THE BOER CAUSE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TILE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—I see that Dr. Alexander, the eloquent Irish Primate, said at his Diocesan Synod tbat the Boer cause was "as bad a cause as ever men were misguided into." The Boer cause is that of the internal independence of the Dutch Republic, which their fathers and themselves have founded. They had to choose between the conversion of their Republic, sooner or later, into an English State or Colony, and war ; between its fall through English votes or English rifles. Beneath all the surface talk and pretexts on either side the real issue is whether the Transvaal shall form an integral part of the British Empire or shall be a Dutch Republic. The contest is the old one between Imperial and Republican ideals,—the old fight of Ghibelline and Guelf. From our own point of view
we are right, because we believe that more benefit to humanity is to be expected from the extension of the British Empire than from the existence of Dutch Republics, but, morally speaking, the latter is just as good and noble a cause to fight and die for. To the Boers "equal rights for all white men in the Transvaal" seems a phrase covering the destruction of their Dutch Republic. And is it not so—in fact P—I am,
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