Читать книгу Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - W. Basil Worsfold - Страница 6

"Any reliance on mere force in the Transvaal must react dangerously down here in the old colony, and convert the Dutch Country party, now as loyal and prosperous a section of the population as any under the Crown, into dangerous allies of the small anti-English Republican party, who are for separation, thus paralysing the efforts of the loyal English party now in power, who aim at making the country a self-defending integral portion of the British Empire. Further, any attempt to give back or restore the Boer Republic in the Transvaal must lead to anarchy and failure, and probably, at no distant period, to a vicious imitation of some South American Republics, in which the more uneducated and misguided Boers, dominated and led by better educated foreign adventurers—Germans, Hollanders, Irish Home Rulers, and other European Republicans and Socialists—will become a pest to the whole of South Africa, and a most dangerous fulcrum to any European Power bent on contesting our naval supremacy, or injuring us in our colonies.

"There is no escaping from the responsibility which has already been incurred, ever since the British flag was planted on the Castle here. All our real difficulties have arisen, and still arise, from attempting to evade or shift this responsibility. … If you abdicate the sovereign position, the abdication has always to be heavily paid for in both blood and treasure. … Your object is not conquest, but simply supremacy up to Delagoa Bay. This will have to be asserted some day, and the assertion will not become easier by delay. The trial of strength will be forced on you, and neither justice nor humanity will be served by postponing the trial if we start with a good cause."

Could not the man who foresaw these dangers have prevented them? It is impossible to resist the momentum of this thought.

The retrocession.

The events by which this forecast was so closely realised are not likely to be effaced from the memory of this generation. Frere had scarcely left the Colony from which he had been recalled by the joint efforts of Mr. Krüger and Lord (then Mr.) Courtney before the former, with his fellow triumvirs, had raised the Vier-kleur upon the still desolate uplands of the Witwatersrand. The attempt to put down by force the Boer revolt of 1880–81 failed. Mr. Gladstone's cabinet recoiled before the prospect of a war in which the Boers might have been supported by their kinsmen in the Free State and the Cape Colony. The retrocession of the Transvaal under the terms of the Pretoria Convention (1881) was followed by further concessions embodied in the London Convention of 1884. It is absolutely established as fact that Mr. Gladstone's Government intended, by certain articles contained in both conventions, to secure to all actual and potential British residents in the Transvaal the enjoyment of all the political rights of citizenship possessed by the Boers. But it is equally certain that the immediate contravention of Article XVI. of the Pretoria Convention, when in 1882 the period of residence necessary to qualify for the franchise was raised from two to five years, was allowed to pass without protest from the Imperial Government. And thus a breach of the Convention, which the discovery of the Witwatersrand gold-fields (1886) and the subsequent establishment of a great British industrial community made a matter of vital importance, was condoned. A few years more and the country which prided itself upon being the home of liberty and of free institutions was confounded by the spectacle of a South Africa of its own making, in which a British majority denied the franchise in a Dutch Republic, contrasted with a Dutch minority dominating and controlling the machinery of responsible government in a British colony.

This situation brings us (to use a military phrase) within striking distance of the objective of the present work—the personality and efforts of the man who administered South Africa in the momentous years of the struggle for equal rights for all white men from the Zambesi to Capetown.

If the records set out in the preceding pages leave any impression upon the mind, it is one that must produce a sense of amazement, almost exasperation, at the thought of the many mistakes and disasters that might have been avoided, if only greater weight had been attached to the advice tendered to the British Government by its local representative in South Africa. And with this sense of amazement a generous mind will associate inevitably a feeling of regret for the injustice unwittingly, but none the less irreparably, inflicted upon loyal and capable servants of the Crown—an injustice so notorious that it has made South Africa the "grave of reputations." Apart from the pre-eminence with which the period of Lord Milner's administration is invested by the occurrence within it of a military conflict of unparalleled magnitude, Lord Milner stands out in the annals of South Africa as the first High Commissioner whose knowledge of South African conditions was allowed to inspire the policy of the Home Government, and who himself was recognised by the Government and people of Great Britain as voicing the convictions and aspirations of all loyal subjects of the Crown in that province of the empire.

The state of affairs with which Lord Milner was called upon to deal was in its essence the situation sketched by Frere twenty years before in the memorable forecast to which reference has been made. But the working of the forces indicated by Frere as destined, if unchecked, to drive England one day to a life-and-death struggle for her supremacy in South Africa, had been complicated by an event which cannot be omitted altogether from a chapter intended, like a Euripidean prologue, to prepare the mind of the spectator for the proper understanding of the characters and action of the drama. This event is the Jameson Raid.

The Jameson raid.

In order to see the Jameson Raid in its true perspective, it is not sufficient to place it in relationship to those familiar and notorious events by which it was followed. It must also be placed in relationship to the no less clearly defined events by which it was preceded. Thus placed it becomes the direct outcome of the refusal of the Imperial Government to use the advice of its local representative—or, more precisely, of the refusal to base its policy on South African instead of British conditions: and, as such, it convinced the Imperial Government of the need of reviving the power of its local representative. In other words, it is a connecting link between the High Commissionerships of Frere and Milner. The events which followed the recall of Frere were accepted by the British inhabitants of South Africa as a practical demonstration of the inherent viciousness of the system under which the decision of cardinal questions of South African administration was left in the hands of the House of Commons, a body in which they were not represented; which met 6,000 miles away; whose judgment was liable to be warped by irrelevant considerations of English party politics; and one which was admittedly unfamiliar with the country and peoples whose interests were vitally affected by the manner in which these questions were decided. The lesson of the retrocession was taken to heart so earnestly that, fifteen years later, the majority of the British residents in the Transvaal refused to support a movement for reform which involved the re-establishment of Imperial authority, while among those who were loyal to the British connection throughout South Africa its effect was to make them think, Rhodes. as did Rhodes, that the machinery of the various local British governments must be dissociated as much as possible from the principles and methods of the Home Government. Hence the necessity for what Rhodes called the "elimination of the Imperial factor." The expression, as he afterwards explained, was in no way inconsistent with attachment to the British connection. As read in the context in which it was originally used, it meant merely that the European population of Bechuanaland,[9] being mainly Boer immigrants, could be administered more successfully by officers responsible to a government which, like that of the Cape Colony, was well versed in South African conditions, than by officers directly responsible to the Imperial Government. The phrase was a criticism of Downing Street, and still more of English party government. In short, Rhodes was convinced that if a system of British administration, based on South African conditions, was ever to be carried on successfully, the local British authority, and not the Home Government, must be the machine employed; and in order to allow it to work freely, its action must be made as independent as possible of Downing Street. For Downing Street was an authority which blew hot or cold, in accordance with the views of the party for the time being in power.[10]

New forces.

And, in point of fact, both parties in England acquiesced in this judgment of the South African British. During the years between Frere's recall and the appointment of Lord Milner (1880–1897) the High Commissioner was a decreasing force. Both Lord Rosmead and Lord Loch did little to mould the destiny of South Africa: not because they lacked capacity, but because it was the determination of the Home Government to leave the difficult problem of South African unity to local initiative. On the other hand, the progress which was made in this direction by local initiative, aided as it was by the fortuitous discovery of the Witwatersrand gold-fields, was considerable. The highlands of South Central Africa were acquired for the British race, and the Boer was effectively prevented from carrying the Vier-kleur beyond the Limpopo; the railway, drawn through the Free State by the magnet of the Rand, disturbed the retirement of the republican Dutch; and finally the Cape Colony and Natal were linked together with the Free State in a Customs Union. But the development of the mineral resources of the country led to the appearance of a new factor in South African politics. The comparative decline in the activity of the High Commissioner had been accompanied by the establishment and growth of powerful industrial corporations. It is easy to understand how a man like Rhodes, with the wealth and influence of De Beers and the Chartered Company at his command, might seek, by an alliance with the "great houses" of the Rand, to find in private effort an instrument for remedying the deficiencies of the Imperial Government even more appropriate than the local governmental action upon which he had previously relied. For the work of these industrial corporations had powerfully enlisted the interest and sympathy of the British public. The Jameson Raid was an illegitimate and disastrous application of an otherwise meritorious and successful effort to strengthen the British hold upon South Africa by private enterprise. It was at once the measure of Imperial inefficiency, and its cure.

One other circumstance must be recalled in estimating the extent to which the Home Government had earned the distrust of the British population in South Africa. Only eighteen months[11] before the Raid the High Commissioner, Lord Loch, had gone to Pretoria carrying a despatch in which the grant of a five years' franchise was advocated on behalf of the Uitlanders. His instructions were to present this despatch, and press upon President Krüger personally the necessity for giving effect to its recommendations. These instructions were cancelled at the last moment by Lord Ripon, because the German Ambassador had made representations in London that such action would be regarded as an interference with the status quo in South Africa, and, as such, detrimental to German interests in that country. And six months later[12] President Krüger, in attending a "Kommers" given by the German Club at Pretoria in honour of the Kaiser Wilhelm II.'s birthday, alluded to Germany as a grown-up power that would stop England from "kicking" the child Republic.

Rhodes's Plan.

The Raid was, therefore, a short cut to baffle German intrigue and solve the problem of South African unity at one blow. For to Rhodes the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders meant the withdrawal of the Transvaal Government from its opposition to his scheme of commercial federation. It is obvious that one ground of justification, and one only, can be found for the usurpation of the functions of government by a private individual, or group of individuals. This justification is success. It has been the custom to represent Dr. Jameson's decision to "ride in" as "an act of monumental folly," alike from a political and a military point of view. But this opinion overlooks the fact that the affair may have been so planned in Rhodes's mind that success did not depend upon the victory of the Uitlanders, aided by Jameson's troopers, but on the presence of the High Commissioner in the Transvaal under such conditions as would make the intervention of the Imperial Government at once imperative and effectual. The representative of the Imperial Government, backed by a Johannesburg in armed revolt against the Boer oligarchy, would find himself—so Rhodes thought—in a position highly favourable to the successful prosecution of the demands which had already been put forward on behalf of British subjects resident in the Transvaal. And in order that this essential part of the plan might be carried out without a moment of unnecessary delay, Rhodes kept a train, with steam up, in the station at Capetown ready to speed Lord Rosmead northwards directly the news of Dr. Jameson's arrival at Johannesburg should have reached him. Once Jameson's force had "got through," he relied upon the Reform Committee, however incomplete its preparations, being able to hold Johannesburg for a couple of days against any force the Boers could bring.[13] Nor in the light of what happened, during the war, both at Mafeking and Kimberley, can this expectation be thought extravagant. Here his responsibilities would have ended. The High Commissioner and the Imperial Government would have done the rest. To indulge in metaphor, the Imperial locomotive was to be set going, but the lines on which it was to run were those laid down by Mr. Rhodes.

If this was the essence of Rhodes's plan, it would matter comparatively little whether the Reformers had, or had not, completed their preparations, or whether Dr. Jameson had 1,200 or 500 men. Certainly some such assumption is necessary to account for the fact that Rhodes treated his confederates at Johannesburg as so many pawns on a chess-board. It is equally necessary to account for Dr. Jameson's action. "Twenty years friends, and now he goes in and ruins me," was Rhodes's comment on the news that Dr. Jameson had "ridden in," in spite of his own orders to the contrary and the message to the same effect which Captain Heany had delivered on behalf of the Reformers. But what if Dr. Jameson knew, or thought that he knew, that Rhodes's object in forcing the insurrection was not to make the Uitlanders reduce Krüger, but to compel the Imperial Government to step in? In this case he may well have thought that what was essential was not that the rising should be successful, but that there should be a rising of any kind; provided that it was sufficiently grave to arrest the attention of the world, and claim the interference of the Imperial Government.

According to Mr. Chamberlain the continued inaction of the Imperial Government in the eighteen months that had passed since Lord Loch's visit to Pretoria in June, 1894, was due to two circumstances. In the first place, "the Uitlanders and their organs had always deprecated the introduction into the dispute of what is called in South Africa the 'Imperial factor'"; and in the second, the "rumours" of violent measures "were continually falsified by the event." Obviously, if Rhodes forced an insurrection with the intention of removing these obstacles—if, that is to say, the intervention of the Imperial Government, and not the success of the insurrection, was his primary object—the temerity of Dr. Jameson's invasion is materially diminished. Now Mr. Chamberlain's statement, made under date February 4th, 1896, i.e. five weeks after the Raid, is perfectly consistent with the view of the attitude of the Reformers expressed by Rhodes on the day before the Raid took place.

Dr. Jameson's force, it will be remembered, started on the evening of Sunday, December 29th, 1895. Up to three days before—the 26th—nothing had occurred to interfere with the final arrangement, telegraphed to Dr. Jameson from Capetown, that the movement in Johannesburg would take place on Saturday, the 28th. The circumstances which caused the Reformers to alter their plans were explained by Rhodes in an interview with Sir Graham Bower, the Imperial Secretary, at Capetown on the same Saturday, the 28th, with his accustomed vivacity. The Johannesburg insurrection, he said—

The reformers divided.

"had fizzled out as a damp squib. The capitalists financing the movement had made the hoisting of the British flag a sine quâ non. This the National Union rejected, and issued a manifesto declaring for a republic. The division had led to the complete collapse of the movement, and it was thought that the leaders would make the best terms they could with President Krüger."

The telegrams which reached Dr. Jameson between the 26th and 29th contained the same facts, with the further information that Captain Heany was travelling by special train to him with a message direct from the Reformers. In these circumstances it is said that Rhodes at Capetown imagined as little as the Reform leaders at Johannesburg that Dr. Jameson would cross the frontier. That, however, there was another point of view from which the situation might present itself to Dr. Jameson is shown by the fact that Mr. Chamberlain, in reply to the High Commissioner's telegram reporting the substance of Rhodes's statement to Sir Graham Bower, at once[14] inquired of Lord Rosmead, "Are you sure Jameson has not moved in consequence of the collapse?"

Was Mr. Chamberlain right? Did Dr. Jameson see in the fact that the Reformers were divided on such an issue only an additional reason for carrying out a plan which had for its object to compel the Imperial Government to intervene in the affairs of the Transvaal before it was too late; that is to say, before the British population had definitely committed itself to the policy of a purged republic, but a republic under any flag but that of Great Britain? Such a policy was not merely possible. It seemed inevitable to the vivacious French observer who wrote, not from hearsay, but "with his eyes upon the object," in December, 1893:

"The Transvaal will never be an English colony. The English of the Transvaal, as well as those of Cape Colony and Natal, would be as firmly opposed to it as the Boers themselves, for they have never forgiven England for letting herself be beaten by the Boers at Majuba Hill and accepting her defeat, a proceeding which has rendered them ridiculous in the eyes of the Dutch population of South Africa. … With me this is not a simple impression, but a firm conviction."[15]

Jameson's decision.

If these were the considerations which weighed with Dr. Jameson, his decision to "ride in" was inconsistent neither with friendship nor with patriotism. When Captain Heany had read from his pocket-book the message from the Reformers, Jameson paced for twenty minutes outside his tent. Having re-entered it, he announced his determination to disregard Heany's message no less than Rhodes's telegram. It was a momentous decision to take after twenty minutes' thought. Had he a reasonable expectation of carrying out the plan as Rhodes conceived it, in spite of the change in the position of affairs at Johannesburg? Had he any reason to believe that Rhodes desired him to force the insurrection in spite of his telegrams to the contrary? It is the answers to these questions that make the Raid, as far as Dr. Jameson is concerned, an "act of monumental folly," or a legitimate assumption of personal responsibility that is part of the empire-builder's stock-in-trade. The answer to the second question remains a matter of speculation. The answer to the first is to be found in the record of the expedition. Dr. Jameson reached Krügersdorp at three o'clock on Wednesday, January 1st. A few hours before a cyclist had brought him congratulatory messages from the Reform leaders. The goal was almost within sight. What prevented Sir John Willoughby from taking his little force safely over the remaining twenty miles from Krügersdorp to Johannesburg was the merest accident: the few hours' delay caused, naturally enough, by Dr. Jameson's desire that his force should be met and escorted by a small body of volunteers from the Rand. He did not want, as he said, to go to Johannesburg as "a pirate." Sir John Willoughby's evidence is perfectly definite and conclusive on the point. If the force had pushed on by road from Krügersdorp to Johannesburg on Wednesday evening—had not, in Willoughby's words, "messed about" at Krügersdorp in expectation of the welcoming escort—Johannesburg would have been reached in safety on Thursday morning. With Dr. Jameson in Johannesburg and Lord Rosmead speeding northwards in his special train, the way would have been prepared for that decisive and successful action on the part of the Imperial Government which Rhodes had desired to bring about.

Why the raid failed.

But, unsuccessful as was the actual expedition, the decision to "ride in" had secured the intervention of the Imperial Government. If intervention could have done what Rhodes expected of it, Dr. Jameson's decision to "ride in" would have gained, at the cost of few lives and no increase of the national debt, what the war gained four years later at the cost of twenty thousand lives and £220,000,000. As it was, it failed to win the franchise for the Uitlanders. Why did not Lord Rosmead, with so strong a Colonial Secretary as Mr. Chamberlain at his back, brush the Raid aside, and address himself to the removal of the greater wrong that gave it birth? If Lord Rosmead had acted in the spirit of Mr. Chamberlain's despatches; if he had reminded the Government of the Republic from the first "that the danger from which they had just escaped was real, and one which, if the causes which led up to it were not removed, might recur, although in a different form"; if he had used "plain language" to President Krüger; and if, above all, he had remembered—as Mr. Chamberlain reminded him—that "the people of Johannesburg had surrendered in the belief that reasonable concessions would have been arranged through his intervention, and until these were granted, or were definitely promised to him by the President, the root-causes of the recent troubles would remain,"—might he not yet have saved South Africa for the empire without subjecting her to the dread arbitrament of the sword?

Mr. Chamberlain.

It is in the answer to this question that we find the actual cause of the utter failure of Rhodes's plan. The truth is that success in any real sense—that is to say, success which would have strengthened British supremacy and promoted the union of European South Africa—was impossible. The sole response which Lord Rosmead returned to Mr. Chamberlain's counsels was the weary confession: "The question of concessions to Uitlanders has never been discussed between President Krüger and myself." The methods employed by Rhodes were so questionable that no High Commissioner could have allowed the Imperial Government to have derived any advantage from them. To have gained the franchise for the Uitlanders as the result of violent and unscrupulous action, would have inflicted an enduring injury upon the British cause in South Africa for which the enfranchisement itself would have been small compensation. The disclosure of these methods and, with them, of the hollowness of Rhodes's alliance with the Afrikander Bond, alarmed and incensed the whole Dutch population of South Africa. What this meant Lord Rosmead knew, and Mr. Chamberlain did not know. The ten years' truce between the forces of the Afrikander nationalists and the paramount Power was at an end. To combat these forces something better than the methods of the Raid was required. Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis! No modern race have excelled the Dutch in courage and endurance. In Europe they had successfully defended their independence against the flower of the armies of Spain, Austria, and France. The South African Dutch were not inferior in these qualities to the people of the parent stock. If such a race, embarked upon what it conceived to be a struggle for national existence, was to be overcome, the hands of the conqueror must be clean as well as strong. None the less the active sympathy with the Uitlanders exhibited in Mr. Chamberlain's despatches was welcomed by the British as evidence that the new Colonial Secretary was more alert and determined than his predecessors. For the first time in the history of British administration in South Africa, Downing Street had shown itself more zealous than Capetown. It was the solitary ray of light that broke the universal gloom in which South Africa was enshrouded by the catastrophe of the Raid.[Back to Contents]