The town was like Kimberley, which was in a sense the ‘mother city’. Yet there were marked differences between the two, attributable to different mining techniques and the respective market values of gold and diamonds. In Kimberley’s early days, mining was random and indiscriminate, with countless operators holding claims to parcels of ground of various sizes. Diamonds came out of the ground as a more or less finished product. Those who performed the labour could easily pocket the stones and sell them for their own profit. As the market value of diamonds is determined by demand and supply, the mine operators soon realised they could only keep the selling price at a reasonable level through some form of regulation, mainly by limiting production and supervising their workforce more closely. That was why people like Rhodes wanted to consolidate right from the start. They were helped along by the technological and organisational demands of deep mining. They helped themselves too by imposing increasingly rigorous and ultimately drastic controls. Black miners were subjected to a strip search at the end of the working day. Nose, mouth, armpits, navel, anus, every orifice and every part of the body where diamonds could be concealed was scrutinised. Wounds, potentially self-inflicted, received special attention. A week before their contracts expired, miners were confined to a ‘detention house’, where their hands were shackled and their faeces inspected. If their bowel movements were irregular, they were given laxatives. The object of course was to retrieve any stones they may have ingested. Something like a production line had even been devised to expedite the procedure. Sewage from the latrines passed through several layers of gauze, ranging from coarse to fine, to sort the excreted gems.31
It wasn’t high-tech, but it was symptomatic of the mine bosses’ obsessive efficiency. It took 17 years to transform the chaos of Kimberley’s early days into a slick monopoly. From 1888, De Beers dominated the world trade in diamonds.
Johannesburg’s development was influenced by a different set of factors. From the start, gold mining on the Rand was dependent on raw materials and machinery, in other words, capital and organisation. If for this reason only, land and mining concessions weren’t awarded piecemeal as they were in Kimberley—and labourers couldn’t make off with the end product. It was the diamond magnates from Kimberley who took the lead in forming what were ultimately ten or so mining syndicates, thus achieving fame and fortune as gold barons into the bargain. Johannesburg’s iconic Corner House, with Hermann Eckstein in the saddle, epitomised the power of the Randlords. But the concentration of power never culminated in a monopoly, mainly because of the way gold derives its value. Like diamonds, it is used for jewellery and has various industrial applications, but its principal economic function is to serve as security for the global monetary system. Consigned to the vaults of national banks, gold isn’t subject to the simple market mechanism of demand and supply, which means that monopolies cannot manipulate its price. The only guaranteed way for the mining industry to increase profits is to reduce costs.
Of course, there was another fundamental difference between the two cities, namely their geographical location. The British had drawn Kimberley within the borders of the Cape Colony. Johannesburg was in the heart of the Boer republic of the Transvaal, between Potchefstroom, the former capital, and Pretoria, its successor. The contrast between the two couldn’t have been greater. A nineteenth-century industrial variant of a new Babylon emerged out of nothing in the middle of the grassy pastures of the highveld, an outpost of international big business, where Mammon had taken the place of the Protestant God. Paul Kruger called Johannesburg the city of the devil.32
Even so, the laws of the Transvaal had to be enforced in Johannesburg, like anywhere else. This meant considerably more work for Willem Leyds. He was an attorney not only at the Supreme Court in Pretoria, but also at what were known as circuit courts. As a result of mass immigration to the goldfields, magistrates were spending more of their time in the De Kaap Valley and more still on the Rand. Added to that, a completely new police apparatus had to be formed in Barberton and Johannesburg, including mounted police forces and an intelligence agency.33
The nature of the magistrates’ work was changing as well, from routine misdemeanours like cattle theft to more complex offences. Leyds had a taste of what was to come in the course of 1886, in the case of the State vs Alois Nellmapius. This was a controversial matter, mainly because it involved conflicts of interest up to the highest level. It put Leyds’s professional competence as well as his integrity to the test.
Nellmapius was a Hungarian businessman who had been active in the Transvaal since 1873. He had outstanding connections in the highest circles and was a close friend of Kruger’s. This brought several lucrative contracts his way, including one for the manufacture of gunpowder. But as director of the gunpowder factory he had run into trouble. His superiors in London accused him of using company funds for his personal benefit and laid charges against him in Pretoria. Leyds believed there were sufficient grounds to prosecute Nellmapius—with the consent of the judiciary but to the chagrin of the political authorities.
The dispute escalated. The Executive Council, including President Kruger, was opposed to the case being brought to court. State Secretary Willem Bok, himself a member of the gunpowder factory’s supervisory board, urged that ‘Mr Nellmapius’s friends must be kept on our side’. Many gave in to the pressure, but Leyds held his ground because, as he said, ‘it was simply my duty’. He won the case, which was heard in late September 1886, and Nellmapius ended up behind bars.
But not for long. He was released a few days later on the authority of the Executive Council. The judicial authorities and the business world were outraged. ‘What assurance would one have in future if a judgment can simply be overturned?’ Chief Justice Kotzé immediately had Nellmapius rearrested. The knives were drawn. The Executive Council protested and wanted to discipline Kotzé. Although Kotzé was no friend of Leyds, in Leyds’s opinion he was in the right. He appealed for lenience on Kotzé’s behalf but failed to persuade Kruger. Until one night at a quarter to four, when there was a knock on the Leydses’ door. Their astonishment resounded in the letter Louise wrote home the following morning. ‘It really was the President.’ Kruger had evidently come round to Leyds’s way of thinking. ‘They sat talking in the living room until half past five. W. wrote another letter.’ But Louise had other things to worry about. ‘In the meantime I lay in bed fretting about my carpet and chairs, because, you know, it’s not only wise words that come out of Oom Paul’s mouth, but a spray of saliva too. I was pleasantly surprised that the chairs were spared.’
The politicians won in the end. But thanks to Leyds, Kotzé was able to back down without losing face. Nellmapius was pardoned. The incident tarnished the Transvaal’s reputation for upholding the rule of law, but the state attorney came out with flying colours. Leyds had shouldered his responsibility and acquitted himself with integrity. He no longer needed to wear a beard to win respect. He expressed his pride to his father-in-law. ‘N’s conviction was a huge triumph for me and, between you and me, it has enhanced my prestige.’34
The Nellmapius affair played an important role in Leyds’s decision about his own future. In early April 1886, he and Louise had opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the completion of the first half of his contract period. They were missing Holland, more than ever perhaps after the loss of their first son at the age of only five months. By the end of the year, however, there was no longer any question of them returning to the Netherlands. The Nellmapius affair could well have become a breaking point. Leyds might have thrown in the towel out of contempt for the Boer leaders’ nepotism. But he didn’t. Nor was his relationship with wheelerdealer Kruger irreparably harmed. At 27, Leyds was still a youngster by Transvaal standards, but he had proved his mettle in a politically sensitive post. He had taken an independent stand, diametrically opposed to the president’s, and been vindicated by Kruger’s meek apology in the middle of the night. Leyds must have found this sufficiently gratifying both
professionally and personally, to turn a blind eye to the Boers’ all too obvious shortcomings.35
It would be no exaggeration to say that by the end of 1886, Leyds had been won over to the Boer cause. This emerges firstly from his reaction to two royal distinctions conferred on him in November, one by the Portuguese government, the other by Great Britain. He accepted the knighthood from Portugal without reservation. From then on, he was entitled to wear the decorations of a Knight of the Royal Order of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa. But he declined a knighthood as Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, a distinction of equivalent rank, just as Kruger had turned down the Great Cross in the same Order. Unlike the president of the Orange Free State, Johannes Brand, they refused to compromise themselves for the sake of a British medal. Considering all they would have to endure in their dealings with the United Kingdom in the future, the titles ‘Sir Paul’ and ‘Sir William’ would have left a bitter taste in the mouth.36
Even more compelling evidence of Leyds’s enhanced prestige and his solidarity with the Boer cause came in December 1886. The setting was Paardekraal, just west of the fledgling Johannesburg. This was where the signal had been given for an armed uprising against the British in December 1880. A four-day festival held there a year later to commemorate the event had attracted huge crowds. The 12,000 Boers who attended enjoyed a programme of entertainments as well as a pious homily. Kruger delivered a stirring speech about God’s mysterious ways: the victory at Blood River in 1838, the expulsion of the Ndebele from the Transvaal after independence in 1852, the return to freedom earlier that year. All of this, according to Kruger, bore witness to the Lord’s abiding benevolence. The Boers, he believed, were a chosen people. The gathering had all the hallmarks of an invented tradition, culminating in the celebration of Dingane’s Day on 16 December.37
Five years later, in December 1886, thousands of Boers and their families converged on Paardekraal once more for another incongruous mix of market, entertainment and worship. Willem and Louise Leyds were there as well. Louise was amazed at the number of oxwagons—11,000 and more—the ‘city of tents’, as sprawling as Pretoria, the stone monument and the stage in the centre. This time, too, there was ‘much fun and festivity’. Most of all, Louise enjoyed the fireworks, the shooting gallery and the band. Her only complaint was ‘the complete absence of certain indispensable facilities, which was particularly inconvenient because so many people were present’. Willem was preoccupied with weightier matters. He had the honour of addressing the gathering, which he did with genuine empathy. As if born and bred on the highveld, he spoke of the many tribulations ‘our people’ have endured. ‘For that we give thanks to the Almighty.’ All their ‘adversaries among people, among animals and in nature’ had given the Boers the opportunity to prove their worth. Moreover, the experience had been edifying. ‘All of this was an instrument in God’s hands. It was uplifting.’ The Boer leaders in particular, he believed, had been chastened by their perpetual ‘struggle for freedom and justice . . . Beset by peril and firmly committed to the rights of this nation and this Republic, with God’s help they have learned the lessons of experience.’38
The bridge had been crossed. Willem Leyds had taken sides, at a remarkable time and in a remarkable place. The symbolism was obvious. Paardekraal and Johannesburg, December 1886. Two tented camps, less than 25 kilometres apart. Two cities bustling with life and energy, yet the difference couldn’t have been greater. Paardekraal epitomised the old Transvaal, where they honoured tradition, erected cairns to commemorate a cherished past, praised the Lord for the afflictions He had sent to try them, amused themselves with Bengal fireworks and departed by oxwagon a few days later, each to his own and to his own remote farmstead. See you in five years’ time! And hopefully nothing will have changed.
In Johannesburg, a new Transvaal was shooting up at a furious pace. Here, everyone’s gaze was fixed on the future. They were just waiting for the dynamite, coal and steam machines to arrive. The mountains of gold they had been dreaming of were finally there, and the whole world was jostling to share in the bounty. It just kept on growing. Canvas, reed and clay were replaced with wood, iron and stone. Liquor flowed in abundance, women were available for money. And this in the very same state. It couldn’t last. The two worlds were bound to collide.
The first more or less official clash between old and new occurred two months later, in February 1887. President Kruger was visiting Johannesburg to see for himself and form his own impression of the newcomers to his territory. He wasn’t pleased. He was given a warm reception, that wasn’t the problem, but he was also presented with a long list of demands: a daily postal service, a local council, a special court for concession disputes, lower taxes and representation in the Volksraad. The president snapped back. This was all too fast. There was only one law in the Transvaal and everyone had to obey it, he warned. That applied to Johannesburg too. Change takes time. One has to consider things carefully.39
At least he knew he could count on the support of his state attorney for some time to come. It was clear that Leyds had found his place at the president’s side. And the other way round: everyone was satisfied with his work. In July 1887, the Volksraad had approved the Executive Council’s proposal to extend Leyds’s contract, which was due to expire on 6 October. Or, more accurately, renew it, because the contract Leyds had originally drawn up with Moltzer’s help entitled him to an extra lump-sum payment of £1000. Now that the contract had expired and he was entering into new terms of service, the bonus was promptly paid out. ‘It’s not a fortune,’ he observed realistically, and indeed it paled into insignificance beside the riches a Cecil Rhodes or an Alfred Beit had amassed by the same tender age. But still, it was ‘a tidy sum and I’m more than pleased with it’.40
Concessions
Pretoria, June 1887
So far it had been a good winter for Willem and Louise Leyds. Since April they had been living in a large new house in the market square, with eight rooms and ‘a veranda with grapes’ at the back. In May they had been blessed with another child, Louis, a ‘nice chubby’ little boy with ‘a small delicate face’. And early June brought good news from Amsterdam. They had finally found a way to fund the longed-for railway to the Indian Ocean. At least, the company that would arrange funding was in the process of being established. On 21 June 1887, more than three years after the concession had been awarded, the deed establishing the Netherlands-South African Railway Company was signed. And Leyds became the government commissioner.41
This appointment, along with his renewed contract as state attorney, was proof of the confidence the Boer leaders had in him, Kruger in particular. To the president, the railway line to Lourenço Marques was more than just a project. It was part of the ‘Great Cause’, a matter of life and death. Kruger was determined that the Transvaal should have its own link to the open sea and ideally its own harbour as well. Without them the Boer republic could forget about any further independent development, especially after the discovery of gold on the Rand, on which so many covetous eyes were now focused.
The government commissioner of the company in charge of this lifeline would bear a heavy responsibility. Leyds was an understandable, if not obvious, choice for that position. From the moment he set foot in the Transvaal, he had worked towards implementing the plans for a railway—out of a sense of duty towards Kruger—and out of loyalty to his mentors Moltzer and Pierson, who themselves had a stake in the enterprise—but it served his own interest as well. Leyds had also come to see the railway as a lifeline. He opened his heart in a letter to Moltzer. He wanted to demonstrate that people ‘actually could expect something of Holland’, or rather, ‘of me, representing Holland’. That would ‘infinitely strengthen my position’. This indeed proved to be true, now that the Netherlands-South African Railway Company was a fact. Leyds gained prestige in Amsterdam as well as Pretoria. Moltzer assured him that it was ‘thanks to your persistence that
we still have the Dutch concession’. And Kruger’s gratitude was evident from the prestigious appointment which, one might add, brought in a nice little extra. As government commissioner Leyds received £250 on top of his annual salary of £1000.42
Even so, in retrospect it might have been better not to accept the post. There was a price to pay for the benefits, and that was his reputation for absolute integrity. Only nine months earlier, in the case against Nellmapius, Leyds had distinguished himself by taking an independent stand and proving himself to be a man of principle. In all the Boers’ intrigues and nepotism—from which Kruger was not excluded—he had stood out as a beacon of integrity. And it was that perception of him as impartial, a man impervious to corruption, that was compromised by his appointment as government commissioner of the railway company. The two functions were incompatible. He couldn’t represent the company’s interests and monitor its affairs at the same time without losing people’s confidence. Leyds’s attempt to do so exposed him to slurs in the local and overseas press, like the mouthpiece of the Randlords that Percy FitzPatrick edited, which later scoffed that the set-up was a scam, all of it planned in advance. The ‘gentlemen in Holland’ who had recommended him for the position of state attorney in 1884 were the same people who had been awarded the railway concession and arranged his posting to the Transvaal ‘as the agent of the concessionaires in order to protect and advance their interests, although at the same time in the service of the Republic’.43
The Boer War Page 7