'We Hesitated To Make This Declaration Earlier To Your Excellency As We Feared That, As Long As The Advantage Was Always On Our Side, And As Long As Our Forces Held Defensive Positions Far In Her Majesty's Colonies, Such A Declaration Might Hurt The Feelings Of Honour Of The British People.

But now that the prestige of the British Empire may be considered to be assured by the capture of

One of our forces, and that we are thereby forced to evacuate other positions which we had occupied, that difficulty is over and we can no longer hesitate to inform your Government and people in the sight of the whole civilised world why we are fighting and on what conditions we are ready to restore peace.'

Such was the message, deep in its simplicity and cunning in its candour, which was sent by the old President, for it is Kruger's style which we read in every line of it. One has to get back to facts after reading it, to the enormous war preparations of the Republics, to the unprepared state of the British Colonies, to the ultimatum, to the annexations, to the stirring up of rebellion, to the silence about peace in the days of success, to the fact that by 'inextinguishable love of freedom' is meant inextinguishable determination to hold other white men as helots - only then can we form a just opinion of the worth of his message. One must remember also, behind the homely and pious phraseology, that one is dealing with a man who has been too cunning for us again and again - a man who is as wily as the savages with whom he has treated and fought. This Paul Kruger with the simple words of peace is the same Paul Kruger who with gentle sayings insured the disarmament of Johannesburg, and then instantly arrested his enemies - the man whose name was a by-word for 'slimness' [craftiness] throughout South Africa.

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