IS THIS OUR PANAMA?
MOST of the talk about the line which the Government ought to take in dealing with Dr. Jameson and the Chartered Company of South Africa is talk wasted. The Government is much more strictly bound by the Constitu- tion, by political tradition, and by abstract principle than people always remember. The Ministry could not avoid prosecuting Dr. Jameson even if they would. Though in the service of a Chartered Company, he was administering one of the Queen's provinces, and directing officers who hold her Majesty's commission, and to permit an agent invested with those powers to invade a friendly State at his own discretion is to tolerate anarchy within the Empire. There are more than forty " Administrators " under various titles holding Dr. Jameson's powers, and twenty of them at least could, if they were governed by his ideas, plunge us into serious wars. Suppose the Governor of British Guiana, moved by outrages committed in Brazil, declared war on that Republic, or the Governor of Hong- kong on the Empire of China, or the Chief Commissioner of Burmah on France, or the Viceroy of India upon Russia, without consulting the Cabinet, what sort of an outcry would there be ? yet all these would be strictly analogous acts. Reasons and excuses, possibly in profusion, may all be pleaded in mitigation of punishment, but to decline to prosecute would be to abdicate the first function of the Government,which is to maintain orderwithin her Majesty's dominions. There is a law, the Foreign Enlistment Act, to which the Government, by consent of the legal experts, can appeal, and that law must be put in force, just as it would have been if Fenians, in order to embroil Great Britain with France, had landed a regiment of volunteers in Boulogne or Havre. There is no doubt the Govern- ment will perform this part of its duty ; and we fail to see what the discussion as to its wisdom is about. Grant that Dr. Jameson is a hero and a patriot and a Quixote in philanthropy, or is entitled to any other honorific description, what has that to do with the matter ? He has broken a law of the first importance at a time when there was no excuse for breaking it ; for he would not have lost a day by communicating with the Colonial Office; and if he were a saint he ought to be brought to trial. Saints are not allowed to smuggle or to plead previous conversions as an excuse. People say, and in part say truly, that, except in his motive, which is as yet un- proved, Dr. Jameson's conduct is exactly on all fours with that of William of Orange, who on the invitation of Whig magnates—the analogues of the Johannesburg capitalists —entered England with a foreign force to deliver the majority of Englishmen from what they considered un- justifiable oppression. That is the most favourable analogy to be found in all history—it is a ridicu- lously favourable one — and does anybody doubt that if James II. had fought instead of flying, and had won his Krugersdorp, he would have been justified in holding the Prince of Orange as his prisoner for years ? Dr. Jameson's case is, at all events, not better than the Prince's, and as he is not armoured in the immunities which European law confers on Sovereigns, he must be regularly tried.
The case of the Chartered Company is different ; but on this subject also the Government has exceedingly little option. The Cabinet could, we suppose, after "applying their majority," withdraw the Charter on political grounds, or place the governing body under severe legal restrictions, without ordering an investigation, or it could order an investigation before a Secret Committee ; but just think of the consequences of adopting either course of pro- cedure. In the first place, every statesman in Europe would believe—honestly believe—that the Government of Great Britain had eanctioned the raid into the Transvaal, and was only disavowing it and punishing its agents because the design had failed. That would be a perfectly natural belief, and is precisely the one which we should entertain if any Continental Government pursued the same course of action as regarded any British Colony ; and it would have the most serious consequences. Great Britain is already gravely threatened by the envy of her rivals, who say that she has acquired so much that unless she is stripped of part of her possessions there is nothing on this little planet for anybody else, and who need only a fair excuse to attempt the stripping. The best excuse in their eyes would be danger from Great Britain, and this they would say had arisen, Great Britain being obviously intent on adding to her dominions through the agency of filibusters. A suspicion of that kind would add to the danger of our position all over the world, and would moreover freeze up sympathies which it is valuable to keep warm. The country is quite willing, if needful, to defy the world in defence of its own ; but to defy it in defence of its right to hush up a charge of filibustering would not only be a morally indefensible course, but as positively foolhardy one. Moreover, it is not a course which would be so approved at home as to bind the nation into a unit. Our people are singularly free from envy of the very rich ; but they nevertheless suspect their influence, and in avoiding an investigation or making it a secret one, the Government would create a nearly universal impres- sion that they were deliberately screening the powerful. That is a bad impression to create at any time ; and on this occasion, when the most absurd rumours are current, and half the great people in the country are believed by the populace to be shareholders in the Chartered Company, it would be a fatal one. The Government, therefore, in resolving, as they are said to have done, on an investigation, have only obeyed a. political necessity. The investigation should, we think, take the form of a Joint Committee to inquire "whether, in view of the facts con- nected with the recent raid into the Transvaal, the Charter of the Company of South Africa should, or should. not, be cancelled ; " but that is a question of detail for the Administration to decide. Our only interest in that matter is that the method adopted should not be so cumbrous as to exhaust human patience, or involve, as the trial of Hastings must have done, ruin to many witnesses.
So far, we have spoken only of the political aspect of the question, but there is another one of much greater importance. This is the first time that millionaires have been suspected of intervening with effect in British affairs with a direct view to their own gain. That is the allegation made on all hands, formulated by President Kriiger, and supported by a great deal of prima-facie evidence, as well as by a greater body of clearly malignant rumour ; and it is one which the country cannot venture to treat lightly or with contempt. The evil is rampant in all other countries, and we know of nothing in British institutions or British character which should render its introduction here absolutely impossible. It would, if intro- duced here, be more fatal than in any country in the world, if only because this is the only country in which a single elective Chamber possesses all ultimate authority, uncontrolled even by a Constitution, and the evil ought therefore, on its first appearance, to be resolutely stamped out. There are, we are aware, many inconveniences to be faced, not the least being the chance that the Empire may lose some of its most successful agents; but we are rapidly becoming a democracy, the grand danger of democracy is pecuniary corruption, and the antiseptic against pecuniary corruption is exposure. If a Panama affair has occurred among us—as to the truth of which suspicion, recollect, there has been as yet no particle of sworn evidence—we must not treat it as the French have treated their Panama affair. The cancer must be cut out, and the evil stopped from spreading, at any cost of suffering to individuals or humiliation to the country. There is no reason, as yet, to believe in any such dis- agreeable results of investigation ; but to make it, is not only a present political necessity lest votes be lost, but a duty which the Government owes to the future of the country intrusted to its hands.
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