The Boer organ, The Rand Post, December 28, 1898, had an article on "The Rebellion," which was very abusive of the petitioners, whose paper sent to the British Government, so greatly irritated President Kruger, who described it as "the lying and libelous petition"; and we quote:
"The hand on the rudder! It is more than time! Now once for all, an end must be put to such exhibitions as that of Saturday's, by reason of which the English Government will contend is not capable of exercising authority, not in a position to insure the safety of personal property. In the interests of the country such little upheavals must be vigorously suppressed. From henceforward public gatherings of a semi-political character in Johannesburg must be absolutely forbidden and prevented, because here (in Johannesburg) such gatherings lead to confusion and disorder. The 400 or 500 policemen are sufficient to exercise authority, and especially to prevent such open-air gatherings, and to prevent further flag waving by English ladies taking place before the door of the English Consulate. Mounted police can and must disperse such gatherings, and, if necessary, there must be some shooting done. Nobody should find that in any respect very terrible. In other countries that happens now and then, and the public well know beforehand that taking part in such gatherings is forbidden, and that force can be used for dispersing such gatherings. Those who then take part in them do so at their own risk. The Government must not proceed further under a Commandant who is hooted by the burghers, but appoint a Commandant who will have the esteem of the burghers. Commandants of neighboring districts should also be in complete readiness with their burghers. Immediately anything happens, the Government must take vigorous action. The Government must show that it is master of this town, and not unsuccessful men of business, and cowardly political wire-pullers, who shelter themselves behind the guns of Her British Majesty, not the men who in their quality of British subjects, and under cover of lying petitions bring to light their hatred of the Boer. To this Johannesburg Rebellion an end must be put once and for all. The well-meaning portion of the population, a very considerable part, wishes nothing else. Let us shoot down a pair of these wire-pullers, and thereby spare ourselves a formal war."
A Whole History of Outrages
This is expressive of the venomous intensity of the press of the Boers. In the same article there are very broad hints to President Kruger that he had been going too far in the conciliation of the British. There are in the Blue Books many instances of personal outrage, violence, insult, oppression and murder, with a view to the intimidation of the "strangers," the "newcomers," those who were crowding themselves into "the blood-bought land" from mere sordid motives of course in gathering gold and diamonds, and being more numerous than the Boers, and having more money and fixed property, were even not content with the simple office of the payment of taxes and submission to the Boers as an inferior caste. In order to emphasize this spirit of exclusion of those who were actually representing the progress of civilization, and doing vastly more than the Boers ever did to improve the country and make it prosperous in all the ways of advanced civilization, a fort was erected and so located as to bring the business centre of the Uitlanders directly under the guns of the Boers, who not satisfied with the menace of personal outrages and the denial of public rights, had to have a fort from which they could fire into the city, in which their policemen were constantly guilty of extraordinary brutalities. There is a whole history of these outrages that would make good reading for sentimentalists.
The policy of the Boer President and people in the negotiations that had so unhappy a termination was, throughout, marked with all the worst characteristics of the Boer race. The President of the South African Republic had promised in London, where he appeared as the head of a commission when the British attempted the alleged sublime policy of magnanimity in refraining from pushing the war, after the miserable slaughters and skirmishes culminating in the Majuba Hill insanity and massacre—that the Government of the "Republic" would be most considerate in protecting the rights of the British subjects in the Transvaal. Doubtless it was the remembrance of his responsibilities thus undertaken that aroused the violent spirit in the Boer Dictator when he met the British High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, in the Bloemfontein conferences—so that he vehemently denounced the true petitioners of Johannesburg as falsifiers in appealing to the British Government for belated protection. It was the pleasure of President Kruger, who had himself in London promised his protection, that those who told the plain truth as to the oppression of the European people were "libelous liars." The Dictator, whose official title was that of President, and who undertook to be the representative of the implacable, domineering spirit of the Boer minority in the Transvaal, in his personal declarations disregarded all civilized amenities, and grossly insisted upon the humiliation of England in the very matter of which she has been most justly proud and won the highest regard of all enlightened peoples, and that is, of seeing at whatever cost that British subjects shall be respected everywhere in their personal rights.
England's Determined Protection of Her Subjects
Mr. Chamberlain was well within the line of established truth when he said, if the English Government had no rights in the Transvaal other than those arising from the duty of demanding plain justice from an independent government, be it republican or monarchy, the treatment of the Uitlanders at the hands of the Boers required remonstrance and demanded consideration. Of course, the logic of this statement was that if there was not a remedy for the great and bitter wrong inflicted upon one of the most important communities in the world, and far the most important in Africa, the British Empire would have to interfere. The claims of England that British subjects should be respected in personal rights have been many times vindicated, and the fact that the whole world knows the high principle and firm policy of the British in the determined protection of its subjects is one of the glories of the Empire. The President of the South African Republic flinched from his own word of honor and responsibility given in London, and rudely asserted that the majority of Europeans in the Transvaal had no rights he was bound to respect. He did not use precisely that form of speech, but it was that substantially, and the meaning of it was that the English-speaking population that had sought the Transvaal because there were there the greatest gold discoveries ever made were to be treated by the Boers as exactly on a level with "niggers." It was the President's persistent assumption and unconcealed purpose that the minority of the people of the Transvaal he controlled must be supreme over two majorities,—one the natives who had precedence of the Dutch in possession of the country, and the other the newcomers who were there on the business of civilized mankind—the Boers being a semi-barbarous minority between the two—holding with a small fraction of the population a half-way fortification from which to order and command. President Kruger wandered constantly in his conferences from the discussion of the franchise, showing an imperious temper and an inordinate and reckless, domineering propensity.
A Reasonable and Just Proposal
The proposal made by the British Commissioner for a settlement of difficulties was plain, reasonable in all respects, singularly careful of all the just susceptibilities of the Boer Government. It consented to the maintenance of the dominance of the minority, except in requiring respect for personal and public rights accorded to individuals in all civilized governments,—and in the declaration of the strict rights of British subjects consent was given to the theory of the utter independence of the Boers. There was a careful limitation here, so that even the vanity of the semi-barbarians, who asserted that they were and must be always the exclusive rulers, was not to be suddenly and in a hostile sense disturbed. There was much conceded merely to save the excessive and savage self-esteem of the Boers, who, however, positively refused justice and demanded without mitigation exercise of a despotism so unwarranted and wicked as to be intolerable to civilization. The Boer statements, soliciting sympathy, circulated in the United States have dwelt upon the assertion that the British subjects, who meant to reside permanently in the Transvaal, refused to become citizens of the South African Republic on any conditions. This way of putting the case was misleading, and purposely so. The British subjects did not agree to renounce their character as subjects, until assured they could be citizens of the South African Republic so far, and that the large majority of the Europeans, the white men in the Transvaal, might have a small minority of representation in the Volks Raad, and this upon the belief that if a very few members of that body who knew the truth of the conditions were able to speak it in public and officially, there would be a mitigation of the remorseless tyranny under which the Uitlanders had been suffering.
Boers Positively Refuse Justice