Chapter V: Playing for Time (1)

On June 8th, 1899, Mr. Chamberlain declared in the House of Commons, that with the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference, a "new situation" had arisen. If the Imperial Government had translated this remark into action, the South African War would have been less disastrous, less protracted, and less costly. But the same order of considerations which prevented the Salisbury Cabinet from recalling General Butler in June, caused it to withhold its sanction from the preparations advised by the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Wolseley. From the political point of view it was held to be desirable that the British Government should have an absolutely good case as before the world--a case which would not only ensure the whole-hearted support of the great bulk of the nation, and the active sympathy of the over-sea British communities; but one that would be so strong in justice as to overcome, or at least mitigate, the natural repugnance with which international opinion regards a great and powerful state that imposes its will upon a small and weak people by force of arms. Above all, it had become a cardinal principle in Mr. Chamberlain's South African policy to refrain to the last moment from any step which would necessarily close the door to a peaceful solution of the differences which had arisen between the South African Republic and the Imperial Government.

[Sidenote: Policy of Home Government.]

Influenced by these considerations, the Government refused to give effect to the measures demanded by the military situation, as it existed after the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference, except in so far as these demands could be satisfied without prejudice to the dominating political objects which it had in view. As to the nature of these measures there could be no reasonable doubt. It was necessary to raise the British forces in the Cape Colony and Natal to a point sufficient for defensive purposes, and to prepare an additional force--an army corps--for any offensive movement against one or both of the Republics. And as 6,000 miles of sea separated the seat of war from the chief base of the army, the United Kingdom, it was obvious that the defensive force should be despatched at once, and the offensive force prepared no less speedily, in order that it might be held in readiness to embark at the earliest moment that its services were required.

To Lord Milner's reiterated warnings of the last two years, there was now added the definite advice of Lord Wolseley and the Department of Military Intelligence. In a memorandum dated June 8th, 1899,[82] and addressed to the Secretary of State for War, the Commander-in-Chief advised the mobilisation in England of a force consisting of one complete army corps, one cavalry division, one battalion mounted infantry, and four infantry battalions for lines of communication; the collection of transport in South Africa; and the immediate initiation of all subsidiary arrangements necessary for conveying these additional troops and their equipment to the seat of war. This advice was disregarded; but in place of the immediate mobilisation of the Army Corps the Cabinet decided to increase the efficiency of the existing force in South Africa, and General Butler was informed of this decision, as we have seen, on June 21st. On July 7th,[83] Lord Wolseley recommended, in addition to the mobilisation of the offensive force--which he still deemed necessary--that "the South African garrisons should be strengthened by the despatch of 10,000 men at a very early date." Instead of adopting these measures, the Government confined itself to doing just the few necessary things, both for defence and offence, that could be done without creating any belief in its warlike intentions, and without involving any appreciable expenditure of the public funds. Undoubtedly this latter consideration--the desire to avoid any expenditure that might afterwards prove to have been unnecessary--added weight to the purely political argument against immediate military preparation.

[Footnote 82: Cd. 1,789.]

[Footnote 83: Cd. 1,789.]

[Sidenote: Preparations delayed.]

The course actually taken by the Salisbury Cabinet was this. Instead of the immediate mobilisation of the offensive force, Lord Wolseley was instructed to prepare a scheme for the "constitution, organisation, and mobilisation" of such a force; and to do this in consultation with Sir Redvers Buller, the General Officer commanding at Aldershot, who had been selected to lead the British forces in South Africa in the event of war. Instead of the immediate despatch of additional troops sufficient to render the South African garrisons capable of repelling invasion--which was what Lord Milner had especially desired--the actual deficiencies of the existing Cape garrison[84] were made good by the despatch in July of small additions of artillery and engineers, and by directing General Butler to provide the fresh transport without which even this diminutive force was unable to mobilise. At the same time certain special service officers,[85] including engineers and officers of the Army Service Corps, were sent out to organise the materials, locally existing, for the defence of the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony and the southern districts of Rhodesia; and generally to make preliminary preparations for the provisioning, transport, and distribution of any British forces that might be despatched subsequently to the Cape Colony.

[Footnote 84: Three battalions, 6 guns, and a company of
Royal Engineers were all the troops available for the defence
of the Cape frontiers at this time (_i.e._ June).]

[Footnote 85: Most of these came by mail boats on July 18th
and 25th. Col. Baden-Powell (who was entrusted with the
important duty of organising a force for the defence of
Southern Rhodesia, and subsequently of raising the mounted
infantry corps which held Mafeking) arrived on the latter
date.]

These were the utterly inadequate reinforcements sent in response to Lord Milner's urgent appeal, and in disregard of General Butler's protest that they were wholly undesirable--an opinion which was endorsed in England by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, when, on June 17th, 1899, he declared that there was nothing in the South African situation to justify even preparations for war.

During the interval between the Bloemfontein Conference and General Butler's recall in the latter part of August Lord Milner's position was one of unparalleled difficulty. The Cape and Natal garrisons were maintained in a state of perilous weakness by the policy of the Home Government. The measures to be undertaken locally for the defence of the colonies, which the Cabinet had sanctioned, were wholly insufficient in Lord Milner's opinion. And the general execution of these wholly insufficient local measures was left in the hands of a General Officer who had told the Secretary of State that he absolutely disapproved of them on political grounds, since the mere announcement of their being made would "add largely to the ferment," which he "was [then] endeavouring to reduce by every means." The Cape Ministry, with whom rested the disposal of the colonial forces, was a ministry placed in office by the Bond for the especial purpose of opposing British intervention in the Transvaal. In these circumstances it needed all Lord Milner's mastery of South African conditions, and all his tact and address, to make the relations between himself and his Afrikander Cabinet tolerable; and, above all, in view of the refusal of the Imperial Government to sanction the military preparations advised by the Commander-in-Chief, it required ceaseless vigilance on his part to prevent the acceptance of an illusory settlement which would have sounded the death-knell of British supremacy in South Africa.

[Sidenote: President Krueger's proposals.]

On the last day of the Conference President Krueger had put in a memorandum in which he expressed his intention of introducing his franchise scheme to the Volksraad, and his hope that the High Commissioner would be able to recommend this, and a further proposal for the settlement of disputes by arbitration, to the favourable consideration of the Imperial Government. Lord Milner had replied that any such proposals would be considered on their merits; but that the President must not expect them to be connected in any way with the proceedings of the Conference, out of which, as he then declared, no obligation had arisen on either side.

The Raad met on Friday, June 9th; and on Monday, the 12th--the day on which Lord Milner received the Ebden address[86]--President Krueger laid the draft Franchise law, containing his revised Bloemfontein scheme, before it. On Tuesday, 13th, Mr. Chamberlain's despatch of May 10th, on the position of the Uitlanders and the petition to the Queen, was delivered to the Transvaal Government by the British Agent; and on Wednesday, June 14th, as we have already noticed, the Blue-book containing this despatch, Lord Milner's despatch of May 4th, and the whole story of the franchise controversy up to the Bloemfontein Conference, was published in England. As the conditions under which Lord Milner's despatch had been telegraphed to England were now changed, it would have been better if it had remained unpublished, and the stage of fighting diplomacy, reached through the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference, had been at once opened--and opened in another way. What Lord Milner had learnt at Bloemfontein was not merely that President Krueger was unwilling to yield, but that he was psychologically incapable of yielding. He had learnt, that is to say, not that Krueger was determined to refuse the particular reform which the Imperial Government demanded, but that his whole system of thought was irreconcilably opposed to that of any English statesman. It is the knowledge which can be obtained only by personal dealings with the Boers, and no one who has had such personal dealings can fail to remember the sense of hopelessness that such an experience brings with it. The Boer may be faithful to his own canons of morality; but his whole manner of life and thought is one that makes his notion of the obligations of truth and justice very different from that of the ordinary educated European. He is not devoid of the conception of duty, but he applies this conception in methods adapted to the narrow and illiberal conditions of his isolated and self-centred life.

[Footnote 86: Expressing approval of the position Lord Milner
had taken up at Bloemfontein. See p. 173.]

As for the mediation of the Cape Afrikanders, Lord Milner estimated it at its real value. The Cape nationalists believed that war would result in disaster to their cause; the Republican nationalists did not. They both hated the British in an equal degree. But the Afrikander leaders at the Cape knew that they had the game in their own hands. "For goodness' sake," they said, "keep quiet until we have got rid of this creature, Milner; and the Salisbury Cabinet--the 'present team so unjustly disposed to us'--is replaced by a Liberal Government."

[Sidenote: Lord Milner's task.]

That was the meaning of their mediation--nothing more. Lord Milner acquiesced in the negotiations after Bloemfontein, but what he wanted was a polite but absolutely inflexible insistence upon the Bloemfontein minimum, and at the same time such military preparations as, in view of the clear possibility of a failure of negotiations, seemed to him absolutely vital. This, however, was not the course which the Salisbury Cabinet thought right to adopt; and the problem that now lay before him was to convert the illusory concessions, which were all that Afrikander mediation was able or even desirous to wring from President Krueger, into the genuine reform that the British Government had twice pledged itself to secure.

But Lord Milner had also grasped the fact that the one issue which could drive a wedge into Dutch solidarity was the franchise question. He had determined, therefore, that nothing that transpired at the Bloemfontein Conference should permit President Krueger to change the ground of dispute from this central issue. During the negotiations between the Home Government and the Pretoria Executive that followed the Conference, and especially during the period of Mr. Hofmeyr's active intervention, his most necessary and pressing task was to prevent the Salisbury Cabinet from being "jockeyed" by Boer diplomacy out of the advantageous position which he had then taken up on its behalf. The pressure of the Hofmeyr mediation increased the difficulty of this task by driving President Krueger into a series of franchise proposals of the utmost complexity. The danger was that Mr. Chamberlain and his colleagues in the Cabinet, in their earnest desire to avoid war, might recognise some illusory measures of reform as satisfactory, and then, after further consideration, finding them to be worthless, be driven by their previous admission to make war, after all, not on the single issue of "equality all round," but on an issue that might be plausibly represented to South Africa and the world as the independence of the Boers.

[Sidenote: The Draft Franchise Law.]

The period is crowded with demonstrations, despatches, mediations, petitions, and incidents of all kinds. A tithe of these--disentangled from the Blue-books, but vitalised by a knowledge of the master facts that lie behind the official pen--will serve, however, to present the play of the mingling, conflicting, and then frankly opposing forces. The "formidable personalities" are all in motion. At first it seemed as though the whole weight of the Schreiner Cabinet, acting in conjunction with General Butler's political objection to military preparation on the part of the Imperial Government, was to be thrown into the scale against Lord Milner's efforts. On June 12th President Krueger laid the draft of his new Franchise Law before the Raad, which then (the 15th) adjourned, in order that the feeling of the burghers might be ascertained. On the 17th a great assemblage of Boers met at Paardekraal, and, among the warlike speeches then delivered was that of Judge Kock,[87] a member of the Transvaal Executive, who "dwelt upon the doctrine of 'what he called Afrikanderdom,' and said that he 'regarded the Afrikanders, from the Cape to the Zambesi as one great family. If the Republics are lost,' he continued, 'the Afrikanders would lose. The independence of the country was to them a question of life and death. The Free State would stand by the Transvaal, even to the death. Not only the Free State, but also the Cape Colony.'" Nor was this boast without some foundation. A week before (June 10th), Mr. Schreiner had requested Lord Milner to inform Mr. Chamberlain that, in ministers' opinion, President Krueger's franchise proposal was "practical, reasonable, and a considerable step in the right direction."[88] Four days later (June 14th) he further informed the Governor that, in ministers' opinion, there was nothing in the existing situation to justify "the active interference of the Imperial Government in what were the internal affairs of the Transvaal."[89] And this expression of opinion the Prime Minister also desired Lord Milner, as the only constitutional medium of communication between the Cape Ministry and the Secretary of State, to convey to Mr. Chamberlain. On the day (June 10th) on which the first of these interviews between Lord Milner and Mr. Schreiner took place, a meeting of five thousand persons--in Sir William Greene's words, "the largest and most enthusiastic ever held at Johannesburg"--passed three resolutions which sufficiently exhibit the extent to which the views of the Cape Ministry differed from those of the Transvaal British. After affirming the principle of equal political rights for all white inhabitants of South Africa, and declaring that President Krueger's Bloemfontein proposals were "wholly inadequate," this great meeting proceeded to place on record its "deep sense of obligation" to Lord Milner for his endeavour to secure the redress of the Uitlander grievances, and its willingness, in order to "support his Excellency in his efforts to obtain a peaceful settlement," to endorse "his very moderate proposals on the franchise question as the irreducible minimum that could be accepted."

[Footnote 87: C. 9,415.]

[Footnote 88: C. 9,415.]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid._]

[Sidenote: Action of Schreiner ministry.]

In other words, the Schreiner Cabinet, immediately after the failure of the Conference, used its influence unreservedly to assist the Pretoria Executive in refusing the franchise reform put forward by the High Commissioner--a reform which, in the opinion of the community most concerned and most capable of judging of its effect, constituted an "irreducible minimum" only to be accepted in deference to Lord Milner's judgment, and in the hope of avoiding war. Mr. Schreiner's action on this occasion was characteristic of the blind partizanship of the Cape Ministry. On June 10th, when the Prime Minister pressed his and his colleagues' favourable view of President Krueger's proposals upon Lord Milner and Mr. Chamberlain, the draft Franchise Law, with its intricate provisions, had not been laid before the Volksraad. Mr. Schreiner, therefore, had made haste to bless before he knew what he was blessing. And a few weeks later, as we shall notice, he let his zeal for the Boer oligarchy outrun his discretion in an even more amazing manner.

In these difficult circumstances Lord Milner displayed the highest address in his relations with the Schreiner Cabinet. Thanks to his mingled tact and firmness, aided by the outspoken support which he received from Mr. Chamberlain, his intercourse with his ministers remained outwardly friendly, while at the same time he had the satisfaction of seeing that during the next few weeks the considerations of policy, which he laid before them with absolute frankness, appreciably modified their original attitude. He had at once availed himself of the one point on which he and they were in agreement. With reference to the first interview with Mr. Schreiner (June 10th), he telegraphed to the Colonial Secretary:

"In reply I told him [Mr. Schreiner] I was prepared to
communicate this expression of his opinion, although I strongly
held an opposite view, as he was aware.

"He admitted, in subsequent conversation, that the President of
the South African Republic's scheme could, in his opinion, be
improved in detail; for instance, by immediately admitting men
who had entered the country previous to 1890, and by making
optional the period of naturalisation....

"In reply, I told him that these were points of first-rate
importance and not of detail, especially the latter; and that,
since after all he seemed to agree with me more than with the
President of the South African Republic, he had better address
his advice to the latter, and not to Her Majesty's Government."

And at the long and rather unpleasant interview of June 14th, although, as we have seen, Mr. Schreiner desired Lord Milner to inform Mr. Chamberlain that the Cape Ministry considered the "active interference" of the British Government unjustified, yet he also said "that he and his colleagues were agreed that there were two respects in which the Government of the South African Republic might better their franchise scheme: (1) By admitting to the full franchise at once persons who had entered the country before 1890; and (2) By making it optional to obtain the full franchise without previous naturalisation after seven years' residence."[90]

[Footnote 90: C. 9,415.]

Mr. Chamberlain's reply (June 16th), contained a more direct admonition. Lord Milner was instructed to inform the Cape Ministers that the Government trusted that they would "use all the influence they could to induce the Transvaal Government to take such action as would relieve Her Majesty's Government from the necessity of considering the question of being obliged to have recourse to interference of such a nature."[91]

[Footnote 91: _Ibid._]

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's speech.]

This was admirable backing, and precisely what Lord Milner required to aid him in his two-fold task of bringing both the Cape Ministry and the Pretoria Executive to a more reasonable frame of mind. But Mr. Chamberlain's next step was one of questionable utility.

In his speech at Birmingham (June 26th), after reviewing the relations of Great Britain with the Transvaal Boers during the last twenty years, Mr. Chamberlain declared that the Imperial Government, although deeply anxious not to use force, must somehow see that things were put right in South Africa.

"We have tried waiting, patience, and trusting to promises which
are never kept," he said; "we can wait no more. It is our duty,
not only to the Uitlanders, but to the English throughout South
Africa, to the native races, and to our own prestige in that part
of the world, and in the world at large, to insist that the
Transvaal falls into line with the other states in South Africa,
and no longer menaces the peace and prosperity of the whole."

This was the kind of speech which would have been suitable and effective, if the South African garrison had been 20,000 instead of 10,000 strong, and the expeditionary force had been mobilised on Salisbury Plain. It was unsuitable and ineffective under the existing circumstances; when, that is to say, the British Government, by refusing to sanction the measures advised by the Commander-in-Chief, had elected to put themselves at a military disadvantage for the sake of prolonging the stage of friendly discussion and in the hope of gaining their point by diplomatic means. In these circumstances such speeches were merely food for President Krueger to use in feeding the enthusiasm of his burghers. What Lord Milner desired of the Home Government was, as we have seen, a polite but inflexible demand for the Bloemfontein minimum, coupled with unostentatious, but effective, military preparations. The Home Government, as the sequel will show, were driven by the unpatriotic attitude of the Liberal Opposition into a precisely opposite course in both these respects. Their demand was vague in substance, and irritating in manner; while their inadequate defensive preparations were more than neutralised by the loudness with which, in deference to the views of the Liberal Opposition, they proclaimed their reluctance to undertake military measures on a scale that would really have made an impression on the Boers.[92]

[Footnote 92: _E.g._ Mr. Balfour's statement in the House of
Commons that the object of the despatch of the special
service officers, and the small additions of engineers and
artillery was "to complete the existing garrison." The
purchase of transport, he said, had been long ago decided
upon.]

[Sidenote: The Fischer-Hofmeyr mission.]

One result which Mr. Chamberlain's speech produced was to bring Mr. Hofmeyr once more upon the scene. Before this date (June 26th) Mr. Fischer, apparently considering that the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference cast a reflection upon the statesmanship and influence of the Free State Government, had commenced a second essay in mediation. Early in June he had paid a visit to Capetown, where he was in close communication with Mr. Hofmeyr and the Cape Ministers, and had twice called upon the High Commissioner. He had left Capetown on the 19th for Bloemfontein; and then proceeded to Pretoria, which he reached on the 25th. At the Transvaal capital he entered into negotiations with the Executive, calling upon the British Agent on the 26th, and again on the 28th, and maintaining communication, through him, with Lord Milner. From Pretoria Mr. Fischer returned to Bloemfontein in company with Mr. Smuts and Mr. Groebler,[93] on July 1st. Here he met Mr. Hofmeyr, who, leaving Capetown with Mr. Herholdt, on the same day (July 1st), reached Bloemfontein early on the following morning.

[Footnote 93: Under State-Secretary of the Transvaal.]

Mr. Hofmeyr was in Bloemfontein, because the events of the last few days had convinced him that the only hope of saving the situation--saving it, that is, from the Afrikander nationalist point of view--lay in prompt and energetic action on his part. On June 23rd Mr. Schreiner had been informed by the High Commissioner of the intention of the Home Government to "complete" the Cape garrison; and shortly afterwards the despatch of the special service officers was publicly announced in England. Mr. Chamberlain's speech at Birmingham on the 26th, cabled almost _in extenso_ to the High Commissioner, was communicated to the local press on the 28th. On the same evening a mass meeting, held in the Good Hope Hall at Capetown, declared its strong approval of the action of the Imperial Government on behalf of the British population in the Transvaal. With these signs of an approaching Armageddon before his eyes, Mr. Hofmeyr had overcome his objection to personal dealings with President Krueger, and had resolved to go to Pretoria to confer with the leaders of the Boer oligarchy. But, in order to protect himself from the risk of a useless rebuff, he had first arranged to meet Mr. Fischer at Bloemfontein, and obtain through him and President Steyn some definite assurance that his counsels would be treated with respect, before finally proceeding to the Transvaal.

On Sunday, July 2nd, and in these circumstances, a conference was held between the Master of the Bond and Mr. Fischer and Mr. Smuts--two men not unworthy to represent the cause of Afrikander nationalism in their respective republics. As the result of their discussions, carried on almost uninterruptedly from the early morning until nearly midnight, Mr. Fischer, Mr. Smuts, and Mr. Groebler, in the words of _Ons Land_, "knew precisely what had to be done, in the opinion of the Colonial representatives, to gain the moral support of Colonial Afrikanders and to lead in the direction of peace."[94]

[Footnote 94: Article on "The Mission of Messrs. Hofmeyr and
Herholdt" in _Ons Land_, of July 11th, 1899, as reproduced in
the _South African News_ of the same date. This account of
Mr. Hofmeyr's proceedings is presumed to have been published
with his approval. C. 9,518.]

[Sidenote: Hofmeyr at Bloemfontein.]

On the following day (Monday, the 3rd) Mr. Fischer and his companions arrived again in Pretoria; but Mr. Hofmeyr remained at Bloemfontein, since he had decided not to go to the Transvaal capital, unless "he was assured of achieving something of importance there." Up to the afternoon of Tuesday (the 4th) no such assurance had been received; and, says _Ons Land_, "as it seemed the assurance was almost in a contrary direction, preparations were already made for the homeward journey." But a little later on in the day Mr. Hofmeyr and his companion "received a hint that, although their chances of success at Pretoria were but slight, they were not altogether hopeless." The facts thus far provided by _Ons Land_ must now be supplemented by a reference to the telegrams which fell into the hands of the British authorities a year later upon the occupation of Bloemfontein. From these documents we know that President Krueger at first telegraphed to President Steyn a polite refusal of Mr. Hofmeyr's mediation. This was followed, on Tuesday morning, by a telegram from Mr. Fischer himself, informing President Steyn that the Transvaal Government "would be glad to meet Mr. Hofmeyr and Mr. Herholdt, but that he could not say what chance there was of their mission succeeding until the Volksraad had been consulted." This, as we have seen, was by no means sufficient for Mr. Hofmeyr. But later on there came a second telegram--the telegram which _Ons Land_ delicately calls a "hint"--in which Mr. Fischer said that President Krueger "was willing to see Mr. Hofmeyr before he brought the matter before the Raad," and that he himself "hoped to obtain certain concessions from the Executive Council, with the members of which he was in consultation."

Thus encouraged, Mr. Hofmeyr and Mr. Herholdt at once left Bloemfontein by special train, and, travelling all night, reached Pretoria on Wednesday, the 5th, at seven o'clock.

"From the station," says _Ons Land_, "they were escorted by various officials and friends to the Transvaal Hotel, where rooms had been engaged for them as guests of the State. Even before they had taken breakfast they had an audience with President Krueger. On the invitation of His Honour they accompanied Mr. Fischer to three meetings of the Executive Council--two on Wednesday and one on Thursday. They had the opportunity, too, of meeting the greater part of the Volksraad members, and of conversing with them. What occurred on this occasion is, of course, private, and not for publication."

Mr. Hofmeyr and Mr. Herholdt left Pretoria on Friday, the 7th, and reached Capetown on Monday, the 10th.

[Sidenote: Lord Milner and the mission.]

[Sidenote: Bid for "moral support".]

Lord Milner did everything possible to secure the success of the Fischer-Hofmeyr mission. Provided President Krueger was induced to give the Uitlanders an appreciable share in the government of the Transvaal, it made no difference to the Imperial Government whether he did so from a desire to secure the "moral support" of the Cape Afrikander party, or from any other motive of political expediency. What was essential was that the existing franchise scheme should be so far improved as to become a genuine, and no longer a fictitious, measure of reform. On the understanding that the "mission" had no less an object in view--an understanding which he gained from conversation with Mr. Fischer himself as well as from Mr. Schreiner and Mr. Hofmeyr--Lord Milner placed the British Government code at the disposal of Mr. Fischer and the Prime Minister, and further arranged with the former to communicate with him (Lord Milner) through the British Agent at Pretoria. But Lord Milner especially impressed, alike upon Mr. Fischer, Mr. Hofmeyr, and Mr. Schreiner, the necessity of urging President Krueger to discuss any proposed modifications in the Draft Law with the Imperial Government or its representatives, before they were submitted to the Raad. The objection to the adoption of this course, which, according to Mr. Fischer's statement,[95] the Pretoria Executive did in fact make, was their inability to "recognise the right of the British Government to be consulted on the franchise, which was an internal matter." This objection, however, as Lord Milner pointed out to the members of the Pretoria Executive, both directly through Sir William Greene,[96] and indirectly through Mr. Hofmeyr and Mr. Fischer, was a mere pretext. "The whole world," he said in effect, "knows that whatever alterations you make in the Draft Law--and indeed the Law itself--will be the result of the pressure brought to bear upon you by the British Government. That being so, to refuse to discuss these alterations with us privately, and in a friendly manner, because the franchise is an 'internal matter,' is to strain at a gnat while you are all the while swallowing a camel." But neither at this time, nor at any other period in the three months' negotiations, did President Krueger desire to come to an agreement with the British Government at the price of granting a genuine measure of reform. As a bid for the "moral support" of the Cape Ministry, but without the slightest attempt to consult with the British Government or its representatives, he recommended to the Volksraad, on July 7th, certain amendments, the effect of which was to confer the franchise upon a very small body of Uitlanders, and that only if they succeeded in complying with certain cumbersome and protracted formalities.[97] On the following morning the Bond Press announced, with a great flourish of trumpets, that Mr. Hofmeyr's mission had been remarkably successful, and set out the amendments of "The Great Reform Act" as representing the fruit of his and Mr. Fischer's efforts. This was for the public. To Mr. Fischer, Hofmeyr himself telegraphed on his return journey to Capetown, that he "deplored the failure" of his mission, when he "thought he had reason to expect success." Mr. Schreiner, on the other hand, was no less ready to bless the "Hofmeyr compromise" than Krueger's original scheme. Upon receiving by telegram the bare heads of the proposed amendments, and without waiting to learn what practical effect they would have upon the position of the Uitlanders, he hastily authorised _The South African News_ to announce (July 8th) that the Cape Government considered the proposals of the amended law "adequate, satisfactory, and such as should secure a peaceful settlement."[98] This opinion he subsequently modified; and, at Lord Milner's request, he advised Mr. Fischer (July 11th) to urge his friends at Pretoria to delay the passage of the bill through the Volksraad. And Lord Milner was authorised by Mr. Chamberlain to instruct Sir William Greene to offer the same advice to the Transvaal Government, with the more precise intimation that "full particulars of the new scheme" ought to be furnished officially to the Imperial Government, if the proposals which it embodied were to form "any element in the settlement of the differences between the two Governments."[99] The High Commissioner's object was, of course, to reduce the area of formal negotiations, and therefore the risk of official friction, to its narrowest limits. But this was not President Krueger's object. His principle was the very opposite of that of the Imperial Government. They abstained from preparations for war in order to improve the prospect of a peaceable settlement. The force upon which he relied was the warlike temper of his burghers, and the answering enthusiasm which the spectacle of the Republic, prepared to defy the British Empire, would arouse among the whole Dutch population of South Africa. Mr. Reitz was, therefore, instructed to decline Mr. Chamberlain's request on the ground that "the whole matter was out of the hands of the Government";[100] meaning, thereby, that it had already been submitted to the Volksraad. This, again, was the thinnest of excuses, since President Krueger had never yet shown any scruple in modifying or withdrawing proposals already laid before the Volksraad, when it suited him to do so.

[Footnote 95: C. 9,415.]

[Footnote 96: Then Mr. Conyngham Greene.]

[Footnote 97: C. 9,415.]

[Footnote 98: C. 9,415.]

[Footnote 99: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 100: C. 9,415.]

[Sidenote: The Bogus Conspiracy.]

[Sidenote: War fever in the Transvaal.]

It may be questioned, however, whether, even at this time, the "whole matter" had not passed, in another and more serious sense, "out of the hands" both of the Pretoria Executive and the British Government. The political atmosphere of South Africa had become electric. The Uitlanders themselves cherished no illusion on the subject of President Krueger's proposals. Amended and re-amended, the Franchise Law, as the Uitlander Council then and there declared, left the granting of the franchise at the discretion of the Boer officials or the Pretoria Executive, and as such it was "a most dangerous measure, and apparently framed with the object of defeating the end it was presumed to have in view."[101] Further and convincing evidence of the utterly vicious and depraved character of the _personnel_ of the Boer administration was afforded by the proceedings arising out of the alleged "conspiracy" against the Republic, of which the unfortunate Englishman Nicholls was the innocent victim (May 18th to July 25th).[102] In this disgraceful affair the gravest offences against international comity were committed; high officials, including Mr. Tjaart Krueger, the President's youngest son, were implicated in a gross and scandalous prostitution of the machinery of justice; and yet no apology was offered to the Imperial Government, nor any compensation awarded to Nicholls for the two months' imprisonment and continuous persecution by the agents-provocateurs, to which he had been subjected. The impassioned speeches delivered at the Paardekraal meeting was only one among many signs of the dangerous hostility to England and everything English that had taken possession of the Republic. The British residents who had petitioned the Queen were denounced as "revolutionaries," and threatened with the vengeance of the burghers. "If war breaks out," wrote _De Rand Post_,"[103] the Johannesburg agitators are the real instigators, and to these ringleaders capital punishment should be meted out." In the Volksraad discussion of the Franchise Law the same passionate hatred of the Uitlanders was manifested. "Is it the English only who have the right to make conditions?" asked Mr. Lombard on July 15th. "If it comes to be a question of war, there will be a great destruction. And who will be destroyed if it comes to a collision? Why, the subjects of Her Majesty in Johannesburg."[104]

[Footnote 101: C. 9,415.]

[Footnote 102: On May 15th, 1899--_i.e._ a fortnight before
the Bloemfontein Conference met--five persons alleged to be
British subjects were arrested on a warrant, signed by Mr.
Smuts as State-Attorney, on a charge of high treason. All of
them, except one man--Nicholls, who was innocent--were agents
of the secret service. The statement that the men were
ex-British officers, and that one of them alleged that he was
acting under direct instructions from the War Office, was
disseminated through the Press by the Transvaal Government,
with the object of discrediting (1) the South African League,
and (2) the British Government, in the eyes of the civilised
world. The whole of the alleged "conspiracy against the
independence of the Republic," thanks to the endurance of
Nicholls and the persistence of the Imperial authorities in
South Africa, was shown to be the work of the Transvaal
police, favoured by the negligence or political bad faith of
certain Government officials. The prosecution was abandoned
on July 25th. Mr. Duxbury, the counsel for the defence
retained by the British Government, in reviewing the case and
the proceedings, wrote (August 9th): "It seems abundantly
clear, from all the facts which have come to light, that the
whole of this disgraceful prosecution found its inception in
the minds of Mr. Schutte, the Commissioner of Police, and
Acting Chief Detective Beatty.... I must direct your
attention to the very grave accusation contained in Thomas
Dashwood Bundy's affidavit against Mr. Tjaart Krueger. This
gentleman is the son of President Krueger, and is the Chief of
the Secret Service department of this State." And of Mr.
Smuts he writes: "I believe he was deceived by the
detectives, and yet at the same time I fail to understand
why, in a matter of such-magnitude, he allowed himself to
sign warrants for the arrest of persons charged with such a
serious crime as high treason on the strength of an affidavit
signed by a detective, who, on the very day such affidavit
was signed, had been denounced by the Chief Justice from the
Bench of the High Court as a perjurer." C. 9,521 (which
contains a full record of the whole affair).]

[Footnote 103: The words are quoted by Mr. M. P. C. Walter,
the editor, in a letter of protest published in the Transvaal
_Leader_ of July 7th, 1899. C. 9,521.]

[Footnote 104: _Ibid._]

These expressions scarcely do justice to the spirit of vindictiveness with which certain of the republican leaders regarded the British population of the Rand. On May 22nd, 1900, less than a year after the date of the Volksraad discussion of the Franchise Bill, and when Lord Roberts was advancing rapidly upon Johannesburg, a conversation took place with Mr. Smuts in Pretoria, which was reported in _The Times_. In the course of this conversation the State Attorney said, with reference to the proposed destruction of the mines, that "he greatly regretted that Johannesburg should suffer, but that the Government had no choice in the matter, as the popular pressure upon them was too great to be resisted." This determination is rightly characterised by Mr. Farrelly, the late legal adviser to the Government of the South African Republic, as the "fiendish project of wrecking the mines and plunging into hopeless misery for years tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children." But that is not all. He has put upon record[105] the sinister fact that the man entrusted with the execution of this infamous design was Mr. Smuts himself. The mines were saved, therefore, not by the Boer Government, but in spite of it, and solely through the independent action of Dr. Krause, the Acting-Commandant of Johannesburg, who "arrested the leader of the wreckers, sent by Mr. Smuts, the day before the surrender to Lord Roberts."[106]

[Footnote 105: _The Settlement after the War_, p. 218.]

[Footnote 106: _Ibid._]

[Sidenote: Action of the British.]

The British population, although it provided no such displays of racial passion, was in an equally determined mood. Undismayed by the threats of the Boers, the Uitlander Council continued calmly to analyse the Franchise Bill in each successive phase--an unostentatious but very useful service, which materially assisted Lord Milner in following the windings and doublings of Boer diplomacy. After the great meeting at Johannesburg (June 10th), the British centres in the Cape Colony, Natal, and Rhodesia gave similar demonstrations of their confidence in Lord Milner's statesmanship, and their conviction of the justice and necessity of the five years' franchise demanded by the Imperial Government. On the other hand, the irritation against British intervention was growing daily in the Free State; and the Dutch Reformed Church and the Bond had organised a counter-demonstration in the Cape Colony. The Synod of the former, meeting on June 30th, drew up an address protesting that the differences between Lord Milner's franchise proposals and those of President Krueger were not sufficient to justify the "horrors of war," and requested the Governor to forward it to the Queen. At Capetown (July 12th) and in the Dutch districts throughout the Colony, Bond meetings were held at which resolutions were passed in favour of a "compromise" as between Lord Milner's five years' franchise and the scheme embodied in President Krueger's law. More sinister was the circumstance that the information, that a consignment of 500 rifles and 1,000,000 cartridges, landed at Port Elizabeth on July 8th, had been permitted by the Cape Government to be forwarded through the Colony to the Free State, only came to the ears of the High Commissioner by an accident. In the meantime, more definite evidence of the almost unanimous approval of Lord Milner's policy by the British population in South Africa was forthcoming. In all three British colonies petitions to the Queen praying for justice to the Uitlanders, and affirming absolute confidence in Lord Milner, were signed. The Natal petition contained the names of three-fourths of the adult male population of the Colony, while the signatures to the joint petition of the Cape and Rhodesia had already reached a total of 40,500 before the end of July. In other respects the testimony of Natal was clear and unmistakable. In this predominantly English Colony identical resolutions supporting the action and policy of the Imperial Government, were carried unanimously in both Chambers of the Legislature.

[Sidenote: Hofmeyr's warning.]

In the middle of July the situation improved in a slight degree through the influence which Lord Milner had exercised upon the Afrikander leaders in the Cape Colony. On the 14th the Cape Parliament met, and on this day Mr. Hofmeyr, chagrined at a suggestion for further support which he had received from the republican nationalists at Pretoria, despatched a telegram to Mr. Smuts, in which he, as the recognised head of the Afrikander Bond, reminded the members of President Krueger's Executive that the promised co-operation of the Cape Government with them had been definitely limited to "moral support." And he plainly hinted that, unless greater deference was shown to his advice, even this "moral support" might be withdrawn.

"The most important suggestions sent from here will apparently
not be adopted. The independence of the Republics is in danger.
As to the Colony, the utmost prospect held out was moral support.
The Ministry and the Bond have acted up to that. If Parliament
[_i.e._ the Cape Parliament] goes too strongly in the same
direction, there may be a change of Ministry, with Sprigg or
Rhodes backed by Milner. Would your interests be benefited
thereby? _Verb. sat. sap._"[107]

[Footnote 107: Secured by the Intelligence Department. The
telegrams thus referred to, in this and the following
chapter, have not been published in the Blue-Books. They were
published, however, in _The Times History of the War_. Their
authenticity is undoubted. Sir Gordon Sprigg had held a
conversation with the Governor on the 13th.]

As President Krueger wanted to retain the "moral support" of the Cape Government for a few weeks longer, he listened to Mr. Fischer's advice[108] to humour their prejudices, and forthwith recommended a further modification of the Franchise Bill to the Volksraad. This final amendment, under which a uniform seven years' retrospective franchise was substituted for a nine years' retrospective franchise, alternate with a seven years' retrospective franchise taking effect five years after the passing of the law (_i.e._ in 1904), was accepted on July 18th, and the new Franchise Law was passed on the 19th and promulgated on the 26th. Its provisions were so obscure that it was accompanied by an explanatory memorandum furnished by the State Attorney, Mr. Smuts. But even assuming that the legal pitfalls could be removed, and the law, thus simplified, would be worked in the most liberal spirit by the officials of the Republic, President Krueger's proposals failed to provide the essential reform which Lord Milner had pledged himself and the Imperial Government to obtain. That reform was the immediate endowment of a substantial proportion of the British residents in the Transvaal with the rights of citizenship. To use his own words,[109] "the whole point" of his Bloemfontein proposal was "to put the Uitlanders in a position to fight their own battles, and so to avoid the necessity of pressing for the redress of specific grievances."

[Footnote 108: Mr. Fischer was still at Pretoria. C. 9, 415.]

[Footnote 109: C. 9,415.]

No one in South Africa had any doubt as to the entire inadequacy of the Franchise Bill to fulfil this essential object. In the opinion of the Uitlander Council it was[110] "expressly designed to exclude rather than admit the newcomer." Sir Henry de Villiers complained[111] to Mr. Fischer:

[Footnote 110: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 111: On July 31st, Cd. 369.]

"Then there is the Franchise Bill, which is so obscure that the
State Attorney had to issue an explanatory memorandum to remove
the obscurities. But surely a law should be clear enough to speak
for itself, and no Government or court of law will be bound by
the State Attorney's explanations. I do not know what those
explanations are, but the very fact that they are required
condemns the Bill. That Bill certainly does not seem quite to
carry out the promises made to you, Mr. Hofmeyr, and Mr.
Herholdt."

[Sidenote: An illusory measure.]

And Lord Milner, in his final analysis of the law on July 26th, concludes[112] that "the Bill as it stands leaves it practically in the hands of the Government to enfranchise, or not to enfranchise, the Uitlanders as it chooses." And he then draws attention to the very grave consideration that if the paramount Power once accepts this illusory measure, it will deprive itself of any future right of intervention on the franchise question.

[Footnote 112: C. 9,518.]

"And the worst of it," he wrote, "is that should the Bill,
through a literal interpretation of its complicated provisions,
fail to secure the object at which it avowedly aims, no one will
be able to protest against the result."

For one moment it seemed to the anxious warden of British interests in South Africa as though the Home Government might be caught in President Krueger's legislative net. The incident is one that well exhibits the tireless effort and unflinching resolution with which Lord Milner discharged the duties of his office.

President Krueger's Bloemfontein scheme was a maze of legal pitfalls. What these pitfalls were the reader may learn from the analysis of the scheme which was published in _The Cape Times_ of June 10th, 1899. When the Franchise Bill was before the Volksraad this complicated scheme, as we have seen, was amended and re-amended; and each new provision was as intricate in its working as the parent scheme. It is obvious that nothing short of a commission of inquiry could have determined with certainty the manner in which the representation of the Uitlanders was affected by each successive amendment. While these changes were in progress in the Raadzaal at Pretoria--changes so "numerous and so rapid," as Lord Milner said,[113] that it was "absolutely impossible at any given moment to know what the effect of the scheme, as existing at that moment, was likely to be"--Lord Milner himself at Capetown was at one and the same time overwhelmed with detailed criticisms from Uitlanders, anxious that no legal pitfall or administrative obstacle should remain undetected, and besieged with cables from the Colonial Office requesting precise information upon any point upon which an energetic member of the House of Commons might have chosen to interrogate the Secretary of State. And, in addition to this rain of telegrams, people on the spot were constantly calling at Government House to ask if the High Commissioner had observed this or that defect or trap in clauses, the text of which he had not yet had time to receive, still less to read or comprehend. All this, too, was over and above the heavy administrative and official duties of the Governor and High Commissioner--duties which Lord Milner was called upon to perform with more than usual care, in view of the political ascendancy of the Dutch party in the Cape Colony.

[Footnote 113: August 23rd, C. 9,521.]

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's assumption.]

On July 13th, Lord Milner sent warning telegrams to Mr. Chamberlain,[114] pointing out specific defects in the Franchise Bill, and showing how seriously President Krueger's proposals fell short of the Bloemfontein minimum. Five days later the Volksraad accepted the final amendments. The face value of the Bill, as it now stood to be converted into law, was a seven years' franchise, prospective and retrospective. When, therefore, Mr. Chamberlain heard this same day (July 18th) that the Volksraad had accepted the bill in this form with only five dissentients, he seems to have assumed that a really considerable concession had been made by President Krueger at the last moment, and that, with the President and the Volksraad in this mood, still further concessions would be forthcoming. Under this impression he informed the House of Commons lobby correspondent of _The Times_ that "the crisis might be regarded as at an end." His words were reproduced in _The Times_ on the day following (July 19th), and at once cabled to South Africa.

[Footnote 114: C. 9,415.]

It is impossible for any one who has not lived in South Africa to realise the sickening distrust and dread produced in the minds of the loyal subjects of the Crown by this statement. War they were ready to face. But to go back to every-day life once again bowed down with the shame of a moral Majuba, to meet the eyes of the Dutch once more aflame with the light of victory, to hear their words of insolent contempt--was ignominy unspeakable and unendurable. The Uitlander Council at once cabled an emphatic message of protest[115] to Mr. Chamberlain, and every loyalist that had a friend in England telegraphed to beg him to use all his influence to prevent the surrender of the Government. How near the British population in South Africa were to this ignominy may be gathered from the fact that on this day Lord Milner received a telegram in which Mr. Chamberlain congratulated him upon the successful issue of his efforts. Lord Milner's reply was one that could have left no doubt in Mr. Chamberlain's mind as to the gravity of the misconception under which he laboured. It was, of course, beyond the High Commissioner's power to prevent the Home Government from accepting the Franchise Bill; but he could at least remove the impression that he was anxious to participate in an act, which would have made the breach between the loyalists of South Africa and the mother country final and irrevocable.

[Footnote 115: "The Uitlander Council is keenly disappointed
at the _Times_' announcement that the seven years' franchise
is acceptable to the Imperial Government. We fear few will
accept the franchise on this condition, so the result is not
likely to abate unrest and discontent, nor redress pressing
grievances. Such a settlement would not even approximate to
the conditions obtaining in the Orange Free State and the
[British] colonies, and would fail to secure the recognition
of the principle of racial equality. We earnestly implore you
not to depart from the High Commissioner's five years'
compromise, which the Uitlanders accepted with great
reluctance. The absolute necessity for a satisfactory
settlement with an Imperial guarantee is emphasised by the
insincerity and bad faith persistently shown during the
Volksraad discussion of the Franchise Law."--C. 9,415.]

[Sidenote: The relapse in England.]

It is scarcely possible to believe that Mr. Chamberlain, with Lord Milner's telegrams before him, was himself prepared to accept President Krueger's illusory franchise scheme. The source of the weakness of the Government in the conduct of the negotiations, no less than in its refusal to make adequate preparations for war, is to be found in the inability of the mass of the people of England to understand how completely British power in South Africa had been undermined by the Afrikander nationalists during the last twenty years. How could the average elector know that the refusal or acceptance of the Volksraad Bill, differing only from the Bloemfontein minimum in an insignificant--as it seemed--particular of two years, would, in fact, make known to all European South Africa whether President Krueger or the British Government was master of the sub-continent? In view of this profound ignorance of South African conditions, and the consequent uncertainty of any assured support, even from the members of their own party, the Salisbury Cabinet may well have argued: "Here is something at last that we can represent as a genuine concession. Let us take it, and have done with this troublesome South African question; or leave it to the next Liberal Government to settle."

If the Cabinet did so reason to themselves, what English statesman could have "cast the first stone" at them? But how profound is the interval between the spirit of the policy of "the man on the spot," with his eyes upon the object, and the spirit of the policy of the island statesman with one eye upon the hustings and the other strained to catch an intermittent glimpse of an unfamiliar and distant Africa!

[Sidenote: Lord Milner's anxiety.]