Lord Milner's Work in South Africa Part 13

President Kruger's Bloemfontein scheme was a maze of legal pitfalls.

What these pitfalls were the reader may learn from the a.n.a.lysis of the scheme which was published in _The Cape Times_ of June 10th, 1899.

When the Franchise Bill was before the Volksraad this complicated scheme, as we have seen, was amended and re-amended; and each new provision was as intricate in its working as the parent scheme. It is obvious that nothing short of a commission of inquiry could have determined with certainty the manner in which the representation of the Uitlanders was affected by each successive amendment. While these changes were in progress in the Raadzaal at Pretoria--changes so "numerous and so rapid," as Lord Milner said,[113] that it was "absolutely impossible at any given moment to know what the effect of the scheme, as existing at that moment, was likely to be"--Lord Milner himself at Capetown was at one and the same time overwhelmed with detailed criticisms from Uitlanders, anxious that no legal pitfall or administrative obstacle should remain undetected, and besieged with cables from the Colonial Office requesting precise information upon any point upon which an energetic member of the House of Commons might have chosen to interrogate the Secretary of State. And, in addition to this rain of telegrams, people on the spot were constantly calling at Government House to ask if the High Commissioner had observed this or that defect or trap in clauses, the text of which he had not yet had time to receive, still less to read or comprehend. All this, too, was over and above the heavy administrative and official duties of the Governor and High Commissioner--duties which Lord Milner was called upon to perform with more than usual care, in view of the political ascendancy of the Dutch party in the Cape Colony.

[Footnote 113: August 23rd, C. 9,521.]

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's a.s.sumption.]

On July 13th, Lord Milner sent warning telegrams to Mr.

Chamberlain,[114] pointing out specific defects in the Franchise Bill, and showing how seriously President Kruger's proposals fell short of the Bloemfontein minimum. Five days later the Volksraad accepted the final amendments. The face value of the Bill, as it now stood to be converted into law, was a seven years' franchise, prospective and retrospective. When, therefore, Mr. Chamberlain heard this same day (July 18th) that the Volksraad had accepted the bill in this form with only five dissentients, he seems to have a.s.sumed that a really considerable concession had been made by President Kruger at the last moment, and that, with the President and the Volksraad in this mood, still further concessions would be forthcoming. Under this impression he informed the House of Commons lobby correspondent of _The Times_ that "the crisis might be regarded as at an end." His words were reproduced in _The Times_ on the day following (July 19th), and at once cabled to South Africa.

[Footnote 114: C. 9,415.]

It is impossible for any one who has not lived in South Africa to realise the sickening distrust and dread produced in the minds of the loyal subjects of the Crown by this statement. War they were ready to face. But to go back to every-day life once again bowed down with the shame of a moral Majuba, to meet the eyes of the Dutch once more aflame with the light of victory, to hear their words of insolent contempt--was ignominy unspeakable and unendurable. The Uitlander Council at once cabled an emphatic message of protest[115] to Mr.

Chamberlain, and every loyalist that had a friend in England telegraphed to beg him to use all his influence to prevent the surrender of the Government. How near the British population in South Africa were to this ignominy may be gathered from the fact that on this day Lord Milner received a telegram in which Mr. Chamberlain congratulated him upon the successful issue of his efforts. Lord Milner's reply was one that could have left no doubt in Mr.

Chamberlain's mind as to the gravity of the misconception under which he laboured. It was, of course, beyond the High Commissioner's power to prevent the Home Government from accepting the Franchise Bill; but he could at least remove the impression that he was anxious to partic.i.p.ate in an act, which would have made the breach between the loyalists of South Africa and the mother country final and irrevocable.

[Footnote 115: "The Uitlander Council is keenly disappointed at the _Times_' announcement that the seven years' franchise is acceptable to the Imperial Government. We fear few will accept the franchise on this condition, so the result is not likely to abate unrest and discontent, nor redress pressing grievances. Such a settlement would not even approximate to the conditions obtaining in the Orange Free State and the [British] colonies, and would fail to secure the recognition of the principle of racial equality. We earnestly implore you not to depart from the High Commissioner's five years'

compromise, which the Uitlanders accepted with great reluctance. The absolute necessity for a satisfactory settlement with an Imperial guarantee is emphasised by the insincerity and bad faith persistently shown during the Volksraad discussion of the Franchise Law."--C. 9,415.]

[Sidenote: The relapse in England.]

It is scarcely possible to believe that Mr. Chamberlain, with Lord Milner's telegrams before him, was himself prepared to accept President Kruger's illusory franchise scheme. The source of the weakness of the Government in the conduct of the negotiations, no less than in its refusal to make adequate preparations for war, is to be found in the inability of the ma.s.s of the people of England to understand how completely British power in South Africa had been undermined by the Afrikander nationalists during the last twenty years. How could the average elector know that the refusal or acceptance of the Volksraad Bill, differing only from the Bloemfontein minimum in an insignificant--as it seemed--particular of two years, would, in fact, make known to all European South Africa whether President Kruger or the British Government was master of the sub-continent? In view of this profound ignorance of South African conditions, and the consequent uncertainty of any a.s.sured support, even from the members of their own party, the Salisbury Cabinet may well have argued: "Here is something at last that we can represent as a genuine concession. Let us take it, and have done with this troublesome South African question; or leave it to the next Liberal Government to settle."

If the Cabinet did so reason to themselves, what English statesman could have "cast the first stone" at them? But how profound is the interval between the spirit of the policy of "the man on the spot,"

with his eyes upon the object, and the spirit of the policy of the island statesman with one eye upon the hustings and the other strained to catch an intermittent glimpse of an unfamiliar and distant Africa!

[Sidenote: Lord Milner's anxiety.]

This 19th of July was a dark day for the High Commissioner. In the morning came Mr. Chamberlain's telegram with its ominous suggestion of a change for the worse in the att.i.tude of the Home Government. And this change in the Cabinet was, as Lord Milner knew, only the natural reflection of a wider change, which had manifested itself among the supporters of the Government and in the country at large since the publication, on June 14th, of his despatch of May 4th. Private letters had made him aware that to men to whom Dutch ascendancy at the Cape and Boer tyranny in the Transvaal, Afrikander nationalism and Boer armaments, were meaningless expressions, his resolute advocacy of the Uitlanders' cause and his frank presentation of the weakness of Great Britain had seemed the work of a disordered imagination or a violent partisanship. Nor was his knowledge of the relapse in England limited to the warnings or protests of his private friends. _The South African News_, the ministerial organ, which of late had filled its columns with adverse criticisms taken from the London Press, this morning contained a bitter article on him reprinted from _Punch_, which had arrived by the yesterday's mail. After all, it seemed, the long struggle against mis-government in the Transvaal was going to end in failure; and the British people would once more be befooled. With such thoughts in his mind, Lord Milner must have found the work of making up the weekly despatches for the Colonial Office--for it was a Wednesday[116]--a wearisome and depressing task. The mail was detained until long past the customary hour. But before it left, in spite of discouragement and anxiety, Lord Milner had gathered together into a brief compa.s.s all the doc.u.ments necessary to put Mr. Chamberlain in possession of every material fact relative to the new law--pa.s.sed only on the day before--and to the proceedings of the Transvaal Executive and the Volksraad between the 12th and the 19th. And, in addition to this, he had written a fresh estimate of the Franchise Bill in its latest form, in which he emphasised his former verdict that the proposals which it contained were not such as the Uitlanders would be likely to accept. And in particular he pointed out that the fact of the final amendment being thus readily adopted by the Volksraad disposed of the contention, upon which President Kruger had laid so much stress at Bloemfontein, that his "burghers" would not permit him to make the concessions which the British Government required. He wrote:

[Footnote 116: The English outward mail-boat arrived on Tuesday, and the homeward boat left on Wednesday.]

"On July 12th Her Majesty's Government requested the Government of the South African Republic to give them time to consider the measure and communicate their views before it was proceeded with.

To this the Government of the South African Republic replied, on July 13th, with a polite negative, saying that 'the whole matter was out of the hands of the Government, and it was no longer possible for the Government to satisfy the demands of the Secretary of State.' The State-Attorney informed Mr. Greene[117]

at the same time that 'the present proposals represented absolutely the greatest concession that could be got from the Volksraad, and could not be enlarged. He personally had tried hard for seven years' retrospective franchise, but the Raad would not hear of it, and it was only with difficulty that the present proposals were obtained.' This was on the 12th, but within a week the seven years' retrospective franchise had been adopted.

Indeed, the statement of the absolute impossibility of obtaining more than a particular measure of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt from the Volksraad or the burghers has been made over and over again in the history of this question--never more emphatically than by the President himself at Bloemfontein--and has over and over again been shown to be a delusion."[118]

[Footnote 117: Sir W. Greene became a K.C.B. after the war had broken out.]

[Footnote 118: C. 9,518.]

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's statement.]

But this full record of the shifts and doublings of Boer diplomacy would not reach London for another two weeks and a half. It was necessary, therefore, to use the cable. Early the next morning Lord Milner sent a telegram to the Secretary of State, in which he warned the Home Government of the extreme discouragement produced among all who were attached to the British connection by _The Times_ statement of their readiness to accept the Franchise Bill. On that afternoon (July 20th), Mr. Chamberlain made a statement in the House of Commons in which he took up a much more satisfactory position. The Government, he said, were led to hope that the new law "might prove to be a basis of settlement on the lines laid down" by Lord Milner at the Bloemfontein Conference. They observed, however, that "a number of conditions" which might be used "to take away with one hand what had been given with the other" were still retained. But they--

"felt a.s.sured that the President, having accepted the principle for which they had contended, would be prepared to reconsider any detail of his schemes which could be shown to be a possible hindrance to the full accomplishment of the objects in view, and that he would not allow them to be nullified or reduced in value by any subsequent alterations of the law or acts of administration."

That is to say, Mr. Chamberlain was no longer willing to take the bill at its face value, but in accordance with his determination to exhaust every possible resource of diplomacy before he turned to force, he gave President Kruger credit for a genuine desire to promote a peaceable settlement. A week later he formulated the method by which the President was to be allowed an opportunity of justifying this generous estimate of his intentions. In the meantime Lord Milner had sent lengthy telegrams to the Secretary of State on the 23rd, and again on the 26th, and the Salisbury Cabinet had determined to make a definite p.r.o.nouncement of its South African policy, and to endeavour to arouse the country to a sense of the seriousness of the situation with which President Kruger's continued obduracy would bring it face to face. On July 27th Mr. Balfour declared, in addressing the Union of Conservative a.s.sociations, that--

"If endless patience, endless desire to prevent matters coming to extremities, if all the resources of diplomacy, were utterly ineffectual to untie the knot, other means must inevitably be found by which that knot must be loosened."

On the day following (July 28th) the Transvaal question was debated in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of Lords the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, delivered a moderate and almost sympathetic speech.

After making all allowance for the natural apprehension experienced by President Kruger at the sudden inrush of population caused by the discovery of the Wit.w.a.tersrand gold-fields, he expressed the opinion that an attempt "to put the two races fairly and honestly on the same footing" would bring a peaceful solution of the crisis. But, he added--

"How long we are to consider that solution, and what patience we are bound to show, these things I will not discuss. We have to consider not only the feelings of the inhabitants of the Transvaal, but, what is more important, the feelings of our fellow-subjects.... Whatever happens, when the validity of the Conventions is impeached, they belong from that time entirely to history. I am quite sure that if this country has to make exertions in order to secure the most elementary justice for British subjects,--I am quite sure [it] will not reinstate a state of things that will bring back the old difficulties in all their formidable character at the next turn of the wheel. Without intruding on his thoughts, I do not think President Kruger has sufficiently considered this."

[Sidenote: The Joint Commission.]

In the House of Commons Mr. Chamberlain announced that he had proposed to the Transvaal Government that a joint commission should be appointed to test the efficacy of the scheme of electoral reform embodied in the new Franchise Law. This proposal was set out in detail in a despatch already addressed to the High Commissioner, the substance of which had been telegraphed[119] to him on the preceding day (July 27th). The British Government a.s.sumed that "the concessions now made to the Uitlanders were intended in good faith to secure to them some approach to the equality which was promised in 1881"; they proposed that the "complicated details and questions of a technical nature" involved in the new law should be discussed in the first instance by delegates appointed by the High Commissioner and by the South African Republic; and if, and when, a "satisfactory agreement"

had been reached on these points, they further proposed that all disputes as to the terms of the Convention should be settled by a "judicial authority, whose independence ... would be above suspicion,"

and all remaining matters in respect of the political representation of the Uitlanders by "another personal Conference" between the High Commissioner and President Kruger.

[Footnote 119: C. 9,518.]

Although the position which the Salisbury Cabinet had now taken up was one which placed them beyond the danger of accepting an illusory franchise scheme in lieu of an adequate measure of reform, it was not the course of action which was best to follow, except from the point of view of opening the eyes of the British public. In itself further delay was dangerous. It gave the Boers more time to arm, while we, for this very reason for which it was necessary to protract the negotiations, were prevented from arming vigorously. It discouraged our friends in South Africa, and made them even begin to doubt whether Great Britain "meant business." It was good policy to offer the Joint Inquiry, given the truth of the a.s.sumption upon which this offer was based--namely, that the Bill represented an honest desire on the part of President Kruger to provide a peaceable settlement of the Uitlander question. Lord Milner knew, within the limits of human intelligence, that this a.s.sumption was wholly unwarranted. The Home Government apparently did not. As the result of this difference, Lord Milner's policy was again deflected to the extent that two months of negotiation were devoted to a purely futile endeavour to persuade the Pretoria Executive to prove the good faith of a proposal, which was never intended to be anything more than a pretext for delay. And, as before, the injury to British interests lay in the fact that, while the Home Government was prevented from making any adequate use of this delay by its determination not to make preparations for war until war was in sight, the period was fully utilised by President Kruger, who since Bloemfontein had been resolutely hastening the arrangements necessary for attacking the British colonies at a given moment with the entire burgher forces of the two Republics.

[Sidenote: Kruger urged to accept.]

The offer of the Joint Inquiry was formally communicated to the Pretoria Executive in an eminently friendly telegram[120] from Lord Milner on August 1st. Efforts were made on all sides to induce President Kruger to accept it. Chief Justice de Villiers wrote strongly in this sense to Mr. Fischer,[121] and to his brother Melius, the Chief Justice of the Free State. Mr. Schreiner telegraphed to Mr.

Fischer, and Mr. Hofmeyr to President Steyn, both urging that the influence of the Free State should be used in favour of the proposal.

The Dutch Government advised the Republic "not to refuse the English proposal";[122] and further informed Dr. Leyds that, in the opinion of the German Government, "every approach to one of the Great Powers in this very critical moment will be without any results whatever, and very dangerous to the Republic."[123] Even the English sympathisers of the Boers were in favour of acceptance. Mr. Montagu White, the Transvaal Consul-General in London, cabled that "Courtney, Labouchere, both our friends, and friendly papers without exception," recommended this course; and that "refusal meant war and would estrange friends."

The letter which he wrote to Mr. Reitz on the same day (August 4th), possesses an independent interest, as revealing the degree in which the friends of the Boers in England had identified themselves with the policy of the Afrikander party in the Cape Colony.

[Footnote 120: C. 9,518.]

[Footnote 121: See p. 218 for this letter.]

[Footnote 122: Cd. 547.]

[Footnote 123: _Ibid._]

"The essence of friendly advice," said Mr. White,[124] "is: Accept the proposal in principle, point out how difficult it will be to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to statistics, etc., and how undesirable it would be to have a miscarriage of the Commission. In other words: Gain as much time as you can, and give the public time here to get out of the dangerous frame of mind which Chamberlain's speeches have created.... Labouchere said to me this morning: 'Don't, for goodness' sake, let Mr.

Kruger make his first mistake by refusing this; a little skilful management, and he will give Master Joe another fall.' He further said: 'You are such past-masters of the art of gaining time; here is an opportunity; you surely haven't let your right hands lose their cunning, and you ought to spin out the negotiations for quite two or three months.'"

[Footnote 124: Cd. 369.]

A week later (August 11th), President Kruger received a telegram[125]

in which fifty Afrikander members of the Cape Parliament advanced the same argument. The acceptance of the Joint Commission, they pointed out, would provide a way out of a crisis "which might prove fatal to the best interests, not only of our Transvaal and Free State brethren, but also of the Afrikander party." They, therefore, begged his Honour to "lay their words privately" before the Executive and the Volksraad.

[Footnote 125: Secured by the Intelligence Department.]

[Sidenote: Kruger resolved on war.]

But President Kruger, like Lord Milner, had his eyes fixed upon the object. He looked beyond the Afrikander leaders to the rank and file of the Dutch population in the British colonies, with whom he had been in direct communication through his agents for many months past.[126]

He knew that any such inquiry as Mr. Chamberlain proposed would expose the flagrant insincerity of the Franchise Bill. On August 2nd he had telegraphed to President Steyn that compliance with the Joint Commission was "tantamount to the destruction of the independence of the Republic."[127] To the Dutch Consul-General[128] he was perfectly frank: "Defeats such as the English had suffered in the war for freedom, and later under Jameson, had never been suffered by the Boers." His burghers were ready to "go on the _battue_ of Englishmen,"

when he gave the word.[129]

[Footnote 126: It was known to the Intelligence Department that Kruger's secret agents had been in the Cape Colony for two years before the outbreak of war, and that they had distributed arms in certain districts of the Colony.]