[Contents]CHAPTER XIV.CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONTINUED.The foreigners’ Reform Association, sometimes called the National Union, was organized at Johannesburg in 1893. Its professed object was to secure redress of grievances. This is always allowable in a free country; but it is matter of record that the spirit and methods of this particular association were not calculated to propitiate the people to whom they must look for any relief from the sufferings of which they complained.Two incidents will sufficiently illustrate this. In 1894 Lord Loch, the British High Commissioner for South Africa, visited the Transvaal to conduct certain negotiations with the executive concerning Swaziland. The presence of this distinguished Crown Official in the Transvaal was made the occasion by the association of offering a public insult to President Kruger in Pretoria, of promoting a violent outburst of pro-British[208]and anti-Africander sentiment in Johannesburg, and of a conference between Lord Loch and Mr. Lionel Phillips, a member of one of the leading financial houses inJohannesburg, in which was considered the propriety of assembling a body of imperial troops on the borders of the Transvaal for the support of any revolutionary movement that might be made. These proceedings were reminiscent to the Africanders of an earlier demonstration, prior to the forming of the National Union. In 1890 President Kruger visited Johannesburg to confer with leading citizens on the mitigation of the grievances complained of. The foreigners celebrated his coming in that friendly way by drinking to excess, by singing in his ears “God Save the Queen” as a suitable song of welcome to the President of the South African Republic, and by tearing down the national flag of the Transvaal which was floating in front of the house in which the conference was being held. With a moderation not to be expected from Paul Kruger, the president charitably attributed the offensive proceedings to “long drinks”; but the people in general and their representatives were much embittered by them, and the effect was unfavorable to the carrying of any measures for the benefit of the foreigners.BLOEMFONTEIN.BLOEMFONTEIN.[209]Throughout 1894 and 1895, both on the surface of things and beneath it, appearances were ominous of coming disturbance. On the surface there was, from Cape Town, an open advocacy of violent measures in Johannesburg, should such be found necessary to bring about the desired changes in favor of the foreigners. Mr. Edmund Garrett, editor of the “Cape Times,” openly stated at Bloemfontein, in 1895, that his presence in South Africa was connected with a purpose on the part of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, and his associates, to “force the pace.” And it was at this time that, as before stated, the British authorities suddenly annexed the Tongaland territory, through which the Africanders had secured a concession and projected a railway to the sea—thus deepening the impression to a painful and alarming certainty that the Imperial Government was intentionally unfriendly to that of the South African Republic.Under the surface very momentous things were going on. In Rhodesia a volunteer police force was being enrolled by Sir John Willoughby. This gentleman, speaking for his superior, Doctor Jameson, assured the men that they would only be required to serve in a “camp of exercise”[210]once a year, and that they would not be taken beyond the borders of Rhodesia.Fitting in very significantly with this movement, the Bechuanaland Protectorate—lying next neighbor to Rhodesia on the south and to the Transvaal on the west—was transferred to the Chartered Company controlling Rhodesia, a measure that enabled Doctor Jameson to station his volunteer police force on the Transvaal border without taking them out of the enlarged Rhodesia.Meantime, rifles, ammunition and Maxim guns were smuggled across the border from Kimberley to Johannesburg, to be in readiness for an armed uprising of the foreigners on a date to be agreed upon. Over in the British territory of Rhodesia, Doctor Jameson’s force—ostensibly for local police purposes—was armed and near the border, ready to co-operate with the revolt about to be initiated at Johannesburg. As a provision for the sustenance of the invading force, a number of so-called “canteens,” said to be for the convenience of a projected stage line, but really stores of food for Jameson’s troopers and their horses, were established at convenient distances along the road over which the force was to advance upon Johannesburg.[211]At the same time, the official opening of the new railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay was made the occasion of such marked congratulation from the Imperial Government as implied nothing but the most friendly relations. Afterwards the Africanders held that the Imperial congratulations were sincere, and that the fact of their being sent was evidence that the policy of implacable hostility toward the South African Republic being pursued by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was in no sense the policy of the British government.It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of the through railway of the carrying trade from[212]the border to Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic. The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the “drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11 per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a[213]strong prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained.As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously, mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the 6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It Is”:“Master Lionel’s speech has been very foolish, and is likely to do a great deal of harm and no good—unless his instructions are to incite to bloodshed—and I can scarcely imagine such instructions to have gone out while the boom is[214]lasting. If there is anything that is likely to put Paul Kruger’s back up, it is threats; and unless Cecil Rhodes is prepared to back up with his Matabele heroes those threats, you will find the Volksraad of 1896 give an unmistakable answer to what they will wrongly call ‘British threats.’ ”How the real state of things was comprehended locally is evinced in the answer to that letter, dated December the 10th:“Your remark concerning Rhodes’ Matabele heroes is probably more prophetic than you yourself are aware of. South Africa is, as you say, the land of surprises.”Among the parties privy to the conspiracy the date of uprising was spoken of as the “day of flotation.” It was carefully discussed, as was the use that could be made of the British crown officials at the Cape. Arms and ammunition for the use of the revolutionists continued to arrive at Johannesburg, concealed in coal trucks and oil tanks. It looked like an appointment when, on the 21st of December, Colonel Rhodes, brother and representative of Cecil Rhodes at Johannesburg, telegraphed to the Cape that a high official, whom he called the “Chairman,” should interfere at the earliest possible moment, and that he and Mr. Cecil Rhodes should start[215]from Cape Town for Johannesburg on the “day of flotation.”This telegram has been interpreted to mean that the conspirators wanted to create just enough of disturbance to justify alarming telegrams and calls for help, but not so prolonged and violent as to make it necessary for them to lead a hand-to-hand fight against the burghers in the streets of Johannesburg. They would have the Jameson force near enough to take the brunt of the fighting, and the High Commissioner to come in opportunely to mediate a peace favoring the re-establishment of British control in the Transvaal.Strangely enough, at the last moment divisions arose among the local conspirators at Johannesburg; they hesitated, and were lost. To some, the project which had been much talked of—that of re-establishing British rule—became suddenly distasteful, the principal reason being that the desired control of capital over legislation could not be as complete under British colonial administration as it might be made under some other regime. They had appealed to the sentiment of British loyalty in persuading English recruits to enter their ranks, but they began to see that this sentiment, carried to its legitimate fruition,[216]would defeat the chief end of the capitalists in seeking the overthrow of the Kruger government. Christmas day of 1895 found the Johannesburg reformers so divided in feeling that most of them were in favor of postponing all action until some definite assurance could be obtained as to what, and for whom, they were to fight. To this end the President of the National Union, Mr. Charles Leonard, was sent off to Cape Town to confer with Mr. Cecil Rhodes.In enlisting Doctor Jameson and his police force in this movement an uncertain and dangerous factor had been included. The situation became critical. Jameson, who had been warned that he must on no account make any move until he received further orders, grew restive and eager for the fray. In Johannesburg the conspirators were in a state of indecision and alarm. Mr. Cecil Rhodes himself was halting between the two opinions, whether to abandon the enterprise altogether or to precipitate the struggle regardless of the divided counsels at Johannesburg.Then the factor of danger declared itself. On the night of the 29th of December, 1895, Doctor Jameson broke his tether and, presumably without orders, invaded the territory of the South African Republic from the British territory of[217]Bechuanaland, at the head of about six hundred men.Just why Jameson moved at that time probably never will be known. He has himself assumed the entire responsibility; Mr. Rhodes and Sir Hercules Robinson, the High Commissioner, have disavowed it utterly. There are few who believe that his invasion was intended to initiate the revolution. A probable solution of the mystery is that the revolutionary programme included (1) a collision between the conspirators in Johannesburg and the burgher police, (2) the calling in of the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, as mediator, (3) the ordering up of Jameson and his force to support the High Commissioner in any course he might decide upon, and that Jameson thought he could time his arrival aright without waiting for further orders.But the skillfully arranged programme was spoiled by the shrewdness of President Kruger. There was no initial conflict in the streets of Johannesburg. Penetrating the design, the president withdrew all the Transvaal police from the streets of the city; there was no one to exchange shots with, and therefore no reason to justify a call for outside interference.[218]By cutting the telegraph wires Jameson made it impossible for friend or foe to know his whereabouts, but the report got abroad that he was coming. In Johannesburg some desired, some feared, his coming. A member of the committee of the National Union assembled a hundred of the malcontents and attempted to lead them out to co-operate with the invaders, but they tamely surrendered to a burgher force without firing a shot. As for Jameson, on Wednesday, the 1st of January, 1896, he was checked near Krugersdorp by a few hundred burghers hastily collected, and on the next day was surrounded near Doornkop and forced to surrender. Thus ended the attempt at revolution.During the few days which closed 1895 and opened 1896, there was a state of social, political and financial chaos in Johannesburg. All that was left visible of the reform association was confined within the walls of a single clubhouse—a resort of the leading spirits in the conspiracy. The European population at large seemed to be unaware of anything connected with the affair but the, to them, unaccountable situation—full of peril to life and property—which had been created they knew not how. The state of panic was sustained and intensified by the wildest rumors of[219]what Jameson was to do, of thousands of burghers assembling to lay siege to the town, of a purpose to bombard the city from the forts, of a new government about to be proclaimed—indeed, anything and everything might happen.When it leaked out that the principal actors in the revolutionary movement had secretly removed their families from the city—which was to be the storm-center of the expected disturbance—there was a general stampede. Men and women fought for place on the outgoing trains. In one tragical instance an overladen train left the track, and forty persons, mostly women and children, perished. To exaggerate the misery and disaster to innocent and peaceable people, caused by this unfortunate and abortive uprising, would be impossible.The immediate effect of the raid was most unfavorable to the return of anything like good feeling between the British and the Africanders. The historic cablegram of the German Emperor to President Kruger, congratulating him on the prompt and easy suppression of the rebellion, was construed as evidence that the South African Republic was secretly conniving at a German rivalry to Great Britain as the paramount power in South Africa. On the other hand, every[220]burgher in the Transvaal saw in the conspiracy a new indication of the inexorable hostility of the British to their independence, and of a relentless purpose to subvert it again by any means necessary to accomplish their end, however unjust or violent. The effect on the burghers of the raid was much the same as that of the blowing up of the Maine on the citizens of the United States—a feeling that relations had been created which nothing could finally adjust but war.Notwithstanding the intensified bitterness between the two peoples, no one was put to death, nor was any one very seriously punished for taking up arms against the Transvaal government. This is to be credited not to any doubt or extenuation of their guilt, but to urgent intercession on the part of the British authorities, and to the wisdom of those who administered the government whose territory had been invaded from the soil of a professedly friendly nation, whose very existence had been conspired against by resident aliens, and which had in its power both the invaders and the resident conspirators.[221]
[Contents]CHAPTER XIV.CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONTINUED.The foreigners’ Reform Association, sometimes called the National Union, was organized at Johannesburg in 1893. Its professed object was to secure redress of grievances. This is always allowable in a free country; but it is matter of record that the spirit and methods of this particular association were not calculated to propitiate the people to whom they must look for any relief from the sufferings of which they complained.Two incidents will sufficiently illustrate this. In 1894 Lord Loch, the British High Commissioner for South Africa, visited the Transvaal to conduct certain negotiations with the executive concerning Swaziland. The presence of this distinguished Crown Official in the Transvaal was made the occasion by the association of offering a public insult to President Kruger in Pretoria, of promoting a violent outburst of pro-British[208]and anti-Africander sentiment in Johannesburg, and of a conference between Lord Loch and Mr. Lionel Phillips, a member of one of the leading financial houses inJohannesburg, in which was considered the propriety of assembling a body of imperial troops on the borders of the Transvaal for the support of any revolutionary movement that might be made. These proceedings were reminiscent to the Africanders of an earlier demonstration, prior to the forming of the National Union. In 1890 President Kruger visited Johannesburg to confer with leading citizens on the mitigation of the grievances complained of. The foreigners celebrated his coming in that friendly way by drinking to excess, by singing in his ears “God Save the Queen” as a suitable song of welcome to the President of the South African Republic, and by tearing down the national flag of the Transvaal which was floating in front of the house in which the conference was being held. With a moderation not to be expected from Paul Kruger, the president charitably attributed the offensive proceedings to “long drinks”; but the people in general and their representatives were much embittered by them, and the effect was unfavorable to the carrying of any measures for the benefit of the foreigners.BLOEMFONTEIN.BLOEMFONTEIN.[209]Throughout 1894 and 1895, both on the surface of things and beneath it, appearances were ominous of coming disturbance. On the surface there was, from Cape Town, an open advocacy of violent measures in Johannesburg, should such be found necessary to bring about the desired changes in favor of the foreigners. Mr. Edmund Garrett, editor of the “Cape Times,” openly stated at Bloemfontein, in 1895, that his presence in South Africa was connected with a purpose on the part of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, and his associates, to “force the pace.” And it was at this time that, as before stated, the British authorities suddenly annexed the Tongaland territory, through which the Africanders had secured a concession and projected a railway to the sea—thus deepening the impression to a painful and alarming certainty that the Imperial Government was intentionally unfriendly to that of the South African Republic.Under the surface very momentous things were going on. In Rhodesia a volunteer police force was being enrolled by Sir John Willoughby. This gentleman, speaking for his superior, Doctor Jameson, assured the men that they would only be required to serve in a “camp of exercise”[210]once a year, and that they would not be taken beyond the borders of Rhodesia.Fitting in very significantly with this movement, the Bechuanaland Protectorate—lying next neighbor to Rhodesia on the south and to the Transvaal on the west—was transferred to the Chartered Company controlling Rhodesia, a measure that enabled Doctor Jameson to station his volunteer police force on the Transvaal border without taking them out of the enlarged Rhodesia.Meantime, rifles, ammunition and Maxim guns were smuggled across the border from Kimberley to Johannesburg, to be in readiness for an armed uprising of the foreigners on a date to be agreed upon. Over in the British territory of Rhodesia, Doctor Jameson’s force—ostensibly for local police purposes—was armed and near the border, ready to co-operate with the revolt about to be initiated at Johannesburg. As a provision for the sustenance of the invading force, a number of so-called “canteens,” said to be for the convenience of a projected stage line, but really stores of food for Jameson’s troopers and their horses, were established at convenient distances along the road over which the force was to advance upon Johannesburg.[211]At the same time, the official opening of the new railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay was made the occasion of such marked congratulation from the Imperial Government as implied nothing but the most friendly relations. Afterwards the Africanders held that the Imperial congratulations were sincere, and that the fact of their being sent was evidence that the policy of implacable hostility toward the South African Republic being pursued by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was in no sense the policy of the British government.It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of the through railway of the carrying trade from[212]the border to Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic. The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the “drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11 per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a[213]strong prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained.As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously, mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the 6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It Is”:“Master Lionel’s speech has been very foolish, and is likely to do a great deal of harm and no good—unless his instructions are to incite to bloodshed—and I can scarcely imagine such instructions to have gone out while the boom is[214]lasting. If there is anything that is likely to put Paul Kruger’s back up, it is threats; and unless Cecil Rhodes is prepared to back up with his Matabele heroes those threats, you will find the Volksraad of 1896 give an unmistakable answer to what they will wrongly call ‘British threats.’ ”How the real state of things was comprehended locally is evinced in the answer to that letter, dated December the 10th:“Your remark concerning Rhodes’ Matabele heroes is probably more prophetic than you yourself are aware of. South Africa is, as you say, the land of surprises.”Among the parties privy to the conspiracy the date of uprising was spoken of as the “day of flotation.” It was carefully discussed, as was the use that could be made of the British crown officials at the Cape. Arms and ammunition for the use of the revolutionists continued to arrive at Johannesburg, concealed in coal trucks and oil tanks. It looked like an appointment when, on the 21st of December, Colonel Rhodes, brother and representative of Cecil Rhodes at Johannesburg, telegraphed to the Cape that a high official, whom he called the “Chairman,” should interfere at the earliest possible moment, and that he and Mr. Cecil Rhodes should start[215]from Cape Town for Johannesburg on the “day of flotation.”This telegram has been interpreted to mean that the conspirators wanted to create just enough of disturbance to justify alarming telegrams and calls for help, but not so prolonged and violent as to make it necessary for them to lead a hand-to-hand fight against the burghers in the streets of Johannesburg. They would have the Jameson force near enough to take the brunt of the fighting, and the High Commissioner to come in opportunely to mediate a peace favoring the re-establishment of British control in the Transvaal.Strangely enough, at the last moment divisions arose among the local conspirators at Johannesburg; they hesitated, and were lost. To some, the project which had been much talked of—that of re-establishing British rule—became suddenly distasteful, the principal reason being that the desired control of capital over legislation could not be as complete under British colonial administration as it might be made under some other regime. They had appealed to the sentiment of British loyalty in persuading English recruits to enter their ranks, but they began to see that this sentiment, carried to its legitimate fruition,[216]would defeat the chief end of the capitalists in seeking the overthrow of the Kruger government. Christmas day of 1895 found the Johannesburg reformers so divided in feeling that most of them were in favor of postponing all action until some definite assurance could be obtained as to what, and for whom, they were to fight. To this end the President of the National Union, Mr. Charles Leonard, was sent off to Cape Town to confer with Mr. Cecil Rhodes.In enlisting Doctor Jameson and his police force in this movement an uncertain and dangerous factor had been included. The situation became critical. Jameson, who had been warned that he must on no account make any move until he received further orders, grew restive and eager for the fray. In Johannesburg the conspirators were in a state of indecision and alarm. Mr. Cecil Rhodes himself was halting between the two opinions, whether to abandon the enterprise altogether or to precipitate the struggle regardless of the divided counsels at Johannesburg.Then the factor of danger declared itself. On the night of the 29th of December, 1895, Doctor Jameson broke his tether and, presumably without orders, invaded the territory of the South African Republic from the British territory of[217]Bechuanaland, at the head of about six hundred men.Just why Jameson moved at that time probably never will be known. He has himself assumed the entire responsibility; Mr. Rhodes and Sir Hercules Robinson, the High Commissioner, have disavowed it utterly. There are few who believe that his invasion was intended to initiate the revolution. A probable solution of the mystery is that the revolutionary programme included (1) a collision between the conspirators in Johannesburg and the burgher police, (2) the calling in of the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, as mediator, (3) the ordering up of Jameson and his force to support the High Commissioner in any course he might decide upon, and that Jameson thought he could time his arrival aright without waiting for further orders.But the skillfully arranged programme was spoiled by the shrewdness of President Kruger. There was no initial conflict in the streets of Johannesburg. Penetrating the design, the president withdrew all the Transvaal police from the streets of the city; there was no one to exchange shots with, and therefore no reason to justify a call for outside interference.[218]By cutting the telegraph wires Jameson made it impossible for friend or foe to know his whereabouts, but the report got abroad that he was coming. In Johannesburg some desired, some feared, his coming. A member of the committee of the National Union assembled a hundred of the malcontents and attempted to lead them out to co-operate with the invaders, but they tamely surrendered to a burgher force without firing a shot. As for Jameson, on Wednesday, the 1st of January, 1896, he was checked near Krugersdorp by a few hundred burghers hastily collected, and on the next day was surrounded near Doornkop and forced to surrender. Thus ended the attempt at revolution.During the few days which closed 1895 and opened 1896, there was a state of social, political and financial chaos in Johannesburg. All that was left visible of the reform association was confined within the walls of a single clubhouse—a resort of the leading spirits in the conspiracy. The European population at large seemed to be unaware of anything connected with the affair but the, to them, unaccountable situation—full of peril to life and property—which had been created they knew not how. The state of panic was sustained and intensified by the wildest rumors of[219]what Jameson was to do, of thousands of burghers assembling to lay siege to the town, of a purpose to bombard the city from the forts, of a new government about to be proclaimed—indeed, anything and everything might happen.When it leaked out that the principal actors in the revolutionary movement had secretly removed their families from the city—which was to be the storm-center of the expected disturbance—there was a general stampede. Men and women fought for place on the outgoing trains. In one tragical instance an overladen train left the track, and forty persons, mostly women and children, perished. To exaggerate the misery and disaster to innocent and peaceable people, caused by this unfortunate and abortive uprising, would be impossible.The immediate effect of the raid was most unfavorable to the return of anything like good feeling between the British and the Africanders. The historic cablegram of the German Emperor to President Kruger, congratulating him on the prompt and easy suppression of the rebellion, was construed as evidence that the South African Republic was secretly conniving at a German rivalry to Great Britain as the paramount power in South Africa. On the other hand, every[220]burgher in the Transvaal saw in the conspiracy a new indication of the inexorable hostility of the British to their independence, and of a relentless purpose to subvert it again by any means necessary to accomplish their end, however unjust or violent. The effect on the burghers of the raid was much the same as that of the blowing up of the Maine on the citizens of the United States—a feeling that relations had been created which nothing could finally adjust but war.Notwithstanding the intensified bitterness between the two peoples, no one was put to death, nor was any one very seriously punished for taking up arms against the Transvaal government. This is to be credited not to any doubt or extenuation of their guilt, but to urgent intercession on the part of the British authorities, and to the wisdom of those who administered the government whose territory had been invaded from the soil of a professedly friendly nation, whose very existence had been conspired against by resident aliens, and which had in its power both the invaders and the resident conspirators.[221]
CHAPTER XIV.CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONTINUED.
The foreigners’ Reform Association, sometimes called the National Union, was organized at Johannesburg in 1893. Its professed object was to secure redress of grievances. This is always allowable in a free country; but it is matter of record that the spirit and methods of this particular association were not calculated to propitiate the people to whom they must look for any relief from the sufferings of which they complained.Two incidents will sufficiently illustrate this. In 1894 Lord Loch, the British High Commissioner for South Africa, visited the Transvaal to conduct certain negotiations with the executive concerning Swaziland. The presence of this distinguished Crown Official in the Transvaal was made the occasion by the association of offering a public insult to President Kruger in Pretoria, of promoting a violent outburst of pro-British[208]and anti-Africander sentiment in Johannesburg, and of a conference between Lord Loch and Mr. Lionel Phillips, a member of one of the leading financial houses inJohannesburg, in which was considered the propriety of assembling a body of imperial troops on the borders of the Transvaal for the support of any revolutionary movement that might be made. These proceedings were reminiscent to the Africanders of an earlier demonstration, prior to the forming of the National Union. In 1890 President Kruger visited Johannesburg to confer with leading citizens on the mitigation of the grievances complained of. The foreigners celebrated his coming in that friendly way by drinking to excess, by singing in his ears “God Save the Queen” as a suitable song of welcome to the President of the South African Republic, and by tearing down the national flag of the Transvaal which was floating in front of the house in which the conference was being held. With a moderation not to be expected from Paul Kruger, the president charitably attributed the offensive proceedings to “long drinks”; but the people in general and their representatives were much embittered by them, and the effect was unfavorable to the carrying of any measures for the benefit of the foreigners.BLOEMFONTEIN.BLOEMFONTEIN.[209]Throughout 1894 and 1895, both on the surface of things and beneath it, appearances were ominous of coming disturbance. On the surface there was, from Cape Town, an open advocacy of violent measures in Johannesburg, should such be found necessary to bring about the desired changes in favor of the foreigners. Mr. Edmund Garrett, editor of the “Cape Times,” openly stated at Bloemfontein, in 1895, that his presence in South Africa was connected with a purpose on the part of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, and his associates, to “force the pace.” And it was at this time that, as before stated, the British authorities suddenly annexed the Tongaland territory, through which the Africanders had secured a concession and projected a railway to the sea—thus deepening the impression to a painful and alarming certainty that the Imperial Government was intentionally unfriendly to that of the South African Republic.Under the surface very momentous things were going on. In Rhodesia a volunteer police force was being enrolled by Sir John Willoughby. This gentleman, speaking for his superior, Doctor Jameson, assured the men that they would only be required to serve in a “camp of exercise”[210]once a year, and that they would not be taken beyond the borders of Rhodesia.Fitting in very significantly with this movement, the Bechuanaland Protectorate—lying next neighbor to Rhodesia on the south and to the Transvaal on the west—was transferred to the Chartered Company controlling Rhodesia, a measure that enabled Doctor Jameson to station his volunteer police force on the Transvaal border without taking them out of the enlarged Rhodesia.Meantime, rifles, ammunition and Maxim guns were smuggled across the border from Kimberley to Johannesburg, to be in readiness for an armed uprising of the foreigners on a date to be agreed upon. Over in the British territory of Rhodesia, Doctor Jameson’s force—ostensibly for local police purposes—was armed and near the border, ready to co-operate with the revolt about to be initiated at Johannesburg. As a provision for the sustenance of the invading force, a number of so-called “canteens,” said to be for the convenience of a projected stage line, but really stores of food for Jameson’s troopers and their horses, were established at convenient distances along the road over which the force was to advance upon Johannesburg.[211]At the same time, the official opening of the new railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay was made the occasion of such marked congratulation from the Imperial Government as implied nothing but the most friendly relations. Afterwards the Africanders held that the Imperial congratulations were sincere, and that the fact of their being sent was evidence that the policy of implacable hostility toward the South African Republic being pursued by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was in no sense the policy of the British government.It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of the through railway of the carrying trade from[212]the border to Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic. The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the “drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11 per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a[213]strong prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained.As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously, mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the 6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It Is”:“Master Lionel’s speech has been very foolish, and is likely to do a great deal of harm and no good—unless his instructions are to incite to bloodshed—and I can scarcely imagine such instructions to have gone out while the boom is[214]lasting. If there is anything that is likely to put Paul Kruger’s back up, it is threats; and unless Cecil Rhodes is prepared to back up with his Matabele heroes those threats, you will find the Volksraad of 1896 give an unmistakable answer to what they will wrongly call ‘British threats.’ ”How the real state of things was comprehended locally is evinced in the answer to that letter, dated December the 10th:“Your remark concerning Rhodes’ Matabele heroes is probably more prophetic than you yourself are aware of. South Africa is, as you say, the land of surprises.”Among the parties privy to the conspiracy the date of uprising was spoken of as the “day of flotation.” It was carefully discussed, as was the use that could be made of the British crown officials at the Cape. Arms and ammunition for the use of the revolutionists continued to arrive at Johannesburg, concealed in coal trucks and oil tanks. It looked like an appointment when, on the 21st of December, Colonel Rhodes, brother and representative of Cecil Rhodes at Johannesburg, telegraphed to the Cape that a high official, whom he called the “Chairman,” should interfere at the earliest possible moment, and that he and Mr. Cecil Rhodes should start[215]from Cape Town for Johannesburg on the “day of flotation.”This telegram has been interpreted to mean that the conspirators wanted to create just enough of disturbance to justify alarming telegrams and calls for help, but not so prolonged and violent as to make it necessary for them to lead a hand-to-hand fight against the burghers in the streets of Johannesburg. They would have the Jameson force near enough to take the brunt of the fighting, and the High Commissioner to come in opportunely to mediate a peace favoring the re-establishment of British control in the Transvaal.Strangely enough, at the last moment divisions arose among the local conspirators at Johannesburg; they hesitated, and were lost. To some, the project which had been much talked of—that of re-establishing British rule—became suddenly distasteful, the principal reason being that the desired control of capital over legislation could not be as complete under British colonial administration as it might be made under some other regime. They had appealed to the sentiment of British loyalty in persuading English recruits to enter their ranks, but they began to see that this sentiment, carried to its legitimate fruition,[216]would defeat the chief end of the capitalists in seeking the overthrow of the Kruger government. Christmas day of 1895 found the Johannesburg reformers so divided in feeling that most of them were in favor of postponing all action until some definite assurance could be obtained as to what, and for whom, they were to fight. To this end the President of the National Union, Mr. Charles Leonard, was sent off to Cape Town to confer with Mr. Cecil Rhodes.In enlisting Doctor Jameson and his police force in this movement an uncertain and dangerous factor had been included. The situation became critical. Jameson, who had been warned that he must on no account make any move until he received further orders, grew restive and eager for the fray. In Johannesburg the conspirators were in a state of indecision and alarm. Mr. Cecil Rhodes himself was halting between the two opinions, whether to abandon the enterprise altogether or to precipitate the struggle regardless of the divided counsels at Johannesburg.Then the factor of danger declared itself. On the night of the 29th of December, 1895, Doctor Jameson broke his tether and, presumably without orders, invaded the territory of the South African Republic from the British territory of[217]Bechuanaland, at the head of about six hundred men.Just why Jameson moved at that time probably never will be known. He has himself assumed the entire responsibility; Mr. Rhodes and Sir Hercules Robinson, the High Commissioner, have disavowed it utterly. There are few who believe that his invasion was intended to initiate the revolution. A probable solution of the mystery is that the revolutionary programme included (1) a collision between the conspirators in Johannesburg and the burgher police, (2) the calling in of the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, as mediator, (3) the ordering up of Jameson and his force to support the High Commissioner in any course he might decide upon, and that Jameson thought he could time his arrival aright without waiting for further orders.But the skillfully arranged programme was spoiled by the shrewdness of President Kruger. There was no initial conflict in the streets of Johannesburg. Penetrating the design, the president withdrew all the Transvaal police from the streets of the city; there was no one to exchange shots with, and therefore no reason to justify a call for outside interference.[218]By cutting the telegraph wires Jameson made it impossible for friend or foe to know his whereabouts, but the report got abroad that he was coming. In Johannesburg some desired, some feared, his coming. A member of the committee of the National Union assembled a hundred of the malcontents and attempted to lead them out to co-operate with the invaders, but they tamely surrendered to a burgher force without firing a shot. As for Jameson, on Wednesday, the 1st of January, 1896, he was checked near Krugersdorp by a few hundred burghers hastily collected, and on the next day was surrounded near Doornkop and forced to surrender. Thus ended the attempt at revolution.During the few days which closed 1895 and opened 1896, there was a state of social, political and financial chaos in Johannesburg. All that was left visible of the reform association was confined within the walls of a single clubhouse—a resort of the leading spirits in the conspiracy. The European population at large seemed to be unaware of anything connected with the affair but the, to them, unaccountable situation—full of peril to life and property—which had been created they knew not how. The state of panic was sustained and intensified by the wildest rumors of[219]what Jameson was to do, of thousands of burghers assembling to lay siege to the town, of a purpose to bombard the city from the forts, of a new government about to be proclaimed—indeed, anything and everything might happen.When it leaked out that the principal actors in the revolutionary movement had secretly removed their families from the city—which was to be the storm-center of the expected disturbance—there was a general stampede. Men and women fought for place on the outgoing trains. In one tragical instance an overladen train left the track, and forty persons, mostly women and children, perished. To exaggerate the misery and disaster to innocent and peaceable people, caused by this unfortunate and abortive uprising, would be impossible.The immediate effect of the raid was most unfavorable to the return of anything like good feeling between the British and the Africanders. The historic cablegram of the German Emperor to President Kruger, congratulating him on the prompt and easy suppression of the rebellion, was construed as evidence that the South African Republic was secretly conniving at a German rivalry to Great Britain as the paramount power in South Africa. On the other hand, every[220]burgher in the Transvaal saw in the conspiracy a new indication of the inexorable hostility of the British to their independence, and of a relentless purpose to subvert it again by any means necessary to accomplish their end, however unjust or violent. The effect on the burghers of the raid was much the same as that of the blowing up of the Maine on the citizens of the United States—a feeling that relations had been created which nothing could finally adjust but war.Notwithstanding the intensified bitterness between the two peoples, no one was put to death, nor was any one very seriously punished for taking up arms against the Transvaal government. This is to be credited not to any doubt or extenuation of their guilt, but to urgent intercession on the part of the British authorities, and to the wisdom of those who administered the government whose territory had been invaded from the soil of a professedly friendly nation, whose very existence had been conspired against by resident aliens, and which had in its power both the invaders and the resident conspirators.[221]
The foreigners’ Reform Association, sometimes called the National Union, was organized at Johannesburg in 1893. Its professed object was to secure redress of grievances. This is always allowable in a free country; but it is matter of record that the spirit and methods of this particular association were not calculated to propitiate the people to whom they must look for any relief from the sufferings of which they complained.
Two incidents will sufficiently illustrate this. In 1894 Lord Loch, the British High Commissioner for South Africa, visited the Transvaal to conduct certain negotiations with the executive concerning Swaziland. The presence of this distinguished Crown Official in the Transvaal was made the occasion by the association of offering a public insult to President Kruger in Pretoria, of promoting a violent outburst of pro-British[208]and anti-Africander sentiment in Johannesburg, and of a conference between Lord Loch and Mr. Lionel Phillips, a member of one of the leading financial houses inJohannesburg, in which was considered the propriety of assembling a body of imperial troops on the borders of the Transvaal for the support of any revolutionary movement that might be made. These proceedings were reminiscent to the Africanders of an earlier demonstration, prior to the forming of the National Union. In 1890 President Kruger visited Johannesburg to confer with leading citizens on the mitigation of the grievances complained of. The foreigners celebrated his coming in that friendly way by drinking to excess, by singing in his ears “God Save the Queen” as a suitable song of welcome to the President of the South African Republic, and by tearing down the national flag of the Transvaal which was floating in front of the house in which the conference was being held. With a moderation not to be expected from Paul Kruger, the president charitably attributed the offensive proceedings to “long drinks”; but the people in general and their representatives were much embittered by them, and the effect was unfavorable to the carrying of any measures for the benefit of the foreigners.
BLOEMFONTEIN.BLOEMFONTEIN.
BLOEMFONTEIN.
[209]
Throughout 1894 and 1895, both on the surface of things and beneath it, appearances were ominous of coming disturbance. On the surface there was, from Cape Town, an open advocacy of violent measures in Johannesburg, should such be found necessary to bring about the desired changes in favor of the foreigners. Mr. Edmund Garrett, editor of the “Cape Times,” openly stated at Bloemfontein, in 1895, that his presence in South Africa was connected with a purpose on the part of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, and his associates, to “force the pace.” And it was at this time that, as before stated, the British authorities suddenly annexed the Tongaland territory, through which the Africanders had secured a concession and projected a railway to the sea—thus deepening the impression to a painful and alarming certainty that the Imperial Government was intentionally unfriendly to that of the South African Republic.
Under the surface very momentous things were going on. In Rhodesia a volunteer police force was being enrolled by Sir John Willoughby. This gentleman, speaking for his superior, Doctor Jameson, assured the men that they would only be required to serve in a “camp of exercise”[210]once a year, and that they would not be taken beyond the borders of Rhodesia.
Fitting in very significantly with this movement, the Bechuanaland Protectorate—lying next neighbor to Rhodesia on the south and to the Transvaal on the west—was transferred to the Chartered Company controlling Rhodesia, a measure that enabled Doctor Jameson to station his volunteer police force on the Transvaal border without taking them out of the enlarged Rhodesia.
Meantime, rifles, ammunition and Maxim guns were smuggled across the border from Kimberley to Johannesburg, to be in readiness for an armed uprising of the foreigners on a date to be agreed upon. Over in the British territory of Rhodesia, Doctor Jameson’s force—ostensibly for local police purposes—was armed and near the border, ready to co-operate with the revolt about to be initiated at Johannesburg. As a provision for the sustenance of the invading force, a number of so-called “canteens,” said to be for the convenience of a projected stage line, but really stores of food for Jameson’s troopers and their horses, were established at convenient distances along the road over which the force was to advance upon Johannesburg.[211]
At the same time, the official opening of the new railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay was made the occasion of such marked congratulation from the Imperial Government as implied nothing but the most friendly relations. Afterwards the Africanders held that the Imperial congratulations were sincere, and that the fact of their being sent was evidence that the policy of implacable hostility toward the South African Republic being pursued by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was in no sense the policy of the British government.
It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of the through railway of the carrying trade from[212]the border to Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic. The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the “drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11 per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a[213]strong prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained.
As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously, mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the 6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It Is”:
“Master Lionel’s speech has been very foolish, and is likely to do a great deal of harm and no good—unless his instructions are to incite to bloodshed—and I can scarcely imagine such instructions to have gone out while the boom is[214]lasting. If there is anything that is likely to put Paul Kruger’s back up, it is threats; and unless Cecil Rhodes is prepared to back up with his Matabele heroes those threats, you will find the Volksraad of 1896 give an unmistakable answer to what they will wrongly call ‘British threats.’ ”
How the real state of things was comprehended locally is evinced in the answer to that letter, dated December the 10th:
“Your remark concerning Rhodes’ Matabele heroes is probably more prophetic than you yourself are aware of. South Africa is, as you say, the land of surprises.”
Among the parties privy to the conspiracy the date of uprising was spoken of as the “day of flotation.” It was carefully discussed, as was the use that could be made of the British crown officials at the Cape. Arms and ammunition for the use of the revolutionists continued to arrive at Johannesburg, concealed in coal trucks and oil tanks. It looked like an appointment when, on the 21st of December, Colonel Rhodes, brother and representative of Cecil Rhodes at Johannesburg, telegraphed to the Cape that a high official, whom he called the “Chairman,” should interfere at the earliest possible moment, and that he and Mr. Cecil Rhodes should start[215]from Cape Town for Johannesburg on the “day of flotation.”
This telegram has been interpreted to mean that the conspirators wanted to create just enough of disturbance to justify alarming telegrams and calls for help, but not so prolonged and violent as to make it necessary for them to lead a hand-to-hand fight against the burghers in the streets of Johannesburg. They would have the Jameson force near enough to take the brunt of the fighting, and the High Commissioner to come in opportunely to mediate a peace favoring the re-establishment of British control in the Transvaal.
Strangely enough, at the last moment divisions arose among the local conspirators at Johannesburg; they hesitated, and were lost. To some, the project which had been much talked of—that of re-establishing British rule—became suddenly distasteful, the principal reason being that the desired control of capital over legislation could not be as complete under British colonial administration as it might be made under some other regime. They had appealed to the sentiment of British loyalty in persuading English recruits to enter their ranks, but they began to see that this sentiment, carried to its legitimate fruition,[216]would defeat the chief end of the capitalists in seeking the overthrow of the Kruger government. Christmas day of 1895 found the Johannesburg reformers so divided in feeling that most of them were in favor of postponing all action until some definite assurance could be obtained as to what, and for whom, they were to fight. To this end the President of the National Union, Mr. Charles Leonard, was sent off to Cape Town to confer with Mr. Cecil Rhodes.
In enlisting Doctor Jameson and his police force in this movement an uncertain and dangerous factor had been included. The situation became critical. Jameson, who had been warned that he must on no account make any move until he received further orders, grew restive and eager for the fray. In Johannesburg the conspirators were in a state of indecision and alarm. Mr. Cecil Rhodes himself was halting between the two opinions, whether to abandon the enterprise altogether or to precipitate the struggle regardless of the divided counsels at Johannesburg.
Then the factor of danger declared itself. On the night of the 29th of December, 1895, Doctor Jameson broke his tether and, presumably without orders, invaded the territory of the South African Republic from the British territory of[217]Bechuanaland, at the head of about six hundred men.
Just why Jameson moved at that time probably never will be known. He has himself assumed the entire responsibility; Mr. Rhodes and Sir Hercules Robinson, the High Commissioner, have disavowed it utterly. There are few who believe that his invasion was intended to initiate the revolution. A probable solution of the mystery is that the revolutionary programme included (1) a collision between the conspirators in Johannesburg and the burgher police, (2) the calling in of the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, as mediator, (3) the ordering up of Jameson and his force to support the High Commissioner in any course he might decide upon, and that Jameson thought he could time his arrival aright without waiting for further orders.
But the skillfully arranged programme was spoiled by the shrewdness of President Kruger. There was no initial conflict in the streets of Johannesburg. Penetrating the design, the president withdrew all the Transvaal police from the streets of the city; there was no one to exchange shots with, and therefore no reason to justify a call for outside interference.[218]
By cutting the telegraph wires Jameson made it impossible for friend or foe to know his whereabouts, but the report got abroad that he was coming. In Johannesburg some desired, some feared, his coming. A member of the committee of the National Union assembled a hundred of the malcontents and attempted to lead them out to co-operate with the invaders, but they tamely surrendered to a burgher force without firing a shot. As for Jameson, on Wednesday, the 1st of January, 1896, he was checked near Krugersdorp by a few hundred burghers hastily collected, and on the next day was surrounded near Doornkop and forced to surrender. Thus ended the attempt at revolution.
During the few days which closed 1895 and opened 1896, there was a state of social, political and financial chaos in Johannesburg. All that was left visible of the reform association was confined within the walls of a single clubhouse—a resort of the leading spirits in the conspiracy. The European population at large seemed to be unaware of anything connected with the affair but the, to them, unaccountable situation—full of peril to life and property—which had been created they knew not how. The state of panic was sustained and intensified by the wildest rumors of[219]what Jameson was to do, of thousands of burghers assembling to lay siege to the town, of a purpose to bombard the city from the forts, of a new government about to be proclaimed—indeed, anything and everything might happen.
When it leaked out that the principal actors in the revolutionary movement had secretly removed their families from the city—which was to be the storm-center of the expected disturbance—there was a general stampede. Men and women fought for place on the outgoing trains. In one tragical instance an overladen train left the track, and forty persons, mostly women and children, perished. To exaggerate the misery and disaster to innocent and peaceable people, caused by this unfortunate and abortive uprising, would be impossible.
The immediate effect of the raid was most unfavorable to the return of anything like good feeling between the British and the Africanders. The historic cablegram of the German Emperor to President Kruger, congratulating him on the prompt and easy suppression of the rebellion, was construed as evidence that the South African Republic was secretly conniving at a German rivalry to Great Britain as the paramount power in South Africa. On the other hand, every[220]burgher in the Transvaal saw in the conspiracy a new indication of the inexorable hostility of the British to their independence, and of a relentless purpose to subvert it again by any means necessary to accomplish their end, however unjust or violent. The effect on the burghers of the raid was much the same as that of the blowing up of the Maine on the citizens of the United States—a feeling that relations had been created which nothing could finally adjust but war.
Notwithstanding the intensified bitterness between the two peoples, no one was put to death, nor was any one very seriously punished for taking up arms against the Transvaal government. This is to be credited not to any doubt or extenuation of their guilt, but to urgent intercession on the part of the British authorities, and to the wisdom of those who administered the government whose territory had been invaded from the soil of a professedly friendly nation, whose very existence had been conspired against by resident aliens, and which had in its power both the invaders and the resident conspirators.[221]