South Africa and the Transvaal War Volume I Part 20

"It is well known," she writes, "that one of Jameson's troopers on the way down, falling ill, was taken prisoner by some Boers, and kept at their farmhouse some days. He was tied up, and forced to submit to all sorts of ill-treatment, being given dirty water to drink, for instance, when half-dying of thirst. But his captor's wife had compa.s.sion on him, and at the end of several days, to his surprise, he was told that he was to be allowed to go free. The Boers gave him his horse, mounted him, and informed him the one condition they made was that he was to ride away as fast as he could. He naturally obeyed, and as he galloped off had several bullets put into him, poor fellow. That is a very favourite and well-known method of Transvaal Boer a.s.sa.s.sination. It gives them the pretext that a prisoner had been trying to escape."

Mrs. Phillips relates also the horrible experiences of her husband, who was one of the Uitlanders conspicuous in the Reform movement.

"Lionel (her husband), George Farrar, Colonel Rhodes, and J. H.

Hammond were put into one cell, twelve feet square, without windows, and were locked up there the first three nights for thirteen hours.

Then the prison doctor insisted on more s.p.a.ce being allotted to them, and the door, which communicated with a courtyard twenty feet square, was left open at night. This was the s.p.a.ce in which they were permitted to take exercise. They were not allowed to a.s.sociate with their fellows at first. In January, in Pretoria, the heat is intense, quite semi-tropical indeed, the temperature varying from 90 to 105 degrees in the shade. As the weather happened to be at its hottest, the sufferings of these men were awful. The cells, hitherto devoted to the use of Kaffirs, swarmed with vermin and smelt horribly; while to increase their miseries, if that were possible, one of their number was suffering from dysentery, and no conveniences of any kind were supplied. With these facts in mind, any attempt to describe what the prisoners underwent would be superfluous. Add to all these hards.h.i.+ps their mental sufferings, and then judge of their state."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rt. Hon. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.,

Secretary for the Colonies.

Photo by Russell & Sons, London.]

Can anything be more pathetic than the description of the state of these men given by the wife of one of them--men who had been driven to hatred and revolt by an inefficient, exclusive, and unscrupulous Government, which was endeavouring to reduce the subjects of a suzerain power to the level--to the, to them, despicable level--of the Kaffirs? Of the fate of these unhappy sufferers we have yet to speak.

THE FATE OF RAIDERS AND REFORMERS

Dr. Jameson, as we all know, was sent with his comrades to England to be dealt with by the laws of his country. He and his officers were tried and convicted under the Foreign Enlistment Act. Much sympathy was shown him by the vast British public, and little for the Reformers, who, whatever their part in the affair, had to suffer most. They endured mental torture, and bodily discomfort of all kinds--discomfort so acute that it brought on some active illness, and caused one to commit suicide. A Judge from the Orange Free State--Judge Gregorowski--who took an unctious joy in the proceedings, was imported to try them, and he revived or unearthed an old Roman Dutch law of treason for the purpose of sentencing them to death. This sentence was fortunately not carried out, but it served to keep the Reformers and all connected with them in a state of agonised suspense. Besides these sufferers from the effects of the Raid, there were others. Mr. Rhodes is said to have exclaimed, "I have been the friend of Jameson for twenty years and now he has ruined me!" The statement was somewhat exaggerated, but there is no doubt that Mr. Rhodes, besides having to resign the posts he occupied, lost much of the sympathy of the Cape Dutch. The Uitlanders, also, who had previously enjoyed this sympathy now forfeited it, all the Dutch being inclined to quote the impulsive act of Dr. Jameson as an example of British treachery, and to look upon Mr. Kruger in the light of a hero. Indeed, many of the British, who took merely an outsider's interest in the state of affairs, laboured under the impression that Mr. Kruger was a simple-minded, long-suffering, and magnanimous person. They did not trouble themselves to go deeply into the incessant annoyances and injustices that for many years had harried the lot of the Uitlanders and caused them at last to lose patience and revolt against oppression. Even now there are people who lean to the belief that the coa.r.s.e nut of Boer character may possess a sound kernel, people who prefer to hug that belief rather than inform themselves by reading what Mr. Rider Haggard, Mr. Fitzpatrick, and other well-informed men have to say on the subject.

When all efforts to work upon Mr. Kruger failed, the wives of the unhappy men applied to "Tante Sanne," as the President's wife is called, and begged her intervention. She said, "Yes, I will do all I can for you; I am very sorry for you all, although I know that none of you thought of me that night when we heard Jameson had crossed the border, and we were afraid the President would have to go out and fight, and when they went and caught his white horse that he has not ridden for eight years. But all the same I am sorry for you all."

The wives of the Boers are very powerful, and it is possible that Mrs. Kruger may have prevailed in some way over her husband, for at last, after five weary months of imprisonment, after delays, suspenses, and alarms too numerous to be here recounted, the prisoners, on the 11th of June 1896, were released. They were required to pay a fine of 2000, and to sign a pledge not to interfere with politics for three years. It was owing to this pledge that the valuable book, "The Transvaal from Within," which has here been quoted, was not published till affairs therein set forth had come in 1899 to the painful climax of war! Mr. Lionel Phillips, however, was not so wise as Mr. Fitzpatrick. When Sir John Willoughby in 1897 attacked the Reform Leaders of Johannesburg in the _Nineteenth Century_, Mr. Phillips replied to it in the same Review, August 1897, defending himself and his comrades from the charges made. In consequence of this action Mr. Phillips was considered to have broken his pledge and was condemned by the Transvaal Government to banishment. Doubtless it was without much regret that he shook the dust of that ill-conditioned State from off his shoes.

THE ULTIMATUM

After the turmoil of 1896 affairs declined from bad to worse. The state of tension between the oppressed Uitlanders and the now suspicious Boers became from day to day and year to year more acute, till at last it was almost unbearable. The incompetence of the police showed that robbery, and even murder, might at any moment be perpetrated and go unpunished, and alarm on this score was not allayed by the action of a constable in shooting dead a Uitlander named Edgar for having met his insults with a blow.

To thoroughly appreciate the misery and insecurity of the Uitlanders, the atrocity of the Government, and the uncloaked hostility to Great Britain that has existed till now, we may quote a description of the situation given last year by Professor James Liebmann. He wrote:--

"In the Transvaal a state of things reigns supreme which cannot be surpa.s.sed by the most corrupt of South American Republics. There the Boer shows his character in its most unpleasant features. Low, sordid, corrupt, his chief magistrate as well as his lowest official readily listens to 'reasons that jingle,' and, like the gentleman in the 'Mikado,' is not averse to 'insults.' He calls his country a republic--it is so in name only. The majority of the population, representing the wealth and intelligence of the country--the Uitlanders--are refused almost every civil right, except the privilege of paying exorbitant taxes to swell an already overgorged treasury. Under this ideal(?) government, which is really a sixteenth-century oligarchy flouris.h.i.+ng at the end of the nineteenth, and is, certainly not a land where

'A man may speak the thing he will,'

you have a press censors.h.i.+p as tyrannical as in Russia, a State supervision of telegrams, a veto on the right of public meeting, a most unjust education law, and an Executive browbeating the Justiciary; and, in order to accomplish so much, the Transvaal has closed its doors to its kinsmen in Cape Colony--for you must not forget that the oldest Transvaalers, from President Kruger downwards, are ex-Cape Colonists, and quondam British subjects--and imported a bureaucracy of Hollanders to plait a whip wherewith to castigate her children.

"On the Rand, at present, the Uitlanders are voiceless, voteless, and leaderless, whilst, on the other hand, large quant.i.ties of arms have been introduced into the country, and the burghers, every one of them, trained in the use of these weapons. Fortifications have been raised at Johannesburg and Pretoria, to cowe those who are putting money into the State's purse, and for this purpose the President has acquired the services of German military officers who will find congenial employment in thus dragooning defenceless citizens.

"This is the state of affairs in the South African so-called Republic in this year of grace (1898), which, according to the Convention, granted equal rights to Briton and to Boer."

This being no exaggerated picture of the situation, it is small wonder that at last the Uitlanders determined to bear the burden no longer, but set their grievances before the Queen. Early in the new year the following pet.i.tion was forwarded to her Majesty:--

"_Humble Pet.i.tion of British Subjects resident on the Wit.w.a.tersrandt Gold Fields to her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria._

"1. Your loyal subjects on these fields are by law denied the free right of possessing such arms as may be necessary to protect their lives and property, and such obstacles are placed in their way as to render the obtaining of the necessary official permit almost impossible. Consequently the Uitlander population of this State is to all intents and purposes an unarmed community.

"2. On the other hand, the whole of the burgher section of the community, irrespective of age, are permitted to possess and carry arms without let or hindrance, and are, in fact, on application, supplied with them by the Government free of charge.

"3. The police force of this State is exclusively recruited from the burgher element, many of the police being youths fresh from rural districts, without experience or tact, and in many instances without general education or a knowledge of the English language; therefore, as a whole, entirely out of sympathy with the British section of the community, which forms the majority of the population.

"4. The foot police of Johannesburg, in whose appointment and control we have no voice, is not a military force; yet its members not only carry batons, but are also armed with six-chambered military revolvers, invariably carried loaded.

"5. Under these circ.u.mstances, given an unarmed community policed by a body of inexperienced rustics carrying weapons of precision and utterly out of sympathy with the community they are supposed to protect, it is not surprising that the power placed in the hands of this police force should be constantly abused.

"6. For years past your subjects have in consequence had constantly to complain of innumerable acts of petty tyranny at the hands of the police.

"7. During the last few months, however, this antagonistic att.i.tude of the police has a.s.sumed a much more serious and aggressive aspect.

Without warrant they have invaded private houses and taken the occupants into custody on frivolous and unfounded charges never proceeded with; violently arrested British subjects in the streets on unintelligible charges: and generally display towards your Majesty's subjects a temper which undoubtedly tends to endanger the peace of the community. In adopting this demeanour the police are supported, with but a few honourable exceptions, by the higher officials, as instanced by the continual persecution in the Courts of many of your Majesty's coloured subjects at the very time when negotiations are proceeding between your Majesty's Representative and the Transvaal Government with regard to their status. This feeling is also strongly evidenced in the particular case which we now bring to your Majesty's notice.

"8. The lamentable tragedy which has been the immediate cause of this our humble Pet.i.tion cannot, therefore, be regarded as incidental, but symptomatic.

"9. This case is that of the shooting of Tom Jackson Edgar, a British subject, by Police-Constable Barend Stepha.n.u.s Jones, a member of the Johannesburg Constabulary.

"10. From the accompanying affidavits, already published and sworn by eye-witnesses of the tragedy, it would appear that the deceased, while in the occupation of his own house, was shot dead by Police-Constable Barend Stepha.n.u.s Jones as the latter was in the act of unlawfully breaking into the house of deceased without a warrant.

"11. Police-Constable Barend Stepha.n.u.s Jones, though in the first instance placed in custody on a charge of murder, was almost immediately afterwards let out on bail by the Public Prosecutor, who, without waiting for any Magisterial inquiry, reduced the charge, on his own initiative, to that of culpable homicide.

"12. The bail on which the prisoner was released was the same in amount--namely, 200--as that required a few days previously from an Uitlander charged with a common a.s.sault on a Member of the Government Secret Service, and the penalty for which was a fine of 20.

"13. The widow and orphan of the late Tom Jackson Edgar have been left absolutely dest.i.tute through the death of their natural protector.

"14. To sum up: We humbly represent to your Majesty that we, your loyal subjects resident here, are entirely defenceless since--(1) The police are appointed by the Government, not by the Munic.i.p.ality; (2) We have no voice in the Government of the country; (3) There is no longer an independent Judiciary to which we can appeal; (4) There is, therefore, no power within this State to which we can appeal with the least hope of success; and as we are not allowed to arm and protect ourselves, our last resource is to fall back on our status as British subjects.

"We therefore humbly pray: That your Majesty will instruct your Representative to take such steps as will ensure (_a_) a full and impartial trial, on a proper indictment, of prisoner Police-Constable Barend Stepha.n.u.s Jones, and adequate punishment for his offence, if found guilty; (_b_) proper provision by the Transvaal Government for the needs of the widow and orphan of the deceased Tom Jackson Edgar, killed by their agent; (_c_) the extension of your Majesty's protection to the lives, liberty, and property of your loyal subjects resident here, and such other steps as may be necessary to terminate the existing intolerable state of affairs.

"And your pet.i.tioners will ever pray, &c."

Of course, this move enraged the authorities of the Transvaal, who tried to prove the existence of a plot against the Republic, and even to represent that British military officers were implicated in it. But Sir Alfred Milner exposed the little machinations of the "secret service" people, so that their duplicit efforts were not crowned with the hoped-for success. Mr. Steyn then succeeded Mr.

Reitz as President of the Orange Free State, and his appearance on the political scene was the signal for an offensive and defensive alliance between the two Republics. Following the example set by President Brand, Mr. Steyn--in the character of umpire or peacemaker--a.s.sisted to promote a meeting at Bloemfontein between Sir Alfred Milner and President Kruger. The Uitlander Council drew up the following declaration:--

"The proposals submitted at the Bloemfontein Conference by his Excellency the High Commissioner were briefly:

"1. That the Uitlanders possessing a certain property or wages qualification, on proving that they had resided five years in the country and on taking an oath of allegiance, be given full burgher rights.

"2. That there should be such a distribution of seats as would give to the new-comers a substantial representation in the First Volksraad, but not such as would enable them to swamp the old burghers.

"All must admit that this scheme is most conservative, because--

"(_a_). It does not restore to the Uitlanders all the rights of which they have been unjustly deprived since the retrocession.

"(_b_). Nearly the whole revenue of the country is derived from the taxation of the Uitlanders.

"(_c_). The Uitlanders form at least two-thirds of the total white population. (This was practically admitted by President Kruger at the Conference.)

"(_d_). In most new countries one or two years' residence ensures full voting power. There is no reason why there should be more stringent conditions in operation in this State than in Natal or Cape Colony, or than those which existed until quite recently in the Orange Free State, and which were only changed from one to three years on account of the unhealthy political conditions in the South African Republic.

"Notwithstanding, however, the conservative character of the scheme, the Uitlander Council consider that the proposals of his Excellency the High Commissioner are calculated in no small degree to bring about a practical and permanent settlement. But in the opinion of the Uitlander Council, it is essential at the outset to fix definitely the conditions under which: