3. For having failed to report the presence of the enemy.
He was found guilty on the first and last charges and not guilty on the second count, being sentenced to six months' hard labour and to pay a fine of £500, or to suffer a further term of twelve months' hard labour in lieu of the fine. The sentence was confirmed, the fine was paid by Mr. Schoeman, and he underwent the imprisonment for one month with hard labour and for five months without hard labour, which was remitted upon order from Lord Kitchener, who, without even being fully instructed as to the circumstances of the case, of his own accord lightened the terrible sentence passed upon Mr. Schoeman.
Later on Mr. Schoeman was cleared of the calumnies that had been the cause of his suffering. In this case, as in many others, the victim was the object of the private vengeance of a man who had had a grudge against him, and repaid it in that abominable manner.
One of the worst mistakes among the many committed during the South African War was to allow residents to be invested with what was nothing less than unlimited authority over their fellow-citizens. The British Government, which was made responsible for these acts, would never have given its sanction to any one of them; mostly, it was unaware of the original facts. The English military authorities dealt in absolute good faith, which makes the more shameful the conduct of those who wilfully led them into error. Their one fault was not to realise that certain individuals were not fit to administer martial law. In one particular district the man in authority seemed to have as the single aim of his life the punishment of anyone with Dutch sympathies or of Dutch blood. It was useless to appeal to him, because whenever a complaint was brought by an inhabitant of the district he simply refused to listen to it, and poured a torrent of abuse at the head of the bringer. One of his most notorious actions was the treatment which, by his orders, was inflicted on an old man who enjoyed the general esteem of both the English and the Dutch community, a former member of the House of Assembly. His house was searched, the floors were taken up, and the whole garden was dug out of recognition in a search for documents that might have proved that his son, or himself, or any other member of his family had been in correspondence with the two Republics. All this kind of thing was done on hearsay evidence, behind which lay personal motives. Had the settlement of the country been left entirely in the hands of Lord Kitchener, nothing approaching what I have related could have occurred. Unfortunately for all concerned, this was precisely the thing which the Rhodesian and other interests opposed. Much of the loyalty, about which such a fuss was made at the Cape, was loyalty to the sovereign in the pocket, and not loyalty to the Sovereign on the throne. This concern for wealth was seen in many aspects of life in South Africa, and occasionally invaded drastically the realm of social well-being. A case in point was the opposition by the financial interests to a tax on brandy. In South Africa drunkenness was one of the worst evils, especially among the coloured race, yet the restrictive influence of a tax was withheld. The underlying motive was nothing but the desire to avoid the tax on diamonds, which every reasonable person claimed and considered to be a source of revenue of which the Government had no right to deprive itself. While Rhodes lived the legislation introduced and maintained by his powerful personality revealed the policy of compromise which he always pursued. He was eminently practical and businesslike. He said to the members of the Bond, "Don't you tax diamonds and I won't tax dop," as the Cape brandy is called. The compact was made and kept in his lifetime.
When Rhodes was dead and a big democratic British element had come into the country after the war, those in power began wondering how it was that diamonds, which kept in luxury people who did not live in the country and consequently had no interest whatever in its prosperity, were not taxed. The Ministry presided over by Sir Gordon Sprigg shared this feeling, and in consequence found itself suddenly forsaken by its adherents of the day before, and the Rhodesian Press in full cry against the Government. Sir Gordon Sprigg was stigmatised as a tool of the Bond and as disloyal to the Empire after the fifty years he had worked for it, with rare disinterestedness and great integrity. Nevertheless, the Ministry declared that, as there existed an absolute necessity for finding new resources to liquidate the expenses contingent on the war, it would propose a tax on diamonds and another one on dop.
The exasperation of the Rhodesian party, which was thus roused, was the principal reason why the agitation for the suspension of the Constitution in Cape Colony was started and pursued so vigorously in spite of the small chance it had to succeed. His support of this agitation may be called the death-bed effort of Rhodes. When he was no longer alive to lend them his strong hand, the Rhodesian party was bound to disperse. They tried in vain to continue his policy, but all their efforts to do so failed, because there was nothing really tangible for them to work upon.
| Photo: Elliott & Fry |
| THE RT. HON. SIR JOHN GORDON SPRIGG |
With Cecil Rhodes came to an end also what can be called the romantic period of the history of South Africa, that period during which fortunes were made and lost in a few days; when new lands were discovered and conquered with a facility and a recklessness that reminded one of the Middle Ages. The war established an equilibrium which but for it would have taken years to be reached. It sealed the past and heralded the dawn of a new day when civilisation was to assert itself, to brush away many abuses, much cruelty and more injustice. The race hatred which the personality of Rhodes had done so much to keep alive, collapsed very quickly after his death, and as time went on the work done with such unselfishness and such quiet resolution by Sir Alfred Milner began to bear fruit. It came gradually to be understood that the future would justify his aims.
The war was one of those colossal crises which shake the foundations of a country and change the feelings of a whole generation of men and women in regard to each other. Whilst it lasted it roused the worst passions and showed up the worst aspects of the character of the people who played a part in it; but once it was over the false fabric upon which the animosities of the day before had been built fell. A serious and more enlightened appreciation of the events that had brought about the cataclysm which had cleared the air took the place of the furious outburst of hatred that had preceded it. People began to realise that it was not possible, on a continent where Europeans constituted but a small minority, that they could give the coloured races a terrible example of disunion and strife and still maintain dominance. Both the English and Dutch had at last recognised the necessity for working together at the great task of a Federation of the South African States, which would allow the whole of the vast Southern Continent to develop itself on a plane of higher progress under the protection of the British flag. This Union was conceived many, many years earlier by Cecil Rhodes. It was his great spirit that thought of making into one great nation the agglomeration of small nationalities, white and black, that lay over the veldt and impenetrable forests of South and Central Africa. For a long space of years Cecil Rhodes was South Africa.
So long as Rhodes lived it would have been impossible for South Africa to escape the influence of his brain, which was always plotting and planning for the future whilst forgetting more often than was healthy or wise the preoccupations of the present. After the Queen's flag had been hoisted at Pretoria, Cecil Rhodes alive would have proved an anomaly in South Africa. Cecil Rhodes dead would still retain his position as a dreamer and a thinker, a man who always pushed forward without heeding the obstacles, forgetful of aught else but the end he was pursuing, the country which he loved so well, and, what he cared for even more, his own ambition. Men like Rhodes—with all their mistakes to mar their dazzling successes—cannot be replaced; it is just as difficult to take up their work as it is to fill the gap caused by their disappearance.