Boer Politics Part 18

The dispatch of the 21st August seems to me to have been wholly unnecessary, unless something happened between the 19th and 21st which led the Transvaal Government to think they had yielded too much. I have heard it said that between those dates a cablegram from Dr. Leyds gave hopes of European intervention...."

Does this telegram exist? It is indeed likely. At any rate the responsibility of the war rests upon those who--be they diplomatists or journalists--have deluded Dr. Leyds to that extent. And the blood which is now shed is on the head of those who still try and persuade the Boers that Russia, Germany, or France is going to interfere.

In _Le Siecle_ of the 3rd September, extracts from the "Blue Book" have been printed. We also find there letters from the 11th of March, 1898, up to the 8th of May, 1899, written by Mr. J.X. Merriman, the Cape Treasurer during the Schreiner Ministry. As he is one of the leaders of the irreconcilable Afrikander group he cannot be suspected of undue sympathy towards England. In his first letter to Mr. Steyn a year before the Uitlanders had pet.i.tioned for a redress, fourteen months before the Bloemfontein Conference, eighteen months before the declaration of war, the following pa.s.sage is to be found:--

"Yet one cannot conceal the fact that the greatest danger to the future lies in the att.i.tude of President Kruger and his vain hope of building up a State on a foundation of a narrow unenlightened minority, and his obstinate rejection of all prospect of using the materials which lie ready to his hand to establish a true Republic on a broad liberal basis. The report of recent discussions in the Volksraad on his finances and their mismanagement fill one with apprehension. Such a state of affairs cannot last, it must break down from inherent rottenness, and it will be well if the fall does not sweep away the freedom of all of us.

"I write in no hostility to the Republics: my own feelings are all in the opposite direction; but the foes of that form of government are too often those of their own household. I am quite sure that you have done what you can in modifying the att.i.tude at Pretoria; but I entreat you, for the welfare of South Africa, to persevere, however unsatisfactory it may be to see your advice flouted and your motives so cruelly misrepresented by a section of colonists.

"Humanly speaking, the advice and good will of the Free State is the only thing that stands between the South African Republic and a catastrophe."

Alluding to the Kotze incident, the upshot of which was that Kruger and the Volksraad claimed the right to overrun judicial decisions, he writes:

"The radical fault is the utter incapacity of the body that affects to issue its mandates to the Courts. In England it is a Parliament, but then it represents the intelligence of the country, and in Switzerland the same; in the Transvaal it is a narrow oligarchy."

In a letter dated 1st January, 1899, President Kruger is depicted as follows:

"I had the opportunity the other day of a long talk, or rather several talks, with Lippert about the Transvaal. He takes a very sane view of matters there, and is very hopeless. He represents Kruger--as others describe him--as more dogged and bigoted than ever, and surrounded by a crew of self-seekers who prevent him from seeing straight. He has no one to whom he turns for advice, and he is so inflated as to have the crazy belief that he (Kruger) is born to bring about peace between Germany and France!"

Mr. Merriman is confident that the Orange Free State will interfere (Mr.

Steyn was alas, so blind as to fall in with Mr. Kruger's temper instead of smoothing it down), and says:

"Is there no opportunity of bringing about a _rapprochement_ between us, in which the Free State might play the part of honest broker?"

"_Us_" here means Cape Colony and Orange Free State.

Having spoken of matters of general interest for South Africa, of uniform custom duties, etc., he ends by saying:

"The deplorable confusion and maladministration of his financial arrangements still continue, and are a standing menace to the peace of South Africa. Yet, judging from the utterances of the leading men from the Rand who come down here, a very moderate reform would satisfy all except those who do not want to be satisfied, and, I believe, there is very little sympathy for the mischievous agitation that, rightly or wrongly, is attributed to the designs of Rhodes and Beit."

On the 26th of May, 1899, on the eve of the Bloemfontein Conference, he writes to Mr. Fischer, prompter and organiser of the Conference, foreseeing the results of the policy advocated by Dr. Leyds:

" ... but there is, of course, an even worse prospect, namely, that misrepresentation may goad Great Britain into a position where, _with the concurrence and invitation of the other powers_, she might feel obliged, even at the risk of enormous military outlay, to cut the Gordian knot. You will probably say, as I certainly say, 'where is the _casus belli_,' and refuse to believe it possible to imagine such a contingency. Unfortunately, you and I, who keep our heads, must not ignore the fact that an immense number of people seem to have lost theirs and are ready, without reflection or examination, to accept the highly-coloured statements of a partisan press."

He mentions the maladministration in the Transvaal several months before he had written to Mr. s.m.u.ts, asking for detailed account of the money granted by the Boer Government to Johannesburg but without getting an answer.

"Of course I know from previous correspondence that you and the President are not disposed to minimize the blots on the administration of the South African Republic, the weak points in the Const.i.tution, and the ignorance and laxity that prevails in financial matters. To do so would be to fatally complicate the situation.

"I am sure that you will, and I most strongly urge you to use your utmost influence to bear on President Kruger to concede some colourable measure of reform, not so much in the interests of outsiders as in those of his own State.

"Granted that he does nothing. What is the future? His Boers, the backbone of the country, are peris.h.i.+ng off the land; hundreds have become impoverished loafers, landless hangers-on of the town population. In his own interests he should recruit his Republic with new blood--and the sands are running out. I say this irrespective of agitation about Uitlanders. The fabric will go to pieces of its own accord unless something is done."

Such is the opinion of Mr. Merriman, a friend of the Transvaal, yet every day in Europe one is told that its misfortunes are due to the Uitlanders.

Mr. Merriman thought on the contrary that it was necessary to ask them to come forward and help the State out of its ruinous course.

"Surely it would be better to come forward now and earn the grat.i.tude of South Africa by a comprehensive and liberal measure than to have the State torn and distracted by constant irritation and bad blood. A moderate franchise reform and munic.i.p.al privileges would go far to satisfy any reasonable people, while a maintenance of the oath ought to be a sufficient safeguard against the swamping of the old population.

"President Kruger should reflect that nine out of ten people that receive the franchise will be supporters of the Republic in which they will have an interest, and that he will, by granting liberal reforms, disarm all opposition provoked.

"Try and persuade President Kruger to confer a benefit on the whole of South Africa by granting a broad measure of reform, and you will have done the best day's work any statesman ever did in South Africa."

Two months after the declaration of war, while the Boers' military operations were somehow successful he wrote to Mr. Piet de Wet also a member of the Cape Parliament--"it is hopeless...."

"If the Republics had not made the fatal mistake of sending the ultimatum when they did, things would have gone differently; but it is of no use going back on what might have been."

His letter had no effect upon Mr. de Wet, who now is under trial for high treason along with three other Members of the House.

There are other letters, among them one written by Mr. Te Water, who left the Schreiner Ministry. In a speech delivered at Graaff-Reinet some time ago he has declared that the Cape Government ought not to have allowed the railway lines to be used by English troops. Yet in a letter to President Steyn on the 8th of May, 1899, he asked him to put pressure upon "our friends in Pretoria" to adopt conciliatory measures. Alluding to the impending Conference he writes:--

"In your position you as go-between can do endless good towards arriving at an understanding at such Conference. I know well that there is a party who will do everything possible to prevent this."

Nevertheless he also is in favour of the policy advocated by Mr. Melius de Villiers:--

"We must now play to win time. Governments are not perpetual. It is honestly now the time to yield a little, however one may later again tighten the rope."

This shows how this former Minister at the Cape meant to abide by Conventions. How Mr. Kruger did abide by the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 is a well-known fact. No wonder if England was suspicious of the "ridiculous proposals," to use Mr. de Villiers' phrase, offered by President Kruger. The letters written by Mr. Te Water and Mr. Melius de Villiers show that there was good reason for suspicion. These letters show also what responsibility has been a.s.sumed by the members of the Liberal party who sided so eagerly with Mr. Kruger and by those who, like Mr. Stead, backed at first Mr. Rhodes' policy with all their might (so Mr. Clark wrote to General Joubert, Mr. Kruger, and President Steyn) and were blind enough to imagine that their party was strong enough to elbow out the Government and revert to Mr. Gladstone's policy after Majuba. Had they been more far-sighted they would have recognised that the Transvaal had since 1881 condemned itself, and that no Ministry, be it Liberal or Conservative, could follow again in the steps of Mr. Gladstone.

Since President Kruger has left the Transvaal, and Botha is negotiating for a surrender, the pacification of the Transvaal needs no more war operation, it has become a mere question of police arrangements.

Nevertheless Dr. Leyds is still as active as ever. He reminds us of the Spanish Ministers who when they got the news that the Spanish fleet had been annihilated by Dewey, manufactured forthwith a report to the effect that Americans had suffered a defeat at the hands of the Spaniards. _Le Pet.i.t Bleu_ does the same. The announcement--English troops retreating--appeared in a marginal note the very day that Lydenburg was taken. On Tuesday, 11th September, _L'Eclair_ made the following announcement: "London, 10th September, Prince Henry sails back to Germany. From well-informed quarters I learn that the main object of the German Emperor's brother's visit was to discuss the ways and means of preserving Transvaal independence."

Eight days previous to this Dr. Leyds had tried to make the world believe that he had come to an understanding with the Czar. In both cases the object aimed at was obvious. Yet though the Dreyfus affair has taught me the all-powerful and far-reaching influence of a lie, I confess that Dr. Leyds is a puzzle to me.

But his work is at an end now. He may have succeeded cleverly in deceiving Kruger and Steyn what the European Powers really meant to do, or in giving those same Powers garbled accounts of the state of affairs in the Transvaal, and the true bearings of the Bloemfontein negotiation, yet the fact remains that it is mainly through him that the South African Republics have lost their independence. He could not like Mr.

Kruger, excuse himself upon being led astray by blind and ignorant patriotism. He knew well enough how far the very help he depicted as forthcoming could be depended upon, he knew that England was bound to win in the long run, but there was only one thing which he cared for; to make people in Europe believe that he had an important part to play in the political arena. The war came as a welcome diversion to an endurable position. And now that his country's interests have been entirely sacrificed to his own, he may look upon his work with satisfaction.

APPENDIX E.

THE TRANSVAAL AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE HELD IN PARIS FROM SEPTEMBER 30TH TO OCTOBER 5TH, 1900.

SITTING OF OCTOBER 1ST.

In the English section of the Peace Conference the most prominent members of which were Dr. Clarke, Mr. Moscheles and Mr. Alexander, the following resolutions had been unanimously adopted to be proposed at the Peace Conference:

"That according to the report sent by the Berne International Bureau it has come to the knowledge of the International Peace Congress, that:

(_a_) "The British Government steadily opposed various attempts made with the object to submit the South African difficulties to arbitration.

(_b_) "Arbitration was eagerly accepted by the South African Republics, who had repeatedly asked for it, therefore, the International Peace Congress feels compelled to arrive at the following conclusions:

1st. "Of the two opponents the one who declined arbitration, _i.e._, the British Government is responsible for the war in South Africa.

2nd. "As long as arbitration can possibly be resorted to the appeal to arms is tantamount to being guilty of a crime against civilisation and humanity; therefore,