When the disturbing element of the Uitlander population found that their efforts to govern the Randt according to their own desires were fruitless, Cecil J. Rhodes, then Premier of Cape Colony and at the height of his influence, began his campaign for the control of the Boer territory. He brought to bear all the power at his command to harass the Pretorian Government, and tried in a score of ways to induce the colonial secretary to interfere in behalf of the Uitlanders, even going to the extent of offering to Secretary for the Colonies Chamberlain the payment of an equal share in the cost of a war with the Transvaal.
Whether Mr. Rhodes's real object in attempting to secure possession of the Transvaal was that he and other capitalists might consolidate the mines and limit the output, as he had done at Kimberley, or whether his earth-hunger impelled him, is known only to himself. Whatever the reason, he planned like a professional South American revolutionist, and by his boldness caused the amateur revolutionists of the Randt to gasp.
The opening prelude of the Jameson raid was a mass meeting held in November, 1895, by the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, which had always shown marked friendliness to the Pretorian Government. The president of the organization, Lionel Phillips, created a sensation by reading a mass of alleged grievances against the Government, as formulated by an organization called the "Transvaal National Union," and threatening that, unless the Government gave immediate remedy, revolutionary methods would be adopted in order to obtain redress. The plot had begun its evolution, and its success was to be attained in a certain well-defined way.
The speech of Mr. Phillips was to serve as Johannesburg's ultimatum to the Boers. If the Government gave no heed, the revolutionary party was to seize Johannesburg by force of arms, declare a provisional government of the country, and march against Pretoria. Once in possession of the seat of government, it was planned to lay their grievances before the world, and ask that the future government of the country be placed in the hands of the majority of the white population. It was believed that if the plans were thoroughly perfected the plot could be carried to a successful conclusion without the firing of a single shot. In order to be amply prepared in case the Boers should make an unexpected resistance to the revolutionists, it had been arranged with Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who was then in charge of the troops of Mr. Rhodes's British South Africa Company, to ride across the border to Johannesburg, a journey of several days, and assist in the engagement. The revolution was perfectly planned, and it would have required only half an effort on the part of a Haytien revolutionist to carry it out successfully; but Mr. Rhodes, the brains of the movement, was in Cape Town, and unable to do anything more practical than imagine that his plans were being followed. By common agreement among the revolutionists, Dr. Jameson and Mr. Rhodes, it was decided to have the uprising in Johannesburg about the 28th of December, and everything had been planned accordingly. From Kimberley Mr. Rhodes's De Beers Company had sent two thousand rifles--the Boers say twenty thousand--one hundred and twenty-five cases of ammunition, and three Maxims in oil casks across the border into Johannesburg, where the Uitlanders were secretly organizing and drilling military companies. In the British territory Dr. Jameson and his six hundred troopers were polishing their rifles and Maxims, and waiting for the day when they should march toward Johannesburg.