Transvaal (South Africa) -- History -- War of 1880-1881
The real Dutch Patriotic party is not to be found in the Transvaal, but
in the Cape Colony. Their object, which, as affairs now are, is well
within the bounds of possibility, is by fair means or foul to swamp the
English element in South Africa, and to establish a great Dutch
Republic. It was this party, which consists of clever and well educated
men, who raised the outcry against the Transvaal Annexation, because it
meant an enormous extension of English influence, and who had the wit,
by means of their emissaries and newspapers, to work upon the feeling
of the ignorant Transvaal farmers until they persuaded them to rebel;
and finally, to avail themselves of the yearnings of English radicalism
for the disruption of the Empire and the minimisation of British
authority, to get the Annexation cancelled. All through this business
the Boers have more or less danced in obedience to strings pulled at
Cape Town, and it is now said that one of the chief wire-pullers, Mr.
Hofmeyer, is to be asked to become President of the Republic. These men
are the real patriots of South Africa, and very clever ones too--not
the Transvaal Boers, who vapour about their blood and their country and
the accursed Englishman to order, and are in reality influenced by very
small motives, such as the desire to avoid payment of taxes, or to hunt
away a neighbouring Englishman, whose civilisation and refinement are
as offensive as his farm is desirable. Such are the Dutch inhabitants
of the Transvaal. I will now give a short sketch of their institutions
as they were before the Annexation, and to which the community has
reverted since its recision, with, I believe, but few alterations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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