THE BOER WAR
SIR,—Mr. Christopher Hollis in his review of Alfred, Lord Milner, by Sir. Evelyn Wrench, says. 'There is much force in the contention that the Boers under Kruger were determined on driving the British out of South Africa altogether, that a con- flict was inevitable. . .
I must .protest, Sir, that this is simply not true. My father and ,grandfather were engineers in the service of the Cape Government; and constructed most of the railways in the Cape Colony, as well as finally the railway through the Orange Free State which was built at the request of the Free State Government. When the latter Government decided to take over the railway from the Cape Government, they asked that my father, whom they already knew, be transferred to them as manager of the railway. Accordingly, about 1896 or 1897, he became director- general of the Orange Free State Railways and lived in BloemfOntein, where he had many friends, including President Steyn, as well as friends in the Transvaal. I mention these facts to show that with his many years of surveying, travelling and human contacts in South Africa, few Englishmen had greater knowledge than he of the events that led up to the South African War, and I know how greatly troubled he was when he realised the campaign of lies and misrepresentation which was being staged by the press. I well remember him saying that Cecil Rhodes had bought a controlling interest of the Cape Times and imported a new editor from England. and from then on the campaign of lies and calumny continued, until public opinion at home and in the Cape was attuned to believe any enormity of the Boers, however improbable. •
In a copy of a letter he wrote to a -friend, which I saw recently, my father referred to the fantastic suggestion he had heard that Kruger was planning to drive the British from South Africa—too absurd to be taken seriously.
I am away from home and unable to get at refer- ences, but to anyone interested I would recommend C. E. Vulliamy's The Outlanders, which is, I believe, a fair and accurate account of those times. It is almost certain that there would have been no South African War had gold in vast quantities not been found in the Transvaal, and had Rhodes not been bitterly disappointed earlier that 'gold beyond the dreams of avarice' was not found in Rhodesia.— Yours faithfully, M. G. BROUNGER
Orchard End, Churt„Surrey
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