And Outside And Beyond All These Definite Wrongs Imagine To A Free
Born Progressive Man, An American Or A Briton,
The constant
irritation of being absolutely ruled by a body of twenty-five men,
twenty-one of whom had in
The case of the Selati Railway Company
been publicly and circumstantially accused of bribery, with full
details of the bribes received, while to their corruption they
added such crass ignorance that they argue in the published reports
of the Volksraad debates that using dynamite bombs to bring down
rain was firing at God, that it is impious to destroy locusts, that
the word 'participate' should not be used because it is not in the
Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are extravagant and effeminate.
Such obiter dicta may be amusing at a distance, but they are less
entertaining when they come from an autocrat who has complete power
over the conditions of your life.
From the fact that they were a community extremely preoccupied by
their own business, it followed that the Uitlanders were not ardent
politicians, and that they desired to have a share in the
government of the State for the purpose of making the conditions of
their own industry and of their own daily lives more endurable. How
far there was need of such an interference may be judged by any
fair-minded man who reads the list of their complaints. A
superficial view may recognise the Boers as the champions of
liberty, but a deeper insight must see that they (as represented by
their elected rulers) have in truth stood for all that history has
shown to be odious in the form of exclusiveness and oppression.
Their conception of liberty has been a selfish one, and they have
consistently inflicted upon others far heavier wrongs than those
against which they had themselves rebelled.
As the mines increased in importance and the miners in numbers, it
was found that these political disabilities affected some of that
cosmopolitan crowd far more than others, in proportion to the
amount of freedom to which their home institutions had made them
accustomed. The continental Uitlanders were more patient of that
which was unendurable to the American and the Briton. The
Americans, however, were in so great a minority that it was upon
the British that the brunt of the struggle for freedom fell. Apart
from the fact that the British were more numerous than all the
other Uitlanders combined, there were special reasons why they
should feel their humiliating position more than the members of any
other race. In the first place, many of the British were British
South Africans, who knew that in the neighbouring countries which
gave them birth the most liberal possible institutions had been
given to the kinsmen of these very Boers who were refusing them the
management of their own drains and water supply. And again, every
Briton knew that Great Britain claimed to be the paramount power in
South Africa, and so he felt as if his own land, to which he might
have looked for protection, was conniving at and acquiescing in his
ill treatment. As citizens of the paramount power, it was
peculiarly galling that they should be held in political
subjection. The British, therefore, were the most persistent and
energetic of the agitators.
But it is a poor cause which cannot bear to fairly state and
honestly consider the case of its opponents. The Boers had made, as
has been briefly shown, great efforts to establish a country of
their own. They had travelled far, worked hard, and fought bravely.
After all their efforts they were fated to see an influx of
strangers into their country, some of them men of questionable
character, who outnumbered the original inhabitants. If the
franchise were granted to these, there could be no doubt that
though at first the Boers might control a majority of the votes, it
was only a question of time before the newcomers would dominate the
Raad and elect their own President, who might adopt a policy
abhorrent to the original owners of the land. Were the Boers to
lose by the ballot-box the victory which they had won by their
rifles? Was it fair to expect it? These newcomers came for gold.
They got their gold. Their companies paid a hundred per cent. Was
not that enough to satisfy them? If they did not like the country
why did they not leave it? No one compelled them to stay there. But
if they stayed, let them be thankful that they were tolerated at
all, and not presume to interfere with the laws of those by whose
courtesy they were allowed to enter the country.
That is a fair statement of the Boer position, and at first sight
an impartial man might say that there was a good deal to say for
it; but a closer examination would show that, though it might be
tenable in theory, it is unjust and impossible in practice.
In the present crowded state of the world a policy of Thibet may be
carried out in some obscure corner, but it cannot be done in a
great tract of country which lies right across the main line of
industrial progress. The position is too absolutely artificial. A
handful of people by the right of conquest take possession of an
enormous country over which they are dotted at such intervals that
it is their boast that one farmhouse cannot see the smoke of
another, and yet, though their numbers are so disproportionate to
the area which they cover, they refuse to admit any other people
upon equal terms, but claim to be a privileged class who shall
dominate the newcomers completely. They are outnumbered in their
own land by immigrants who are far more highly educated and
progressive, and yet they hold them down in a way which exists
nowhere else upon earth. What is their right? The right of
conquest. Then the same right may be justly invoked to reverse so
intolerable a situation.
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