[-196-]
CHAPTER XIX
THE CHARTERED COMPANY
(1895-6)
THE excitement occasioned by President
Cleveland's message on the Venezuela question had scarcely quieted down when
London was again convulsed with the sensational news of Dr. Jameson's
unsuccessful attempt to invade the Transvaal with an armed force commanded by
British officers holding the Queen's commissions.
The new year had dawned dismally, with lowering skies and in
the midst of great social, political and financial depression. The Venezuela
flurry had shown that the United States could not be reckoned upon in case of
need, had its alliance been sought on the mere ground of a professed Anglo-Saxon
ancestry and a common tongue. Lord Salisbury had been savagely assailed for
non-interference in the Armenian disturbances, the same element seeking to force
the government into an ineffectual war with Europe, an element corresponding to
that class in the United States which had urged the immediate and forcible
vindication of the Monroe doctrine in the Venezuela dispute. Germany was very
unfriendly, as was subsequently shown, and there were difficulties existing and
threatened in Egypt and along the Indian frontier. The South African imbroglio
seemed to he the crowning stroke; how it would end no one could tell, and there
were excited denunciations of those who had instigated and abetted Jameson's
folly, with the most dismal prophecies as to the ultimate consequences of his
rashness and lawlessness. It is [-197-] now pretty
well understood that Dr. Jameson's plans were known in England to the few who
had the confidence of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the head and front of the conspiracy,
and that these were personages of exalted station, men of wealth and title, with
the editors of at least one great newspaper.
Dr. Jameson - "Dr. Jim," as he was affectionately
called in conformity to the English custom of bestowing nicknames-was at first
deeply pitied, and great indignation was felt toward the so-called reform
committee who were charged with betraying him and leaving him to his fate.
In some of its features the case was an illustration of
history repeating itself, and the uprising in i88o was recallcd, the investment
of Pretoria and the repulse and slaughter of the English forces, with the death
of Colley at Majuba Hill, in February, 1881. That almost the same disaster had
again occurred, it was decided, indicated two things; first, that the English
soldier, the "Rooibaatje" as the Dutch termed him, was no match for
the Boer on his native veld; and second, that the compromise accepted at the
conclusion of hostilities in that campaign resulted not in peace, but in what
had proved to be only an indefinite truce. President Kruger was pre-eminently
the man of the hour; reminiscences of his visit to London with General Joubert
were recalled, and the descriptions that were current at West End dinner tables
were certainly not flattering, no matter how accurate they may have been. He was
generally described as a man who was habitually unkempt, untidy, stolid,
sanctimonious and superstitious. It was related of him that he would scarcely
look out of his window in Piccadilly, lest he should be contaminated by its
rampant worldliness. Frau Kruger was presented in even stronger colors as the
typical Dutch "tanta," unable to speak or understand English, and even
more shocked than her rustic husband by the frivolities of the English [-198-]
metropolis. Joubert, who accompanied the President and his wife to England, was
regarded as much more a man of the world, less narrow in his religious
prejudices, and more familiar with the ordinary social conventions.
Almost from the moment that the public were informed of Dr.
Jameson's defeat and capture, the chief question seemed to be: "What
reparation will the Boers demand at the hands of the British government ?"
There was great relief when it was learned that the lives of Dr. Jameson and his
officers had been spared, but there was a whole volume in this one weighty
sentence in a Standard leader which reviewed at length the disastrous
adventure.
"We trust that the President (Kruger) has no claims in
reserve that may cause public opinion to modify the favorable verdict at present
pronounced upon his conduct."
In other words, having handed over to the British government
the leader of an unsuccessful invasion, as President Kruger had done, and it was
an invasion which had resulted in the loss of some twenty lives, it was hoped
that the Transvaal would not ask for indemnity. Bearing in mind that thrift
which was a national characteristic of the Dutch Boer, the English government
might as well have petitioned water not to run up hill, or have attempted to
abolish the law of gravitation by act of Parliament, as was afterwards
sufficiently proved. The Boer had been wonderfully merciful in sparing life
where most governments would have carried out the sentence of an immediate court
martial without delay; but it seemed extremely improbable that he would content
himself with the sole reward of an approving conscience, which, had the case
been reversed, England assuredly would not have done. It was speedily realized
that England would be called upon, and very properly, to pay roundly for Dr.
Jameson's unsuccessful expedition. While the public mind, already harassed and [-199-]
anxious over the threatened conflict with the United States, was
distressed beyond measure over this fresh trouble, an added complication was
brought about by the telegram of congratulation which the Emperor of Germany saw
fit to transmit to President Kruger on his victory. There had been, for some
months, a growing coldness between England and Germany, and the German Emperor
was extremely unpopular, even before he thus defiantly betrayed his real
hostility and jealousy. His interference, which was termed a gross violation by
all the accepted traditions of diplomacy, forced the English people to conclude
that they had, almost within their own gates, a jealous and implacable enemy
whose secret animosity had only been aggravated by an outward friendliness and
by still closer ties of consanguinity. The Emperor had visited the Queen, his
royal grandmother, the preceding August, and had been received with every mark
of honor befitting his exalted station. He had apparently reciprocated this
warmth of feeling and had participated cordially in the succession of brilliant
fetes that had been given at Osborne during his visit. He was untiring in his
attendance upon the Queen and apparently upon terms of perfect amity with other
members of the Royal family. In view of all this, the Kruger telegram was boldly
denounced as an indecent affront to the English government, which was not less
astounded by the message itself than by the support which the attitude of the
Emperor had received from the German press and people. The mediaeval views of
the German Emperor as to the divine right of kings, had met with very little
sympathy among the English Royal family who, while they sufficiently respected
their own peculiar and hereditary prerogatives, were not disposed to imitate the
solemn and irksome etiquette of the German court. It had long been known that
the Emperor had violently resisted the English influence of his [-200-]
mother, the good Empress Frederick, and it was now apparent that this
opposition had at last expressed itself unmistakably. In the thickening
troubles, France, as usual, veered with the wind. During the few days of the
Venezuela dispute the French press unanimously expressed the utmost sympathy for
England, prompted wholly by self-interest - the possibility of a future dispute
over her own boundary line between French Guiana and Brazil; but having had a
little leisure for reflection she modified her views. The threatened breach
between Germany and England was hailed as a probable opportunity to recover her
own lost provinces, and the French press echoed the German denunciations of the
Transvaal raiders with marked coldness. Much as France hated England she hated
Germany more, and would be neither advised nor influenced by a people at whose
hands she had suffered spoliation and defeat.
Very little was said in this crisis for or against Mr. Cecil
Rhodes. Its moving spirit, apparently he had taken precautions to conceal his
direct and personal connection with the plot. His resignation of the Premiership
of Cape Colony, following Jameson's defeat and capture, confirmed a deep-seated
impression among those who disliked him- and his enemies were numerous - that he
had shielded himself behind his luckless subordinate and so escaped his just
deserts. Not even his enormous wealth or the patronage of royalty itself, had
been then sufficient to establish his popularity in London where it was believed
he would not have despised public favor. There was, as is usual in such
controversies, a diversity of opinion. Mr. Rhodes was condemned by many, as a
man absorbed in personal ambitions, regardless of those whom he sacrificed in
the furtherance of his aims; cold, crafty, and selfish to the core. Others
praised his executive ability and thought that they perceived in his character
the chief essentials of [-201-] leadership.
Fortunately for him, many of his defenders were men of high position who, it was
charged,, were not wholly disinterested; while among his enemies were those,
which was also to his advantage, whose disapproval was a recommendation to the
clemency of the decent and intelligent. He had, from the first, the support of
the Times through its colonial correspondent, a woman of great ability,
whose judgment had been valued by the editors, and who, apparently a little
flattered by the distinction of her position, had been drawn into the plottings
of the real leader, as was shown in the subsequent parliamentary investigations.
The countenance which had been lent the Chartered Company, the fountain source
of the conspiracy, by titled and influential men, greatly modified the comments
of the Conservative newspapers; the Liberal papers, alone, speaking with entire
frankness and with no appearance of reserve. Many conflicting statements, rather
surprising and unusual in the English press, were spread abroad, and several
days elapsed before the various versions were sifted to the bottom and the
actual facts ascertained. For almost a week special telegrams from South Africa
appeared with the explanatory foot note - "delayed in transmission" -
which hinted at unlawful tampering with telegraph wires, and which also was
fully explained and corroborated in the progress of the trial some weeks later.
Mr. Chamberlain at this crisis was the hero of the people,
although public opinion afterwards was considerably modified. It was
acknowledged even by the Liberals, who had not been able to forgive his
desertion to Conservative or Liberal-Unionist ranks, that he had proved himself
equal to a very difficult emergency, and the promptness with which he met the
demands of the Transvaal, arranging without loss of time for the return of Dr.
Jameson and his men to England and their imme-[-202-]diate
trial, was commended on every side. He was toasted at public and private
dinners, praised in enthusiastic addresses at public meetings, and on the
evening of January 8th went to Windsor to receive the thanks of the Queen.
A strange situation, however, was brought about; having the
raiders committed to its charge, to be dealt with according to their deserts,
the English government, at first, was at a loss what to do with them. The Boers
had exercised a clemency that could not be abused; pardoning the men would have
been construed as a national affront, and England was in honor bound to
repudiate their harebrained folly. In the eyes of his fellow countrymen, both in
South Africa and in England, Dr. Jameson was a transcendent patriot. It had been
claimed, as a justification of the raid, that the expedition had been planned
for the relief of women and children who were in deadly peril of mistreatement
at the hands of the Boers in Johannesburg. It was felt that Cape Colony was
immensely indebted to him for the advancement of measures that had aided the
development of its rich resources and promoted its general prosperity; and the
extreme penal~ of the law could hardly have been meted out, even had there
existed a statute adequately covering the case and providing for its proper
punishment, without a second uprising, possibly more disastrous than the first.
It was thought, also, by the law-abiding classes, that the integrity of the
English courts, the impartiality of the English law which was pronouncedly no
respecter of persons, was to be vindicated; and whether this was accomplished or
not, is yet an open question.
The first accounts of Jameson's chivalry occasioned a burst
of patriotic fervor; not unlike the sentimentalizing over the Cuban insurgents
in the United States, before their idiosyncrasies were ascertained by the
Americans sent to their relief. Mr. Alfred Austin, who had been re-[-203-]cently
created Poet Laureate, wrote some mawkish verses; ballads of a like nature were
composed, with a swinging chorus, framed and devised for the music halls and the
pit and galleries of minor theaters, in which they joined fortissimo; and there
was much excited waving of the English Jack, with extemporaneous speeches from
patriotic managers. Then the excitement abated and the critics, indulgent and a
little deluded at first, wondered if the author of "The Idylls of the
King" would have descended to ballad writing for the patronage of music
halls. One of the influential newspapers called attention to the real
predominance of Hebrew names in the list of officials of the Chartered Company,
boldly asserting that the attempted revolution was undertaken less for the
relief of suffering English women and children, than to back up shrewd and
daring speculators of anything but English ancestry.
A great deal was made of the statement, professedly
authoritative, that "Mr. Rhodes would come home to face the music;"
but the flying visit which he subsequently paid, arriving almost in secrecy,
conferring with Mr. Chamberlain and a few others whom untoward events made it
necessary for him to see, and returning to South Africa immediately, could
hardly be described as "facing the music ;" and when the final
reckoning came it was the impulsive Scotchman and not the calculating Englishman
who suffered. It was the golden opportunity of blatant radicals, and
pre-eminently of their ostensible leader, the editor of a weekly paper, chiefly
distinguished for its leaders written in the first person. Never had its pages
so bristled with capital "I's," incredible as this may seem; and never
were its utterances accepted with such avidity by the large number of
discontented men-servants who formed so important a part of its clientelle. The
rest of the public naturally distrusted loyalty that proclaimed
[-204-] itself so vociferously from the house tops, and penetrated the
flimsy disguise of one who so palpably posed as the friend of the masses. It was
a season of most congenial activity in this direction and the "rottenness
of the Chartered Company was certainly well aired. The exposé was prefaced by
an account of the seizure of Matabeleland and the robbery of Lobengula, his
persecution and death and the subsequent discovery that there was no gold in the
territory which had been acquired by brutal force and unwarranted conquest. The
Chartered Company was charged with circulating reports of the fabulous wealth of
the Mashonaland possessions, which, with clever stock exchange manipulations
sent the shares up to £8, 10s. It was further charged that innumerable
sub-companies were floated, with claims as assets, and many millions were
invested. This had gone on steadily for months, it being impossible to prove
conclusively either that the Matabeleland mines were or were not productive. A
crash was inevitable and ruin could be averted, it was asserted, only by the
seizure of the Transvaal territory, the value of its gold deposits being
perfectly well known.
Mr. Rhodes had been charged also with a deliberate attempt at
pauperizing the natives, preventing them from holding land and raising cattle,
that they might be forced to work for Europeans; the development of South Africa
being largely dependent upon native labor. The charges against Mr. Rhodes and
the Chartered Company were specifically set forth and were ten in number, the
first being marked by vigor and acrimony and the tenth dying away in what
Carlyle would have termed "an unintelligible whinner." There was, no
doubt, a good deal of truth in the allegations, but, fortunately for the
accused, the source from which they originated counteracted any important
influence that they might have exerted. Many of the charges, however, those
especially that appeared in [-205-] reputable
Liberal papers, were sufficiently well-grounded; they could not have been
published, otherwise, in a country where the libel law is so clearly defined and
so comprehensive and all consequences of its infringement so absolutely certain.