When reports of the incident at the Rand Club reached Pretoria by telegraph, Smuts resorted to personal action. He and Botha grabbed a car, and drove to Johannesburg, without accompaniment by assistance or bodyguard. They drove slowly and quietly to the centre of Johannesburg, as best as they could without being seen. A meeting with the Strike Committee was arranged, but what Smuts and Botha had assumed would be a professional meeting resembled a hostage situation, as the two were held at gun-point as they were dictated the unions’ terms. With the authorities being beaten on the streets of Johannesburg, secondary strikes breaking out across South Africa, and guns literally pointing at their heads, Smuts and Botha were forced to meet the strikers’ demands.