Boer Politics Part 16

In this reply I trace M. Brunetiere's habitual courtesy. If I do not thank him for his refusal, I yet thank him for the promptness with which it was signified by him.

It had been my desire to enable the reading public to judge for themselves the value of the arguments put forward by Dr. Kuyper and myself; but it was evidently M. Brunetiere's wish that Dr. Kuyper's article should be known only to the readers of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, and that they should remain ignorant of my reply. This is in itself a confession; for undoubtedly had Dr. Kuyper been convinced that it was impossible for me to refute his arguments he would have requested M. Brunetiere to give me the authorisation to reproduce his article.

V.

On April 26th a telegram from the Havas Agency announced that the Queen of Holland had received the journalists of Amsterdam, of whom Dr. Kuyper is President.

I therefore wrote the following letter to Mr. W.H. de Beaufort, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs:

PARIS, _April 27th, 1900._

TO H.E. THE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

SIR,

The Havas Agency, in a telegram, April 26, gives the following information:

"Replying to a speech made by Dr. Kuyper, President of the Society of Journalists, the Queen said she had read with interest his article on the South African crisis, published in a Paris review. The Queen expressed the hope that the article would be circulated abroad, adding that she considered it important that it should be widely distributed in America."

That the Queen of a const.i.tutional government, such as that of Holland, should have spoken in this way, proves that the Cabinet is of the same mind. I trust, therefore, that I am not too bold in asking your a.s.sistance to carry out Her Majesty's intentions.

I had asked Dr. Kuyper's authorisation to reproduce his article at the beginning of a pamphlet; he referred me to M. Brunetiere, who with the courtesy of which he has given me so many proofs, replied: "I hasten to refuse your request."

M. Brunetiere's views are evidently opposed to those of the Queen of the Netherlands.

It is true that the article would have been followed by my criticism, but if the arguments therein contained are irrefutable, why fear the proximity of my refutation? I beg you, therefore, to be kind enough to ask M. Brunetiere to give me permission to second the views of Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands by a.s.sisting to circulate Dr. Kuyper's article.

YVES GUYOT.

I have published my pamphlet while awaiting M. Brunetiere's reply to the Dutch Government which can hardly do otherwise than make the request, agreeing, as it does, with the views of Her Majesty. Should M.

Brunetiere by any chance cease to fear the proximity to Dr. Kuyper's a.s.sertions of the facts and doc.u.ments published by me, I will issue a new Edition.

APPENDIX C.

THE LAST PRO-BOER MANIFESTATION.

Since the foregoing articles were written Dr. Leyds and Mr. Boer have not been idle. M. Pierre Foncin, a General Inspector of the University, has compiled on behalf of a Society called "Le Sou des Boers," a manifesto ending thus: "Well then, since this l.u.s.t of gold has resulted in war, let the gold of France be poured out in floods, in aid of the innocent victims!"

In spite of considerable influence brought to bear upon this member of the University, the Committee, after some weeks' work, only managed to sc.r.a.pe together something like four hundred pounds. Since then, no more has been heard of it, and its place has been taken by "The Committee for the Independence of the Boers," with M. Pauliat, a Nationalist Senator, at its head. Its object was, in the first place, to organise a reception for the Boer delegates on their return from America.

It was confidently expected by the promoters of the enterprise that it would afford a good opportunity for a demonstration in opposition to the Government on the fourteenth of July. The delegates were received at the Hotel-de-Ville by the Nationalist Munic.i.p.al Council, whose President, M.

Grebauval, addressed them in virulent speeches, while the great square in front remained empty. The Irish Banquet which took place this year on the twelfth of July under the Presidency of Mr. Archdeacon, and which had been much talked of in 1899 at the time of the Auteuil manifestation, when President Loubet was. .h.i.t with a stick by Baron Christiani, pa.s.sed off amidst complete indifference. No disturbance of any kind occurred on the fourteenth of July.

The Congress of the Interparliamentary Union in favour of Peace and Arbitration was to be held on the 31st of July. It was stated that the Boer delegates were going to present a memorial, whilst M. Pauliat intended to raise the Transvaal question. My answer was that I intended to be there too, and considered it of interest to treat that question.

Dr. Leyds knew that the majority of the English Members of Parliament who belonged to the Congress had declared themselves against the South African war, and he antic.i.p.ated that owing to their former declarations they would find it difficult not to side with the pro-Boer sympathisers.

It was rather a clever idea. But on the 30th of July there was a meeting of the executive Committee composed of two members of each of the various nationalities, at which the English members declared that, if contrary to its regulations, the Transvaal question was to be discussed they were resolved to withdraw. The Committee decided to admit Mr.

Wessels, formerly Speaker of the Orange Free State Parliament, simply as a member of the Congress; to oppose any discussion of the Transvaal question and to rule that the communication made by the Boer delegates was merely to be circulated among the members as individuals.

My pamphlet, _La Politique Boer_, and my answer in _Le Siecle_ of the 1st of August, were also distributed. Here are a few extracts:

"The manifesto of Messrs. Fisher, Wessels and Wolmarans, delegates for the South African Republics, has been a disappointment to me. I expected that these gentlemen would produce some arguments; they have contented themselves with giving us a summary of Dr. Reitz's pamphlet--"A Century of Wrongs." It ends with the same incitement to annexation, which was already to be found in the cry for help sent on the 17th of February, 1881, by the Transvaal to the Orange Free State--"Africa for the Afrikander, from the Zambesi to Simon's Bay!" The delegates recognise that the time for claiming new territories has pa.s.sed; they describe themselves as a nation of mild and peace-loving men, the victims of perpetual English persecution. I do not wish to discuss their way of dealing with historical facts, about which they are not so candid as was Mr.

Kruger in his 1881 manifesto, because what we are now interested in, is not that which happened in times long ago, but what has happened since the annexation of the Transvaal by England, on the 12th of April, 1877. They do not say a word of the state of anarchy then prevailing in the Transvaal, nor of its military reserves, nor of the threatening att.i.tude of Sekukuni and Cetewayo. Whereas in the manifesto of 1881, with these facts still fresh in the memory of its author, it is said: "At the outset our military operations were not very successful. In the opinion of our opponents we were too weak to resist successfully an attack from the natives," Sir Theophilus Shepstone, unable to restore order, had finally to annex the Transvaal. This he did at the head of twenty-five policemen only. Had the Transvaal been left to itself Sekukuni's and Cetewayo's impis would have overrun the country and turned out the Boers, who, after they had been delivered from their enemies by the English, proclaimed "a war of independence" in December, 1880. The Majuba disaster, 27th of February, 1881, in which the English had 92 killed, 134 wounded, and 59 prisoners, is of course mentioned by the delegates. An English army twelve thousand strong was advancing; but though the Queen's speech referred to the fact of the annexation, Mr. Gladstone, who in his Midlothian campaign, had protested against it, agreed to the 1881 Convention in which the independence of the Transvaal under England's suzerainty was recognised.

"The Boer nation," the Boer delegates say in their Memorandum, "could not bring themselves to accept the Convention; from all parts of the country protests arose against the Suzerainty clause."

I admit willingly that the Boers did not abide by the Convention.

In 1884, speaking in the House of Lords,--Lord Derby said: "The att.i.tude of the Boers might const.i.tute a _casus belli_ but as the Government were not in the mood for war, and the position of the English resident in Pretoria was anomalous," he a.s.sented to the Convention of 27th February, 1884, "by which," say the Boer delegates, "the suzerainty over the Transvaal was abolished, and the South African Republic's complete independence acknowledged."

This is their contention, now for the facts."

I then adverted to the events of which the XVth. and XVIth. chapters of _La Politique Boer_ give a summary. The Jameson raid is, of course, the mainstay of the delegates' argument. After showing what this is really worth, and also discussing the arbitration question, I concluded as follows:

"The Memorandum s.h.i.+rks all the questions; doc.u.ments are not referred to; there is nothing in it but a.s.sertions, which are to be accepted without discussion. It ends by mixing up what relates to the organisation and adminstration of the two Republics. But the adminstration of the Orange Free State and the adminstration of the South African Republic were quite different things. By following Kruger's policy Mr. Steyn has been guilty of a crime as well as a great political blunder. Had he remained neutral the English army would have been compelled to establish the basis of its operations much farther North, and would have been deprived of the use of the railway line to Bloemfontein. Moreover, when peace was restored, he would have remained independent. The Memorandum alludes to the prosperity of the Transvaal, but forgets to mention that the only share taken in it by the Boers has been an ever-increasing appropriation of the wealth created by the Uitlanders' industry, capital and labour.

"The Memorandum mentions also the laws pa.s.sed annually, but is careful to omit law No. 1 of 1897, by which Mr. Kruger was empowered to exact from the judges a declaration that decisions of the Volksraad would be enforced by them as legal enactments, whether they were in agreement with the const.i.tutions or not, and to dismiss at a moment's notice any one of them whose response might seem to him unsatisfactory.

"We have already spoken of the concluding sentences in the Memorandum. Messrs. A. Fischer, C.H. Wessels, A.D.W. Wolmarans "appeal to the _Conference de l'Union Interparlementaire_ to take in hand their cause." The Executive Committee has, as has already been said, ruled the question out of order. This decision is not to be regretted considering the tendencies of the delegates'

Memorandum; it does not help their cause any more than does Dr.

Kuyper's article."

M. Pauliat complained bitterly of the decision. A progressive member of the Belgian deputation, Mr. Lorand, tried to revive the question on the 2nd of August by means of the following resolution:

"The tenth Conference of the Interparliamentary Union for International Arbitration now meeting in Paris being cognisant of acknowledging the resolutions of the Conference at the Hague, and being desirous to express its grat.i.tude to all who have contributed towards its results; trusts, that in future the Powers will avail themselves of the means put at their disposal for the amicable settlement of international disputes and regret that "they have not done so" in the actual conflict between England and the South African Republics."

Upon this, M. Beernaert, with all authority conferred upon him by his position as the delegate of the Belgian Government at the Hague Conference, observed that the Transvaal was not in a position to avail itself of the resolution arrived at by the Conference--because that Conference was no longer in existence, and because the Boers had not been a party to it. On his motion the words "could not do so" were inserted instead of the words "had not done so."

Now why were the Boers not represented at the Hague Conference?

The Queen of Holland, in whose name the invitations were issued, had undoubtedly been appealed to by them, to admit the Transvaal to the Congress in conformity with Dr. Reitz's contention that "the Transvaal had inherent rights to be an international state,"--but their request had been refused, as would have been a similar demand coming from Finland or the Bey of Tunis.

The case was on all fours with that of the Vatican. When the Italian Government declared that they would not sit in the Conference if an invitation were sent to the Holy See, the Vatican was omitted.

Such is the simple fact; and it is just this fact which M. Lorand and M.

Beernaert brought into relief by the resolution of 2nd August. I am quite sure that that was not their intention; the fact remains, notwithstanding.

APPENDIX D.

SOUTH AFRICAN CRITICS.

The letters written by Messrs. Labouchere, Ellis and Clark, Members of Parliament, found in Pretoria, are not of much importance to my mind.