The following extract is from a more general point of view, but one which it is unphilosophical to overlook.
The Christian Age reproduces a communication from an American gentleman residing in the Transvaal to the New York Independent.
"The Boers," Mr. Dunn says, "are, as a race—with, of course, individual exceptions—an extraordinary instance of an arrested civilisation, the date of stoppage being somewhere about the conclusion of the seventeenth century. But they have not even stood still at that point. They have distinctly and dangerously degenerated even from the general standard of civilisation existing when Jan van Riebeck hoisted the flag of the Dutch East India Company at Cape Point. The great cardinal fact in connection with the Uitlander population is that, owing to their numbers and activity, they have brought in their train an influx of new wealth into the Transvaal of truly colossal dimensions. Thus, to sum up the distinctive and divergent characteristics of the two classes into which the population of the South African Republic is divided—the Boers, or old population, are conservative, ignorant, stagnant, and a minority; the Uitlanders, or new population, are progressive, full of enterprise, energy and work, and constitute a large majority of the total number of inhabitants.
"It has so happened, therefore, that the Boers, as the ruling and dominant class, have hopelessly failed to master or comprehend the new conditions with which they have been called upon to deal. They have not, as a body, shown either capacity or desire to treat the new developments with even a remote appreciation of their inherent value and inevitable trend. The Boer has simply set his back against the floodgates, apparently oblivious or indifferent to the fact that the hugely accumulating forces behind must one day burst every barrier he may choose to set up. That is the whole Transvaal situation in a sentence.
"It is necessary to point out, further, that this blind and dogged determination on the part of the Boers to 'stop the clock' affects not merely the Transvaal; it is vitally and perniciously affecting the whole of South Africa. But for the obstructiveness and obscurantism of the Transvaal Boers, the rate of progress and development which would characterise the whole South African continent would be unparalleled in the history of any other country. The reactionary policy of the Transvaal is the one spoke in the wheel. It must therefore be removed in the name of humanity and civilisation."
M. Elisée Reclus, the great Geographer, an able and admittedly impartial Historian, wrote some years ago in his "Africa," Vol. 4, page 215:—
"The patriotic Boers of South Africa still dream of the day when the two Republics of the Orange and the Transvaal, at first connected by a common customs union, will be consolidated in a single 'African Holland,' possibly even in a broader confederacy, comprising all the Afrikanders from the Cape of Good Hope to the Zambesi. The Boer families, grouped in every town throughout South Africa, form, collectively, a single nationality, despite the accident of political frontiers. The question of the future union has already been frequently discussed by the delegates of the two conterminous Republics. But, unless these visions can be realized during the present generation, they are foredoomed to failure. Owing to the unprogressive character of the purely Boer communities and to the rapid expansion of the English-speaking peoples by natural increase, by direct immigration, and by the assimilation of the Boers themselves, the future 'South African Dominion' can, in any case, never be an 'African Holland.' Whenever the present political divisions are merged in one State, that State must sooner or later constitute an 'African England,' whether consolidated under the suzerainty of Great Britain or on the basis of absolute political autonomy. But the internal elements of disorder and danger are too multifarious to allow the European inhabitants of Austral Africa for many generations to dispense with the protection of the English sceptre.
"Possessing for two centuries no book except the Bible, the South African Dutch communities are fond of comparing their lot with that of the 'Chosen People.' Going forth, like the Jews, in search of a 'Promised Land,' they never for a moment doubted that the native populations were specially created for their benefit. They looked on them as mere 'Canaanites, Amorites, and Jebusites,' doomed beforehand to slavery or death.
"They turned the land into a solitude, breaking all political organization of the natives, destroying all ties of a common national feeling, and tolerating them only in the capacity of 'apprentices,' another name for slaves.