d stirring the whole together and
pouring it into my own (prejudiced) moulds, I have got at the truth of
that puzzling South African situation, which is this:

1. The capitalists and other chief men of Johannesburg were fretting
under various political and financial burdens imposed by the State (the
South African Republic, sometimes called "the Transvaal") and desired to
procure by peaceful means a modification of the laws.

2. Mr. Cecil Rhodes, Premier of the British Cape Colony, millionaire,
creator and managing director of the territorially-immense and
financially unproductive South Africa Company; projector of vast schemes
for the unification and consolidation of all the South African States,
one imposing commonwealth or empire under the shadow and general
protection of the British flag, thought he saw an opportunity to make
profitable use of the Uitlander discontent above mentioned--make the
Johannesburg cat help pull out one of his consolidation chestnuts for
him. With this view he set himself the task of warming the lawful and
legitimate petitions and supplications of the Uitlanders into seditious
talk, and their frettings into threatenings--the final outcome to be
revolt and armed rebellion. If he could bring about a bloody collision
between those people and the Boer government, Great Britain would have to
interfere; her interference would be resisted by the Boers; she would
chastise them and add the Transvaal to her South African possessions. It
was not a foolish idea, but a rational and practical one.

After a couple of years of judicious plotting, Mr. Rhodes had his reward;
the revolutionary kettle was briskly boiling in Johannesburg, and the
Uitlander leaders were backing their appeals to the government--now
hardened into demands--by threats of force and bloodshed. By the middle
of December, 1895, the explosion seemed imminent. Mr. Rhodes was
diligently helping, from his distant post in Cape Town. He was helping
to procure arms for Johannesburg; he was also arranging to have Jameson
break over the border and come to Johannesburg with 600 mounted men at
his back. Jameson--as per instructions from Rhodes, perhaps--wanted a
letter from the Reformers requesting him to come to their aid. It was a
good idea. It would throw a considerable share of the responsibility of
his invasion upon the Reformers. He got the letter--that famous one
urging him to fly to the rescue of the women and children. He got