D. P. Faure was a Cape Colony journalist and politician who, in 1899, came forward as the only surviving non-party witness to the conferences that produced the London Convention of 1884 between Britain and the South African Republic (Transvaal). His testimony, set out in an open letter to Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 28 May 1899, occupies a prominent place in the twelfth and final appendix of Van der Kemp’s article on the Acheh agreement of 1819. Van der Kemp uses Faure’s evidence to draw an explicit parallel between the British handling of the Transvaal suzerainty question in 1884 and the Dutch handling of the Acheh reservation in the treaty of 1824.
Background to the letter
By 1899 the question whether Great Britain still possessed suzerainty over the Transvaal — and whether that suzerainty had been abolished by the London Convention of 1884 — had become, in Faure’s words, “a burning question of the day” threatening the peace of South Africa. The build-up to the Second Boer War was well under way. Faure, who had served as interpreter and companion to the Transvaal deputation of 1883, judged it his duty to break a long silence and place his recollections on the record. As he emphasised, all the British representatives at the conferences were by then dead; only President Kruger, a colleague and a secretary survived on the Boer side, and they were interested parties. Faure presented himself as “the only surviving non-interested witness”.
Faure’s testimony
Faure recounted that he had been asked by Lord Derby — on the advice of Lord Rosmead, then Sir Hercules Robinson — to accompany the Transvaal deputation of 1883 and to act as its interpreter. He was thus present at all the conferences between the Transvaal representatives and those of the imperial government. The British side consisted of Lord Derby, Sir Robert Herbert and Sir Hercules Robinson; Sir Evelyn Ashley was, Faure believed, present on one or two occasions.
The most contentious issue at the conferences was the abolition of British suzerainty. The Transvaal representatives attached the greatest importance to its removal. Lord Derby and Sir Hercules Robinson, by contrast, regarded the matter as one of little substance. Sir Hercules told Faure in private conversation that he could not understand why President Kruger was so eager to see suzerainty abolished: even if it did not exist, Britain would never allow the Transvaal to conclude treaties with foreign powers that it judged harmful to its own interests. Lord Derby, for his part, observed at one of the conferences that the deputation was “making a mountain out of a molehill” over suzerainty, but resisted the inclusion of an article explicitly repealing Britain’s suzerain rights, because he had no wish to put weapons into the hands of the parliamentary opposition.
The convention of 1884 and its aftermath
The result, Faure testified, was that both parties clearly understood and agreed that Britain’s suzerainty would be abolished, except to the extent provided in Article 4 of the London Convention that was afterwards signed. The Transvaal deputation left London fully satisfied with the outcome of its mission, except with regard to the new frontier line. Faure supported his recollection by quoting from an article he had written in the Volksblad — a Dutch-language Cape paper of which he was then the editor — on 17 April 1884, immediately after his return from London: “Last but not least, suzerainty is abolished. This, we understood, was the view of the Transvaal republicans; and this, the most painful of their grievances, has now been removed.”
Faure further cited an interview that the editor of the Saturday Review had conducted with Lord Rosmead and which that journal published after Rosmead’s death on 3 November 1896. Asked whether suzerainty was really included in the convention of 1884, Rosmead had replied: “Well, I ought to know, because I designed that convention; the concept of suzerainty was withdrawn and the word deliberately omitted. Kruger was not satisfied with the convention of 1881; Britain’s claim of suzerainty was based on it, and we intended in 1884 to withdraw that claim.”
Significance for Acheh studies
Van der Kemp reproduces Faure’s letter at length because it offers a striking parallel to the Dutch experience with the treaty of 1824. In both cases a stipulation originally “proposed as of no significance” — the Acheh reservation in 1824, the omission of the word “suzerainty” in 1884 — was later treated by the stronger party as if it were decisive of the legal position. In both cases, also, the weaker party’s understanding of the bargain was recorded in private conversations and unminuted conferences that only an interested survivor could later place on the record. Faure’s letter thus furnished Van der Kemp with a tightly argued comparative case from contemporary imperial politics, on which to hang his indictment of British handling of the Acheh question.
See Also
- Lord Derby
- Sir Hercules Robinson
- Sir Robert Herbert
- Sir Evelyn Ashley
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.
D. P. Faure was a Cape Colony journalist and politician who, in 1899, came forward as the only surviving non-party witness to the conferences that produced the London Convention of 1884 between Britain and the South African Republic (Transvaal). His testimony, set out in an open letter to Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 28 May 1899, occupies a prominent place in the twelfth and final appendix of Van der Kemp’s article on the Acheh agreement of 1819. Van der Kemp uses Faure’s evidence to draw an explicit parallel between the British handling of the Transvaal suzerainty question in 1884 and the Dutch handling of the Acheh reservation in the treaty of 1824.
Background to the letter
By 1899 the question whether Great Britain still possessed suzerainty over the Transvaal — and whether that suzerainty had been abolished by the London Convention of 1884 — had become, in Faure’s words, “a burning question of the day” threatening the peace of South Africa. The build-up to the Second Boer War was well under way. Faure, who had served as interpreter and companion to the Transvaal deputation of 1883, judged it his duty to break a long silence and place his recollections on the record. As he emphasised, all the British representatives at the conferences were by then dead; only President Kruger, a colleague and a secretary survived on the Boer side, and they were interested parties. Faure presented himself as “the only surviving non-interested witness”.
Faure’s testimony
Faure recounted that he had been asked by Lord Derby — on the advice of Lord Rosmead, then Sir Hercules Robinson — to accompany the Transvaal deputation of 1883 and to act as its interpreter. He was thus present at all the conferences between the Transvaal representatives and those of the imperial government. The British side consisted of Lord Derby, Sir Robert Herbert and Sir Hercules Robinson; Sir Evelyn Ashley was, Faure believed, present on one or two occasions.
The most contentious issue at the conferences was the abolition of British suzerainty. The Transvaal representatives attached the greatest importance to its removal. Lord Derby and Sir Hercules Robinson, by contrast, regarded the matter as one of little substance. Sir Hercules told Faure in private conversation that he could not understand why President Kruger was so eager to see suzerainty abolished: even if it did not exist, Britain would never allow the Transvaal to conclude treaties with foreign powers that it judged harmful to its own interests. Lord Derby, for his part, observed at one of the conferences that the deputation was “making a mountain out of a molehill” over suzerainty, but resisted the inclusion of an article explicitly repealing Britain’s suzerain rights, because he had no wish to put weapons into the hands of the parliamentary opposition.
The convention of 1884 and its aftermath
The result, Faure testified, was that both parties clearly understood and agreed that Britain’s suzerainty would be abolished, except to the extent provided in Article 4 of the London Convention that was afterwards signed. The Transvaal deputation left London fully satisfied with the outcome of its mission, except with regard to the new frontier line. Faure supported his recollection by quoting from an article he had written in the Volksblad — a Dutch-language Cape paper of which he was then the editor — on 17 April 1884, immediately after his return from London: “Last but not least, suzerainty is abolished. This, we understood, was the view of the Transvaal republicans; and this, the most painful of their grievances, has now been removed.”
Faure further cited an interview that the editor of the Saturday Review had conducted with Lord Rosmead and which that journal published after Rosmead’s death on 3 November 1896. Asked whether suzerainty was really included in the convention of 1884, Rosmead had replied: “Well, I ought to know, because I designed that convention; the concept of suzerainty was withdrawn and the word deliberately omitted. Kruger was not satisfied with the convention of 1881; Britain’s claim of suzerainty was based on it, and we intended in 1884 to withdraw that claim.”
Significance for Acheh studies
Van der Kemp reproduces Faure’s letter at length because it offers a striking parallel to the Dutch experience with the treaty of 1824. In both cases a stipulation originally “proposed as of no significance” — the Acheh reservation in 1824, the omission of the word “suzerainty” in 1884 — was later treated by the stronger party as if it were decisive of the legal position. In both cases, also, the weaker party’s understanding of the bargain was recorded in private conversations and unminuted conferences that only an interested survivor could later place on the record. Faure’s letter thus furnished Van der Kemp with a tightly argued comparative case from contemporary imperial politics, on which to hang his indictment of British handling of the Acheh question.
See Also
- Lord Derby
- Sir Hercules Robinson
- Sir Robert Herbert
- Sir Evelyn Ashley
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.