The first part of the prediction has been realised, but at the present
time there is no indication that the Boer nation will be extinguished so
completely or so suddenly, unless the leaders of the burghers yield to
their enemy's forces before all their powers and means of resistance have
been exhausted. If they will continue to fight as men who struggle for the
continued existence of their country and government should fight, and as
they have declared they will go on with the war, then it will be three
times eight months or three times a year before peace comes to South
Africa. Presidents Kruger and Steyn have declared that they will continue
the struggle for three years, and longer if necessary. De Wet will never
yield as long as he has fifty burghers in his commando, and Botha will
fight until every British soldier has been driven from South African soil.
Hundreds of the burghers have made even firmer resolutions to continue the
war until their cause is crowned with victory. There may be some among
them who fought and are fighting because they despise Britons and British
rule, but the vast majority are on commando because they firmly believe
that Great Britain is attempting to take their country and their
government from them by the process of theft which we enlightened
Anglo-Saxons of America and England are wont to style "benevolent
assimilation." They feel that they have the right to govern their country
in accordance with their own ideas of justice and equality, and,
naturally, they will continue to fight until they are victorious, or might
asserts itself over their conception of right. If they have the power to
make Great Britain feel that their cause is just, as our forefathers in
America did a hundred years ago, then the Boers have vindicated themselves
and their actions in their own eyes and in the eyes of the world. If they
lack in the patriotism which men who fight for the life of their country
usually possess, then the Boers of South Africa will be exterminated from
among the nations of the world and no one will offer any sympathy to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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