Why Boer Hates Briton

THE BOER SAYS- c TIi is iMonrconn tvy. We iifitched i it f rom tl e sav! uu!". We nsatle farmland oL tUe t wiJticruess. ! Yon TRTit it le cause of the rol ; and diamonde). Yon Iemand cqnal franchise. Tille would mean polttical - tlnction tor as. By the con vent ion of 1S84 yoa promlsed never to interfere iu onr interna! governmeiit. Now yon ignore Ihose convent ions. "Ve nnnt no Euglish r uoiijj, our citizens. Yon are im .nornl mid vicious. Yoa wo d not make good burgher. Ií onr lavrs ileae yon not, yon are free to aro itay. íf God wills it, ve will flffUt to the lesitli. Reinember Majuba Kill. THE BRITON SAYS- We lielped yon ftftlit the KHllirs. We developed the 111 1 1 es n n cl 111 ad e yon ricli. We bailt tlxe cities. We seelc only to p rot eet onr sabjeetM in their g' i t ï ni'ix te i u r - units. We iny tenths of the taxes. Don't we S deserve a vote f Tüe majorlty g ourlit to rale. GoinHtio-ns have changed. g Yonr rule ha become tyranfl nioiil. You rob na on every lm n il. ;ij I No nntion hai the riprht to jH i.solate itself In a land fnll of ï! ill and dinmonds. Yon are ; mily huif civilized. You are i relig'ious liiivots. r,". ft' We are here to atay. ö So 111 we. ÍS i TVe do. ji The quarrel between the British and the Boers has its cornplications, but even at thls distance it is possible to distinguish the niain points of the controversy. It is not the whole truth to say that this is merely another case of British land grabbin.s. Neither is it entirely fair to charge the blame wholly to Boer stubbornness. Tbere are tivo sides to this as to every other [From his most recent photograph.] tion. Before you give your syinpathy to elther contestant there are a few faets which ought to be eonsidered. Here tliey are: The Boers were the original settlers of the country now known as the Transvaal republie if we leave out of íjuestion the sa vage African tribes whoin they subdued. Their ancestors j went to South África f rom Holland. Boer ís Dutch for farmer. That Is vrliat the word means, and that is what íhoy are. Crst Boers settled in Cape Colo■ny. Trouble with the English led them to move farther inland and farther noi'th. They would build their :kraals in one place and stay there unthe encroachments of the English onade It necessary for them to fight or trek. Sometimes they fought; sometimes they ti'ekked. Wlien they ünally moved beyond the Vaal river, they thought they were safe from the English. The country was a savage infested wiklerness. But soruebody discovered gold and diamonds In the Boer territory. Then the English moved in and began to work the mines. The Bóers are not minors. The goldeu rocks oí the Rand would rernaln uncrushed forever if they had their way. They wish only to till their farms, raise their stock and read their Bibles. But the glitter of gold and the glint of diamonds attracted more and more sons of Britain. Men of other eountries carne too. There were some Germans and a few Ainericans. The Boers cali them all uitlanders, or outlanders. It is an expressive name. Finally the uitlanders became move munerous than the Boers. There are now in the Transvaal about 245,000 whites. Of this number more than 100,000 are Englisli. Besides these, there are 30,000 Germans, 10,000 Americans and a few hundreds of almost every other race on the globe. So the Boers are actually in a minority in their own land. The remainder of their 1,000,000 population is composed of blacks, chiefly Kafflrs. But this little handful of, say, 90,000 Boers has retained absolute sway in the territory whleh was wrested from the savages. Por all practical purposes only native Boers have full rights of franchise. They make the laws, levy the taxes and grip witïi jealous hands the reins of government. Toward the uitlanders the Boer attitude has been aggressive, autocratie and possibly oppressive.' It depends on the point of view. The British miners have had to pay handsomely for the privilege of taking out the treasures which the Boers themselves neglected. They have been heavily taxed. They have been bied by government monopolies. True, they have prospered and grown enormously rich in spite of it all. But so have the Boers, and it is the English who have done the work. Year i after year the taxes have become highI er In spite of tlie iiidignant protests sent to England. In the meautirue the political rela tions of the two countries, the little republic and the great empire, have swung through several interesting ' stages. The flrst time the Boers and the Englisli clastied was when both were set tled in ■n-hat is now Cape Colony. There came up the question of slavery. The Boers claimed a right to enslave the ufirive tribes. The British coutested th alleged right. In 1834 emancipatlon was proelaimed In the Colony, whlch till tlien had been peopled by Britlsh and Dutch alike. Wfiat added to the grievance of the Boer :i that the slaveowners among them received as compensation orders ou Loudon whlch thoy were eompelled to cash ou the spot at ruinous ratos. Tlie great eXodus, or trek, of 1880 was the result. Sonic 0,000 Boers by a concerted movement abandoned Cape Colony and moved on to the nnknown interior. The bitter memory of their áufferiags ffona hunger and thlrst and from the attacks of savacre uatives reniains as a legacy of hatrèd among their descendanta to this day. At the Orange river the trekkers vided into two parties, one of whlch i founded the Orange Pree ÍStato. The . other, eoutinuing farther eastward, founded Natal. Botli States vero conqnered by the Ënglish. A ïnnjority of i tlie Boers, once more fleeing fi-oni Britísh tliraldom. crossed the river Vaal and intrenclied themselves in tlieir present position in the Transvaal. Here four rival sovereignties were established whose internecine feuds I iWho commands British torces in South África.] were finally harrnonized by a unión into one republic. In 1848 the gronwet, oí' fundamental law, was passed by a siocial volksraad eleeted i'or the purpose, and it still remains as the nominal constitution of the country. But the Boers found themselvea unable to cope with the savage uatives, who harassed them on every side and threatened the security not only of the Boers themselves, but of their British neiglibors. Yielding partly to a desire f or self protection, partly to a show of British force, the Boers consented to annexation with the British empire in spite of the protest of Oom Taul Kruger and other sturdy miuded young patriota. So for awhile the Boers and British fought the blacks side by side, but the Boers fretted under the British yoke, and under the plea that Britain had not performed her promises they rose in rebellion in 1880 and, after the bloody victory of Majuba Hill, suceeeded in again establishing their independence "subject to the suzerainty of lier majesty." The treaty which contained these words was signed at Pretoria in August, 1881. In 1883 the Boers sent a deputation to Loudon to secure the abolí t ion of the suzerainty. Gladstone was in power then, and under his leadership u. new agreement was sigüed by which England gave tip her rights of suzerainty except in regard to treaties with foreign powers and the Orange Free State. This was signed in London in 1884, and the documents are now known as tiie London conventions. The interpretation of this agreement was the subject of the discussion which has led up to tbs present state of affairs. Mr. Chamberlain, not being so !y disposed as was Mr. Gladstone, dealares that the allen laws of the Transvaal republlc constitute a breach of the London eonventlons and that consequently sald documenta aro annulled. Henee, he argües, the suzerainty is still in force. Possibly there is a flaw in Mr. t'liamDeiiaiu's argument, hut it is backed up. by British snns. Thls sort of reasontng has wou bef ore, but not against the Boerst Although in 1SS4 England dofinitoly and speciflcally renouneed all right to interfere in the interna! jrovernuient of the Transvaal, she uow makes a very dlstlnct (Iemand. She says the volksraad must pass a law which will make any white mau eligible to full riglits of citizenship after a five years' residence without forswearing allegiauce to m's native country. At present the only citizons entitled to vote for president of tlio Boer republic are those who werè residents of tbc Transvaal previous to 187(3 or who carried anus for the government in any of the various wars of independenee. Of course this applies only to white males. Voters of these qualificatious are known as flrst class burghers, and, so far as numbers go, tliey are in a ridieulous minority. Should the request for a five year franchise be granted the Boers would find thernselves speedily legisla ted out of existence. Snch a eoncession would hand over the control of the government to the uitlanders. Do you wonder they object? Still, there remain the grievances of the uitlanders. Some of thom deserve to be classed as outlaws, it is true, for blaeklegs from the four quarters of the earth eau be found in the streets of Johannesburg. Yet the majority are not of this description. The first hordes of Immigrants were naturally enough componed in pari of gamblers and adventurers, but Ihese were soon suceeeded by earnest, practical workeïs, by men of brawn and braius. They worked tlie mineral wealtb of the country; they spent their savings in opening out mines, in putting up the finest maehinery, in costly experimenta of every kind; they collected the eleverest engincers and managers, assayers and chemists from all the mining centers of the world; they redeemed the land from desolation; they built the towns; they constructed tlie railroads; they established the [Corcinander ín cliief ot Lhe Boer forces.] meree; they fought in the wars against the sa vage native tribes, who, despite all the courage and fortitude of the Boers, must flnally have triunaphcd over them if they had been left single handed. And they paid and have paid and are paying practically all the taxes. It is eslimated that 95 per cent of all the magnificent revenues that flow yearly int o the coffers of tlie Boer government is contribnted by uitlauders. Tlie state which Uiey found aearly bankrupt has qow au accuüiulated surplus of some $15,000,000. ' ' They are not mere birds of passage flittiug through the land, accumulating wealth aud returnlng to spend-it in their own country. The uitlander, so f ar as the laws allow hlm, lias made bis hom-i in the Transvaal. His cliildron Iiav beeu born there. The magniflcent climate and the wealth of the soil, neglected by the Boer, give every guarantee of the permanent settlenient of generations. It is exaclly that permanent settlement which the Boer statesman dreads. Nor does he dread it without reason. The deuial of the suffrage is not the only grlevance of the uitlander. He cómplains of unjüst and oppressive taxatiou, of the misuse of the proceeds in corruption of the civil service. The Boer bas Iittle reason to coniplain of either abuse. The taxes by which tlie treasury is fllled are not levied upou him. He consumes his own untaxed producís. He has few wants which forcé him to contribute to the duties levied on imports. So long as it is not his ïnoney that is wasted he cares Iittle what bccomes of it. Monopolies have been imposcd upon everything from mining machinery to mineral waters, and after enriehing their own coffers to the bursting point the shrewd ruinded Boers have expended a goodly fraction of the remaining revenue to arm and equip their eoiintrymen with the most modern munitions of war in anticipation of coming unrest. According to the rnaleontents, it bas become a habit with the Boer to hold one hand on the throat of the uitlander and the other on his family Bible. Then the uitlanders have no voice in educational matters. Their children are tanght only the crude Boer patois in the public schools. They are denied the freedorn of the press and, in certain ways, even freedom of speech, for it is criminal to hold public meetings. They have no power in the municipal government of Johannesbtírg, and when they appear for trial they lo so before juries of Dutch burghers. The president has the right to expel any member of the community from the republic without trial. In fact, everything possible has been done to elimínate the Anglo-Saxon yeast that has been leavening tlie Duteh lump of tbat distraught republic. The government's method of protecting the Netherlauds railroad forais another grievancc. The charges for carrying passengers and frelght are rlghtly eomplained of as exorbitant. The average charge for frelght in the United States is half a cent per mile. In Englaud it Is three-foyrths of a cent. These figures throw a lurid ligbt upon the potuntial earnings of a railroarï wliich, like the Netherlaads, charges from ö to 24 cents per mile. Although there are many minor ones, these are the maln grievánces of the uitlanders. and it is beeause of these tliat England demanda the rlght to interfere in the interna! affairs of the government, the London conventions notwithstandlng.