When I traveled through South Africa the other day this new Constitution had been working for a few years, and I can only say that I was astonished at the results. Here and there in the remoter districts, it is true, some racial feeling still prevailed, but taken as a whole this seems absolutely to have died away. Briton and Boer have come together in a manner for which I believe I am right in saying there is no precedent in the history of the world, so shortly, at any rate, after a prolonged and bitter struggle to the death. I might give many instances, but I will only take one. At Pretoria I was asked to inspect a company of Boy Scouts, and there I found English and Dutch lads serving side by side with the utmost brotherhood. Again I met most of the men who had been leaders of the Boers in the war. One and all professed the greatest loyalty to England. Moreover, I am certain that this was not lip loyalty; it was from the heart. Especially was I impressed by that great man, Gen. Botha, with whom I had several conversations. I am convinced that at this moment the King has no truer or more faithful servant than Gen. Botha. Again and again did I hear from prominent South Africans of Dutch or Huguenot extraction that never more was there any chance of trouble between Boer and Briton.
I know it is alleged by some that this is because the Dutch feel that they have on the whole made a good bargain, having won absolute constitutional liberty and the fullest powers of self-government, plus the protection of the British fleet. There may be something in this view, but I am sure that the feeling goes a great deal deeper than self-interest. Mutual respect has arisen between those who ten years ago were enemies fighting each other.
Appeal to People's Imagination.
Moreover, the Boer now knows a great deal more of the British Empire and what it means than he did then. Lastly, the supreme generosity evinced by Britain in giving their enemy of the day before every right and privilege that is owned by her other oversea dominions with whom she has never had a quarrel appeals deeply to the imagination of the Dutch people. Now, the world sees the results. Germany, which has miscalculated so much in connection with this war and the part that the British Empire would play in it, miscalculated nowhere more than it did in the case of South Africa. The German war lords hoped that India and Egypt would rise, they trusted that Canada and Australia would prove lukewarm, but they were certain that South Africa would seize the opportunity to rebel. How could it be otherwise, they thought, seeing that but yesterday she was at death grips with us. Then came the great surprise. Lo and behold! instead of rebelling, South Africa promptly cabled to England saying that every British soldier might be withdrawn from her shores, and, further, that the burghers of the land would themselves undertake the conquest of the German possessions of Southwest Africa for the Crown. They are doing so at this moment. I believe that today there is no British soldier left at the Cape, and I know that now a great force is moving on Southwest Africa furnished by Boer and Briton alike. Can the history of the world tell us of any parallel case to this—that a country conquered within a dozen years should not only need no garrison, but by its own free will undertake war against the enemies of its late victor? Surely this is something of which Britain may feel proud.
Deep Distrust of Germany.
Now, some of your readers may ask: "Why is it? How did this miracle, for it is little less, happen?" My answer is that it has been caused first by a supreme and glorious trust in the justice and generosity of England, which knows how to rule colonies as no other nation has done in the history of the earth, and secondly by a deep distrust of Germany. To my own knowledge, Germany has been intriguing in South Africa for the last quarter of a century. I remember, I suppose it must be almost twenty years ago, sending to the late Mr. Chamberlain, who was then Colonial Secretary, information to this effect which reached me from undoubted sources in South Africa. Again, not long ago, I was shown a document which was found among the papers of the Zulu Prince Dinizulu, son of King Cetewayo, who died the other day. It was concluded between himself and Germans, and under it the poor man had practically sold his country nominally to a German firm, but doubtless to more powerful persons behind. In short, there is no question that for many years Germany has had its eye upon South Africa as a desirable field of settlement for its subjects under the German and not the British flag. Now, the Boers are perfectly well acquainted with this fact and have no wish to exchange the beneficent rule of Britain for that of Potsdam, the King Log of George V. for the King Stork of Kaiser Wilhelm.
You ask me if I think that the Boers are likely to succeed in their attack on Southwest Africa, where it must be remembered that the Germans have a very formidable force; indeed, I have been told, I do not know with what accuracy, that they have accumulated there the vast arsenal of war material that was obviously intended to be used on some future occasion in the invasion of the Cape. I answer: "Certainly, they will succeed, though not easily." Remember what stock these Boers come from. They are descendants of the men who withstood and beat Alva in the sixteenth century.
Botha of Huguenot Descent.
I happen to be well acquainted with that period of history. I wrote a story called "Lysbeth" concerning it, and to do this I found it necessary not only to visit Holland on several occasions, but to read all the contemporary records. In the light of the information which I thus obtained, I state positively that the world has no record of a more glorious and heroic struggle than that made by the Dutch against all the power of Spain. Well, the Boers are descended from these men and women (for both fought). Also, they include a very large dash of some of the best blood of Europe, namely, that of the Huguenots. For instance, Botha himself is of Huguenot descent. It is impossible for a person like myself, who have that same blood in me, to talk with him for five minutes without becoming aware of his origin. Long before he told me so I knew that he was in part a Frenchman. Men so great are not easily conquered, as we know to our cost. Why, it took quite 250,000 soldiers and three years of strenuous guerrilla warfare to enable Britain to defeat 40,000 or 50,000 Dutch farmers. Therefore I have personally not the least fear of the ultimate result of the campaign against Southwest Africa.
I went as a lad as Secretary to the Governor of Natal. That was in 1875. Subsequently I accompanied Sir Theophilus Shepstone, one of the greatest men that ever lived in South Africa, on his famous mission to the Transvaal. I am now, I believe, the only survivor of that mission, and certainly the only man who knows all the inner political history of that event. Afterward I held office in the Transvaal, and was in the country during all the disastrous period of the first Boer war. For instance, I dined with Gen. Colley the night before he started on his ill-fated expedition. I think there were thirteen of us present at that historical dinner. Within a few weeks six or eight of these were dead, including Colley himself, killed in the fight of Majuba, of which I heard the guns. Of those present at that dinner party there now survive only Lady Colley, my wife, and myself.