The present war has revealed these strata just as they were deposited.
The northern State was the leader and aggressor. The southern one, drawn
in by its fiercer neighbour, was still true to the cause. And so, too,
the Dutch of the Colony were exactly to-day where they had been sixty
years ago. They could no more join the war than they could join the
trek. And, in spite of individual appeals to relations, &c., you may be
sure that the northerners knew pretty accurately how the land lay. Their
own action shows this.
Therefore, I put aside utterly, so far as I am concerned, the Uitlander
and Dutch conspiracy arguments, of which one hears so much, as things
which, though they may occupy the attention of leading article writers
in London, yet are not convincing, and have no smack of reality to any
one who knows something about the Uitlanders from personal observation,
and something about the Boers and Boer life from personal observation. I
put these aside and come back to the only argument that will really
wash, that has no clap-trap in it. And that is South Africa under one
Government, and under a strong and progressive Government. Human nature
is pretty much the same all the world over, and if the Boers have been
to blame in the past, no doubt the Britons have been just as much to
blame. Anyway, it is impossible and would be useless to strike a balance
between them now.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127