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
enlightened peoples, and that is, of seeing at whatever cost that
British subjects shall be respected everywhere in their personal rights.
[Sidenote: England's Determined Protection of Her Subjects]
Mr. Chamberlain was well within the line of established truth when he
said, if the English Government had no rights in the Transvaal other
than those arising from the duty of demanding plain justice from an
independent government, be it republican or monarchy, the treatment of
the Uitlanders at the hands of the Boers required remonstrance and
demanded consideration. Of course, the logic of this statement was
that if there was not a remedy for the great and bitter wrong inflicted
upon one of the most important communities in the world, and far the
most important in Africa, the British Empire would have to interfere.
The claims of England that British subjects should be respected in
personal rights have been many times vindicated, and the fact that the
whole world knows the high principle and firm policy of the British in
the determined protection of its subjects is one of the glories of the
Empire. The President of the South African Republic flinched from his
own word of honor and responsibility given in London, and rudely
asserted that the majority of Europeans in the Transvaal had no rights
he was bound to respect. He did not use precisely that form of speech,
but it was that substantially, and the meaning of it was that the
English-speaking population that had sought the Transvaal because there
were there the greatest gold discoveries ever made were to be treated
by the Boers as exactly on a level with "niggers." It was the
President's persistent assumption and unconcealed purpose that the
minority of the people of the Transvaal he controlled must be supreme
over two majorities,--one the natives who had precedence of the Dutch
in possession of the country, and the other the newcomers who were
there on the business of civilized mankind--the Boers being a
semi-barbarous minority between the two--holding with a small fraction
of the population a half-way fortification from which to order and
command. President Kruger wandered constantly in his conferences from
the discussion of the franchise, showing an imperious temper and an
inordinate and reckless, domineering propensity.
[Sidenote: A Reasonable and Just Proposal]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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