‘Of these fully two-thirds do not understand English. It is reasonable then to claim that the official language, that official documents, shall be the language spoken by two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch there is not a single Government office in which there is not English or German spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the Courts in the witness-box the judges frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language, and in the lower Courts English is invariably spoken by English litigants.
‘Also as to the education the manifesto makes gross misstatements. Though the State schools are, of course, Dutch, and the ordinary State-aided schools are Dutch, the
GOVERNMENT HAS ALWAYS AGREED
to give to all English schools exactly the same aid as to the latter, provided they will gradually, in the higher classes, introduce the State language, so that in the lowest classes only English is spoken, while in the highest class Dutch is to be the medium. The Germans in Johannesburg have and pay for their own school, the English claim to have their schools, in which, as Mr Lionel Phillips expressed it in his speech, Dutch may be taught, perhaps, if there was a “little time left,” maintained at Government expense.
‘And now to the last point, that of the franchise. That a settled and loyal population cannot for ever be refused a reasonable voting power I am the last to deny. But is the Johannesburg population settled and loyal? Can you wonder that the Boers have their grave doubts? Where are all the men from the Transvaal who have made their fortunes there? The Beits, Taylors, Neumann, Bailey, the English, Barnato, Dunnings, and all the others? Do they throw in their lot with the Transvaal? Not at all; they live in London; spend their money there, regard themselves as English, and do not want to be anything. The very same men who now
CLAMOUR WITH BAYONETS
fixed for the franchise, cover the addresses presented to the High Commissioner when he comes into the Transvaal with thousands of signatures as “Her Majesty’s most loyal subjects.” Can you wonder at the Boer if he cannot conceive the dual loyalty which claims to swear allegiance to the Transvaal without abandoning that to England?
‘Can you wonder if he points to the doings of 1896 as his justification for the refusal to grant the franchise indiscriminately, points to the men who have called in the enemy, the Chartered Company, into the country, and under the dastardly pretext, too, that the Boer was threatening to murder women and children, when the Boers were quietly at their farms, while Johannesburg had for the last six months been arming its thousands of men with smuggled rifles and guns?
‘Can you seriously