An army of emissaries, agents, and spies,
whatever their mission, were certainly spread over the British
colonies. Newspapers were subsidised also, and considerable sums
spent upon the press in France and Germany.
In the very nature of things a huge conspiracy of this sort to
substitute Dutch for British rule in South Africa is not a matter
which can be easily and definitely proved. Such questions are not
discussed in public documents, and men are sounded before being
taken into the confidence of the conspirators. But there is plenty
of evidence of the individual ambition of prominent and
representative men in this direction, and it is hard to believe
that what many wanted individually was not striven for
collectively, especially when we see how the course of events did
actually work towards the end which they indicated. Mr. J.P.
FitzPatrick, in 'The Transvaal from Within' - a book to which all
subsequent writers upon the subject must acknowledge their
obligations - narrates how in 1896 he was approached by Mr. D.P.
Graaff, formerly a member of the Cape Legislative Council and a
very prominent Afrikander Bondsman, with the proposition that Great
Britain should be pushed out of South Africa. The same politician
made the same proposal to Mr. Beit. Compare with this the following
statement of Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the brother of the Prime
Minister of the Cape:
'I met Mr. Reitz, then a judge of the Orange Free State, in
Bloemfontein between seventeen and eighteen years ago, shortly
after the retrocession of the Transvaal, and when he was busy
establishing the Afrikander Bond. It must be patent to every one
that at that time, at all events, England and its Government had no
intention of taking away the independence of the Transvaal, for she
had just "magnanimously" granted the same; no intention of making
war on the republics, for she had just made peace; no intention to
seize the Rand gold fields, for they were not yet discovered. At
that time, then, I met Mr. Reitz, and he did his best to get me to
become a member of his Afrikander Bond, but, after studying its
constitution and programme, I refused to do so, whereupon the
following colloquy in substance took place between us, which has
been indelibly imprinted on my mind ever since:
'REITZ: Why do you refuse? Is the object of getting the people to
take an interest in political matters not a good one?
'MYSELF: Yes, it is; but I seem to see plainly here between the
lines of this constitution much more ultimately aimed at than that.
'REITZ: What?
'MYSELF: I see quite clearly that the ultimate object aimed at is
the overthrow of the British power and the expulsion of the British
flag from South Africa.
'REITZ (with his pleasant conscious smile, as of one whose secret
thought and purpose had been discovered, and who was not altogether
displeased that such was the case): Well, what if it is so?
'MYSELF: You don't suppose, do you, that that flag is going to
disappear from South Africa without a tremendous struggle and
fight?
'REITZ (with the same pleasant self-conscious, self satisfied, and
yet semi-apologetic smile): Well, I suppose not; but even so, what
of that?
'MYSELF: Only this, that when that struggle takes place you and I
will be on opposite sides; and what is more, the God who was on the
side of the Transvaal in the late war, because it had right on its
side will be on the side of England, because He must view with
abhorrence any plotting and scheming to overthrow her power and
position in South Africa, which have been ordained by Him.
'REITZ: We'll see.
'Thus the conversation ended, but during the seventeen years that
have elapsed I have watched the propaganda for the overthrow of
British power in South Africa being ceaselessly spread by every
possible means - the press, the pulpit, the platform, the schools,
the colleges, the Legislature - until it has culminated in the
present war, of which Mr. Reitz and his co-workers are the origin
and the cause. Believe me, the day on which F.W. Reitz sat down to
pen his ultimatum to Great Britain was the proudest and happiest
moment of his life, and one which had for long years been looked
forward to by him with eager longing and expectation.'
Compare with these utterances of a Dutch politician of the Cape,
and of a Dutch politician of the Orange Free State, the following
passage from a speech delivered by Kruger at Bloemfontein in the
year 1887:
'I think it too soon to speak of a United South Africa under one
flag. Which flag was it to be? The Queen of England would object to
having her flag hauled down, and we, the burghers of the Transvaal,
object to hauling ours down. What is to be done? We are now small
and of little importance, but we are growing, and are preparing the
way to take our place among the great nations of the world.'
'The dream of our life,' said another, 'is a union of the States of
South Africa, and this has to come from within, not from without.
When that is accomplished, South Africa will be great.'
Always the same theory from all quarters of Dutch thought, to be
followed by many signs that the idea was being prepared for in
practice. I repeat that the fairest and most unbiased historian
cannot dismiss the conspiracy as a myth.
And to this one may retort, why should they not conspire?
