Another and a more stirring field of action was in store for General Wauchope. In several of his election speeches reference, as we have shown, was made to the question then beginning to agitate the public mind, as to our relationship with the Transvaal Republic. It was not thought, however, that the difficulty was of such a nature as could not easily be overcome by diplomatic arrangement. True, the correspondence between Mr. Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, and the Transvaal Government had been protracted, and had practically failed in securing any concession in favour of foreign residents in the Transvaal; but few realised how near we were to the verge of a war which has proved one of the greatest and most calamitous of the century.
South Africa
It will be in the recollection of our readers that when in 1881 the Boers invaded Natal and gained the victories of Laing's Nek and Majuba Hill, Sir Evelyn Wood had ranged his forces for an extended attack upon them and was ready for action; and notwithstanding that Sir Frederick, now Lord Roberts, had reached South Africa with 10,000 additional men, the Government of Mr. Gladstone abandoned their position and hurriedly patched up a peace with Mr. Kruger. All accounts agree that the treaty or 'surrender' after Majuba was regarded by both whites and blacks all over South Africa as an absolute capitulation. It had at all events a most disastrous effect upon British influence there. From that date arose in the Boer mind that most fatal ingredient of racial animosity, contempt. As Kruger afterwards said, 'he had once reckoned with the British army,' and he felt he could safely do so again. The one idea apparently fixed in his mind and growing every day was to get rid of his subordination to the Queen, with a view, as the Transvaal grew in military efficiency, to subvert her power in South Africa altogether, and set up a Dutch Republic.
Owing partly to the poverty of the country until the great influx of British and foreign colonists, generally called 'Uitlanders,' and the development of the gold and diamond mines after 1884-5, the politics of the Transvaal created little or no attention in England till about 1895, when Boer raids into Bechuanaland and elsewhere obliged the British authorities on the spot to protect our Colonial interests against their further advances. But then came the Jameson Raid at the very end of that year, which, though universally condemned both by the British Government and people as an infraction of international law, was yet the outcome of deep-rooted discontent in the Transvaal by the English and other settlers there. The 'Raid' was the turning-point in recent Transvaal history. In the first place, it attracted the attention of the whole civilised world, and placed the Transvaal, the Uitlanders, and the relationship of Great Britain both to the one and to the other in the full glare of day. From the date of the raid the difficulties of the position were more and more accentuated, and the designs of President Kruger for entire independence were hastened to a consummation. By the Boer government the course of justice was perverted, and the Chief-Justice was made subordinate to the will of the Executive. Owing to insecurity to life and property, mine owners could scarcely get a supply of labourers. Kruger and his Hollanders ran the country for their own benefit. They taxed and plundered the Uitlanders, while neglecting such matters as roads, bridges, railways, sanitary and educational schemes, but took care to arm the Boers while they fattened on monopolies, and kept the Uitlanders from any share in the government. In short, the Transvaal was a Republic in nothing but the name. It was really a corrupt oligarchy, in which a privileged minority made laws to suit themselves, and put the whole burden of taxation on the shoulders of a majority who were deprived of the franchise.
Uitlander grievances
With a largely increased revenue, President Kruger found he could now indulge his hostility to this country and his long-cherished hopes of independence by providing for a possible struggle. As Lord Selborne said, 'the money was used to turn the whole of the Boer population into soldiers; it was used to stock the whole country with millions of cartridges, to buy battery after battery of guns, to buy rifles enough to arm every Boer four or five times over, to build things previously unknown in South Africa, namely, great fortresses in the middle of the country, at Pretoria and at Johannesburg—such fortresses as were not to be seen in England except to guard the public dockyards, and such as could only be seen on the frontier between France and Germany.' The course of the war has abundantly shown that these enormous preparations had been made in view of other than mere native aggression; that, in fact, nothing less than the entire subversion of British authority over our South African Colonies was to be aimed at.
So intolerable had the oligarchy at Pretoria made the position of the Uitlanders, that these at length petitioned the Queen for some redress of their grievances. This document, signed by 40,000 persons, 21,000 of whom were British subjects in the Transvaal, was handed to the British Agent in Pretoria for transmission to the High Commissioner, and was forwarded by Mr. Conyngham Greene in the ordinary official course to the Government.
The petition showed that for many years discontent had existed among the Uitlanders, who are mostly British subjects. The Uitlanders possessed most of the wealth and intelligence in the country, and they had no voice in its government. In spite of the promises of the Transvaal Government and the petitions addressed to the President, there had been no practical reforms. The discontent culminated in the insurrection of 1895. The people then placed themselves in the hands of the High Commissioner, and President Kruger promised reforms. Since then their position had been worse. Legislation had been unfriendly. The petition cited as examples the Aliens' Immigration Act, withdrawn at the instance of the British Government; the Press Law, giving the President arbitrary powers; the Aliens' Expulsion Law, permitting the expulsion of British subjects at the will of the President without appeal to the High Court, while burghers cannot be expelled, this being contrary to the Convention. The municipality granted to Johannesburg was worthless. It was entirely subject to the Government. Half of the councillors are necessarily burghers, though the burghers and Uitlanders number 1000 and 23,000 respectively. The Government rejected the report of the Industrial Commission, which was composed of its own officials. The High Court had been reduced to a condition of subservience, the revenues of the country had been diverted for the purpose of building forts at Pretoria and Johannesburg in order to terrorise British subjects; the police were exclusively burghers, ignorant and prejudiced, and were a danger to the community; jurors were necessarily burghers, and justice was impossible in cases where a racial issue might be involved.
Petition of the Uitlanders
The petition went on to state that indignation was finally aroused by the murder of Edgar and the favouritism displayed by the Public Prosecutor. A petition to the Queen, presented by 4000 British subjects, was rejected in consequence of informalities. For taking a leading part in getting up the petition, Messrs. Dodd and Webb were arrested under the Public Meetings Act, and were only released on giving bail of £1000, five times the amount required for the murderer of Edgar. A meeting within a closed place, permitted by law and sanctioned expressly by the Government, was called by the South African League on January 14. This was broken up by an armed and organised band of burghers and police in plain clothes led by Government officials. The police refused to interfere. The behaviour of the British subjects was orderly. They did not retaliate, preferring to lay their grievances before Her Majesty. No arrests were made either of the officials responsible or of the rioters.