In the aftermath of the Jameson Raid, the period leading up to the outbreak of the South African War in October 1899 was marked by increasing animosity between imperialists and republicans. The role the South African Republic Police (Zarps) played in this rapidly escalating conflict, highlights connections between issues of internal political strife, the strain between the mining industry and the Kruger state, class and racial tensions in Johannesburg as well as broader diplomatic discord between Pretoria and London.
Four major issues related to the policing of Johannesburg during this period, dominated the increasingly belligerent diplomatic dispatches between Britain and the South African Republic. Firstly, the treatment of the British Cape Coloured people at the hands of the police, secondly the so-called Edgar incident, in which a Zarp shot dead a British Uitlander, thirdly the murder of a Wesleyan missionary’s wife which was linked to the illicit trade in liquor and lastly a conspiracy the detective department ‘uncovered’ in May 1899, which led to the arrest and trial of several British subjects on charges of high treason. The latter was the last major scandal in which the police force was implicated before the war.
This paper investigates the origins, course and denouement of this scandal. Making use of archival material from both Britain and South Africa, it highlights that possibly more so than any other episode in the Zarps’ chequered past, this incident reveals the hidden underbelly of police intrigue, political conspiracy and bureaucratic strife. It argues, however, that despite exacerbating diplomatic tension, the importance of this event is located within the bureaucratic battle for control of the detective department between Police Commissioner Daniel Schutte and then State Attorney Jan Smuts. It is a conflict in which, however, significant the threat of conspiracy might have been, jingoism – either factual or fabricated –provided the perfect cover to engage in skirmishes of international diplomacy and localised battles of personality.