How far the "authorities" are involved in this disastrous effort
to " jump " the Transvaal will become a question of much importance. It seems clear that the Government was innocent, and indeed that was on the face of things. No man as able as Mr. Chamberlain could, even by possibility, have winked at such an addition to embarrassments which are already keeping Ministers from sleep. The Chartered Com- pany of South Africa also declare that they knew nothing of Dr. Jameson's enterprise, and repudiate all responsibility for it. So, it appears, does Mr. Rhodes ; and there is this to support his statement, that his power in the Cape Parliament depends uron the Dutch vote, and the Dutch are supposed to be most friendly to the Boers in the Transvaal. On the other band, Dr. Jameson was in a very special degree Mr. Rhodes's man, and though singularly decided and energetic, has never shown a trace of rashness, or of an inclination to postpone the interests of his Company to any other. The secret history of the disaster is therefore still obscure. It must be remembered that Mr. Rhodes is not Governor of Cape Colony, but its elected Premier, as well as Managing Director of the Chartered Company. We fancy that neither he nor Dr. Jameson, though under the Charter strictly sub- ordinate to the Colonial Office, can be said technically to "bold the Queen's Commission." The Company, moreover, derives its powers from prerogative, not, like the East Indian Company, from statute.
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