To The West, With No Regard To The
Three-Year-Old Treaty, They Invaded Bechuanaland, And Set Up The
Two New Republics Of Goshen And Stellaland.
So outrageous were
these proceedings that Great Britain was forced to fit out in 1884
a new expedition under Sir Charles Warren for the purpose of
turning these freebooters out of the country.
It may be asked, why
should these men be called freebooters if the founders of Rhodesia
were pioneers? The answer is that the Transvaal was limited by
treaty to certain boundaries which these men transgressed, while no
pledges were broken when the British power expanded to the north.
The upshot of these trespasses was the scene upon which every drama
of South Africa rings down. Once more the purse was drawn from the
pocket of the unhappy taxpayer, and a million or so was paid out to
defray the expenses of the police force necessary to keep these
treaty-breakers in order. Let this be borne in mind when we assess
the moral and material damage done to the Transvaal by that
ill-conceived and foolish enterprise, the Jameson Raid.
In 1884 a deputation from the Transvaal visited England, and at
their solicitation the clumsy Treaty of Pretoria was altered into
the still more clumsy Convention of London. The changes in the
provisions were all in favour of the Boers, and a second successful
war could hardly have given them more than Lord Derby handed them
in time of peace. Their style was altered from the Transvaal to the
South African Republic, a change which was ominously suggestive of
expansion in the future. The control of Great Britain over their
foreign policy was also relaxed, though a power of veto was
retained. But the most important thing of all, and the fruitful
cause of future trouble, lay in an omission. A suzerainty is a
vague term, but in politics, as in theology, the more nebulous a
thing is the more does it excite the imagination and the passions
of men. This suzerainty was declared in the preamble of the first
treaty, and no mention of it was made in the second. Was it thereby
abrogated or was it not? The British contention was that only the
articles were changed, and that the preamble continued to hold good
for both treaties. They pointed out that not only the suzerainty,
but also the independence, of the Transvaal was proclaimed in that
preamble, and that if one lapsed the other must do so also. On the
other hand, the Boers pointed to the fact that there was actually a
preamble to the second Convention, which would seem, therefore, to
have taken the place of the first. The point is so technical that
it appears to be eminently one of those questions which might with
propriety have been submitted to the decision of a board of foreign
jurists - or possibly to the Supreme Court of the United States. If
the decision had been given against Great Britain, we might have
accepted it in a chastened spirit as a fitting punishment for the
carelessness of the representative who failed to make our meaning
intelligible.
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