'Seeing the great value the Government evidently sets upon a friendly and permanent settlement of the dynamite question, which has contributed so much to disturbing the good relations, we declare ourselves satisfied with the final settlement arrived at.
'And should, after the passing of the above proposals of law as a whole by the Volksraad, the Government desire us to give publicity to this our declaration for the promotion of peace and goodwill, such publicity as the Government may desire shall be given thereto.'
While the negotiations were actually in progress, and while the Imperial Government were awaiting a reply to their dispatch, the President made two determined attempts to rush the confirmation of the dynamite monopoly through the Raad. The first proposal was for the fifteen years' extension, and the second provided for condonation of all breaches of the concession in the past and for compensation upon the expiry of the concession.
The Uitlanders had not failed to perceive that the pit dug for them might conceivably serve another purpose. They ignored these two breaches of faith on the part of the President, and pursued the negotiations; and Mr. Kruger overreached himself. Having failed with Johannesburg, and having failed in the Raad, he appealed to his burghers with the scheme of mock reform. His hope was to get such support in the country that the Volksraad in its May session would have to spare the monopoly. He did not realize that he would have to make good the things which he had offered as shams. His greed had given the opening: his hand had provided the weapon. It is not good to be too clever; and the luck had turned.
The publication of the correspondence between the Government and the capitalists created a profound impression. The series of speeches delivered by the President in support of his sham reforms only deepened that impression by providing more and more convincing evidence as to who the real intriguers and mischief-makers were. To the Uitlander public one thing became quite clear, and that was that it was the Government who wished to barter their rights away and the capitalists—the abused capitalists—who refused to do so. An attempt was immediately made to hold a large public meeting for the purpose of endorsing the attitude taken by the negotiators, but the Government refused permission to hold an open-air meeting. In their attempt to hold a meeting indoors, the Uitlanders were defeated by the building being condemned as unsafe. The Government yielded, however, before the storm of disapproval which followed their prohibition, and the State Secretary, Mr. Reitz, suggested that the Uitlanders should hold a series of small indoor meetings in different localities. The meetings were accordingly held, and they provided unmistakable evidence of the gravity of the position. By their numbers, their unanimity, their enthusiasm, and their moderation, the Uitlanders carried conviction to some and roused the grave apprehension of others. Among the latter, it is fair to infer, were President Kruger and his sympathizers in the Free State and Cape Colony.
There is one disability the existence of which the advocates of the Uitlander cause are always painfully conscious of. They know as well as any of their critics that it is no picture which is all black—that you get no perspective, no effects, without contrasts! Yet it has not been believed that they were willing to acknowledge the good that there was, and that a politic instinct no less than a sense of justice prompted a diligent effort to discover and make much of the genuinely hopeful signs. The monotony was none of their making; it was in the nature of the facts, and not of the recital; but monotony there was, and it was productive of one very bad result. The conditions, admittedly bad, came to be regarded by a good many as being only as bad as they had for a long time been known to be, leaving little hope except through the long slow influence of time, but causing no immediate anxiety or alarm. Someday a grubbing historian may read the back files of South African newspapers and marvel that such warnings should have passed unheeded, but the fact is that the Transvaal Government and its sympathizers had become indifferent to warnings followed by no results and accustomed to prophecies unfulfilled. To say that they were 'fiddling while Rome burned' is to a great extent true of those of the South African Dutch who were sincerely desirous that the Transvaal Government should reform its ways and who were not consciously aiding in the republicanizing movement; but even of them it is not an adequate description,—as the answers given to two questioners by the most prominent and one of the most prominent Bondsmen indicate. Both of them had in private conversation on different occasions acknowledged the soundness of the Uitlander cause. To the suggestion, 'Then why not say so publicly?' the less important of the two replied, 'People would only say that I am climbing down and ratting on my party.' And the more important of the two, answering a similar question, said, 'Yes, the Rev. S.J. Du Toit did that. He was the founder of the Bond; and to-day he is—nothing! If I did it, I should fall as he did.' 'Then,' said his British friend, 'what is influence worth if it cannot be used for good? Can there be said to be influence when it cannot be used at all?' 'No,' was the reply, 'I have no influence as against the cry of race: blood is thicker than water; and I have no influence at all with Kruger.' The answer to this contained the crux of the question. 'Indeed you have; but you have not the courage to exercise it. The influence of advice has failed, dare you try the influence of repudiation?' The answer was a shake of the head and 'Blood is thicker than water.' That is it! The Piper pipes and the children follow.
It is too much to believe that the conference between the High Commissioner and President Kruger was a suggestion to which the latter had to be won over either by President Steyn or Mr. Hofmeyr. It is, indeed, well-known that the idea of a meeting for the purpose of discussing matters at issue between the two Governments had been considered in Pretoria for some months before it actually took place.[{51}]
The news that, upon the invitation of President Steyn, the High Commissioner and President Kruger had agreed to meet at Bloemfontein, was received by the Uitlanders with relief; not hope, because it was believed that the President's object was to get something, not to give something; but sheer relief, because, come what might, the position could never again be the same as it was before the conference. Something must change; someone must yield; the unbearable strain must cease. Sir Alfred Milner—wise and just and strong—commanded the entire confidence of the Uitlanders. It was not hoped that he would succeed in effecting a settlement at such a meeting, because in the circumstances such an achievement was believed not to be humanly possible; but it was not feared that he would fail in his duty to his country and to his trust.
It is no part of the object of this volume to deal with the negotiations which took place at Bloemfontein or with the terms of settlement at the present moment under discussion; the object is to recite the circumstances and conditions which made these negotiations necessary, and which, if they fail, must lead to bloodshed.
With a barrier of insurmountable race feeling before them, the Uitlanders are hopeless of effecting a peaceful redress of their grievances except by the aid of the Suzerain power. The President and his party will not yield one iota except upon the advice of those who have the will and the power to see that that advice is followed. Such power rests in two quarters. It rests with the progressive Dutch of South Africa. They have the power, but unfortunately they have not as yet the will or they have not the courage to use it. Time after time have they been stultified by rallying to the cry of race and defending Mr. Kruger's attitude on certain points, only to find the President abandoning as untenable the position which they have proclaimed to be proper. To them have been addressed most earnest and most solemn appeals to be up and doing whilst there was yet time. From them have been extracted—in times of peace—the amplest admissions of the justice of the Uitlander case. But there is a point beyond which they will not go. They will not say to the President and his party: 'We cannot extol in you what we would condemn in ourselves. The claim of kindred cannot for ever be the stalking-horse for injustice.' That they cannot do; and thus are they bonded to the one who will raise the race cry without scruple. There is no more hopeless feature for the peaceful settlement of the Transvaal question from within than the unanimity which marks the public utterances of those who are claimed as representing Afrikander sentiment in the present crisis. Those expressions, ranging from the most violent denunciations by politicians and ministers of the gospel down to the most illogical and hysterical appeals of public writers, all, all are directed against the injured. Not a warning, not a hint—not a prayer even—addressed to the offender. They have not the sense of justice to see or they have not the courage to denounce the perpetrators of evil, but direct all their efforts to hushing the complaints of the victims. Truly it would almost appear that there is some guiding principle running through it all; something which recognizes the real sinner in the victim who complains and not in the villain who perpetrates; the something which found a concrete expression when bail was fixed at £200 for the murder of a British subject and at £1,000 for the crime of objecting to it.