Kruger's Visit to London
President Burgers himself recognized the situation, and a month before the annexation was consummated told the assembled Volksraad that "matters are as bad as they ever can be; they cannot be worse." Practically, he supported the policy of Sir T. Shepstone, and shortly afterwards retired on a pension to live at Cape Town. The Hollanders, who stood to lose heavily by the supremacy of British ideas and intelligence in the country, did their utmost to arouse the fanaticism of the farmers by printed manifestoes and memorials of the most inflammatory character, but without much success. In the end the only practical opposition made was the appointment by the expiring Executive Council, on the day before the Proclamation, of a delegation to England composed of Mr. Paul Kruger, Vice-President, and Dr. E. J. P. Jorrissen, Attorney-General. These gentlemen went to London and were well received personally, and a similar result followed from a second deputation headed by, Mr. Kruger in 1878. One evil, however, came from these visits. Instead of the astute Paul Kruger being impressed by the power of Great Britain, or conciliated by the courtesy of political leaders, he seems to have been interested chiefly in the study of party tactics and of the disintegrating influence of politics when carried into the field of Colonial government and foreign affairs. Coupled with the knowledge thus gained of a Radical faction which was already denouncing Lord Carnarvon's Confederation scheme, and of the anti-expansion views of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Morley and Sir William Harcourt, was a keen appreciation of the strength of the Home Rule issue then evolving such incipient power in the field of partisan battle. It was not hard for Mr. Kruger to discern, or hope for, the coming fall of the Beaconsfield Government; the growing power of a Radical element which would parallel the case of the Transvaal with that of Ireland; and a future in which some strong movement in the now quiet and peace-environed Boer country would result in a reversal of British policy.
But the annexation was now a fact. In England it was received with comparative indifference by the Tories and with a sort of passive hostility by the Liberals. No one seemed to know very much of the real state of affairs, and when, in the autumn of 1879, Mr. Gladstone practically urged the independence of the Boers as a portion of Liberal policy, his party opponents did not themselves realize the greatness of the issue involved or the inevitable consequences of playing with Empire questions as with measures for the building of a local bridge or the amending of some local law. In South Africa the English element rejoiced greatly at the annexation, and never dreamt of its reversal.
Dr. Moffat's Joy Over Annexation
The Rev. Dr. Robert Moffat, writing privately on July 27, 1877, with all his long accumulated experience in the South African missionary field,[[1]] declared that: "I have no words to express the pleasure the annexation of the Transvaal Territory has afforded me. It is one of the most important measures our Government could have adopted as regards the Republic as well as the aborigines. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the step one fraught with incalculable benefit to both parties, i.e., the settlers and the native tribes. A residence of more than half a century beyond the Colonial boundary is quite sufficient to authorize me to write with confidence that Lord Carnarvon's action will be the commencement of an era of blessing to South Africa." Such was the general view of the English element at the Cape, and such would have been the expressed view of Dutchmen like President Brand of the Free State if they could have ventured to explain their own sentiments. But Lord Carnarvon proposed, and Mr. Kruger's astute perception, combined with Hollander scheming and the fickleness of British party policy, disposed.
[[1]] Letter to Alexander McArthur, M.P., published in the English Independent of August 16, 1877.
Dutch Appeal to Gladstone
Slowly but surely Kruger played upon Boer ignorance and local prejudices, intense aversion to taxation and dislike of the English. Slowly and steadily he worked upon the racial sentiment of the Dutch at the Cape, until, in 1880, they largely signed an address to Mr. Gladstone asking his support for the "liberties" of their kinsmen. Eventually, he defeated, by indirect means, Sir Bartle Frere's policy of federating Cape Colony, Natal, Griqualand West and the Transvaal when it came before the Cape Legislature in June, 1880. Carefully, but with certainty, he built upon the shifting sands of England's Colonial policy that later structure of personal supremacy so well described by Kipling:
"Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his border shall his teaching run.
Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,
Laying on a new land evil of the old."
For a couple of years, however, matters went on without open rebellion. The administration of Sir T. Shepstone was, upon the whole, a wise one. The former officials were largely retained, provision was made for a dual official language, the finances were got into fairly good shape, and the natives were conciliated. Sir Bartle Frere, looking on from Cape Town, wished to establish complete responsible government, and had his policy been carried out, it is possible that the war might have been averted, and certain that the growing influence of Kruger would have been checked. Two Dutch deputations had gone to London, and the restoration of independence had been refused them by both the Beaconsfield Government and the succeeding one of Mr. Gladstone. High officials of all kinds—Frere, Wolseley, Shepstone and Lanyon—had declared that it was an absolute impossibility, and, certainly, no overt attempts were made to obtain it while British troops were present in South Africa in large numbers engaged in crushing the Zulu enemy or the lesser power of the Sekukuni.