Later on Mr. Schoeman was cleared of the calumnies that had been the cause of his suffering.  In this case, as in many others, the victim was the object of the private vengeance of a man who had had a grudge against him, and repaid it in that abominable manner.

One of the worst mistakes among the many committed during the South African War was to allow residents to be invested with what was nothing less than unlimited authority over their fellow-citizens.  The British Government, which was made responsible for these acts, would never have given its sanction to any one of them; mostly, it was unaware of the original facts.  The English military authorities dealt in absolute good faith, which makes the more shameful the conduct of those who wilfully led them into error.  Their one fault was not to realise that certain individuals were not fit to administer martial law.  In one particular district the man in authority seemed to have as the single aim of his life the punishment of anyone with Dutch sympathies or of Dutch blood.  It was useless to appeal to him, because whenever a complaint was brought by an inhabitant of the district he simply refused to listen to it, and poured a torrent of abuse at the head of the bringer.  One of his most notorious actions was the treatment which, by his orders, was inflicted on an old man who enjoyed the general esteem of both the English and the Dutch community, a former member of the House of Assembly.  His house was searched, the floors were taken up, and the whole garden was dug out of recognition in a search for documents that might have proved that his son, or himself, or any other member of his family had been in correspondence with the two Republics.  All this kind of thing was done on hearsay evidence, behind which lay personal motives.  Had the settlement of the country been left entirely in the hands of Lord Kitchener, nothing approaching what I have related could have occurred.  Unfortunately for all concerned, this was precisely the thing which the Rhodesian and other interests opposed.  Much of the loyalty, about which such a fuss was made at the Cape, was loyalty to the sovereign in the pocket, and not loyalty to the Sovereign on the throne.  This concern for wealth was seen in many aspects of life in South Africa, and occasionally invaded drastically the realm of social well-being.  A case in point was the opposition by the financial interests to a tax on brandy.  In South Africa drunkenness was one of the worst evils, especially among the coloured race, yet the restrictive influence of a tax was withheld.  The underlying motive was nothing but the desire to avoid the tax on diamonds, which every reasonable person claimed and considered to be a source of revenue of which the Government had no right to deprive itself.  While Rhodes lived the legislation introduced and maintained by his powerful personality revealed the policy of compromise which he always pursued.  He was eminently practical and businesslike.  He said to the members of the Bond, “Don’t you tax diamonds and I won’t tax dop,” as the Cape brandy is called.  The compact was made and kept in his lifetime.