Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Smuts A1/186/78
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	June 1899
Address From	2 Primrose Terrace, Berea, Johannesburg, Transvaal
Address To
Who To	Jan Smuts
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 352-3

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Jan Smuts, June 1899, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Johannesburg from December 1898 to late August 1899.

1:  Strictly Private
2: 
3:  Dear Mr Smuts,
4: 
5:  1) Do you think there would be any use in my going to see Sir Alfred
6:  Milner? I have letters of introduction to him, & many of my dearest
7:  friends in England are his. & In a letter of his, which I saw
8:  the other day he said that one of the things he had most looked
9:  forward to in coming to South Africa was seeing me, &c. If I could
10:  have an hours conversation alone with him I feel there are one or two
11:  points I might make clear to him. I should especially dwell on the
12:  nature of the resistance England has to expect if she tries to crush
13:  South Africa. I could also explain to him that the mass of
14:  Johannesburgers are increasingly against war. There are many English
15:  men here who five years ago would have fought the Transvaal Government
16:  who would now like to shoot the Leaguers for making trouble. Even in
17:  the last six months the tone here has changed very much. If I do go of
18:  course if I do go to Bloemfontein to meet him, I shall be most careful,
19:  not to mention to anyone that I am going there with the intention of
20:  meeting him, as those about him would prevent my doing so. If you
21:  think there might be use in my trying to see him at Bloemfontein,
22:  could you give me a free railway pass for the journey? If you think
23:  there would be no advantage in my going let me know.
24: 
25:  2) If the anniversary of Gladstone’s birthday or death day is near,
26:  would it not be well for the president to grant any concessions he has
27:  to make on that day, connecting them with Gladstones memory, sending
28:  home wires to Mrs Gladstone & the family, & if possible, making the
29:  day a public holiday in Pretoria & Johannesburg? This would be felt
30:  very deeply by the Liberal party at home, which is not dead though out
31:  of power for the moment. What we have to convince England of is that
32:  we are not to be coerced, but that we are not unmindful of any
33:  sympathy & justice which she has shown or can show us. I do not know
34:  whether this idea is work-able: the effect would be exceedingly good
35:  if it were. We cannot win the capitalists to our side; we can win the
36:  mass the thinking English people in England & Johannesburg.
37: 
38:  3) Doubtless you know that the Leaguers boast that they have bought
39:  traitors in the Johannesburg fort, who will betray it to them in time
40:  of war. If war should break out would it not be well at the last
41:  moment to send new men there who cannot have been bribed. There were
42:  twelve apostles; but one sold his master for thirty pieces of silver.
43: 
44:  Don’t trouble to answer this unless you think there would be any use
45:  in my going to Bloemfontein to see Milner. I know how busy you are.
46: 
47:  Yours sincerely
48:  Olive Schreiner
49: 
50:  ^Of course you know Mul Myburg and the Leaguers here are most anxious
51:  the franchise should not be granted.^
52: 
53: 
54: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated and is also in a number of respects incorrect.