The Africanders

by Le Roy Hooker

Fitting in very significantly with this movement, the Bechuanaland Protectorate—lying next neighbor to Rhodesia on the south and to the Transvaal on the west—was transferred to the Chartered Company controlling Rhodesia, a measure that enabled Doctor Jameson to station his volunteer police force on the Transvaal border without taking them out of the enlarged Rhodesia.

Meantime, rifles, ammunition and Maxim guns were smuggled across the border from Kimberley to Johannesburg, to be in readiness for an armed uprising of the foreigners on a date to be agreed upon. Over in the British territory of Rhodesia, Doctor Jameson’s force—ostensibly for local police purposes—was armed and near the border, ready to co-operate with the revolt about to be initiated at Johannesburg. As a provision for the sustenance of the invading force, a number of so-called “canteens,” said to be for the convenience of a projected stage line, but really stores of food for Jameson’s troopers and their horses, were established at convenient distances along the road over which the force was to advance upon Johannesburg. [[211]]

At the same time, the official opening of the new railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay was made the occasion of such marked congratulation from the Imperial Government as implied nothing but the most friendly relations. Afterwards the Africanders held that the Imperial congratulations were sincere, and that the fact of their being sent was evidence that the policy of implacable hostility toward the South African Republic being pursued by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was in no sense the policy of the British government.

It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of the through railway of the carrying trade from [[212]]the border to Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic. The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the “drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11 per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a [[213]]strong prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained.

As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously, mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the 6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It Is”:

“Master Lionel’s speech has been very foolish, and is likely to do a great deal of harm and no good—unless his instructions are to incite to bloodshed—and I can scarcely imagine such instructions to have gone out while the boom is [[214]]lasting. If there is anything that is likely to put Paul Kruger’s back up, it is threats; and unless Cecil Rhodes is prepared to back up with his Matabele heroes those threats, you will find the Volksraad of 1896 give an unmistakable answer to what they will wrongly call ‘British threats.’ ”

How the real state of things was comprehended locally is evinced in the answer to that letter, dated December the 10th:

“Your remark concerning Rhodes’ Matabele heroes is probably more prophetic than you yourself are aware of. South Africa is, as you say, the land of surprises.”

Among the parties privy to the conspiracy the date of uprising was spoken of as the “day of flotation.” It was carefully discussed, as was the use that could be made of the British crown officials at the Cape. Arms and ammunition for the use of the revolutionists continued to arrive at Johannesburg, concealed in coal trucks and oil tanks. It looked like an appointment when, on the 21st of December, Colonel Rhodes, brother and representative of Cecil Rhodes at Johannesburg, telegraphed to the Cape that a high official, whom he called the “Chairman,” should interfere at the earliest possible moment, and that he and Mr. Cecil Rhodes should start [[215]]from Cape Town for Johannesburg on the “day of flotation.”

This telegram has been interpreted to mean that the conspirators wanted to create just enough of disturbance to justify alarming telegrams and calls for help, but not so prolonged and violent as to make it necessary for them to lead a hand-to-hand fight against the burghers in the streets of Johannesburg. They would have the Jameson force near enough to take the brunt of the fighting, and the High Commissioner to come in opportunely to mediate a peace favoring the re-establishment of British control in the Transvaal.