The most fateful event of the year was, however, one which excited little attention at the time, and any attention that was attracted was rather of a friendly kind. This was the accession of the militant Afrikander party to office in Pretoria in June 1898. State Secretary Leyds having been appointed Minister of the Republic to Europe, State Attorney van Leeuwen being promoted to the bench, and Foreign Sectretary van Boeschoten being sent to the newly-established Legation in Brussels, their offices were filled by the election of State Secretary Reitz (formerly President of the Orange Free State, and founder of the Afrikander Bond), State Attorney Smuts (a young man of no experience, understood to have been appointed on the recommendation of Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr, of Cape Town, leader of the Afrikander Bond), and Foreign Secretary Grobler, a relative of the President, all three being members of the Afrikander party. Three Hollanders were thus succeeded by three Afrikanders. Changes were also made in their respective offices; but what really made the alteration of the personnel important was that the conduct of the negotiations with the Imperial Government-and necessarily, therefore, the policy to be adopted towards the Uitlander cause in the hands of the Imperial Governmentfell to the militant Afrikanders instead of to the trained Europeans who had preceded them. The mistaken rejoicing of Johannesburg is still recalled by many of the victims of the expulsion of October 1899, at the order of Messrs. Reitz and Smuts. A very prevalent theory for years had been that the Hollander public servants, introduced by the President, were the cause, instead of the effect, of the policy against which the Uitlanders strove in vain. In Pretoria, therefore, State Secretary Reitz of the militant Afrikanders was, at last, in a position to influence the action of President Kruger-not in policy, for in policy they were in absolute agreement-but in choosing of times and seasons. Educated in England, he was supposed to understand the Imperial strength and purpose. In Bloem fontein, Executive Councillor Fischer, in conjunction with President Steyn-also educated in England-at last could join hands with Pretoria in a militant pan-Afrikander policy.* Mr. J. P. Fitzpatrick, in his valuable work, 'The Transvaal from Within,' an accurate record of the facts which fell under his immediate notice, reproduces the Johannesburger's error as to the real character and purpose of the Young Afrikander. Contrast his estimate of Messrs. Reitz and Smuts with the letter of Mr. Theophilus Schreiner, already quoted, and with the view of Messrs. Scoble and Abercombie, cited in the note to Chapter XXIII. Johannesburg realised its error in October 1899, and rated plausible professions at their real worth; but the British of Pretoria had understood long before. The speech of Mr. J. W. Wessels, given in the Appendix, shows that it was the Young Afrikander party that were the immediate cause of the resistance to the Imperial demands on behalf of the Uitlander, and, consequently, of the war. CHAPTER XVIII. THE AFRIKANDER POLICY IN THE BOER STATES, 1898. IN June 1898, at last in the councils of Pretoria, the Afrikander party kept steadily in view the Pan-Afrikander anti-British goal. To preserve the nucleus round which was to group the Dutch domination from the Zambesi to the Cape, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, a most jealous grasp was to be kept on political power, on the gold in the reef, on the command on rifles, forts and armaments, on the exclusive use of the Dutch tongue. Just as two hundred years before the use of the French language was suppressed by force, so was English to be steadfastly ostracised. Towards the British Uitlander, vigorous exclusion from political power, while feeding him with fair words, lest he might mould the Republic in other than Dutch models. Towards the Imperial Power, a steady resistance to its interference to protect the Uitlander-such treatment of the Uitlander as he received being a purely internal affair— and equally endeavour to shake off the Imperial control of foreign relations. Evade or openly disregard the Conventions; weariness and English party spirit, and all other well-known causes of Imperial vacillation in the past century will do the rest. What has often been flouted, becomes obsolete at last. On the origin and history of Boer distrust and underestimate of the power of the British people and the Imperial Government I have already written, and of the Afrikander propaganda which has created an Afrikander Separatist party. But in the case of the men in Pretoria and Bloemfontein, their education in England has really served to further mislead them. Their brief and fragmentary experience of English life, acquired during a professional education, has given them little or no opportunity of seeing the higher aspect of public life in England. But it has produced an illusion of knowledge, the most dangerous form of want of knowledge. And their education has produced an illusion of intellectual superiority-as regards the rest of the world, the British portion included—a superiority which is real only in contrast to the veldt Boer. "Dans le pays des aveugles, le borgne est roi." The reason why this small body of men had such weight with the action of President Kruger-for his policy they did not require to sway as it was identical with their own -both as regards the Uitlander and the Imperial Government, is clear enough to all familiar with the typical Boer's distrust of all but his own people. The President and, with him, the Executives and Volksraads, had complete trust in their support of his anti-British policy. But much more than that, they were credited with special knowledge (which in reality they did not possess) of British politics and parties, and the probabilities of Imperial action. Of Boer blood themselves, educated (at least as to their professions) to some extent in England, they were regarded by the older members of the ruling class as counsellers, whose residence in England had enabled them to master the intricacies of British statesmanship and politics, and whose duties in Holland had inducted them into the mysteries of Continental policy-an assumption which, curiously enough, they would have seen to be absurd if applied to the politics of a Kaffir chief's head kraal, and the casual stay of a European traveller. Lastly, until, at the Bloemfontein Conference of June 1899, the present High Commission raised-what should have been raised long ago-the wider issue of the status of British citizens in the Transvaal, involving the majesty and there * See Appendix. The Young Afrikander. fore the safety of the Empire itself-an issue having no relation to the terms of Conventions between the Transvaal and the Imperial Government-until this issue was raised, all the questions between the Governments turned on the legal interpretation of stipulations of the Conventions. And these separatist Afrikanders are all lawyers, and, with few exceptions, educated in the law schools of England. So, anti-British, skilled in British and foreign politics, skilled in law this was the President's conception of "Le borgne dans le pays des aveugles"-"Eenoog in het land der blinden." The new directors of the negotiations showed their hand when very early in office, and a long series of new departures, challenged by the Imperial Government as breaches of the Conventions, were taken under their direction.* The first matter of negotiation arose under the Swaziland Convention of 1894. By that Convention Swaziland had been placed under the protectorate of the Transvaal; certain stipulations being made in favour of the Swazis, including the preservation of their native usages, so far as they were not in conflict with civilised laws and customs, special reservation being made as to cases between Swazi and Swazi to be decided, as previously, by their own custom, and to be excluded from the jurisdiction of the High Court of Swaziland. The privileges of the principal chief of the Swazis were specially guarded, and by an express article it was stipulated that the Imperial Government retained the right of diplomatic remonstrance, in case the provisions of the Convention touching the reserved rights of the Swazis were not observed. By order of the principal chief, what the Swazis regarded as a political execution took place early in 1898. In previous decisions, the High Court of Swaziland had held that cases of this kind fell within the category of those excluded from its jurisdiction, by the Convention, inasmuch *These will be seen enumerated in a memorandum to the two Governments of the Republics, which I issued during the Bloemfontein Conference. |