South Africa -- History; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Causes
That is much more important than the endorsement by any Englishman as
to the historical accuracy of the statements which it contains. For what
every judicial tribunal desires, first of all, is to hear witnesses at
first hand. Hitherto the British public has chiefly been condemned to
second-hand testimony. In the pages of _A Century of Wrong_ it will, at
least, have an opportunity of hearing the Dutch of South Africa speak
for themselves.
There is no question as to the qualifications of Mr. F.W. Reitz to speak
on behalf of the Dutch Africander. Although at this moment State
Secretary for President Kruger, he was for nearly ten years Chief
Justice and then President of the Orange Free State, and he began his
life in the Cape Colony. The family is of German origin, but his
ancestors migrated to Holland in the seventeenth century and became
Dutch. His grandfather emigrated from Holland to the Cape, and founded
one of the Africander families. His father was a sheep farmer; one of
his uncles was a lieutenant in the British Navy.
Mr. Reitz is now in his fifty-sixth year, and received a good English
education. After graduating at the South African College he came to the
United Kingdom, and finished his studies at Edinburgh University, and
afterwards at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the Bar in 1868.
He then returned to the Cape, and, after practising as a barrister in
the Cape courts for six years, was appointed Chief Justice of the Orange
Free State, a post which he held for fifteen years. He was then elected
and re-elected as President of the Orange Free State. In 1893 he paid a
lengthy visit to Europe and to the United Kingdom. After Dr. Leyds was
appointed to his present post as foreign representative of the South
African Republic, Mr. Reitz was appointed State Secretary, and all the
negotiations between the Transvaal and Great Britain passed through his
hands.
Mr. Reitz's narrative is not one calculated to minister to our national
self-conceit, but it is none the worse on that account. Of those who
minister to our vanity we have enough and to spare, with results not
altogether desirable. In the long controversy between the Boers and the
missionaries Mr. Reitz takes, as might be expected, the view of his own
people.
An English lady in South Africa writing to the _British Weekly_ of
December 21st, in reply to the statement of the Rev. Dr. Stewart, makes
some observations on this feud between the Boers and the missionaries,
which it may be well to bear in mind in discussing this question. The
lady ("I.M.") says:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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