Boer Politics :: APPENDIX C. THE LAST PRO-BOER MANIFESTATION.

APPENDIX C. THE LAST PRO-BOER MANIFESTATION.

Since the foregoing articles were written Dr. Leyds and Mr. Boer have not been idle. M. Pierre Foncin, a General Inspector of the University, has compiled on behalf of a Society called "Le Sou des Boers," a manifesto ending thus: "Well then, since this lust of gold has resulted in war, let the gold of France be poured out in floods, in aid of the innocent victims!"

In spite of considerable influence brought to bear upon this member of the University, the Committee, after some weeks' work, only managed to scrape together something like four hundred pounds. Since then, no more has been heard of it, and its place has been taken by "The Committee for the Independence of the Boers," with M. Pauliat, a Nationalist Senator, at its head. Its object was, in the first place, to organise a reception for the Boer delegates on their return from America.

It was confidently expected by the promoters of the enterprise that it would afford a good opportunity for a demonstration in opposition to the Government on the fourteenth of July. The delegates were received at the HÔtel-de-Ville by the Nationalist Municipal Council, whose President, M. GrÉbauval, addressed them in virulent speeches, while the great square in front remained empty. The Irish Banquet which took place this year on the twelfth of July under the Presidency of Mr. Archdeacon, and which had been much talked of in 1899 at the time of the Auteuil manifestation, when President Loubet was hit with a stick by Baron Christiani, passed off amidst complete indifference. No disturbance of any kind occurred on the fourteenth of July.

The Congress of the Interparliamentary Union in favour of Peace and Arbitration was to be held on the 31st of July. It was stated that the Boer delegates were going to present a memorial, whilst M. Pauliat intended to raise the Transvaal question. My answer was that I intended to be there too, and considered it of interest to treat that question. Dr. Leyds knew that the majority of the English Members of Parliament who belonged to the Congress had declared themselves against the South African war, and he anticipated that owing to their former declarations they would find it difficult not to side with the pro-Boer sympathisers.

It was rather a clever idea. But on the 30th of July there was a meeting of the executive Committee composed of two members of each of the various nationalities, at which the English members declared that, if contrary to its regulations, the Transvaal question was to be discussed they were resolved to withdraw. The Committee decided to admit Mr. Wessels, formerly Speaker of the Orange Free State Parliament, simply as a member of the Congress; to oppose any discussion of the Transvaal question and to rule that the communication made by the Boer delegates was merely to be circulated among the members as individuals.

My pamphlet, La Politique Boer, and my answer in Le SiÈcle of the 1st of August, were also distributed. Here are a few extracts:

"The manifesto of Messrs. Fisher, Wessels and Wolmarans, delegates for the South African Republics, has been a disappointment to me. I expected that these gentlemen would produce some arguments; they have contented themselves with giving us a summary of Dr. Reitz's pamphlet—"A Century of Wrongs." It ends with the same incitement to annexation, which was already to be found in the cry for help sent on the 17th of February, 1881, by the Transvaal to the Orange Free State—"Africa for the Afrikander, from the Zambesi to Simon's Bay!" The delegates recognise that the time for claiming new territories has passed; they describe themselves as a nation of mild and peace-loving men, the victims of perpetual English persecution. I do not wish to discuss their way of dealing with historical facts, about which they are not so candid as was Mr. KrÜger in his 1881 manifesto, because what we are now interested in, is not that which happened in times long ago, but what has happened since the annexation of the Transvaal by England, on the 12th of April, 1877. They do not say a word of the state of anarchy then prevailing in the Transvaal, nor of its military reserves, nor of the threatening attitude of Sekukuni and Cetewayo. Whereas in the manifesto of 1881, with these facts still fresh in the memory of its author, it is said: "At the outset our military operations were not very successful. In the opinion of our opponents we were too weak to resist successfully an attack from the natives," Sir Theophilus Shepstone, unable to restore order, had finally to annex the Transvaal. This he did at the head of twenty-five policemen only. Had the Transvaal been left to itself Sekukuni's and Cetewayo's impis would have overrun the country and turned out the Boers, who, after they had been delivered from their enemies by the English, proclaimed "a war of independence" in December, 1880. The Majuba disaster, 27th of February, 1881, in which the English had 92 killed, 134 wounded, and 59 prisoners, is of course mentioned by the delegates. An English army twelve thousand strong was advancing; but though the Queen's speech referred to the fact of the annexation, Mr. Gladstone, who in his Midlothian campaign, had protested against it, agreed to the 1881 Convention in which the independence of the Transvaal under England's suzerainty was recognised.

"The Boer nation," the Boer delegates say in their Memorandum, "could not bring themselves to accept the Convention; from all parts of the country protests arose against the Suzerainty clause." I admit willingly that the Boers did not abide by the Convention. In 1884, speaking in the House of Lords,—Lord Derby said: "The attitude of the Boers might constitute a casus belli but as the Government were not in the mood for war, and the position of the English resident in Pretoria was anomalous," he assented to the Convention of 27th February, 1884, "by which," say the Boer delegates, "the suzerainty over the Transvaal was abolished, and the South African Republic's complete independence acknowledged." This is their contention, now for the facts."

I then adverted to the events of which the XVth. and XVIth. chapters of La Politique Boer give a summary. The Jameson raid is, of course, the mainstay of the delegates' argument. After showing what this is really worth, and also discussing the arbitration question, I concluded as follows:

"The Memorandum shirks all the questions; documents are not referred to; there is nothing in it but assertions, which are to be accepted without discussion. It ends by mixing up what relates to the organisation and adminstration of the two Republics. But the adminstration of the Orange Free State and the adminstration of the South African Republic were quite different things. By following KrÜger's policy Mr. Steyn has been guilty of a crime as well as a great political blunder. Had he remained neutral the English army would have been compelled to establish the basis of its operations much farther North, and would have been deprived of the use of the railway line to Bloemfontein. Moreover, when peace was restored, he would have remained independent. The Memorandum alludes to the prosperity of the Transvaal, but forgets to mention that the only share taken in it by the Boers has been an ever-increasing appropriation of the wealth created by the Uitlanders' industry, capital and labour.

"The Memorandum mentions also the laws passed annually, but is careful to omit law No. 1 of 1897, by which Mr. KrÜger was empowered to exact from the judges a declaration that decisions of the Volksraad would be enforced by them as legal enactments, whether they were in agreement with the constitutions or not, and to dismiss at a moment's notice any one of them whose response might seem to him unsatisfactory.

"We have already spoken of the concluding sentences in the Memorandum. Messrs. A. Fischer, C.H. Wessels, A.D.W. Wolmarans "appeal to the ConfÉrence de l'Union Interparlementaire to take in hand their cause." The Executive Committee has, as has already been said, ruled the question out of order. This decision is not to be regretted considering the tendencies of the delegates' Memorandum; it does not help their cause any more than does Dr. Kuyper's article."

M. Pauliat complained bitterly of the decision. A progressive member of the Belgian deputation, Mr. Lorand, tried to revive the question on the 2nd of August by means of the following resolution:

"The tenth Conference of the Interparliamentary Union for International Arbitration now meeting in Paris being cognisant of acknowledging the resolutions of the Conference at the Hague, and being desirous to express its gratitude to all who have contributed towards its results; trusts, that in future the Powers will avail themselves of the means put at their disposal for the amicable settlement of international disputes and regret that "they have not done so" in the actual conflict between England and the South African Republics."

Upon this, M. Beernaert, with all authority conferred upon him by his position as the delegate of the Belgian Government at the Hague Conference, observed that the Transvaal was not in a position to avail itself of the resolution arrived at by the Conference—because that Conference was no longer in existence, and because the Boers had not been a party to it. On his motion the words "could not do so" were inserted instead of the words "had not done so."

Now why were the Boers not represented at the Hague Conference?

The Queen of Holland, in whose name the invitations were issued, had undoubtedly been appealed to by them, to admit the Transvaal to the Congress in conformity with Dr. Reitz's contention that "the Transvaal had inherent rights to be an international state,"—but their request had been refused, as would have been a similar demand coming from Finland or the Bey of Tunis.

The case was on all fours with that of the Vatican. When the Italian Government declared that they would not sit in the Conference if an invitation were sent to the Holy See, the Vatican was omitted.

Such is the simple fact; and it is just this fact which M. Lorand and M. Beernaert brought into relief by the resolution of 2nd August. I am quite sure that that was not their intention; the fact remains, notwithstanding.

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