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Iſiliili

THE BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH
AFRICA. -
Discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese.
In 1486 — six years before Columbus discovered America —
two little vessels under command of Bartholomew Dias sailed
from Portugal with the same object in view — to discover a new
ocean road to India. Pushing his way down the west coast of
Africa, Dias passed onward beyond the farthest point previously
known and reached a bold headland which he called the Cape of
Storms, but which was renamed by King John the Second the
Cape of “Good Hope.” Ten years later Vasco da Gama, with
four small vessels, again visited the coast. On the 20th of No-
venber, 1497, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Keeping
within sight of the shore, on the 25th of December Da Gama
passed by a beautiful land to which he gave the name Natal, in
memory of the day when Christian men first saw it. On the 6th
of January the fleet reached Delagoa Bay, where the Portuguese,
found people that had dealings with the Arabs, and thence he
continued his voyage to India. The highway to the East being
now open, every year fleets sailed to and from Portugal. In a
short time the Indian seas fell entirely under Portuguese domin-
ion, and an immense trade was opened up. After a long interval
English, Dutch, and French ships followed the Portuguese to
India. In 1591, the English flag was seen at the Cape for the
first time. Three ships — the pioneers of the vast fleets that
have since followed the same course, then put into Table Bay, on
their way to India. Their crews were suffering from the scurvy.
Here they obtained good refreshments, for, in addition to wild
fowl, shell-fish, and plants of various kinds, they bartered for some
oxen and sheep with the Hottentots. For many years after the
English East India Company made Table Bay a port of call and
refreshment. - -
In 1602 a charter was issued at the Hague to the Dutch East
India Company. The fleets sent out by this. Company gained
surprising successes over the Portuguese, in India, and the profits
º -
landed and traded with the natives. ; :::::
Sailing again, Da Gama next touched at Quilimane, where he :
, ...~" -
2 BAE/TISH Az-zef DUTG;# ZAV SOUTH AAPR/CA.
made by this Company during the early years of its existence
were enormous. The Portuguese ships, factories, and possessions
of all kinds in India were fair prize of war, and the most valuable
were shortly in the hands of the Dutch. Its fleets usually put
into Table Bay for the purpose of taking in fresh water, giving
the crews a run on land, catching fish, and getting the latest in-
telligence from the places to where they were bound. Letters
were buried on shore, and notices of the places where they were
deposited were marked on conspicuous stones.
Settled by the Dutch.
Six months was considered a quick passage between Holland
and Batavia, and it was no uncommon thing for one-third of the
crew to have perished and another third to be helpless with
scurvy when the ships arrived there. Table Bay was regarded as
two-thirds of the distance from Amsterdam to Batavia, and the
Company thought that by establishing a settlement on its shores
many lives could be saved and much suffering be avoided. It
was not their intention to found a colony, but merely to make
a large garden and raise vegetables for the supply of the fleet and
to barter oxen and sheep from the Hottentots and to build a great
hospital in which sick men could be left to recover their health.
In April, 1652, Jan Van Riebeek and a party of about 1.5o
wére landed at Table Bay, and in this manner South Africa
... becºme settled by the Dutch.
: In 1658 the great mistake of introducing negro slaves was made
—a mistake from which the country has suffered much, and is the
first and principal cause of the present trouble. There was no
necessity for the introduction of slavery, for the climate for nine
months in the year is to Europeans the pleasantest in the world,
and white men can work in the open air without discomfort.
A few years later many permanent colonists came out from
Holland. The Company also sent out many young women from
the orphan asylum in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, who were care-
, fully protected and provided for until they found husbands in the
colony. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove many
thousands of Protestant refugees from France into Holland.
Several hundred of these people came to the Cape and proved to
be good colonists. General Joubert, the present Boer commānder,
is a descendant of these colonists. The life led by these pioneers
of civilization was rough and wild, but had its own peculiar charm.
Cattle breeding was found to pay fairly well; they enjoyed good
health and perfect freedom, The children of Dutch gardeners,
German mechanics, and Huguenot tradesmen by force of circum-
AR/TISH AAWD DUTCH ZAV SOUTH A FR/CA. 3
stances reverted in habits and in thought to the condition of semi-
civilization. In their migration from place to place, with their
herds, the family slept in a great tent-wagon and passed the day
in the open air, usually selecting a patch of trees on the bank of
a stream for a camping-place. A distaste for town life, with its
restraints and all the nameless annoyances to which simple
people are exposed when in contact with men of sharper intellect,
soon became part of the nature of a cattle-breeder, and grew
stronger with each succeeding generation, which at last culminated
in their hate and contempt for the Outlander, or foreigner.
In 1793 Western Europe was in the throes of the mightiest
convulsion of modern times. France had become a republic,
the people of the Netherlands were divided into two parties, one
of which was in sympathy with the French, and the other favored
William, Prince of Orange, and an alliance with England. A
declaration of war with England and the Orange party was issued
at Paris. The Prince escaped to England, and issued an order
to the authorities at Cape Town to admit English troops into the
castle and forts. Admiral Elphinstone and Major-General Craig,
who were in command of the sea and land forces, presented the
mandate to the Governor and Council.
Ceded to Great Britain.
The colony capitulated on Jan. Io, 1806. The British occu-
pation was made permanent by a Convention, signed in 1814,
between Great Britain and the Netherlands, by the terms of
which England paid thirty million dollars for the cession of the
Cape Colony and of the Dutch colonies of Demerara, Berbice,
*and Essequibo, which now form the colony of British Guiana.
It was hoped that the Dutch and the English in the Cape Col-
ony would live together in friendly intercourse, and that eventu-
ally, by intermarriage, a fusion of the two races would be effected.
This hope was doomed to disappointment, for an antagonism
gradually developed between the old and the new colonists which
led to the establishment of two republics beyond the border of the
Colony. The first step toward the formation of these republics
was the emigration during 1836 and 1837 of about eight thou-
sand Dutch farmers from the Cape Colony — a movement which
- is generally referred to as the Great Trek. These men went out
of the Colony and established themselves in the vast hinterland.
Emancipation of the Slaves.
The principal cause that led to the Great Trek was the pas-
sage of the Emancipation Act in May, 1833, when it was enacted
4 BRZZZSH AAWD DUZ'CH ZAV SO(77H AFR/CA.
that on and after the first of August, 1834, all slaves should be
free throughout the British dominion. A compensation of $1 oo,-
Ooo,000 was granted to the slave-holders, the grandest and noblest
act done by any nation in the history of the world.
The number of slaves freed here at this time was about
40,000, mostly in the hands of the Dutch. The value of these
slaves was three million pounds sterling, but the Imperial Govern-
ment awarded only a million and a quarter as compensation. In
this respect the Dutch slaveholders were no worse off than the
West Indian slaveholders, but they undoubtedly had a grievance
in the fact that the compensation was made payable in London.
George McCall Theal, the historian of South Africa, says: “It is
not easy to bring home to the mind the widespread misery that
was occasioned by the confiscation of two millions’ worth of prop-
erty in a small and poor community like that of the Cape in
1835. There were to be seen families reduced from affluence to
want, widows and orphans made destitute, poverty and anxiety
brought into the hundreds of homes.”
Slagter’s Neck Affair.
Another important cause of discontent lay in the policy of pro-
tection of native interests, which was vigorously enforced by the
British authorities. As early as 1815 the ill-treatment of the
natives by the Dutch produced great friction. In that year a
complaint was laid before a magistrate against one Frederik
Bezuidenhout, for assault on a native servant. A summons to
appear was disregarded, and a warrant was issued for the man’s
arrest. Every effort was made to effect the arrest peaceably ; but
the man surrounded himself with a band of his friends, and fired
on the party detailed to make the arrest. A fight ensued in which
Bezuidenhout was killed and thirty-nine of his comrades were
arrested. They were tried by jury before the High Court, and
five of them were condemned to death. This affair is constantly
recited by the Boers at public meetings in order to inflame the
people against the English, and is known as the Slagter's Neck
massacre. An entirely new light is thrown on the matter by
Canon Knox Little in his “Sketches and Studies in South Africa.”
He asserts that the Dutch Field Cornet, under whose 1mmediate
orders the execution was carried out, had in his pocket, at the
time of the execution, the Governor’s order for the pardon of the
prisoners; that he suppressed it from motives of personal spite ;
and that afterwards, fearing detection, he committed suicide.
In 1835 the Boers shook the dust of Cape Colony from their
feet and trekked northwards. They issued a manifesto de-
BRZZYSH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 5
nouncing the “vexatious laws' passed in the interests of the
slaves, and complaining of the losses thereby inflicted on the Boers.
They also cried out against “the continual system of plunder which
we have endured from the Kaffirs and other colored classes,”
and the “unjustifiable odium ” cast on them by “interested and
dishonest persons under the cloak of religion” (i.e., the mission-
aries). The last clause read thus: “We quit this colony under
the full assurance that the English Government has nothing more
to require of us, and will allow us to govern ourselves without
interference in the future.”
They moved up to Natal, and fought, and finally conquered,
the natives. They set up a republic, but in a few years they had
so incensed the natives that the peace of the Cape was menaced,
and the British Government had to intervene.
In 1843 a short struggle resulted in the defeat of the Boers,
and Natal was annexed by Great Britain on May 12, 1843, “for
the peace, protection, and salutary control of all classes of men
settled at and surrounding this important portion of South Africa.”
For similar reasons the country lying between the Orange and
Vaal rivers immediately below the present Transvaal Republic,
which had been seized by the Boers, was also taken possession
of by the British in 1848. There was a stout resistance, but it
was subdued, and the country was re-annexed to Great Britain
under the title of the Orange River Sovereignty.
The Sand River Convention.
In 1852 the Little England policy being in the ascendant at
home, the government of the day, sick of the duty of protecting
the natives, decided on a policy of scuttle. The British author-
ity theoretically extended up to the twenty-fifth degree of lati-
tude, which included the territory north of the Vaal, of which
another division of the Boers had taken forcible possession,
driving the natives before them and parcelling out the land into
farms. Under an agreement known as the Sand River Conven-
tion, Great Britain formally renounced all rights over the Trans-
vaal. The raiding of the natives and the seizure of their children
as slaves, led, however, to the following article being embodied
in the Convention : “It is agreed that no slavery is or shall be
permitted or practised in the country to the north of the Vaal
river by the emigrant farmers.”
In 1854, by another Convention, Great Britain relinquished
authority over the Orange River Sovereignty, which is now known
as the Orange Free State, and owes so much of its prosperity to
the wise administration of the late Sir Henry Brand.
6 BRZZYSH AND DUTCH wºOTH AAPR/CA.
One of the first uses the Boers of the Transvaal made of their
independence was to get rid of the missionaries, who preached
pestilent doctrines of equality. Dr. Livingstone states, in his
“Missionary Travels,” that it was the attempt to drive him out
which brought him to a determination to make his famous jour-
ney across Africa. The missionaries were constant witnesses of
the capture of native children by Boer commandos and angered
the Boers by their protests.
Revolt of the Natives and Collapse of the Republic.
In 1860 Paul Kruger makes his first appearance as a leader at
the head of a troop against the Acting President (one Schoeman)
in one of the numerous faction fights that occurred between the
rival candidates for power. These and the incessant raids on
the natives kept the Republic in a state of constant turmoil.
The Boers refused to pay their taxes, and the finances fell into
a serious condition. The truth was the Republic had no sort of
control over its scattered and arrogant flock. The Boer farmers
hunted the natives, whom they called “black ivory,” burned
their kraals, appropriated their best land, and carried off their
children to work on Boer farms, notwithstanding the slavery
clause of the Sand River Convention.
In 1871, after a long tussle between rival leaders, Mr. Bur-
gers was appointed President. He was in some respects an
able and conscientious man, but he was powerless to establish
discipline over an ignorant and lawless race, and it was in his
time that the worst crisis came. He obtained a loan from the
Cape to replenish the empty exchequer; he endeavored to es-
tablish a system of education ; and he spent his private fortune
in an abortive attempt to construct a railway to Delagoa Bay.
But while Burgers was striving to civilize his barbarians they were
carrying on with greater vigor than ever their favorite sport of
plundering the native tribes. The successive maps of the Trans-
vaal show how the State was expanded by these means — how
little by little the boundaries were extended by force, fraud, or
fair means, at the expense of the less warlike of the tribes. A
sudden check, however, came from the powerful chief Secocoeni,
who became the champion of a section of the long-suffering
Bechuanas, upon a large slice of whose territory the Boers had
cast covetous eyes. After some preliminary successes, in which
they had used a friendly tribe as cat's-paws, the Boers assailed
Secocoeni in his stronghold. They were driven back with great
loss, and they fled ignominiously.
AAC/7/SHI A/V/O DOTCH ZAV SOUTH A FR/CA. 7
England Saves the Boers from Cetewayo by Annexation.
The result of this reverse was to throw all the native tribes who
Jhad suffered from Boer oppression into a fever of warlike excite-
ment. For the first time they saw a chance of settling accounts.
The borders of the Transvaal and Natal seethed with native
ardor for revenge, and at the Natal angle Cetewayo stood forth
at the head of his savage and blood-thirsty impis panting to take
the lead in “eating up’’ the white tyrants. The prospect was
dark for the Boers. They cowered under the danger. But it
was just as grave for the British territories. A general native ris-
ing would involve Natal and probably Cape Colony in danger.
The Government anxiously considered the situation, and re-
solved to send out Sir Theophilus Shepstone with power to
examine the position on the spot, and, if he deemed it necessary,
to formally annex the country and march in a British garrison.
He was accompanied by twenty-five mounted police, the only
force he had within a month's march of him during the whole
period of his stay, and at the time he issued the proclamation an-
nexing the country. To assert that the Transvaal was forcibly
annexed is, in the face of these facts, absurd. It is certain that
a large proportion of the Boers themselves desired this measure,
if only as a means of escape. Sir Theophilus Shepstone reported
to Lord Carnarvon that he received memorials signed by 2,500
Boers out of a total adult male population of 8,000 :
“It was patent to every observer that the Government was
powerless to control either its white citizens or its native subjects;
that it was incapable of enforcing its laws or of collecting its
taxes; and the Treasury was empty . . . that sums payable for
the ordinary and necessary expenditure of government cannot be
had . . . and that the powerful Zulu king, Cetewayo, is anx-
ious to seize upon the first opportunity of attacking a country the
conduct of whose warriors at Sekkukuni's Mountain has convinced
him that it can be easily conquered by his clamoring regiments.”
He added that the President himself was “persuaded that
under the present system of government the independence of the
State could not be maintained.”
“I am convinced,” wrote Sir A. Cunynghame, June 12, 1877,
from Pretoria, “ that had this country not been annexed it would
have been ravaged by native tribes. Forty square miles of the
country had been overrun by the natives and every house burned
just before annexation.” And he wrote again July 6: “Every
day convinces me that unless this country had been annexed it
would have been a prey to plunder and rapine of the natives on
8 AAEAZYSH AAVZ) ZXVZ'CH //V SOCWTH AA7R/CA.
its border, joined by Secocoeni, Makok, and other tribes of the
Transvaal. Feeling the influence of the British Government, they
are now tranquil.” Sir T. Shepstone also wrote concerning the
reality of the danger. Under date December 25 he says: “The
Boers are still flying, and I think by this time there must be a belt
a hundred miles long and thirty broad in which with three insig-
nificant exceptions there is nothing but absolute desolation. This
will give your Excellency some idea of the mischief which Cete-
wayo's conduct has caused.” * **
These were briefly the circumstances under which Sir The-
ophilus Shepstone acted upon the instructions given to him and
proclaimed the restoration of British authority in the Transvaal.
It was not done until the Volksraad had been convened and de-
clined the President’s appeal to it to confer power on the Execu-
tive to carry out an alternative scheme. The proclamation was
therefore made on April 12, 1877.
So much for the annexation which we are told was such a
monstrous blot upon the honor of Lord Beaconfield's Govern-
ment that England was bound to undo it three years later. Par-
liament received the intelligence with tranquillity, and even with
satisfaction, and scarcely a protest was heard among responsible
politicians.
The effect of annexation was an era of prosperity. The
country's debts were paid, and the wells of plenty bubbled with
British gold. In the Zulu War that followed the power of the
Zulus had been broken, for they were a menace to the Transvaal.
It, however, cost the British Government dearly in men and
money. It was in this war that the Prince Imperial of France
lost his life. It is noteworthy that with the splendid exception
of the lion-hearted Piet Uys and his son, who died, - father and
one son in the Zulu war side by side with the Britishers, whom he
keenly opposed on the annexation question, — none of the Boers
came forward to help in the Secocoeni or Zulu wars, although
these wars were undertaken on their account.
“British Territory as Long as the Sun Shone.”
Very little was heard from the Boers in the way of protest
against the new order of things until they saw that the Zulu
power, which had so terrified them, had been finally broken by the
British army. That was done in the early part of 1879, and then
they began to pose as martyrs and to agitate for the retrocession
of the country. Sir Garnet Wolseley was appointed High Com-
missioner, and went straight from Zululand to the Transvaal in
September, 1879. He at once began to destroy any illusion
ve
* tº
-à
AºA'ſ 7/SH AAVD DUTCH //V SOČ77 H. AAERZCA. 9
which the Boers might have about retrocession. On his way up
he made the emphatic statement at a public dinner at Wakkers-
troom that the Transvaal would remain British territory “as long
as the sun shone.” A few days later, finding two of the Boer
leaders inquiring for a reply to a memorial on the subject, Sir
Garnet issued a formal proclamation, of which the following was
the essential clause :
“Now, therefore, I do hereby proclaim and make known, in the
name and on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, that it is the will
and determination of Her Majesty’s Government that this Trans-
vaal territory shall be, and shall continue to be forever, an
integral portion of Her Majesty's dominions in South Africa.”
Alas ! the Boers knew Mr. Gladstone better than Sir Garnet
Wolseley. But what was the effect of these out-and-out assur-
ances on English traders in South Africa? Secure in the pledged
word of the representative of the Queen and the Government,
they flocked into the Transvaal by hundreds, invested their money
in its industries and trade, and prepared to settle down with their
families. How much consideration they got for their faith in
British statesmen we shall see later on.
Mr. Gladstone’s Incitements to Revolt and their Effects.
As we have said, these formal, precise, and emphatic declara-
tions by Sir Garnet Wolseley were made in the autumn of 1879.
What followed P. Within a couple of months — in November,
1879 — Mr. Gladstone went down to Mid-Lothian. It was his
first “pilgrimage of passion ” against Lord Beaconsfield, and he
made the annexation of the Transvaal one of the chief counts in
his indictment, although neither he nor any other leading Liberal
had made any distinct complaint before. Let it be borne in
mind that it was just at this moment that the defeat of Cetewayo.
and the pacification of the country were stimulating the Boers to
agitation for the retrocession.<ngland had established security and
order and a healthy finance, and then Messrs. Kruger, Pretorius,
Joubert & Co. said: “Lo the enemy hath done all our dirty
work. He has settled, our accounts with Cetewayo and Secocoeni,
and º our bills. me, let us reassert our claim to indepen-
dence.* At such a moment what an ally was Mr. Gladstone !
What was the value of Sir Garnet Wolseley's stern refusals if…Mr.
Gladstone two months afterwards was found treating the annexa-
tion as an outrage and a matter for reviº This was Mr. Glad-
stone's mischievous reference to the Transvaal :
“What is the meaning of adding places like Cyprus and places
like the country of the Boers in South Africa to the British Em-
Io ARITISH Awa DUTCH Zw Sovrº AFRICA.
*…*.
pire P And, moreover, I would say this: that if those acquisi-
tions were as valuable as they are valueless, I would repudiate
them, because they are obtained by means dishonorable to the
character of our country.”
The blind folly of speeches like this at such a moment is
almost appalling, especially when we see, as we shall directly, that
Mr. Gladstone never intended to give back the country. Mr.
Gladstone's speeches were received with enthusiasm in the Trans-
vaal. They were distributed among the Boers by the Dutch
papers on small slips. On March 18, 1880, at a meeting of the
Boer Committee, held on a farm near Wonderfontein, a letter was
drawn up thanking Mr. Gladstone for his sympathy. A week
later the British Parliament was dissolved. The friend of the
Boers was returned to power with a large majority. The Boers
were elated beyond all precedent. They almost saw themselves
in possession again and Sir Garnet Wolseley in disgrace.
Mr. Gladstone’s Change of Front.
As soon as Mr. Gladstone had become Prime Minister, Messrs.
Kruger and Joubert wrote to him (May Io), recalling his speeches
and formally calling upon him to annul the annexation. But Mr.
Gladstone in opposition and Mr. Gladstone in office were two
different persons. Before the letter arrived the new Government
had laid down their policy with respect to the Transvaal. In the
Queen's Speech on the 20th May occurred this passage:
“In maintaining my supremacy over the Transvaal, with its
diversified population, I desire both to make provision for the
security of the indigenous races and to extend to the European
settlers institutions based on large and liberal principles of self-
government.”
Mr. Gladstone defended this change of front by saying that “it
is quite possible to accept the consequences of a policy and yet
to retain the original difference of opinion with regard to the
character of that policy.” But there was no “ original difference
of opinion.” In 1877 the House of Commons indorsed the an-
nexation without any show of hostility. Mr. Leonard Courtney,
then, as now, almost the only English champion of the Boers,
rose and made a bitterly sarcastic speech on Mr. Gladstone's
desertion. Analyzing the Premier's fine-spun distinctions, he
said: “The Boers would not be able to understand all that.
They were too simple. . . . They would ask why their wrongs,
which were made so much of a few weeks ago, were not even –
recognized now.”
The decision of the Government was communicated to South
*
BRITISH AND DUTCH Zw SovzH AFRICA. II
Africa by telegram, as follows: “ Under no circumstances can
the Queen's authority in the 7% ansvaa/ be relinguished.”
Now came the delicate matter of Mr. Gladstone's reply to the
letter of Messrs. Kruger and Joubert. It was written in his best
style of political casuistry. The substance of it is here :
“It is undoubtedly matter for much regret that it should, since
the annexation, have appeared that so large a number of the
population of Dutch origin in the Transvaal are opposed to the
annexation of that territory; but it is impossible to consider that
question as if it were presented for the first time. We have to deal
with a state of things which has existed for a considerable period,
during which off/igations have been contracted, especially, though not
exclusively, flowards the native population, which cannot be set aside.
“Looking to all the circumstances, both of the Transvaal and
the rest of South Africa, and to the necessity of preventing a
renewal of disorders which might lead to disastrous consequences,
not only to the Transvaal, but to the whole of South Africa, our
judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish her
sovereignty over the Transvaal.”
Exasperation and Revolt of the Boers.
This reply naturally astonished and exasperated the Boers.
They respected the firm and resolute attitude of Lord Beacons-
field's Government. They were disgusted by the in-and-out
tactics of the leader of the Liberal party, and set it down to in-
firmity of purpose. SČgave them the idea that though England
under Beaconsfield was unshakable, England under Gladstone
might be made to do anything? All over the country a simmer
of violence broke out. In the course of a month or two it mani-
fested itself in a determination to refuse to pay taxes. Towards
the end of the year this became an organized policy. The British
authorities selected a case for enforcement at Potchefstroom.
This rallied the Boers to a focus. A mass meeting was held at
Paarde Kraal. It lasted from December 8 to 13, and resulted in
a determination to rise in arms. A triumvirate, consisting of
Kruger, Joubert, and Pretorius, was appointed to administer the
government; three commandos were organized and despatched
to take possession of various towns, and on December 16 the flag
of revolt was hoisted. One of the commandos succeeded in in-
tercepting a detachment of the ninety-fourth Regiment at a spot
known as Bronker's Spruit. The first intimation our troops re-
ceived of what was afoot was a storm of bullets. Then Colonel
Anstruther was summoned to surrender. He refused, and then
there followed a terrific onslaught, almost amounting to a massacre.
12 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA.
The Decimation of the British Forces.
On January 28 Sir George Colley was repulsed in his attempt
to storm Laing's Nek, a narrow and steep pass across the
Drakensburg Mountains, which separate the Transvaal from
Natal. He had only 1,000 men, while the Boers were strongly
posted with about 4,000, all picked shots. Colley was urged
to wait for reënforcements, but he thought the garrisons needed
help, and pushed madly on. A still more miserable exhibition
of rashness was the next engagement on the Ingogo river,
where our troops were caught in the open, and riddled by the
Boers from the rock cover. Under cover of night Colley crept
back and so escaped annihilation. His small British force was
now reënforced by some troops under the command of Sir Evelyn
Wood, whom he sent back to Natal, intending to make a bold
and rapid effort to retrieve his disasters. This took the form of
the wild climb up Majuba Hill, a mountain 6,ooo feet high and
3,000 feet above the camp level. What his idea was in gaining
this worthless position will never be known, but if he thought he
would be at least secure he proved to be fatally wrong. The
Boers were plainly startled to find him there. It is almost a
fortress in itself, owing to its steep and rugged slopes, but the
Boers knew it better than anybody, and being strongly reënforced,
made the famous rush that overwhelmed General Colley. They
made their attack on three sides, and so dispersed the attention
of the British force.
Mr. Gladstone’s Surrender of the Queen’s Authority.
Majuba was fought and lost on February 27. But two or "
three weeks prior to that, and soon after Laing's Nek, the wires
were carrying messages designed to stop the vindication of the
Queen's authority. President Brand, of the Orange Free State,
began the overtures, and the Government offered a settlement
on the Boers ceasing armed opposition. That message arrived
while Ingogo was in progress, on February 8. On the 13th Gen-
eral Colley received a cool communication from Kruger re-
quiring a cancellation of the annexation, and offering thereupon
to allow the British troops to retire. Lord Kimberley telegraphed
on the 16th offering to submit a scheme to a Royal Commission
on the Boers laying down their arms; then no progress was made
till the Majuba disaster brought Mr. Gladstone to his knees. He
did so far respond to public feeling as to allow Sir Frederick
Roberts to be sent out from England with large reënforcements,
but while they were on the sea he took care their services should
BRZZYSH AAWD ZXVTCH ZAV SOUTH A FRZCA. I 3
not be required. An armistice was arranged, and Sir Evelyn
Wood was instructed on March 12 to promise complete internal
self-government under British suzerainty. These were the terms
the Boers accepted and signed at O’Neill's Farm, under the
shadow of Majuba, on March 28. They had won all their
battles, and they had achieved the full aims with which they
revolted.
Mr. Gladstone is dead, and I harbor no kind of personal dis=
respect towards his memory; as a philanthropist he may have
been a great and good man, but as a statesman he has cost his
country more than any other man in his generation. He left
Gordon to his fate, and it has taken ten years to reconquer the
Soudan and has cost Britain thousands of lives and millions of
money. His scuttling out of the Transvaal has been the cause
of the present war. If he had not been defeated in his Irish
Home Rule scheme it probably would have disrupted the Empire,
for, as John Bright said to him, I see no difference between
disunion in the United States and disunion in the United
Kingdom.
The Pretoria Convention of 1881 and 1884.
The formal instrument restoring the Transvaal to the Boers
was the Pretoria Convention, signed and published on Aug. 3,
I 881. The articles of this Convention were amended and
altered by the London Convention of Feb. 27, 1884. The Con-
vention of 1881 consisted of a Preamble and a number of
Articles. The Preamble grants self-government to the inhab-
itants of the Transvaal in these words: “Complete self-govern-
ment, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, to the inhabitants
of the Transvaal territory, upon certain terms and conditions,
and subject to certain reservations and limitations.”
As there can be no question as to the assertion of the suzer-
ainty in the Convention of 1881, there remains only one point to
be dealt with — whether the suzerainty persists in the Conven-
tion of 1884. .*
Any-doubt as to the existence of the suzerainty would at once
be removed by an examination of the circumstances under
which the Convention of 1884 was signed. The Transvaal dele-
gates requested the British Government to do away with the
suzerainty by making the proposed Convention a treaty between
two powers. This the Government refused to do on the ground
that the Transvaal was not in fact an independent power, nor
was it intended that it should be represented as such. So the
issue was definitely raised before the Convention was signed,
14 BRITISH AAWD DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA.- .
and the Transvaal delegates signed the Convention knowing the
feelings of Her Majesty's Government on the matter.
The South African Republic presented the curious anomaly of
the largest body in the State, the Kaffirs, being deprived by con-
quest of all rights, the Boers regarding the negro as not belong-
ing to the human race, and is having no soul.
The Outlanders, comprising the wealth, the education, and
knowledge of affairs of the white population, of having been ex-
cluded by law from the enjoyment of the rights of citizenship,
while a small minority, possessing neither education nor wealth,
nor knowledge of affairs, claims a divine right to govern all
others. *
From the date of the signing of the London Convention has
gradually been accumulating that mass of grievances of British
subjects in the Transvaal which forms the backbone of the present
difficulties between Great Britain and the South African Republic.
The Grievances of the Outlanders.
The question is often asked why the Uitlanders went to the Trans-
vaal if the laws were unsatisfactory. The answer is that they were
invited to go by the Boer Government, and notably by Mr. Krugér
himself; and that when they immigrated the existing laws were
very favorable to the Uitlanders. It was only after their capital
and labor had rescued the Transvaal from imminent bankruptcy
that the liberal laws were superseded by the present adverse laws."
In 1884 Paul Kruger was in London. He was so poor that he
could not pay his hotel bill and it was paid for him by a generous
Englishman. He then expressly and publicly invited English-
men and Americans to settle in the Transvaal and to conduct
mining there.
Mr. Kruger afterward sold one of his own farms to English-
men for $500,ooo, paid in gold. His friends and neighbors sold
other farms at even greater prices, receiving altogether, from
foreign settlers (principally English, although including a con-
siderable number of Germans, Frenchmen, and Americans), many
millions of dollars.
These foreign settlers produce every dollar's worth of wealth
which can be exported from the Transvaal, and every dollar in
excess of what will suffice for a very bare existenee to the old
1 Those who desire to find chapter and verse, as authority for the statements con-
tained in the following grievances of the Outlanders, can do so by reading two books,
Fitzpatrick’s “Transvaal,” written by an Irishman, on the anti-Boer side, and “Oom
Paul’s People,” written by Howard C. Hillegas, exclusively in favor of the Boers and
avowedly suppressing all statement of any wrongful acts done #. the Boers; never-
theless, the worst points against the Boers will be found in Mr. Hillegas’ book.
BRITISH Awp DUTCH Zw South AFRICA. 15
residents. Every dollar of the wealth now possessed by Mr.
-Kruger, his sons-in-law, his officials, and indeed any part of the
Transvaal population, has been produced by these settlers.
The taxes levied annually in the Transvaal have exceeded
$20,000,ooo. Nine-tenths of this amount have been collected
from the foreign settlers whom Mr. Kruger invited into the
country.
No appreciable part of these taxes is expended for the benefit
of the foreign settlers. If this sum were equally divided among
all the Boers it would furnish an annual income of about $2,000
for each family, which would pay three times over all their living
expenses.
No such equal division is made, but half these taxes have been
spent in making preparation for war, and the other half devoted
to the payment of enormous salaries to and jobs for Mr. Kruger,
his sons-in-law, friends, and political supporters. Mr. Kruger
himself has avowedly received $35,000 a year salary, while on
repeated occasions sums of $15,000 and $25,000 have been
paid out of taxes for his direct and exclusive benefit, as appears
by public records. How much more has been spent without
public record can only be gussed. His son-in-law and private
secretary possesses (so says Mr. Hillegas) a single house costing
$259,000, and rolls in wealth besides, as he must, to support such
a house.
The official records in a Transvaal lawsuit, arising upon a
quarrel between two sets of Boer plunderers, show that every Boer
official worth bribing, including Kruger's son-in-law, received
bribes from a Boer railroad company. The amount of each bribe
was set forth in a bill of particulars filed in open court. Not
one of these men ever denied the receipt of these bribes.
The foreign settlers, exclusively, built Johannesburg—a fine
town, with 50,000 inhabitants. They were not merely denied
any right to govern that city; they were denied any municipal
government whatever. This is proved, not only by the explicit
statements of Mr. Hillegas, the American representative of the
Boers, but also by a proclamation of Paul Kruger himself dated
in January, 1896. Mr. Kruger states that not $5 could be ex-
pended in repairing a road or a bridge without first receiving
express authority from Pretoria.
As a consequence of this total lack of good government, the
death rate in Johannesburg has been constantly three or four
times as great as even in New York. There is no use in com-
paring it with ordinary mining camps, because Johannesburg is
a fine city, built by intelligent and educated men.
S;
16 BRITISH Awp DUTCH Zw Sovräs 4FRICA.
z \
The foreign settlers in the Transvaal were denied the right to bear
any arms, while every male Boer, from sixteen years old upwards; - - -
is heavily armed and drilled, at the expense of the foreigners.
By a press law, passed for the avowed object of crushing the
foreign settlers, all newspapers were placed at the mercy of
President Kruger, who can suppress them at his pleasure.
By another law, passed for the same purpose, all meetings of
more than seven persons in the open air are absolutely prohibited,
while all other meetings can be dissolved in an instant, at the
discretion of any policeman.
Another law was passed, absolutely prohibiting the presentation
by any foreigner of even so much as a petition for redress.
When Mr. Kruger invited foreigners to settle in the Transvaal
full naturalization could be obtained within two years. After
foreigners had accepted his invitation he repealed all naturaliza-
tion laws, absolutely. Then, under pressure, he restored the laws,
but made the term fourteen years; but any foreigner desiring
naturalization must renounce all protection, even from his own
Government or the Boer Government, for fourteen years, during
which time he would be a citizen of no country whatever, and
have no rights which any Boer would be bound to respect.
During these fourteen years he must be ready to serve in the
Boer army on twelve hours' notice, and he would be frequently
called upon to serve, without pay, clothing, or even food, which
he must provide for himself. At the end of these fourteen years
of degrading humiliation he would not be allowed to vote for any
office worth voting for, unless his humble petition was approved
by two-thirds of his Boer neighbors, by the military chief of his
district, and finally by Mr. Kruger himself. Neither would he be
allowed to vote, even then, unless he were forty years of age.
While nearly two-thirds of all persons residing in the Transvaal
spoke only the English language, and less than one-third either
spoke or could understand the barbarous Boer Dutch, the Boers
insisted that all English-speaking children must take their educa-
tion exclusively in Dutch.
President Kruger resisted the introduction of railroads for
years in order to compel the miners to hire his private ox teams
at enormous prices. When finally he did permit railways to be
built he granted the privilege exclusively to persons who would
agree to give to his relatives a big share of the profits. He
granted monopolies of several indispensable articles of supply to
the mines, with the result of doubling the price at which they
could otherwise have been obtained. ---
. No Roman Catholic or Jew can become naturalized or hold
ſº
4.
BRITISH Awp DUTCH Zw Sovzh AFRICA. 17
2-’
office in the Transvaal, for Law No. 3 of 1894 distinctly provides
that the naturalized citizen, before being admitted to full burgher
rights, shall first have been qualified to sit in the second Volksraad,
one of the conditions of which is that he must be 30 years of age
and a member of the Protestant church. It is also hedged about
by other provisions, which we need not here specify. Several
times last summer the Raad was asked to remove these disabilities
from Catholics and Jews, and it refused to do so.
The whole Transvaal Government was corrupt from top to
bottom. No business could be done with them without bribing
the President’s sons-in-law and hangers-on.
Attempt at Revolution.
In 1895 a petition praying for redress, signed by thirty-eight
thousand Uitlanders, was presented to the Volksraad, and was
rejected with insult and ridicule, one member saying that if the
Uitlanders wanted any rights they had better fight for them.
Many years before, the late Mr. W. Y. Campbell, as spokesman
of a deputation from Johannesburg, addressing President Kruger,
stated in the course of his remarks that the people of Johannes-
burg “protested ” against a certain measure. The President
jumped up in one of his characteristic moods and said: “Protest
protest'ſ What is the good of protesting? You have not got the
guns / I have.” And Mr. Campbell, in repeating this in Johannes-
burg, said: “You can take my name off any other deputation,
for we'll get nothing for asking.” It was such brutal sayings as
this that led to the attempt at revolution by the Outlanders.
<On Dec. 26, 1895, a manifesto was issued by the Transvaal
National Union, in which the demands of the Outlanders were
stated. The principal demands were : The establishment of the
Republic as a true republic; a constitution framed by the repre-
sentatives of the whole people, which should be safeguarded against
hasty alteration; an equitable franchise law; and the indepen-
dence of the courts of justic
Having remonstrated for many years in vain, and having re-
ceived frequent promises of reform, which were never kept and
were never meant to be kept, a number of foreign residents, includ-
ing more Americans, in proportion to their total number, than of
any other nationality except British, conspired together to compel
these reforms to be granted, by force of arms. They collected
rifles, gunpowder, etc., but never made any use of thern and never
committed any overt act, for, owing to misunderstandings, Dr.
Jameson, of the British South Africa Company, who with a body
of men was on the frontier ready to give aid if fighting were
tes
_2^
I8 AA’ZZYSA. AAWD = DOWTCH //V sovzºr/CA.
resorted to, entered the Transvaal with his force before the time
appointed, and thus entirely destroyed the plans of the National
Union. The story of the Jameson raid is too long to enter into ;
but it may be remarked that every effort was made by the High
Commissioner and by Cecil Rhodes to recall Jameson before he
met the Boers; that the raid was promptly condemned by the
British authorities; and that Dr. Jameson and his officers were
subsequently tried, convicted, and imprisoned by a British court
of justice, for violation of the Foreign Enlistments Act.
Compare this with the punishment meted out by the United
States against the Fenians captured on their return from the inva-
sion of Canada in 1866. Or the annexation of Texas after our
citizens had gone in and dispossessed the Mexicans, and lately
also the annexation of Hawaii after a little handful of American
capitalists had seized the control of that former island kingdom.
We have done with the general national approval more than once
what we have accused England of doing in the Transvaal.
Punishment of the Revolutionists.
The conspiracy being discovered before the conspirators car-
ried it out, sixty of them, including six Americans, were arrested,
cast into an indescribably filthy jail, and informed that unless they
pleaded guilty they would be all hanged, but that if they did
plead guilty they would be let off with fines.
Being brought into court, they were charged with an offence
which by the express statute law of Boerdom was punishable with
nothing more than a short term of imprisonment. Being assured
by the Boer prosecuting officers that they would receive no
greater sentence than this, and would be allowed to escape with
fines, if they pleaded guilty, they did so plead ; although, as to
many of them, the offence could never have been legally proved.
No judge then on the bench being quite unscrupulous enough
to serve Mr. Kruger's turn, he imported an utterly unscrupulous
judge named Gregorowiski. This judge publicly stated that he
came for the express purpose of making it hot for the Outlanders.
After the prisoners had all pleaded guilty this judge annóunced
that, as to the four leaders, he should not sentence them under
the statute law, but would resort to the unwritten law of the
Transvaal, which prescribed death for such an offence. Accord-
ingly he sentenced these four (one of whom was a distinguished
American, and probably the ablest mining engineer in the world)
to death, and all the others to various terms of imprisonment and
heavy fines. Their offences were such as could not have been
punished in the United States by more than a short term of im-
*
BRITISH Awp DUTCH Zw Sovrä AFRICA. 19
4
prisonment or fines not exceeding $1,000. They neither planned
nor desired to become a British colony. *
Even the Dutch settlers of South Africa being horrified at this
Gentence, and pouring by hundreds into Pretoria to remonstrate
against it, Mr. Kruger graciously took the matter into considera-
tion, but announced that his religious scruples forbade that he
should commute the death sentence into fines, because such fines
would be “the price of blood,” and his reverence for his dear
Lord forbade that he should be less scrupulous than the priests of
Jerusalem.
The pious Boers therefore informed the prisoners that they
could not be released on the payment of any fines, but that if the
prisoners would of their own accord offer to “subscribe for
charities” sums varying from $25,000 to $100,ooo each, for the
leading men, and not less than $1 o,ooo for anybody, the merciful
President might be induced to pardon them, without any fines or
imprisonment.
Both the British and the American Governments being at that
time too chicken-hearted to intervene in these proceedings, this
offer had to be accepted. The American citizens all made heavy
contributions to “charity,” Mr. John Hays Hammond paying
$Ioo,ooo. No such penalties were ever exacted in the whole
history of the United States, nor during the last century, in any
other civilized country.
These “charitable contributions,” amounting to about $1,000,-
ooo in all, were duly paid over to his Highness Paul Kruger or
his son-in-law. It is needness to say that the “charities' have
never turned up, although four years have now elapsed since the
$1,000,ooo was safely deposited under the control of the pious
Paul Kruger.
Both the British and the American Governments meekly sub-
mitted to these outrages upon their citizens — more shame for
them both ! No wonder that Kruger described both Englishmen
and Americans as “dogs, who, if they were good, would lick his
boots.”
The advocates of the Boers in this country assert that these
acts have occurred only since the Jameson raid of December,
1895. In this there is not one word of truth, except, of course,
as to the trial and sentences of the Outlanders. All the other
acts of oppression above narrated, and many, many more, were
committed and persisted in before the Jameson raid occurred or
was ever thought of. In fact, the condition of the Outlanders has
been distinctly better since the Jameson raid occurred. Although
the raiders were defeated and captured, Mr. Kruger was. Ag:
&
2O AAEA 7/SA. AAWD ZXVZTCA/ //V SOO/7 H AAA’ACA.
*
thereafter quite so confident that the Outlanders would never
fight as he had been before. After that raid, and not before, he
permitted Johannesburg to have some kind of local government,
insisting, of course, that this government should be absolutely
under the control of his own creatures. Still, it was much better
to have a local government of his nomination than to have none
at all.
The Outlanders Petition the Queen.
At length, on March 24, I899, a petition signed by 21,648
Uitlanders was forwarded by the High Commissioner to Her
Majesty, praying that she would intervene to secure just treat-
ment for the Uitlanders. ---
After some correspondence between the two governments, and
a friendly suggestion from the President of the Orange Free
State, a conference was arranged between Sir Alfred Milner, the
High Commissioner of South Africa, and President Kruger. The
conference took place at Bloomfontein, the capital of the Orange
Free State, and lasted from May 31 to June 5.
Sir Alfred Milner then proposed that the franchise should be
granted to every white man who had been five years in the country,
and was prepared to take oath to obey the laws, to undertake all
the obligations of citizenship, and to defend the independence of
the Country; it being understood that by taking such an oath he
renounced his citizenship of any other country. A property
qualification and good character were to be conditions. The
assertion has been frequently made that Sir Alfred Milner wished
to secure the citizenship of the Transvaal for British subjects under
conditions which would still allow them to remain British subjects;
but there is no foundation for this statement.
In reply to this proposal, President Kruger urged that the
Uitlanders did not want the franchise, and would not take it on
any terms; and also, that if he granted Sir Alfred Milner's request
the country would be controlled by foreigners, and all power taken
from the old burghers, – propositions which are mutually de-
structive. But on the third day of the conference President
Kruger himself presented a new franchise proposal. This was
passed by the Volksraad at once, before the British authorities
had any time to examine it. After it was published it appeared
on its very face so full of intricacies that its effect as a measure
of reform was a matter of serious doubt. Under its terms an alien
could apparently secure the franchise in seven years, but the con-
ditions were so complicated that to fulfill them was impossible.
To giye only one example: A man who desired the franchise
* ~ *
e tº &
g
\
AAE/7/SH AAV/O DUTCH //V SOUTH AA7R/CA. 2 I
must first signify his intention in writing to the Field Cornet, the
Landdrost, and the State Secretary. Two years later he might
become naturalized (without receiving full burgher rights), pro-
vided, he produced a certificate, signed by the Field Cornet, the
Landdrost, and the Commandant of the district, to the effect that
he had never broken any of the laws of the Republic. If these
officials were not sufficiently well acquainted with the private life
of the applicant to grant such a certificate, then a sworn statement
to the same effect, signed by two-thirds of his neighbors, must be
made ; it is then handed to the State Attorney, who should return
it with a legal opinion to the State Secretary. If the opinion were
favorable the man might be granted the full franchise; if not, the
matter was to be referred to the Executive Council.
In view of the opinion expressed by Sir Alfred Milner and
prominent Uitlanders that on the face of it the law appeared
almost unworkable&ir. Chamberlain telegraphed, asking for the
appointment of delegates from the Transvaal and from the British
side to discuss the new law)to see if it would as a matter of fact
effect the needed reforms.' To Mr. Chamberlain's request for a
joint inquiry the Transvaal Government sent a reply in which
nothing was said about the joint inquiry, but in which a proposal
was made for a new franchise law. The basis of the new proposal
was a five years' retrospective franchise. <rhe following condi-
tions, which are taken verbatim from the Transvaal Government’s
official translation of its note, were attached : The proposals of
this Government regarding questions of franchise and representa-
tion must be regarded as expressly conditional on Her Majesty’s
Government consenting to the points set forth in paragraph 5 of
that despatch; namely: (a.) In future not to interfere in internal
affairs of the South African Republic. (..) Not to insist further
on its assertion of existence of suzerainty. (c.) To agree to
arbitration. Further, it was explicitly stated by the State Attor-
ney that these offers could only be understood to stand if Eng-
land decided not to press her request for a joint inquiry into the
political representation of the Uitlanders. There can be no doubt
about this rejection of the joint inquiry, for the draft of the
telegram in which the British agent conveyed the suggestions to
Sir Alfred Milner was initialled by the State Attorney himself.
Declaration of War against Great Britain.
<ſhis was the ultimatum presented to Great Britain by the
Transvaal, the non-acceptance of .which produced the present
war with the º the Orange Free State, who joined the
latter in the declaration of war against Great Britain. The ulti-
..º
22 AAEATZSH AAVD ZDO/7 CH ZAV SOCWTH AFR/CA.
&latum contained also a peremptory demand for Great Britain to
withdraw her troops from South Africa, and recall all those en
route, and to give assurance that no more troops should be landed
there.--It was not likely that Great Britain should take this delib-
erate insult from President Kruger, and take a back seat among
the nations of the world. Eºgland showed a great deal of pa-
tience and forbearance) and has resorted to all possible means of
diplomacy during the past few years to avert war, for it was well
known what the consequence would be. *
In an address made in the House of Commons on May 8,
1896, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said: <A war in South Africa
would be one of the most serious wars that could possibly be
waged. It would be in the nature of a civil war. It would be a
long war, a bitter war, and a costly war.’ -
Those in authority at London have foreseen from the first that
the work cut out for them to do was one of tremendous difficulty.
hey were aware that for years past the Government of the
South African Republic had been in the enjoyment of an immense
revenue, and that it had spent this freely in the purchase of
military supplies of all kinds. They were aware that, small as
the population of the South African Republic and the Orange
Free State might seem to be, the male population from sixteen to
seventy years of age could be called upon to a man to take an
active part in the struggle, and that these soldiers were many of
them, through daily experience, the best equipped fighters that
could be foun
Disloyalty of the Cape Dutch.
The half-hearted loyalty of the Cape Dutch led by President
Schreiner also caused much concern in England, for there has
been no question of the feeling of the Dutch. On that point an
old South African resident said recently: “The stories of Dutch
disaffection are in no way exaggerated. The Dutch are bitterly
hostile to the imperial authority. They are a sullen, silent,
secret people, who have been plotting for twenty or thirty years
against the British. It has been the dream of the Afrikanders
to turn the whole of South Africa into a Dutch republic, in
which all of British nationality would be reduced to the position
of political helots, like the Outlanders of the Transvaal.” The
only question has been whether matters of policy and awe of
the British would not hold them in check. That seems to be
in a fair way to be answered by the people themselves, for the
burghers of the Cape appear to be sending their young men
into the field, while the old men craftily stay at home with a pre-
f

ºl. designed to stave of confiscatiºn of property in W
the event of British success.
The Future Existence of the Empire at Stake. /
<ſt will be asked, if this is the case, if the English Government
was aware that it would have to sacrifice the lives of so many of
its soldiers, and go to such an expense, why it did not make
some satisfactory compromise. The reply to this would be that
the Government realized that the future of the British Empire was
weighing in the Boer balange.” The Transvaal was a country
over which England exercised, by treaty, suzerain powers. The
Pretoria Convention and the subsequent London Convention gave
to the English the right to live, travel, trade, and possess prop-
erty in the Republic, and when the anomalous condition presented
itself of a community, chiefly of Englishmen, living in the Trans-
vaal, larger in numbers than the Boers themselves, but deprived,
through the political instrumentality of the latter, of civil rights
and social opportunities that are ordinarily accorded, while at
the same time called upon to pay' more than nine-tenths of all
the taxes, –$hen these conditions were presented and an appeal
made for aid to the Imperial Government, and that Government
found itself helpless to secure results through peaceful measures,
then it became a question whether in any par h r! e
treaty rights of an Englishman would be worth anything if the
Government failed to enforce them in this instances
The British Empire rests, as the Roman Empire did, upon pre-
rogatives of citizenship, and if the English Government is not
willing to support these, no matter what the cost may be, then it
only becomes a question of time, and that a relatively brief time,
when the prestige of the Empire will suffer a fatal eclipse. The
price to be paid in this instance may be a high one, but it is one
which had to be paid.
The Commencement of the War.
It was, furthermore, recognized that the war would at the outset
give advantages to the Boers. They have been quietly preparing
for it for months past, and when the short term laid down in the
ultimatum of President Kruger ended they were ready to send
an overwhelming force across the border. Probably the rela-
tively small English force that was opposed to them held its own
quite as well as could have been expected. There was, naturally,
great impatience among the English people at the seeming delay
in beginning active and aggressive operations after a large force
of English soldiers had been landed in South Africa. It was this

y feeling that induced the British generals to advance tº
impregnable Boer positions, and led to the late disastrous re-
verses to the British troops.
The preliminary stages of the war, those in which the Boers
were at their best, have now practically come to an end. From
this time forward there is to be hard, desperate fighting. It
may be that England has fresh reverses to meet, for the Boers,
Operating upon interior lines, have, strategically considered, many
advantages which the English do not possess, and they can, more-
over, mass their troops at this point or that with a celerity which
the English cannot hope to equal. But the final result is no
more in doubt now than it was when the war was declared. Čven
if it requires the despatch of another, or still another force to South
Africa equal to that which has been already sent, the sacrifice
must be made. The imperial system of England is at Stake, and
she cannot afford on this question to lower her ºš
Foreign Intervention.
The suggestion has been made by several newspapers of con-
tinental Europe that the time is approaching when it may be
necessary for one or more of the great powers to intervene in the
war now going on in South Africa, for the purpose of putting an
end to this exceedingly bloody contest. Unfortunately, this war
is one which does not lend itself to this form of arrest. It par-
takes in certain features of the nature of a civil war, an effort on
the part of a semi-independent State to throw off the political
connections which bind it to another. In certain respects it *
resembles the contest carried on by the Federal Government
against the Southern Confederacy, a contest in which, if interfer
ence had been attempted, we should have looked upon the power
presuming to interfere as an enemy, and would have had no hesi-
tancy in making such action the occasion for a declaration of
war. The reason for such action on Our part would not have
been our desire to fight, or to needlessly prolong a struggle,
but a keen realization that, if we did not carry the war to a
thoroughly successful conclusion, it meant the dismemberment
of the United States and the impairment of our standing in the
world as a great, growing, and prosperous nation.
reat Britain is, however, now embarked in this contest, and
for her own future standing as a nation must not only carry it to
an end, but must end it in a way that leaves her unquestionably
in entire control of the situation-
She cannot afford, any more than we could, to tolerate or
permit of interference. The nation or nations that took it upon
rh
AR/T/SAE/ AAV/O DOVZTCH //V SOUTH AAFRZCA. 25
themselves to thus act would need to be held by her as enemies,
and to be proceeded against as such.
What the Success of the Boers would Mean to Great Britain.
The only outcome of intervention would be an enforced
acknowledgment that the Boers were to be independent, and
that they were to have the dominant power in South Africa,
separating the British possessions at the Cape of Good Hope
completely from those the English hold in central and northern
Africa. This, so far as England is concerned, would be but the
beginning of the end.
Following on such an enforced peace would be an uprising in
India, artfully encouraged by Russian influences, and affording
Russia an opportunity to come in as the apparent friend and
sympathizer of the Indian people. Besides this, an inroad would
be instantly made by covetous European nations upon Egypt and
Such other colonial possessions as England has which are not
held by a self-governing people. With these latter, such, for
example, as Canada and Australia, independence would probably
prove necessary in order to avoid the complications which might
follow the downfall of the imperial strength of Great Britain.
Against such an outcome the English are compelled to offer
the most strenuous resistance, and unquestionably this is what
they wiki do. So seriously would our trade interests all over the
world suffer by a reversal which deprived Great Britain of the
position she now holds that we could well afford not only to pro-
test against such intervention, but to offer our assistatice in pre-
venting it. The downfall of England would not only mean to
the United States the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of
annual trade, but it would mean the closing up, once and forever,
of those opportunities for an enormous enlargement of our
trade which at present appear so alluring and promising. What-
ever may be our sentiments and prejudices, so far as our foreign
trade is concerned, we are indissolubly bound up with the well-
being of the United Kingdom and the development through all
distant parts of the world of English trade policy. It would be
greatly to our advantage if the war now going on could be
brought to a prompt conclusion by the success of England. This
may not be possible,_that is, it may drag on for months to come,
— but it ought to be realized, particularly in this country, that it
can have but one end, and hence the longer it is continued, the
greater the waste of human life on both sides, with the more
complete destruction of the Boers, whose bravery and military skill
entitle them to a happier fate than that of dying in the last ditch.
†
26 AAEAT/SH AAVAD Z)07 CH //V SOUTH AAA"/CA.
Great Britain will not Tolerate any Interference.
There are, without doubt, many people in this country who are
heartily in accord with Senator Mason's views on the war in South
Africa, and such views are not unnatural. It should be remem-
bered, however, that how legitimate soever private sympathy may
be, a public expression of such sentiments by the legislative
branch of the United States Government would be a grave breach
of international courtesy and a disavowal of the strict neutrality
which it has been announced this country would maintain.
With our army engaged in suppressing the Filipinos, and with
Porto Rico in the process of benevolent assimilation, advice to
Great Britain with respect to her treatment of the Boers comes
with very bad grace. To assume to denounce Great Britain's
action in South Africa would be a grave and uncalled-for bit of
impertinence on Our part. England would have had just as much
right to find fault with our making war on Spain because Spain
was a monarchy as we have to find fault with England for making
war on the Transvaal because that country is a republic.
We went to war with Mexico fifty years ago to assist the Texas
Outlanders in their war of independence against Mexico.
We went to war with Spain because she was harassing her own
people.
Sam Adams said that taxation without representation was
tyranny. The British are fighting that the Outlanders may have
equal rights and equal representation, which is denied them by the
Boers.
How Holland Lost Belgium.
History is repeating itself again. The Dutch are doing pre-
cisely the same thing in South Africa that they did in Belgium,
and which lost them that country. The population of Belgium in
1830 was 4,000,ooo, that of Holland, 2,500,ooo. The debt of
Belgium was 4,000,ooo florins, that of Holland, 1,200,ooo, OOO
florins. Holland would not allow Belgium equal representation
and obliged her to pay one-half of the debt, and would not allow the
use of the French language in the courts, Government offices, and
schools, Belgium being one-half French-speaking. The result
- was the Revolution of 1834, in which Holland lost Belgium. This
is the same spirit that is shown by the Dutch in the Transvaal
against the Outlanders.
Consequences of the Boer War.
With regard to the other and more probable issue of the war,
—i.e., that the English are victorious all along the line, that the
i
AAC/TASA/ AAVID ZDOWTCH ZAV SOCWTH AAER/CA. 27
pretensions of the “Afrikander nation” are abated,—the first
consequence in order of importance, though not in sequence of
time, will be the federation of the South African States under the
British flag. For at least three years after the conclusion of the
war the Transvaal and the Orange Free State will probably be
governed as an absolute crown colony under military occupation,
with an elective sanitary, municipal, and educational system for
Johannesburg and the Rand. The passions aroused by the pres-
ent contest are too violent to be subdued until the Boers have
experienced for a few years the effect of British justice and integ-
rity in dealing with a brave but conquered people. After Pre-
toria and Johannesburg are occupied, and equal rights for all
white men south of the Zambesi have been won by British arms,
a period for healing will be necessary before constitutional gov-
ernment can be safely intrusted to an Outlander and Boer popu-
lation, whose position will have become reversed after the de-
struction of the forts at Pretoria and the Rand and the disarma-
ment of the Boer levies. British statesmen recognize that if the
fight with the Boers is fought to a finish that Boers and British
will be compelled to live side by side for all time, and that there-
fore the settlement must be one that is strictly just to the Dutch
population.
The fundamental conditions, therefore, that will govern the
permanent settlement of South Africa by the English Cabinet are,
firstly, that British and Boers must live side by side ; and secondly,
that the disarmament of the Boer inhabitants of the two republics
must be so complete and effective that there shall be no risk of
rebellion after the retirement of the British troops.
Confederation of South Africa.
Confederation under the British flag will immensely simplify
the political and economic problems of South Africa. Firstly,
its foreign policy will become the policy of the British Empire.
The new African Federation has as neighbors two foreign States,
Portugal and Germany, and the extinction of the Boer diplomat,
Dr. Leyds, and his mischievous activity in Lisbon and Berlin,
will not be the smallest of the many benefits that will accrue to
the world from the federation of the African States.
The federation of South Africa will settle many questions long
outstanding, as well as bring others, now dormant, upon the stage
of practical politics. Among the advantages of the open door in
Africa will be the administrative economies that will follow the
union of the various members of the African State. The removal
of the customs control from five separate and competitive sys-
*.
28 AAEAT/SAT AAVZ) ZDUTCH 7/V SOUTH AA7R/CA.
tems, and their concentration under one head, will lighten taxa-
tion, increase revenue, and improve trade, in which Americans
will largely participate. Railway administration, under one board
of control, honestly and skilfully conducted, will revolutionize the
conditions under which commerce is now carried on, and the de-
velopment of the country will receive a much-needed stimulus.
Development of the Country.
The absence of navigable rivers, and of mountains with a snow-
line, renders the formation of an irrigation department in South
Africa, on Anglo-Egyptian lines, highly desirable, if not absolutely
necessary. The Transvaal has 22,Ooo farms, but imports most of
the food consumed. Facilities for food production exist. Catch-
ment areas abound throughout the Cape and the republics, where
rainfall can be stored. The passing of a scab act, universal and
compulsory, will bear fruit in the improved quality of merino wool
and in the prosperity of the Dutch farming population. The
establishment of regulations for dealing with phylloxera in the
wine districts will effect a revolution in the manufacture and
quality of the winé now grown at the Cape. The enactment of
an excise law throughout South Africa will redeem the Cape
Colony from the stigma of being the only civilized Government
in the world that debauches its population by untaxed brandy and
impoverishes it by dear bread. The appointment of one post-
master-general for the whole of South Africa will add to domestic
happiness and business prosperity. One system of internal de-
fence against the blacks is a measure that has long been required
in the interests of both races of white men.
Great Immigration and Prosperity.
These measures, while leaving to each member of the federation
complete control over all matters not specifically entrusted to the
federal executive, would be followed by such a period of prosperity
that tens and even hundreds of thousands of immigrants from
Great Britain and Ireland, and the United States, would find
lucrative occupation and happy homes. The natural wealth of
the Transvaal is not yet scratched. Coal and iron measures of the
finest quality exist in close proximity to Johannesburg. After
the seventy or eighty years of life for the gold mines, which is
admitted by experts to be the probable limit of the present mines,
the manufacturing potentialities of Southern Africa are almost
boundless. The climate is magnificent, and when race politics
are killed with the war, there is little reason to doubt that Cape
Town will rival Melbourne in wealth and population. -*
AºA'ZZYSH AAVO ZDOWZTCH ZAV SOCWTH AAER/CA. 29
Opinions of Prominent Clergymen.
Fxtracts from a sermon delivered by Minot J. Savage at the
Church of the Messiah, AVezy York, Dec. 22, Z899 :
“First let me address myself for a moment to a certain natural
feeling of irritation and hostility on the part of Americans as
against the average Englishmen; for it certainly does exist. I
meet it everywhere. We look back and remember the great
struggle of 1776; and we are apt to think that England is our
hereditary foe, because of the strife, so bitter and so prolonged,
at that time.
“Was it England fighting America in such a sense that we ought
to lay up any slightest feeling of enmity from that far-away time?
Did you ever think — if you have not, I beg to impress it upon
you, so you will never forget it again — that the thing we fought
for in 1776 was an outright gift to us on the part of England P
Did the Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Cavaliers, and their descend-
ants, originate one single idea of liberty for which we fought
against King George P No. Englishmen originated them —
every one. From the days of King John, the barons, and Magna
Charta, down to the magnificent history of the men who stood for
manhood rights against kingly prerogative, Cromwell, Milton, every
one of them, fought and wrought out at the cost of their lives the
liberty for which we fought in Boston, for which Washington gave
his noblest and highest devotion. It was not a warfare between
the colonists and England : Pitt and his compeers represented
the heart of England. We fought kingly prerogative such as
Cromwell fought. It was the last pretence of the divine right of
kings in Lord North and George III. It was these things that
were fighting liberty, not only in the colonies, but at home ; and
every particle of liberty which we started with as a young nation,
and which we have developed and enriched and enlarged, is the
gift of magnificent England. Never forget that. But for Eng-
land we should not have had these ideas of liberty that have been
the glory of our own land.
“England to-day has no single advantage over any other
country on the face of the earth in any one of her colonies except
that which is based on kinship and mutual consideration and the
skill of England in the matters of trade. The ports of these
colonies are as free to us, as free to France, as free to Russia, as
free to Turkey, as they are to the mother-country itself.
“What is the policy of England in India to-day? The old
rajahs, the petty kings, robbed the people, ground them down to
the very last limit of the possibility of life. Why? To build
f
*
3O AAEAT/SAT AAV/D DU/7 CH ZAV SOUTH AAPRAC.A.
palaces and monuments and expensive harems which they decor-
ated and kept for their own pleasure. What has England done
in India? She has not taken a dollar from India for her own
behoof. The taxes of India are used in India and for the benefit
of India; and it has been unspeakably blessed and benefited in
every conceivable way by English occupation.
“I do not care what led England there in the first place. I
have neither time nor inclination to raise the question, or try
to answer it, as to what has taken England to any part, of the
glebe ; but I challenge contradiction to this statement: <there is
not a spot on earth to-day where England’s foot is placed that
would not be unspeakably worse to-morrow if that foot were lifted
and taken away.” Not one step has England taken around the
world that has not meant the uplift of humanity, finer and higher
religion, education, industrial advance, opportunity for liberty,
just as fast as the people were fit for it, — unspeakable blessing
to all the people involved.
“Where, then, should our sympathies be? At the very outset,
whatever the problem that comes up, should they not be with
England?
ºrêt us now for a moment glance at the condition of things
in South Africa. We are sometimes told that England is simply
grabbing for new possessions there, for mines and money and
power, as she has done in other parts of the world S
“I do not claim to know the ins and outs of the problems in
South Africa, but I understand the situation to be something like
this: #e Boers had possession of this country, supposed to be
simply an agricultural country; and they were leading the lives
of farming people? It was discovered to be immensely rich in
mines and wealth of every kind; and, naturally, people from all
over the world flocked in there. Have the Boers a right to keep
everybody else out — a right, if it be one, that no nation on the
face of the earth ever conceded even if claimed P. We made no
such claim in regard to California or to any of our possessions.
What is the result? Englishmen went in every day, until there
were more Outlanders than there were Boers. An e Boer

Government—premised—them certain rights and privileges which
they did not concede. 3they º,
kept 2 One of their rules was that àITEnglishman must be a
fêsident fifteen years before he could vote. He might be taxed
and harried and hampered the first year he is there. He must
get out a paper, or a pass, - I think it is every six months, or
very frequently, - before he can travel from one part of the
country to another. 3 n other wo is hampered, harried,

\
AAE/T/SAT AAVD DUTCH MAV SOUTH AAER/CA. 3 I
and taxed at every turn, and has no voice whatever in the Gov-
3. that claims thus to dominate and rul
46 ####! trow not. Out of this condition of
things has come the irritation that has burst forth into war. And
naturally it seems to me, I believe inevitably; ands-believe that
at every point the English have been righ- That is, every point
of importance. I do not say there have not been individual
wrongs, grievances, irritations. 3ut the contention of England
—2 the main contention — I believé to be righteous contention.
& when England wins as she will, it will mean not oppression
to the Boers, not even the kind of oppression they have :
over the English. (it will mean liberty, education, enlightenment:
It will mean every good thing for the people concerned, whether
they be British or Boers.
“This is my view, the most intelligent one I have been able to
gain of the English situation in South Africa.
“I believe, friends, that a disaster to England would be the
greatest world calamity that could be conceived, next to the
destruction of our own republic. England is fighting as against
Russia in China — for what? For English advantages? No. For
the advantage of civilization. She is fighting for open ports,
for liberty. She is fighting to keep the Czar from absorbing
China and for the sake of the world. She is not taking a single
advantage in any Chinese port that is not open to us after her on
the same terms, while she perhaps has paid the bills in blood
and pounds for the achievement.
“I believe that, if worst came to worst, and there was a war
between Russia and England in the East for the two world ideals
which they represent, — I believe America would owe it as the
highest duty to God and man to place every ship, every gun,
every dollar she possessed, at the back of and beside England
[applause], not for the advantage of America, not for the advan-
tage of England, but for God and for man and duty. I will
say nothing as to our debt to England for her silent but no less
potent friendship a year ago. I speak of higher interests and of
world-wide obligations.
“God foreferd, God grant that there may be no meddling on
the part of France or Russia until England settles the problem
which she has on her hands to-day ! But did I wield the power
of this nation, and such meddling came, I would say, ‘Hands off l’
to any power on the globe.
“England and America are one at heart, one in religion, one
in interest, one in ideals, one in hopes ; and we must be one in
either defeat or triumph.”

32 BRITISH AND DUTCH IN SOUTH AFRICA.
{
Letter from a Son of the Rev. H. H. Dagmore, a well-known
Minister in South Africa. *
“We are now paying the penalty of the huge blunder of 1881.
We earnestly hope that this time the eyes of our friends in Eng-
lar * have been opened, and they will see clearly that one of two
things must be — either the whole country from Cape Town to
the Zambesi must come under the British flag, or that flag must
forever cease to be, in this southern land, the emblem of freedom,
truth, and honor, and the guarantee for equal rights, liberty, and
justice to all. We all owe a debt of everlasting gratitude to Sir
Alfred Milner, whose keen insight and clear judgment so quickly
enabled him to grasp the true facts of the situation, and whose
strong will has enabled him to bring about now what would in-
evitably have come the moment England had become involved in
any difficulty in some other quarter.
“For years it has been Paul Kruger's dream that ‘the South
African Republic' (mark the significance of the name) should
absorb the other States and colonies, and South Africa be the
birthplace of the Afrikander nation. The millions poured into
his treasury brought him the means of furthering his object, and
money has been lavishly spent on armaments on a scale to arm not
only his own burghers, but every Dutchman in South Africa who
could be seduced from his lawful allegiance and got to join in
the ambitious schemes of this would-be dictator.
You will not wonder that the reading of the speeches in the
papers now being received here, delivered a fortnight or three
weeks ago by Liberal leaders like Sir William Harcourt and others,
should make loyal colonists curse the very name of Liberal were
the scale not more than turned by the utterances of other Liberals
like Lord Rosebery and Sir Edward Grey. The Boers have
translated and are circulating Sir William Harcourt's speeches
among the colonial Dutch in order to induce them to rebel against
the Queen and join them.
“I have lived all my life in this colony, and have many friends
amongst the colonial Dutch, many of whom have during the last two
weeks come to me for advice as to what they should do if the
Free State commandos came and commandeered them. KI have
been closely watching the course of events for years, and I fully
indorse the opinion expressed by Theo. Schreiner, that this war was
inevitable, and that the aims of Paul Kruger, Reitz, Steyn, and
others were to oust the British flag, and establish an Afrikander
nation in South Africa.” Thank God their hands have been forced
and the struggle has been precipitated before it was too late.”
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
GRADUATE LIBRARY
DATE DUE


*-- • . . - - ... ...
:- - *- ... . - - ... • * *
From the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kimberley, South Africa.
“Now comes the question of Paul Kruger and his adv
He had a clever man for some years wh 1-3 - £----- ~~
ting himself too far. But he has le
Government seems to be like a boat withou
is shrewd, but when one considers, that the
republic which has only 60,000 inhabitan
ceives a salary as large as that of the Presi
States, eight thousand pounds, one can
is not the very first characteristic of his life. I should
to find that there are over 60,000 Boers in the Trans
“I cannot enter into the details of concessions wh
were most iniquitous as regards the interest of a cou
dynamite question, etc. These I don’t
always held that a man in any count - same ri
other if he conducts himself as he ought, and that there
be no distinction beyond that which is necessary to tes
cerity. Let the U, ited States be a model for republics, :-
matter. There mºst not be at the end of this nineteenth century.
a government calling itself a republic wh . … • *. lºcºs
oligarchy. . . . . . . . º.
“Now I have given you my views in ge
Were 7 to go into the history of this cou
could make a 5 tich stronger case against th
to set you or what I consider the right
struggle which seems to me is inevit. -
Of that I have nº doubt, but he is ig
alarming extent. On that accóunt.
his fathers had to strike out in th
were cut off from civilization. His
pally as regards the Catholic Church.
the civilized habits of European natio
bear. Catholics are as heathers to:
and wooden images. I find I might goo
but I have no time to give you my ideas
u;, i.y saying that to my mind war is th
unrest and insecurity that torments.
here at present. We shall all suffer fro
à