Part 4 (2/2)

When it was represented that the Annexation was a deliberate breach of the Sand River Convention, Sir Bartle Frere replied, in 1879, that if they wished to go back to the Sand River Convention, they might just as well go back to the Creation!

It is necessary here not to lose sight of the fact that the ground, which according to the Keate award in 1870 had been declared to lie beyond the borders of the Republic, was now included by Shepstone as being a part of the Transvaal.

There were, however, other matters which under Republican administration were branded as wrong, but which under English rule were perfectly right. In the Secoecoeni War under the Republic the British High Commissioner had protested against the use of the Swazies and Volunteers by the Republic in conducting the campaign.

Under British administration the war was carried on at first by regulars only, but when these were defeated by the Kaffirs, an army of Swazies, as well as Volunteers, was collected. The number of the former can be gathered from the fact that 500 Swazies were killed. The atrocities committed by these Swazi allies of the English on the people of Secoecoeni's tribe were truly awful.

Bishop Colenso, who condemned this incident, said, with regard to the results of the Annexation of the Republic, that the Zululand difficulty, as well as that with Secoecoeni, was the direct consequence of the unfortunate Annexation of the Transvaal, which would not have happened if we had not taken possession of the country like a lot of freebooters, partly by ”trickery,” partly by ”bullying.” Elsewhere he said: ”And in this way we annexed the Transvaal, and that act brought as its Nemesis the Zulu difficulty.”

That the British Government had all along considered the Zulus as a means of annihilating the Transvaal when a favourable opportunity occurred, is clear from a letter which the High Commissioner, Sir Bartle Frere, wrote to General Ponsonby, in which he says:--[27] ”That while the Boer Republic was a rival and semi-hostile power, it was a Natal weakness rather to pet the Zulus as one might a tame wolf who only devoured one's neighbours' sheep. We always remonstrated, but rather feebly, and now that both flocks belong to us, we are rather embarra.s.sed in stopping the wolfs ravages.”

And again in a letter to Sir Robert Herbert:--[28] ”The Boers were aggressive, the English were not; and were well inclined to help the Zulus against the Boers. I have been shocked to find how very close to the wind the predecessors of the present Government here have sailed in supporting the Zulus against Boer aggression. Mr. John Dunn, still a salaried official of this Government, thinking himself bound to explain his own share in supplying rifles to the Zulus in consequence of the revelations in a late trial of a Durban gun-runner, avows that he did so with the knowledge, if not the consent, and at the suggestion of (naming a high Colonial official) in Natal. There can be no doubt that Natal sympathy was strongly with the Zulus as against the Boers, and, what is worse, is so still.”

Under such circ.u.mstances did the Annexation take place. The English did not scruple to make use of Kaffir aid against the Boers, as at Boomplaats, and it was brought home in every possible way to the British Nation that a great wrong had been committed here; but even the High Commissioner, though he heard the words issue from our bleeding hearts, wished that he had brought some artillery in order to disperse us, and misrepresented us beyond measure.

Full of hope we said to ourselves if only the Queen of England and the English people knew that in the Transvaal a people were being oppressed, they would never suffer it.

[Sidenote: The War of Freedom.]

But we had now to admit that it was of no use appealing to England, because there was no one to hear us. Trusting in the Almighty G.o.d of righteousness and justice, we armed ourselves for an apparently hopeless struggle in the firm conviction that whether we conquered or whether we died, the sun of freedom in South Africa would arise out of the morning mists. With G.o.d's all-powerful aid we gained the victory, and for a time at least it seemed as if our liberty was secure.

At Bronkorst Spruit, at Laing's Nek, at Ingogo, and at Majuba, G.o.d gave us victory, although in each case the British troopers outnumbered us, and were more powerfully armed than ourselves.

After these victories had given new force to our arguments, the British Government, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Gladstone, a man whom we shall never forget, decided to cancel the Annexation, and to restore to us our violated rights.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: Molesworth.]

[Footnote 24: Theal, 305.]

[Footnote 25: 30th April, 1877, Letter to the Rev. La Touche.]

[Footnote 26: Martineau, _The Transvaal Trouble_, page 76.]

[Footnote 27: Martineau, _The Transvaal Trouble_, page 69.]

[Footnote 28: _The Transvaal Trouble_, page 76.]

CONVENTIONS OF 1881 AND 1884.

[Sidenote: Pretoria Convention.]

An ordinary person would have thought that the only upright way of carrying a policy of rest.i.tution into effect would have been for the British Government to have returned to the provisions of the Sand River Convention. If the Annexation was wrong in itself--without taking the Boer victories into consideration--then it ought to have been abolished with all its consequences, and there ought to have been a _rest.i.tutio in integrum_ of that Republic; that is to say, the Boers ought to have been placed in exactly the same position as they were in before the Annexation. But what happened? With a magnanimity which the English press and English orators are never tired of vaunting, they gave us back our country, but the violation of the Sand River Convention remained unredressed. Instead of a sovereign freedom, we obtained free internal administration, subject to the suzerain power of Her Majesty over the Republic. This occurred by virtue of the Convention of Pretoria, the preamble of which bestowed self-government on the Transvaal State with the express reservation of suzerainty. The articles of that Convention endeavoured to establish a _modus vivendi_ between such self-government and the aforesaid suzerainty. Under this bi-lateral arrangement the Republic was governed for three years by two heterogeneous principles--that of representative self-government, and that represented by the British Agent. This system was naturally unworkable; it was also clear that the arrangement of 1881 was not to be considered as final.

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