202
Transvaal
and Aliens Immigration Laws, as well as the new Press Law, were passed in the latter part of 1896.
In 1897 a decision of Chief Justice Kotze was overruled by an act of the volksraad. This led to a strong protest from the judges of the high court, and eventually led to the dismissal of the chief justice, who had held that office for over twenty years, and during the whole of that time had been a loyal and patriotic friend to his country. An industrial commission appointed during this year by President Kruger fared no better than the high court had done. The commission was deputed to inquire into and report on certain of the grievances adversely affecting the gold industry. Its constitution for this purpose was anomalous, as it consisted almost entirely of Transvaal officials whose knowledge of the requirements of the industry was scanty. In spite of this fact, however, the commission reported in favour of reform in various directions. They urged, among other things, due enforcement of the liquor law, more police protection, the abolition of the dynamite concession, and that foodstuffs should be duty free. These recommendations made by President Kruger's own nominees were practically ignored. In 1898, to strengthen his relations with foreign powers, Kruger sent the state secretary, Dr Leyds,[1] to Europe as minister plenipotentiary, his place on the Transvaal executive being taken by Mr Reitz, the ex-president of the Free State. At home Kruger continued as obdurate as ever. In January 1899 Mr Chamberlain pointed out in a despatch to President Kruger that the dynamite monopoly constituted a breach of the London Convention. To help the Transvaal government out of its difficulty, and to make one more effort towards conciliation, the financial houses of Johannesburg offered to lend the Transvaal government £600,000 wherewith to buy out the dynamite company, and so terminate the scandal and bring some relief to the industry, The offer was not accepted. Meantime Sir Alfred Milner had also endeavoured to induce the Transvaal government to grant the necessary reforms, but his efforts were equally unavailing (see Milner, Viscount). In March the Uitlanders, hopeless of ever obtaining redress from President Kruger, weary of sending petitions to the Raad only to be jeered at, determined to invoke intervention if nothing else could avail, and forwarded a petition to Queen Victoria. Petition to the Queen.This petition, the outcome of the second Uitlander movement for reform, was signed by 21,000 British subjects, and stated the Uitlander position at considerable length. The following extract conveys its general tenor:—
The condition of your Majesty’s subjects in this state has become well-nigh intolerable. The acknowledged and admitted grievances, of which your Majesty’s subjects complained prior to 1895, not only are not redressed, but exist to-day in an aggravated form. They are still deprived of all political rights, they are denied any voice in the government of the country, they are taxed far above the requirements of the country, the revenue of which is misapplied and devoted to objects which keep alive a continuous and well founded feeling of irritation, without in any way advancing the general interest of the state. Maladministration and peculation of public moneys go hand in hand, without any vigorous measures being adopted to put a stop to the scandal. The education of Uitlander children is made subject to impossible conditions. The police afford no adequate protection to the lives and property of the inhabitants of Johannesburg; they are rather a source of danger to the peace and safety of the Uitlander population.
In response to this appeal, Mr Chamberlain, in a despatch dated the 10th of May, proposed a conference at Pretoria. Six days before Sir Alfred Milner had telegraphed to London a summary of the situation, comparing the position of the Uitlanders to that of helots and declaring the case for intervention to be overwhelming. Neither of these dispatches was made public at the time. But on the very day Mr Chamberlain wrote his despatch the friends of the Transvaal government in Cape Colony and the Orange Free State invited Sir Alfred Milner to meet President Kruger at Bloemfontein, hoping to be able to exert pressure on both parties and to arrange a settlement as favourable as possible to the Transvaal. Bloemfontein Conference.The conference opened on the 31st of May and closed on the 5th of June. It no sooner opened than it was evident that Kruger had come to obtain, not to grant, concessions. He offered, it is true, a seven years’ franchise law in place of the five years’ franchise which Sir Alfred Milner asked for. But apart from the relief suggested being entirely inadequate, it was only to be given on certain conditions, one of which was that all future disputes which might arise between the Transvaal and the Imperial government should be referred to a court of arbitration, of which the president should be a foreigner. No arrangement was possible on such terms. Meanwhile feeling was running high at Johannesburg and throughout South Africa. Meetings were held in all the large towns, at which resolutions were passed declaring that no solution of the Transvaal question would be acceptable which did not provide for equal political rights for all white men. Sir Alfred Milner urged the home government strongly to insist upon a minimum of reform, and primarily the five years’ franchise; and Mr Chamberlain, backed by the cabinet, adopted the policy of the high commissioner.
D. The Crisis of 1899.—A state of extreme diplomatic tension lasted all the summer. The British public, in whom there had always been the latent desire to retrieve the surrender to the Boers which had followed the disaster at Majuba, were at last awakened by the ministerialist press to the necessity of vindicating British influence in South Africa, and the government soon found that, in spite of a highly articulate Radical minority, the feeling of the country was overwhelmingly behind them. It was not then realized either by the public or the government how seriously, and with what considerable justification, the Boers believed in their ability, if necessary, to sweep the British “into the sea.” President Kruger had every expectation of large reinforcements from the Dutch in the two British colonies; he believed that, whatever happened, Europe would not allow Boer independence to be destroyed; and he had assured himself of the adhesion of the Orange Free State, though it was not till the very last moment that President Steyn formally notified Sir Alfred Milner of this fact. The Boers profoundly despised the military power of Great Britain, and there was no reason why they, any more than Germany or France, should contemplate the possibility of the empire standing together as a whole in such a cause. In England, on the other hand, it was thought by most people that if a firm enough attitude were adopted Mr Kruger would “climb down,” and the effect of this error was shown partly in the whole course of the negotiations, partly in the tone personally adopted by Mr Chamberlain. It was only later that it was seen that if Great Britain intended effectually to champion the Uitlander cause, the moment for a test of strength had inevitably arrived. Negotiations could only bring the conflict a little nearer, delay it a little longer, or supply an opportunity to either side to justify its action in the eyes of the world. The conditions of the problem were such that unless Great Britain were to accept a humiliating rebuff, any correspondence, however skilfully conducted, was bound to bring into greater prominence the standing causes of offence between the two sides. The exchange of dispatches soon led to a complete impasse. The persistent attempt of the South African Republic to assert its full independence, culminating in a formal denial of British suzerainty, made it additionally incumbent on Great Britain to carry its point as to the Uitlander grievances, while, from Mr Kruger’s point of view, the admission of the Uitlanders to real political rights meant the doom of his oligarchical regime, and appeared in the light of a direct menace to Boer supremacy. The franchise, again, was an internal affair, in which the convention gave Great Britain no right to interfere, while if Great Britain relied on certain definite breaches of the convention, satisfaction | for which was sought in the first place in such a guarantee of
- ↑ Dr W. J. Leyds, a Hollander born in Java in 1859, went out to the Transvaal in 1884 as attorney-general and was, in 1887, made government commissioner for the Netherlands (S. A.) railway. In 1890 he became state secretary and in that position was regarded as Kruger’s right-hand man.
