What of us? We, too, have had our vision of Empire. We have seen as in a dream the Empire of England as a great banyan tree; silently with the falling of the dew and the dropping of the rain it has extended itself; its branches have drooped down and rooted themselves in the earth; in it all the fowl of Heaven have taken refuge, and under its shade all the beasts of the field have lain down to rest. Can we change it for an upas tree, whose leaves distill poison and which spells death to those who have lain down in peace under its shadow?
You have no right to take our dream from us; you have no right to kill our faith! Of all the sins England will sin[114] if she makes war on South Africa, the greatest will be towards us.
Of what importance is the honor and faith we have given her? You say, we are but few! Yes, we are few; but all the gold of Witwatersrand would not buy one throb of that love and devotion we have given her.
Do not think that when imported soldiers walk across South African plains to take the lives of South African men and women, that it is only African sand and African bushes that are cracking beneath their tread: at each step they are breaking the fibres, invisible as air, but strong as steel, which bind the hearts of South Africans to England. Once broken they can never be made whole again; they are living things; broken, they will be dead. Each bullet which a soldier sends to the heart of a[115] South African to take his life, wakes up another who did not know he was an African. You will not kill us with your Lee-Metfords: you will make us. There are men who do not know they love a Dutchman; but the first three hundred that fall, they will know it.
Do not say, “But you are English, you have nothing to fear: we have no war with you!”
There are hundreds of us, men and women, who have loved England; we would have given our lives for her; but, rather than strike down one South African man fighting for freedom, we would take this right hand and hold it in the fire, till nothing was left of it but a charred and blackened bone.
I know of no more graphic image in the history of the world than
THE FIGURE OF FRANKLIN
when he stood before the Lords of Council in England, giving evidence, striving, fighting, to save America for England. Browbeaten, flouted, jeered at by the courtiers, his words hurled back at him as lies, he stood there fighting for England. England recognizes now that it was he who tried to save an Empire for her; and that the men who flouted and browbeat him, lost it. There is nothing more pathetic than the way in which Americans who loved England, Washington and Franklin, strove to keep the maiden vessel moored close to the mother’s side, bound by the bonds of love and sympathy, that alone could bind them. Their hands were beaten down, bruised and bleeding, wounded by the very men they came to save, till they let go the mother ship and drifted away on their own great imperial course across the seas of time.