Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) was a British statesman who served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 to 1903. He is mentioned twice in P. H. van der Kemp’s article of 1900: in the main text and in Appendix 12, where he is the addressee of a letter of 28 May 1899 by D. P. Faure on the Transvaal suzerainty question.
Faure’s letter of 28 May 1899
Faure’s letter was published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 28 May 1899, and Van der Kemp reproduces it as Bijlage 12 of his article. It is addressed to “minister Chamberlain,” and opens with the warning that the question whether Great Britain still possessed suzerainty over the South African Republic — or whether that suzerainty had been abolished by the London Convention — was “rapidly taking the form of a burning question of the day” and might “perhaps have the consequence that the peace of South Africa is placed in danger.” Faure, “under these circumstances,” judged it his duty to say a word on the subject to Chamberlain.
Faure had acted as interpreter to the Transvaal deputation received in London in 1883, on the advice of Sir Hercules Robinson and at the request of Lord Derby. He testified, as the only surviving uninterested witness, that it had been clearly understood and agreed by both contracting parties in 1884 that His Majesty’s suzerainty would be abolished, except to the extent laid down in article 4 of the Convention. The testimony was laid before Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, in the hope that publication of the facts “in the future may tend to the maintenance of peace in South Africa.”
The comparative framework
The Faure-Chamberlain correspondence is cited by Van der Kemp as a parallel to the controversies surrounding the Acheh treaty of 1819 and the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824). In both cases — the Transvaal suzerainty and the Sumatra supremacy — a clause inserted for political reasons and at first represented as of no consequence was later invested with decisive weight. In a footnote on page 58, Van der Kemp writes of “the famous question of the suzerainty of England over the Transvaal,” and observes: “There, too, the negotiations over which no minutes were kept, and over a clause originally proposed only for the sake of the ‘opposition’ and otherwise represented as signifying nothing — for which reason the Transvaal acquiesced in it — was finally destined to serve as a war-drum.” The reader is referred to Appendix 12 (the Faure letter).
Van der Kemp’s wider polemic
The point is part of Van der Kemp’s broader argument that, in colonial negotiations with Britain, Dutch statesmen had repeatedly allowed themselves to be manoeuvred into accepting ambiguous language — language later turned against them — by appeals to the supposed pressure of British opposition. Chamberlain himself, although not personally responsible for the original 1884 Convention, was by 1899 the minister who would have to deal with the consequences of the suzerainty controversy, and Faure’s letter was addressed to him as the official who would inherit the unfolding crisis. The crisis culminated, within months of Van der Kemp’s article, in the outbreak of the South African War (October 1899).
See Also
- Paul Kruger
- Lord Shaftesbury
- D. P. Faure
- Lord Derby
- Suzerainty question
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- Faure’s letter on Transvaal suzerainty
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
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.
Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) was a British statesman who served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 to 1903. He is mentioned twice in P. H. van der Kemp’s article of 1900: in the main text and in Appendix 12, where he is the addressee of a letter of 28 May 1899 by D. P. Faure on the Transvaal suzerainty question.
Faure’s letter of 28 May 1899
Faure’s letter was published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 28 May 1899, and Van der Kemp reproduces it as Bijlage 12 of his article. It is addressed to “minister Chamberlain,” and opens with the warning that the question whether Great Britain still possessed suzerainty over the South African Republic — or whether that suzerainty had been abolished by the London Convention — was “rapidly taking the form of a burning question of the day” and might “perhaps have the consequence that the peace of South Africa is placed in danger.” Faure, “under these circumstances,” judged it his duty to say a word on the subject to Chamberlain.
Faure had acted as interpreter to the Transvaal deputation received in London in 1883, on the advice of Sir Hercules Robinson and at the request of Lord Derby. He testified, as the only surviving uninterested witness, that it had been clearly understood and agreed by both contracting parties in 1884 that His Majesty’s suzerainty would be abolished, except to the extent laid down in article 4 of the Convention. The testimony was laid before Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, in the hope that publication of the facts “in the future may tend to the maintenance of peace in South Africa.”
The comparative framework
The Faure-Chamberlain correspondence is cited by Van der Kemp as a parallel to the controversies surrounding the Acheh treaty of 1819 and the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824). In both cases — the Transvaal suzerainty and the Sumatra supremacy — a clause inserted for political reasons and at first represented as of no consequence was later invested with decisive weight. In a footnote on page 58, Van der Kemp writes of “the famous question of the suzerainty of England over the Transvaal,” and observes: “There, too, the negotiations over which no minutes were kept, and over a clause originally proposed only for the sake of the ‘opposition’ and otherwise represented as signifying nothing — for which reason the Transvaal acquiesced in it — was finally destined to serve as a war-drum.” The reader is referred to Appendix 12 (the Faure letter).
Van der Kemp’s wider polemic
The point is part of Van der Kemp’s broader argument that, in colonial negotiations with Britain, Dutch statesmen had repeatedly allowed themselves to be manoeuvred into accepting ambiguous language — language later turned against them — by appeals to the supposed pressure of British opposition. Chamberlain himself, although not personally responsible for the original 1884 Convention, was by 1899 the minister who would have to deal with the consequences of the suzerainty controversy, and Faure’s letter was addressed to him as the official who would inherit the unfolding crisis. The crisis culminated, within months of Van der Kemp’s article, in the outbreak of the South African War (October 1899).
See Also
- Paul Kruger
- Lord Shaftesbury
- D. P. Faure
- Lord Derby
- Suzerainty question
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- Faure’s letter on Transvaal suzerainty
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
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.