A Century of Wrong by F. W. Reitz

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A CENTURY OF WRONG

ISSUED BY

F.W. REITZ

_State Secretary of the South African Republic_

WITH PREFACE BY

W.T. STEAD

"Audi Alteram Partem"

LONDON:

"REVIEW OF REVIEWS" OFFICE, MOWBRAY HOUSE, NORFOLK STREET, W.C.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.
PREFACE. _By W.T. Stead_. vii.

INTRODUCTION 1

THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE 4

THE FOUNDING OF NATAL 13

THE ORANGE FREE STATE 17

THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC 23

THE CONVENTIONS OF 1881 AND 1884 33

CAPITALISTIC JINGOISM--FIRST PERIOD 37

CAPITALISTIC JINGOISM--SECOND PERIOD 49

CONCLUSION 89

APPENDIX A.--Lord Derby's Dispatch on Convention of 1884 101
B.--The Annexation of the Diamond Fields 105
C.--The Reply to Mr. Chamberlain's Dispatch on Grievances 109
D.--The Final Dispatch of Mr. State Secretary Reitz 127
E.--The Text of the Conventions, 1852, 1881, and 1884 128

INDEX 149

PREFACE.

"In this awful turning point of the history of South Africa, on the eve
of the conflict which threatens to exterminate our people, it behoves us
to speak the truth in what may be, perchance, our last message to the
world."

Such is the _raison d'etre_ of this book. It is issued by State
Secretary Reitz as the official exposition of the case of the Boer
against the Briton. I regard it as not merely a duty but an honour to be
permitted to bring it before the attention of my countrymen.

Rightly or wrongly the British Government has sat in judgment upon the
South African Republic, rightly or wrongly it has condemned it to death.
And now, before the executioner can carry out the sentence, the accused
is entitled to claim the right to speak freely--it may be for the last
time--to say why, in his opinion, the sentence should not be executed. A
liberty which the English law accords as an unquestioned right to the
foulest murderer cannot be denied to the South African Republic. It is
on that ground that I have felt bound to afford the spokesman of our
Dutch brethren in South Africa the opportunity of stating their case in
his own way in the hearing of the Empire.

Despite the diligently propagated legend of a Reptile press fed by Dr.
Leyds for the purpose of perverting public opinion, it is indisputable
that so far as this country is concerned Mr. Reitz is quite correct in
saying that the case of the Transvaal "has been lost by default before
the tribunal of public opinion."

It is idle to point, in reply to this, to the statements that have
appeared in the press of the Continent. These pleadings were not
addressed to the tribunal that was trying the case. In the British press
the case of the Transvaal was never presented by any accredited counsel
for the defence. Those of us who have in these late months been
compelled by the instinct of justice to protest against the campaign of
misrepresentation organised for the purpose of destroying the South
African Republic were in many cases so far from authorised exponents of
the South African Dutch that some of them--among whom I may be reckoned
for one--were regarded with such suspicion that it was most difficult
for us to obtain even the most necessary information from the
representatives of the Government at Pretoria. Nor was this suspicion
without cause--so far at least as I was concerned.

For nearly a quarter of a century it might almost have been contended
that I was one of the leading counsel for the prosecution. First as the
friend and advocate of the Rev. John Mackenzie, then as the friend and
supporter of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and latterly as the former colleague and
upholder of Sir Alfred Milner, it had been my lot constantly, in season
and out of season, to defend the cause of the progressive Briton
against the Conservative Boer, and especially to advocate the Cause of
the Reformers and Uitlanders against the old Tory Administration of
President Kruger. By agitation, by pressure, and even, if need be, in
the last resort by legitimate insurrection, I had always been ready to
seek the establishment of a progressive Liberal Administration in
Pretoria. And I have at least the small consolation of knowing that if
any of the movements which I defended had succeeded, the present crisis
would never have arisen, and the independence of the South African
Republic would have been established on an unassailable basis. But with
such a record it is obvious that I was almost the last man in the Empire
who could be regarded as an authorised exponent of the case of the
Boers.

That in these last months I have been forced to protest against the
attempt to stifle their independence is due to a very simple cause. To
seek to reform the Transvaal, even by the rough and ready means of a
legitimate revolution, is one thing. To conspire to stifle the Republic
in order to add its territory to the Empire is a very different thing.
The difference may be illustrated by an instance in our own history.
Several years ago I wrote a popular history of the House of Lords, in
which I showed, at least to my own satisfaction, that for fifty years
our "pig-headed oligarchs"--to borrow a phrase much in favour with the
War Party--had inflicted infinite mischief upon the United Kingdom by
the way in which they had abused their power to thwart the will of the
elected representatives of the people. I am firmly of opinion that our
hereditary Chamber has done a thousand times more injury to the subjects
of the Queen than President Kruger has ever inflicted upon the
aggrieved Uitlanders. I look forward with a certain grim satisfaction to
assisting, in the near future, in a semi-revolutionary agitation against
the Peers, in which some of our most potent arguments will be those
which the War Party has employed to inflame public sentiment against the
Boers. But, notwithstanding all this, if a conspiracy of Invincibles
were to be formed for the purpose of ending the House of Lords by
assassinating its members, or by blowing up the Gilded Chamber and all
its occupants with dynamite, I should protest against such an outrage as
vehemently as I have protested against the more heinous crime that is
now in course of perpetration in South Africa. And the very vehemence
with which I had in times past pleaded the cause of the People against
the Peers would intensify the earnestness with which I would endeavour
to avert the exploitation of a legitimate desire to end the Second
Chamber by the unscrupulous conspirators of assassination and of
dynamite. Hence it is that I seize every opportunity afforded me of
enabling the doomed Dutch to plead their case before the tribunal which
has condemned them, virtually unheard.

In introducing _A Century of Wrong_ to the British public, I carefully
disassociate myself from assuming any responsibility for all or any of
the statements which it contains. My _imprimatur_ was not sought, nor is
it extended to the history contained in _A Century of Wrong_, excepting
in so far as relates to its authenticity as an exposition of what our
brothers the Boers think of the way in which we have dealt with them for
the last hundred years.

That is much more important than the endorsement by any Englishman as
to the historical accuracy of the statements which it contains. For what
every judicial tribunal desires, first of all, is to hear witnesses at
first hand. Hitherto the British public has chiefly been condemned to
second-hand testimony. In the pages of _A Century of Wrong_ it will, at
least, have an opportunity of hearing the Dutch of South Africa speak
for themselves.

There is no question as to the qualifications of Mr. F.W. Reitz to speak
on behalf of the Dutch Africander. Although at this moment State
Secretary for President Kruger, he was for nearly ten years Chief
Justice and then President of the Orange Free State, and he began his
life in the Cape Colony. The family is of German origin, but his
ancestors migrated to Holland in the seventeenth century and became
Dutch. His grandfather emigrated from Holland to the Cape, and founded
one of the Africander families. His father was a sheep farmer; one of
his uncles was a lieutenant in the British Navy.

Mr. Reitz is now in his fifty-sixth year, and received a good English
education. After graduating at the South African College he came to the
United Kingdom, and finished his studies at Edinburgh University, and
afterwards at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the Bar in 1868.
He then returned to the Cape, and, after practising as a barrister in
the Cape courts for six years, was appointed Chief Justice of the Orange
Free State, a post which he held for fifteen years. He was then elected
and re-elected as President of the Orange Free State. In 1893 he paid a
lengthy visit to Europe and to the United Kingdom. After Dr. Leyds was
appointed to his present post as foreign representative of the South
African Republic, Mr. Reitz was appointed State Secretary, and all the
negotiations between the Transvaal and Great Britain passed through his
hands.

Mr. Reitz's narrative is not one calculated to minister to our national
self-conceit, but it is none the worse on that account. Of those who
minister to our vanity we have enough and to spare, with results not
altogether desirable. In the long controversy between the Boers and the
missionaries Mr. Reitz takes, as might be expected, the view of his own
people.

An English lady in South Africa writing to the _British Weekly_ of
December 21st, in reply to the statement of the Rev. Dr. Stewart, makes
some observations on this feud between the Boers and the missionaries,
which it may be well to bear in mind in discussing this question. The
lady ("I.M.") says:--

Dr. Stewart naturally starts from the mission question. I speak
as the daughter of one of the greatest mission supporters that
South Africa has ever known when I say that the earliest
missionaries who came to this country were to a very large extent
themselves the cause of all the Boer opposition which they may
have had to encounter. When they arrived, they found the Boers at
about the same stage of enlightenment with regard to missions as
the English themselves had been in the time of Carey. And yet, in
spite of prejudice and ignorance, every Boer of any standing was
practically doing mission work himself, for when, according to
unfailing custom, the "Books" were brought out morning and
evening for family worship, the slaves were never allowed to be
absent, but had to come and receive instruction with the rest of
the family. But the tone and methods which the missionaries
adopted were such as could not fail to arouse the aversion of the
farmers, their great idea being that the coloured races, utter
savages as yet, should be placed upon complete equality with
their superiors. At Earl's Court we have recently seen something
of how easily the natives are spoilt, and they were certainly not
better in those days. When, however, the Boers showed that they
disapproved of all this, the natives were immediately taught to
regard them as their oppressors, and were encouraged to
insubordination to their masters, and the ill-effects of this
policy on the part of the missionaries has reached further than
can be told. May I ask was this the tone that St. Paul adopted in
his mission work among the oppressed slaves of his day?... It is
not those who do _not_ know the Boers, like Dr. Stewart, but
those who know them best, like Dr. Andrew Murray, who are not
only enamoured of their simple lives, but who know also that with
all their disadvantages and their positive faults they are still
a people whose rule of life is the Bible, whose God is the God of
Israel, and who as a nation have never swerved from the covenant
with that God entered into by their fathers, the Huguenots of
France and the heroes of the Netherlands.

Upon this phase of the controversy there is no necessity to dwell at
present, beyond remarking that those who are at present most disposed to
take up what may be regarded as the missionary side should not forget
that they are preparing a rod for their own backs. The Aborigines
Protection Society has long had a quarrel with the Boers, but if our
Imperialists are going to adopt the platform of Exeter Hall they will
very soon find themselves in serious disagreement with Mr. Cecil Rhodes
and other Imperialist heroes of the hour. That the Dutch in South Africa
have treated the blacks as the English in other colonies have treated
the aborigines is probably true, despite all that Mr. Reitz can say on
their behalf. But, whereas in Tasmania and the Australian Colonies the
black fellows are exterminated by the advancing Briton, the immediate
result of the advent of the Dutch into the Transvaal has been to
increase the number of natives from 70,000 to 700,000, without including
those who were attracted by the gold mines. In dealing with native races
all white men have the pride of their colour and the arrogance of power.
The Boers, no doubt, have many sins lying at their door, but it does not
do for the pot to call the kettle black, and so far as South Africa is
concerned, the difference between the Dutch and British attitudes toward
the native races is more due to the influence of Exeter Hall and the
sentiment which it represents than to any practical difference between
English and Dutch Colonists as to the status of the coloured man. The
English under Exeter Hall have undoubtedly a higher ideal as to the
theoretical equality of men of all races; but on the spot the arrogance
of colour is often asserted as offensively by the Briton as by the Boer.
The difference between the two is, in short, that the Boer has adjusted
his practice to his belief, whereas we believe what we do not practice.
That the black population of the Transvaal is conscious of being treated
with exceeding brutality by the Boers is disproved by the fact that for
months past all the women and children of the two Republics have been
left at the absolute mercy of the natives in the midst of whom they
live.

The English reader will naturally turn with more interest to Mr. Reitz's
narrative of recent negotiations than to his observations upon the
hundred years of history which he says have taught the Dutch that there
is no justice to be looked for at the hands of a British Government. The
advocates of the war will be delighted to find that Mr. Reitz asserts
in the most uncompromising terms the right of the Transvaal to be
regarded as an Independent Sovereign International State. However
unpleasant this may be to Downing Street, the war has compelled the
Government to recognise the fact. When it began we were haughtily told
that there would be no declaration of war, nor would the Republics be
recognised as belligerents. The war had not lasted a month before this
vainglorious boast was falsified, and we were compelled to recognise the
Transvaal as a belligerent State. It is almost incredible that even Sir
William Harcourt should have fallen into the snare set for him by Mr.
Chamberlain in this matter. The contention that the Transvaal cannot be
an Independent Sovereign State because Article 4 of the Convention of
1884 required that all treaties with foreign Powers should be submitted
for assent to England may afford a technical plea for assuming that it
was not an Independent Sovereign International State. But, as Mr. Reitz
points out, no one questions the fact that Belgium is an International
Independent Sovereign State, although the exercise of her sovereignty is
limited by an international obligation to maintain neutrality. A still
stronger instance as proving the fact that the status of a sovereign
State is not affected by the limitation of the exercise of its
sovereignty is afforded by the limitation imposed by the Treaty of Paris
on the sovereign right of the Russian Empire to maintain a fleet in the
Black Sea. To forbid the Tsar to put an ironclad on the sea which washes
his southern coast was a far more drastic limitation of the inalienable
rights of an Independent International Sovereign State than the
provision that treaties affecting the interests of another Power should
be subject to the veto of that Power, but no one has protested that
Russia has lost her international status on account of the limitation
imposed by the Treaty of Paris. In like manner Mr. Reitz argues that the
Transvaal, being free to conduct its diplomacy, and to make war, can
fairly claim to be a Sovereign International State. The assertion of
this fact serves as an Ithuriel's spear to bring into clear relief the
significance of the revival by Mr. Chamberlain of the Suzerainty of
1881. Upon this point Mr. Reitz gives us a plain straightforward
narrative, the justice and accuracy of which will not be denied by
anyone who, like Sir Edward Clarke, takes the trouble to read the
official dispatches.

I turn with more interest to Mr. Reitz's narrative of the precise
differences of opinion which led to the breaking-off of negotiations
between the two Governments. Mr. Chamberlain, it will be remembered,
said in his dispatch he had accepted nine-tenths of the conditions laid
down by the Boers if the five years' franchise was to be conceded. What
the tenth was which was not accepted Mr. Chamberlain has never told us,
excepting that it was "a matter of form" which was "not worth a war."
Readers of Mr. Reitz's narrative will see that in the opinion of the
Boers the sticking point was the question of suzerainty. If Mr.
Chamberlain would have endorsed Sir Alfred Milner's declaration, and
have said, as his High Commissioner did, that the question about
suzerainty was etymological rather than political, and that he would say
no more about it, following Lord Derby's policy and abstaining from
using a word which was liable to be misunderstood, there would have been
no war. So far as Mr. Reitz's authority goes we are justified in saying
that the war was brought about by the persistence of Mr. Chamberlain in
reviving the claim of suzerainty which had been expressly surrendered in
1884, and which from 1884 to 1897 had never been asserted by any British
Government.

Another point of great importance is the reference which Mr. Reitz makes
to the Raid. On this point he speaks with much greater moderation than
many English critics of the Government. Lord Loch will be interested in
reading Mr. Reitz's account of the way in which his visit to Pretoria
was regarded by the Transvaal Government. It shows that it was his visit
which first alarmed the Boers, and compelled them to contemplate the
possibility of having to defend their independence with arms. But it was
not until after the Jameson Raid that they began arming in earnest. As
there is so much controversy upon this subject, it may be well to quote
here the figures from the Budget of the Transvaal Government, showing
the expenditure before and after the Raid.

Public Special Sundry
Military. Works. Payments. Services. Total.
L L L L L
1889 75,523 300,071 58,737 171,088 605,419
1890 42,999 507,579 58,160 133,701 742,439
1891 117,927 492,094 52,486 76,494 739,001
1892 29,739 361,670 40,276 93,410 528,095
1893 19,340 200,106 148,981 132,132 500,559
1894[1] 28,158 260,962 75,859 163,547 521,526
1895[2] 87,308 353,724 205,335 838,877 1,485,244
1896 495,618 701,022 682,008 128,724 2,007,372
1897 396,384 1,012,686 248,864 135,345 1,793,279
1898[3] 163,451 383,033 157,519 100,874 804,877

Of the Raid itself Mr. Reitz speaks as follows:--

The secret conspiracy of the Capitalists and Jingoes to overthrow
the South African Republic began now to gain ground with great
rapidity, for just at this critical period Mr. Chamberlain became
Secretary of State for the Colonies. In the secret correspondence
of the conspirators, reference is continually made to the
Colonial Office in a manner which, taken in connection with later
revelations and with a successful suppression of the truth, has
deepened the impression over the whole world that the Colonial
Office was privy to, if not an accomplice in, the villainous
attack on the South African Republic.

Nor has the world forgotten how, at the urgent instance of the
Africander party in the Cape Colony, an investigation into the
causes of the conflict was held in Westminster; how that
investigation degenerated into a low attack upon the Government
of the deeply maligned and deeply injured South African Republic,
and how at the last moment, when the truth was on the point of
being revealed, and the conspiracy traced to its fountain head in
the British Cabinet, the Commission decided all of a sudden not
to make certain compromising documents public.

Here we see to what a depth the old great traditions of British
Constitutionalism had sunk under the influence of the
ever-increasing and all-absorbing lust of gold, and in the hands
of a sharp-witted wholesale dealer, who, like Cleon of old, has
constituted himself a statesman.

When Mr. Reitz wrote his book he did not know that immediately after the
Raid the British Government began to accumulate information, and to
prepare for the war with the Republic which is now in progress. The
reason why Mr. Reitz did not refer to this in _A Century of Wrong_ was
because documents proving its existence had not fallen into the hands of
the Transvaal Government until after the retreat from Glencoe. Major
White and his brother officers who were concerned in the Raid were much
chaffed for the incredible simplicity with which he allowed a private
memorandum as to preparations for the Raid to fall into the hands of the
Boers. His indiscretion has been thrown entirely into the shade by the
simplicity which allowed War Office documents of the most secret and
compromising nature to fall into the hands of the Boers, showing that
preparations for the present war began immediately after the defeat of
the Raid. The special correspondent of Reuter with the Boers telegraphed
from Glencoe on October 28th as follows:--

The papers captured at Dundee Camp from the British unveil a
thoroughly worked out scheme to attack the independence of both
Republics as far back as 1896, notwithstanding constant
assurances of amity towards the Free State.

Among these papers there are portfolios of military sketches of
various routes of invasion from Natal into the Transvaal and Free
State, prepared by Major Grant, Captain Melvill, and Captain Gale
immediately after the Jameson Raid.

A further portfolio marked secret styled "Reconnaissance Reports
of Lines of Advance through the Free State" was prepared by
Captain Wolley, on the Intelligence Division of the War Office,
in 1897, and is accompanied by a special memorandum, signed by
Sir Redvers Buller, to keep it secret.

Besides these there are specially executed maps of the Transvaal
and Free State, showing all the natural features, also a further
secret Report of Communications in Natal north of Ladysmith,
including a memorandum of the road controlling Lang's Nek
position.

Further, there is a short Military Report on the Transvaal,
printed in India in August last, which was found most
interesting. The white population is given at 288,000, of whom
the Outlanders number 80,000, and of the Outlanders 30,000 are
given as of British descent--which figures the authorities regard
as much nearer the truth than Mr. Chamberlain's statements made
in the House of Commons.

One report estimates that 4,000 Cape and Natal Colonists would
side with the Republics in case of war, and that the small
armament of the Transvaal consists of 62,950 rifles, and that the
Boers would prove not so mobile or such good marksmen as in the
War of Independence.

Further, the British did not think much of the Johannesburg and
Pretoria forts.

A further secret Report styled "Military Notes on the Dutch
Republics of South Africa," and numbers of other papers, not yet
examined, were also found, and are to be forwarded to Pretoria.

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