11. The education of uitlander children is made subject to impossible conditions.
12. The Boer police give no protection to lives and property in the city of Johannesburg.
It will be noted that this petition, dealing with political and other grievances, makes no mention of the dynamite monopoly, extortionate railway charges, burdensome tariffs on imported foodstuffs, and other industrial and commercial grievances of which complaints had been made at an earlier date. And in judging of this list of complaints it should be considered that, with the [[228]]exception of the eleventh, concerning the education of children—which is fatally indefinite in expression—most of the conditions complained of are exactly such as would be imposed on a city lately in insurrection, and yet inhabited by the same persons who had conspired to overthrow the government.
The dangerous tension already existing was greatly heightened by a long telegraphic communication from Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of Cape Colony, to Mr. Chamberlain, on the 5th of May. After reviewing the situation, and reiterating the grievances which British subjects were said to be suffering, and declaring that the spectacle presented “does steadily undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain,” Sir Alfred revealed the true inwardness of the struggle already begun between the Africanders and the British by saying:
“A certain section of the press, not in the Transvaal only, preaches openly and constantly the doctrine of a republic embracing all South Africa, and supports it by menacing references to the armaments of the Transvaal, its alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which in case of war it would receive from a section of her Majesty’s subjects. [[229]]
“I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous propaganda but some striking proof of the intention of her Majesty’s government not to be ousted from its position in South Africa.”
Sir Alfred’s reference in the last two paragraphs is to the “Africander Bund,” a society whose ramifications were to be found throughout Natal, Cape Colony, and, indeed, wherever members of the Africander race were to be found.
He that runneth may read and understand these luminous words in Sir Alfred Milner’s dispatch. The coming struggle was not to be about some foreigners in the Transvaal, but to defeat, in time, the republican aspirations of the whole Africander race, including those in the two republics already established and “a section of her Majesty’s subjects” in the British territories of Natal and Cape Colony; and the issue was understood to be either “a republic embracing all South Africa”—involving the expulsion of the British government “from its position in South Africa”—or the defeat of those aspirations in the establishing of a confederated South Africa under the British crown.
In the light of Sir Alfred’s dispatch one ceases to wonder that all negotiations about the uitlander [[230]]grievances, and that the repeated concessions as to the franchise offered by the Transvaal, were without effect. It is evident that both parties saw inevitable war approaching on quite another and a much larger question.
The response of the British government to the uitlanders’ petition, and to Sir Alfred Milner’s appeal for intervention, was a suggestion that President Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner should meet at Pretoria and confer concerning the chief matters in dispute between the two governments. Afterward, upon the invitation of Mr. Steyn, president of the Orange Free State, it was decided to hold the conference at Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State Republic. In accepting the invitation to this conference in a telegram dated the 17th of May, Mr. Kruger said: