CHAPTER VII.
SECURITY OF INDIVIDUALS ACCORDING TO BOER IDEAS.[11]
1.—The Amphitheatre Case.
Dr. Kuyper proceeds with charming serenity:
"The affair called the 'Amphitheatre Case' is more ridiculous still."
And this is his mode of telling it:—
"One day the South African League wished to hold a meeting in the Amphitheatre, and, through Mr. Wybergh, intimated to the State Attorney that they preferred not to be hampered by the presence of the police. In conformity with this wish, the State Attorney telegraphed to the Johannesburg police to keep away. But scarcely had the meeting commenced before the opponents of the League invaded the hall; and the few police stationed at the door were unable to separate the combatants quickly enough. There followed complaints to London ..."
This is Dr. Kuyper's account. I would ask him, in the first place, why he does not give the date of this meeting, which took place on the 14th of January, 1899, one month after the death of Edgar. Secondly, what was the object of this meeting? Dr. Kuyper is silent on these points. He speaks of the step taken by Mr. Wybergh, but he altogether misrepresents it, forgetting that Mr. Wybergh has given his own account of it.
In the serious condition of affairs in Johannesburg at that time, he went to the State Attorney and the Secretary of State, to acquaint them with his intention to hold a meeting in a large building, called the Amphitheatre, generally used as a circus. He informed them that the meeting was convened for three objects: 1. To protest against the arrest of Messrs. T.R. Dodd and C.D. Webb; 2. To protest against the law of public meetings; 3. To obtain signatures to a petition praying for the protection of Queen Victoria.
The State Attorney and Secretary of State replied that "although the objects of this meeting were naturally distasteful to the Transvaal Government, they did not forbid the meeting. Only, all persons who should commit acts of violence, or who should make use of seditious language, would be held personally responsible."
Ladies were invited to attend the meeting, which was held at four o'clock in the afternoon. The members of the League were unarmed.
When they arrived, they found the hall already in possession of three or four hundred burghers, who had been recruited by Papenfus, Acting Road Inspector, and were acting under the orders of Mr. Broeksma, Third Public Prosecutor, and Mr. de Villiers, Second Public Prosecutor. These men were placed in groups about the Amphitheatre. No sooner had the meeting begun, than, on a signal given by Mr. Broeksma, chairs were broken, and, under the orders of Sergeant Smith, of the municipal police, of Erasmus, of the special police, Lieutenants Murphy and Keller of the secret police, and, with the assistance of policemen in uniform, they commenced an assault upon the members. Lieutenant Posthuysen, on horseback in the arena, encouraged the rioters.
Nothing could show Dr. Kuyper's manner of stating and interpreting facts better than the following sentence:—
"It was simply a matter of the careful protection of British subjects, or rather of the worthy apostles of Johannesburg, who had begun by saying to the magistrates of the Transvaal 'keep away your police!' and who, later, crawling back from this meeting, after being well thrashed, complained bitterly that the police had not protected them."
Dr. Kuyper seems to think it highly amusing that the "worthy apostles of Johannesburg had been well thrashed."
When we find a European Dutchman, a man of letters, showing such animus in the examination of facts, one may judge of what the Boers are capable, ignorant and rough as they are, and inflated with the conviction that they are the elect people.
2.—Different modes of estimating bail.
We have seen that one of the objects of the meeting had been to protest against the arrests of Messrs. Dodd and Webb. These two gentlemen had been arrested as the organisers of an illegal meeting in the public market square, a public place, where no speeches had been made, but where the petition to the Queen had been openly read, before they had taken it to the British Vice-Consul. To obtain their release they had each to find sureties of £1,000, while Jones, Edgar's murderer, had been set at liberty on bail being found for £200 unpaid.
3.—The Uitlanders' Petition.
These proceedings only resulted in more signatures to the petition addressed to the Queen. When Sir Alfred Milner, March 28th, 1899, forwarded a copy to Mr. Chamberlain it contained 21,684 signatures. Sir Alfred Milner did not undertake to guarantee the authenticity of them all, but gave reasons for considering the greater number as bonâ fide.
Mr. Wybergh in a letter of April 10th, to the British Vice-Consul, explains the measures that had been taken to collect and verify the signatures. They were such as to inspire confidence. He states that among the whole number, only 700 are of illiterate or coloured people; and adds, that after the dispatch of the petition 1,300 other signatures were sent in, thus raising the total to 23,000.
The Government of Pretoria, after a lapse of more than a month succeeded in raising a counter-petition addressed to itself, which, at first, it stated, contained 9,000 signatures; some time later, on the 30th of May, the British Government was informed that it numbered 23,000 signatures. Krüger wished to prove that he had at least the same number of partisans.
Only he had out-witted himself in the drawing up of this counter-petition. His signatories affirmed that security of property and individuals was assured in the Transvaal. Pangloss, himself, would not have gone so far.
4.—Security of the Individual according to Boer ideas.
Krüger's petitioners further asserted that the petition to the Queen was "the work of capitalists and not of the public." As a matter of fact, incensed at the murder of Edgar—a working man—the men who were the first to sign that petition were working men. The principal mining company of Johannesburg had shown an example of that prudence we see too often among capitalists, and had dismissed Mr. Wybergh, the President of the South African League, who was one of their employés. The President of the Chamber of Mines, Mr. Rouliot, in his statement of January 26th, 1899, took pains to dissociate it from the campaign of agitation. This display of weakness availed nothing. The Government of Pretoria took up the attitude that has succeeded so well in deceiving public opinion: that of a council composed of honest men, innocent victims of capitalist rapacity.
5.—The Murder of Mrs. Appelbe.
Here is a proof of the security enjoyed by the Uitlanders, at the very time when the Government of Pretoria closed its list of signatures to the counter-petition. On Friday April 28th, Mrs. Appelbe, the wife of a Wesleyan minister of Johannesburg, was going to chapel accompanied by a Mr. Wilson, a chemist. They were set upon by a band of men in the pay, it is said, of canteen keepers, sellers of liquor to the natives. Mrs. Appelbe received such severe injuries that she died on the Thursday following. Mr. Wilson, who was badly wounded in the head, eventually recovered. On May 8th, the police affected to know nothing of the outrage; nor did they ever discover the murderers of Mrs. Appelbe, thus proving the grand irony of the apologist petition which "emphatically" affirmed the complete security of life and property in the Transvaal.