The Capitalists at this time certainly kept well in the background, in order that the movement might have the appearance of being a popular one. The Capitalists of Johannesburg were, however, a theatrical lot, and the desire to play a prominent _rôle_ was too intense to be suppressed for any length of time, so that after the lapse of a couple of years they naturally took the leading part in the _opera bouffe_ agitation which followed.
[Sidenote: Corruption of the Capitalists.]
They began, by means of the lowest and most repulsive methods, to undermine the Boer policy in order to gain the mastery of the mining legislation and administration. They had persuaded themselves and the rest of the world that the Boers were as a body corrupt and tainted, so they armed themselves, with the power of money in order to overthrow them.
Lionel Phillips wrote in this spirit on the 16th June, 1894, to Beit in London:--[30] "I may here say that, as you of course know, I have no desire for political rights, and believe as a whole that the community is not ambitious in this respect. The bewaarplaatsen question will, I think, be settled in our favour, but at a cost of about £25,000. It is proposed to spend a good deal of money in order to secure a better Raad, but it must be remembered that the spending of money on elections has, by recent legislation, been made a criminal offence, and the matter will have to be carefully handled."
On the 15th July, 1894, he wrote again to the same correspondent:--[31] "Our trump card is a fund of £10--15,000 to improve the Raad. Unfortunately the companies have no secret service fund. I must divine away. We don't want to shell out ourselves."
Here we catch a glimpse behind the scenes, and we observe how the Capitalists in 1894 had already endeavoured to lower and vitiate our public life by methods which did not even recoil before the criminal law of the land, to say nothing of elementary morality.
And did they succeed? Were the people and the Volksraad as corrupt as they thought, and as they still endeavour to make the world believe? Their failure is the best and most complete answer to this calumny.
If corruption on a large scale, however, failed to ensure the triumph of Capitalism over the community, the other trump card of Jingoism still remained. The pulse of the High Commissioner was felt by Mr. Lionel Phillips, and what was the answer of Sir Henry Loch, Her Majesty's representative in South Africa? We extract from the same secret letter book from which we have already quoted the following letter, dated 1st July, addressed to Wernher, a member of the influential firm of Wernher, Beit & Co.:--