tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[3]

After the rebellion of 1881 a Boer jury, to whom the case was committed by the tender mercies of Mr. Gladstone's Government, with the murdered man's bullet-riddled skull lying before them upon the table of the Court, acquitted the brutal slaughterers of Captain Elliot, not because they had not done the deed with every circumstance of horrible treachery and premeditation, but because to find them guilty was against their brethren's wish. In much the same way, with all the facts staring them in the face, there are men in England, some of them of high position and character, who urge the righteousness of the Boer cause, and with tongue and pen paint our national iniquity in hues black as ink and red as blood. They write of the "Objects of the War," which they do not hesitate to describe as self-seeking and infamous, so far of course as the English people are concerned, for according to the same authorities, the Boer objects are uniformly pure and noble. Would it not be better if they looked back a little and tried to discover the causes of the war? I think that if they could have witnessed a certain scene upon the market-square at Newcastle, at which it was my misfortune to be present, on that night of the year 1881 when the news of the base betrayal of the loyalists by England became known, they would win a better understanding of the question. In the spectacle of that maddened crowd of three or four thousand ruined and deserted men, English, Boer, and Kaffir, raving, weeping, and blaspheming in the despair of their shame and bitterness, they might have found enlightenment. Even now a study of the following forgotten letter written by Mr. White, the chairman of the Committee of Loyal Inhabitants, to Mr. Gladstone, might give to some a food for thought:—

"If, sir, you had seen, as I have seen, promising young citizens of Pretoria dying of wounds received for their country, and if you had had the painful duty, as I have had, of bringing to their friends at home the last mementoes of the departed; if you had seen the privations and discomforts which delicate women and children bore without murmuring for upwards of three months; if you had seen strong men crying like children at the cruel and undeserved desertion of England; if you had seen the long strings of half-desperate loyalists, shaking the dust off their feet as they left the country, as I saw on my way to Newcastle; and if you yourself had invested your all on the strength of the word of England, and now saw yourself in a fair way of being beggared by the acts of the country in whom you trusted, you would, sir, I think, be 'pronounced,' and England would ring with eloquent entreaties and threats which would compel a hearing…. We claim, sir, at least as much justice as the Boers. We are faithful subjects of England, and have suffered and are suffering for our fidelity. Surely we, the friends of our country, who stood by her in the time of trial, have as much right to consideration as rebels who fought against her. We rely on her word. We rely on the frequently repeated pledges and promises of her ministers in which we have trusted. We rely on her sense of moral right not to do us the grievous wrong which this miserable peace contemplates. We rely on her fidelity to obligations, and on her ancient reputation for honour and honesty. We rely on the material consequences which will follow on a breach of faith to us. England cannot afford to desert us after having solemnly pledged herself to us."

"England cannot afford to desert us!" but England, or her rulers, could and did afford itself this luxury. In vain did such men as the late Lord Beaconsfield, the late Lord Cairns, and Lord Salisbury protest and point out dangers. In vain did agonised loyalists flourish their own words and promises in the face of her Majesty's Government; the spirit of party, or the promptings of a newly acquired conscience proved too strong. Her Majesty's loyal subjects were sneered at, insulted, and abandoned, and the Boer, who had butchered them, was bid to go on and prosper.

Now, nearly twenty years afterwards, England is called upon to pay the bill of what is in effect, whatever may have been its motives, one of the most infamous acts that stains the pages of her history. From the moment that the Convention of 1881 was signed it became as certain as anything human can be, that one of two things would happen—either that the Imperial Power must in practice be driven out of South Africa, or that a time would come when it must be forced to assert its dominion even at the price of war.

Now that miserable hour is with us, and we are called upon to suppress by arms a small, but sullen and obstinate people, whom we have taught to believe themselves our equals, if not our superiors. Unless they will yield at the last moment, which seems impossible seeing that the war is of their own choosing, the new settlement of South Africa must be celebrated by a mighty sacrifice of their blood and our blood. Not to dwell upon other griefs and dangers, when, I ask, will the smoke and the smell of it depart from the eyes and nostrils of the dwellers in that unhappy land? As they troop back merrily to their mines and workshops the money-spinners of Johannesburg may forget a past of which, in many instances at least, their chief impression will be that it was unpleasant and unprofitable. But after the Rand is worked out, when the stamps cease to fall heavily by day and night, when the great heaps of tailings no longer increase from month to month, when the broker's voice is quiet in the Exchange, and the promoter inhabits some new city, still the Boer women in the farmhouses will tell their children how the "damned English soldiers" shot their grandfathers and took the land. In South Africa new Irelands will arise, and from the dragon's teeth that we are forced to sow the harvest of hate will spring, and spring again. Thus must we eat of the bitter bread which we have baked, and thus the ill fowl that we reared have come home to roost, bringing their broods with them.

Again and again we have blundered in our treatment of the Dutch. For instance, with kinder and fairer management they would never have trekked from the Cape sixty years ago. Also, had the promises which were made to them at the annexation in 1877 been kept, and had not Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who grew up amongst them and to whom they were attached, been removed in favour of a military martinet, there would have been no rebellion, let the Cape wire-pullers working under a cloak of loyalty to the Crown strive as they might. But the rebellion came and the defeats, and after these that surrender whereof this country is called upon to pluck the fruit to-day, which, by the Boers, is attributed to those defeats with the fear of their prowess and to nothing else.

And now, in due season, the war comes; an inevitable war which cannot be escaped, and must be fought out to the end. There is only room for one paramount power in Southern Africa!

How all these things happened is told briefly, but I trust clearly, in the following pages. My excuse for reprinting them must be the desire which, it is said, exists among some readers to become better acquainted with the facts that engendered the present fateful crisis.

H. RIDER HAGGARD.

9th October 1899.

CONTENTS.