BOOKS.
THE CASE AGAINST THE BOERS.'
This is a book written by one of the leading Outlanders, and sets forth in great detail the case against the Boers and the facts upon which the Outlanders rely to prove their contention chat they are oppressed, and that all their efforts to obtain redress by peaceful means have
• The Transvaal from Within: a Private Record of Public Satre. By J. P. Fitzpatrick_ London : W. Heinemann. OW. not] been unavailing. We do not say that Mr. Fitzpatrick's book shows no signs of enmity to the Boers. It would be im- possible for a reformer who has lived and suffered in Johannesburg for the last ten years to be quite cool and judicial. Outlanders, like other men, have the passions of their kind, resent insult and injury, and feel that sense of essential injustice which a majority always feel when they are deprived by a minority of all share in the work of government. But though it would be absurd to claim that the writer of the book before us is in a position to be strictly impartial, it can be claimed for him that he states facts and not prejudices, that he is not blinded by hatred. and that he sees the necessity of meeting arguments by arguments, and not by mere rhetoric. He does not merely censure the Boers, but shows how and why the Outlanders have found it impossible to live under their rule, and why they prefer to risk the rain of their lives and fortunes to submitting to continued misgovernment.
We cannot attempt in the space at our disposal to give a comprehensive account of the book before us. We can only indicate some of its chief features, and refer our readers to its pages. If they honestly and sincerely desire to satisfy them- selves as to the case against the Boers as pleaded by the Outlanders, they must not refrain from studying Mr. Fitz- patrick's book. One of the first things that is established by Mr. Fitzpatrick's book is the fact that originally the Out- landers were sincerely anxious to become loyal citizens of the South African Republic. They did not want to get the vote merely in order to wreck the Republic, or to bring it under English influences. In spite of the fact that burghership would have involved the loss of their rights as British citizens, and would have placed them at the mercy of the rulers of the Republic, they were willing and anxious to throw in their fortunes with the Transvaal and to support its independence. It is very common for Englishmen to express scepticism as to this point. They argue that President Kruger was much too clever not to see that he would gain immensely by admitting the Outlanders provided be could be sure of their loyalty. That he did not admit them, but passed law after law to keep them out, is taken as a proof that they could not be trusted to maintain the independence of the Republic. This plea is confuted by Mr. Fitzpatrick's account of the way in which Mr. Kruger dealt with the matter. He said in effect :—` Yon tell me that if I let the men who are bent on upsetting the van get inside they won't want to upset it any longer, because they will be upsetting themselves. Very likely; but though they won't want to upset the van [i.e., destroy the indepen- dence of the Republic] they will want to drive it on a different track.' Here is the thing in a nutshell. The real reason why President Kruger determined not to admit the Outlanders was not because they would upset the Republic, but because they would change the system under which the Boers ruled. The Boers, and the President most of all, are determined that they will do what they will with their own, and will not share with others the guidance of the "van." It has taken years of talking and negotiation, of sufferings and turmoils, to arrive at this simple issue, but to this issue we have now come. The Boers are a compact oligarchy filled with the pride of race and the love of power, and rather than share tbat power with others they will fight —we will not say to the death, but till they are convinced by the siltinia ratio of war that they cannot do what they will with their own when their doing so means the oppression of the rest of the white inhabitants of their country. Every page of Mr. Fitzpatrick's hook contains a confir- mation of this view. Again and again the Boers have shown themselves willing to yield anything else but a share of power. They have even been willing to make a pretence of yielding that, but when they have actually come face to face with the admission of the Outlanders to a share in the government they have always "shied." In sham concessions they have been prolific. Real concessions they have never made, and never will make except at the point of the bayonet.
Another fact of importance that emerges from Mr. Fitz- patrick's book concerns the Jameson Raid. We thought that we had already reached bottom in that deplorable story of folly and deception. But it seems that beneath the lowest depth was a lower depth. Mr. Fitzpatrick shows that Dr. Jameson was told by the reformers not to come, as they very likely would not need him, and certainly were not ready for him. In spite of that, and contrary to his express under- taking that he would not move without the call of the reformers, he set forth on his raid. And be not only broke his agreement in coming when he was not wanted ; be broke it even more flagrantly by starting with only about half the force which it was agreed on should be the minimum. Nor was this the end of his sins against the Outlanders. When he was beaten, the Outlanders were reproached as cowards for not coming out to meet him in force. Having themselves sent to tell him not to start, and also knowing that be would receive the High Commissioner's peremptory order to stop, they assumed that he would go back, and so would require no aid, and they therefore most naturally made no preparations to receive him. The truth is, Dr. Jameson tried to raid and rush the Outlanders quite as much as he tried to raid and rush the Boers. If he had remained on the frontier the Outlanders would have had a very strong card in reserve, and would probably have been able to extort terms from the Boers. His selfish blunder spoiled all. Why he acted as he did is, of course, still a matter of dispute, but we ourselves have little doubt as to the reason why he—acting as the representative of Mr. Rhodes, no doubt, rather than on his own account—insisted on "riding in." He did so because he was afraid that the Outlanders would win their battle, as they said, without firing a shot,—and so without any aid from Mr. Rhodes and the Chartered Company's forces. But if Dr. Jameson did the Outlanders an evil service before his defeat, he did them— though unconsciously no doubt—a far worse one as a prisoner.
After his capture everything turned upon how to preserve Dr. Jameson's life. The Boers most unfairly refused to recognise the fact that he had surrendered on condition that his life and those of the officers should be spared. and thus his life became a counter in the game, and most cleverly did President Kruger play it. With a loyalty which was Quixotic, the reformers pnt themselves at the mercy of the Boers in order to save Dr.
Jameson. They were told : You can only save Dr. Jameson by yielding,' and so they yielded. What, of course, Sir Jacobus de Wet ought to have said to the Boers was :—' I will not even discuss the question of Dr. Jameson's life. You can- not shoot him without violating the terms of his surrender, and this you dare not do. What I will do is to negotiate with the reformers on the basis that if they surrender their arms they shall be amnestied and shall have their grievances con- sidered.' As it was, however, no one had the courage to dare the Boers to shoot Dr. Jameson. All the negotiations turned on saving him, and everything else was sacrificed to that end.
But interesting as is the account of the Jameson Raid, it is not the most important part of the book. That lies in the story of Boer misgovernment which is written large in its pages. Though the chief incidents of that misgovernment do not lend themselves to quotation, we will extract the account of two episodes. The first is the story of the killing of Edgar by the police :-
" On the Sunday night before Christmas a British subject named Tom Jackson Edgar was shot dead in his own house by a Boer policeman. Edgar, who was a man of singularly fine physique and both able and accustomed to take care of himself, was returning home at about midnight when one of three men standing by, who as it afterwards transpired was.both ill and intoxicated made an offensive remark. Edgar resented it with a blow which dropped the other insensible to the ground. The man's friends called for the police and Edgar, meanwhile, entered his own house a few yards off. There was no attempt at concealment or escape ; Edgar was an old resident and perfectly well known. Four police came, who in any circumstances were surely sufficient to capture him. Moreover, if that had been considered difficult. other assistance could have been obtained and the house from which there could have been no escape might have been watched. In any case Edgar was admitted by the police to have sat on the bed talking to his wife, and to have been thus watched by them through the window. It is not stated that they called upon him to come out or surrender himself, but they proceeded immediately to burst in his door. Hearing the noise he came out into the passage. He may or may not have known that they were police : he may or may not have believed them to be the three men by one of whom be had been insulted. There is not a word of truth in the statement since made that Edgar bad been drinking. It was not alleged even in defence of the police, and the post-mortem examination showed that it was not so. A Boer policeman named Jones (there are scores of Boers unable to speak a word of English, who nevertheless own very characteristic English, Scotch, and Irish names—many of them being children of deserters from the British Army !) revolver in hand burst the door open. It is alleged by the prisoner and one of the police that as the door was burst open, Edgar from the passage struck the constable on the head twice with an ironshod stick which was afterwards produced in Court. On the other hand Mrs. Edgar and other independent witnesses—spectators—testified that Edgar did not strike a blow at all and could not possibly have done so in the time. The fact, however, upon which all witnesses agree is that as the police burst open the door Constable Jones fired at Edgar and dropped him dead in the arms of his wife, who was standing in the passage a foot or so behind him. On the following morning, the policeman was formally arrested .on the charge of manslaughter and immediately released upon his com- rades' sureties of £200."
We do not want to exaggerate this incident or to deal with it unfairly, but we do claim that it cannot be dismissed as a brawl in which the police acted a natural and reasonable part. We know that the Prussian police shoot down men in this way, not merely if they are resisted, but if they fear resistance, but tbat cannot prevent our con- demning such action both in Berlin and in Johannesburg, and we are at a loss to see how Liberals here can take the line they do,—i.e., that the Boer police did their duty, and that Edgar had only himself to blame for his untimely death. Mr. Fitzpatrick adds to his account of the Edgar trial the curious fact that, though the bail of the man who killed Edgar was £200, the bail of the men who were prosecuted for organising an illegal meeting on the Market Square was £1,000 each.
The other episode we have chosen is the murder of Trooper Black :—
" The Boers when under control of their leaders have gene- rally behaved in an admirable manner. It is only when the individuals, unrestrained by those in authority, are left to exer- cise their power at the dictates of their own uncurbed passions, that the horrible scenes have occurred which have undoubtedly blemished their reputation In connection with the Jameson raid there was one such incident—the shooting of Trooper Black. The unfortunate man fell into the hands of the Boers while out scouting and was taken as a prisoner to a farmhouse near Blaau. bank. There he was tied up and beaten, and it is stated by a woman who gave him water when he was half mad with thirst, that his face-had been smashed by a blow from a rifle butt. When unable to bear the treatment any longer Black stood up and, tearing his shirt open, cried out, ' Don't shoot me in the back ! Shoot here I My heart's in the right place.' He was then untied and (as alleged by Data witnesses) given an oppor- tunity to escape. He mounted his horse, but before he had gone far was shot dead. On the appeal of Sir Jacobus de Wet the Government consented to investigate the matter; but the Com. mandant in charge, Piet Grobler, when questioned on the sub- ject, merely replied, Oh, he [Black] was a very insolent fellow. We could do nothing with him.' The man who fired the shot despatching Black, a half-caste Boer named Graham, stated on his return from Pretoria that he was asked no questions at the so called inquiry. A somewhat similar incident took place, but fortunately with less serious results, on the way from the battle of Krugersdorp. A well-known resident of Johannesburg had ridden out to ascertain news of Dr. Jameson, and, arriving as the surrender took place, thrust his way among the Boers until he reached the Doctor, where he was arrested by the Boer authori- ties as a spy Being a burgher of the State who had been resident in the Transvaal for some sixteen or seventeen years, he was recognised and rather harshly treated. He was attached by a leather thong to the saddle of one of the Boer Commandants and made to run, keeping pace with the horse. After a spell of this treatment he was released, and the Commandant in question offered to make a bet with him that he would not be able to race him on horseback to the ambulance wag gons a few hundred yards off, the prisoner to take a short cut across a swamp and the Commandant to ride round by the road. The prisoner thereupon replied, 'NO. thank you, Commandant. I was in the Boer War myself and saw several men shot by that dodge, on the pretence that they were escaping.' The worthy Commandant thereupon drew his stirrup from the saddle, and thrashed his prisoner with the stirrup end. After some ten days' imprisonment under exceptionally bard conditions the gentleman in question was released without trial" We do not, of course, know whether the Boers may not be able to produce some circumstances of an extenuating nature, and to give a different complexion to these stories. If, how- ever, the story of Trooper Black can be authenticated, we need not wonder at the recent exodus from the Rand.
We can only say in conclusion what we have said shove,— namely, that all who desire to understand the case of the Oat- landers should read Mr. Fitzpatrick's book,—a book which, we may add, is written throughout with no little literary skill, and is uniformly as sane and manly in style as it is interest. ing and valuable in matter.
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