Although our independence has once been
taken away, God has restored it.' He spoke with sincerity no doubt,
but it is hard to hear God invoked with such confidence for the
system which encouraged the liquor traffic to the natives, and bred
the most corrupt set of officials that the modern world has seen.
A dispatch from Sir Alfred Milner, giving his views upon the
situation, made the British public recognise, as nothing else had
done, how serious the position was, and how essential it was that
an earnest national effort should be made to set it right. In it he
said:
'The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted
answer is that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in
fact, the policy of leaving things alone has been tried for years,
and it has led to their going from bad to worse. It is not true
that this is owing to the raid. They were going from bad to worse
before the raid. We were on the verge of war before the raid, and
the Transvaal was on the verge of revolution. The effect of the
raid has been to give the policy of leaving things alone a new
lease of life, and with the old consequences.
'The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in
the position of helots, constantly chafing under undoubted
grievances, and calling vainly to her Majesty's Government for
redress, does steadily undermine the influence and reputation of
Great Britain within the Queen's dominions.
