Colonial Secretary
Having agreed to a set of policies, the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists formed a government on 24 June 1895, with Liberal Unionists granted four Cabinet positions. Salisbury and Balfour offered Chamberlain any Cabinet position except Foreign Secretary or Leader of the House of Commons which they reserved for themselves respectively. To their surprise, Chamberlain asked for the Colonial Office, declining the Exchequer, for unwillingness to be constrained by Conservative spending plans, and Home Secretary. Chamberlain's choice to enter the cabinet in a subordinate role was the result of an adjustment in his political strategy following a lost dispute over a seat at Leamington Spa putting his program of social reform on the back burner. Chamberlain took formal charge of the Colonial Office on 1 July 1895, with a Unionist victory assured in the upcoming general election. He would remain in the position for eight years.
To further surprise, Chamberlain used the Colonial Office to become one of the dominant figures in British politics and a statesman of global consequence. His ministerial portfolio included control of numerous colonies, notably excluding India and Canada. Once an outspoken anti-imperialist, Chamberlain's unionism had by 1895 led him to fully embrace Imperial Federation as an alternative, with support from Conservative backbenchers. He sought to foster closer relations between Great Britain and the settler colonies, expand the Empire in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, and reorder imperial trade through preferential tariffs. His proposals faced opposition from the settler colonies themselves, which sought greater autonomy under the Crown.
In addition to a policy of imperial unity, Chamberlain aggressively pursued development projects in each colony. Chamberlain stated confidently, "I believe that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen... It is not enough to occupy great spaces of the world's surface unless you can make the best of them. It is the duty of a landlord to develop his estate." Accordingly, he advocated investment in underdeveloped possessions, especially Africa and the West Indies, which earned him the nickname "Joseph Africanus" among the press. He also recognised the need to handle the unfamiliar tropical diseases that ravaged Britain's subject peoples. With Chamberlain's support, Patrick Manson founded the London School of Tropical Medicine, the world's second medical facility dedicated to tropical medicine, in 1899.
Some of Chamberlain's development and colonial expansion efforts were centered on West Africa, in light of the region's economic potential and ongoing colonial gamesmanship with the French which centered there. Though Salisbury was willing to sacrifice West African claims in favour of a Cape-to-Cairo strategy, Chamberlain sought expansion on both fronts.
In 1895, Chamberlain sanctioned the conquest of the Ashanti Confederacy and its annexation to the Gold Coast. Using the emergency funds of the colonies of Lagos, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, he ordered the construction of a railway for the newly conquered area. The Colonial Office's aggressive strategy brought it into conflict with the Royal Niger Company. The Company, chaired by Sir George Goldie, possessed title rights to large stretches of the Niger River but had yet to assume governing responsibilities. With the area open to incursion, the French sent small garrisons to the region. In 1897, Chamberlain was dismayed to learn that the French had expanded from Dahomey to Bussa, a town claimed by Goldie. Further French expansion threatened to isolate Lagos; Chamberlain therefore argued that "even at the cost of war" Britain should "keep an adequate Hinterland for the Gold Coast, Lagos & the Niger Territories."
Influenced by Chamberlain, Salisbury sanctioned British Ambassador in Paris Sir Edmund Monson to take an assertive diplomatic stance. Subsequent concessions by the French encouraged Chamberlain, who arranged for a military force commanded by Frederick Lugard to occupy the region. In a risky 'chequerboard' strategy, Lugard's forces occupied French claims to counterbalance the French garrisons in British territory. At times, French and British troops were stationed merely a few yards from each other, threatening war. Nevertheless, Chamberlain correctly assumed French officers were ordered to avoid conflict. In March 1898, the French proposed a settlement: Bussa was returned to Britain in exchange for the town of Bona, imposing British control over the Niger and the inland territories of Sokoto; the region was later consolidated as Nigeria.
In 1898, the Mende and Temne tribes of Sierra Leone launched the Hut Tax War against inland colonial expansion. Chamberlain appointed Sir David Patrick Chalmers as a special commissioner to investigate the violence. Chalmers blamed the tax, but Chamberlain disagreed and blamed African slave traders. Chamberlain used the revolt to promote his aggressive "constructive imperialism" in West Africa.
In November 1895, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony Cecil Rhodes assembled the private army of the British South Africa Company (of which he was also managing director) on land along the border with the South African Republic. Rhodes, who shared Chamberlain's desire to extend British dominion to all of South Africa, hoped to encourage the primarily British Uitlanders to revolt against the Afrikaner republic and overthrow its government. He placed the army under the command of Leander Starr Jameson.
On Boxing Day, Chamberlain informed Salisbury that a rebellion was expected, though he said he remained uncertain of its date. In fact, Chamberlain had requested his Assistant Under-Secretary to encourage Rhodes to "hurry up" (given the deteriorating Venezuelan situation). Upon learning of the Jameson Raid's initiation on 31 December (two days after it began), Chamberlain remarked, "If this succeeds, it will ruin me. I'm going up to London to crush it". He ordered Governor Hercules Robinson to repudiate the raid and warned Rhodes that his implication in the raid would endanger the Company's charter. The raid ultimately failed, and the raiders, including Jameson, were arrested and tried in London.
During the trial, Rhodes' solicitor claimed that cablegrams between Rhodes and his agents in London, including Chamberlain's urge to "hurry up," demonstrated that the Colonial Office "influenced the actions of those in South Africa" who had participated in the raid. The solicitor further alleged that Chamberlain had transferred the land to the Company to facilitate the raid. In June 1896, Chamberlain showed Salisbury one or more of the cablegrams and offered his resignation. Salisbury refused, possibly reluctant to lose the government's most popular figure, and aggressively supported Chamberlain by endorsing his threat to withdraw the Company's charter if the cablegrams were revealed. Accordingly, Rhodes withheld them. As no evidence was produced, a select committee absolved Chamberlain of responsibility.
Chamberlain's involvement in the planning and ultimate failure of the raid remain controversial, as do his and Salisbury's subsequent efforts to obscure the extent of that involvement. In 2002, The Van Riebeeck Society published Secret History of the Jameson Raid and the South African Crisis, 1895–1902, a contemporary insider account by Robinson's secretary, Sir Graham Bower. Bower suggests that the Colonial Office covered up Chamberlain's own involvement and knowledge of the raid. In a 2004 review for The Historian, Alan Cousins commented, "A number of major themes and concerns emerge, perhaps the most poignant being Bower's accounts of his being made a scapegoat in the aftermath of the raid: 'since a scapegoat was wanted, I was willing to serve my country in that capacity.'"
Cousins further writes:
[Bower] believed that, as he had given Rhodes his word not to divulge certain private conversations, he had to abide by that, while at the same time he was convinced that it would be very damaging to Britain if he said anything to the parliamentary committee to show the close involvement of Sir Hercules Robinson and Joseph Chamberlain in their disreputable encouragement of those plotting an uprising in Johannesburg. ... In his reflections, Bower has a particularly damning judgement on Chamberlain, whom he accuses of 'brazen lying' to Parliament, and of what amounted to forgery in the documents made public for the inquiry. In the report of the committee, Bower was found culpable of complicity, while no blame was attached to Joseph Chamberlain or Robinson. His name was never cleared during his lifetime, and Bower was never reinstated to what he believed should be his proper position in the colonial service: he was, in effect, demoted to the post of Colonial Secretary in Mauritius.
On 29 March 1898, at a period of Anglo-German tensions following the Jameson Raid and Kruger Telegram, Chamberlain met the German Ambassador, Paul von Hatzfeldt, in London. The conversation was strictly unofficial, ostensibly to discuss colonial matters and China. Chamberlain surprised Hatzfeldt by assuring him that Britain and Germany had common interests and that a defensive alliance should be formed with regards to China. From the German perspective, prospects for even a limited alliance were dim. The Reichstag was debating Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz's First Navy Bill, which characterised Britain as a threat to Germany. Foreign Minister Bernhard von Bülow preferred an alliance with Russia, reasoning that democracy in Britain rendered any alliance unstable, given that a new Parliament and new Cabinet could quickly reverse the diplomatic commitments of its predecessors. Hatzfeldt was therefore instructed to make an agreement appear likely without ever conceding to Chamberlain. On 25 April, Hatzfeldt asked for colonial concessions as a precursor to a better relationship. Chamberlain rejected the proposal, thereby terminating the talks. Though Salisbury was unsurprised, Chamberlain was disappointed and spoke publicly of Britain's diplomatic predicament at Birmingham on 13 May, saying that "We have had no allies. I am afraid we have had no friends... We stand alone."
A second round of talks opened with Chamberlain in complete control, Salisbury having taken leave in July 1899 to attend to his dying wife. The predicate for negotiations was the death of King Malietoa Laupepa of Samoa, a tripartite protectorate of Britain, Germany, and the United States. The ensuing succession was contested by a German proxy, Mata'afa Iosefo, leading to civil war; the three powers thus attempted to negotiate a truce. Chamberlain, smarting from his talks with Hatzfeldt, refused an offer which would result in British withdrawal from Samoa for concessions elsewhere, remarking dismissively, "Last year we offered you everything. Now it is too late."
When British forcefulness incensed German official and public opinion, Chamberlain made efforts to improve relations by facilitating a visit by Kaiser Wilhelm II and von Bülow. During the visit, Chamberlain reiterated his desire for an agreement to both men. The Kaiser spoke optimistically but feared tensions with Russia and indicated that Salisbury's strategy of "splendid isolation" rendered any alliance unreliable. At a subsequent meeting with von Bülow, Chamberlain argued that Britain, Germany, and the United States should combine to check France and Russia. Von Bülow thought British assistance would be of little use and suggested that Chamberlain should speak positively of Germany in public. Chamberlain inferred from von Bülow's statement that he would reciprocate in the Reichstag.
On 30 November, the day after the Kaiser and von Bülow departed, Chamberlain spoke at Leicester of "a new Triple Alliance between the Teutonic race and the two great trans-Atlantic branches of the Anglo-Saxon race which would become a potent influence on the future of the world." Though the Kaiser was complimentary, Friedrich von Holstein described Chamberlain's speech as a "blunder," and The Times attacked Chamberlain for using the term "alliance" without inhibition. On 11 December, von Bülow spoke in support of von Tirpitz's Second Navy Bill, and made no reference to an agreement with Britain, which he described as a declining nation jealous of Germany. Chamberlain was startled and irritated, but von Hatzfeldt assured him that von Bülow's motivation was to fend off opponents in the Reichstag, and Chamberlain's hopes for an alliance remained alive.
After the failed Jameson Raid and the growing wealth of the Transvaal following the discovery of gold, British hopes for the federation of South Africa under the Crown waned. By 1897, it appeared certain that any future union of the Southern African states would be as a Boer-dominated republic outside the British Empire. Nevertheless, Chamberlain directed a steady upkeep of military pressure on the Transvaal and Orange Free State, ostensibly to protect the civil rights of the Uitlanders. In April 1897, Chamberlain asked the Cabinet to increase the British garrison in South Africa by three to four thousand men; forces grew over the next two years. In August 1897, the government appointed Sir Alfred Milner, the High Commissioner for Southern Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony, to pursue the issue more directly. Within a year, Milner concluded that war was inevitable and worked with Chamberlain to publicise the cause of the Uitlanders to the British people.
In May 1899, Milner met with State President of the South African Republic Paul Kruger but failed to resolve tensions; the Boers left the conference convinced that the British were determined to use force. By now, British public opinion supported war in support of the Uitlanders, allowing Chamberlain to successfully request further reinforcements. By October 1899, nearly 20,000 British troops were based in the South African colonies with thousands more en route. On 9 October, Kruger issued an ultimatum for the withdrawal of British troops from the borders and the return of any troops destined for South Africa. On 12 October, the South African Republic and Orange Free State declared war.
Chamberlain directed the war from the Colonial Office; Salisbury rubber-stamped his decisions. Early fighting favored the Boers. Boer regular army units outnumbered the British 3:1 on the front lines and quickly besieged the towns of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley. Some ten thousand Cape Afrikaners joined the Boers. In mid-December 1899, the British Army suffered reverses at the battles of Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso in what came to be known as "Black Week."
Chamberlain privately criticized the Army's performance and was exasperated by Lord Lansdowne, Secretary of State for War. When the Boers bombarded Ladysmith with Creusot ninety-four pounder siege guns, Chamberlain asked for the dispatch of comparable artillery to the war. Landsdowne argued that such weapons required platforms that needed a year of preparation, even though the Boers operated theirs without elaborate mountings. Chamberlain was also resistant to Milner's desire to suspend the constitution of the Cape Colony, an act that would have given Milner autocratic powers and threatened to deepen internal divisions between British and Afrikaner subjects.
Throughout the war, Chamberlain worked to strengthen bonds between Britain and her self-governing colonies under the slogan "One Flag, One Queen, One Tongue." Over 30,000 troops from Canada, Australia and New Zealand served in the war. In particular, the contributions of mounted men from the settler colonies helped fill the Army's mounted infantry shortfall. Chamberlain also managed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act through the Commons, hoping that the newly established federation would adopt a positive wartime attitude towards imperial trade.
As the government's foremost defender of the war, Chamberlain was denounced by many prominent anti-war personalities, including his former admirer, David Lloyd George. When the government faced a vote of censure in the House of Commons concerning the management of the war, Chamberlain conducted the defence. On 5 February, Chamberlain spoke effectively in the Commons for over an hour. He defended the war, espoused the virtues of a South African federation and promoted the Empire. The censure was subsequently defeated by 213 votes. British fortunes changed after January 1900 with the appointment of Lord Roberts to command British forces in South Africa. Bloemfontein was occupied on 13 March, Johannesburg on 31 May and Pretoria on 5 June.
When Roberts formally annexed the Transvaal on 3 September, the Salisbury ministry, emboldened by an apparent victory, asked for the dissolution of Parliament, with an election set for October.
