Footnote 191: Cd. 1,789.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 192: Ibid.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 193: See returns cited by Lord Roberts in House of Lords, February 27th, 1906. The irregulars raised in South Africa were between 50,000 and 60,000, according to the War Commission Report.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 194: November 15th, 1900. Johannesburg.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 195: November 15th, 1900. Johannesburg.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 196: February 6th, 1900. Capetown.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 197: Lord Roberts had asked Col. Baden-Powell how long he could hold out at Mafeking, and then promised that the relief of the town should be effected within the required period.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 198: One fighting British general stated that one of the first stage force was equal to five of the men supplied after the reserves had been used up in April, 1900.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 199: For the direct part played by the Liberal leaders in the production of this ignorance, see p. 256.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 200: I.e., less troops for lines of communication. Lord Roberts's force was 36,000, the Army Corps was 47,000.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 201: Any reader desiring to learn the particulars of this struggle is referred to the pages of the writer's The Valley of Light: Studies with Pen and Pencil in the Vaudois Valleys of Piedmont. (Macmillan, 1899). It may be added that Napoleon manifested a keen interest in the military details of the engagements between the French and Savoyard troops and the Vaudois. As regards the number of combatants on the Boer side. Lord Kitchener puts the total (from first to last) at 95,000 (Cd. 1790, p. 13). The Official History, however, gives, as the result of an elaborate calculation, 87,365 (Vol. I. App. 4).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 202: Cd. 264 (Despatch of January 16th, 1900).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 203: Cd. 261.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 204: At the time of the Bechuanaland Expedition (1884-5), when the writer was in South Africa, "a controversy was seriously maintained between the two moderate Afrikander journals, the Sud Africaan and the Volksblad, on the question whether the Imperial Government had, or had not, the right to send troops through the Colony, without the consent of the Colonial Ministry. In commenting upon this question a correspondent wrote in the Patriot, the extreme organ of the Afrikanders: 'I believe the Volksblad is correct in maintaining that England has that right. But if England has the right to send Rooibaatjes (i.e. British soldiers) to kill my brethren in the Transvaal, then I have also the right to try and prevent the same. My brother is nearer than England. England can send troops, but whether they will all arrive safely in Stellaland—that stands to be seen.'"—A History of South Africa, by the writer. (Dent, 1900.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 205: Despatch dated "Government House, Bloemfontein, March 15th, 1900."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 206: Cd. 35.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 207: Mr. Reitz's work was translated into English by Mr. W. T. Stead.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 208: Cd. 109.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 209: The Unionist party was returned to power with a slightly decreased majority—130 as against 150. But this loss of seats was counterbalanced by the consideration that it is unusual for the same Government to be entrusted with a second period of office by a democratic electorate.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 210: A suburb of Capetown.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 211: Cd. 261.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 212: Mr. Morley has the doubtful merit of consistency. As recently as April 27th, 1906, he alluded to the South African War as "that delusive and guilty war," in an address to the Eighty Club. According to The Times report this expression was received with cheers.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 213: It may perhaps be objected that some credit should have been allowed to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in view of the fact that a sum of £41,807,400 was voted in Committee of Supply in the House of Commons for military requirements, practically without discussion, within four and a half hours on June 19th, 1900. This objection is answered by the words used by the Duke of Devonshire on the same day: "I am afraid I must tell Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman that he is not likely to receive from us any recognition, either effusive or otherwise, of the patriotism of his party. It is quite true that, as he took credit to himself and his friends, they have not offered any opposition to our demands for supplies or to the military measures which it has been found necessary for the Government to take; but the reason for that prudent abstinence is not very far to seek. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his friends knew very well that any factious opposition to the granting of these supplies would have brought down upon them the almost unanimous condemnation of the whole people; and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman is much too shrewd and sensible a man to risk the danger of committing for his party an act of political suicide."—Address to Women's Liberal Unionist Association.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 214: June 26th, 1880, C. 2,655.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 215: See p. 349.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 216: Cd. 261.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 217: Cd. 261.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 218: Cd. 624. The memorandum also noted that the £1,000 was "paid at request of F. W. Reitz" (the State Secretary). In the Concessions Commission the following letter is published:
"Government Offices, Pretoria.
7 April, 1899.
To van Kretschmar van Veen, Esq.,
Director of the N.Z.A. Ry. Co.
Hon'd. Sir,—With reference to a letter of his Excellency the Ambassador, dated 23 March last, with reference to Mr. Statham and the latter's request for an assistance of £300 for furniture and such like, I have the honour to inform you confidentially that the Executive Council has resolved to grant this gentleman Statham an amount of £150. As, according to previous agreement, a yearly allowance is paid to Mr. Statham by your Company, I have the honour to request you kindly to pay out to the said Mr. Statham the sum granted him. His Excellency the Ambassador is likewise being informed of this decision of the Executive Council.—I have, etc.,
J. W. Reitz, State Secretary."
(Q. 608.)
Mr. Statham is understood to have been a frequent contributor to those Liberal journals which sympathised with the Boer cause. His allowance, however, had ceased before the war broke out.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 219: In his covering despatch, Cd. 261, p. 126. For the circumstances of Mr. Sauer's visit to Dordrecht on the occasion mentioned see note, p. 287.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 220: As reported in The Cape Times, Cd. 261.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 221: See p. 477.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 222: Cd. 261, despatch of June 6th, 1900.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 223: Cd. 264.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 224: Cd. 264.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 225: Cd. 264.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 226: Cape Times, August 23rd, 1900.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 227: June 14th; 1901 (Holborn Restaurant, and elsewhere later). "Whatever Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman may think or say, the German nation may think or say."—The Vossische Zeitung.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 228: As translated in Blue-book, Cd. 547. Mr. de Jong, the editor of the paper, was prosecuted (and convicted) for the publication of this and another similar article (December 28th).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 229: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 230: It is scarcely necessary to point out that this prophecy of continued racial hatred has been completely falsified by events. The writer went out to South Africa a second time in January, 1904, when two years had not passed since the surrender of the Boers. The one thing, above all others, that struck him, and every other visitor from England, was the profound peace that reigned from end to end of the land.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 231: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 232: As stated in a Central News telegram, published in London on December 14th, 1900.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 233: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 234: See letter of Piet de Wet to his brother Christian, in Cd. 547, and correspondence between Steyn and Reitz (captured by British troops), in Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 235: "This war no longer makes a pretence of being a war of defence; it is a war for gold-fields, for territory, and for the suppression of two brave and noble peoples. This wicked war has lost us the moral leadership of mankind."—Mr. E. Robertson, M.P., June 5th, 1901.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 236: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 237: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 238: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 239: Ibid.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 240: January 12th, 1901. Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 241: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 242: Cd. 663. See also the text of the circular issued on December 2nd, 1900, by Louis Botha, as Commandant-General of the Boer forces, to all military officers, landdrosts, etc., giving specific instructions for the punishment of surrendered burghers who refused to join the commandos when called upon, and for the evasion of the neutrality oath.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 243: Cd. 663.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 244: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 245: Cd. 663. It was at this time that the utterly unjustifiable and brutal murder of the coloured man, Esau, took place in the invasion of the Calvinia district of the Cape Colony. His sole offence was his known loyalty to the British Government. "He was flogged on January 15th, 1901, and kept in gaol till February 5th, when he was flogged through the streets and shot outside the village by a Boer named Strydom, who stated that he acted according to orders." Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 246: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 247: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 248: Cd. 522.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 249: The italics are Mr. Kipling's. The Science of Rebellion: a Tract for the Times, by Rudyard Kipling.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 250: Cd. 663.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 251: Cd. 605.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 252: Cd. 988.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 253: "Cape Colony is a great disappointment to me ... no general rising can be expected in that quarter.... [But] the little contingent there has been of great help to us: they have kept 50,000 troops occupied, with which otherwise we should have had to reckon."—Gen. Christian de Wet at the Vereeniging Conference on May 16th, 1902. App. A. The Three Years' War, by Christian Rudolf de Wet (Constable, 1902). But see forward also, p. 485, for part played by British loyalists.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 254: Cd. 663.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 255: E.g. those employed by General Sherman in his march to the Sea, through Georgia, in the latter part of 1864.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 256: This estimate was very much too small: at the Vereeniging surrender, when many thousands more of Boers had been captured or killed 21,256 burghers and rebels laid down their arms. Cd. 988.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 257: Cd. 695.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 258: Cd. 820.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 259: There were 186 killed, 75 wounded, 1,384 prisoners, 529 voluntary surrenders; while 930 rifles, 90,958 rounds of ammunition, 1,332 waggons and carts, 13,570 horses, and 65,879 cattle were captured. Cd. 820.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 260: See p. 420.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 261: Cd. 820. The September returns were: 170 Boers killed in action, 114 wounded prisoners, 1,385 unwounded prisoners, and 1,393 surrenders.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 262: In August 648 refugees returned; in November the number had risen to 2,623.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 263: For the grotesque, repulsive, and even fatal remedies employed by the Boer women in the treatment of their children in sickness, the reader is referred to the medical reports on the condition of the refugee camps published in the Blue-book.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 264: The figures are those given by Miss Hobhouse, as based upon the official returns (The Brunt of the War, pp. 329-31).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 265: I.e. annual per 1,000 on a basis of 25 years (1874-98).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 266: Cd. 1,163, p. 159. See also ibid., p. 151, and p. 178. Lord Kitchener's reply to the official Boer complaint against the system of the Burgher Camps (made by Acting President Schalk Burger), is as follows:
"Numerous complaints were made to me in the early part of this year (1901), by surrendered burghers, who stated that after they laid down their arms their families were ill-treated, and their stock and property confiscated by order of the Commandant-Generals of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. These acts appear to have been taken in consequence of the circular dated Roos Senekal, 6th November, 1900, in which the Commandant-General says: 'Do everything in your power to prevent the burghers laying down their arms. I will be compelled, if they do not listen to this, to confiscate everything movable or immovable, and also to burn their houses.'
"I took occasion, at my interview with Commandant-General Louis Botha (February 28th, 1901), to bring this matter before him, and I told him that if he continued such acts I should be forced to bring in all women and children, and as much property as possible, to protect them from the acts of his burghers. I further inquired if he would agree to spare the farms and families of neutral or surrendered burghers, in which case I expressed my willingness to leave undisturbed the farms and families of burghers who were on commando, provided they did not actively assist their relatives. The Commandant-General emphatically refused even to consider any such arrangement. He said: 'I am entitled by law to force every man to join, and if they do not do so to confiscate their property, and leave their families on the veld.' I asked him what course I could pursue to protect surrendered burghers and their families, and he then said, 'The only thing you can do, is to send them out of the country, as if I catch them they must suffer.' After this there was nothing more to be said, and as military operations do not permit of the protection of individuals, I had practically no choice but to continue my system of bringing inhabitants of certain areas into the protection of our lines. My decision was conveyed to the Commandant-General in my official letter, dated Pretoria, 16th April, 1901, from which the following is an extract:
"'As I informed your Honour at Middelburg, owing to the irregular manner in which you have conducted and continue to conduct hostilities, by forcing unwilling and peaceful inhabitants to join your Commandos, a proceeding totally unauthorised by the recognised customs of war, I have no other course open to me, and am forced to take the very unpleasant and repugnant steps of bringing in the women and children.
"'I have the greatest sympathy for the sufferings of these poor people, which I have done my best to alleviate, and it is a matter of surprise to me and to the whole civilised world, that your Honour considers yourself justified in still causing so much suffering to the people of the Transvaal, by carrying on a hopeless and useless struggle.'
"From the foregoing, it will, I believe, be perfectly clear that the responsibility for the action complained of by Mr. Burger (the so-styled Acting State President of the Transvaal), rests rather with the Commandants-General of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, than with the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in South Africa....
"It is not the case that every area has been cleared of the families of burghers, although this might be inferred from the despatch under discussion. On the contrary, very large numbers of women and children are still out, either in Boer Camps or on their farms, and my Column Commanders have orders to leave them alone, unless it is clear that they must starve if they are left out upon the veld....
"Finally, I indignantly and entirely deny the accusations of rough and cruel treatment of women and children who were being brought in from their farms to the camp. Hardships may have been sometimes inseparable from the process, but the Boer women in our hands themselves bear the most eloquent testimony to the kindness and consideration shown to them by our soldiers on all such occasions."
With this statement it is interesting to compare Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's words at Bath, November 20th, 1901:
"Is our hypocrisy so great that we actually flatter ourselves upon our great humanity, because we have saved from starvation those whose danger of starvation we have caused?... The hypocrisy of these excuses is almost more loathsome than the cruelty itself.... We have set ourselves to punish this country, to reduce it apparently to ruin, because it has ventured to make war against us."
Truly an extraordinary attitude for a future Prime Minister of England![Back to Main Text]
Footnote 267: What was even worse than such declarations of sympathy with the Boers was the manifestation of hostility against the loyalist population of South Africa. E.g. Sir William Harcourt (in a letter in The Times of December 17th, 1900), wrote: "I sometimes think that those bellicose gentlemen—especially those who do not fight—must occasionally cast longing, lingering looks towards the times before they were subsidised (sic) by the authors of the Raid to bring about the position in which they now find themselves."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 268: September 26th, 1901. See Cd. 820 for report of this action.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 269: Letter to Miss Milner, November 11th, 1901. See p. 416.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 270: The facts are stated in a letter published in The Times on March 10th, 1902.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 271: See also note, p. 399 (Extract from the Vossische Zeitung). The baseless and malevolent allegations of specific acts of inhumanity or outrage on the part of British soldiers, circulated by Boer sympathisers in England and on the continent of Europe, have been passed over in silence. For an exposure of these calumnies the reader is referred to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The War in South Africa (Smith, Elder). A record of the manner in which they were repudiated by the Boer population in South Africa will be found in Cd. 1, 163, pp. 99, 106-111, 113-121. Among those who protested were German subjects, and Germans who had become British subjects, resident in South Africa. Perhaps the most significant of all these protests is the resolution passed unanimously by the members of the Natal House of Assembly, all standing: "That this House desires to repudiate the false charges of inhumanity brought against His Majesty's Army by a section of the inhabitants of the continent of Europe and certain disloyal subjects within the British Isles, and this House places on record its deliberate conviction that the war in South Africa has been prosecuted by His Majesty's Government and Army upon lines of humanity and consideration for the enemy unparalleled in the history of nations."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 272: This telegram is printed in Cd. 528.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 273: For the nature of these "Middelburg terms," see forward in note 2 on p. 568.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 274: Sir Richard Solomon was appointed legal adviser to the new Transvaal Administration.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 275: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 276: See p. 431.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 277: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 278: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 279: The action of Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson was not without precedent. See Cd. 903, pp. 57 and 67, and p. 123, supra.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 280: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 281: Queen Victoria died January 22nd, 1901.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 282: Cd. 983.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 283: Cd. 903. These measures were taken upon Lord Milner's return to the Transvaal (September, 1901) after his visit to England. The scandal of the almost open co-operation of the Bond with the Boer leaders had become notorious, and this assistance was recognised as a contributory cause to the protraction of the guerilla war.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 284: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 285: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 286: Cd. 903. This was, in its essence, the proposal for the systematic and effective defence of the Colony, which Lord Milner had consistently advocated both before and during the war—with General Butler and the Home Government, with Lord Roberts at the time of the Forward Movement (see p. 353), and now at the eleventh hour with Lord Kitchener in support of the Cape Government.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 287: Cd. 547.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 288: See p. 459.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 289: The Letters Patent were not issued until August.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 290: It was, in its essence, the "high seriousness of absolute sincerity" that Arnold, after Aristotle, makes the central attribute of poetic thought. In commenting upon a speech delivered at Germiston on March 15th, 1905, the Johannesburg Star wrote on the day following: "Did ever a High Commissioner for South Africa speak in this wise before? But beneath the light words and unstudied diction there is the weight and sureness of the 'inevitable' thought. A man who has pursued a single task for eight years with unremitting effort and unswerving devotion can afford to put his mind into his words. And in all that Lord Milner says there is an absolute sincerity, born of high integrity of purpose and an assurance of knowledge, that compels conviction. Or, rather, should we say, that makes the need of conviction as unnecessary as a lamp in daylight."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 291: The Duke of Cambridge.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 292: These two ex-officials, representing the respective Governments of the late Republics, were living in Holland at this time.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 293: It is only fair to assume that Mr. Bryce was not acquainted with the details of the Dordrecht and Hargrove affairs, to which reference has been made respectively at p. 287 and p. 375. And, still more that he was unaware of the utterly discreditable Basuto incident, with respect to which General Gordon's biographer writes: "The consequence was that Mr. Sauer deliberately resolved to destroy Gordon's reputation as a statesman, and to ensure the triumph of his own policy by an act of treachery which has never been surpassed."—The Life of Gordon, vol. ii., p. 83. (Fisher Unwin.)[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 294: Compare the different and infinitely more instructive treatment of the question of Dutch allegiance by Lord Milner in his Johannesburg speech, quoted at p. 145.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 295: I.e., the Rev. Stephen Gladstone.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 296: Apart from those mentioned in the text, the following attended the Merriman and Sauer banquet: Mr. E. Robertson, M.P. (chairman), Lord Farrer, Mr. T. Shaw, M.P., Mr. Burt, M.P., Mr. Channing, M.P., Mr. John Ellis, M.P., Mr. H. J. Wilson, M.P., Sir Wilfred Lawson, Mr. Frederic Harrison, and others. And among those who sent letters of regret for their absence were the Marquis of Ripon, Lord Hobhouse, Dr. Spence Watson, Mr. Seale-Hayne, M.P., and Lord Loreburn.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 297: December 17th, 1901.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 298: They were read and published by Lord Milner on June 21st, 1902.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 299: It is scarcely necessary to say that the entire cost of the Constabulary has been borne by the new colonies; or that every penny of this grant-in-aid was paid back out of the development loan raised in 1902-3.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 300: An under-estimate. One-fourth, or one-fifth, would have been nearer the mark. See note, p. 454.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 301: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 302: Managing Director of the Daira Sania Company; of the Indian and Egyptian Irrigation Services.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 303: Cd. 626.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 304: Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 305: This Report was issued (June 14th, 1904) from the Education Adviser's Office, Johannesburg, on "The Development of Education in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony." It is one of the many contributions of permanent value to political and economic science that mark the second period of Lord Milner's Administration in South Africa. E.g., in Appendix XXX. of this Report, the various solutions of the much-vexed question of religious instruction in State Schools, severally adopted by the self-governing colonies of the empire, are excellently presented in tabular form.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 306: Report on "The Development of Education in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 307: These imported teachers worked harmoniously with the South African teachers, whether of British or Dutch extraction; they filled the gap left by the Hollander teachers, who had returned to Europe after the outbreak of the war, and formed a valuable element in the permanent staff of the Education Departments of the new colonies. In 1903 there were 475 of these over-sea teachers at work in the two colonies, as against some 800 teachers appointed in South Africa.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 308: Some idea of the significance of these figures may be gathered from the fact that the highest number of children on the rolls of the Government schools of the Orange Free State was 8,157 (in the year 1898). That is to say, the British Administration in the Orange River Colony was educating one-third more Boer children in the camp schools alone than the Free State Government had educated in time of peace. Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 309: Cd. 1,163, p. 145. The accounts were complicated by expenditure for, and refunds from, the military authorities.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 310: This is in the Orange River Colony alone. For the number of children in the camp schools of both colonies, as apart from the town schools, see above.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 311: Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 312: Dated December 12th, 1901.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 313: Excluding expenditure on the South African Constabulary and relief and re-settlement, and certain other charges. Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 314: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 315: December 14th, 1901. Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 316: The new rolling-stock was paid for out of the grant-in-aid voted in August, 1901. The first of the new lines constructed was that from Bloemfontein to Basutoland, opening up the rich agricultural land known as the "conquered territory" on the Basuto border in the Orange River Colony, where many of the new British settlers had been established.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 317: The completeness with which the Netherlands Railway Company had identified itself with the Government of the South African Republic is well expressed in the reply of Mr. Van Kretchmar, the General Manager of the N.Z.A.S.M., to a question put to him by the Transvaal Concessions Commissioners: "We considered that the interests of the Republic were our interests" (Q. 612). Many of these railway employees were, of course, imported Hollanders.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 318: Cd. 903.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 319: Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 320: Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 321: Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 322: At Johannesburg, March 31st, 1905. From The Star report.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 323: See p. 489.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 324: Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 325: Cd. 1,163.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 326: For these, the "Middelburg" or "Botha" terms, see above, p. 471, and forward; p. 568, note 2.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 327: Cd. 1,096.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 328: This deputation was despatched in March, 1900, to "win the sympathy of the nations," in De Wet's words.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 329: Cd. 986.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 330: A full list of the names is to be found in the Draft Terms of Surrender at p. 564.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 331: These were the "Middelburg terms" of a year ago. See note 2, p. 568.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 332: Cd. 1,096.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 333: Smuts.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 334: Hertzog.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 335: De Wet.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 336: Botha.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 337: Mr. Chamberlain to Generals Botha, De Wet, and De la Rey, August 28th, 1902. Cd. 1,284.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 338: Cd. 1,096. President Steyn was too ill to sign the Agreement, and De Wet signed first of the Free State representatives. He was declared President, in the place of Steyn, at Vereeniging on the 29th.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 339: This was reduced to a period of five years.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 340: Cd. 1,096. As compared with the Middelburg terms, the terms accepted at Vereeniging were slightly less favourable to the Boers in respect of permission to possess arms, and the use of the Dutch language; but the monetary assistance promised to the repatriated burghers was more generous. The free grant was raised from one million to three millions, and the advances on loan were offered for the first two years free of interest, and subsequently at only three per cent. The greater destruction of property consequent upon the prolongation of the war made this increased assistance necessary and reasonable. It is noticeable, however, that Lord Milner, alike in the Middelburg and Vereeniging negotiations, although he was opposed to any payment of the costs incurred by the Boer leaders in carrying on the war, was prepared to go even farther than the Home Government in the direction of a generous treatment of the Boers in all other matters that concerned their material prosperity.
One variation as between the Middelburg and Vereeniging terms is noticeable in view of the statement, made in the House of Commons by the present (1906) Under-Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Winston Churchill), that the use of the word "natives" in clause viii. of the Terms of Surrender prevented the introduction of any legislation affecting the status of Asiatics and "coloured persons" in the new colonies prior to the establishment of self-government. This assertion was based upon the contention that the word "natives" is understood by the Boers to indicate the "native of any country other than those of the European inhabitants of South Africa." The actual text of the corresponding clause in the Middelburg terms (Lord Kitchener's despatch of March 20th, 1901, in Cd. 528) is as follows: "As regards the extension of the franchise to the Kafirs in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, it is not the intention of His Majesty's Government to give such franchise before representative government is granted to these colonies, and if then given it will be so limited as to secure the just predominance of the white races. The legal position of coloured persons will, however, be similar to that which they hold in Cape Colony." Apart from the fact that the Boers were debarred by Lord Milner's specific statements either from going behind the English text of the Vereeniging Terms of Surrender, or from "explaining [the Vereeniging Terms] by anything in the Middelburg proposal," it is difficult to see how this Middelburg clause could have raised any presumption in the minds of the Boer commissioners that the English word "native" was intended to include not only the Kafirs (of which word it is a loose equivalent, since the dark-skinned native of the Bantu tribes, or the Kafir, has practically ousted the aboriginal yellow-skinned natives of South Africa—the Bushmen and Hottentots), but the "coloured people," or half-castes.
Lord Milner himself declared in the House of Lords (July 31st, 1906) with reference to Mr. Churchill's statement that the question had not been raised, to the best of his belief, by the Boer commissioners; and that in any case there was nothing in the Vereeniging Agreement to prevent the Crown Colony administration of the new colonies from legislating in respect of "coloured persons." [And a fortiori in respect of British Indians.] His words were: "The English text of the treaty says 'natives' and does not say 'coloured people.' I think that in the Dutch version the word 'naturellen' was used. I venture to say that nobody familiar with the common use of language in South Africa would hold either that 'natives' included coloured people, some of whom very much more resemble whites than natives, or that 'naturellen' included 'kleurlingen,' which is the universally accepted Dutch word in South Africa for coloured people."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 341: The minutes of the final meetings of the commando representatives—as also those of the earlier meetings of May 15th to 17th—have been published by General Christian de Wet in The Three Years' War.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 342: Three of the members of this committee, Generals Botha, De Wet, and De la Rey, were instructed to proceed to Europe for the purposes of this appeal.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 343: The actual surrender of the arms in the possession of the burgher and rebel commandos was carried out with admirable promptitude. Three weeks after the agreement had been signed Lord Kitchener was able, in a final despatch from Capetown on June 23rd, to record his "high appreciation of the unflagging energy and unfailing tact" with which Generals Louis Botha, De la Rey, and Christian de Wet had facilitated the work of the British commissioners appointed to receive the surrender of the burghers in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. Nor were the Boer and rebel commandos in the Cape Colony less expeditious in surrendering to General French. In all 21,226 burghers and colonial rebels, of whom 11,166 were in the Transvaal, 6,455 in the Orange River Colony, and 3,635 in the Cape, laid down their arms. Lord Kitchener's last words (despatches of June 21st and 23rd), addressed respectively to the Colonial Governments and the Secretary of State for War, are noticeable and characteristic utterances. His message to the former was:
"I find it difficult in the short space at my disposal to acknowledge the deep obligation of the Army in South Africa to the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Cape Colony, and Natal. I will only say here that no request of mine was ever refused by any of these Governments, and that their consideration and generosity were only equalled by the character and quality of the troops they sent to South Africa, or raised in that country."
And of the troops, which under his command had successfully accomplished a military task of unparalleled difficulty, he wrote:
"The protracted struggle which has for so long caused suffering to South Africa has at length terminated, and I should fail to do justice to my own feelings if at this moment I neglected to bear testimony to the patience, tenacity, and heroism which has been displayed by all ranks of His Majesty's forces, Imperial and Colonial, during the whole course of the war. Nothing but the qualities of bravery and endurance in our troops could have overcome the difficulties of this campaign, or have finally enabled the empire to reap the fruits of all its sacrifices."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 344: An onomatopœic expression for the step of a tired horse.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 345: The Three Years' War.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 346: [The Transvaal Government]—"or rather the President and his advisers—committed the fatal mistake of trying to maintain a government which was at the same time undemocratic and incompetent.... An exclusive government may be pardoned if it is efficient; an inefficient government, if it rests upon the people. But a government which is both inefficient and exclusive incurs a weight of odium under which it must ultimately sink; and this was the kind of government which the Transvaal attempted to maintain. They ought, therefore, to have either extended their franchise or reformed their administration" (Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, 2nd Ed., 1900). Mr. Bryce is not likely to have been unduly severe. "The political sin of the Transvaal against the Uitlander, therefore, was no mere matter of detail—of less or more—but was fundamental in its denial of elementary political right." And again: In the Transvaal "an armed minority holds the power, compels the majority to pay the taxes, denies it representation, and misgoverns it with the money extorted" (Captain Mahan, The Merits of the Transvaal Dispute, 1900 [included in The Problem of Asia]). To these, perhaps, I may be permitted to add the following words spoken by myself in 1894—more than a year before the Raid—and published in 1895 (South Africa: a Study, etc.):—"The Boer has still to justify his possession of these ample pastures, these rich and fertile valleys, and these stores of gold and of coal. If he can enlarge his mind, if he can reform existing abuses, if he can expand an archaic system of government and render it sufficiently elastic to meet the requirements of an enlarged population and important and increasing industries—well and good. If not, let the Boer beware; for he will place himself in conflict with the intelligence and the progress of South Africa. Then the Boer system will be condemned by a higher authority than the Colonial Office or the opinion of England; and from the high court of Nature—a court from which no appeal lies—the inexorable decree will go forth: 'Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?'"[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 347: See admissions of the Boer Generals quoted supra.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 348: "The South African Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement with any state or nation other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same has been approved by Her Majesty the Queen." Captain Mahan writes: "In refusing the Transvaal that independence in foreign relations which would enable other states to hold it directly accountable, Great Britain retained, in so far, responsibility that foreigners should be so treated as to give no just cause for reclamations.... Great Britain, by retaining the ultimate control of foreign relations, and by her well-defined purpose not to permit interference in the Transvaal by a foreign Power, was responsible for conditions of wrong to foreign citizens within its borders. She had surrendered the right to interfere, as suzerain, with internal affairs; but she had not relieved herself, as by a grant of full independence and sovereignty she might have done, from responsibility for injury due to internal maladministration, any more than the United States was relieved of the responsibility to Italy [in the case of the Italian citizens lynched at New Orleans] by the state sovereignty of Louisiana" (Ibid.). And, says the same writer, a fortiori was Great Britain justified in interfering on behalf of her own subjects.[Back to Main Text]