Note Back to Main Text — Chapter V

It may be questioned, however, whether, even at this time, the "whole matter" had not passed, in another and more serious sense, "out of the hands" both of the Pretoria Executive and the British Government. The political atmosphere of South Africa had become electric. The Uitlanders themselves cherished no illusion on the subject of President Krüger's proposals. Amended and re-amended, the Franchise Law, as the Uitlander Council then and there declared, left the granting of the franchise at the discretion of the Boer officials or the Pretoria Executive, and as such it was "a most dangerous measure, and apparently framed with the object of defeating the end it was presumed to have in view."[101] Further and convincing evidence of the utterly vicious and depraved character of the personnel of the Boer administration was afforded by the proceedings arising out of the alleged "conspiracy" against the Republic, of which the unfortunate Englishman Nicholls was the innocent victim (May 18th to July 25th).[102] In this disgraceful affair the gravest offences against international comity were committed; high officials, including Mr. Tjaart Krüger, the President's youngest son, were implicated in a gross and scandalous prostitution of the machinery of justice; and yet no apology was offered to the Imperial Government, nor any compensation awarded to Nicholls for the two months' imprisonment and continuous persecution by the agents-provocateurs, to which he had been subjected. The impassioned speeches delivered at the Paardekraal meeting was only one among many signs of the dangerous hostility to England and everything English that had taken possession of the Republic. War fever in the Transvaal. The British residents who had petitioned the Queen were denounced as "revolutionaries," and threatened with the vengeance of the burghers. "If war breaks out," wrote De Rand Post,"[103] the Johannesburg agitators are the real instigators, and to these ringleaders capital punishment should be meted out." In the Volksraad discussion of the Franchise Law the same passionate hatred of the Uitlanders was manifested. "Is it the English only who have the right to make conditions?" asked Mr. Lombard on July 15th. "If it comes to be a question of war, there will be a great destruction. And who will be destroyed if it comes to a collision? Why, the subjects of Her Majesty in Johannesburg."[104]