The Burghers Would Not Pay Taxes And The
Treasury Was Empty.
One fierce Kaffir tribe threatened them from
the north, and the Zulus on the east.
It is an exaggeration of
English partisans to pretend that our intervention saved the Boers,
for no one can read their military history without seeing that they
were a match for Zulus and Sekukuni combined. But certainly a
formidable invasion was pending, and the scattered farmhouses were
as open to the Kaffirs as our farmers' homesteads were in the
American colonies when the Indians were on the warpath. Sir
Theophilus Shepstone, the British Commissioner, after an inquiry of
three months, solved all questions by the formal annexation of the
country. The fact that he took possession of it with a force of
some twenty-five men showed the honesty of his belief that no armed
resistance was to be feared. This, then, in 1877 was a complete
reversal of the Sand River Convention and the opening of a new
chapter in the history of South Africa.
There did not appear to be any strong feeling at the time against
the annexation. The people were depressed with their troubles and
weary of contention. Burgers, the President, put in a formal
protest, and took up his abode in Cape Colony, where he had a
pension from the British Government. A memorial against the measure
received the signatures of a majority of the Boer inhabitants, but
there was a fair minority who took the other view. Kruger himself
accepted a paid office under Government. There was every sign that
the people, if judiciously handled, would settle down under the
British flag. It is even asserted that they would themselves have
petitioned for annexation had it been longer withheld. With
immediate constitutional government it is possible that even the
most recalcitrant of them might have been induced to lodge their
protests in the ballot boxes rather than in the bodies of our
soldiers.
But the empire has always had poor luck in South Africa, and never
worse than on that occasion. Through no bad faith, but simply
through preoccupation and delay, the promises made were not
instantly fulfilled. Simple primitive men do not understand the
ways of our circumlocution offices, and they ascribe to duplicity
what is really red tape and stupidity. If the Transvaalers had
waited they would have had their Volksraad and all that they
wanted. But the British Government had some other local matters to
set right, the rooting out of Sekukuni and the breaking of the
Zulus, before they would fulfill their pledges. The delay was
keenly resented. And we were unfortunate in our choice of Governor.
The burghers are a homely folk, and they like an occasional cup of
coffee with the anxious man who tries to rule them. The three
hundred pounds a year of coffee money allowed by the Transvaal to
its President is by no means a mere form. A wise administrator
would fall into the sociable and democratic habits of the people.
Sir Theophilus Shepstone did so.
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