I am taking a yachting holiday in Scotland, but we may be overtaken by a general election here at any time.
Thanking you again for your letter, believe me to remain
Yours faithfully
G. B. Clark
But in this Transvaal affair I must also let the altera pars have its say. The English nation, so vilified on the Continent because of the Boer War, was not as a whole (as many liked to assert) led into this campaign merely by the passion for gain and through love of warfare. Noble motives—as is usually the case in every war—animated the majority. The desire is to “give freedom,” to make wrong into right, to serve the fatherland; life itself is sacrificed. The object and aim may be praiseworthy; only it is unfortunate that the method is so unholy and vicious. I received the following letter from the sister of the Minister of Cape Colony:
Stockton, April 18, 1900
Madam:
Because of the high honor in which I bear you and the deep sympathy with which I read Die Waffen nieder, I send you this letter, written by a Cape Dutch woman, sister of Mr. Schreiner, Prime Minister of Cape Colony. I do not know if you are well enough acquainted with Cape politics to be aware of the full significance of the fact that he came into office as leader of the Afrikander Bond.
That his sister should write as she does about this war should surely come as a startling revelation to many people on the Continent who are so sorely misjudging my beloved country.
She will answer for you as to the motives of those Cape Dutch who are holding by the Union Jack. For those of my own country [I], living in the heart of England, daily in touch with the lower, middle, and upper middle classes, affirm to you, as before God, that no wish for conquest and no lust for gold weighs anything at all with us.