CHAPTER XIV.
CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONTINUED.
The foreigners’ Reform Association, sometimes called the National Union, was organized at Johannesburg in 1893. Its professed object was to secure redress of grievances. This is always allowable in a free country; but it is matter of record that the spirit and methods of this particular association were not calculated to propitiate the people to whom they must look for any relief from the sufferings of which they complained.
Two incidents will sufficiently illustrate this. In 1894 Lord Loch, the British High Commissioner for South Africa, visited the Transvaal to conduct certain negotiations with the executive concerning Swaziland. The presence of this distinguished Crown Official in the Transvaal was made the occasion by the association of offering a public insult to President Kruger in Pretoria, of promoting a violent outburst of pro-British [[208]]and anti-Africander sentiment in Johannesburg, and of a conference between Lord Loch and Mr. Lionel Phillips, a member of one of the leading financial houses in Johannesburg, in which was considered the propriety of assembling a body of imperial troops on the borders of the Transvaal for the support of any revolutionary movement that might be made. These proceedings were reminiscent to the Africanders of an earlier demonstration, prior to the forming of the National Union. In 1890 President Kruger visited Johannesburg to confer with leading citizens on the mitigation of the grievances complained of. The foreigners celebrated his coming in that friendly way by drinking to excess, by singing in his ears “God Save the Queen” as a suitable song of welcome to the President of the South African Republic, and by tearing down the national flag of the Transvaal which was floating in front of the house in which the conference was being held. With a moderation not to be expected from Paul Kruger, the president charitably attributed the offensive proceedings to “long drinks”; but the people in general and their representatives were much embittered by them, and the effect was unfavorable to the carrying of any measures for the benefit of the foreigners.
BLOEMFONTEIN.
[[209]]
Throughout 1894 and 1895, both on the surface of things and beneath it, appearances were ominous of coming disturbance. On the surface there was, from Cape Town, an open advocacy of violent measures in Johannesburg, should such be found necessary to bring about the desired changes in favor of the foreigners. Mr. Edmund Garrett, editor of the “Cape Times,” openly stated at Bloemfontein, in 1895, that his presence in South Africa was connected with a purpose on the part of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, and his associates, to “force the pace.” And it was at this time that, as before stated, the British authorities suddenly annexed the Tongaland territory, through which the Africanders had secured a concession and projected a railway to the sea—thus deepening the impression to a painful and alarming certainty that the Imperial Government was intentionally unfriendly to that of the South African Republic.
Under the surface very momentous things were going on. In Rhodesia a volunteer police force was being enrolled by Sir John Willoughby. This gentleman, speaking for his superior, Doctor Jameson, assured the men that they would only be required to serve in a “camp of exercise” [[210]]once a year, and that they would not be taken beyond the borders of Rhodesia.