28th April. Tux March issue of the Fortnightly Review contains an article with the above heading by Mr. Jobi Verschoyle, in which the terrors of a committal for contempt of Court are braved, and an endeavour is made to indicate who is really responsible for Dr. Jameson's "extraordinary and ill-judged enterprise.
It ig my purpose," Mr. Verschoyle says, "to consider from a commonsense standpoint the circumstantial evidence and the probabilities for and against" the two most widely accepted "theories, and to arrive, if possible, at a commonsense conclusion, which, though it can be only a probable conclusion, till Jameson's lips are unsealed some mouths hence, at his trial, will at least be unobscured by prejudice or pestality. 'The main theories which, as I take it, hold the field at present are briefly these Rhodes was behind Jamieson, or, as' Mr. Bielaerts van Blokmann puts it, Jameson is Rhodes; and Jameson acted independently without the cognisance of Rhodes and contrary to his intentions."
The former theory, that Rhodes instigated the raid and then disavowed it when it failed, is the one held by all these who object to Rhodes and. the Chartered Company, and their policy in South Africa. It is the theory of Mr. Hofmeyr and: President Kriiger, and the Transvaal Boers, and the Continental Press; and Mr. Verschoyle owns that there is a strong primd facie case against Rhodes. "Jameson was' the trusted representative and close personal friend of Rhodes, and Jameson had for some time before his ill-starred_enterprise been concentrating men and munitions of war at Pitsani and Mafeking, close to the Transvaal frontier." ''his cannot have been dove without the approval of the. managing director of the Chartered Company, Rhodes; and the invitation to Jameson to come to the-aid of the down-trodden Johannesburgers, which was published by the Tintes with'such suspicious promptitude, was signed by men more or less connected with Rhodes, one of them being his own: brother, Colonel Rhodes; and the centre of the agitation at Johannesburg was the office of the Goldfields of South Africa, of which Rhodes is the head and his: brother the local manager. Added to this is the argument "that Jameson's character and achievements, his-shrewdness; foresight, and practical ability, established by his record of excellent work accomplished in administration in Rhodesia and in action against Lobengula, make it highly improbable that he would stake so much on a venture that had not the full knowledge and approval of Rhodes." Presuming, then, that Jameson was Rhodes, what were the latter's motives for dispatching the raiders? Here again there' are' two theories—Mr. Gladstone would doubtless find three—one, that Rhodes was anxious to help the Rand capitalists to throw off the yoke of the Boers and get a more liberal government; the other, that he knew there was no gold in Matabeleland, Mashonaland or Monica, and was therefore anxious to get hold of the Rand to save the Chartered Company from bankruptoy. Having thus given the heads of the charge against Rhodes, Mr. Verschoyle proceeds to summarise the evidence against the theory of the complicity of Rhodes and against the motives assigned for it. First, the force that Jameson concentrated on the 'l'ransvaal frontier was primarily intended for the protection of the railway and the transcontinental telegraph. But it was generally known that there was a great deal of uneasiness at Johannesburg, and that the British there might want assistance. Mr. Chamberlain knew and approved of the concentration of this force at Mafeking. A: similar concentration at the same spot took place in 1894 in view of an expected outbreak at Johannesburg. "This, which was done by the High Commissioner in 1894, was a perfectly proper course, and was exactly what Rhodes did in similar circumstances, Again, the invitation to Jameson to aid Johannesburg, should disturbance arise, came, it is undeniable, from the leading men of the Rand, including Rhodes's brother. But there was no secret in the fact that the chief men in Johannesburg were connected with Rhodes and appealed to him to help them, nor even in the fact that Rhodes sympathised with and aided the constitutional agitation, and if it had resulted in an attack on Johannesburg by the Boer Commandoes, would have been willing to make some sacrifices and run some risk to safeguard the English population there." Itis granted, then that Rhodes knew all about the preparations that Jameson was making; ut is he actually responsible for the raid itself Up to the time of the raid the work of Rhodes has been marked by "the most extraordinary foresight, the most sagacious calculation of the probable course of events, the most caus tious and laborious working out of details, the most painstaking provision against the possibilities of failure." He has, in fact, like the great Carnot, organised victory. All those signs were wanting in Jameson's raid. It is difficult to believe that Jameson made such a fiasco; it is incredible that Rhodes has anything to do with it. Such aroid was bound to ruin Rhodes's life-work. If there had been an outbreak at Johannesburg, and the lives of the British there bad been in real danger, Jameson's intervention to preserve life and property, so long as he also respected' the independence of the South African Republic, would have been excused by the Dutch at the Cape. he Chartered Company is very far from being bankrupt, and the gold mines in Rhodesia are proved to be of great prospective importance. There was no reason, then, for Rhodes to authorise the raid. It is probable that Jameson thought that Johannesburg was actually in a state of revolution, that the British there wanted help, and that, unless he hurried, the Boers would block his advance. It was madness, as the event shows, to invade the T'ransvaal with five hundred men, but it was the madness of a hero; Dr. Jameson thought it "a matter of humanity and racial duty to the English in Johannesburg " to go to their assistance, even with an entirely inadequate force.
Mr. Verschoyle goes on to point out that such raids have been perpetrated several times successfully by the Boers and are not thought nearly so much of in South Africa as they are in England and he discusses the position in which the raid and its consequences leave the reputations of Rhodes and Jameson. As to the latter, his reputation for foresight, calculation, caution, and statesmanlike capacity is gone. As to Rhodes, "it leaves him—a pathetic figure—shora of his practically despotic political power, the whole fabric of his life work in politics actually in ruins, detested by the Cape Dutch, whom he had won completely, and who a few weeks ago trusted him implicitly, And this crushing blow has been dealt—as if under the guidance of relentless fate—by the loyal hand of a devoted friend, who desired only to save his chief by his action. It is impossible for any one, even a generous enemy, to repress a feeling of compassion."
Will the truth ever be known? The chief members of the Reform Committee have pleaded guilty at Pretoria, thus suppressing the evidence that would have been given there. Will Dr. Jameson and his followers also plead guilty when their trial comes on in London 2
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.