"The consequence of these claims would be, moreover, that the greater part of the power will be placed in the hands of those who, foreigners by birth, enjoy the privilege of depriving the country of its chief treasure while they have never shown any loyalty to a foreign government. Besides, the inevitable consequence of the acceptance of these claims would be that the independence of the country as a self-governing, independent sovereign republic would be irreparably lost." [Sidenote: Boers not Capable of Modern Mining] This statement does not seem to be made in the fullness of candor. The Transvaal people are not capable of working gold mines by the modern methods. They are essentially the masters of cattle ranches and of farming in an extensive and rather rude way. Their country is much like Western Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado in some respects; and the interest they have taken in the gold mines has been not to get the gold by digging for it. They have neither capital nor labor to put into the mining operations, but they have insisted upon their pre-eminence in authority and profited through the taxation of the gold product and of the accumulations of property by the British, and held the immigrants to the gold region to be intrusive and a disagreeable and troublesome people who must be subordinated, because they were adequate in the business of mining, the methods of which have become exceedingly complicated. Unquestionably the Boers have got more gold than they would have acquired if they had worked the mines for themselves. The Newcastle _Chronicle_, one of the most important provincial papers of England, because it is assuredly representative of the public opinion of the country, says plainly in reply to the proclamations of the Boers and of the President of the Orange State: [Sidenote: Newcastle "Chronicle" on the War] "We are fighting to prevent men of British blood from being treated as 'helots' on British territory by a sordid oligarchy which British arms saved from extinction and British generosity endowed with autonomy. "We are at war for the purpose of preventing our brethren in South Africa from being taxed without representation; from being placed under the control of courts whose judges take their orders from a corrupt Executive; from being refused the right to carry arms while their oppressors flourish theirs with insolent brutality; from being compelled to contribute to schools in which English is treated as a foreign tongue; in short, from being denied the elementary rights of self-government in territory undoubtedly British. "We ask no privilege for ourselves that we would not give to the Boers, but we will not submit to be ostracized and domineered over in our own dominions. "We cherish no revengeful feelings. "The British flag is the herald of mercy as well as might. "But we will have justice for our countrymen and control of our own Empire, come what may."