Boer Politics

by Yves Guyot

APPENDIX C.

THE LAST PRO-BOER MANIFESTATION.

Since the foregoing articles were written Dr. Leyds and Mr. Boer have not been idle. M. Pierre Foncin, a General Inspector of the University, has compiled on behalf of a Society called "Le Sou des Boers," a manifesto ending thus: "Well then, since this lust of gold has resulted in war, let the gold of France be poured out in floods, in aid of the innocent victims!"

In spite of considerable influence brought to bear upon this member of the University, the Committee, after some weeks' work, only managed to scrape together something like four hundred pounds. Since then, no more has been heard of it, and its place has been taken by "The Committee for the Independence of the Boers," with M. Pauliat, a Nationalist Senator, at its head. Its object was, in the first place, to organise a reception for the Boer delegates on their return from America.

It was confidently expected by the promoters of the enterprise that it would afford a good opportunity for a demonstration in opposition to the Government on the fourteenth of July. The delegates were received at the Hôtel-de-Ville by the Nationalist Municipal Council, whose President, M. Grébauval, addressed them in virulent speeches, while the great square in front remained empty. The Irish Banquet which took place this year on the twelfth of July under the Presidency of Mr. Archdeacon, and which had been much talked of in 1899 at the time of the Auteuil manifestation, when President Loubet was hit with a stick by Baron Christiani, passed off amidst complete indifference. No disturbance of any kind occurred on the fourteenth of July.

The Congress of the Interparliamentary Union in favour of Peace and Arbitration was to be held on the 31st of July. It was stated that the Boer delegates were going to present a memorial, whilst M. Pauliat intended to raise the Transvaal question. My answer was that I intended to be there too, and considered it of interest to treat that question. Dr. Leyds knew that the majority of the English Members of Parliament who belonged to the Congress had declared themselves against the South African war, and he anticipated that owing to their former declarations they would find it difficult not to side with the pro-Boer sympathisers.

It was rather a clever idea. But on the 30th of July there was a meeting of the executive Committee composed of two members of each of the various nationalities, at which the English members declared that, if contrary to its regulations, the Transvaal question was to be discussed they were resolved to withdraw. The Committee decided to admit Mr. Wessels, formerly Speaker of the Orange Free State Parliament, simply as a member of the Congress; to oppose any discussion of the Transvaal question and to rule that the communication made by the Boer delegates was merely to be circulated among the members as individuals.

My pamphlet, La Politique Boer, and my answer in Le Siècle of the 1st of August, were also distributed. Here are a few extracts:

"The manifesto of Messrs. Fisher, Wessels and Wolmarans, delegates for the South African Republics, has been a disappointment to me. I expected that these gentlemen would produce some arguments; they have contented themselves with giving us a summary of Dr. Reitz's pamphlet—"A Century of Wrongs." It ends with the same incitement to annexation, which was already to be found in the cry for help sent on the 17th of February, 1881, by the Transvaal to the Orange Free State—"Africa for the Afrikander, from the Zambesi to Simon's Bay!" The delegates recognise that the time for claiming new territories has passed; they describe themselves as a nation of mild and peace-loving men, the victims of perpetual English persecution. I do not wish to discuss their way of dealing with historical facts, about which they are not so candid as was Mr. Krüger in his 1881 manifesto, because what we are now interested in, is not that which happened in times long ago, but what has happened since the annexation of the Transvaal by England, on the 12th of April, 1877. They do not say a word of the state of anarchy then prevailing in the Transvaal, nor of its military reserves, nor of the threatening attitude of Sekukuni and Cetewayo. Whereas in the manifesto of 1881, with these facts still fresh in the memory of its author, it is said: "At the outset our military operations were not very successful. In the opinion of our opponents we were too weak to resist successfully an attack from the natives," Sir Theophilus Shepstone, unable to restore order, had finally to annex the Transvaal. This he did at the head of twenty-five policemen only. Had the Transvaal been left to itself Sekukuni's and Cetewayo's impis would have overrun the country and turned out the Boers, who, after they had been delivered from their enemies by the English, proclaimed "a war of independence" in December, 1880. The Majuba disaster, 27th of February, 1881, in which the English had 92 killed, 134 wounded, and 59 prisoners, is of course mentioned by the delegates. An English army twelve thousand strong was advancing; but though the Queen's speech referred to the fact of the annexation, Mr. Gladstone, who in his Midlothian campaign, had protested against it, agreed to the 1881 Convention in which the independence of the Transvaal under England's suzerainty was recognised.