Fancy a discussion of that kind taking place in the Legislative of a British Colony! What vexation and shame we should feel that a Colonial Government should be based on what Isaiah had conceived had been told to him respecting Jewish elders and rulers! We should undoubtedly feel that such a discussion was an outrage on common sense and good taste, and that the Colony had mistaken a parliamentary hall for a synagogue. But at Pretoria such discussions appear to be everyday incidents—the most commonplace arguments are supported by quotations from Isaiah or some other prophet.
Kruger’s Cant.
At Standerton, the other day, the President was questioned as to the prospects of assistance being given to poor burghers. His entire reply is worth quoting, but I have only room for a small portion of it. Said he: “The burghers’ distress has been caused by the war (Jameson’s raid), and the subsequent unrest has not tended to improve matters. The burghers have suffered from these circumstances. The country has been compelled to spend a lot of money on the building of forts, nearly 2,000,000 pounds, by which our means have been exhausted. In the Zoutpansberg district especially, the condition of things I know to be most distressing. White families as well as black are dying rapidly. Still I expect you to turn to the Bible in a time of adversity like this. Follow the prophet Isaiah’s advice, and look to the Lord God who has so far befriended you. Why will men not follow in the path of the Lord instead of losing money at races and by gambling?” etc., etc.
Two Millions on Forts while People Starve.
One knows not which most to pity, the blundering muddle-headed President, or the wretched feeble-minded people who listen to him. Even little English school-boys would have had the courage and sense to tell the President how unfit to govern anything but a small pastorate on the veld he had proved himself after such a speech, and have pointed out to him that the two million pounds spent on unnecessary forts, had been the means of starving the Zoutpansberg frontier, and that it was blasphemy to make the Lord responsible for his own foolish and stupid extravagance, besides adding insult to injury to accuse people with love of horse-racing and gambling when they were starving through his criminal folly.
The burghers, however, lacking the intelligence of English school-boys, adjourn after the speech to banquet their venerable chief and to glorify him.
At Heidelberg the President was asked if the Secret Service Fund was divided into two sections. “Yes,” he replied, “for I have to keep my eyes wide open, and I have private detectives all over the country to prevent any surprise like that of the Jameson raid occurring again.”
What an extraordinary man, to devote 80,000 pounds a year fighting an enemy that does not exist, when, according to his own words, his burghers are dying of starvation at Zoutpansberg!
That Corner-Stone.
When questioned as to his objections to the Industrial Report, the President said that “if it had been accepted the independence of the Republic would have been lost.” Provided certain obstacles were removed, he was in favour of taking over the railway. The profits of the railway were divided at the rate of five per cent, to the Company, ten per cent, to the shareholders, and eighty-five per cent, to the State. The shareholders, according to him, were not the Netherlands Company. As regards dynamite, it was the corner-stone of the State’s independence.