Carl Borckenhagen, editor of the Bloemfontein Express, and F. W. Reitz, who succeeded Sir J. Brand as President of the Orange Free State, and was subsequently State Secretary of the Transvaal, earnestly joined the Bond. The former was a German, whose honest and intense hatred of England was apparent in all his leading articles, while the life-dream of the latter was to see the establishment of the Dutch Republican United States of South Africa.
Branches of the Bond were formed in the Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State, and in 1882 the first Congress of the Bond was held at Graaff Reinet. A very astute and profoundly able plotter was already at work in the person of Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr, who had started “The Farmers’ Protection Society” with the expressed purpose of watching over Dutch farmers, and stirring them up to take an interest in politics. Hitherto the Dutch bucolic mind had lain fallow. It was now to be cultivated in order that it might produce fruit at parliamentary elections, and, as a more powerful means to that end, “The Farmers’ Protection Society” was amalgamated with the Bond in the year 1883. Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr then assumed the reins of management, and, as a Member in the House of Assembly for Stellenbosch, began to wield a power which at last developed into that of a colonial Earl of Warwick, or king-maker. Ministries were formed at his bidding, and cabinets accepted his control.
Certainly Mr. Hofmeyr very wisely and astutely modified the ostensible objects of the Bond, and he was helped to do so by the fact that the Hollander party in the Government at Pretoria became stronger than the Africanders. Indeed, the Rev. S. J. Du Toit, the founder of the Bond, was worsted in the Transvaal by the men from the old country. But to make up for this, their march in the Cape Colony was so triumphant that the President of the Bond at the Paarl Congress in June 1900 was able to glory in the fact that since 1884 the Cape Colony had been ruled under responsible government almost exclusively by the aid of the Africander Bond. In 1885 there were twenty-five Bond Members of Parliament who held the balance of power, and there can be no doubt that Sir Thomas Upington, Sir Gordon Sprigg, and Mr. Rhodes sought and accepted their support.
When Mr. Rhodes became Prime Minister in 1890 he was in harmony with the Bond, but certainly did not sympathise with its real object. Each party masked its idea, and each party thought that it was successfully using the other for its own objects. Objects diametrically opposite: Mr. Rhodes desired the supremacy of the British Imperial Power, and the Africander party really aimed at the formation of a Republican South Africa.
The Bond, says Mr. Theo. Schreiner (“The Africander Bond,” &c., p. 29) was for many years the only organised political body in the Cape Colony, and it exercised a political tyranny which crushed all true political life and thought under its iron heel. While it deliberately refused to take the reins of Government, it constantly aimed at increasing the number of its Members in Parliament, and at making it impossible for any Ministry to exist without its support. Arguing apparently from facts, Sir Hercules Robinson, in his farewell speech at Cape Town in April 1889, went so far as to say that there was no longer any permanent place in South Africa for direct Imperial rule.
A Bond Congress was held at Kimberley in 1891, when Mr. Rhodes made a very bold but unsuccessful attempt to get the Dutch to join with the English of the Cape Colony against the iniquitous rule and anti-British policy of the South African Republic. Another Congress was held at Port Elizabeth, when there was an attempt made to capture the Bond by means of British friendship. Indeed the changed attitude of this Association deceived many people, as under the extremely able leadership of Mr. Hofmeyr it assumed the position of a great benevolent society, which desired all Colonists, both English and Dutch, to join it, in order to help forward the progress of South Africa. Nevertheless, it is very significant that the Rev. S. J. du Toit lost the high position he had previously held in consequence of his supposed anti-Transvaal sympathies, and at the same time the influence of the South African Republic greatly increased. “Blood is thicker than water.” The close alliance of sympathy more and more knit together the Dutchmen of the States and of the Colonies.
But the Jameson Raid of 1895 removed every estrangement. Just before this event President Kruger showed his hand by venturing on a dangerous step, which really meant an open breach of the Convention. He closed the drifts, or fords, by which goods carried on the Cape and Natal railways entered the Transvaal, intending by this act to force traffic over his own Delagoa Bay line. He was informed by a joint ultimatum from the Imperial Government and the Cape Colony that his action could not be permitted, and he rescinded his declaration.
It is not necessary to give a history of the Jameson Raid. No event since Majuba had so much played into the hands of the party in favour of an “Africander Natie.” Cromwell’s words when General Leslie’s army left its strong position, “The Lord has delivered them into our hands,” clearly expressed the sentiment which on this occasion animated the minds of Bond members. The Transvaal enormously increased its armaments, preparations for war virtually commenced, and the entire sympathy of the Africander party in the Cape Colony went out to their brethren of the South African Republic.
Mr. Hofmeyr was a leader who thoroughly deserved the title of “the mole,” as he metaphorically burrowed under the political platform, and concealed his methods and aims with great subtlety. He saw the danger of pursuing openly the programme expressed in the motto of his party, and clothed the ideas of Africanderism in a constitutional garb. However, when considering the real aim of the Bond, we shall prove that this association never abandoned its original programme.
It must be admitted that, in some respects, there is an analogy between Daniel O’Connell, as leader of the Irish National party, and J. H. Hofmeyr, the “Ons Jan” of Africanderism. Both ostensibly were in favour of working only on constitutional lines, and both were defeated by extremists, who saw no other way of obtaining success than by recourse to arms. In the case of the Young Ireland party, with such leaders as John Michell, Smith O’Brien, and Gavan Duffy, a very futile insurrection was quickly crushed; while, so far as J. H. Hofmeyr was concerned, a much greater conflagration resulted. The great fire was really lit by him—at least he constantly added fuel to it—and when too late made futile efforts to extinguish the flames. O’Connell was much more honest, as he openly opposed the Young Irelanders, and retired broken-hearted from the arena.