A West Pointer with the Boers /

by John Y. Fillmore Blake

Rhodes and his crew did not remain idle for a moment, they started more newspapers in Johannesburg, got possession of all the newspapers in South Africa, except three or four, and then began a paper war against the Government, President Kruger, all Boer officials, Hollanders, and in fact all who were in any way in sympathy with the Boers. There was nothing too low, too mean, too maliciously false for them to say about the Netherlands Railroad Company, the Dynamite Factory, the price of coal or the treatment of some Cape niggers caught in a drunken brawl. There were many other grievances, among them was the five per cent tax levied on the gold output, by the Government. Then again, the capitalists wished to establish the "compound" system, and thus make slaves of all Kaffirs employed at the mines. This the Government refused to grant.

In addition to this came the cry for the franchise. It was claimed that the Uitlanders furnished the money that carried on the Government, that they were in a majority, and that therefore they were entitled to vote and hold office. They claimed the franchise by the fact of residence in the Transvaal. Under no circumstances, were they to forswear allegiance to their Queen and thus forfeit their British citizenship. They claimed the right to vote and hold office, as long as they saw fit to reside in the Transvaal, and at the same time to remain British subjects.

The Government changed the law from fourteen to seven years' residence necessary for the franchise, with an oath requiring the applicant to renounce all allegiance to the State of which he was last a citizen. The press cried this down as an act of impertinence and injustice on the part of the Government, because no British subject could for one moment think of giving up his citizenship and Queen for the sake of becoming a citizen in a country run by an ignorant Boer.

Remember, reader, that all this was purely the work of the press of South Africa, whose object was to give Joe Chamberlain a chance to put his mouth into the business. The Uitlanders of the Transvaal, including Englishmen, Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, in fact, representatives of all nationalities, took little or no interest in the reports which the press was spreading, because all knew that they were manufactured and utterly false; and besides all were freer, happier and making more money than ever before in any other country. All were making from $5 to $25 per day of eight hours' work, depending on each one's individual skill and smartness. I was there, knew them, heard them talk, and I say, there was not one in a hundred who wanted the franchise, who would have made use of it if given to him, or who ever discussed the subject. Each was trying to make his little fortune, that he might leave that far away land and return to his old home.

The horrible condition of affairs in the Transvaal existed only in the press and was the work of Rhodes, his crew and his ally in Downing Street, London. The press continued its dirty work day after day and month after month, without variation, except in a few instances where the imagination, under heavy strain, was able to squeeze out a little more venom. The English pursue the same tactics in their fighting, they bombard day after day, increasing the number of guns from time to time, and at last when they have concluded that the Boers are all killed or so demoralized that they could offer no resistance, they advance the line for the general attack. Just so the press continued to spit out its venom and spread it over the civilized world, month after month, until it was deemed that the time was ripe for making the final crushing blow that must rob the Boers of their gold fields and their country. This brings me to that notorious petition of 21,000 names that was deliberately manufactured in Johannesburg. Excluding women and children, I think it is safe to say that there were not 2,000 genuine signatures on that petition.

A hired bar-room specimen would go from house to house and have the mother put her name down and the names of all her children, first telling her it was the wish of Rhodes and the so-called big men of Johannesburg. Cape niggers would give their names, and the bar-room specimen would write them down, for the niggers could not write their names. There were men in Johannesburg who made it a profession to get up petitions, charging so much for every hundred names. The Rhodes crew employed these fellows at $25 per hundred names. These fellows would then go to their rooms, write down a few hundred names, as they came to their minds, and would then turn in the list, receive their money, and proceed to their rooms to repeat the process. That is the way that petition was gotten up, and it recited enough grievances to stagger the world. I used to talk with the people, and many of them, too, every day, and it was a rare exception when I found one who ever saw the petition. When completed, it was forwarded to Sir Alfred Milner, Cape Town. He looked at it, pronounced it correct, and forwarded it to Downing Street. When Sir Alfred Milner reported that he had investigated the names on that petition, and found them correct, he knows, I know, and the people of Johannesburg know, that he was guilty of a deliberate falsehood. Milner was sent to South Africa for a purpose. His predecessor would have thrown that petition into the waste basket. He could not be handled by Rhodes; so it became necessary to get rid of him, and out he went. Milner was just the man for the place, for he was an educated man, suave and gentlemanly, and, best of all, he was easily led by such a moneyed man as Rhodes.

Now you have what I call a trinity, three in one, but apparently three distinct individuals, Chamberlain, Milner, Rhodes, three names that will in time appear on the first page of the history of the decline and fall of the British Empire, as the cause of the beginning of the end. With Chamberlain in Downing Street, Rhodes and all his money in South Africa, and weak Mr. Milner in the middle and ready at hand, it was inevitable that the great struggle must come, in which thousands of innocent people must fall, and the plains of South Africa be reddened with their blood.

As a result of this petition, the conference in Bloemfontein between Presidents Kruger and Stein and Sir Alfred Milner was held. This conference was simply a farce, as the world knows, for Milner had his orders and all the concessions made by Presidents Kruger and Stein were simply declined. Had President Kruger told Milner that he was willing to cut off the Rand Gold-Fields, and allow them to be annexed to Rhodesia, why, that would have prevented the war, and war could not have been avoided in any other way, for Milner positively refused to let any of their differences go to arbitration. He came there to bring on war; he succeeded, and what a pity it is that he, Chamberlain and Rhodes thought it prudent to remain so far removed from the immediate scenes of action! But that is the way in this wicked world—those who are responsible for suffering and loss of life in a cruel and uncalled-for war, are the very ones who escape unharmed, and receive the congratulations of the civilized world for the masterly way they have carried out their designs.

KRUGER