Review of Reviews, ltl'^106. 



Leading Articles. 



383 



THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION. 



A Fraud Confessed. 



When John Bull was jockeyed into war with the 

 Boer Republics the Jingoes made great use of the 

 or)- of Equal Rights. " We are going to war,'' they 

 assured us, " to secure equal rights for all white men 

 in South Africa.'' We were going to give the South 

 Africans the same liberties as our colonists enjoy in 

 Australia and Canada. The pretence was kept up 

 even to the end of the war, and when peace was 

 made Lord Kitchener solemnly assured the Boers 

 that they were to have Colonial responsible govern- 

 ment, as in the Cape, in the Orange Free State in 

 eighteen months and in the Transvaal soon after. 



Now that the Liberals are beginning to fulfil those 

 pledges — more than two years overdue — the Jingoes 

 cynically abandon the fraudulent pretence of equal 

 rights, and proclaim with unabashed effrontery that 

 not equality but ascendency was their real motive 

 in making war. The new Constitution which is 

 about to be published does concede responsible 

 government to the conquered republics and does 

 establish equal rights. Therefore Mr. Rudyard 

 Kipling and Sir Kinloch Cooke and all the tribe of 

 Jingo-Imperialists proclaim in angry chorus that the 

 Liberals are betraying the Empire. We are not be- 

 traying the Empire. We are keeping our word. 

 But listen to the doggerel whine of the Banjo Bard 

 of the Brummagem Empire: — 



The shame of Amajub.i Hill 



Lies heavy on our line. 

 But here is shame completer still 



And England makes no sign. 

 Unchallenged, in the market-place 



Of Freedom's chosen land. 

 Our rulers pass our rule and race 



Into the stranger's hand 



At a great price you loosed the yoke 



"Neath which our brethren lay 

 (Your dead that perished ere 'twas broke 



Are scarcely dust to-day). 

 Think you ye freed them at that price? 



Wake, or your toil is vain ! 

 Our rulers jugglingly devise 



To sell them back again. . , . 



What is their sin that they are made 



Rebellion's lawful prey? 

 This is their sin: that oft betrayed. 



They did not oft betray; 

 That to their hurt they kept their vowa. 



That for their faith they died. . . . 

 God help them. Children of Our House 



Wliom England hath denied! 



But we — what God shall turn our doom — 



What blessing dare we claim. 

 Who sla.v a nation in the womb 



To crown a trickster's game? 

 Who come before amazed mankind. 



Foresworn in party-feud. 

 And search tlie forms of law to bind 



Our blood to servitude. 



What Mr. Rudyard Kipling stutteringly snarls in 

 rhyme. Sir C. Kinloch Cooke sets forth in more 

 articulate, but not less shameless, fashion in the 

 Empire Review for August. According to him, the 

 object of the war was the ascendency of the British, 

 and this ascendency, he says, it is our duty to main- 

 tain at all costs — equal rights and pledged word / •^•■- 



wthstanding. For instance, speaking of the Orange 

 Free State, which laid down its arms only after re- 

 ceiving the pledged word of Lord Kitchener that 

 it should have self-government as in the Cape be- 

 fore 1904 was out, this is what this false counsellor 

 advises : — - 



Finally, a special word for the Orange River Colony. 

 SeU-governmeut in this case means an actual repetition of 

 Mr. Gladstone's policy toward the Transvaal in 1881 — retro- 

 cession. All British ideals gone and Boer aspirations 

 taking their place. If one might suggest, I would earnestly 

 ask his Majesty's Government to postpone for a year or 

 so the grant of self-government to tlie Orange Kiver Colony. 



As there will be no more British in the Free State 

 next year than there are now, the only result of the 

 delay would be still further to irritate the majority, 

 through whom alone we can hope to govern South 

 Africa. What a flood of light these admissions 

 shed upon the fatuous, criminal imbecility of the 

 war! 'To spend ^250,000,000 of our own money 

 and to deluge South Africa in blood merely to exas- 

 perate against us the majority upon whose goodwill 

 we must rely if the flag is to be kept flying in the 

 sub-continent — was there ever greater lunacy con- 

 fessed by mortal men ? 



In the Trans\'aal Sir C. Kinloch Cooke tells us 

 even the Lvttelton Constitution affords but a slender 

 basis for British ascendency: — 



As far as can be ascertained, the political compo-sition of such 

 an assembly would be :- 



It will therefore be seen that a British majority, even 

 on the existing voters' roll, is only possible if all British 

 parties in the Transvaal agree to act together, axid that in 

 any event, by far the largest party representing a single 

 interest in the new parliament must be Het Volk. 



As nothing is more certain than that all the 

 British parties will not work together, the Boers- 

 must of necessity be masters of the situation. Sir 

 C. Kinloch Cooke asks whether we are to give back 

 at the polls what we won in the field. To this the 

 answer is, we bought peace by the promise to give 

 the Boers at the polls the same rights as the British, 

 and we are going to keep our word. Not even to 

 please these advocates of bad faith shall we consent 

 to gerrymander the new Constitution in order to 

 cook a fictitious majority. To do so would only 

 consummate the ruin almost achieved by the war. 



The education of the black man in Rhodesia 

 shotild, according to the Rev. R. H. Etheridge in 

 The East and the West, be primarily religious, dog- 

 matic, intellectual, and also physical, manual and 

 industrial. 



