VIOLENT TRANSITION
from a State devoted to pastoral pursuits to the most intense mining and industrial pursuits, invaded by the plutocracy. But neither the faults nor the omissions are such as to have at any time, or in any country, justified even armed resistance.
‘Never was the like of such a manifesto put forward as a justification of rebellion, and the length of it—four closely-printed newspaper columns—is in itself its condemnation. If the leaders had a cause, the justice of which required such wordy explanations, they had no just cause to put before their followers. In the most serious charges, the misappropriation of Government moneys, we have terms like “it is stated,” “it is said,” “we hear,” “we believe,” and scandal which was
FORGOTTEN SEVEN YEARS AGO
is raked up to justify recent events.
‘The reasons brought forward in the lengthy manifesto can be conveniently divided under two heads—material ones; corruption, mal-administration, and the fiscal policy strangling the mining industry; and political: one is the government of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, the language grievance, the educational grievance, and the franchise grievance.
‘To begin with the first section. I cannot deny that the enormous temptations held out to some subordinate officials by men who, having in an incredibly short time acquired immense wealth, and who drowned every scruple in their desire to increase the same, have caused these men to fall; but from intimate knowledge I deny that corruption in the Transvaal
EXTENDS TO THE HIGHEST OFFICIALS
or to any appreciable number of officials. I ask, however, Mr Editor, whether the financial system which has brought corruption in its train into the Transvaal can be allowed in its turn to appeal to English sympathy and to put forward this corruption as a justification for placing the lives of thousands of peaceable men, women and children to the hazard of the sword? If Pretoria has been tempted, it is Johannesburg which has held out the tempting hand.
‘The next point is, that the Government by granting concessions and monopolies, and by its fiscal policy, is endeavouring to strangle the mining industry. Now, it is a fact, though perhaps a curious one, that most of these