A HOLIDAY IN' SOUTH AFRICA.*
Sin Holmium Duniaran takes his holiday in the strenuous fashion which we might expect. Of the nineteen chapters which make up the volume one only savours of recreation. Sir Mortimer turned aside from politics and history and gave a day to whale fishing. It would, have been a pity if this had been a blank. Only one head of game, it is true, was secured, but as this was forty-five feet long, and may have been worth as much as £200, the day's sport may be considered satisfactory. For the most part we are called upon to consider much graver matters. Early in the book comes a visit to Kimberley and the diamond mines. The way from Cape Town lay through some of the famous battlefields of the Boer War. Sir Mortimer has something very interesting to say on this subject. His general conclusion is that, did we realize what the British generals and soldiers had to do and the conditions under which they were acting, "criticism would be changed into admiration." If the Boers had possessed in equal degree their military virtues, especially those "which are necessary for a resolute and efficient offen- sive on a large scale," they must have triumphed. still more interesting, as being full of significance for the future, is the brief chapter on "The American Civil War and the War of 1899" We are reminded that the Boers had to face after the war no such humiliation as the men of the South. Has there ever before been seen the spectacle of the conqueror awarding to the conquered compensation for the losses which they had incurred in fighting against him F' And this. is the war which, if we are to believe anti-Imperialist fanatics, was the most barbarous in the record of history! We pass by a natural transition to the grave question suggested by the title of chapter ix., " The Union of South Africa." Sir Mortimer is hopeful about the future. He does not pretend that he found the feeling about the Union unanimous. At Johannesburg especially, where the mining industry is the predominant factor in the situation, there was a very strong anti-Dutch sentiment.; nowhere had the humiliations of the Kruger regime been more acutely, felt. Yet even here there were many who looked hopefully to the future. At Lad.yarnith, on the other hand, where recollections of the Dutchmen could not have been wholly agreeable, the prospect of Union was most welcome. "One could not but be struck and astonished by the unanimity of the feeling; by the fact that in this most intensely British of all South African communities the desire of a great future for South Africa should override race animosities and lead men of British birth to support a movement which seemed likely, not only to place a Dutch Government in power at first, but to make all South African Governments for the future largely representative of Dutch votes." There is a still more serious problem in South African polities. "Briton and *A ifoliday in South Africa. By the Right Hon. Sir H. Xortimer Durand: London : W. Blackwood and Sons. [Cs.1
Beer" may agree to live in harmony, but how about 'White and Black "1 To a certain extent one difficulty is a set-off against the other. Different clans of the white race cannot afford to quarrel among themselves in view of a force which may involve all of them in a common ruin. But the great danger is not in a possible triumph of the black over the white, but in the degradation of the white. "The white man will not work himself and will not let others work.' The immigrant comes with the Briton's wholesome love of labour ; but he finds an iron system of caste. What he would do at home without a murmur is here, he finds, de- grading. It is "Kaffir's work,' and he must not touch it. He takes a farm, but this prejudice binds him hand and foot : he does not learn his business, and he fails. So the landowner is shy of the British tenant, and lets his farms to natives. What has Sir Mortimer to say on. this matter ? Nothing that is definite; only we must leave the South African State to work out its own salvation. He suggests, however, a possible remedy in the "maintenance on a large scale of protected native states and native reserves." He thinks, too, that it would have been well if we had followed this policy more generally in our Indian administration—a very valuable expression of opinion in view of the experience of the author. Along with these grave discussions we have some attractive pictures of scenes which Sir Mm-timer visited, among them the island of St. Helena and Napoleon's dwelling. But we must own that his final reflection on the great man's unhappy lot seems a little far- fetched. It was the "most pathetic fact of all that through those six years of long-drawn death Napoleon should have been denied the certainty of enduring fame." Surely he was not serious when he said, "I shall soon be forgotten." We are reminded of Lord Thurlow and his impressive apostrophe : If I forget my King may my God forget me !" "Forget. you!" said Wilkes, who heard the peroration. "He'll see you damned first 1
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