No Hopes Were Held Out That Any
Possible Attitude Upon The Part Of The Uitlanders Would Soften The
Determination Of The President And His Burghers.
One who
remonstrated was led outside the State buildings by the President,
who pointed up at the national flag.
'You see that flag?' said he.
'If I grant the franchise, I may as well pull it down.' His
animosity against the immigrants was bitter. 'Burghers, friends,
thieves, murderers, newcomers, and others,' is the conciliatory
opening of one of his public addresses. Though Johannesburg is only
thirty-two miles from Pretoria, and though the State of which he
was the head depended for its revenue upon the gold fields, he paid
it only three visits in nine years.
This settled animosity was deplorable, but not unnatural. A man
imbued with the idea of a chosen people, and unread in any book
save the one which cultivates this very idea, could not be expected
to have learned the historical lessons of the advantages which a
State reaps from a liberal policy. To him it was as if the
Ammonites and Moabites had demanded admission into the twelve
tribes. He mistook an agitation against the exclusive policy of the
State for one against the existence of the State itself. A wide
franchise would have made his republic firm-based and permanent. It
was a small minority of the Uitlanders who had any desire to come
into the British system. They were a cosmopolitan crowd, only
united by the bond of a common injustice.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 42 of 842
Words from 11081 to 11338
of 225456
