THE POWER BEHIND the PRESS English Newspapers in The
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THE POWER BEHIND THE PRESS English Newspapers in The Transvaal, 1870-1899 By Cynthia A. Robinson B.A., The University of New Mexico A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September 1989 ©Cynthia A. Robinson, 1989 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) THE POWER BEHIND THE PRESS: ABSTRACT The thesis explores the question of whether the Johannesburg English newspapers, and particularly The Johannesburg Star, were manipulated or were independent during the volatile years leading up to the outbreak, of the Second Boer War. Historians and contemporaries alike have argued that the editorial policy of the Star was dictated by either the mining magnates of the Rand or the imperial officials. This study approaches the question by first surveying the history of English newspapers in the Transvaal. It follows the history of the press from the early diamond boom days in Kimberley in the 1870s, through the Barberton gold rush, and on to the founding and growth of the Johannesburg papers. It is established that the precedent is for editors to run their newspapers with a high degree of independence. A close look at the develop• ment of the Star, including its financial structure, indicates that the group that the Star was connected with was the local reform movement. It is shown that the editor installed just prior to the war, W. F. Monypenny, was manipulated by imperial officials and Randlords acting in concert. However, Monypenny's editorship is an exception. The thesis concludes that, for the most part, editors on the Transvaal were independent in their editorial policymaking. The sources used in this study include more recent studies done by Alan Jeeves, A. P. Cartwright, R. V. Kubicek, Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, and Andrew Porter among others. It also makes much use of Eric Rosenthal's history of the Argus Company. For primary sources, The Johannes• burg Star is heavily consulted as are the accounts of the journalists them• selves, especially Francis Dormer and Frederic Hamilton. iii Table of Contents 1. A Question of Control 1 Contemporary Viewpoints 1 The View of Historians 4 Toward a New Understanding 6 Footnotes to Chapter 1 8 2. Kimberley: First Generation Boom Town Press 9 British Imperial Policy in South Africa 9 British Officials and the Political Press 12 Kimberley's Diamond Rush Newspapers 16 Footnotes to Chapter 2 30 3. Transvaal Becomes News: First Gold Strikes 32 Phelan Leads the Fight at Pilgrim's Rest 32 Kruger's First Major Newspaper Blunder 36 Gold Boom Shifts to Barberton 38 Footnotes to Chapter 3 40 4. The Men and Mines of Johannesburg 41 The Most Prominent Randlords and their Mining Houses 42 The Uitlanders' Political Predisposition 44 The Randlords' Aversion to Politics 49 Local Managers in Johannesburg Politics 53 Footnotes to Chapter 4 55 5. The Star is Born 57 Francis Dormer's Empire of Ink 57 The Star and Uitlander Reformism 66 The Transvaal Newspapers' Battlelines 73 Dormer's Downfall 77 Footnotes to Chapter 5 81 6. Johannesburg Before the Raid 84 Frederic Hamilton's Editorship 84 The Wellsprings of Uitlander Hope 90 Footnotes to Chapter 6 94 7. The Hard Lesson of the Jameson Raid 95 The Dismantling of Uitlander Optimism - 95 Journalists as Partners in the Jameson Raid 100 Bitter Failure Parts Reformers From Their Allies 109 Footnotes to Chapter 7 112 iv 8. The Star is Cast Adrift 116 Dormer's Brief Bid at a Comeback 116 Finlason's Failure as Editor of The Star 125 Johannesburg Politics Moves to the Right 128 Footnotes to Chapter 8 135 9. The Star Becomes a Political Pawn 137 Alfred Milner's Policy in South Africa 137 Rand Capitalists are Drawn into the Fray 140 Monypenny's Appointment 144 Monypenny: More Outsider Than Uitlander 147 Footnotes to Chapter 9 156 10. The Seat of Editorial Control 160 A Tradition of Independence 160 Footnotes to Chapter 10 166 Appendix: Timeline of Events 167 Bibliography 173 1 A Question of Control The mass media and public opinion played a central role in the origins of the Second Boer War. The newspapers presented and commented on the issues and eventually supported the armed conflict. Politicians and administrators involved in the controversy preceding the war—British imperial officials and Boer politicians of the South African Republic- -viewed garnering public support to be as important as stockpiling arms and mobilizing troops. That the South African newspapers, most notably The Johannesburg Star, were impacting events in the Transvaal is not a question. But, who controlled these persuasive instruments has always been a question. Contemporary Viewpoints One of the most vocal and influential contemporary critics of the war was J A. Hobson. Hobson, a journalist with the Manchester Guardian, argued that Cecil Rhodes sought to take control of the gold rich Rand by using the military power of Britain. During the summer and fall of 1899, Hobson visited the Transvaal and Cape Colony in order to analyze the political developments there. He wrote: "He [Rhodes] designed to use the armed forces of the British Crown and the money of the British taxpayer to obtain for himself and his fellow capitalists that political control of the Transvaal which was essential to his economical and political ambitions. To do this it .was above all things necessary to apply an adequate motive-power to the minds of the British Government and the British people. For this work he found the press by far the aptest instrument. Some considerable time ago he had acquired with Messrs. Eckstein and Barnato, a leading interest in the Cape Argus, the evening paper at Cape Town. The Argus Company has now so far expanded its field of operations as to own the Johannesburg Star, the Bulawayo Chronicle, the . Rhodesia Herald, and the African Review."^ 2 Hobson maintained that the syndicate of newspapers in South Africa controlled by the "Rhodesian press gang" were editorializing in favour of an imperialist, anti-Boer policy. He said that the editorial arguments, backed by sensationalist stories of Boer outrages, ". ran the round of the Rhodes press, gathering an accumulation of authority in the process, until, by combination and reiteration, it had fastened a misjudgment, an exaggeration, or too frequently a falsehood, upon the public mind. The opinion of the British in South Africa has been the plaything of a press which, working in closest union, has practised the most unscrupulous ingenuity in driving the fooled public along the road designed for it to go. But the inflammation of the credulous mind of South Africa was a task comparatively simple and of subsidiary importance. The chief object of this press conspiracy, to attain which every nerve was strained, was the conquest of the Government and the conscience of Great Britain."2 Hobson, while ignoring the South African public and the importance of its collective opinion, continually stressed that the local press was the instrument of a capitalist cabal bent on using Britain to achieve its own ends. He believed that the British High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, was not an active element in this "elaborate factory of misrepresentations for the purpose of stimulating British action"3 but was himself taken in by the propaganda generated by Rhodes. Hobson was convinced that Britain was drawn into the war by the contrivances of a manipulated press. Similarly, Sir William Butler, acting High Commissioner in South Africa in 1898, was sure that the South African League and the English speaking press in South Africa were being controlled by Rhodes.4 He also sensed the power of the press was dragging Britain into a war that did not serve her own interests. Perhaps the most damning accusation of press manipulation comes from Francis Dormer, former editor of The Johannesburg Star, managing director of the Argus Company, and supporter of Rhodes. Being more intimately acquainted with the South African situation than Hobson and, in particular, with the personalities involved, Dormer described the control of the press as being held by a lattice of influential individuals. He placed Rhodes at the centre of this network of propaganda. 3 Dormer described the mounting political agitation in the Transvaal in 1899 as the product of deliberate machinations of the South African League (SAL). The SAL was a virulently anti-Boer political group that had been founded in 1899 and Dormer considered its extremism to be antithetical to the true interests of all South Africans. He said that the SAL was not representative of the true interests of the English speaking population of the Rand (the Uitlanders) but was the vehicle for, ". the ultra-British emotions of a certain number of extremists in a British colony [the Cape], and its whole inspiration was sought and derived from Mr. Rhodes, now its president."5 He thought that Milner had been misled into accepting the League's propaganda as the true political line of the Uitlanders. Furthermore, Dormer traced this network of influence which ran from Rhodes, to the League, and on to Milner as reaching Samual Evans, an executive with the Corner House in Johannesburg and a director of the Argus Company.