South Africa and the Boer-British War, Volume I: Comprising a History of South Africa and its people, including the war of 1899 and 1900Halstead, Murat
History
South Africa and the Boer-British War, Volume I: Comprising a History of South Africa and its people, including the war of 1899 and 1900
Halstead, Murat
South African War, 1899-1902
The very plea of the Boers that the English speaking people are too
numerous to trust with the right of suffrage and too rich to be allowed
a share of self-government, and that the discovery and developments of
mines of gold and diamonds, the most concentrated and attractive forms
of the wealth of Nature, is unworthy not only of deference but of
consideration. It is opposed to the spirit and substance of the
surprising realizations of the century that have made it the most
memorable epoch in the history of man in the appropriation of the
resources of the earth he inherits. Never until now has mankind had
the labor and capital, the courage, the machinery, the intelligence, or
the tools provided by marvelous inventions--the conquering capacity to
give the gigantic continent of Africa--nearly 12,000,000 square
miles--into the hands of the people who need room for industry, thus
making an addition to the good land available for the lucrative
employment of countless millions through the coming ages.
[Sidenote: A Magnificent Project]
There is one people, and one only on earth, that has the ability and
the purpose, the will and the force, the experience and the energy to
make this gift to mankind, and that power is the British Empire.
Whatever the resources or the ambition or the faculties of other great
nations, none with the exception of Great Britain is so situated as to
make it possible to do this. British influence and territory, from the
Cape of Good Hope to the mouth of the Nile, are interrupted by a space
less than 600 miles, and 480 miles of that are navigable water! The
British have thousands of miles of railroad there now, and the work to
pierce Africa with lines of steel, on the lines of longitude, is under
way. Less than the cost of the war caused by the obstruction of
English enterprise in Africa by the boorishness of the Boers would have
completed a safe and magnificent highway from Cape Town to Alexandria.
After all, war will not stop, but will promote that project. The study
of the war history will so advertise the marvels of Africa that the
money will be found to build the road and its branches from the
Mediterranean to the South Sea, and that speedily; and this will be
recorded as one of the mightiest works of man--one that profoundly
interests all nations and all races.
[Sidenote: England cannot Give up Africa]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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