allegiance:

"But now I should like a few words of explanation," he writes,
"as to what you mean by saying that 'The Cape Ministry will be
able to do much more good.' In what respect do you think that we
can be of more use than before?"