Love of Liberty
What of the Boer love of freedom? There is no more admirable quality in the world than love of liberty; no greater inspiration to gallant deeds, to high ideals, to noble practices. But there are different kinds of liberty. The Iroquois of North American history stalked through his noble forests in all the pride of physical power and the freedom to torture and slaughter his red enemy or white foe whenever and wherever he could. He loved liberty in the sense of doing what he liked. The Dublin assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Chicago bomb-throwers, the lovers of lynch-law in Southern States, the anarchists of Paris or St. Petersburg, all have feelings of the fiercest nature in favor of freedom. License, however, is not true liberty, nor is the love of independence amongst the Boers a regard for freedom in the ordinary sense of that much-abused word. Of course, there is much that is admirable in the feeling, as there is in any sentiment or aspiration for which men will fight and die—as there was in the freebooting instincts of the old-time Scottish clans; as there was in the loyal passion of the Scottish Highlanders for "Bonnie Prince Charlie;" as there was in the prolonged and desperate struggle of the Southern States for a dying cause; as there is even in the Filipino desire for a sort of wild freedom. In the case of the Boer, however, it is simply an instinctive desire for solitude and for the free practice of certain inbred tendencies, such as hunting, slave-holding and ranching. It can hardly be said to be connected with questions of government or constitution. No Government at all would suit the Boer if it were practicable, and his record shows that an oligarchy is no less agreeable to him than was the one-time division of 15,000 settlers into four republics. He knows little of the struggles of his reputed ancestors in Holland for freedom of the higher kind, and for that equality of religious and racial rights which he is now the first to spurn, and to even fight in order to prevent others from obtaining in parts of South Africa.
Change of Policy
So long as the Boer love for independence was simply a fond regard for isolation, which inflicted no serious injury upon other white people around him, the British Empire and its citizens had no right to interfere or to do more than laugh at its crudities and, perhaps, denounce its cruelties to inferior races. But, when the so-called passion for independence became an aggressive passion for territorial acquisition, and the love for license to do as he liked with his own colored population was lost sight of in a widely manifested desire to acquire control over outside native tribes, the issue became an Imperial one, and raids upon Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Zululand, Mashonaland and Tongaland marked the direct pathway to present developments. This policy of extension, however, required statecraft, a quality somewhat lacking amongst the rude legislators of Pretoria or Bloemfontein. It also needed money, the supply of which, before the discovery of gold, was sadly deficient. Government of Dutch Adventurers President Brand, of the Free State, was a statesman, but, in the ordinary sense of the word, was never a Boer, and would have nothing to do with the more aggressive ambitions of the Transvaal rulers. President Kruger had plenty of native ability, and from the time of his taking hold of affairs in the Transvaal dates its growth in strength and influence. He is, however, of German extraction, although one of the boys who participated in the original Great Trek. Dr. F. W. Reitz, who ultimately became so strong a personality in the Government of both republics, was also of German origin. So with Hofmeyr of Cape Colony. President Steyn, of the Free State, is the son of a Dutchman, but one who was a resident of Bloemfontein and not a Boer in the popular sense of the term. Dr. W. J. Leyds, the cleverest manipulator and schemer of South African history, is a Hollander, as was Dr. E. J. P. Jorrissen, one of the Dutch negotiators of the Convention of 1881.
These facts illustrate an interesting phase of the situation. It was not from the ranks of the Boers that men came who were capable of making the Transvaal an arsenal of military power, a close corporation of clever financial government, the head of the great Afrikander movement of the past decade, a force of organized strength for the destruction of British rule in South Africa, and a diplomatic factor at the capitals of Europe. The Boers were, and are, simply the instruments of clever adventurers from Holland. The "Hollanders" first came to the front in South Africa during the early days of the Free State. They controlled its incipient constitution for some years, and helped, incidentally, to check and then kill the agitation for reincorporation in the Empire. They caused President Brand some trouble during the preliminary period of his administration, but then gradually settled down into the quiet and comfortable occupancy of such offices as required more education than the average Boer possessed. These they still hold to a considerable extent. After Brand's death their governing influence became greater; they joined and organized the Afrikander Bund in the State, and then stood shoulder to shoulder with President Reitz and his successor, Steyn, until the development of events brought them into closer relationship with fellow-Hollanders in the Transvaal under the common leadership of Kruger and the clever manipulation of Reitz and Leyds.
Anti-English Influence
In the Republic beyond the Vaal they first came into prominence under the administration of President Burgers, who, after his visit to Europe in the early seventies, brought some individual Hollanders back with him. But the bankrupt State did not possess sufficient attractiveness to draw very many adventurers from anywhere during the immediately succeeding years; and it was not until the discovery of gold, in 1884, and the prospect of the country becoming wealthy arose, that clever and adventurous natives of Holland began to think seriously of entering into the heritage they have since acquired. They did come, however, and in time acquired control of the chief offices in the State outside of the Presidency and Vice-Presidency; of the educational system, such as it was; of the railways and taxes and customs. It was not hard for them to see that the more isolated they could keep the Boer of the veldt the better it would be for their permanent success, and that the more they could estrange the Transvaal from Great Britain and the British Colonial system of South Africa the easier it would be to preserve the Republic and its riches for their own use and control. From these considerations it was natural and easy to take advantage of President Kruger's anti-British ambitions, of the machinery of the Afrikander Bund at the Cape, and of the money of the Uitlanders, in order to build up a great movement against British power in combination with the Free State; and to transform the republic of emigrant farmers into a strong, though small, military power. Plenty of foreigners and foreign help—especially German—was available, and out of that prominent Boer characteristic of hatred of England and the other one of pride in his own fighting records and belief in his own invincibility in war, were built up the military structure of the year 1899.
War a Big Game Hunt
To the fighting qualities of the Boer many tributes have been and more will be paid in the future. It is essentially a product of his environment. The student of British wars with the Kaffirs and of the interminable succession of struggles fought by the Boer with Hottentots and Bushmen in early Colonial days; with the Kosas on the frontiers of Cape Colony and the Zulus in Natal; with the Matabeles in the pioneer days of the republics, and with the Basutos during more than a decade in the history of the Free State; with the Bapedis of the Transvaal and the Bechuanas of the northern and western borders; with the Baramapulana of the Limpopo River and the Swazis of the southeastern border; will understand how much of native guile and savagery there is in the Boer method of warfare, and why it is so difficult for troops trained in other kinds of fighting to meet it when combined with European science in armament and trained skill in the management of great guns. Added to the quality of native cunning in warfare is an alertness of movement derived from long and hereditary skill in hunting wild animals and living constantly on horseback; as well as in fighting continuously a wily and ambush-making native foe. As with the Kaffir himself, laziness disappears when the game of the Boer is on the horizon, and it matters not whether the quarry be animal or human, the hunter and fighter becomes at once a creature of the veldt; a very part and parcel of the country around him. He knows every foot of South African soil. In the words of Pringle, referring to the emigrant farmer of earlier years:
"Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
Away—away—in the wilderness vast,
Where the White Man's foot hath never passed,
And the quivered Koranna or Bechuan
Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan:
A region of emptiness, howling and drear,
Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear."