CORRESPONDENCE.
SEVERITY OR CLEMENCY? [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:'] SIR,—May I venture to place before your readers some con- siderations as to the policy to be pursued in South Africa which have, I think, not usually been dwelt upon ? Is it best to be " thorough " or " gentle " in our dealings with the Boers ? In other words, are we to deal with them as William LEL's advisers dealt with Ireland after her Parlia- ment had refused to ratify the Treaty of Limerick, or ought we rather, even at this late date, to deal with them as Bismarck dealt with Bavaria in 1866 ? Two axioms from Machiavelli appear to me to sum up the situation, as it stands at present, in a nutshell. In the first place, it will readily be conceded that the Boers, and more especially their Colonial allies and their spiritual pastors and masters, exactly fulfil the definition Machiavelli has given of "man " as a " genus" " They are ungrateful, braggarts, dissemblers, eager to avoid danger, greedy for gain, and so long as they can get anything out of you are your very humble servants, and will offer you their blood, goods, lives, and children, so long as they risk nothing by doing so, but in the hour of danger they turn restive. Wherefore that ruler who has founded his whole policy on their pledged word, and has no other resources to fall back upon, comes to grief, for friendship, which is bought at a price and not gained by magnanimity an d noble conduct, may be deserved but not possessed, especially as the resources of the would-be possessor may fad him just in his hour of need."
And, secondly : "Men are so constituted that they much more readily forgive their father's death than the loss of their inheritance." In short, the Boer, like any other conquered race, must be won by fear, not love; whilst the hangman's noose will be far sooner forgotten and forgiven by the survivors than the soldier's torch. The policy of the English in Ireland after 1688 may be very con- cisely summed up. The Catholics at home were crushed
down by every species of Penal Laws, the worst of which were not enacted until twelve years after the surrender of Limerick, but the more adventurous spirits amongst the conquered race were encouraged to take service abroad. It was easier to fight them in Prance and Spain than in Ireland. This policy succeeded for ninety years, and only failed when the revolt of the American Colonies, at a moment when the senseless economic policy of England had thrown the Protestant interests of the North into the arms of the Catholics, gave an almost unique opportunity fix a rebel success. Its failure, however, will, in the end, be found to have entailed the ruin of the English interest in Ireland. Lord Charlemont was
the true predecessor of William O'Brien. What, on the other hand, was the policy of Prince Bismarck in (10-gling with Bavaria in 1866 ? His superiority, from a military point of view, over South Germany and Austria, and, as events proved, over all Catholic Europe, was, for the moment, overwhelming, but none knew better than Prince Bismarck that if, in Prussian history, Waterloo had followed Jena, Jena itself was the successor of Rosbaeh, and the Treaty of Vienna had been destined to be followed by the capitulation of O]miitz. Be never forgot that goddess- " QUM nimiis obstat Rhamnnsis yobs, Ingemuit flexitque rotain . . . . . . . . Unoque die R,omana rependit Quidquid ter denis acies amisimus annis."
What, then, was Bismarck's policy when Bavaria was at Ilia feet ? It was the policy of the Iron Hand in the Silken Glove. In the outward life of the Bavarian citizen nothinh, was changed. The blue and white flag floated on his flagposts, the Chambers met at Munich as usual, the stamps and coins continued to bear the image and superscription of Ludwig II.
In reality, Prussia was the absolute master of Bavaria, but her control was only felt directly by the King's Foreign Minister. In time of peace the officers of the Army received their commissions from King Ludwig ; the recruits took their oath of allegiance in his name. The moment war was declared
the command of the two Bavarian army corps passed auto- matically into the hands of the German Emperor and his Prussian adviser at Berlin. In diplomacy the independent representation of Bavaria abroad was preserved. Bavarian Ministers resided at Paris and Rome ; to avoid affronting Protestant feelings in the North a Nuncio at Munich con- ducted the relations between the Vatican and Berlin. When the German Ambassador was absent from his post the Bavarian Minister became ipso facto Imperial Chargé d'Affaires at every Court at which his Bavarian Majesty con- tinued to be represented. A Bavarian delegate with those of Saxony and Wiirtemberg sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundesrath. But in the Treaty of 1870, by which Bavaria acceded to the establishment of the German Empire, it was specifically laid down that such Bavarian diplomatic representatives were on every occasion to follow the policy carried out by the representative of the Empire at the Courts where they were accredited. Similarly, the Iron Hand in the Silken Glove ruled every relation of Bavarian life with the outer world. The coinage and postage-stamps might bear King Ludwig's "image and superscription." Like the weights and measures, they must conform to the Imperial standard. The Gulden must give place to the Mark. In all aftairs con- nected with Customs, commercial and railway legislation, appeals lie from the Bavarian Courts to the Imperial Court at Leipsic, and the Resolutions of the Reichstag at Berlin over- ride those of the Landtag at Munich. The police is conducted on the Imperial model. The military contribution voted on a
fixed scale by Bavaria may be applied to the support of the Bavarian army and fortresses. The inspection of the results lies in the hands of Imperial officials. Intercourse between Bavaria and the other Courts of the German Empire, including Berlin, may be conducted by gentlemen decorated with diplomatic styles and titles. In reality, they occupy the position of the Vakeel of an Indian Rajah at Calcutta or Madras. In return, Bavarian commerce has expanded by leaps and bounds under the protection of the
German flag, and once more Nuremberg's "Hand," (according to that most mistaken quotation) "goes through every land" under the black, white, and red flag, where it never could have got a hold under the blue and white of the Wittelsbachs. Is, or is not, such a plan applicable in South Africa? I appeal to the wisdom of our rulers. Con- trast the other policy, the Irish policy of 1692, applied with an irritating difference. In 1692 the English garrison in Ireland crushed the Catholic religion in the dust, and hung such rebels as brigands as would not seek service under the Lilies of France or the Castles of Castile. It did not burn farms, allow traitors of the type of the Assembly of Dutch clergymen at Stellenbosch, on the coming November 28th and 29th, to meet with impunity in Ulster, whilst the least word of treason was (as in Natal to-day) lavished with fine and imprisonment in Munste, nor establish camps of concen- tration for women and children. It ruled by the noose and not by the torch. Consequently it succeeded for ninety years, and if the English garrison in Ireland had had at its disposal a vast quasi-neutral force like that of the black population in South Africa, it might well have continued unchanged until the present day. We have won and hold India by the Bavarian policy; the Russians have won and hold Poland and Central Asia by the Irish. Our choice lies between the two. Either we must make up our minds t4 trust the Dutch
and give them the liberties which Prince Bismarck wisely
conceded to the Bavarians, granting their farmers some compensation for their losses, and, as the late Lord Loch suggested, providing an opening for their sons in light cavalry regiments in India ; or we must go in for a policy of " Thorough " on the lines followed by the Russian end German commanders in China. Our present policy of burning farms and imprisoning women and children, whilst leaving the husbands and fathers alive and with arms in their hands to resist us, can have no good result. No country can be tranquil which contains within its bounds a multitude of inhabitants inspired with the thought of Dante's Capet 0 Thou My Lord, when shall I joyful be,
Seeing that vengeance which, though hidden yet Within Thy breaA, Thine anger maketh sweet?"
As Machiavelli truly says, the execution of friends by the hangman is forgotten when the loss of property is not. The deep divisions, dating from the Revolution, which go down to the root of French life to-day are due not to the guillotine, but to the confiscation of Church and emigrants' lands. The hillmen in Ireland resent their exclusion from the fertile plains below them ; they have long forgotten the cruelties of Essex and of Mountjoy. The "Curse of Cromwell" is a memory not of the Massacre of Drogheda, but of the choice he gave the Papists, "To Hell or Connaught." If Lord Kitchener has the courage to be merciless, on, as Machiavelli says, "just and adequate occasion," to life whilst sparing property, the war may soon be ended, but under the present system there is little reason why it should not rival in duration the Thirty Years' War itself. Either be gentle or be severe. Offer the Boers, if you will, the position of Bavaria. If you choose severity, use the hangman's noose freely, but offer your present prisoners a new start in life, either in South Africa itself under the German or Portuguese flag, mindful of the fact that a large and flourishing Boer colony already exists at Humpata, in Portuguese Angola; or if Boer contiguity in South Africa be deemed too dangerous, arrange with some South American Government—Argentina, with its Gran Chaco, Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia, or Venezuela suggest themselves to the mind—to give the exiles a new start in life. In South America the Boer irreconcilables would be innocuous for generations to English interests, and we should have little reason to fear a new Fontenoy at the hands of South American forces, led by some twentieth-century descendant of Louis Botha or Christian de Wet. In any case, let us abandon the policy of shilly-shally, and follow either the example of Bismarck in dealing with Bavaria in 1866, or that of Skobeleff in dealing with the Tekke Turcomans of 1873. In medio tutissimus ibis is not a motto which applies to dealings with Boers.—I am, Sir, &c., H.
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