Note Back to Main Text — Chapter I

In order to see the Jameson Raid in its true perspective, it is not sufficient to place it in relationship to those familiar and notorious events by which it was followed. It must also be placed in relationship to the no less clearly defined events by which it was preceded. Thus placed it becomes the direct outcome of the refusal of the Imperial Government to use the advice of its local representative—or, more precisely, of the refusal to base its policy on South African instead of British conditions: and, as such, it convinced the Imperial Government of the need of reviving the power of its local representative. In other words, it is a connecting link between the High Commissionerships of Frere and Milner. The events which followed the recall of Frere were accepted by the British inhabitants of South Africa as a practical demonstration of the inherent viciousness of the system under which the decision of cardinal questions of South African administration was left in the hands of the House of Commons, a body in which they were not represented; which met 6,000 miles away; whose judgment was liable to be warped by irrelevant considerations of English party politics; and one which was admittedly unfamiliar with the country and peoples whose interests were vitally affected by the manner in which these questions were decided. The lesson of the retrocession was taken to heart so earnestly that, fifteen years later, the majority of the British residents in the Transvaal refused to support a movement for reform which involved the re-establishment of Imperial authority, while among those who were loyal to the British connection throughout South Africa its effect was to make them think, Rhodes. as did Rhodes, that the machinery of the various local British governments must be dissociated as much as possible from the principles and methods of the Home Government. Hence the necessity for what Rhodes called the "elimination of the Imperial factor." The expression, as he afterwards explained, was in no way inconsistent with attachment to the British connection. As read in the context in which it was originally used, it meant merely that the European population of Bechuanaland,[9] being mainly Boer immigrants, could be administered more successfully by officers responsible to a government which, like that of the Cape Colony, was well versed in South African conditions, than by officers directly responsible to the Imperial Government. The phrase was a criticism of Downing Street, and still more of English party government. In short, Rhodes was convinced that if a system of British administration, based on South African conditions, was ever to be carried on successfully, the local British authority, and not the Home Government, must be the machine employed; and in order to allow it to work freely, its action must be made as independent as possible of Downing Street. For Downing Street was an authority which blew hot or cold, in accordance with the views of the party for the time being in power.[10]