The Commercial Perspective

Abstract

In the aftermath of the Jameson raid and the Kruger telegram, Marschall, capitalizing on the widespread public satisfaction with the government, outlined in a boisterous speech to the Reichstag his interpretation of German policy. The emphasis he provided was preponderantly an economic one:

If anyone were to ask us ‘what have you Germans got to do with the South African Republic?’, we should calmly answer: we wish to exercise there all the rights granted to us by the Republic with the consent of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government. We do not want constitutional or practical changes which might make those rights illusory or render their exercise difficult. Years ago, we established a subsidized line of steamers to Delagoa Bay, principally with German capital. The railway has been built from the Portuguese frontier to Pretoria, German factories have been erected in the Transvaal, German subjects have settled there, German capital is invested in great industrial enterprises, our commerce there is flourishing. The German Reich cannot and will not shirk the duty of protecting these legitimate interests and cultivating as far as it can, these relations in pacific competition with other nations.¹