Cecil Rhodes, Man and Empire-MakerRadziwill, Catherine, Princess
History
Cecil Rhodes, Man and Empire-Maker
Radziwill, Catherine, Princess
Rhodes, Cecil, 1853-1902; South Africa -- Politics and government
"10. Parents had been separated from their children.
"Within the Report itself, either in footnotes or in the main body of the
Report, Miss Hobhouse mentions that active steps had already been taken to
remedy these evils. Tanks had been ordered to boil all the water. She left
money to buy another, and supplied every family with a pan to hold boiled
water. Soap was given out with the rations. 'Moreover, the Dutch are so
very full of resources and so clever they can make their own soap with fat
and soda.' The milk supply was augmented; during the drought fifty cows
only yielded four buckets of milk daily. 'After the rains the milk supply
was better.' An additional supply of nurses were on their way. 'The Sister
had done splendid work in her domain battling against incessant
difficulties ... and to crown the work she has had the task of training
Boer girls to nurse under her guidance.'
"Ministers of religion are in residence, and schools under Mr. E.B.
Sargant, the Educational Commissioner, are open for boys and girls.
Children have been reunited to parents, except that some girls, through
Miss Hobhouse's kind efforts, have been moved away from the Camps
altogether into boarding schools. Even in this Bloemfontein Camp,
notwithstanding all that Miss Hobhouse says of the absence of soap and the
scarcity of water, she is able to write: 'All the tents I have been in are
exquisitely neat and clean, except two, and they are ordinary.' Another
important admission about this Camp is to be found in the last sentence of
the account of Miss Hobhouse's second visit to Bloemfontein. She describes
the iron huts which have been erected there at a cost of L2,500, and says:
'It is so strange to think that every tent contains a family, and every
family is in trouble--loss behind, poverty in front, privation and death
in the present--but they have agreed to be cheerful and make the best of
it all.'
"There can be no doubt that the sweeping together of about 68,000 men,
women and children into these Camps must have been attended by great
suffering and misery, and if they are courageously borne it is greatly to
the credit of the sufferers. The questions the public will ask, and will
be justified in asking, are:
"1. Was the creation of these Camps necessary from the military point of
view?
"2. Are our officials exerting themselves to make the conditions of the
Camps as little oppressive as possible?
"3. Ought the public at home to supplement the efforts of the officials,
and supply additional comforts and luxuries?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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