ABSTRACT
On 1 July 1895 Chamberlain became Secretary of State for the Colonies, the post which he had coveted in 1886. The colonial post gave him a chance of making his name without stepping on Tory corns. Since Chamberlain had last dealt with South Africa as a minister, the scene had been transformed. Johannesburg, which did not appear on the map until gold was discovered on the Rand in 1886, had grown into a city of 50,000 ‘raw savages’, less than an eighth of whom were Boers. The London government had always been anxious for Cape Colony to take over the Bechuanaland colony; how far the Liberals went towards promising the protectorate to Rhodes is obscure but he certainly thought his prospects of getting it to be good. Chamberlain did refuse to transfer the whole protectorate but offered to grant a strip in it instead.
