THE AFTERMATH OF THE RAID

Toward the close of the last chapter I referred to the Raid passing from the forefront of public memory.  But though, as a fact, it became blurred in the mind of the people, as a factor in South African history its influence by no means diminished.  Indeed, the aftermath of the Raid assumed far greater proportions as time went on.  It influenced so entirely the further destinies of South Africa, and brought about such enmities and such bitterness along with it, that nothing short of a war could have washed away its impressions.  Up to that fatal adventure the Jingo English elements, always viewed with distrust and dislike in the Transvaal as well as at the Cape, had been more or less held back in their desire to gain an ascendancy over the Dutch population, whilst the latter had accepted the Jingo as a necessary evil devoid of real importance, and only annoying from time to time.

After the Raid all the Jingoes who had hoped that its results would be to give them greater facilities of enrichment considered themselves personally aggrieved by its failure.  They did just what Rhodes was always doing.  The Boers and President Kruger had acted correctly in this enterprise of Doctor Jameson, but the Jingoes made them responsible for the results of its failure.  They went about giving expression to feelings of the most violent hatred against the Boers, and railed at their wickedness in daring to stand up in defence of rights which the British Government had solemnly recognised.  It became quite useless to tell those misguided individuals that the Cabinet at Westminster had from the very first blamed Rhodes for his share in what the English Press, with but few exceptions, had declared to be an entirely disgraceful episode.  They pretended that people in London knew nothing about the true state of affairs in South Africa or the necessities of the country; that the British Government had always shown deplorable weakness in regard to the treatment meted out to its subjects in the Colonies, and that both Rhodes and Jameson were heroes whose names deserved to be handed down to posterity for the services which they had rendered to their country.

It is true that these ardent Jingoes were but a small minority and that the right-minded elements among the English Colonials universally blamed the unwarranted attack that had been made against the independence of the Transvaal.  But the truculent minority shouted loud enough to drown the censure, and as, with a few notable exceptions, the South African Press was under the influence of the magnates, it was not very easy to protest against the strange way in which the Raid was being excused.  I am persuaded that, had the subject been allowed to drop, it would have died a natural death, or at worst been considered as an historical blunder.  But the partisans of Rhodes, the friends of Jameson, and personages connected with the leading financial powers did their best to