Tue sensation of the week at home was undoubtedly the publication on the Ist of May of translations of the telegrams that passed between the conspirators at Cape 'Town, Johannesburg, and Rhodesia before Dr, Jameson's raid. They came on the British public as a genuine surprise after Mr. Chamberlain's voluntary exoneration of Mr. Rhodes in the House' of Commons.
curious that they should have come as such a surprise, seeing that the substance of them was published in the Paris Temps of the 29th of April, and in the Tinves! Paris correspondence on the 30th. We have not so far seen the Transvaal Conspirecy better treated than in the leading article of the Orerlund Mail of the Ast ult. That paper says To those in the know"—and there were not a few of them in that ring of gambling called the ' Kafir Circus "—the compromising telegrams which were produced at the trial of the leaders of the Outlander conspiracy and have been published this morning have occasioned no surprise, but to Englishmen who care about the good name and fame of their people throughout the world they will cause a disagreeable sensation. The trial has lifted the veil on a sordid and discreditable conspiracy in which British public men and British officers have been shown to be working check by jowl with a ruck of cosmopolitan speculators and gamblers in an attempt, by forcible means, in which bloodshed must have ween distinctly contemplated, to overthrow a Government with which our own was at The rights and authority of that Government some of the conspirators whose nonics are now openly connected with this wild and reckless plot were loyally bound by their relations "to the British Government to respect. What these telegrams disclose is not an honest combination of men suffering from political disabilities or subjected to intolerable tyranny to obtain by legitimate efforts a remedy for their grievances. It was conspiration of unscrupulous speculators to seize upon power and authority over one of the most valuable undeveloped tracts of territory on the surface of the globe. One most significant fact is disclosed by the telegrams, namely that the plot hung fire because Mr. Cecil Rhodes, then the Cape Premier, refused to give an absolute pledge that "the authority of the Imperial Government would not be insisted on," a proof that to these men the greed of wealth and power, and not the confirmation of British supremacy in South Africa was the ruling inspiration, This strips away all romance from episode which too many Englishmen have been regarding as one honourable to the spirit and pluck of the nation, and reduces the incident toa vulgar and sordid adventure, It is impossible to feel any that Mr. Chamberlain's personal intervention sympathy for any of the parties concerned in this dastardly undertaking, by which lives were lost, the peace of large communities frey imperilled, and race animosities have en excited which it will take years to appease, if inded it has not seriously' shaken British authority in South Africa as it has most certainly injured our prestige with foreign peoples and Governments... However bad the government of the Trans. vaal may be, and Mr. Chamberlain has rather indiscreetly passed an unfavourable opinion on it, sympathy must be withheld by every: honourable man from the objects now disclosed and the means by which it was sought to attain them. It cannot but be felt that, with these facts in their possession, the position assumed by the Transvaal Govern. ment kas been fully justified. On the other hand. it will not be so easy to find an excuse for the somewhat bouncing attitude and tone of Mr. Chamberlain if he had any actual knowledge, or reasonable suspicion of these facts. Gur countrymen have been in. the wrong; some of them have been men of high authority and position; they have com-remised the honour and good faith of the ritish Empire; and President Kriger may reasonably demand that the Republic shall would probably never have been any inroad. be guaranteed against a repetition of similar attempts upon its peace and its liberties. Moreover he is justified in refusing, what fr. Chamberlain has been urging with what now seems to have been indiscreet and somewhat arbitrary insistence, to take any steps for reforming the system of government in the Transvaal, until the ex-Gitement caused by the outrage has calmed down, and he is assured that the security of his Government will not be endangered by concessions to a class of residents who have shown themselves to be so disloyal in spirit and desperate in action. The complicity of such men as Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Belt and Mr. Harris in these unlawful proceedings does not necessarily involve their ce-directors on the board of the South Africa Company, and it is hardly possible to believe that they could have had any inkling of what was zoing-on. But clearly if such high officials of the Com: pany could engage in a venture so criminal without the knowledge of their colleagues, the constitution of the Company needs re: vision, and in any case it must be brought under more effective and complete control by the Imperial Government.
Altogether the Transvaal question, with its branches, the invitation to President Kriiger to visit England, and the trial of the Reformers at Pretoria, takes up a good deal of room in the papers. In reference to the report which had reached Berlin that President Kriiger had declined to go to England the National Zeitung says It was quite clear from the first that the answer could only be negative. As chief of an independent State, President Kriiger can only accept an invitation addressed to him from the Sovereign or head of another State. In the present case it was much less an invitation than a citation to the President to appear and justify himself before the tribunal of the English Government, and that, too, after an English attack upon the Republic' for which some blame must still attach to the English Government. The latter ought, on the contrary, to have cleared itself before the Court of the South African Republic. If President Kriiger had obeyed the citation and visited London he would thereby have acknowledged the supremacy of England. A little reflection would have been enough to convince Mr. Chamberlain at the first that his proposal would be refused.
It suits the National Zeitung to ignore the fact that President Kriiger has never denied the supremacy of England. 'The Times' Paris correspondent tells us that While the Temps justifies President Kriiger's refusal to visit England, it warns the latter that she may have to' repent the Soudan expedition, which offends France and places her at Germany's mercy. The Débats, less prejudiced, remarks:—* Delay will certainly result, but'there is no proof that negotiations will be fruitless on account of their being conducted in the ordinary form. Sir Hercules Robinson has given too many proofs of ability and Mr. Kriiger of good will to warrant the gambling supposition that they can do. nothing and was indispensable."
Reuter's Special Service sends the following account from Pretoria of tha scene at the close of the trial of the Reformers exhaustively web all the The presiding; Judge summed up, dealing; evidence which had been adduced during the hearing. He held that the general law must apply, except in cases where it was specially laid down in the local laws that the latter should take the place of the Roman-Dutch law. Article 83 of the Gold Law, which dealt with the subject of In no other country could the prisoners reasonably expect to have merey shown to them for so Serious a crime as high treason.
After observing that the orderliness of the proceedings which had characterised the whole trial had teen maintained to the last the Surdgo said that it was now his painful duty to pass the sentences required by the law, but at the same time he ventured to express the hope that the Executive would show the same clemency asit had displayed with respect to Dr. Jameson and his men.
Amid profound silence the Judge then pronounced sentence of death—first on Mr. Lionel eeiligs and then separately and individually upon Mr. George Farrar, Colonel Rhodes, anil Mr. Hammond. The four prisoners remained perfectly calm while the extreme sentence of the law was being passed upon them, and merely bowed to the Judge in acknowledg. ment.
In this matter, as in the case of President Kriiger's refusal of the invitation to England, the National Zeitung adopts the most anti-English tone. It says Time after time has the unparalleled want of tact, ineptitude, and shortsightedness displayed by Mr. Chamberlain in guiding the oth African policy of England led the Secretary of State. for the Colonies from defeat to defeat and from disappointment to disappointment. If no change is made a situation must inevitably ensue which will only eave England the choice between humiliation and an attempt to have recourse to violence. Can anything more stupid imagined than to cite President Kriiger like an accused person to London, while the against the South African Repu, and while whole of England was snorting (ale) wrath Mr. Chamberlain himself, both in and out of Parliament, did his utmost in the delivery of arrogant, threatening, and inflaminatory speeches? Lo the whole world, except Mr. Chamberlain, it was plain that, in contradistinction to the ridiculous comedy played in Bow-street, the Court in Protoria had every reason to take a more serious view of the proceedings againat the English traitors in the hands of the Republic, No sooner does Mr, Chamberlain reegive the news of the verdict than he conimits a new piece of tactlessness in using in his message the tone of the predominant, Power towards the vassal, If the condemned were to be put to death it would be in no small measure due to Mr. Chamberlain, Ho is evidently inte..cctually incapable of con sidering and treating the South African Ri public as a ce-equal State, or as one which has to be taken in earnest.
The Frankfurter Zeitung was sure that President Kriiger was too wise to put the isoners to death, and says that the President's best way of combating speculative Imperialism would be to give as soon as possible his consent to the carrying out of those reforms which are demanded by the Outlanders as a whole, and acknowledged as justified by some of the Boors themselves.""
The Paris correspondent of the Times says that Commenting on the sentences the Temps points out that in the Transvaal, as elsewhere, the executive and judicial functions are quite distinct, and that "only after justice has been satisfied by the delivery of the sentence can the twofold question of political timeliness and humanity be properly raised." It cites the conduct of England in putting to death the Fenians in 1807 and 1808, though they were but a handful of conspirators who could not really threaten the security of so rwerful an Empire, It does not imagine confiscation, would also have to be set aside that the President of the Transvaal will be for the same reason. In the circumstances, equally logical, indeed it believes that he will he had no alternative but to pass sentence in surprise the world by his generosity. But it accordance with the prescription of the thinks that Mr. Chamberlain's telegram Roman-Datch Law, which was in force in the singularly maladroit, considerably aggravatin South African Republic. the difficulty of the exercise of the President's
although Dr. Jameson must have come into The Judge proceeded to point out that, Fight, of pardon, The Temps is_of opinion that if Mr. Chamberlain had tried to render the country against the wish of the prisoners impossible either the commutation of the for his own purposes or to serve the purposes sentences or the adoption by the Transvaal of of the Chartered Company, the fact remained legitimate reforms and concessions he could that he had come to the border with his troops not have acted otherwise. "Considering that at the invitation of the Reform Committee, Jameson and his accomplices will not be and that if he had not been so invited there brought to trial before July, and that there is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.