They were seated after dinner in a quiet corner of Macfarlane’s stoep which fronted his small bachelor bungalow. It was a Sunday afternoon, warm and still, and until their present conversation roused them from their lethargy they had both seemed more inclined to drowse than talk. Matheson, who was smoking, threw away his cigarette in order to give his whole attention to his subject.
“I was on a Dutch farm before I came down,” he said, “staying among Dutch people—some of the disaffected Dutch—”
“There are a good many of that breed,” Macfarlane interposed.
“They’ve got a case,” Matheson said.
“Oh! they’ve got a case,” Macfarlane allowed—“but it’s against their own interests to insist upon it. The men with brains recognise that. It’s among the more ignorant Boers that the disaffection spreads. I don’t fancy it is worth worrying over.”
“Possibly not. But it’s always desirable to stop the spread of contagious disease.”
“What remedy have you to propose?” Macfarlane inquired.
“Tact. I’m of the opinion that it is because most of us refuse to recognise their case that the ill feeling spreads. I’ve talked with them... It’s a real sense of injustice at the back of their minds that rankles. They aren’t all of them actuated by blind hatred.”
Macfarlane looked doubtful.
“Well, there may have been injustice,” he allowed. “But the position out here was impossible, as any one who wasn’t a sentimentalist would acknowledge. After all, it’s a British Colony, and there wasn’t room for a rival power. We paid hard cash for the privilege of settling, and our right received international recognition. We’ve done more for the development of South Africa than the Boers ever could. If they owned the country some greater power would step in and take it from them. They aren’t, you see, a nation.”