Note Back to Main Text — Chapter V

These expressions scarcely do justice to the spirit of vindictiveness with which certain of the republican leaders regarded the British population of the Rand. On May 22nd, 1900, less than a year after the date of the Volksraad discussion of the Franchise Bill, and when Lord Roberts was advancing rapidly upon Johannesburg, a conversation took place with Mr. Smuts in Pretoria, which was reported in The Times. In the course of this conversation the State Attorney said, with reference to the proposed destruction of the mines, that "he greatly regretted that Johannesburg should suffer, but that the Government had no choice in the matter, as the popular pressure upon them was too great to be resisted." This determination is rightly characterised by Mr. Farrelly, the late legal adviser to the Government of the South African Republic, as the "fiendish project of wrecking the mines and plunging into hopeless misery for years tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children." But that is not all. He has put upon record[105] the sinister fact that the man entrusted with the execution of this infamous design was Mr. Smuts himself. The mines were saved, therefore, not by the Boer Government, but in spite of it, and solely through the independent action of Dr. Krause, the Acting-Commandant of Johannesburg, who "arrested the leader of the wreckers, sent by Mr. Smuts, the day before the surrender to Lord Roberts."[106]