|
|
7-pounder 2
Scotch carts 8
Cape carts 3
AMMUNITION.
Rounds.
Carried by men and natives 50,000 Lee-Met.
Carried in Scotch carts and Cape carts 54,000 rifle.
-------
Total 104,000
=======
On the guns 17,000 Maxim.
In carts 28,000
-------
Total 45,000
=======
On limber 44 12-1/2
On one Scotch cart 80 pounders.
-------
Total 124
=======
On limbers 70 7-pounders.
In Scotch carts 172
-------
Total 242
=======
The rifle ammunition used was that supplied by the Maxim firm for
their guns and also pellet powder.
The powder used with the 12-1/2-pounder was that known as
'ballistite.' Rocket signals and limelights were carried, but
not used.
EQUIPMENT CARRIED.
On the Person.
(a) Rifle (10 rounds).
(b) Bandolier (60 rounds).
(c) Haversack (1/2 day's ration).
(d) Water-bottle filled.
On the Saddle.
(a) Nosebag (5 lb. grain).
(b) Cloak on wallet.
(c) Rifle bucket.
(d) Patrol tin (with grocery ration).
(e) Leather axe-holder (every fourth man).
Near-side wallet, 30 rounds and 1/2 day's rations.
Off-side wallet, 20 rounds, tin dubbin, hold-all, and towel.
Average weight carried by horse = 16 stone.
Average weight carried by Scotch carts = 1,600 lb.
Footnotes for Appendix H
{55} The letters are published in their proper place, and readers can
satisfy themselves as to whether they justify the above inference.
{56} Note. July, 1899. In the Report of the Select Committee of the
House of Commons (No. 311 of 1897), page 298, are the following:--
Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman: "Did you understand that you were to
meet a considerable force at Krugersdorp coming from Johannesburg?"
Sir John Willoughby: _Not when we started_ from Pitsani, but
certainly after the letters received from the cyclists.
APPENDIX I.
MANIFESTO.
If I am deeply sensible of the honour conferred upon me by being
elected chairman of the National Union, I am profoundly impressed
with the responsibilities attached to the position. The issues to be
faced in this country are so momentous in character that it has been
decided that prior to the holding of a public meeting a review of the
condition of affairs should be placed in your hands, in order that
you may consider matters quietly in your homes. It has also been
decided that it will be wise to postpone the meeting which was to
have taken place on the 27th December until the 6th day of January
next.
On that day you will have made up your minds on the various points
submitted to you, and we will ask you for direction as to our future
course of action. It is almost unnecessary to recount all the steps
which have been taken by the National Union, and I shall therefore
confine myself to a very short review of what has been done.
THE THREE PLANKS.
The constitution of the National Union is very simple. The three
objects which we set before ourselves are: (1) The maintenance of
the independence of the Republic, (2) the securing of equal rights,
and (3) the redress of grievances. This brief but comprehensive
programme has never been lost sight of, and I think we may
challenge contradiction fearlessly when we assert that we have
constitutionally, respectfully, and steadily prosecuted our purpose.
Last year you will remember a respectful petition, praying for the
franchise, signed by 13,000 men, was received with contemptuous
laughter and jeers in the Volksraad. This year the Union, apart
from smaller matters, endeavoured to do three things.
THE RAAD ELECTIONS.
First we were told that a Progressive spirit was abroad, that twelve
out of twenty-four members of the First Volksraad had to be elected,
and we might reasonably hope for reform by the type of broad-minded
men who would be elected. It was therefore resolved that we should do
everything in our power to assist in the election of the best men who
were put up by the constituencies, and everything that the law
permitted us to do in this direction was done.
DISAPPOINTED HOPES.
The result has been only too disappointing, as the record of the
debates and the division list in the Volksraad prove. We were
moreover told that public speeches in Johannesburg prevented the
Progressive members from getting a majority of the Raad to listen to
our requests, that angry passions were inflamed, and that if we would
only hold our tongues reform would be brought about. We therefore
resolved in all loyalty to abstain from inflaming angry passions,
although we never admitted we had by act or speech given reason for
legislators to refuse justice to all. Hence our silence for a long
time.
THE RAILWAY CONCESSION NEXT.
We used all our influence to get the Volksraad to take over the
railway concession, but, alas! the President declared with tears in
his voice that the independence of the country was wrapped up in this
question, and a submissive Raad swept the petitions from the table.
THE FRANCHISE PETITION.
Our great effort however was the petition for the franchise, with the
moderate terms of which you are all acquainted. This petition was
signed by more than 38,000 persons. What was the result? We were
called unfaithful for not naturalizing ourselves, when naturalization
means only that we should give up our original citizenship and get
nothing in return, and become subject to disabilities. Members had
the calm assurance to state, without any grounds whatever, that
the signatures were forgeries; and, worst of all, one member in an
inflammatory speech challenged us openly to fight for our rights, and
his sentiment seemed to meet with considerable approval. This is the
disappointing result of our honest endeavours to bring about a fusion
between the people of this State, and the true union and equality
which alone can be the basis of prosperity and peace. You all know
that as the law now stands we are virtually excluded for ever from
getting the franchise, and by a malignant ingenuity our children born
here are deprived of the rights of citizenship unless their fathers
take an oath of allegiance, which brings them nothing but
disabilities.
THE BITTER CRY OF THE 'UITLANDER.'
We are the vast majority in this State. We own more than half the
land, and, taken in the aggregate, we own at least nine-tenths of the
property in this country; yet in all matters affecting our lives, our
liberties, and our properties, we have absolutely no voice. Dealing
now first with the legislature, we find taxation is imposed upon
us without any representation whatever, that taxation is wholly
inequitable, _(a)_ because a much greater amount is levied from the
people than is required for the needs of Government; _(b)_ because it
is either class taxation pure and simple, or by the selection of the
subjects, though nominally universal, it is made to fall upon our
shoulders; and _(c)_ because the necessaries of life are unduly
burdened.
ABUSE OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.
Expenditure is not controlled by any public official independent of
the Government. Vast sums are squandered, while the Secret Service
Fund is a dark mystery to everybody. But, essential as the power to
control taxation and expenditure is to a free people, there are other
matters of the gravest importance which are equally precious.
The Legislature in this country is the supreme power, apparently
uncontrolled by any fixed Constitution. The chance will of a majority
in a Legislature elected by one-third of the people is capable of
dominating us in every relation of life, and when we remember that
those who hold power belong to a different race, speak a different
language, and have different pursuits from ourselves, that they
regard us with suspicion, and even hostility; that, as a rule, they
are not educated men, and that their passions are played upon by
unscrupulous adventurers, it must be admitted that we are in very
grave danger.
TRIBUTE TO THE MODERATES.
I think it is but just to bear tribute to the patriotic endeavours of
a small band of enlightened men in the Volksraad who have earnestly
condemned the policy of the Government and warned them of its danger.
To Mr. Jeppe, Mr. Lucas Meyer, the De Jagers, Mr. Loveday, and a few
others in the First Raad, leaving out the second Raad, we owe our
best thanks, for they have fought our battle and confirmed the
justice of our cause. But when we look to the debates of the last
few years, what do we find? All through a spirit of hostility, all
through an endeavour not to meet the just wants of the people, not
to remove grievances, not to establish the claim to our loyalty by
just treatment and equal laws, but to repress the publication of
the truth, however much it might be required in the public interest,
to prevent us from holding public meetings, to interfere with the
Courts, and to keep us in awe by force.
THE POWERS OF THE EXECUTIVE.
There is now threatened a danger even graver than those which have
preceded it. The Government is seeking to get through the Legislature
an Act which will vest in the Executive the power to decide whether
men have been guilty of sedition, and to deport them and confiscate
their goods. The Volksraad has by resolution affirmed the principle,
and has instructed the Government to bring up a Bill accordingly next
session. To-day this power rests justly with the courts of law, and I
can only say that if this Bill becomes law the power of the Executive
Government of this country would be as absolute as the power of the
Czar of Russia. We shall have said goodbye finally to the last
principle of liberty.
PRESIDENT KRUGER INDICTED.
Coming to the Executive Government, we find that there is no true
responsibility to the people, none of the great departments of State
are controlled by Ministerial officers in the proper sense, the
President's will is virtually supreme, and he, with his unique
influence over the legislators of the House, State-aided by an able
if hostile State Secretary, has been the author of every act directed
against the liberties of the people. It is well that this should be
recognized. It is well that President Kruger should be known for what
he is, and that once for all the false pedestal on which he has so
long stood should be destroyed. I challenge contradiction when I
state that no important Act has found a place on the Statute-book
during the last ten years without the seal of President Kruger's will
upon it; nay, he is the father of every such Act. Remember that
all legislation is initiated by the Government, and, moreover,
President Kruger has expressly supported every Act by which we and
our children have been deprived by progressive steps of the right to
acquire franchise, by which taxation has been imposed upon us almost
exclusively, and by which the right and the liberty of the Press and
the right of public meeting have been attacked.
THE JUDGES AND THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT.
Now we come to the judicial system. The High Court of this country
has, in the absence of representation, been the sole guardian of
our liberties. Although it has on the whole done its work ably,
affairs are in a very unsatisfactory position. The judges have
been underpaid, their salaries have never been secure, the most
undignified treatment has been meted out to them, and the status
and independence of the Bench have on more than one occasion been
attacked. A deliberate attempt was made two years ago by President
Kruger and the Government to reduce the bench to a position
subordinate to the Executive Government, and only recently we had in
the Witfontein matter the last of the cases in which the Legislature
interfered with vested rights of action. The administration of
justice by minor officials, by native commissioners, and by
field-cornets, has produced, and is producing, the gravest unrest in
the country; and, lastly, gentlemen,
THE GREAT BULWARK OF LIBERTY,
the right to trial by jurymen who are our peers, is denied to us.
Only the burgher or naturalized burgher is entitled to be a juryman;
or, in other words, anyone of us is liable to be tried upon the
gravest charge possible by jurymen who are in no sense our peers, who
belong to a different race, who regard us with a greater or lesser
degree of hostility, and whose passions, if inflamed, might prompt
them, as weak human creatures, to inflict the gravest injustice, even
to deprive men of their lives. Supposing, in the present tense
condition of political feeling, any one of us were tried before a
Boer jury on any charge having a political flavour about it, should
we be tried by our peers, and should we have a chance of receiving
even-handed justice?
THE SECRET SERVICE FUND.
When we come to the Administration, we find that there is the
grossest extravagance, that Secret Service moneys are squandered,
that votes are exceeded, that the public credit is pledged, as it was
pledged in the case of the Netherlands Railway Company, and later
still in the case of the Selati Railway, in a manner which is wholly
inconsistent with the best interests of the people.
SQUANDERING THE PUBLIC REVENUE.
The Delagoa Bay festivities are an instance of a reckless disregard
of a Parliamentary vote; £20,000 was voted for those useless
festivities--about £60,000 was really expended, and I believe certain
favoured gentlemen hailing from Holland derived the principal
benefit. It is said that £400,000 of our money has been transferred
for some extraordinary purpose to Holland. Recently £17,000 is said
to have been sent out of the country with Dr. Leyds for Secret
Service purposes, and the public audit seems a farce. When the
Progressive members endeavoured to get an explanation about large
sums of money they were silenced by a vote of the majority
prompted by President Kruger. The administration of the public
service is in a scandalous condition.
A CORRUPT LEGISLATURE.
Bribery and corruption are rampant. We have had members of the Raad
accepting presents of imported spiders and watches wholesale from men
who were applying for concessions, and we have the singular fact that
in every instance the recipient of the gift voted for the concession.
We have the President openly stating that such acceptance of presents
was wholly moral. We have a condition of affairs in which the time
of the meeting of the Volksraad is looked upon as the period of the
greatest danger to our interests, and it is an open secret that a
class of man has sprung up who is in constant attendance upon the
members of the Volksraad, and whose special business appears to be
the 'influencing' of members one way or the other. It is openly
stated that enormous sums of money have been spent, some to produce
illegitimate results, some to guard against fresh attacks upon vested
rights. The Legislature passed an Act solemnly denouncing corruption
in the public service. One man, not an official, was punished under
the law, but nothing has ever been done since to eradicate the evil.
AND A TAINTED CIVIL SERVICE.
I think thousands of you are satisfied of the venality of many of our
public servants. I wish to guard against the assumption that all
public servants are corrupt. Thank God there are many who are able
and honourable men, and it must be gall and wormwood to these men to
find the whole tone of the service destroyed, and to have themselves
made liable to be included under one general denunciation. But there
can be no health in an administration, and the public morals must be
sapped also, when such things as the Smit case, and the recent
Stiemens case, go unnoticed and unpunished.
TWO GLARING CASES.
I think it right to state openly what those cases are. N.J. Smit
is the son of a member of the Government. He absented himself for
months without leave. He was meantime charged in the newspapers
with embezzlement. He returned, was fined £25 for being absent
without leave, and was reinstated in office. He is now the Mining
Commissioner of Klerksdorp. He has been charged in at least two
newspapers--one of them a Dutch newspaper, _Land en Volk_, published
within a stone's throw of the Government Office--with being an
'unpunished thief,' and yet the Government have taken no notice of
it, nor has he thought fit to bring an action to clear himself. In
the Stiemens case two officials in the Mining Department admitted in
the witness-box that they had agreed to further the application of a
relative for the grant of a piece of public land at Johannesburg on
condition that they were each to receive one quarter of the proceeds.
A third official, the Landdrost of Pretoria, admitted that he had
received £300 for his 'influence' in furthering the application;
yet no notice had been taken by the Government of their scandalous
conduct, and sad to say the judges who heard the case did not think
it their duty to comment strongly upon the matter. I have in my
possession now a notarial deed which proves that the Railway
Commissioner, the Landdrost, and the Commandant of Pretoria are
members of a syndicate whose avowed object is, or was, to wrest from
the companies their right to the 'bewaarplaatsen.' This shows what
is going on, and what is the measure of safety of title to property.
Those who should guard our rights are our worst enemies. In a law
introduced by the present Government, the Government, instead of the
Courts, are the final judges in cases of disputed elections. No
Election Committees are allowed. This operates against candidates
opposed to the Government, because the Government has virtually a
vast standing army of committee men, henchmen, officials being
allowed openly to take part in swaying elections, and the Government
being in a position, by the distribution of contracts, appointments,
purchase of concessions, the expenditure of Secret Service money and
otherwise, to bring into existence and maintain a large number of
supporters who act as canvassers always on the right side in times
of elections.
NATIVE AFFAIRS.
The administration of native affairs is a gross scandal and a source
of immense loss and danger to the community. Native Commissioners
have been permitted to practise extortion, injustice, and cruelty
upon the natives under their jurisdiction. The Government has allowed
petty tribes to be goaded into rebellion. We have had to pay the
costs of the 'wars,' while the wretched victims of their policy have
had their tribes broken up, sources of native labour have been
destroyed, and large numbers of prisoners have been kept in goal
for something like eighteen months without trial. It was stated
in the newspapers that, out of 63 men imprisoned, 31 had died in
that period, while the rest were languishing to death for want of
vegetable food. We have had revelations of repulsive cruelty on the
part of field-cornets. We all remember the Rachman case, and the
April case, in which the judges found field-cornets guilty of brutal
conduct to unfortunate natives; but the worst features about these
cases is that the Government has set the seal of its approval upon
the acts of these officials by paying the costs of the actions out
of public funds, and the President of the State a few days ago made
the astounding statement in regard to the April case, that,
notwithstanding the judgment of the High Court, the Government
thought that Prinsloo was right in his action, and therefore paid
the costs. The Government is enforcing the 'plakkerswet,' which
forbids the locating of more than five families on one farm. The
field-cornets in various districts have recently broken up homes of
large numbers of natives settled on 'Uitlanders'' lands, just at the
time when they had sown their crops to provide the next winter's
food. The application of this law is most uneven, as large numbers
of natives are left on the farms of the Boers. Quite recently a
well-known citizen brought into the country at great expense some
hundreds of families, provided them with land, helped them to start
life, stipulating only that he should be able to draw from amongst
them labour at a fair wage to develop his properties. Scarcely had
they been settled when the field-cornet came down and scattered the
people, distributing them among Boer farms. The sources of the native
labour supply have been seriously interfered with at the borders by
Government measures, and difficulties have been placed in the way of
transport of natives by railway to the mines. These things are all a
drain upon us as a State, and many of them are a burning disgrace to
us as a people.
THE EDUCATION SCANDAL.
The great public that subscribes the bulk of the revenue is virtually
denied all benefit of State aid in education. There has been a
deliberate attempt to Hollanderise the Republic, and to kill the
English language. Thousands of children are growing up in this land
in ignorance, unfitted to run the race of life, and there is the
possibility that a large number of them will develop into criminals.
We have had to tax ourselves privately to guard against these
dangers, and the iniquity of denying education to the children of
men who are paying taxes is so manifest that I pass on with mingled
feelings of anger and disgust.
RAILWAYS.
This important branch of the public service is entirely in the hands
of a corporation domiciled in Holland. This corporation holds a
concession, of course under which not only was there no adequate
control over expenditure in construction, but it is entitled to
charge and is charging us outrageous tariffs. How outrageous these
are will be seen from the admission made by Mr. Middelberg that the
short section of 10 miles between Boksburg and Krugersdorp is paying
more than the interest on the cost of the construction of the whole
line of railway to Delagoa Bay. To add these to its general revenue,
of which 10 per cent, is set aside as a sinking fund, and then to
take for itself 15 per cent. of the balance, the Company reports
annually to the Raad from Amsterdam in a language which is
practically foreign to it, and makes up its accounts in guelders, a
coinage which our legislators I venture to say know nothing of; and
this is independence. We are liable as guarantors for the whole of
the debt. Lines have been built entirely on our credit, and yet we
have no say and no control over these important public works beyond
the show of control which is supposed to be exercised by the present
Railway Commissioner. The Company in conjunction with the Executive
Government is in a position to control our destinies to an enormous
extent, to influence our relations internally and externally, to
bring about such friction with the neighbouring States as to set the
whole of South Africa in tumult. Petitions have been presented to the
Raad, but the President has constantly brushed these aside with the
well-worn argument that the independence of the State is involved in
the matter. It is involved in the matter, as all who remember the
recent Drifts question will admit. I have been told that it is
dangerous for the country to take over the railway, because it would
afford such an immense field for corruption. Surely this is the
strongest condemnation of the Government by its friends, for if it is
not fit to run a railway, how can it be fit to manage a whole State?
The powers controlling this railway are flooding the public service
with Hollanders to the exclusion of our own people, and I may here
say that in the most important departments of the State we are being
controlled by the gentlemen from the Low Country. While the innocent
Boer hugs to himself the delusion that he is preserving his
independence, they control us politically through Dr. Leyds,
financially through the Netherlands Railway, educationally through
Dr. Mansvelt, and in the Department of Justice through Dr. Coster.
CUSTOMS AND TRADE.
The policy of the Government in regard to taxation may be practically
described as protection without production. The most monstrous
hardships result to consumers, and merchants can scarcely say from
day to day where they are. Twice now has the Government entered into
competition with traders who have paid their licences and rents and
who keep staffs. Recently grain became scarce. The Government
were petitioned to suspend the duties, which are cruelly high, in
order to assist the mining industry to feed its labourers. The
Government refused this request on the plea that it was not in a
position to suspend duties without the permission of the Volksraad,
and yet within a few days we find that the Government has granted a
concession to one of its friends to import grain free of duty and to
sell it in competition with the merchants who have had to pay duties.
I do not attempt to deal with this important question adequately, but
give this example to show how the Government regards the rights of
traders.
MONOPOLIES.
It has been the steady policy of the Government to grant concessions.
No sooner does any commodity become absolutely essential to the
community than some harpy endeavours to get a concession for its
supply. There is scarcely a commodity or a right which has not been
made the subject of an application for the grant of a concession. We
all remember the bread and jam concession, the water concession, the
electric lighting concession, and many others, but I need only point
to the dynamite concession to show how these monopolies tend to
paralyse our industries. There may be some of you who have not yet
heard and some who have forgotten the facts connected with this
outrage upon public rights.
STORY OF THE DYNAMITE CONCESSION.
Some years ago, Mr. Lippert got a concession for the sole right to
manufacture and sell dynamite and all other explosives. He was to
manufacture the dynamite in this country. For years he imported
dynamite under the name of Guhr Impregne duty free. He never
manufactured dynamite in the country, and upon public exposure, the
Government was compelled to cancel the concession, the President
himself denouncing the action of the concessionnaire as fraudulent.
For a time we breathed freely, thinking we were rid of this incubus,
but within a few months the Government granted virtually to the same
people another concession, under which they are now taking from the
pockets of the public £600,000 per annum, and this is a charge which
will go on growing should the mining industry survive the persistent
attempts to strangle it. How a body charged with the public interests
could be parties to this scandalous fleecing of the public passes
comprehension. Then, the curious feature about the matter is that the
Government gets some petty fraction of this vast sum, and the
concessionnaires have on this plea obtained enormous advances of
public moneys from the Government, without security, to carry on
their trade. Shortly, the concessionnaires are entitled to charge
90s. a case for dynamite, while it could be bought if there were no
concession for about 30s. a case. It may be stated incidentally, that
Mr. Wolmarans, a member of the Government, has been for years
challenged to deny that he is enjoying a royalty of 2s. on every case
of dynamite sold, and that he has up to the present moment neglected
to take up the challenge. Proper municipal government is denied to
us, and we all know how much this means with regard to health,
comfort, and the value of property. The Statute Books are disfigured
with enactments imposing religious disabilities; and the English
language, the language spoken by the great bulk of the people, is
denied all official recognition. The natural result of the existing
condition of things is that the true owners of the mines are those
who have invested no capital in them--the Government, the railway
concessionnaires, the dynamite concessionnaires, and others. The
country is rich, and under proper government could be developed
marvellously, but it cannot stand the drain of the present exactions.
We have lived largely upon foreign capital, and the total amount of
the dividends available for shareholders in companies is ridiculously
small as compared with the aggregate amount of capital invested in
mining ventures. Some day the inevitable result upon our credit and
upon our trade will be forced upon us.
HATRED OF THE SAXON.
There is no disguising the fact that the original policy of the
Government is based upon intense hostility to the English-speaking
population, and that even against the enfranchised burgher of this
State there is the determination to retain all power in the hands of
those who are enjoying the sweets of office now, and naturally the
grateful crowd of relations and friends and henchmen ardently support
the existing _régime_; but there are unmistakable signs, and the
President fears that the policy which he has hitherto adopted will
not be sufficient to keep in check the growing population. It seems
the set purpose of the Government to repress the growth of the
industry, to tax it at every turn, to prevent the working classes
from settling here and making their homes and surrounding themselves
with their families, and there is no mistaking the significance of
the action of the President when he opposed the throwing open of the
town lands of Pretoria on the ground that 'he might have a second
Johannesburg there,' nor that of his speech upon the motion for the
employment of diamond drills to prospect Government lands, which he
opposed hotly on the ground that 'there is too much gold here
already.'
THE POLICY OF FORCE.
We now have openly the policy of force revealed to us. £250,000 is to
be spent upon the completing of a fort at Pretoria, £100,000 is to be
spend upon a fort to terrorize the inhabitants of Johannesburg, large
orders are sent to Krupp's for big guns, Maxims have been ordered,
and we are even told that German officers are coming out to drill the
burghers. Are these things necessary or are they calculated to
irritate the feeling to breaking point? What necessity is there for
forts in peaceful inland towns? Why should the Government endeavour
to keep us in subjection to unjust laws by the power of the sword
instead of making themselves live in the heart of the people by a
broad policy of justice? What can be said of a policy which
deliberately divides the two great sections of the people from each
other, instead of uniting them under equal laws, or the policy which
keeps us in eternal turmoil with the neighbouring States? What shall
be said of the statecraft, every act of which sows torments,
discontent, or race hatred, and reveals a conception of republicanism
under which the only privilege of the majority of the people is to
provide the revenue, and to bear insult, while only those are
considered Republicans who speak a certain language, and in greater
or less degree share the prejudices of the ruling classes?
A STIRRING PERORATION.
I think this policy can never succeed, unless men are absolutely
bereft of every quality which made their forefathers free men; unless
we have fallen so low that we are prepared to forget honour,
self-respect, and our duty to our children. Once more, I wish to
state again in unmistakable language what has been so frequently
stated in perfect sincerity before, that we desire an independent
republic which shall be a true republic, in which every man who is
prepared to take the oath of allegiance to the State shall have equal
rights, in which our children shall be brought up side by side as
united members of a strong commonwealth; that we are animated by no
race hatred, that we desire to deprive no man, be his nationality
what it may, of any right.
THE CHARTER OF THE UNION.
We have now only two questions to consider: _(a)_ What do we want?
_(b)_ how shall we get it? I have stated plainly what our grievances
are, and I shall answer with equal directness the question, 'What do
we want?' We want: (1) the establishment of this Republic as a true
Republic; (2) a Grondwet or Constitution which shall be framed by
competent persons selected by representatives of the whole people and
framed on lines laid down by them--a Constitution which shall be
safe-guarded against hasty alteration; (3) an equitable franchise
law, and fair representation; (4) equality of the Dutch and English
languages; (5) responsibility of the Legislature to the heads of
the great departments; (6) removal of religious disabilities; (7)
independence of the courts of justice, with adequate and secured
remuneration of the judges; (8) liberal and comprehensive education;
(9) efficient civil service, with adequate provision for pay and
pension; (10) free trade in South African products. That is what we
want. There now remains the question which is to be put before you at
the meeting of the 6th January, viz., How shall we get it? To this
question I shall expect from you an answer in plain terms according
to your deliberate judgment.
CHARLES LEONARD,
_Chairman of the Transvaal National Union._
APPENDIX K.
THE CASE OF THE CHIEFTAINESS TOEREMETSJANI
On the reports which have appeared the case or cases of Toeremetsjani
_v_. P.A. Cronjé, Jesaja _v_. P.A. Cronjé and D.J. Schoeman, Segole
_v_. P.A. Cronjé and J.A. Erasmus, have attracted, as well they
might, a good deal of attention. The following _résumé_ and
commentary were compiled by a legal gentleman who was present during
the trial, but not professionally employed in it.
The facts revealed in the evidence (writes our correspondent) speak
pretty well for themselves, but they were brought out into lurid
prominence in the cross-examination of Commandant Cronjé by Mr.
Justice Jorissen. In order to make the case quite clear, it is as
well to state for the benefit of those who are not intimately
acquainted with things in the Transvaal that this Mr. Cronjé, who
is now the Superintendent-General of Natives, is the same Cronjé
concerning whose action in regard to Jameson's surrender there was so
much discussion. After the Jameson Raid, President Kruger, pursuing
his policy of packing the Executive with his own friends, decided to
put Cronjé upon the Executive, for which purpose he induced General
Joubert to resign his position as Superintendent-General of Natives.
The President's intention becoming known to Raad members, the
strongest possible objection was expressed to this course as being
wholly unconstitutional and in direct conflict with the Grondwet; the
President in the first place having no right to add to the number of
Executive members and no authority for appointing any person to fill
a vacancy if there were one. Notice of motion was promptly given in
the Raad to instruct the Executive not to take the proposed course,
as the Raad felt that the privilege and power of appointing members
on the Executive rested with them alone. Twenty-four hours' notice
was requisite to bring a matter up for discussion before the Raad.
President Kruger hearing that notice had been given promptly called a
meeting of the Executive and appointed Mr. Cronjé in defiance of the
notice of motion, so that when the motion came on for discussion on
the following day he replied to the Raad's instruction that it was
too late to discuss the matter, the appointment having been made. Mr.
Cronjé, therefore, appears on the scene on this occasion without much
to prejudice the unbiassed reader in his favour. The circumstances of
the surrender of the Potchefstroom garrison, which was secured by
treacherously suppressing the news of the armistice between the two
forces (a treachery for which public reparation was afterwards
exacted by Sir Evelyn Wood), the treatment of certain prisoners of
war (compelled to work for the Boers exposed to the fire and being
shot down by their own friends in the garrison), the summary
execution of other prisoners, the refusal to allow certain of the
women to leave the British garrison, resulting in the death of at
least one, are matters which although sixteen years old are quite
fresh in the memory of the people in the Transvaal. The condition of
Dr. Jameson's surrender revived the feeling that Mr. Cronjé has need
to do something remarkable in another direction in order to encourage
that confidence in him as an impartial and fair-minded man which his
past career unfortunately does not warrant. Commandant Trichard,
mentioned in this connection as a witness, was one of the commandants
who refused to confirm the terms accorded by Cronjé to Jameson. Mr.
Abel Erasmus is a gentleman so notorious that it would be quite
unnecessary to further describe him. He is the one whom Lord Wolseley
described as a fiend in human form, and threatened to "hang as high
as Haman." Abel Erasmus is the man who had desolated the Lydenburg
district; the hero of the cave affair in which men, women, and
children were closed up in a cave and burnt to death or suffocated; a
man who is the living terror of a whole countryside, the mere mention
of whose name is sufficient to cow any native. Mr. Schoeman is the
understudy of Abel Erasmus, and is the hero of the satchel case, in
which an unfortunate native was flogged well-nigh to death and
tortured in order to wring evidence from him who, it was afterwards
discovered, knew absolutely nothing about the affair. The Queen, or
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