ORIGIN OF THE ANGLO-BOER WAR REVEALED

The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked

By C.H. THOMAS

of Belfast Transvaal formerly Orange Free State Burgher

SECOND EDITION

LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON

27 PATERNOSTER ROW MCM

The present book had been intended for publication in South Africa before the end of 1899, with the object of laying bare the wicked and delusive aims of the Afrikaner Bond combination, to which the Anglo-Boer war alone is attributable, and to counteract its disastrous influences so far as then still possible. But until quite lately circumstances had conspired so as to prevent the writer from leaving the Transvaal, and when he at last obtained the required passport to Lourenço Marques he was there denied a permit to visit a colonial port. He therefore sailed for London in order to publish this book without more loss of time. Though too late to serve as a deterrent, the contents may be effective towards showing up the really guilty parties—the instigators and seducers of the deluded Boer nation, and so pave and widen the avenue of peace and of conciliation between Boer and Briton who were duped and victimized alike.

Some other information regarding the Boers and South Africa will be found interspersed in this study, which will be found of use to the uninitiated and to intending emigrants to that sub-continent. As the reader proceeds with the examination of this book it will suggest comparisons and even analogies which may commend themselves as singularly apposite and instructive in relation with the study of the presently budding Eastern question.

C.H. THOMAS

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION

Apart from the progress of the present Anglo-Boer war a world-wide interest has been excited also upon the question of its actual origin. Much disparity of opinion prevails yet as to how it was provoked and upon which side the guilt of it all lay.

English statesmen of noblest character and best discriminating gifts are seen professing opposite convictions; one party earnestly asserting the complete blamelessness of their Government, whilst the other, with equally sincere assurance, denounces the responsible Ministry for having provoked a most unjust war against a totally inoffensive people, whose only fault consisted in asserting its love of freedom, and for thus plunging the entire British nation into blackest guilt deserving universal reprobation, a blot and stigma upon Her Majesty's reign.

Nor do the various pamphlets and Press articles furnish sufficient light for exploring the maze and producing an approximate unanimity of conviction.

It is hoped that the succeeding pages will be found to supplement the material so essential for diagnosing those grave questions with some degree of certainty, and to locate the guilt more precisely.

I only regret that my ability falls so much short for the task of demonstrating all this in an approved style—for doing justice to the subject. Its investigation embraces a wider range of details to serve as evidence than may, upon first thought, be held as relevant; but I believe that a willing study will show their connection as serviceable for arriving at an independent and unhesitating verdict.

A very strong and convincing case is indeed needed for remodelling opinions where there is preconceived Boer partisanship, and where party spirit or else foreign jealousy have already warped judgment and established bias.

The writer is fully prepared to give data and names of the incidents adduced in this paper in support of their authenticity.

The two principal elements of the Boer nation were the settlers of the Dutch trading company at the Cape of Good Hope, sturdy farmers and tradesmen belonging to the proletarian class of Holland, and a subsequent contingent of French Huguenot refugees and their families who joined as colonists soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. I mention below the names still existing which form a large proportion of the present Boer nation of Huguenot descent:—

Billion     Blignaut  Bisseux   Delporte

Du prez     Du Toit   De la Bey Durand

Davel       De Langue Duvenage  Fourie

Fouché      Grove     Hugo      Jourdan

Lombard     Le Roux   Roux      Lagrange

Labuscaque  Maré      Marais    Malan

Malraison   Maynard   Malherbe  De Meillon

De Marillac Matthée   Naudé     Nortier

Rousseau    Taillard  Theron    Terblanche

De Villiers Fortier   Lindeque  Vervier

Vercueil    Basson    Pinard    Duvenage

Celliers    de Clercq Leclercq  Devinare

By that time the existence had become known of promising tracts of country lying north of the Orange River beyond the confines of the British colonies, and a large number of Boers combined with the intention of establishing an independent community northwards free from British restraint.

The British authorities appeared at that time not to fully realize that that movement was rife with future dangers and complications to their own colonial interests, that it meant the creation of a nucleus of a people openly averse to the English, and who would independently carry out practices in near proximity, especially in dealing with aborigines, which would seriously compromise them and become a standing menace against peaceful expansion and civilization.

The terms of "Boer" and "Boer nation" do not convey or mean anything disparaging, rather the contrary. Boer simply means farmer, as a rule the proprietor of a farm of about 3,000 to 10,000 acres, who combines stock-breeding with a variety of other farming enterprises as well, according to the soil and locality. As a national designation, the term "Boer" conveys the distinction from the recently arrived Dutchman, who is called "Hollander." Hollanders, again, delight of late to claim the Boer nation as their kith and kin, but prefer to ignore the existence of the French Huguenot factor.

But, until then, progress in the British colonies and peaceful relations with the several Kaffir nations had at times been sadly impeded by the aggressive native policy pursued by the Boers after the pattern adopted from the previous Dutch régime, which admitted of slavery, whilst English law had abolished and forbade that practice as contrary to a soundly moral method of civilizing natives and inimical to prosperous and peaceable colonial progress. Broils and wars between Boers and Kaffirs had been almost incessant, and intervals of peace only proved their mutually latent hostility. Besides being occasionally engaged in unavoidable wars with neighbouring tribes themselves, it became frequently incumbent upon the British military authorities to intervene in conflicts induced by the Boers, alternately protecting them against natives and natives against the Boers, and all that at the unnecessary expenditure of much blood and treasure.

In the course of our study to account for this sad and unwarrantable change on the part of the Boers we will be following the trail of the serpent and track it right up to its Hollander lair and to its at first unsuspected product, the Afrikaner Bond.

A period of about twenty-five years following the establishment of the Orange Free State and Transvaal Republics was marked with much progress and prosperity in the Cape Colonies and Natal, both Republics also having cause to rejoice over similar advancement.

The principal event in the Orange Free State during that period was a three years' exhaustive war with the Basuto nation, which ended in the latter's defeat in 1867. Their chief Moshesh then appealed for British intervention. The Basutos thus came under England's protection, and a peace resulted which has ever since continued, through British prestige and authority as well as good government. The Orange Free State gained a large tract of the territory conquered by that State, but had to renounce the rest.

The people of that Republic proved however to be the ultimate gainers in those adjustments; they did not miss the more solid advantages attending the discovery of the diamond-fields. Believed of the grave responsibility involved in governing a turbulent population of foreign diggers, the geographical position of the Kimberley fields secured to the Free State farmers an almost entire monopoly in the supply of products; trade also flourished apace, all tending to enrich the inhabitants and the State revenue as well.

It is notable that the position of the Orange Free State, without any other access to the sea-board than from colonial ports, made its status and welfare entirely dependent upon the friendly and loyal good faith of England. Up to the present unhappy war that State enjoyed unaltered the best relations without being ever subjected to even a trace of chicanery from the part of Great Britain.

The references made to the history of the Transvaal so far reach up to the rehabilitation of its independence and the convention of 1881. Some of the conditions of that treaty, especially the subordinate position imposed by the suzerainty clause, were found to be repugnant to the burghers. Delegates were therefore commissioned to proceed to England in order to get the treaty so altered as to place the State into the status provided by the Sand River convention, which conceded absolute independence. Mr. Jorrison, a violent anti-English Hollander, was the chief adviser of the members of that delegation.

Lord Kimberley, in 1889, intimated the readiness of his Government to afford advisory and other co-operation with the Transvaal Government in order to cope with the new element of foreign immigration, resulting from the discovery of the rich gold-fields, and to provide appropriate relations with a new floating population, without materially altering the status of Transvaal authority, or the methods of government then in practice.

The Transvaal Government, however, preferred to ignore that loyal offer, and to be guided by Bond principles instead. That circumstance affords another proof that England did not then see the necessity, as has subsequently been the case, of strengthening her position against Bond aggression by imposing a demand of general franchise for Uitlanders.

The judiciary, which, according to the "Grondwet" (Constitution), was the highest legal authority, was by one stroke of enactment rendered subservient and subordinate to the First Volksraad. The then Chief Justice (Kotzee) was ignominiously deposed for honourably contending against the grave departure from right and justice in subverting the sacred prerogative due to the highest tribunal, which Boer and Uitlander alike relied upon for independent justice.

Irritating class legislation began to be systematically resorted to, to the prejudice of Uitlanders (the majority of whom, it will be borne in mind, were English), which painfully pointed to a fixed determination on the part of the Boers to lord it over them as a totally inferior class, allowing them no representation, and to treat them, in fact, just as a conquered people placed under tribute and proper only to be dominated and exploited.

Boers could walk or ride about armed to the teeth, whilst Uitlanders were forbidden to possess arms under penalty of confiscation and other punishments (except sporting-guns under special permit). The like irritations became rampant by 1890 already.

There was nothing shocking in all this venality to the bulk of the Johannesburg speculator class and others of that category. The rest assessed official morality at a depreciated value, but hoped the blemishes might be purged out with other and graver causes for discontent, if Uitlanders, were only granted some effective representation in public matters. That appeared to be the only constitutional remedy. But this continued to be resentfully refused, even in matters which partook of purely domestic interest, such as education, municipal privileges, etc. The latter were opposed upon the specious argument that such extended rights would constitute an imperium in imperio, and thus a condition incompatible with the safety and the conservation of complete control.

In the usual intercourse with burghers and officials a great deal of exasperating and even humiliating experiences had often to be endured, Uitlanders being treated as an inferior class, with scarcely veiled and often with arrogant assumption of superiority.

No wonder that under such conditions and ungenial usage Englishmen and other Uitlanders were put in a resentful mood, and many of them bethought themselves of methods other than constitutional to improve their position.

Identification was resorted to with the Imperial League, a political organization called into being in the Cape Colony to stem Boer assertiveness there and to restrain Bond aspirations. It was also seriously mooted to obtain the good offices of Great Britain as an influence for intervention and remonstrance.

It was not that the Transvaal Government was unaware of its duty and responsibility to remove causes which produced discontent and resentment among by far the larger section of the people under its rule. It seemed rather that the Uitlanders were provoked with systematic intention.

It was at this stage in May, 1894, that a monster petition with some 25,000 signatures was presented to the Volksraad, setting forth the entire position, and praying for a commission to be appointed to examine the merits of the Uitlander complaints, and to frame a programme of reforms, the interests of the mining community needing such in a most urgent degree, not only for the sake of its own prosperity, but for the welfare of the entire State. A commission was indeed appointed, who reported in favour of the petitioners, and suggested a series of reforms; but the final Volksraad vote resulted in an angry rejection of the petition and denunciation of its organizers.

Treatment of Coloured British Subjects

A glaring instance of oppression practised by the Transvaal Government was its cruel treatment of coloured British subjects who had been admitted into the State. Among these figured some thousands of educated Asiatic traders, including numerous cultured Indian and Parsee merchants with large stakes in the State and well-appointed residences, people whose very religion exacted the most scrupulous cleanliness and who had all proved themselves obedient and law-abiding. These were classed under one rubric with the vastly inferior coolie labourer, with Kaffirs and Hottentots, and actually compelled to abandon their stores and residences to reside in one common ghetto upon the outskirts of the towns, a measure which entailed great losses apart from the gratuitous humiliation—to many it involved ruin and in fact meant their expulsion.

Despite the fact that no royalty was yet exacted upon the gold output, probably to please French, American, and German investors, there seemed to exist a veiled hostility against the representatives of mining capitalists, as if the Government regretted to have allowed the exploitation of the mines to fall into private hands and would welcome an opportunity to take them under State control altogether.

The situation had a truly anomalous aspect. More discoveries of gold and even of diamonds followed apace, and the scope for mining, commercial and industrial enterprises expanded to an incalculable magnitude. All that was needed was a stable and good Government to encourage the needful investments. A most tantalizing picture indeed, based upon undeniably well-grounded facts.

As it was, the situation was one of alarm for capital already invested—a stake then of over 300 millions sterling in a country where more than half of the population were in almost open revolt against a Government commanding very large repressive forces, and resolved to maintain its stand.

British intervention appeared to be the only means of salvation to restore security, and to give a fillip to the brilliant prospects of the country, for the good of the burgher estate as well as for the sake of Uitlanders.

The farcical failure of Dr. Jameson was the outcome of those endeavours. The unspeakable cowardice of his Johannesburg confederates was the chief feature of that puny attempt. Laurels, like those gained by Lord Peterborough, Warren Hastings, or Lord Clive, were not decreed to that ill-advised emulator.

In lieu of reforms, Bond projects and armaments were secretly pursued with redoubled vigour towards the climax which should install Afrikanerdom supreme in South Africa, financially as well as politically.

We may here consider whether such a demand contained any real feature of unfairness to warrant refusal.

Three-fifths of the entire white Transvaal population were Uitlanders, the majority of them English. They own four-fifths of the total wealth invested in the State. About half of them have been domiciled, with house and other fixed property, for periods of from five to ten years and more.

Is it right or prudent to exclude such interests and such a majority from legislative representation?

Could a minority of one-fifth, that is to say, twelve Uitlander members against forty-eight Boer members, be said to constitute a menace to the status or to the conservative interests of State?

Do Uitlanders not deserve equal recognition with the burghers in respect to intrinsic interest in the land, seeing that the former supplied all the skill and the capital to explore and exploit the mine wealth, all at their risk, and without which it would all have remained hidden and the country continued fallow and poor?

As the pursuit of our study will show, the success of Mr. Chamberlain's diplomacy to avert war depended upon the very slender prospects that the Transvaal Government might have been induced to waver, and finally to break with the Afrikaner Bond—a forlorn hope indeed, considering the perfection which that formidable organization had reached. Its cherished objects were not meant to be abandoned. The advice of "Bond" leaders prevailed. War was declared and the Rubicon crossed in enthusiastic expectations of soon realizing the long-deferred Bond motto: "The expulsion of the hateful English."

It may well be imagined that Mr. Chamberlain and his noble colleagues had anything but beds of roses whilst pursuing the diplomacy adopted to checkmate the Bond. They had to gain national support without divulging their own proceeding, and were at the same time reduced to a situation which imposed a spartan fortitude in concealing and repressing involuntary perturbation in the presence of an impending national crisis, and also the stoical endurance of bitter recriminations on the part of an opposition comprising a large and honourable but poorly informed section of the English nation.

In towns and villages, not only in the Colonies, but also in both Republics, English is almost exclusively used. The Boers, and especially the younger generation, have a much greater aptitude and penchant for learning English than for High Dutch; and generally it has been held more important by the parents that their children should become proficient in English, that language being more easily acquired and of vastly greater use than Dutch. The latter, it was truly averred, would be learnt as they grew up quite sufficiently for all purposes.

Taking the fairly educated Free State and Transvaal youth, the average proficiency in English compared to that in High Dutch is as two to one, whilst many possess even a literary mastery in English whilst quite poor in the other language.

In the Cape Colony the above comparison among the Boer section is still more in favour of English.

It may be judged what an important rôle the educated Hollander group can take in those Republics, and are yet aiming at in the Colonies.

As one of the world's languages, Dutch figures under a very sorry rôle indeed. It had been ignored everywhere outside of Holland and her distant Colonies. The consequence to Hollanders is that they are of necessity subjected to the ordeal of learning several other continental languages for commercial intercourse, and in order to keep at all abreast with the progress of science, literature, and culture. Dutch is in the moribund stage; its salvation from imminent extinction consists in the expansion of its sphere. Boer successes in South Africa would just accomplish that.

Holland being the locality of the inception, I may say the ingestion, of the Afrikaner Bond, one's thoughts are apt to retrace, by way of contrast, that little nation's creditable past. The view presents those dykes, monuments of labour's heroism; then that glorious resistance against the mighty persecutor of religion, those unsurpassed performances in the arena of culture, arts, and sciences, and that long epoch of success in exploits of colonization, finance, and commerce.

(a) The transfer of the Cape Colony to the British Government took place by circumstances of force majeure and without the consent of the Dutch nation, who renounce all claim in favour of the Afrikaner or Boer nation.

(b) Natal is territory which accrued to a contingent of the Boer nation by purchase from the Zulu King, who received the consideration agreed for.

(c) The British authorities expelled the rightful owners from Natal by force of arms without just cause.

The task of the Afrikaner Bond consists in:—

(a) Procuring the staunch adhesion and co-operation of every Afrikaner and other real friend of the cause.

(b) To obtain the sympathy, the moral and effective aid of one or more of the world's Powers.

The means to accomplish those tasks are:—

Personal persuasion, Press propaganda, legislation and diplomacy.

One of the indispensable requisites is the proper organization of an effective fund, which is to be regularly sustained. Bond members will aid each other in all relations of public life in preference to non-members.

In the efforts of gaining adherents to the cause it is of importance to distinguish three categories of persons—

(1) The class of Afrikaners who are to some extent deteriorated by assimilative influences with the English race, whose restoration to patriotism will need great efforts, discretion, and patience.

(2)The apparently unthinking and apathetic class, who prefer to relegate all initiative to leaders whom they will loyally follow. This class is the most numerous by far.

(3) The warmly patriotic class, including men gifted with intelligence, energy, and speech, qualified as leaders and apt to exercise influence over the rest.

Upon the basis of our just rights, the British Government, if not the entire nation, is the usurping enemy of the Boer nation.

In dealing with an enemy it is justifiable to employ, besides force, also means of a less open character, such as diplomacy and stratagem.

The greatest danger to Afrikanerdom is the English policy of Anglicizing the Boer nation—to submerge it by the process of assimilation.

A distinct attitude of holding aloof from English influences is the only remedy against that peril and for thwarting that insidious policy.

It is only such an attitude that will preserve the nation in its simple faith and habits of morality, and provide safety against the dangers of contamination and pernicious examples, with all their fateful consequences to body and soul.

Let the Dutch language have the place of honour in schools and homes.

Employ teachers only who are animated with truly patriotic sentiments.

Let it be well understood that English domination will also bring religious intolerance and servitude, for it is only a very frail link which separates the English State Church from actual Romanism, and its proselytism en bloc is only a matter of short time.

Equally repugnant and dangerous is England's policy towards the coloured races, whom she aims, for the sake of industrial profit, at elevating to equal rank with whites, in direct conflict with scriptural authority—a policy which incites coloured people to rivalry with their superiors, and can only end in common disaster.

Whilst remaining absolutely independent, the ties of blood relationship and language point to Holland for a domestic base.

If the mineral wealth of the Transvaal and Orange Free State becomes established—as appears certain from discoveries already made—England will not rest until those are also hers.

The leopard will retain its spots. The independence of both Republics is at stake on that account alone, with the risk that the rightful owners of the land will become the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the usurpers.

There is no alternative hope for the peace and progress of South Africa except by the total excision of the British ulcer.

Reliable signs are not wanting to show that our nation is designed by Providence as the instrument for the recovery of its rights, and for the chastisement of proud, perfidious Albion.

Conferences were convened with the objects of coming to agreements for the establishment of a general South African Customs Union, and for adjusting railway tariffs upon fair bases and a more reliable permanency of rates suggesting reciprocal terms advantageous to the Republics. These efforts also proved fruitless through similar opposition.

The Afrikaner Bond party, as the reader will understand, had ranged itself against all such attempts, whilst successfully masking its own object all the time.

Other differences, which, with a friendly and united spirit, were capable of easy adjustment, were welcomed by that party as grist to its mill in order to widen the gulf and to increase the tension.

The Bond leaders in Holland and South Africa had at an early stage acted upon Stuart Mill's recognised saying, "that conviction in a cause is of more potent avail than mere interest in it." Among those leaders there was no lack of men of erudition and of psychological science, than whom no one knew better the prime importance of ensuring uniformity of convictions among the Boers and their partisans, and that the public mind needs to be framed and trained so as to view the Boer cause as just and that of the English as odiously wicked. They knew how indispensable the Press is for attaining those objects, how journalism is capable of plausibly representing black as white and to convince people so—that, in fact, it is on occasion an agency of persuasion more potent than armies are. Its needs are unscrupulous pens and ample payments. For money is the sinews of journalism as well as of war, whether the projectiles be charged with lyddite or with lies, whether it is bullets or throwing dust into people's eyes.

Books teaching the history of South Africa were adapted for school use wherein denunciations against the English appear in almost every chapter. Poetry in the vernacular Dutch and pamphlets teeming with like burdens and calumnies also did their share in inspiring race hatred.

To sum up the success achieved by anti-English propaganda, we find the Boer nation, from the Zambesi to the Cape, unanimous in convictions as to their fancied claims, their own absolute innocence, and the immeasurable guilt of the British Government, abetted by capitalism—guilt which cries to heaven for retribution; and those convictions take with each man the form of a resolute patriotism wherein mingled fanaticism and religious fervour in their cause form a powerfully sustaining part.

Is it not attributable in a large proportion to misguided as well as to venal journalism that the Boer cause has so heavily scored?

Was all this not manifest in the divisions of England's counsels, in the hampered progress of her diplomacy, her fateful hesitancy and delay in providing appropriate preventive and protective measures in South Africa?

The activities of Bond propaganda have been in continuance for many years, and the prejudices fostered so long are correspondingly deep-rooted.

Bond patriotism was not long subjected to the strain of individual contributions and unpaid performances. When the Transvaal revenues advanced with such giant strides the Afrikaner Bond leaders in that State contrived arrangements by which the financial requirements were supplied from State receipts. Nor was the least compunction felt in doing so. Was the revenue of the State not chiefly derived from the Uitlander element—from Uitlander investments, which all throve from the nation's own buried gold wealth? No scruples existed to provide from those sources the armaments and all else needed for the common cause of conquest.

The entire expenditure was under the direction of a few only of the trusted leaders and audited by the chiefs, all being kept otherwise undivulged.

The Transvaal thus became the treasury as well as the arsenal of the entire Afrikaner Bond.

Hundreds of agents were in constant employ in the Cape Colonies and Natal suborning the Boer colonists; many of them occupied positions in various branches of the Colonial Government, and were able to supply information upon any subject and even to influence elections.

There were numerous permanent agents drawing large emoluments in Europe also, and emissaries to different places abroad, some touring in America, England, and the Continent, as the Rev. Mr. Bosman did recently, and also the P.M.G., Isaac van Alphen.

The appropriation of gold mines and their exploitation for Government benefit bring about a singular anomaly for a nation engaged in war, viz., that of a plethora of gold and a scarcity of paper currency, the Transvaal mint coining the sinews of war at the expense of its victims, but the plundered gold after all not equalling commercial paper values.

In connection with the foregoing remarks the following may also be said. States professing neutrality still permit themselves to trade with the Transvaal to a large extent. It is notorious that that State possesses no funds available for payments except the gold derived from the misappropriated mines. The output is seized in its entirety, and not limited to the extent accruing to British scrip holders only. The hustling rivalry of doing business with the Transvaal thus involves receiving stolen money in payment of trade accounts. We see the receivers eager to stand upon the same platform as the thief, thus not only as his political partisans, but also as his accomplices.

The Boer section in the Cape Colonies represents nearly one-half of the white population there. Their representatives in the administration were ever profuse and assertive in professions of loyalty to the Queen and to the English Government, and any aspersions to the contrary were always indignantly and stoutly repelled. The Afrikaner Bond was averred to include nothing to clash with loyal sentiments, no severance from England, but, on the contrary, that its principal objects were to strengthen the lines of amity and joint solidarity in view of a general federation of South Africa upon Imperial bases. In support of such sentiments one of the first acts of the Bond party when recently come into power was a vote of £30,000 per year towards British naval outlays, and in grateful recognition of naval protection; it was at the same time mooted, in fact almost pledged, that the Transvaal would similarly offer £12,000 as well.

Something refreshingly analogous to such attempts of screening and exculpation has been extemporized in Cape journals of late. There, in an ingeniously pretended dissertation, it is invented how ill founded the aspersions are against Mr. Premier Schreiner, and that the acts, upon which he was so wrongly suspected as an amphibious helmsman, are really attributable to another person—by the way, to one at a safe distance, viz., to Mr. F.W. Reitz, the Transvaal State Secretary; whilst this gentleman again, when lecturing at Johannesburg in July last, naively deplored the confusion of people's ideas who see anything wrong in the Afrikaner Bond, adding: "Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do or talk about."

"The peace of South Africa is only possible under Boer supremacy," is the Bond shibboleth. The end justifies the means, even to sedition, to a war of conquest and the wholesale plunder of investors.

Boer Arguments Denying Uitlanders' Complaints

Many plausible arguments are proffered to prove that Uitlanders' grievances and irritations are purely fictitious, but few, I venture to say, will bear examination. Taxation, for example, is stoutly averred to fall alike upon burgher and Uitlander, but a glance at the long rubric of articles specially taxed will show that the selection is contrived to hit the latter and to spare, or even to protect and benefit, the burgher section.

Proper representation would be the remedy and afford contentment, even with higher taxation, but that is refused upon Bond principles.

The Anglo-Boer War is attributed to base motives on the part of the British Government, operating in collusion with capitalism—to England's passion for annexation, her rapacious greed for the Transvaal gold, her inordinate ambition to universal commercial supremacy, etc. What a confusion of assertions and of self-refuting contradictions!

Would England really acquire the Transvaal gold by the annexation of that State, seeing that its mines are already capitalized and as good as expropriated in favour of the host of shareholders, some of whom are English, but the greater portion German, French, and of other nations?

Between the north-eastern borders of the Transvaal and the coast lies the Portuguese colony Mozambique. Its frontier railway station, Ressario Garcia, is near that of the Transvaal, viz., Komati poort, which is 53 miles from Delagoa Bay. A low-lying country extends from the coast about 100 to 200 miles inland, and is tropical. Except some elevated spots, the whole of it is almost uninhabitable in summer by whites on account of malaria. During some specially bad seasons natives even succumb to that malady. The only comparatively safe months are from June to November. Marshy localities, and wherever there is shaded rank vegetation in low-lying parts, are dangerous all the year round; in such places the water is deadly at all times unless first boiled.

Donkeys, horned cattle, and goats are exempt from malarial risks.

Some proprietors of mail coaches are in the habit of administering doses of arsenic to their horses and mules, which are said to operate in lessening the death rate and to favour the salting process.

As safeguards for horses and mules, the following rules have been found to minimise losses in dangerous tracts where the low clinging miasmatic vapours are so deadly during the night and earlier parts of the morning. (During rainfall there is hardly any danger, nor is there after a night's rain for the day following):—

Choose the most elevated spots for camping out at night. No grazing to be allowed from 10 p.m. to about 10 or 11 a.m., unless it is raining. Dewy grass is fatally poisoned; the heavy moist air close to the surface is also suspected. Grazing is only safe after the soil and grass are dried of all dewy moisture.

Avoid all water of at all a stagnant nature; rather let the animals remain thirsty.

If the animals have been fed with dry fodder during the night, let the first morning stage be moderate and not exhausting. With empty stomachs the task might be somewhat increased, but even then it should be less than any other succeeding stage. When the first symptoms of sickness are noticed they may pass over if the animal is at once freed from work and allowed to rest, or is at most led when marching. Among the most dangerous places for horse sickness and for fever to human beings are the luxurious dongas, ravines, and valleys which abound along the long stretches of mountains and broken country immediately below the high plateaux.

Within 200 or 300 miles from the Drakensberg slopes the country is well-watered, and the rainfall ample and generally regular, but westwards this abundance progressively decreases with a more tardy and precarious rainy season, occasioning at times severe droughts accompanied with correspondingly protracted and very hot weather.

Those burnt spaces may extend for miles, and are for the time veritable deserts. The landscape being quite black and the atmosphere generally very clear, it is obvious that objects of any lighter colour would be conspicuous at very long distances: an ideal background for khaki targets.

In the earlier days, and even not so long ago in some parts, the farmers' crops required guarding during the night against the depredations of game. This is still so in the north-western plains of the Cape Colony, as already remarked. In May most of the Harrismith district farmers and those of the Transvaal high veldt move their sheep, horses and cattle to winter in Natal, Swaziland, and to the other extensive low lands most adjacent, to return after the spring rains in September or October. Sheep and horses could not with safety remain longer in those warm regions, as then the fatal malarial blaauwtong begins there to attack sheep, and horse sickness becomes virulent as well. The high veldt, as said before, is exempt from that danger.

Owing to the scarcity of wood on the high veldt, kraal fuel used formerly to be the staple substitute. This would be obtained by penning up sheep over-night. The deposits were after a month or two dug out in thick flags, which, after being stacked and dried over the kraal wall, would burn nearly as well and as brightly as wood. The discovery of coal beds in so many accessible places in the Cape Colony, Natal, and in the two Republics has since superseded that sort of fuel to a great extent.

The small divergence between summer and winter temperature upon the high table lands will be seen from the following table taken from observations at 5,500 to 6,000 feet altitude in the Transvaal:—

        Fahr.                               Fahr.

In winter—28° to 40° at night;      35° to 70° by day in the shade.
In summer—40° to 60° at night;      50° to 90° by day in the shade.

There was no possibility of restraining cattle or horses from stampeding—they did it from the instinct of self-preservation, for, whilst running with the wind, its force of driving cold was proportionately lessened, and some loss of heat was made good by the exertion of running, which they had to keep up till in safe shelter of hills or ravines.

Had such a cold storm overtaken an army or patrol, the situation would have been exactly similar, and would have been an ordeal even to experienced Boers or Colonial farmers, and if an enemy had been located near Reddersburg, all the cattle and horses would simply have fallen into his lap.

Upon other much less severe occasions entire gangs of 20-50 Kaffirs, travelling from the warm north to the diamond-fields or gold-mines, and not sufficiently provided with blankets, would be found at their camping places huddled together, nearly all numbed to death. The months when such surprise weather is most liable to occur are from "July to October," before and during the earlier spring rains. It is then, and even up to December at times, that the Drakensberg and other mountains resume their snow-capped winter decorations for some days. There is a saying which fairly well applies to the high-veldt climate, i.e., that cold and inclement weather is not met with until well in towards summer, especially about the time of spring rains, and that hot weather of any considerable continuance mostly occurs in spring. This will be understood upon considering that the midsummer months, December to February, are cooled by very frequent and copious rains, whilst the heat accumulates more during the preceding sunny spring months, which are interrupted at rarer intervals by short showers only.

Under such favoured conditions the hand of man only is needed in providing good habitations, planting trees, in the culture of the soil, and some irrigation labour, to transform nearly every little farm within five to ten years from a bare pastoral monotony to a really idyllic spot. There are many such already in Basutoland, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, as well as in the Cape Colonies and Natal—veritable Eden-like places, as it were bits dropped from heaven. With a continuance of peace these could be multiplied to any extent each year, thus rendering those sparsely inhabited tracts the most beautiful areas in the world, with a prosperous self-sustaining population, quite apart from considerations of mineral wealth.

That the Afrikaner Bond had been for years past preparing for its coup d'état is further shown by the following incidents which can be substantiated by the writer:—

During the days of the Jameson raid a very prominent Transvaal Boer, holding office and who had two sons at the scene of the disturbance, remarked at a public place in conversation with other burghers:—

"England just wants to annex the Transvaal, and no doubt the Orange Free State too. This we know; but what she does not know is, that we can at this moment reverse the tale—we can seize in one day Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, and Durban, and within a very short time turn every Englishman out of the Colonies, out of the land which England has robbed us of."

But for subsequent revelations and the present sequel those words would have been forgotten, and were at the time attributed by some to mere boastful exuberance.

In July last the topic was discussed by some Boers at the house of a highly placed military official, about the five per cent. tax upon the profits of the gold industry. One said it should be raised to twenty-five per cent. for the benefit of the burgher estate. That official, who, by the way, had just returned from a gathering of country officials at Pretoria, sententiously replied "that it was no more a question of any tribute, but of taking the mines altogether out of the capitalists' hands"; and when another burgher interposed a doubt as to the fairness of such a proceeding, that official continued by saying, "Fairness indeed! it is we who have submitted to unfairness only too long—ons wil nou Engelse schiet (we want now to go on the battue of Englishmen)."

President Krüger is famous for employing clever and original similes in order to illustrate a policy as he wants his people to understand it.

It has already been noted that the Franchise Law of 1890 excluded Uitlanders from full burgher rights until after twenty-one years' probation. The reduction to seven years was proclaimed to be a concession to meet Mr. Chamberlain's demand. The simile, as addressed to the Volksraad and published in the journals, ran as follows:—

The people were thus led to be unanimous in the resolve to oppose any further concession, and to view Sir Alfred Milner's unconditional insistence for a five years' franchise as a conclusive proof that England in reality wanted no less than the country itself. In this way the Boer mind was designedly fashioned into the conviction that war was inevitable, and that both President and people were absolved from all responsibility in it. Had the offered franchise of seven years and the subsequent one of five years been honestly meant, there should, indeed, have been little difficulty for adjusting in the one case the difference of two years; but it being so surrounded by impossible trammels that what purported to be an egg proved more like a stone, and even that was not intended to be given, it was a mere subterfuge to gain time for carrying out Bond designs.

In about 1893 the Transvaal Government introduced about 10,000 new rifles of the Guede pattern, firing a steel-pointed bullet, but the issue did not become general, as the Martini-Henry rifle continued to be held more effective for game and for war. The Mauser rifle was only provided, after long hesitation and much diffidence, for its rapid-firing quality in war, whereas for game it is still considered inferior to the larger bored Martini-Henry.

Quite other and more emphatic terms apply to the revolting sewerage such as the socialistic platform and other purulent nurseries for breeding wilful and hypocritical abettors, at so much a score, of misguided and treason-hatching Afrikanerdom.

The factory pertaining to this enterprise, situated near Pretoria, is recognised to be the most extensive and best equipped of its kind in existence. It is capable of turning out all the dynamite and similar blasting material needed for the gold and other mines of the State, also every description of explosive needed for modern ammunition.

Its equipments include ateliers and laboratories under the conduct of eminent scientists and men of most advanced technical proficiency. The site is a farm named Modderfontein of about 8,000 acres near Pretoria. The industry provides employment for over 5,000 persons. In connection with this factory is a foundry at Pretoria for casting shells, etc. The various ingredients, such as sulphur, guhr, saltpetre, etc., are believed to be plentiful in the State, but their exploitation is found to be more costly than it is to import the pure articles from Europe.

Efficiently          Mounted Infantry.   At least about             142,000
 trained.

  15,000     Orange Free State, between 18-50 years        20,000

  25,000     Transvaal, between 18-50 years                30,000

  40,000     Cape Colonies, between 18-50 years            60,000

   2,000     Natal and elsewhere, between 18-50 years       2,000

  18,000     Of above, aged 16-18 and 50-60                30,000

 -------                                                  -------
 100,000             Artillery                                        2,000


     600     Orange Free State, including trained reserves    600

   1,400     Transvaal                                      1,400

 -------                                                    -----    -------

 102,000                              Total at least about           144,000

102,000 highly efficient, and 42,000 partly trained.

The mounts are docile, hardy and nimble, with large reserves available. The above includes 500 Johannesburg Mounted Police, a picked body of men armed with carbine, revolver, and sabre.

Rudyard Kipling truly said "the Boers are the most conservative people on earth." Habits and views which had prevailed two hundred years ago with their forefathers are still tenaciously preserved by them. We see this in matters of language, religion, in certain antipathies, and even in attire. They are justly famed for hospitality, not only amongst themselves, but also towards strangers, and a very pleasing trait, no doubt handed down from the seigneurial Huguenots, is the genial politeness which a stranger will receive in an otherwise wholly uncultured Boer family.

Education

Dundee Secret Dossier

The greatest stir was made upon the discovery of secret documents left behind by the British military at the hurried evacuation of Dundee (Natal).

The incident again shows the absence of tangible grounds for accusations against England when a foolish invention as the one cited must do duty for such, and to rekindle race hatred.

Considering, on the other hand, that the English Government had known much about the Afrikaner Bond menace, it is singular that precautionary measures had halted with that bare effort of making military observations. The only way to account for this apparent lethargic inaction is the assumption that a persevering patience and friendly attitude was expected in time to effectually dissipate all trouble in South Africa, and that a display of anxiety or of force would have frustrated such peaceable tactics. In refutation of the aspersion against England, it may be sufficient to point to the fact that during those very years (1896-7) both Republics were in a condition of complete helplessness through the rinderpest scourge which was then raging. If any hostile designs had in reality existed they could have been carried out with utmost ease then, as that scourge presented no obstacle to England. But it was the programme of peace which was pursued as undeviatingly then as since, with a constancy which refused to be foiled.

A mass of so-called proof against England of her guilt in provoking the present war and justifying the Boer attitude was presented to the public in South Africa and abroad in November last in the shape of a voluminous pamphlet entitled A Hundred Years of Injustice (published both in English and Dutch, and later even translated into French). That production covers Boer history and its troubles with England up to 1881. It then travels over the diplomatic appeals of the Transvaal delegation, which resulted in the renewed convention of 1884. Then it wades through all the mire of academic squabble re suzerainty, etc. After exhausting the Jameson episode with bitter invective, and seeking applause for the Transvaal Government for its professed desire to conciliate and to propitiate England by the offer of a seven years' franchise, the reader is, in conclusion, 'treated to a literary display of pyrotechnic denunciations and prophetic burdens against wicked Albion, with appeals to divine justice for righting the cause of an innocent nation so foully driven to a war of pure self-defence.

The doctrines of the Afrikaner Bond coterie have been so assiduously and deeply instilled into the Boer mind that demonstrations are utterly futile in shaking the national conviction of the divinely approved justice of his cause. The first occasion when I saw this illustrated, and also the people's unreasoning adherence to their leaders' opinions, happened about ten years ago at burgher meetings which had been convened to discuss the then projected law for restraining Uitlanders from admission to Transvaal franchise and other political topics.

"Does the Bible not say, 'The Lord loveth the stranger?' so also then must we; and again, 'Thou shalt not devise mischief against the stranger who dwelleth in peace with thee.' We are reputed as a God-fearing people. Is it not well that we should take great care to act in accordance? But I have observed with shame that instead of love and peace a spirit of hatred and strife has been allowed to gain upon us. Let us strive to expel that evil, lest we fall under God's displeasure and forfeit His favour. We cannot afford to lose that."

"God saith by Solomon (Prov. xxiv. 21-22): 'My son, fear thou the Lord and the king; and meddle not with them that are given to change: for their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the destruction of them both?'" and he finally warned them of the risk they incurred, after having been advanced and blessed in an unexampled way, of being flung back to their previous ignoble position upon the ash heap. There are plenty of respectable Boers in whose ears those expressions still tingle.

The man, who is no speaker, was, nevertheless, apt to grow warm and impressive, drawn out probably by interruptions and opposing views. The speeches terminated on one occasion by one of the party saying in violent Bond fashion: "The English hired the Zulus to massacre our people. They robbed us of Natal, and drove us from the Colonies. There can be no peace with them until we have our own. God helps them who help themselves. Whoever takes their part is against us and against every true Afrikaner."

"Modus vivendi"

The population of the Transvaal to be divided into two classes, pending the continued presence of the large floating portion consisting of Uitlanders who derive their subsistence from the mining industries, viz.:—

1st Class.—The fixed or burgher estate.

2nd Class.—The floating or alien estate or Guests.

The 1st Volksraad to be elected by burghers only, and to represent the highest legislative and administrative powers.

The Uitlander franchise shall be limited to representation in the 2nd Volksraad, and be extended under usual fair conditions of eligibility to all white persons after two years' residence, retrospectively reckoned.

Aliens may be admitted to full burgher rights and vote for 1st Volksraad, President, and Commandant-General, after five years' residence, if approved of by two-thirds of the burghers of his ward, possesses landed property to the value of £1,000, and has not been convicted here or elsewhere of any degrading crime.

Members of both Volksraads and for public service shall be eligible without respect of creed.

The exploitation of mines shall be subject to a tax of 25 per cent., reckoned upon the yearly net profits, such revenue to be applied at the discretion of the 1st Volksraad solely for the benefit of the burgher estate—schools, hospitals, universities, pensions, by means of permanent endowments.

The Government of the Transvaal undertakes:—

2. The recognition of British paramountcy over South Africa, including the Transvaal, in so far as it does not clash with the intentions and provisions set forth in the conventions of 1881 and 1884, and does not extend to interference with or curtailment of complete internal autonomy.

3. Renunciation of indemnity claim re Jameson incursion.

4. To regulate the question of coloured British subjects resident in the Transvaal upon a genial basis, irrespective of the Bloemfontein arbitration award upon that subject.

5. Poll and war taxes shall be abolished.

6. Dual rights equal with the Dutch language shall be accorded to the English language, similarly as is done in the Cape Colony for Dutch.

7. The railways and dynamite factory to be expropriated as soon as possible—the loans required thereto to be amortized within twenty years, and pending those expropriations the freights upon coal and oversea goods shall be reduced 10 per cent, and the price of explosives 20s. per case, these reductions to be met from the revenue accruing to the burgher estate from the tax upon mining profits.

9. Restore the High Court to independent power in terms of constitution.

The sequel has shown that Bond counsels prevailed over the suggestions of that old Free Stater. As to the seven years' franchise offered under the pretence and colour of meeting Sir Alfred Milner's demand, it had clearly been intended to serve as a decoy and stop-gap pending the contemplated war of conquest, and to mask Bond duplicity while further preparations were to be completed in diplomacy abroad and in the seditious conspiracy in the Colonies. Natal was at that time swarming with Boer emissaries, and Transvaal artillery officers with Hollander engineers in disguise were seen inspecting Laing's Nek tunnel and other strategic points in that colony.

During one of the interviews Mr. Reitz had remarked that he had a special theory in regard to the situation; but it varied from that of the President, who, in reality, was King, and whose will overcame all opposition.

The success of such a remedial and defensive measure would naturally depend upon the adequacy of the franchise aimed at. Mr. Chamberlain and his colleagues were not a little sanguine in expecting that a five years' qualification for voting and a representation equal to one-fifth of the total number of seats in the Legislature would be effective for all that which was needed; nor could it be averred that the Transvaal burghers would be swamped out thereby.

But why not agree to arbitration, it will be asked, that peaceable method so strenuously appealed for by the Transvaal Government and advocated by her partisans, to adjust all differences, of which the suzerainty claim and the Uitlander question appeared to be the principal ones? The reply is not that England was unwilling, but because the Transvaal was insincere, and the request was a cover for shameless duplicity, for, while it had been declared by the former that the claim to suzerainty would be left in abeyance and that infractions of convention which had been committed by the latter would be overlooked in consideration of future friendly relations and co-operation, the Transvaal Government in reality never for a moment meant to be content with less than British overthrow and complete Boer supremacy in South Africa, and efforts and intrigues were never relaxed, in concert with the Bond, to compass those objects.

The promiscuous details and incidents, together with the circumstantial and primâ facie evidence thus far adduced in arraigning the Afrikaner Bond combination, point mostly to conditions existent before the war broke out. We had the smoke before the conflagration—it is a wonder how people could manage to ignore the menace. Now the war torch is over us in its full luridness.

Ordinary fires, if not kindled, originate either from accident, spontaneous combustion, or incendiarism. With war the origin may be traced to similar causes either singly or in combination, or, when we cannot hit the exact diagnosis, we explain it with a handy word and call it evolution, as we may do in the case of the present Anglo-Boer conflict.

The next aspect brings out the marring manifestations: greed of land and of conquest with the Pretoria-Bloemfontein combination; malignant sedition in the Cape Colonies, urged by lust to participate more directly in the wealth of gold and diamonds in the north and to share general plunder—both categories of covetousness merged into one purulent fester by men of conceited ambition, all cemented with collusion, but the whole of it devised, engineered, and operated by the most malignant agencies from Holland under the coaching of the evil one himself.

To sum up, the respective rewards which lured them all are: Plunder for the Boers and rebels, laurels and "fat" places for the Bond leaders, and a substantial harvest for entire Holland, with pæans of praise for the coterie and Dr. Leyds from a grateful people for successfully restoring the good fortunes of the Dutch nation, and for effecting a retributive vendetta upon England, all under world-wide, gloating acclaims of gratified and vindictive jealousy.

As to the bulk of the Boer people, they are simply led by their chiefs and superiors, in whom they repose unquestioning confidence. They go unreasoningly with the stream of opinion under the firm belief that all is divinely sanctioned, including rebellion and violence, and blindly obey their call, considering their cause analogous to that of the Jews of old, who were enjoined to spoil the Egyptians and then to pass over and conquer their land of promise. No papal bull of indulgence ever freed people's consciences more than the Boer people now feel in regard to the warfare in which they are engaged.

The Boers in the Cape Colonies have been prospering in a marked degree since the British accession in 1814, enjoying ideal liberty and good government upon perfect equality with the English colonists.

The people of the Orange Free State fared equally well under best relations with the British Government up to the outbreak of the present war.

The Afrikaner Bond had been inaugurated some thirty years ago, under the mask of a constitutional organization, professing loyalty to England; that body had succeeded in hiding its object, which was no less than the expulsion from South Africa of all that is English, and which object was brutally avowed since the outbreak of the war by declarations in the Press and by incendiary speeches of Colonial Bond leaders and members of the Cape Parliament.

The British Government did not view very seriously the information it received regarding the Bond menace until the definite action of the Transvaal Government partially opened its eyes prior to the Johannesburg revolt. The hope was, however, still clung to in an undefined way that patience and forbearance would yet overcome Boer prejudice and disperse racial antipathies, and with characteristic self-confidence as well, things were allowed to drift rather out of hand.

On the occasion of the Jameson incursion the Orange Free State promptly appeared near the scene with best equipped mounted Boer commandoes and artillery to assist the Transvaal if needed.

The climax of duplicity is reached when it is averred that the pursuit of such an organized programme during the past twenty years and more had meant peace only, never a thought of conquest, as Ambassador Leyds so innocently declared after failing to gain abroad the hoped-for support for the monstrous Bond enormity.

The Afrikaner Bond leaders would have preferred the war to have been deferred a little longer—preferably to a moment when England might be embroiled elsewhere. It was also thought of importance that the Transvaal should first realize the auriferous "underground rights" situated around the Johannesburg mines, which Government asset was expected to net at least fifty million pounds sterling. The sales had already been advertised, and were in preparation when the outbreak of the war intervened. Upon the word "ready," flashed from Bloemfontein, followed at once the fateful Pretoria ultimatum. The proceeds of those underground rights must now come in afterwards to defray the war bill.

It presents a sad paradox to see that the Boers, who are in many respects consistently religious and even exemplary, could uphold principles which place coloured people out of caste, not only in regard to political rights but also as to the common religious standing before the Creator. It would be unjust to charge the Boers with actually barbarous practices towards the natives—what they do enforce is their submission to the condition of servants.

It seemed that such conditions were on the eve of eventuating for the rescue and disenthralment of darkest Africa. This is what Moffat, Livingstone, Coillard, and many other devoted servants of the Gospel had prayed for all their lives, what has been and still is the burden of the prayers (no doubt all inspired) of millions of Christians. The interior is no more a blank on the map. Much is done for the suppression of slavery. The whole continent is parcelled out among different nations, who have assumed the task of civilizing their respective spheres. The world's energy and capital stand available for the object, and it appeared that many souls were being seriously aroused to the responsibility of obeying the charge pronounced in Ezekiel xxxiii. 1-11. But sinister influences have not failed in attempts to bar beneficent dispensations. We have seen fanaticism resulting in the fierce revolt of Mahdism in the north, and are now awaiting the issue of the war brought on by Afrikaner Bondism in the south.

Civilization went on apace, and with it the moral improvement of the aborigines, paving the way as well for the spread of Christianity. All this was accompanied with an immense and ever-advancing expansion of trade with England and the recognition of British prestige as a successful colonizing power.

Numerous other principalities courted the privilege of coming under the ægis of the English flag, their potentates and people readily submitting to the abolition of practices which were not in accord with humane and civilized usages and eager to share the benefits and advancement of civilization which were enjoyed under British rule. In not a few instances it was, however, not feasible to extend the protectorate so coveted.

All this national success and example of liberal government have had a salutary influence upon the rest of the world in evoking wholesome competition and emulation. But another and very untoward effect is that widespread and deep-rooted envy and jealousy have also been aroused, which on occasion are apt to develop into pretexts for actual hostility, or hostile partisanship as is now the case.

Step by step, by means of strenuous and disinterested exertions, employing prestige and encouragements, by legislation and otherwise, a breach was effected which bids fair to break down that caste-fenced and chained thraldom, and to raise over a hundred millions of her humble subject sisters from unnatural degradation to occupy the honourable and responsible rank assigned by the Creator to woman as man's social help, meet for him, and to whom honour is due as to the weaker vessel. Millions of women have already found emancipation and recognition of their right position, to man's reciprocal joy and to the felicity of their families. Their sons and daughters in turn now form armies to complete the mission of liberty so zealously inaugurated by their beloved Empress, their own peculiar star of India.

Maybe this and similar earnests evinced during that noble Queen's reign, among which the shelter afforded to the Jewish people, will come into remembrance in mitigation of visitations deserved by the nation for its previous complicity in the hideous traffic in African souls of men.

The Hollander coterie has at last succeeded in its ardently desired purpose of pitting the Boer nation against England, and to bring about the present war. What is even more astounding is the success of those villainous artificers upon intelligent partisans of the Boer cause outside of Africa and in England even.

Africa has for some thousands of years been the enemy's favourite and undisturbed haunt for his gory orgies, for the hecatombs of millions of immolated victims each year, the teeming recruiting preserve for his contingents.

Their vicissitudes led them to make analogous comparisons with ancient Jewish history. This practice resulted in some erroneous conceptions, notably in regard to their relations with aborigines and general native policy, as referred to in previous chapters. It also imperceptibly fostered sentiments confounding legality with grace, and the by-product of that subtle corrupting leaven which is apt to see a splint in the eye of another whilst unmindful of the beam in one's own.

It points to the operation of most persevering and subtle agencies and potent illusions that could mislead and carry away the chief men and the most intelligent of the Boer nation so far as to engender the erroneous convictions which caused them to court the present war and to consider it just. As to the bulk of the people, they are in turn led astray by their leaders' example and opinions as victims of the general delusion.

The writer has endeavoured to represent in a true light both the character of the Boer nation and its responsibility in regard to the origin of the present deplorable war. The reader will be able to judge whether that people is wilfully guilty, or whether the circumstances admit of generous, mitigating condonement, always considered apart from that horrible Hollander element which has been the root and instigating cause of all the evil.

We have noted in former pages that the Boers' ancestry some two centuries ago was composed of about two-thirds of sturdy Dutch peasants, artizans, etc., while the other third consisted mostly of French Huguenots.

It is known that the immigrant class, though generally somewhat poor, are uniformly men and women endowed with an adventurous, self-reliant spirit and with unimpaired health. Naturally none but robust persons were permitted to join the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.

We see in that combination the patient, resolute quality prevailing in Holland and the more ardent, vivacious, and chivalrous character found with the French people. The Huguenot refugees belonged undisputably to the cream of that impulsive nation—intellectual, educated, and fearless—whilst both portions were pervaded with deep-rooted religious fervour and habituated to moral and temperate lives.

Whilst missing the intellectual benefits of advanced civilization, the people escaped the dangers of its vitiating tendencies, thus preserving a healthy mental calibre as well as robust physical health. In addition may be mentioned a very notable fecundal power, which accounts for the phenomenally rapid increase of the people. All those conditions have continued to be maintained with the successive generations up to now.

In the Orange Free State nearly every man above fifty years of age has had the experience of the three years' Basuto war in 1865-67, and almost all above forty are very expert huntsmen and crack shots. Quite a good number have also taken part in the Transvaal war against the English in 1880; the rest have been trained by the elder veterans, and, though not so well seasoned, are good horsemen, expert with the rifle, and competent in the field. As to the Transvaalers, the men have all had plenty of field practice before the previous war with England and since, in subduing formidable Kaffir rebellions, the last being the operations against the Magato chief, which terminated just before the outbreak of the present Anglo-Boer war.

They elect as subordinate and chief leaders men whose abilities and influence have commended them for such responsible appointments. Before committing themselves to any very important step these leaders would first confer with the people, who in turn would generally be easily swayed to their opinions, and who found by experience that it was safest to follow their judgment. It thus also became a habit to leave the main thinking over to those leaders, which enhanced unanimity and led to a self-imposed obedience and discipline recognised as necessary for the common welfare and also indispensable for common safety.

The Boers are great smokers—tobacco appears to have no hurtful effects whatever upon them, but seems rather to serve as a grateful sedative. The first thing offered on meeting a Boer is his tobacco pouch, and if one is a guest at his house, this is followed by one or more cups of coffee. This is drunk by men and women in large quantities, often without sugar, but very weak. The people are justly famed for cordial hospitality to strangers, and the pleasing tact and unostentatious correct politeness met with from the most ordinary and uneducated Boer are only accountable for on the theory that that particular culture of manners has been transmitted from his noble French ancestry of a couple of hundred years ago.

Another advantage upon the Boer side consists in complete acclimatization and perfect knowledge of the country. Lastly, but by no means less important, is the rational practice of always going as light and unencumbered as at all possible, preferably with stripped saddle, and to subsist mostly upon meat when in the field, both serving to enhance staying power and to provide a reserve of stamina and of energy for occasions of supreme effort, which often decide the fate of battle against combatants, however courageous, who are fagged out with marching on foot, and through being overladen with accoutrements and pack and a lumbersome diet as well. What can such panting, unsteadied men do in conflict with Boers who are fresh and in well-preserved form, and whose steady sharp-shooting simply results in Calvaries for their opponents, however brave, disciplined and well equipped they may be?

As said before, alcoholism does not prevail among the Boers, and any tendency to it is sedulously checked by legislation and public reprobation. President Krüger is an absolute abstainer from intoxicants, and even at banquets he will sip water only when joining in a toast. His contention is that the effects generally go beyond a harmlessly exhilarating point; the action of alcohol unbalances the nervous equilibrium, producing in most cases an excitement above the normal level, followed by a corresponding depressive reaction below it, creating an appetite for repeating the potation, with exactly similar and progressively aggravated results. Then man's moral standard and general efficiency and dignity become impaired, to the serious damage of his own welfare and involving the common weal as well. When at the outbreak of the war the sale of intoxicants became totally prohibited the measure was received with willing submission and hailed with general approval, which speaks volumes for the burgher population and without doubt also tends to preserve their efficiency and stamina.

Upon this topic a few remarks may be placed under the assumption that the arch enemy's triumph in the present war will be circumscribed by the havoc and the bereavements created by it, and by the forfeiture inflicted upon the poor deluded Boers of their special heirlooms. One of the considerations would be the war cost and its recoupment, and another important one is the measures needful to prevent a repetition of a Bond revolt.

A tax of 2-1/2 per cent. upon the aggregate investment values and a royalty upon the mining industries of 25 per cent. of the net profits would appear reasonable.

The 2-1/2 per cent. tax might bring a sum of        15 millions
The royalty could be reckoned at capitalized value  50   "
The confiscations might reach                       10   "
And the underground rights around the Johannesburg
    mines might realize                             50   "

Thus together 125 millions, possibly not sufficient to cover the entire war cost if pensions are to be included. It is a sad reflection to note that the entire wealth which constituted the national heirloom of the Transvaal will have been wasted, and comes far short to cover the actual war expenditure. In regard to preventive measures against another Bond war, nothing appears clearer than the necessity of applying the lex talionis upon the Hollander element in South Africa (though not in that inhuman fashion as was practised upon the English refugees before and at the commencement of the war).

FINIS

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