In regard to Cecil Rhodes' refusal to produce the telegrams which they asked for, the committee says that he ought undoubtedly to be disciplined for his conduct, but that it would take so much time to do so that it would perhaps be as well to let the matter alone.
This is one report.
The other is much stronger in its tone. It blames everybody concerned, and says that there is little doubt that the raid was simply a plot arranged to make wealthy men wealthier.
This report does not agree that the home Government is entirely blameless. It says that it is a pity that the matter was not more fully investigated, so that it could be thoroughly ascertained whether the Government, and especially Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, was in truth ignorant of the plot.
Both reports agree that the officers who led the raiders imagined that they were acting under orders from the British Government, and that they have been punished more heavily than they deserved. The second report suggests that their commissions should be restored to them.
After the raid was over these soldiers were arrested and sent to England, where they were tried for invading a friendly country without proper authority. They were found guilty and sent to Holloway Jail in London.
When they were convicted they were one and all deprived of their commissions in the British army. While they were only imprisoned for a short time, and were not harshly treated in any sense, the fact of being dismissed from the army was a very serious thing for them.
A commission in the army means the authority by which the officer holds his rank of Captain or Colonel—or whatever it may be—and is naturally valued very highly by the holder.
In England, especially, the highest class of young men go into the army as officers, and to leave the army without wishing to, to have one's commission taken away from one, is a great disgrace. An officer who leaves the army at his own wish has all other careers open to him, but one who is dismissed from the service is disgraced and cannot easily find fresh employment, and moreover loses all the income and standing that being an officer in the army had given him.