'They had good reason to be disgusted, but I want all the same to tell them a number of things about the true condition of the country.'
'They will not listen,' my friend declared, 'They will only swear at you.' This was not very encouraging, but it was not far from the truth as to the public feeling at that time.
Being in the——counties of England I was offered an introduction to the Editor of a well-known newspaper, who was also a pungent writer on social questions under a nom de plume which had got to be so well known as no longer to serve the purpose of the writer's concealment of identity.
'You come from South Africa, do you,' said the great man; 'a place where we have had much trouble, but mean to have no more.'
'Trouble, however,' I answered, 'is inseparable from Empire. Whoever governs South Africa must meet with some trouble and difficulty, although not much when honestly faced.'
'I assure you,' he broke in, 'we are not going to try it again after the one fashion or the other. We are out of it, and we mean to remain so.'
'You astonish me,' I answered; 'what about the Convention recently signed at Pretoria (1881)? What about the speeches still more recently made in this country in support of it?'
'As to the Convention, I know we signed something; people often do when they are getting out of a nasty business. We never meant to keep it, nor shall we.'
I believe I whistled a low whistle just to let off the steam, and then replied calmly, 'Will you allow me to say that by your own showing you are a bad lot, a very bad lot, as politicians.'
'That may be, but it does not alter the fact, which is as I state.'