Kept them to himself, at a time when their publication to the world would have been of inestimable value to the Boers and would perhaps have saved thousands of lives!
Of course this breach of trust was not known at Harmony for many months—not, in fact, until so long after it took place that the war was drawing to a close, and it was too late to repeat the attempt.
When one thinks that but for one man's indifference to duty the report of the Consuls would have been published in London at a time when all England was shaken with the revelations made by Miss Hobhouse and the agitation of the pro-Boers was at its height, then one cannot help realising the futility of fighting against Fate.
Not yet had the time of salvation arrived for the victims of the Concentration Camps—not yet—not until the toll of life had been paid to the uttermost.
Other schemes for supplying that section of the British public, desirous of being acquainted with the truth, with trustworthy information from South Africa, met with greater success, and I relate the following instance for the sake of the interesting circumstances connected with it, not for its own sake, for obvious reasons.
Many of my readers will remember the case of Mr. Spoelstra, a Hollander, which caused such a commotion in the Transvaal during the war.
He wrote a long letter for publication in Holland on the hardships and ill-treatment to which the Boer women were subjected in transit from their farms to the Concentration Camps, by the soldiers (chiefly, I may mention here, the Canadian Scouts and Australian Bushrangers, who were, however, all regarded as British soldiers, these distinctions not being sufficiently clear to the average South African).
This lengthy document Spoelstra confided to the care of a man who was about to leave for Holland.
On the borders of Natal, the man, on being cross-questioned by the inspector of goods, became so confused and agitated that he brought suspicion on himself, with the result that he was detained while his luggage was thoroughly overhauled.
The unfortunate letter was found, Spoelstra was arrested and immediately imprisoned in the Pretoria Jail.