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THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY

No. CCLXXII-OCTOBER 1899

AFTER THE VERDICT

SEPTEMBER 1899

FRANCE, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate,
Shamed with the shame of men her meanest born,
Soldier and judge whose names, inscribed for scorn,
Stand vilest on the record writ of fate,

Lies yet not wholly vile who stood so great,
Sees yet not all her praise of old outworn.
Not yet is all her scroll of glory torn,

Or left for utter shame to desecrate.

High souls and constant hearts of faithful men
Sustain her perfect praise with tongue and pen
Indomitable as honour. Storms may toss

And soil her standard ere her bark win home:
But shame falls full upon the Christless cross

Whose brandmark signs the holy hounds of Rome.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

VOL. XLVI-No. 272

M M

THE SITUATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

A VOICE FROM CAPE COLONY1

BRITISH subjects resident in South Africa have read with interest the comments upon the South African crisis made by the leading newspapers at home. But the perusal of these comments has not given them unqualified pleasure; for it is evident that our home. journalists are not cognisant of the correct position of affairs out here. For instance, the Guardian and the Economist both express the opinion that they do not see why England and the Transvaal should go to war, with all the possibilities of a long racial feud in South Africa, because President Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner cannot agree as to the exact period of qualification for voting power in the South African Republic.'

To our countrymen at home this, no doubt, is looked upon as the rational view of the situation; but it is not so soothing or satisfying to us who live out here, and are consequently able to diagnose where the radical mischief is really centred. The question at issue is not the franchise for the Uitlander, but-British Supremacy. Now, to talk of 'British Supremacy' is, perhaps, an appeal to jingoism, and our comfortable critics at home will at once discredit all remarks coming from one who can make use of such a bumptious phrase. But there is no inclination on my part to make a gallery appeal. Rather will I let plain facts speak for themselves. To understand the crisis in South Africa, one must first understand the Boer nature. The perspective view of that nature, as seen from the shores of the old country, is charming-quite idyllic. The Boers are supposed to be a simple, pastoral and puritanical people, who plough their fields and tend their cattle during the day, and read their Bibles at night. They are regarded as pioneers of civilisation-a rugged race who storm the wild fastnesses of Dame Nature, and subdue her wild moods with their indomitable will. Truly, distance lends enchantment. Instead of this, the Boers are nothing more nor less than a low type of the genus homo.

1 The author of this article, a stranger to me personally, writes to me that he 'belongs to no political party, and cannot claim the acquaintance of any politician of note.'-[ED. NINETEENTH CENTURY.]

1

Evolution teaches us that hunger was the first schoolmaster of the human race. The struggle for life was a struggle for nutriment; and our prehistoric fathers carried on the struggle individually, erroneously thinking that to co-operate meant to halve (instead of doubling) their gains. Mistrust was the fetter with which Man used to be bound. Therefore men lived apart, and because they lived apart they mistrusted each other.

Now mistrust is the key note of the Boer nature. Mistrust is the strength of the Africander Bond. Mistrust is the festering sore in > South Africa. The Boers are said to have been the pioneers of civilisation; but, in fact, they were only refugees from the levelling-up influences of a civilised community. Mistrust of their fellow-men made them trek northward across the Vaal; and mistrust of each other impelled them to establish their homesteads at such great distances from each other that a few thousands occupied a tract of country twice the size of England. In self-sought isolation they have tried to escape the tide of civilisation. But in vain. Through no fault of theirs, they have become the owners of a fabulously rich mineral country. Through no fault of theirs, the hidden wealth was discovered. Without effort on their part Johannesburg has sprung up, and the gold-mining industry has been firmly established. Against their will, they have been compelled to form a Government; and latterly have been drawn into contact with the civilised nations of the world. The congested populations of European cities are bound to relieve themselves by overflowing to those parts of the earth where there is plenty of room. It is natural some should come to these parts, where, as Mr. Rhodes has said, we have the diamonds and the gold, the health and the climate. The world is now too small for 45,000 Dutch burghers to wish to have all to themselves territory nearly as large as the British Isles, where there are 500 persons to each square mile. Apart from questions of suzerainty and an 1884 Convention, the selfism of a small number of enemies to progress, driven by mistrust of one another to occupy a vast tract of land far beyond the actual requirements of the struggle for nutriment, must be condemned in these days when oldtime demarcations are breaking down, and the young man claims to be cosmopolitan.

Mistrust has put the Boers at the head of affairs in the Transvaal, and Mistrust keeps them there. There is an organisation existent in South Africa which owes its strength to Mistrust, and that organisation is, as I have already said, the Africander Bond. The Bond is an organism in which brain and muscles play their respective parts. The brain— to do it justice-is an active, clever one, and it has connected itself with the muscles by motor nerves, and motor nerves only. What the brain orders the muscles most implicitly and unthinkingly obey. Among the Boers education has not been encouraged except of late

years. Clever men are still the exception, not the rule. The Boer is conscious of his defective education, and looks up to the man who has been educated in the University of Edinburgh or Amsterdam with unfeigned admiration. It was only natural that educated colonial Dutchmen should soon discover that they were Admirable Crichtons to their countrymen, but very ordinary individuals to the cultured classes of Europe. Here was their tempting opportunity, and they took it. By assuming the command of a people who were too ignorant to gainsay the specious arguments by which they brought them to acknowledge their leadership, they have at one lucky stroke secured position, wealth, and power. Their illiterate countrymen idolise them, obey them, and at the same time mistrust them. Mr. Jan Hofmeyr and President Kruger are the brain of the Africander Bond. Some aim had to be discovered by which this vast organism, which covers South Africa from Table Bay to the Limpopo, might be cemented. The Brain found what they wanted in the magical words 'Ons Land.' Historical facts were disregarded, gratitude for past benefits never dreamt of. 'South Africa for the Africanders' was the cry uttered by thousands of throats as loudly as in times past a mob had yelled 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians.' The inevitable confusion followed; some cried one thing and some another. Then the great Grammateus, Hofmeyr, told the people what they must do; they must form themselves into an Africander Bond and obey all commands issued from Camp Street and Pretoria. Our John,' as the Boers call Mr. Hofmeyr, was from that time an important political factor in South Africa. He has under him an unthinking machine, which acts with the precision of an automaton. He is currently supposed to have at his control large sums of money, supplied by the Transvaal Government, with which he can further his political schemes and secure his Bond victories.

His object is to undermine British Supremacy in South Africa. Fortuitous circumstances and a blind Imperial Government have assisted him beyond his fondest dreams. The Gladstone fiasco was the root of all our present troubles in South Africa. Briefly the history of that fiasco may be told. After the South African Republic had been established, a Bapedi chief, named Sekukuni, made war. The Boers were unable to conquer him. The country was in a desperate plight. The burghers would not fight nor pay taxes, the exchequer was empty and the Government helpless. Sir Theophilus Shepstone was sent by the British Government to watch events. Accompanied by about thirty mounted policemen he arrived at Pretoria, and received petitions from the inhabitants praying that the country might be annexed to the British Crown. This was done. The only mistake Sir Theophilus made was in not taking a plebiscite. Paul Kruger, Joubert, Pretorius, and a few more leading spirits declared the country had been annexed against the wish of the

people, and, led by them, the Boers began the war of independence in 1881. After the catastrophes at Brouker's Spruit and Majuba Hill the Gladstone Cabinet put aside all thought of prestige and empire, and in a mistaken magnanimous spirit gave back the Transvaal to the Boers. From that time nothing can persuade the Boers that the English Government is not afraid of them, and they cherish the tradition that one Boer is worth ten Englishmen. The spirit of bravado has spread over the Free State and the colony. Disloyalty and disaffection are rampant among the members of the Africander Bond, and gradually things have arrived at the present crisis, when Sir Alfred Milner has declared that the case for intervention is overwhelming. Punch, in an open letter to the High Commissioner, has thought fit to heap ridicule upon him as a man the grave of whose reputation has been dug in the South African sand. Punch accuses him of having become a partisan of the Progressive Party and South African League. Furthermore, the Vagrant gibes at the High Commissioner's comparison drawn between the Uitlanders and the Helots. The cheap sarcasm may pass for good currency at home, but out here Sir Alfred Milner is known to have spoken nothing but the truth. Great Britain must intervene to put an end to the Mistrust and racial feud that now exist, and are paralysing the commerce of the Cape Colony.

Great Britain must assert her supremacy in order to stem the poisonous sap that flows through the branches of the Bond, the evidence of its deleterious work being found in the evil fruit it produces. The Africander Bond is naught but an Inquisition; and its martyrs are not a few. The case of the Rev. Adrian Hofmeyr, of the Dutch Reformed Church, is a case in point. A cultured gentleman, a loyal subject, he made a speech at Kimberley in support of the franchise being given to the Uitlanders. Instantly the terrorism of the Bond was put in motion. He was to have occupied a pulpit in the Transvaal for a month, but was warned away. He went to preach in a church in the colony, and was met by the Kerkraad, who informed him if he entered the pulpit a hostile demonstration would be made. His own congregation are against him, and he is forced to resign his pastorate. Many more cases might be quoted, but one more will suffice. It is that of a medical man who was summoned by a Bondman to attend his little child. As the case was in the hands of a brother practitioner, he refused to go, according to medical etiquette. At the next meeting of the District Bestuur the Bondman lodged his complaint. It was decided by those present to boycott the offending doctor. A young man was invited to settle in the district, and promised the support of the Bond. Thus are English gentlemen dictated to by this Bond organisation. Tradesmen who offend the Bond are often ruined. Take a hypothetical case of two tradesmen who are rivals. One joins

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