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Breach with Rhodes

The good relationship Graaff and the Afrikaner Bond had with Rhodes was shortly put to the test when the first great challenge for the Rhodes ministry arose with the Logan crisis of 1893.

It came about from the awarding of a refreshment contract for the colonial railways without tenders having been requested to Jimmy Logan, a personal friend of Sir James Sivewright, commissioner of crown land and public works, under whose office the railways fell.

Sivewright was a member of the Afrikaner Bond. This clever Scottish engineer came to South Africa to organise and develop the telegraphic systems of the republics and the colonies between 1877 and 1881. As a speculator who believed the end justified the means, he acted as mediator between Rhodes and Hofmeyr on the one hand and the Cape Colony and the Boer republics on the other. And when in 1891 he negotiated the Sivewright agreement with the Free State government, he was knighted. The agreement, which provided for the extension of the Cape railway line from Bloemfontein north to the Vaal River and the Transvaal goldfields, gave the Cape Colony a near monopoly for two years.1

With the new contract awarded by Sivewright, Logan, a difficult politician who had dug himself in in the town of Matjiesfontein with its well-known railway station, could distribute his canteens over 2 000 miles of railway lines. The awarding of the contract to one person, not to mention one who could exert considerable political influence, reinforced the anti-monopoly sentiments in the Cape at a time when, moreover, an election was imminent. So when it became apparent, furthermore, that Sivewright had hidden the issue from his colleagues – it had never been submitted to cabinet for discussion – the fat was in the fire.

In the midst of strong public outrage, three ministers, J.W. Sauer, John X. Merriman and Rose-Innes, decided at a cabinet meeting that action was imperative. They cabled Rhodes and Sivewright, who were in England at the time, insisting upon the cancellation of the contract, which would be valid for ten years and could then be renewed for another five.

At the same time pressure was brought to bear on Rhodes from the ranks of the Afrikaner Bond. Not only political interests were at stake. Graaff himself had an interest in the matter, since Combrinck & Co. secured the refreshment contract for canteens along the extension of the Kimberley railway in 1886.2

Hofmeyr and Graaff cabled Sivewright, which indicated how closely Graaff was already co-operating with Hofmeyr at that stage. It read:

“New Logan contract causes great dissatisfaction, weakening Ministry, places friends in false position. Retreat in time. Show Rhodes.”3

The two ministers in England agreed that Logan’s contract should be cancelled. When Logan heard of this, he sued the Cape government for £50 000 for breach of contract. With Rhodes’s return to Cape Town the “Three Mutineers” – Merriman and his colleagues – insisted that he should fire Sivewright. Merriman in particular, who had long been at loggerheads with Sivewright, was outraged: “Surely we have seen the wicked in great power and flourishing like green bay trees with our Sivewrights and our Barnatos,” he wrote in a letter to his mother.4

Rhodes, however, could not come up with a compromise. When his ministry was disbanded, he asked Hofmeyr to form a cabinet. Hofmeyr refused, but advised Rhodes to consult the chief justice, Sir Henry de Villiers. Hofmeyr also recommended that Graaff should serve in the cabinet.5 While Justice De Villiers was still contemplating the matter, Rhodes formed a new cabinet himself without consulting De Villiers. He omitted the Three Mutineers, as well as Sivewright, from the new cabinet, which now also included the former premier, Sir Gordon Sprigg, and did not find room for Graaff.

As for the Logan contract, damages of £5 000 were awarded to Logan, and under the new Rhodes government the contract was awarded to him once again.

In the Cape Parliament a new state of affairs now prevailed. Opposite the second Rhodes ministry in the opposition benches sat three of Rhodes’s former cabinet colleagues, who had not left him for political reasons, but because of a matter of political honesty. On top of that they were more upright politicians who, as members of Rhodes’s cabinet, had been able to control his forcefulness. None of his new cabinet members could exert that influence. Hofmeyr remained the leader of the Afrikaner Bond, in reality the only strong political party in the Cape Colony, because at that stage there was not much of a bipartisan system. However, when Hofmeyr resigned his parliamentary seat in 1895, it meant the end of the last counterbalance that could keep at bay Rhodes’s rush to his own demise.6

While Graaff served as both a Member of Parliament and city councillor, he also remained active as a businessman and entrepreneur. In that capacity he got involved in an extended dispute with the Rhodes government, which wanted to expropriate the property of Combrinck & Co.

The buildings of the old Shambles, including that of Combrinck & Co., stood next to the Cape Town station, which, in turn, lay close to the sea and almost adjacent to the historic castle. The station at the lower end of Adderley Street, from where all passengers departed on the main line to the north, became quite busy from 1890, when suburban trains to Simon’s Town were introduced. The only way to extend the railway was to the location where Combrinck & Co. had been doing business for 60 years. This entailed expropriation. Combrinck & Co. was notified by the general manager of the railways, Charles Bletterman Elliot, that it should find alternative premises and would receive compensation. However, the company, conveniently located close to the harbour, station and market, was not prepared to put up with this. James Keddie Stephenson, a Scot already regarded as the capable manager of Combrinck & Co., entered the battlefield on behalf of the company. Stephenson, who had emigrated to South Africa in 1881, had grown along with Combrinck & Co. since joining Graaff and the rest in 1884. He married May Enslin, daughter of a member of the Free State Volksraad, George Frederick Enslin. He displayed a singular talent for the business world and wrote thousands of letters on behalf of the company over the next few years.7

In a letter dated 10 April 1893 to Charles Elliot, Stephenson contended that the removal would bring about major losses. Before an estimate of compensation could be made, government was required to indicate which alternative premises it had in mind, although it seemed impossible to find such premises, said Stephenson. This was followed by correspondence and meetings between the two parties that continued for several months. Eventually the railways appointed a sworn valuer who appraised the premises and buildings of Combrinck & Co. at the seafront at £8 000, but the Graaff brothers were not prepared to accept a penny less than £77 000. Further correspondence concluded with an ultimatum by the commissioner of crown land, John Laing, to Combrinck & Co. on 1 May 1894: “I hereby give you formal notice that it is the intention of the Government to proceed to… the expropriation according to the usual provision of law.”8

David Graaff was visiting Britain for business while the wrangling continued. When he received a cable about the crisis, he cancelled a cruise to New York and returned to Cape Town on the next available ship. Combrinck & Co. wrote an offended letter to government:

“[We] had suffered enormous expenditure, loss and inconvenience. Mr. Graaff was in England on his way to America and Australia in connection with the extension of the firm’s business. His plans had been all arranged when he received a cable calling upon him to return. He has been delayed here for eight months solely on account of the expropriation…”9

When no outcome could be reached on the issue in the Cape Parliament, it became clear that only impartial arbitration presented a way out. It started on 26 February 1895 in the offices of the Colonial Orphan Chamber at Church Square in Cape Town. The railways appointed Captain Charles Henry Jackson as arbitrator, and the choice of Combrinck & Co. was Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer, well-known parliamentarian, a friend of Graaff’s and the father of Paul Sauer, in later years a minister. A third arbitrator, George William Steytler, was appointed to pronounce on the matter in the event of the voting resulting in a tie.

Combrinck & Co. was represented in the hearing by Van Zyl & Buissiné, a prominent law firm. Its senior partner was Casper Hendrik van Zyl, father of Gideon Brand van Zyl, in later years a partner, who would become the first South African-born governor-general (1945–1950). The legal advisor to the railways was J. & H. Reid & Nephew. In advance the legal representatives agreed to “in the most absolute and irrevocable manner” accept the compensation the three arbitrators decided upon, and that it would be made an order of the Supreme Court regardless of anything else. A binding contract was drawn up that was signed by the different parties on 9 February 1895.

The result of the arbitration was announced on 2 March 1895. Two of the three arbitrators, with Jackson in the minority, agreed that compensation of no less than £55 000 should be paid to Combrinck & Co. by the colonial government, which also had to pay the arbitration costs of £110.

Rhodes’s government and his finance minister, Sir Gordon Sprigg, could hardly have been happy about this conclusion, because back then £55 000 was an enormous amount. When Rhodes and Sprigg heard that Graaff was on his way to the Supreme Court to apply that the arbitration amount be declared a final court order, they argued that “the defence will be that in view of the unreasonableness of the amount the Government will not expropriate”. Graaff informed Charles Elliot that had government steered clear of arbitration and tried instead to reach a private settlement, it would have been much better off. If Elliot conveyed this to the premier, Graaff’s statement would certainly not have made him more popular with Rhodes. Rhodes could not stand not getting his own way.10

The hearing in the Supreme Court started a week later on 9 March. Chief Justice Sir Henry de Villiers, and Justice Thomas Upington, a former premier, heard the arguments of Advocate James Rose Innes, QC (for Combrinck & Co.) and Advocate Henry Juta, QC (for the Rhodes government).

Charles Elliot stated in an affidavit that government no longer believed expropriation was justified, since the amount was much higher than what parliament had envisaged. If the premises were not expropriated, Combrinck & Co. could remain there and the whole matter would be disposed of. The chief justice, however, did not agree. He pointed out the binding contract and that, although the amount surely was very large, there was no allegation of any bias or misconduct on the side of the arbitrators. If a smaller amount had been awarded, the applicant would have been bound to accept it. He granted Graaff’s application with costs, and Justice Upington concurred.11

For the government’s part more efforts were made to get out of the predicament. Various offers, including one in a letter by Charles Elliot, were made to the Graaffs, but they would not budge. The cheque for £55 000 came in very handy; some believe it was the basis on which Graaff’s wealth was built.12

Despite the dispute about expropriation, it became clear to Graaff that Combrinck & Co. would have to leave its Strand Street premises sooner or later. The new premises still had to be as close to the Table Bay harbour as possible. One of the reasons was that the Cape Chamber of Commerce and the Fruitgrowers’ Association, as well as members of Parliament, had approached Combrinck & Co. to install refrigerator rooms for fruit to be shipped to Europe. For that purpose, Combrinck’s new refrigerator rooms in Newmarket Street were too far from the harbour because the fruit had to be transported in the middle of summer. But where could the stores be located?

Few people knew Cape Town better than Graaff, ex-mayor and still city councillor. He realised the advantages of reclaiming the foreshore beyond Strand Street and the Waterfront – the street names indicating how far the seawater came back in those times. Reclamation of the fish market of Roggebaai would make it possible to considerably expand the relatively small plot of level ground between the seafront and Table Mountain.

Combrinck & Co. approached the Table Bay Harbour Council about reclaiming land, and an urgent meeting was held on 8 November 1894, with Graaff and other members of his company present. He suggested that the area between the two jetties next to Dock Road at the lower end of Bree Street be reclaimed from the ocean. It was conveniently close to the harbour and the railway lines ran next to the beachfront.

The Harbour Council, no doubt aware of additional income from the export trade as well as municipal taxes, agreed to the reclamation plan. Graaff would be able to establish his new head office there, which explains why he had resisted to such an extent the railway’s expropriation plans.

The conditions Graaff had to comply with were set out in a letter from the Table Bay Harbour Council, dated 8 November 1894 and signed by Frank Robb.13 Before Graaff could proceed with the new project, however, parliamentary approval was needed. Further differences of opinion and delays followed until an agreement was reached, which was signed by the three Graaff brothers and Sir Gordon Sprigg, finance minister, on 10 July 1895.14 The colonial government agreed that Combrinck & Co. “[should] reclaim from the sea a piece of land, in extent 38 799 square yards, between the North Wharf and the old Coaling Wharf”. The company, which undertook to complete the work within 12 months, could also purchase the adjacent grounds beyond Dock Road from the Harbour Council, an area of 3 996 square yards. Combrinck & Co. got the title deeds for the whole area. Under the terms of an agreement with the Cape government the refrigerator rooms would be used for the storage of fruit, dairy and fish, and other types of food intended for export. The company’s application was supported by the Chamber of Commerce and other interested parties.15

When the Cape Parliament confirmed the agreement two weeks later, on 24 July 1895, the 36-year-old David Graaff acquired one of the most sought-after industrial properties in the Mother City.16

The previous year Combrinck & Co. had already entered into an agreement with the Cape railways, which indicated major expansion plans. In terms of the agreement, all the company’s butchered meat and livestock would be transported on the Cape railway lines for 10 years from 1 January 1895. Combrinck & Co. undertook to have refrigerator rooms and ice machines installed at different places along the lines and to construct suitable refrigerator rooms in Johannesburg. The railway agreed it would not increase its tariffs for the first three years by more than 20 per cent and that the tariffs would then remain unchanged.17 The railways also undertook to provide the necessary rail carriages. However, it did not turn out the way Graaff wanted. A shortage of carriages and red tape resulted in various complaints by Combrinck & Co. over the next few years.

While the business continued to expand, the new premises of Combrinck & Co. on reclaimed land below Dock Road started with the construction of a cofferdam that pushed back the sea. The part that was pumped dry was filled up with all kinds of building rubble brought with horse-carts from construction sites all over the city. Labourers levelled the rubble with pick-axes and spades.

The architect of the new building was Charles Freeman, a colourful English immigrant who also acted as agent for the company Walter MacFarlane & Co., producers of ornamental cast-iron work in Glasgow. The Victorian verandas, trellises and broekie lace popular all over South Africa were largely his doing. Freeman secured the initial contract for the new Parliament building in Cape Town, but was sacked when the authorities realised he had hopelessly underestimated the costs. Other famous buildings in Cape Town he designed include the stately Standard Bank in Adderley Street and the Methodist Church in Greenmarket Square.

Freeman was instructed to design the head office of Combrinck & Co. in a way that would improve the appearance of Table Bay. Architecturally, the building was very fashionable for its time. The spacious multi-storey building in late-Victorian style, with its underground refrigerator rooms and freezing machinery, had turrets and various ornamental decorations. On the roof a cast-iron arch with the company’s name took pride of place.18

While the construction work was still underway, Graaff showed his prowess in public relations. Shortly after the first refrigerator rooms had been installed, he invited the Cape minister of agriculture, Sir Pieter Faure, to the premises in October 1895.19 Imports of wine and fruit would drastically increase after the refrigerator rooms of Combrinck & Co. in Dock Road had been made available.

Such progress was made with the reclamation of the area that Frank Robb, secretary of the Table Bay Harbour Council, paid a treasury bill of £2 300 to Combrinck in Co. early in 1898. That was the contract price for the reclamation of the land.20 Four days later Robb informed the Cape government that the reclamation had been completed and that the transfer to Combrinck & Co. could happen. When the last account was paid on 1 August 1899, the total cost of the project was £12 171 9s. 5d.21

At this time the expansion of Graaff’s business empire was affected by far-reaching political developments. Political tension in South Africa increased during the course of 1895 as the Uitlander (foreign immigrant) issue in Transvaal became more serious. At the Witwatersrand, the country’s pulsating new mining centre, a political storm was raging over to the foreigners’ lobby for franchise and political rights. President Paul Kruger, however, would not budge.

The situation in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek had obvious consequences for imperialistic ambitions, especially for Rhodes, whose expansion plans would get a significant boost from a regime change in Pretoria and a resulting hold on the gold mines. The Transvaal government under Kruger stood in the way of his policy of enclosure.

Britain also had an interest in the Uitlander revolt under the leadership of the Reformists in Johannesburg opposed to the Kruger government. In these circumstances it mattered who Britain’s envoy in South Africa, and, therefore, also the governor of the Cape Colony, was.

The incumbent British high commissioner, Loch, was replaced early in 1895 amid a lot of intrigue by Sir Hercules Robinson, who had held the same position earlier (1880–1889). There was opposition to Robinson’s appointment as governor in Cape Town, since it was known that Rhodes supported him.

The secretary to the high commissioner, Sir Graham Bower, decided to do something about it in Cape Town. Rhodes and Hofmeyr were out of town, and he discussed the issue with Graaff, whom he described as Hofmeyr’s lieutenant. They walked to the Cape Station together and Bower explained his fears about the Uitlander issue in Johannesburg, the dangers of racial conflict and the need for a high commissioner who refrained from getting involved and would be able to act as arbitrator between the parties. Graaff said it would be possible to get 72 resolutions in favour of Robinson from every branch of the Afrikaner Bond, if that could help in any way, although he feared that those resolutions would harm rather than benefit Sir Hercules. Bower’s reaction was that those resolutions would be welcome. He suspected that Graaff had deliberated with his leader, Hofmeyr. Afterwards meetings of the Afrikaner Bond were arranged in any case and a stream of their resolutions reached the office of the high commissioner. As soon as they landed, they were sent “home” (to London), according to Bower.22

The 72-year-old Robinson was appointed high commissioner and governor of the Cape Colony on 18 February 1895. Later it would emerge that he, like the newly appointed British secretary of state for the colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, was aware of the plotting by Rhodes and Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, administrator of the Charter Company in Rhodesia, to take over the government of President Kruger.

Chamberlain, an imperialist by persuasion, represented the more aggressive spirit of the new British government under Lord Salisbury. The British government took a threatening position against Kruger during the so-called drifts crisis of September and October 1895, when the ZAR closed the drifts on the Transvaal side to Cape transport in order to protect the railway line to Delagoa Bay. As a result of the British reaction Kruger was forced to re-open the drifts.

Rhodes realised that his policy of enclosure regarding Transvaal would not succeed unless the ZAR was taken over as a self-governing British colony and became a part of a federation under the British flag. Therefore, the imperial plot to launch a raid into Transvaal was continued at a high level. Jameson and about 500 men, mainly Charter policemen, assembled at Pitsani in Bechuanaland to back up a revolt of the Uitlanders at the Rand. The Uitlander agitation was led by the Reform Committee under the leadership of some Randlords and Rhodes’s brother Frank.

However, Jameson, a physician with poor military expertise, started off too early on the evening of 29 December 1895, before the planned revolt at the Rand could occur as agreed. His expedition across the Transvaal border turned into a complete fiasco. Kruger’s Boer commandos, who had apparently been informed about the imminent onslaught because the raiders had cut the telegraph lines, defeated the forces of the raiders at Doornkop near Roodepoort. When the white flag was hoisted on 2 January 1896, the commandos arrested a number of the leaders and conspirators. Jameson spent that night in jail in Johannesburg together with other raiders.23

The historian C.W. de Kiewiet summarised the spectacular failure with condemnation:

“The raid is a story woven of such stupidities that it might be dismissed as a farce were it not so tragic in the damage which it wrought. It was inexcusable in its folly and unforgivable in its consequences.”24

Jan Smuts expressed a similarly powerful judgement in 1906, when he said that the Jameson Raid “was the real declaration of war in the big conflict between Boer and Brit… [the] aggressors had strengthened their pact… the defenders, on the other hand, silently and grimly prepared themselves for the unavoidable”.25

In Cape Town the failed incursion resulted in the hardening of anti-imperialistic sentiments and the complete disillusionment with Rhodes among top members of the Afrikaner Bond. Jameson’s march on Johannesburg “violently opened Rhodes’s colonial closet and exposed him for the jingo he was”. He was ”thrown out from the Cape Afrikaner Synagogue because the ‘devout’ adherent of their creed proved to be an impostor – indeed a heretic”.26

Hofmeyr had continued to support Rhodes during the drifts crisis, but now he associated himself with the wronged Transvaal. He stated openly: “If Rhodes is involved [with the incursion], he is no longer a friend of mine.” The day after the raid Graaff took him to Groote Schuur in his horse-cart to talk to Rhodes.27 Afterwards Graaff also signed a telegram from Hofmeyr in which he threatened to attack the Charter unless Rhodes stepped down from public life.28

Rhodes, a broken man, resigned as prime minister. He would never regain his standing. He was replaced by Sir Gordon Sprigg.

Graaff, completely disillusioned, later described Rhodes as one of the biggest thugs he had ever dealt with in his life. He prohibited his sons from ever applying for a Rhodes scholarship (which provides for study at Oxford) or accepting one.29 His wife later said her eldest son, De Villiers, had been offered a Rhodes scholarship when he matriculated from the Cape school Bishops, one of the schools earmarked for the scholarships by Rhodes in his will. Graaff refused resolutely and said he would pay for his son’s study at Oxford himself.30 His descendants maintained the tradition, and none of his direct offspring have ever received a Rhodes scholarship.

Even before the Jameson Raid it became evident that Graaff was in favour of greater independence from imperial Britain. This sentiment was associated with the visionary independence ethos encapsulated by the history of the United States. To the author and politician Percy Fitzpatrick, one of the conspirators behind the Jameson Raid, Graaff had earlier suggested that everyone born in South Africa should co-operate in an effort to create a “United States of South Africa, upon friendly terms with England, but confining the direct Imperial right to a naval base in Simon’s Town and possibly a position in Natal”.31

Fitzpatrick, also famous as the author of Jock of the Bushveld, described Graaff as an “apostle of republicanism”. Later he declared that shortly after the Jameson Raid, Graaff had expressed the same thoughts to the Rand mining tycoon Alfred Beit, also one of the conspirators behind the incursion. Graaff would also have suggested that, if Beit and Rhodes supported the idea, they would escape the “consequences” of their association with the incursion. However, they preferred the “consequences”, according to Fitzpatrick.32

One of the consequences was that Rhodes was tried in Britain, but acquitted in an inquiry in which his role and that of the British authorities in the plot were covered up. Jameson, who was extradited to Britain by Kruger to be punished, was sentenced to 15 months’ incarceration, of which he served a few months before being released because of ill health. The 64 members of the Reform Committee were arrested and their leaders, Lionel Phillips, John Hays Hammond, Frank Rhodes and George Farrar, were sentenced to death in the Supreme Court on a count of treason, on which they had pleaded guilty. Kruger commuted the sentences to a fine of £25 000 each. Cecil Rhodes paid the fines.

The political dividing lines between Afrikaans- and English-speakers in the Cape Colony became more defined after the Jameson Raid, and the Afrikaner Bond again became the pre-eminent vehicle of Afrikaner sentiments and aspirations.33 Its political views and actions, however, were still based on a combination of colonial Cape-centredness, loyalty to the empire and the Crown, solidarity with their republican brothers in the republican diaspora and the pursuit of immediate and longer-term economic interests.34

Despite his disillusionment with Rhodes and his resentment of the Jameson incursion, it was speculated for years that Graaff had helped one of the most prominent Reformists to escape from Cape Town. That escapade in the middle of the night was discussed mid-1896 in the Cape Parliament in a debate about Charles Leonard, chairman of the Transvaal National Union.

Leonard, an attorney in the employ of the Alfred Beit, was one of the leaders of the Reform Committee, together with Randlords like Lionel Phillips, George Farrar and Percy Fitzpatrick, as well as Rhodes’s brother, Colonel Frank Rhodes. At the time of the Jameson Raid he was not in Johannesburg, because the Reformists had sent him and Phillips to Rhodes in Cape Town to have the incursion postponed. That was after it had emerged that Jameson would lead his troops under the British flag, while Leonard and other Reformists wanted to revolt under the Transvaal flag.35 Leonard was opposed to the threat to Transvaal’s independence. He and Phillips were assured by Rhodes that he was not planning to convert the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek into a British colony.36

In the Cape parliamentary debate it emerged that after the failure of the Jameson Raid, Leonard had secretly departed from Table Bay harbour on 19 January 1896 aboard the Guelph – before a warrant for his arrest (for public violence, sedition and treason) could be served on him and he would be extradited to Transvaal. According to the Cape attorney-general, Sir Thomas Upington, Leonard’s doctor, J.F. Manikus, had earlier issued a medical certificate that Leonard had been in Sea Point, “suffering from congestion of the brain and nervous prostation”, and would not be able to travel for at least two weeks. According to the police, Upington declared to roaring laughter, “Mr. Leonard’s brain was not so congested and his nervous system not so prostated that he was not prevented from obtaining in Cape Town a complete disguise, including a false beard.”37

Leonard, who then settled in Britain, was, however, spotted with Graaff in Cape Town shortly after the Jameson Raid by Sir Graham Bower, who left for Pretoria on 2 January 1896 with Sir Hercules Robinson for negotiations with Kruger, who had invited the British there at the recommendation of Hofmeyr. That night at around nine o’clock Graaff, again described by Bower as Hofmeyr’s lieutenant, came to the carriage of the British high commissioner at the Cape Station with Leonard. “I thought they were a queer couple, but there was a good deal of changing sides at the time. Moreover, C. Leonard was an orator,” Bower said. Graaff and Leonard insisted that Hofmeyr should also go to Pretoria, and Bower sent a telegram, approved by Robinson, to Hofmeyr. En route, Robinson received a telegram in which Hofmeyr declined the invitation and declared he would ask Chamberlain to investigate.

A few months later a columnist, “Lobbyist” of the Cape Times, alleged there was collusion between Graaff, Leonard and the Transvaal government to enable Leonard to escape from Cape Town in order to promote the Transvaal case in London.38

Cables were published to prove the allegations. Graaff, however, categorically denied it on 7 July 1896.39 The editor of the Cape Times, Edmund Garrett, wrote to his cousin, Agnes Garrett: “You will see that we have gone in for the Disclosure business and got a little bitten though obviously on the right track.”40 The paper continued to exert pressure for the appointment of a select committee to investigate Leonard’s escape. A day after Graaff’s denial the paper published a letter by Leonard’s brother, J.W. Leonard, stating he had sent the cable that “Lobbyist” claimed had been sent by a senior Transvaal official. The paper immediately accepted Leonard’s statement and withdrew the allegation. On 9 July the paper quoted Charles Leonard as denying in London that his escape had any links with an alleged Transvaal conspiracy. He stated that legal problems and “befriended police” had prevented his arrest in Cape Town.41

A few years later the Cape Times stated:

“The full story of that exciting episode has never been told, but rumours of it were current at the time, and probably Sir Thomas Upington could have given more information on the subject than he vouchsafed when he was cross-questioned in the matter on the floor of the Cape House of Assembly. There is no doubt that Sir David’s part in the escapade was gratefully remembered by the Reformer to whose assistance he came, and it was quite in keeping with Sir David’s sporting instincts.”42

Although Graaff had categorically denied having helped Leonard, he probably did help someone else. The autobiography of his son Sir De Villiers Graaff contains a clue, when he wrote about the disappearance of Dr. Lawrence Herman from Cape Town shortly after the Jameson Raid.43 In an interview ten years before the publication of his memoirs he frankly declared his father had helped Herman, a physician, escape.44 Herman, a lifelong friend and advisor of his father’s, allegedly had close ties with Charles Leonard in the 1890s. In the Cape Times it was reported that shortly after the Jameson Raid, on 16 February 1896, “Dr. Herman” had become a member of the Afrikaner Bond at a meeting of its branches held in the office of Sir James Sivewright in Cape Town. Onze Jan Hofmeyr had chaired the meeting and D.P. Graaff and his brother J.A.C. Graaff had been present, according to the article.45

Everything considered, it seems to be quite certain that Herman was the man whom Graaff helped to escape from Cape Town – probably because Herman’s ties with Leonard were raising suspicion.