A Century of Wrong Part 9

In this way all white Uitlanders were guaranteed in their rights of free movement, owners.h.i.+p, and possession of property, trade, and commerce, and equal taxation with the burghers. There is no mention of political rights, nor has there ever been before this year--1899. The Government of the South African Republic would be acting strictly in terms of the Convention if it informed Mr. Chamberlain that it alone has to determine upon the Franchise, as being a question of a purely internal nature; and further, that in claiming the right in terms of that Convention to force the Government to adopt a particular Franchise Law Mr. Chamberlain is the party who is violating the Convention.

[Sidenote: The Bloemfontein Conference.]

The Government of the South African Republic, however, took up a higher position; the State President went to Bloemfontein for the purpose of discussing even internal affairs in a friendly spirit with the High Commissioner--_inter alia_--the question of the franchise, as he was actuated by the wish to consolidate and promote the peace of South Africa. [50] Sir Alfred Milner said there: "If the question could be settled upon a broad and firm basis, the tension would disappear and everything come right in time." He has done his best latterly to prove that he did not say or mean anything of the kind, that the franchise question was only one of the burning internal matters in which Her Majesty's Government interested itself, and that a favourable understanding about the franchise would in no way pave the way to an agreement as to the other points of difference.

[Sidenote: Sir Alfred Milner's att.i.tude.]

The att.i.tude of Sir Alfred Milner in this and other questions is, however, of such a nature that it is better to say nothing about his conduct, but to leave him to the judgment of public opinion and history.

No agreement being possible between the parties, President Kruger left Bloemfontein and amended the Franchise Law in such a way that the Orange Free State, the Africanders of Cape Colony, and even Mr. Schreiner, Premier of the Cape Colony, publicly signified their approval of the amendments which had been made.

[Sidenote: The joint Commission of Enquiry.]

Mr. Chamberlain now discarded the appearance of friendliness, and began to adopt a menacing tone in his communications to the Government of the South African Republic. He proposed that the question as to whether the new Franchise Law was satisfactory or not should be discussed by a Joint Commission.

In the meanwhile, owing to informal conversations between the State Attorney and the British Government, there seemed to be a reasonable prospect of a speedy and satisfactory settlement.[51] The British Government, on being sounded by its agent, announced that if a five years' franchise, unhampered by complicated conditions, and with a quarter representation for the gold fields, were conceded, it would be prepared to consider the conditions, upon which the proposal depended, on their merits, and would not consider such a proposal as a refusal to accept the Joint Enquiry. The conditions were that (_a_) no further interference should take place; (_b_), that the claim of suzerainty should drop; and (_c_) that further disputes should be settled by Arbitration. As soon, however, as the proposal was formally made the British Government refused to accept the condition with regard to the dropping of the suzerainty claim, notwithstanding the fact that the High Commissioner had declared in an official dispatch that the suzerainty controversy appeared to him to be etymological and not political.[52]

Shortly afterwards the British Government made what was practically the same proposal, but _without_ the condition as to the dropping of the suzerainty claim.

[Sidenote: Bad faith of the British Government.]

As the Government of the South African Republic attached a vital importance to this condition, in view maintaining its international status, it refused to accept the proposal in this form; it, however, now reverted to the invitation for a joint enquiry, which it agreed to accept, but the British Government replied that it was too late, and that as a matter of fact it no longer adhered to the invitation.

Here we see in the clearest light--

(1). That, although the High Commissioner had stated that the suzerainty was only a question of etymological importance, that although the British Government had never been able to refute the arguments advanced by the South African Republic as to the abolition of the suzerainty in 1884, the British Government was nevertheless determined not to abandon its pretension, and is now prepared to make war in South Africa over this point.

(2). That the British Government invites the South African Republic to a joint enquiry, and, when this invitation, which had never been withdrawn, is accepted, the acceptance is refused with every mark of contempt.

Is there any instance in the history of civilised diplomacy of such trickery and such callous jugglery with the highest interests of South Africa?

Can anyone wonder that South Africa has lost all confidence in British statesmans.h.i.+p?

The British name has been sullied in this part of the world by many perfidious actions, but of a truth I cannot instance any more despicable and repellent incidents than those which have marked the course of events during the last few months.

And the consequence of this trickery will be written with the blood and the tears of thousands of innocent people.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: Dispatches of 12th August, 1896; 21st August, 1896; 17th February, 1897. C. 8423 and C. 8721.]

[Footnote 34: Dispatches of the 6th March, 1897. C. 8423.]

[Footnote 35: Dispatch, 7th May, 1897. No. 3, C. 8721.]

[Footnote 36: Dispatch, October, 1897. No. 7, C. 8721.]

[Footnote 37: Dispatch, 16th April, 1898. No. 4, C. 9507.]

[Footnote 38: Dispatch. C. 9507. Page 33.]

[Footnote 39: Dispatch, 17th March, 1899. C. 9507.]

[Footnote 40: 17th August, 1899.]

[Footnote 41: Dispatch, 10th May, 1899. No. 83, C. 9345.]

[Footnote 42: Dispatch of the Transvaal Government, 26th September, 1899. Appendix C.]

[Footnote 43: Dispatch, 10th May, 1899. Blue Book, C. 9345. Page 229.]

[Footnote 44: Dispatch. Appendix C.]

[Footnote 45: Dispatch, 10th May, 1899. C. 9345. Page 229.]

[Footnote 46: Appendix C.]

[Footnote 47: Dispatch, 10th May, 1899. Blue Book, C. 9345. Page 229.]

[Footnote 48: Appendix C.]

[Footnote 49: _Life of Prince Consort_, Vol. III., page 510.]

[Footnote 50: Blue Book, C. 9404.]

[Footnote 51: Blue Book, C. 9530.]

[Footnote 52: Blue Book, C. 9507. Page 6.]

CONCLUSION.

I have now reviewed all the facts connected with the history of our oppression and persecution during the past hundred years. The allegations I have made are not invented, but are based upon the statements of the most reliable witnesses, nearly all of them of British nationality; they are facts that have been declared incontestable before the tribunal of history. As far as the more recent occurrences since 1898 are concerned, I may state that I have had personal knowledge of all the negociations and questions at issue above referred to, and I can only declare that I have confined myself to facts; these will stand out in a much clearer light when the curtain is raised and the events of the last two years in this sorely afflicted part of the world are revealed.

In this awful turning point in the history of South Africa, on the eve of the conflict which threatens to exterminate our people, it behoves us to speak the truth in what may be, perchance, our last message to the world. Even if we are exterminated the truth will triumph through us over our conquerors, and will sterilise and paralyse all their efforts until they too disappear in the night of oblivion.

Up to the present our people have remained silent; we have been spat upon by the enemy, slandered, harried, and treated with every possible mark of disdain and contempt. But our people, with a dignity which reminds the world of a greater and more painful example of suffering, have borne in silence the taunts and derision of their opponents; indeed, they elected out of a sense of duty to remedy the faults and abuses which had crept into their public administration during moments of relaxed vigilance. But even this was ascribed to weakness and cowardice. Latterly our people have been represented by influential statesmen and on hundreds of platforms in England as incompetent, uncivilised, dishonourable, untrustworthy, corrupt, bloodthirsty, treacherous, etc., etc., so that not only the British public, but nearly the whole world, began to believe that we stood on the same level as the wild beasts. In the face of these taunts and this provocation our people still remained silent. We were forced to learn from formal blue books issued by Her Majesty's Government and from dispatches of Her Majesty's High Commissioner in South Africa that our unscrupulous State Government, and our unjust, unprincipled, and disorderly administration, was a continual festering sore, which, like a pestilential vapour, defiled the moral and political atmosphere of South Africa. We remained silent. We were accused in innumerable newspapers of all sorts of misdeeds against civilisation and humanity; crimes were imputed to us, the bare narration of which was sufficient to cause the hair to rise with horror. If the reading public believe a hundredth part of the enormities which have been laid at the door of our people and Government, they must be irresistibly forced to the conclusion that this Republic is a den of thieves and a sink of iniquity, a people, in fact, the very existence of which is a blot upon humanity, and a nuisance to mankind. Of the enormous sums which we are alleged to have spent out of the Secret Service Fund in order to purchase the good opinion of the world there has been no practical result or evidence, for the breath of slander went on steadily increasing with the violence of a hurricane.

But our people remained silent, partly out of stupidity, partly out of a feeling of despairing helplessness, and partly because, being a pastoral people, they read no newspapers, and were thus unaware of the way in which the feeling of the whole world was being prejudiced against them by the efforts of malignant hate.

The practical effect has been that our case has been lost by default before the tribunal of public opinion. That is why I feel compelled to state the facts which have characterised the att.i.tude of the British towards us during the Nineteenth century. Naboth's t.i.tle to his vineyard must be cancelled. The easiest way of securing that object, according to the tortuous methods of British diplomacy, was to prove that Naboth was a scoundrel and Ahab an angel. The facts which have marked Ahab's career have been stated. I shall now proceed to draw my conclusions, which I submit must appeal irresistibly to every impartial and right-minded person.

During this century there have been three periods which have been characterised by different att.i.tudes of the British Government towards us. The first began in 1806, and lasted until the middle of the century.

During this period the chief feature of British policy was one of utter contempt, and the general trend of British feeling in regard to our unfortunate people can be summarised by the phrase, "The stupid and dirty Dutch." But the hypocritical ingenuity of British policy was perfectly competent to express this contempt in accents which harmonised with the loftiest sentiments then prevailing. The wave of sentimental philanthropy then pa.s.sing over the civilised world was utilised by the British Government in order to represent the Boers to the world as oppressors of poor peace-loving natives, who were also men and brethren eminently capable of receiving religion and civilisation.

It may seem inexplicable that the Power which stood up boldly at the Treaty of Utrecht as the shameless champion of negro slavery was the very one which was celebrated in South Africa for its morbid love of the natives; the explanation, however, is that it was not so much love for the native that underlay the apparent negrophilistic policy as hatred and contempt of the Boer. As a result of this hatred of the Boer, disguised under the veneer of philanthropy in regard to the aborigines, the natives were employed as police against us; they were provided with arms and ammunition to be used against us; they were incited to fight us, and, wherever it was possible, they murdered and plundered us. In fact, our people were forced to bid farewell to the Cape Colony and all that was near and dear to them, and seek a shelter in the unknown wilderness of the North.

As an ultimate result of this hatred, our people had to pursue their pilgrimage of martyrdom throughout South Africa, until every portion of that unhappy country has been painted red with the blood, not so much of men capable of resistance as with that of our murdered and defenceless women and children.