PRESIDENT KRUGER AND HIS CHIEF ADVISERS IN THE WAR.
A. Wolmarans, F. W. Reitz (State Secretary), S. M. Berger, J. M. H. Kock,
Com. Gen'l P. J. Joubert, President S. J. P. Kruger, P. J. Cronje (Supt. of Natives).
President Kruger's Nepotism
The law forbids the sale of liquor to the natives, and yet they are to an astonishing degree habitually drunk on the Rand, and the cost of labor in the great mines is largely increased by the disabilities of men a great part of the time under the influence of liquor, and the men themselves perish at a shocking rate. We quote again the historian Fitzpatrick: "The fault rests with a corrupt and incompetent administration. That administration is in the hands of the President's relations and personal following. The remedy urged by the State Secretary, State Attorney, some members of the Executive, the general public, and the united petition of all the ministers of religion in the country, is to entrust the administration to the State Attorney's department and to maintain the existing law. In the face of this, President Kruger has fought hard to have the total prohibition law abolished and has successfully maintained his nepotism—to apply no worse construction. In replying to a deputation of liquor dealers he denounced the existing law as an 'immoral' one, because by restricting the sale of liquor it deprived a number of honest people of their livelihood—and President Kruger is an abstainer!
"The effect of this liquor trade is indescribable; the loss in money, although enormous, is a minor consideration compared with the crimes committed and the accidents in the mines traceable to it; and the effect upon the native character is simply appalling."
This is a shocking indictment, and the history in it has been hidden under a boisterous sentimentalism, to the effect that the eccentricities of monstrous vulgarity should be accepted as the graces of supernaturalism of true natural greatness.
SCENE IN MARKET SQUARE, KIMBERLEY, THE CITY OF DIAMONDS
