To The Raiders Themselves The President Behaved With Great
Generosity.
Perhaps he could not find it in his heart to be harsh
to the men who had managed to put him in the right and won for him
the sympathy of the world.
His own illiberal and oppressive
treatment of the newcomers was forgotten in the face of this
illegal inroad of filibusters. The true issues were so obscured by
this intrusion that it has taken years to clear them, and perhaps
they will never be wholly cleared. It was forgotten that it was the
bad government of the country which was the real cause of the
unfortunate raid. From then onwards the government might grow worse
and worse, but it was always possible to point to the raid as
justifying everything. Were the Uitlanders to have the franchise?
How could they expect it after the raid? Would Britain object to
the enormous importation of arms and obvious preparations for war?
They were only precautions against a second raid. For years the
raid stood in the way, not only of all progress, but of all
remonstrance. Through an action over which they had no control, and
which they had done their best to prevent, the British Government
was left with a bad case and a weakened moral authority.
The raiders were sent home, where the rank and file were very
properly released, and the chief officers were condemned to terms
of imprisonment which certainly did not err upon the side of
severity. Cecil Rhodes was left unpunished, he retained his place
in the Privy Council, and his Chartered Company continued to have a
corporate existence. This was illogical and inconclusive. As Kruger
said, 'It is not the dog which should be beaten, but the man who
set him on to me.' Public opinion - in spite of, or on account of, a
crowd of witnesses - was ill informed upon the exact bearings of the
question, and it was obvious that as Dutch sentiment at the Cape
appeared already to be thoroughly hostile to us, it would be
dangerous to alienate the British Africanders also by making a
martyr of their favourite leader. But whatever arguments may be
founded upon expediency, it is clear that the Boers bitterly
resented, and with justice, the immunity of Rhodes.
In the meantime, both President Kruger and his burghers had shown a
greater severity to the political prisoners from Johannesburg than
to the armed followers of Jameson. The nationality of these
prisoners is interesting and suggestive. There were twenty-three
Englishmen, sixteen South Africans, nine Scotchmen, six Americans,
two Welshmen, one Irishman, one Australian, one Hollander, one
Bavarian, one Canadian, one Swiss, and one Turk. The prisoners were
arrested in January, but the trial did not take place until the end
of April. All were found guilty of high treason. Mr. Lionel
Phillips, Colonel Rhodes (brother of Mr. Cecil Rhodes), George
Farrar, and Mr. Hammond, the American engineer, were condemned to
death, a sentence which was afterwards commuted to the payment of
an enormous fine. The other prisoners were condemned to two years'
imprisonment, with a fine of 2000 pounds each. The imprisonment was
of the most arduous and trying sort, and was embittered by the
harshness of the gaoler, Du Plessis. One of the unfortunate men cut
his throat, and several fell seriously ill, the diet and the
sanitary conditions being equally unhealthy. At last at the end of
May all the prisoners but six were released. Four of the six soon
followed, two stalwarts, Sampson and Davies, refusing to sign any
petition and remaining in prison until they were set free in 1897.
Altogether the Transvaal Government received in fines from the
reform prisoners the enormous sum of 212,000 pounds. A certain
comic relief was immediately afterwards given to so grave an
episode by the presentation of a bill to Great Britain for 1,677,
938 pounds 3 shillings and 3 pence - the greater part of which was
under the heading of moral and intellectual damage.
The raid was past and the reform movement was past, but the causes
which produced them both remained. It is hardly conceivable that a
statesman who loved his country would have refrained from making
some effort to remove a state of things which had already caused
such grave dangers, and which must obviously become more serious
with every year that passed. But Paul Kruger had hardened his
heart, and was not to be moved. The grievances of the Uitlanders
became heavier than ever. The one power in the land to which they
had been able to appeal for some sort of redress amid their
grievances was the law courts. Now it was decreed that the courts
should be dependent on the Volksraad. The Chief Justice protested
against such a degradation of his high office, and he was dismissed
in consequence without a pension. The judge who had condemned the
reformers was chosen to fill the vacancy, and the protection of a
fixed law was withdrawn from the Uitlanders.
A commission appointed by the State was sent to examine into the
condition of the mining industry and the grievances from which the
newcomers suffered. The chairman was Mr. Schalk Burger, one of the
most liberal of the Boers, and the proceedings were thorough and
impartial. The result was a report which amply vindicated the
reformers, and suggested remedies which would have gone a long way
towards satisfying the Uitlanders. With such enlightened
legislation their motives for seeking the franchise would have been
less pressing. But the President and his Raad would have none of
the recommendations of the commission. The rugged old autocrat
declared that Schalk Burger was a traitor to his country for having
signed such a document, and a new reactionary committee was chosen
to report upon the report. Words and papers were the only outcome
of the affair. No amelioration came to the newcomers. But at least
they had again put their case publicly upon record, and it had been
endorsed by the most respected of the burghers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 13 of 222
Words from 12214 to 13227
of 225456
