CHAPTER VIII

THE SITUATION TO-DAY

THE question will be asked, and rightly so, by every one who has read up to this point-what remedy do you suggest in face of these present difficulties? My answer is simple and direct. Let justice be done. Uphold the Suzerainty imposed, and the guarantee given in the name of Her Majesty in 1881, and demand from the Boer Government that the Articles substituted in 1884 for those of the former Convention be maintained and fulfilled. Perform that duty, late in the day though it is, towards the inhabitants of the Transvaal which the Conventions and their provisions involve. Deeds we demand now, not words!

If our so-called statesmen would only appreciate how tired the world is growing of torrents of words, and how for the past sixteen years Boers and Hollanders have discounted these periodical outbreaks of British politicians, and have played their own game of bluff with impunity, then there might be some hope. Sir Alfred Milner's arrival should be hailed with feelings of profound gratitude, not only because a strong tactful man is required at the helm of Cape Colony

to-day, but also because a movement is being made at last by the Imperial Government.

True, the relief comes from an unexpected quarter, yet it is none the less valuable, since Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Chamberlain, was in 1881 and 1884 a member of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet when the humiliating peace was made, and the subsequent surrender to the Boers took place. He, of all men of the present Government, possesses the knowledge of what was intended to be granted as a measure of justice to the inhabitants of the Transvaal by those Conventions.

Neither can it with fairness be imputed to Mr. Chamberlain that he has changed front in the matter. Assuming that he acquiesced in the policy of the Cabinet of 1881, and that he was a consenting party to the substitution of the Articles of 1884, assuredly the scope and intent of each Convention must be patent to his mind. Every person endowed with common sense will understand that, in demanding from the Boer Government the due observance of these Conventions, Her Majesty's Ministers are to-day simply complying with a sacred duty undertaken by the Crown towards the inhabitants of the Transvaal State. There can be nothing aggressive or improper in this attitude, and the Boers, if honestly disposed, have no grounds for resisting such a reasonable request. On the other hand, if this corrupt Oligarchy is determined to brave the Suzerain and ridicule the Conventions as it has done hitherto, then the only argument applicable is that of armed force, and the rule of the Boer will be for ever swept aside in the South African Republic.

Prejudice, tyranny, greed, and insult can be tolerated no longer by free men in a free land, despite the petty spite of Little Englanders, like Sir William Vernon Harcourt. This prominent politician was also a member of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet in 1881 and 1884, and he has recently, contrary to his wishes, done this country a great service by rousing the national spirit on Imperial questions which involve the preservation of our honour and duties to our kinsfolk in South Africa.

For his political reputation, it would be more seemly did this descendant of the Plantagenets observe a severe reticence on matters associated with the abandonment of the colonists after Majuba, as these antipatriotic outbursts, for purely party purposes, only increase the contempt with which Englishmen regard his vapourings. Instead of trying to hamper the Government and belittle England before the world, he could, as an ex-law-officer of the Crown, do his country and his Sovereign yeoman service were he to point out that only under the Convention of 1881 does Her Majesty derive her right of Suzerainty over the South African Republic, and that the word Suzerain is

even mentioned in the Convention of 1884especially as now the situation has become grave indeed.

Within the past few months, the Boer has armed himself to the teeth at Uitlanders' expense. He has imported from Germany many mercenaries instructed in the handling of heavy and light artillery, and skilled in the latest military tactics. He has built forts in well-chosen positions, and all this time, with the full

knowledge of what has been going on, our sapient rulers have folded their arms, blandly smiled, or indulged in that now famous platitude: "We are, and ever will be, the paramount power in South Africa!" A lovely sonorous phrase which can always be relied on to bring down the British gallery! But men in South Africa have suffered too long from placing confidence in this kind of froth, and they now require deeds! They have not forgotten the asseverations of the present Commander-in-Chief, then Sir Garnet Wolseley, in 1880, that the Transvaal would be "under British rule as long as the sun shone, and until rivers ran backward!" Nor yet, that within a year of that distinguished prophecy, Mr. Gladstone, aided by some of those who are so valiant on paper to-day, broke his own and all other pledges, caused us to scuttle out of the country, and handed over all the residents therein white and black to the tender mercies of a few illiterate Boers and astute Hollanders.

The blame for this present state of affairs in the South African Republic lies mainly at the door of Her Majesty's Government, for the Boer has been taught by us to despise our strength and our diplomacy. He began to do this from the fatal moment when, after Majuba, Mr. Gladstone and his Ministers, in spite of Sir Evelyn Wood's advice, ordered that officer to make a humiliating peace. Step by step, the Boer's contempt for us has increased in proportion to our surrender of every principle insisted on in the first Convention. Our want of firmness and backbone has been his opportunity, and, as we know, prompted by his wily Hollander allies, he has ultimately set at

defiance every important Article which was retained in that disgraceful document, the Convention of 1884. Ay, and even before that Convention was signed we have seen how deliberately the spirit and intention of the former one of 1881 was violated in the matter of the franchise. Had Her Majesty's Ministers insisted on the due observance of those Articles, we should not have now to deplore a Jameson raid, and the world at large would have been spared the unsavoury spectacle of our national dirty linen being publicly washed by Little Englanders in the tub of a Parliamentary Committee. This supineness, weakness, or indifference on the part of Her Majesty's Government-call it by whatever name you may-has had far-reaching consequences in other directions, for thereby a few unscrupulous capitalists have persuaded the Boer Government to go further than even they otherwise would have done.

These individuals openly winked at many breaches of the Conventions so long as they were profiting themselves. Only too well have Transvaal officials learnt that the terms of the articles were to be subservient to the personal interests of those who were ready and willing to pay a bribe for that privilege, and thus it has come about that huge monopolies, which are gigantic frauds on the rest of the community, have been granted to those who would agree to share the plunder with one or more persons in authority. The situation

has also fostered a group of crawling plutocrats, who now profess great friendship for the Transvaal Government, and who appear happily oblivious of the fact that every shady step by which each has climbed