Episode 89 - Emily Hobhouse pricks English consciousness & Reitz eats pork

IT’s June 1901 and there’s trouble brewing like a north sea storm around the British Isles. The main force behind this political hurricane is a diminutive but loud woman called Emily Hobhouse. While the suffragette movement is in its infancy, there’s nothing about Hobhouse that is a wallflower. In fact, you could say that it was precisely because of courageous women like her that the entire suffragette movement gained momentum. Still, much of what was to happen in that social and political project emerged after the First World War, when women who’d been building artillery pieces and loading ammunition into crates suddenly were told that they needed to go home and put on curlers and become housewives again. After the freedom they’d experienced, and earning their own living, that was always going to be a tough sell as the soldiers marched back from the Western Front. But here we are, 13 years before the First World War, and tracking that truly fascinating person called Emily Hobhouse. Sir Alfred Milner, the Cape governor, referred to her as that screamer - always complaining. Milner ironically was on board the same ship that took Emily Hobhouse from Cape Town to Portsmouth in England - although the two gave each other a wide berth if you excuse the pun. So on the 8th May the Saxon set sail from Cape Town. As with the habit of those on these long journeys, Hobhouse sought out Milner in private but he avoided talking to her. Only after the Saxon had passed Madeira in Spain did an opportunity present itself. In the course of their conversation she found out whey Milner had been unwilling to meet her. In the preceding months he had received more than 60 reports all containing personal allegations against her. She was accused by the camp commanders of inciting unrest and playing politics. That was because Hobhouse was determined and had facts at her fingertips. So what better way to deflect her truths than accuse her of malicious political intent? I’m afraid this technique of dealing with uppity women continues to this day - and often ends in failure as it did in this case too. in Holland, President Paul Kruger was mulling over a coded letter sent by Jan Smuts and Louis Botha. Remember last week I explained how Botha and Smuts had begun to question Boer tactics and Smuts in particular was growing more certain that this war could not continue. He was aware of the reports of the death of women and children in concentration camps, and his men had run out of just about everything. Even their will to fight. Kruger had installed himself in the Hotel des Pays-Bas in Utrecht in January 1901, but by June he’d moved to a guest house called Casa Cara in Hilversum. That’s where he and his secretary Leyds met to discuss Smuts’ letter.