THE EXPULSION OF KING POTT.”

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4289, 23 February 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE EXPULSION OF KING POTT.”

PRO-BOER AND CONSUL AT LOREN CO MARQUEZ. (Bv One Who Knows Him, in “Daily Mai!-”.) The expulsion of “King Pott trom Ms hitherto undisputed upremmw atLoreuco Manuicz hits aroused a. ki isi interest in the personality of the ••Contraband King,’’ as he was dubbed by the English colony at Delagoa Bay during the. war. Mr Pott was, until English prcs.-.urc made itself felt at_ Lisbon, a Pooh-hau who held unlimited sway in Ids own little happy huntiny-grouml. in - the public mind only his cynical inuiticreuce to the social convenances made the comprehensive Pott notorious; but P" 0 ! 1 *” who saw under the fringe of tilings tecognised in Pott the most important Boer factor on the East Coast. Twenty years ago Air Gerard Pott was a smart “Amsterdammer,’ who sought his fortune in the mysterious South. He soon obtained employment with the Cost AfrikaanscheMaatschnppy (East African Company 1, a wealthy Dutch concern .trading in the Mozambique provinces. Quickly dwarfing meaner and more scrupulous men, h° •secured the management of various scure factories in the Portuguese East African provinces. GEOGRAPHY HELPS AIR POTT. Those were the days when duows and slave-raids still flourished ; the days before the discovery of gold and uie tush to the Rand. So it was that until very recently the harbour of Lorcnco Marquez, the finest natural port in‘ the world after Sydney and Rio -do Janeiro, was neglected by British merchants "it b goods to send to the Transvaal, pa rib because its administration was slipshod and unhygienic in many senses, partly because they were more materially and politically interested in encouraging the rival ports of Durban. East Loudon, Port Elizabeth, and Capetown ; but chiefly because the tariffs of the Loor concessionary trail ways exploiting the Hue from Pretoria to ivoinati Poort wore extortionate.

Lorenco Marquez remained, however, geographically, the natural port °1 U*° Transvaal, just as Beira is ami remains that of the Rhodesian hinterland. But its political and commercial politics have hitherto always been largely influenced by Oom Paul’s myrmidons; they were entirely dominated: by the railway line, which Mr Kruger often described as “myn spoorweg” (“my line”). The “key to tbe sea” and naval development, as Oom Paul fondly imagined it might ultimately become was, however, soon snatched from Mr Kruger's grasp by Mr Rhodes, who secured dominant interest in the McMurdo concession—the concession upon which the Berne Arbitrators grew fat and old. Locked ont from the Sea as Mr Kruger was, Mil Chamberlain wont one better. His subtle diplomacy seized the famous Amatongaland strip, winch shut out the other outlet- to the ocean, Kosi Bay, from Dutch Swaziland and Dr Loyd’s maws. MR KRUGER AND HIS PHANTOM . FLEET. Had it not been for this adroit move, which caused a storm of consternation in Pretoria at the time, another irritating factor might have been added to the Boer War. In his more ambitious flights, Mr Kruger used to tell the receptive rustics of Kosi Bay of the vast maritime possibilities it opened up. Oom Paul’s phantom ironclads could not, of course, have prevailed against the might of the British Navy, but Kosi Bay would have been an additional inlet for the arsenals and armouries of munition that were .shipped into the Republic for years before and during the war.

Shut out from Kosi Bay by the merciless Mr Chamberlain, Messrs Kruger and Co. sought .a substitute by way of Delagoa Bay. Tins they found in “King Pott” and the Portuguese functionaries under his thumb. With the more important dignitaries in the Mozambique province Dr Loyds started an elaborate scheme of coquetry ; they were invited to Pretoria and feted, the Kruger journals were ordered to gush,, and the visits of the wily doctor to Lorenco Marquez were many and frequent. A CONSUL THREE DEEP. King Pott, who already exercised much influence at the port, by reason of his wealth, was invested with triple Consular powers—those of Holland, the Free State, and the Transvaal—together with unlimited financial, resources and a Pretoria backing. Ho was thus afforded official facilities unobtainable by the mere. civilian importer. Let us see how he used them. His triple Consular signature, his sign-manual as managing director of the East African Company, as agent of the N.Z.A.S.M., as Mr Pott, merchant, as forwarding agent of the Union Steamship Company (a post that he subsequently lost), and in various other of Ids comprehensive capacities, secured the safe landing at the port and transit to the frontier at Komati P’oort of successive shiploads of “pianos” and other musical instruments that have played so, tragic a tune in recent history. “King Pott’s” signature appeared to be the “open sesame” to the Transvaal; to have questioned it would have been to invite a diplomatic rupture with the Hague, of- to strike a blow at the many German, interests Mr Pott was ostensibly guarding. Regiments of “ambulance men” came to Mr Pott, whose coupons conducted them, a la Cook, to the nearest battlefields. Pott’s offices were the headquarters of Boer spies, Boer secret service men, and Boer agents with Pretoria missions. The Loterijmaus, the Gillinghams, the Erasmuses, and the other wealthy hangers-on of the Kruger regime found in Pott an active and enthusiastic confederate, whose acts, by reason of his elastic exequaturs from three Governments, dared not ho questioned. CONTRABAND ADVENT USERS.

Through Mr Pott mountains of merchandise were forced through and tons of munitions. When boatloads of IrisliAmericans, French frane-tireur.s, and Continental adventurers swarmed into the Bay, King Pott took these worthies under his royal, aegis. As an empty formula, they were asked to subscribe an oath, by which they promised to preserve the strictest neutrality and abstain from all belligerent acts. This was th© only stipulation Mr Carnegie Ross, the British Consul, and Downingstreet were able to impose. The mercenaries were, however, told in the same breath that the oath would not be binding. When they reached Komafci Poort the Lord would look leniently upon them, for Mr Pott’s God was with the Boers. I have seen hundreds of Eliese blasphemous screeds lying in the refuse dust-bins of Komati Poort Station.

They still believe iu their Pott at the Hague, where they decorated him some years ago with the Order of OrangcNassau.