A Short History of England, Ireland and Scotland

by Mary Platt Parmele

So, in 1877, the annexation was effected. The Transvaal Republic was taken under the sovereignty of Queen Victoria.

By a treaty drawn up in 1881, it was declared to be a self-governing, although not an independent State. In all its foreign relations it was subject to the Suzerainty of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. In other words, it was a vassal State.

In that one word Suzerain there lurked the germ of a great war. In a revision of the terms of agreement made by the British, in 1884, this word, which was to play such an important part was omitted; whether by accident or design cannot be said. But the Executive Council of the Republic saw their opportunity, and claimed that the omission of the word was virtually a relinquishment of the claim, and an admission that the South African Republic was an independent and sovereign State.

Lord Derby, Minister of Foreign Affairs, replied that no such significance could be attached to the omission in the amended treaty; that the word Suzerain was not employed simply because it was vague and indefinite in its meaning; whereas, the rights claimed by the British were not vague, but precise and definite. These distinctly forbade the South African Republic from concluding any treaty with a foreign power. And as such power was vested in the Queen, as a matter of course it followed that the South African Republic was not a sovereign and independent State.

While this diplomatic controversy was proceeding, other and less formal agencies were at work. The Transvaal, rich in resources beyond all expectation, was being developed by British capital, without which nothing could have been done. The Uitlanders, (or "Outlanders"), as these English-born men were called, complained that, instead of coöperating with them in this labor, which must result in the common good, everything possible was done to embarrass and paralyze their efforts. Chief among the long list of grievances was the claim that, while they were the principal taxpayers, they were denied representation, and that as they furnished the capital for all the financial enterprises, it was but fair that they should have the franchise which was stubbornly withheld from them.

Out of these conditions came the "Jameson Raid," the most discreditable incident in the whole South African story; an incident which cast a cloud of suspicion over the entire British attitude, and enlisted wide-spread sympathy for the Boers. Under the leadership of Dr. Jameson, a gentleman closely associated with Cecil Rhodes in the South African Chartered Company, an attempt was made to overthrow the Kruger Government, and, to obtain by force the redress denied by peaceable means.

When a revolt rises to the plane of a revolution it becomes respectable. The "Jameson Raid" never reached that elevation. In less than four days the entire force had surrendered and the leaders were under arrest. The attempt upon Johannesburg, and the acts of violence attending it, were denounced in unmeasured terms by the British Government. Dr. Jameson and his chief abettors were tried in England, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment; four other prominent leaders—one of them an American—had sentence of death passed upon them by a judge from the Orange Free State, which was finally remitted upon the payment of a large sum to the South African Republic. England did her best to rehabilitate her name in the estimation of the world; and when the deplorable affair was over, it had done immense injury to the English cause, and benefited not a little that of the Republic.

Diplomatic negotiations were then resumed; Sir Alfred Milner presenting the British view, urged the propriety of granting to foreign-born residents the franchise; also the abolishment of certain monopolies which pressed heavily upon the miners, and last, but not least, that the sovereignty of Great Britain over the Transvaal, receive official recognition.

This latter President Kruger flatly rejected, upon the ground that the question of sovereignty had already been disposed of in 1884, when Great Britain virtually abandoned the claim by omitting the word Suzerain, or any reference to what it implied, from the amended agreement; offering at the same time to submit the other demands to arbitration.