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
It is this insistence upon an atrocious inequality that is
the elementary cause of the war. Such an oppression becomes an
intolerable condition, and there is no cure for it but the sword. Of
course, it has been a characteristic of this situation that it is
associated with a systematic tyranny at once insulting and
extortionate. [Sidenote: The "Dog in the Manger"] The Boer policy is
moderately described as that of the "dog in the manger." The 50,000
white people of Johannesburg, are disfranchised, first, because they
under the rule of the majority would be at least their own rulers and
exercising an important influence in the government of Johannesburg,
would impair the authority and destroy the prestige of the oligarchy at
Pretoria. We do not urge the fact that this majority at Johannesburg
are also the creators and possessors of the greater wealth of the
Transvaal. Property has the right of recognition as the result of
investment and industry, but it is not necessary that to protect itself
it must have political advantages out of proportion to the number of
the electors who are the property holders. So the argument for the
enfranchisement in a reasonable time of the Uitlanders of Johannesburg
rests primarily and safely upon the proposition that they could cast a
majority vote, and we do not need to call in the merits of the property
qualification or the question whether the natives have by possibility
any rational right to consideration because about sixty years ago they
were crowded out of their hunting grounds by the Boers, seeking a
country where they could own labor and assert mastery over all others,
instead of being second in importance as a people to the English of
lands further South.
[Sidenote: The Commerce of the Transvaal]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account