Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/297

 'Rock Ahead’ (1868), and 'A Righted Wrong' (1870), five novels which were published under the name of Edmund Yates [q. v.]; of the last work Mrs. Hoey was sole author, and the secret of her authorship was divulged. Mrs. Hoey, too, helped Yates in 1874 to plan the 'World,' for which she wrote much.

Mrs. Hoey was a frequent visitor to Paris, and was well known to English residents there. On Easter Day 1871 she was the only passenger from London to Paris, whence she returned next day with the news of the Commune. An article by her, entitled 'Red Paris,' appeared in the 'Spectator.' Mrs. Hoey was 'reader' for publishers at various periods, and was the first to send a 'Lady's Letter ' to an 'Australian paper, a piece of work which she performed fortnightly for more than twenty years. She also translated twenty-seven works from the French and Italian, seven in collaboration with John Lillie. They include memoirs, travels, and novels.

Mrs. Hoey, who was a humorous talker and generous to literary beginners, was granted a civil list pension of 50l. in 1892. She was left a widow next year, and died on 8 July 1908 at Beccles, Suffolk; she was buried in the churchyard of the Benedictine church at Little Malvern, Worcestershire.

 HOFMEYR, JAN HENDRIK (1845–1909), South African politician, born at Capetown on 4 July 1845, was eldest of the five children of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, a farmer in the Cape Peninsula. The family came from the Netherlands to South Africa in the eighteenth century. Educated at the South African College at Capetown, he left school at the age of sixteen, meaning to enter the government service; but having no interest and no money he became a journalist in the colony. He started on the staff of the 'Volksvriend,' which he bought. In 1871 he amalgamated it with the 'Zuid Afrikaan,' and gave the combined journal the title 'Ons Land.' At one time he also edited the 'Zuid Afrikaansche Tijdschrift.'

In 1878 he formed the Boeren Vereeniging or Farmers' Association, with headquarters at Capetown. The original aims of this association were purely agricultural, but, the Afrikander Bond having been started in 1882 with less loyal and more political objects, Hofmeyr in 1883 amalgamated the Farmers' Association with it, modified its programme, and secured control of its working. He acted as chairman of the Bond till 1895, when he resigned, but resumed the office after 1902, when the South African war was over. Meanwhile he had in 1879 entered the Capo parliament as member for Stellenbosch. He remained in parliament for sixteen years, till 1895, and filled the position of leader and spokesman of the Dutch party in the colony. He was a member without portfolio of Sir Thomas Scanlen's ministry for six months in 1882, and was offered the premiership in 1884, but he held aloof alike from office and from distinction of any kind. At the same time he was a member of the executive council of the Cape Colony, and represented the colony on important occasions. He was one of the Cape delegates to the first colonial conference held in London in 1887, and moved a memorable motion: 'To discuss the feasibility of promoting a closer union between the various parts of the British empire by means of an imperial tariff of customs, to be levied independently of the duties payable under existing tariffs, on goods entering the empire from abroad, the revenue derived from such tariff to be devoted to the general defence of the empire.' He contended 'that the British empire should have some other consolidating force in addition to mere sentiment, that it should have the force of self-interest.' His scheme 'would produce revenue for imperial purposes and at the same time would leave the various fiscal tariffs of the different parts of the empire, of the colonies as well as England, untouched.' His proposal implied the creation of some kind of fiscal parliament for the empire, and was put forward at once as a unifying and as a revenue measure. It is noteworthy not only on its merits but also as the suggestion of the leader of the Dutch-speaking population of South Africa (Proc. Colonial Conference of 1887, C. 5091, 2 vols., July 1887, i. 463-8).

In 1889 Hofmeyr was a member of the South African customs conference. In 1890, when Sir Henry (afterwards Lord) Loch [q. v. Suppl. I] was governor of the Cape and high commissioner for South Africa, he negotiated with President Kruger the Swaziland convention between the British and the Transvaal governments. Neither to the more extreme section of the Afrikander party in South Africa nor to President Kruger was Hofmeyr's part in the negotiation quite congenial. Between Hofmeyr, who became 'the leader of constitutional Afrikanderdom,' and Kruger, who