The bitter letter from General Louis Botha which appears in
the Times of Wednesday is a fierce attack on the adminis- tration of the Transvaal Colony. He declares that Mr. Chamberlain's visit was a dismal failure ; that an unprece- dented War Debt was placed on the Colony against the express declarations of the burgher representatives ; that the burgher population is absolutely unrepresented on the Legislative Council ; that the municipal franchise is withheld alike from the coloured British subject and the white alien,— though Lord Miler's advocacy of the latter was the cause of the war ; that the work of the Repatriation Department is a complete and dismal failure, and that Lord Miler's
despatches about the "huge success of this Department are nothing more than a fairy tale " ; that the new educational system is a cruel attempt to Anglicise (and perhaps Romanise) the Boer children, and is alienating the two peoples ; that the importation of cheap Chinese labour will reinforce the black population and " degrade South Africa for ever" ; and that the government of the country is almost absolutely dictated by the mining magnates. The General goes on to say that to the burghers the present policy is "still the same policy which drove their forefathers from the Cape, and which has drenched South Africa in blood and tears." On the other hand, he tells us that "in this common adversity English and Boer are being drawn together," and that "there is a wonderful calm everywhere observable." All the energies of the Beers" are engaged in the work of rebuilding their homes and repairing the losses of the war." It is a clever as well as a bitter docu- ment. Whether there is any truth in it remains to be seen, but unless we are greatly mistaken, it is about as far from the essentials of the situation as would have been an account of Scotland written by a Highland chief a year after the '45.
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