"For thirty years the Cape Dutch have been waiting their chance, and now their day has come; they will throw off their mask and your yoke at the same instant, and 300,000 Dutch heroes will trample you underfoot.
"We can afford to tell you the truth now, and in this letter you have got it.—Yours, &c.,
P. S.
"October 12."
This letter, though false in many particulars, certainly pointed out some "home truths," which it was desirable for the British public to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. It also served to cast aside the thin veil which had covered our political relations with President Kruger and his party, and to show the firm foundations on which the hatred of the Boer for the Briton had been built for years. The question of the franchise was a bagatelle: a soap-bubble would have been pretext enough for war when the right hour and moment arrived. As allowed by this candid writer, whose valuable avowals cannot afford to be ignored, for many years treachery and disloyalty had existed, and the Boers had only bided their time. They "desired delay, and had it," playing their cards so skilfully as to deceive even the British Government, and imply to them and the world that the franchise question and the discontent of the Uitlanders was the main cause of the disagreement.
Before passing on to the terrible drama that, owing to the defiance of Mr. Kruger, was afterwards enacted, we must assure ourselves that the sad climax was bound to have come sooner or later. If the future of South Africa is to be saved, the prestige of Great Britain must be maintained; her citizens must be protected, and the betrayals of Downing Street of 1881 and 1896 must be atoned for. Though darkness reigns at the time of writing, the future of the Transvaal is a bright one. Reactionaries of the Hofmeyer and Kruger stamp will pass away, and we may look to the twentieth century for a happy settlement of the terrible difficulties which stare us in the face. But the settlement can never be effected by the policy of compromise. It can never be lasting while Conventions are allowed to become the pawns of parties; it can never be noble nor dignified until the petty ambitions of political strife are subdued and the grand whole, Great Britain—not the infinitesimal island, but the immense and populous Empire—is ordered and laboured for with the courage and strength that comes of undoubted unanimity! It remains, therefore, with each individual man and woman among us so to work that the grand result is not unnecessarily delayed.
VISCOUNT WOLSELEY,
Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.