Cover of Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain A Documentary Perspective Of The Causes Of The War In South Africa — A Reader’s Guide

Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain A Documentary Perspective Of The Causes Of The War In South Africa — A Reader’s Guide

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Authors: Williams, Hugh, 1873-1902 [Editor], Hicks, Frederick C. (Frederick Charles), 1875- [Editor] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2005 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Transvaal (South Africa) -- History -- 1880-1910; Transvaal (South Africa) -- Foreign relations -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- South Africa -- Transvaal Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 21,814

Reading time 95 min

Text sections 3

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #17136

An editorial analysis of the editors' choices in compiling official documents from the South African Republic and Great Britain, focusing on diction, structure, and selection criteria that shape the documentary record of the war's causes.

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CONVENTION OF LONDON, _February 27, 1884_.

_A Convention Between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the South African Republic._

Whereas, The Government of the Transvaal State, through its Delegates, consisting of Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, President of the said State, Stephanus Jacobus Du Toit, Superintendent of Education, and Nicholas Jacobus Smit, a member of the Volksraad, have represented that the Convention signed at Pretoria on the 3rd day of August 1881, and ratified by the Volksraad of the said State on the 25th October 1881, contains certain provisions which are inconvenient, and imposes burdens and obligations from which the said State is desirous to be relieved, and that the southwestern boundaries fixed by the said Convention should be amended, with a view to promote the peace and good order of the said State, and of the countries adjacent thereto; and whereas, Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, has been pleased to take the said representations into consideration: Now, therefore, Her Majesty has been pleased to direct, and it is hereby declared, that the following articles of a new Convention, signed on behalf of Her Majesty by Her Majesty's High Commissioner in South Africa, the Right Honorable Sir Hercules George Robert Robinson, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and on behalf of the Transvaal State (which shall hereinafter be called the South African Republic) by the above named Delegates, Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, Stephanus Jacobus Du Toit, and Nicholas Jacobus Smit, shall, when ratified by the Volksraad of the South African Republic, be substituted for the articles embodied in the Convention of 3rd August 1881; which latter, pending such ratification, shall continue in full force and effect.

(Articles I and II relate entirely to the settlement of the boundary lines of the Republic.)

If a British officer is appointed to reside at Pretoria or elsewhere within the South African Republic to discharge functions analogous to those of a Consular officer, he will receive the protection and assistance of the Republic.

The South African Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe to the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same has been approved by Her Majesty the Queen.

Such approval shall be considered to have been granted if Her Majesty's Government shall not, within six months after receiving a copy of such treaty (which shall be delivered to them immediately upon its completion), have notified that the conclusion of such treaty is in conflict with the interests of Great Britain or any of Her Majesty's possessions in South Africa.

The South African Republic will be liable for any balance which may still remain due of the debts for which it was liable at the date of Annexation, to wit, the Cape Commercial Bank Loan, the Railway Loan, and the Orphan Chamber Debt, which debts shall be a first charge upon the revenues of the Republic. The South African Republic will moreover be liable to Her Majesty's Government for £250,000, which will be a second charge upon the revenues of the Republic.

The debt due as aforesaid by the South African Republic to Her Majesty's Government will bear interest at the rate of three and a half per cent. from the date of the ratification of this Convention, and shall be repayable by a payment for interest and Sinking Fund of six pounds and nine pence per £100 per annum, which will extinguish the debt in twenty-five years. The said payment of six pounds and nine pence per £100 shall be payable half yearly, in British currency, at the close of each half year from the date of such ratification: _Provided always_, That the South African Republic shall be at liberty at the close of any half-year to pay off the whole or any portion of the outstanding debt.

Interest at the rate of three and a half per cent. on the debt as standing under the Convention of Pretoria shall as heretofore be paid to the date of the ratification of this Convention.

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The editors Hugh Williams and Frederick Charles Hicks frame their compilation as a response to "universal interest" in South African affairs, yet their preface reveals deliberate curatorial decisions. They acknowledge omitting "many important documents" to avoid "cumbersomeness," prioritizing a series they deem "complete" and "logical." The arrangement begins with the London Convention of 1884, which defines the Republic's status, then moves through constitutional revisions and franchise laws, culminating in President Kruger's ultimatum. This structure implicitly argues that legal and political documents—not military skirmishes—constitute the war's primary causes.

Diction of Authority and Exclusion

The editors' language in the preface reveals a stance of scholarly neutrality that nonetheless shapes interpretation. They describe the documents as "illustrative of the South African controversy," a phrase that frames the conflict as a matter of debate rather than aggression. The term "Uitlander population" appears without definition, assuming reader familiarity with the Dutch-derived term for foreign residents. In the Constitution of 1889, Article 14 excludes "coloured person or bastard" from eligibility, using blunt racial language that the editors do not gloss. The preface's claim that the compilation meets "immediate demands of the public" suggests an urgency that aligns with the editors' own time—the war had ended only a few years before publication in 1905.

Structural Choices: Chronology as Argument

The editors state their arrangement is "partly chronological, and we hope altogether logical." This logic is itself a rhetorical choice: by starting with the London Convention of 1884, they establish a baseline of agreed-upon status, against which later documents appear as deviations. The inclusion of the Orange Free State's declaration and constitution extends the frame beyond bilateral relations, implying a broader Dutch solidarity. The editors note that Kruger "knew that the Republic would not have to fight alone," a claim that colors the ultimatum as calculated rather than desperate. The selection omits British correspondence that might contextualize troop movements, focusing instead on Republican legislation and diplomatic notes.

The Franchise as a Recurring Flashpoint

The excerpts repeatedly return to voting rights as a technical and political issue. Article 9 of the 1889 Constitution grants franchise for the First Volksraad to burghers by birth or those with ten years' eligibility for the Second Volksraad—a high bar. Article 16 requires members of the Second Volksraad to have been "enfranchised burgher during the two immediately preceding years" and own fixed property. The editors highlight the law of June 23, 1890, which granted representation to burghers of two years' standing, and the enactment of July 1899 as the "latest legislation" on franchise. This progression suggests that the editors see the franchise dispute as central to the conflict, yet they provide no commentary on whether these laws were implemented or contested.

Silences and Sources

The editors cite three sources: the Codex van de Locale Wetten, The Political Laws of the South African Republic, and British State Papers. They do not explain why certain documents were chosen over others, nor do they address the absence of Afrikaner perspectives outside official channels. The preface notes that documents were "by no means unobtainable" but "hitherto quite inaccessible" to general readers, positioning the volume as a democratizing tool. Yet the selection's reliance on legal texts—constitutions, conventions, ultimatums—privileges state actors over popular sentiment. The editors' own institutional affiliations (Library of Congress) and academic titles (M.A., Ph.B.) lend authority but also suggest a metropolitan, Anglophone audience.

Readers should approach this collection as a curated archive, not a neutral record. The editors' decisions about what to include and exclude—and how to order it—constitute an implicit argument about causation. Comparing the documents here with contemporaneous British parliamentary papers or Boer commando reports would reveal further layers of selection. The volume is most valuable as a primary source for understanding how early 20th-century American librarians and scholars framed the South African War for a domestic audience.

I keep thinking about how the editors’ quiet choices in the South African documents shaped what we see of that conflict, and it reminded me of something softer—the way snow records footsteps in Rogers' Rock, Lake George, March 13, 1758: A Battle Fought on Snow Shoes — Themes and Context. Both left me with a strange tenderness for what’s left unsaid between the lines.