Lord Milner's Work in South Africa: From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902Worsfold, W. Basil (William Basil)
History
Lord Milner's Work in South Africa: From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902
Worsfold, W. Basil (William Basil)
Milner, Alfred Milner, Viscount, 1854-1925; South African War, 1899-1902
British party thus formed adopted the title of "Progressives." The
Ministry knew, of course, that any such measure would be displeasing
to Mr. Hofmeyr; but Sir Gordon Sprigg, being now assured of the almost
united support of the British members in the Colonial Parliament,
resolved to bring forward a Redistribution Bill. The draft Bill was
approved by the Executive Council on May 13th, and Dr. Te Water, Mr.
Hofmeyr's representative in the Ministry, thereupon resigned.[38]
[Footnote 38: He was succeeded in the Colonial Secretaryship
by Dr. Smartt, a former member of the Bond, but now a
Progressive, and at the same time Sir Thomas Upington, who
had resigned from ill-health, was succeeded by Mr. T.
Lynedoch Graham, as Attorney-General.]
[Sidenote: Redistribution.]
Sir Gordon Sprigg had now done a thing unprecedented in the
parliamentary history of the Cape Colony in the last fifteen years. He
had defied the Bond. He knew that the Bond was quite able to turn his
Ministry out of Office. But he had made up his mind, in this event, to
throw in his lot with the Progressive party, of which Mr. Rhodes was
the actual chief. Mr. Hofmeyr did not leave him long in doubt. On the
resignation of Dr. Te Water all the Bond artillery was at once turned
on to the Ministry. On May 31st Mr. Schreiner gave notice of a vote of
"no confidence." It was put off until June 13th, and in the meantime
the second reading of the Redistribution Bill was met by the "previous
question" moved by Mr. Theron, the Chairman of the Provincial Council
of the Bond. No attempt was made, either in Parliament or in the
Press, to conceal the fact that, under the question of redistribution,
wider and more momentous issues were at stake. The counts in the
Bond's indictment of the Ministry, as set out in _Ons Land_, were (1)
its Imperialist tendencies as evidenced by the proposed gift of a
warship to the British Navy; and (2) its lack of sympathy with the
South African Republic. Against these crimes it had nothing to place,
except that it had permitted the employment of the captured Bechuanas,
as indentured labourers[39]--its sole merit, in the opinion of the
Bond journal. _The Cape Times_, on the other hand, declared with equal
frankness that the real point to be decided was, whether the interests
of President Krüger and the South African Republic, or those of the
Cape Colony, as part of the British Empire, had the greater claim upon
the Government and Parliament of the Colony. And Mr. Schreiner, when,
on June 13th, he introduced the "no confidence" motion, asked the
House to condemn the Ministry on the ground that it had not shown any
"sympathy" with, or made any "conciliatory approach" towards, the
"sister Republic." On Monday, June 20th, the second reading of the
Redistribution Bill was carried by a majority of seven, but two days
later, June 22nd, the Ministry found itself in a minority of five on
Mr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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