John Charles Molteno Jr.

He was initially a friend and business associate of Cecil Rhodes, but he publicly broke off ties, blaming Rhodes's discriminatory legislation against the Cape's Black African population and his policies regarding the Boer Republics. Molteno went on to become one of the most outspoken denouncers of Rhodes and other statesmen perceived at the time as strongly pro-imperialist, such as Chamberlain and Milner.

He was also a prominent critic of the policies that led up to the Boer War, and co-founded the newspaper South African News with JW Sauer, to counter what he perceived to be a pro-imperialist bias in the mainstream newspapers which were controlled by De Beers and political allies of Rhodes. The British Colonial Office had the Cape under martial law at the time, so predictably the paper fought a long-running battle against censorship. Its editor was even jailed at one point.[5]

Molteno was the elected chairman of the South Africa Conciliation Committee, when it was founded in Cape Town in early 1900 to oppose the Boer War.[6]

Molteno was extremely active in the years after the Boer war. He was on nearly all the major parliamentary committees and was chairman of the Government Land Commission. Like his younger brother and fellow parliamentarian James Molteno, he was a supporter of John X. Merriman's party, and for the extension, across southern Africa, of equal political rights for Black Africans. However, he could count on the support of only a small minority of the (predominantly white) electorate to support Black African suffrage, and eventually this possibility was abrogated in London.

Although he was required to represent the Karroo constituency of Jansenville for several years, it was Thembuland which was his closest concern in later life. Contemporary accounts tell of the immense amounts of time he spent working to politically mobilise the Thembu people, a nation of "natural politicians" who comfortably engaged Molteno in political discussions lasting many hours. In spite of his different race, his understanding of the Thembu language and culture supplemented his forceful and charismatic leadership style and went some way towards making him acceptable to this black constituency. Having early on recognised and declared the leading role that Black Africans needed to play in the South Africa's future, Molteno worked for much of his life attempting to lay the foundation for such a transition.[7] He was a particularly close friend and political ally of the controversial activist John Tengo Jabavu, whom he had previously attempted to persuade to stand for election to the Cape Parliament. Jabavu once remarked how they had worked together so long that, in some quarters, their names were regarded as completely interchangeable.[8][9]