A remarkable letter, from an M.P.'s brother now serving in
South Africa, has been circulated by the Press Association, and appears in Tuesday's Times. The writer, whose letter is dated from Prieska, July 22nd, describes a conversation with a nephew of Joubert, a graduate of Leyden and Cambridge, whom he recently captured in a farmhouse when on patrol duty. This young Boer, "an exceedingly well-informed and astute fellow," blamed Smuts, Reitz, and Wessels for the was- It was the "young Afrikander bloods," not the Hollanders, who forced Kruger's hand. "However," said my prisoner, "let us look to the future. Don't believe that the Boers will never settle down amicably. They will if you are thorough in your determination to stamp out disaffected agents. Unless Lord Milner is prepared to entirely reform and purge the provincial administration of Cape Colony by replacing the Government representatives in the districts by men from England, there will be unrest, plotting, and intrigue." So in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony the civil authority should be entrusted, not to local candidates, to the Hebrew element, or to "Dutch loyalists" who had turned their coats while their hearts had remained the same, but to new men who had been outside the conflict and were free from prejudices. For himself, when the war was over he would join his family at Rotterdam, which was to be their future home. "But I have not the least prejudice against the British. You were compelled to defend your Empire." The advice of a candid enemy is often a great deal more valuable than that of a candid friend.
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