TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MORAL PRESSURE. THE real question that divides England just now is not the question whether the Boers or the Out- landers are in the right, but the question what is meant by moral pressure. Practically every one is agreed that the Boers ought to grant the franchise to the bond-fide resident Outlanders, and ought to place them on an equality with the Boers as regards political status. The strongest opponents of the Government, both in the Press and on the platform, admit, that is, that the Out- landers have a right to the vote on reasonable terms. Nor does the agreement stop here. There is also a virtual con- sensus of opinion that we ought to put moral pressure upon the Transvaal Government to make them yield to the demands of the Outlanders. No one takes the line that the grievances of the Outlanders in the matter of citizenship do not concern us, and that we have no right to talk about them or to try to induce President Kruger to find a remedy. Every one, in fact, is for putting on moral pressure. When, however, we begin to define moral pressure keen differences are at once manifest. The Govern- ment while using moral pressure in the way of strong despatches and grave representations let it clearly be seen that their moral pressure will in the long run be backed up by physical force, and that in the last resort it relies on force for its motive power. On the other side, there is a large body of men who, though they are sincerely anxious to use what they call moral pressure, grow fierce and excited at the very mention of force. Though moral pressure may be, and indeed ought to be, applied, they vehemently declaim against all idea of force. The notion of insisting and of declaring that force will have to be used if other means fail is represented as "devilish." Moral pressure is apparently not only to be, in fact, purely an affair of words, but those who use it are to be forced to proclaim that they will under no cir- cumstances back up their words with acts.
Now, with all due deference to our opponents in this matter, this view of moral pressure seems to us perfectly ridiculous. As we said last week, we feel respect for those who consider themselves conscientiously obliged to take President Kruger's side, and who take it boldly and clearly, and we repeat again that we trust the day will never come when Englishmen will be afraid of proclaiming that their country is in the wrong when they honestly think her to be so. By all means let those who think we have no right to interfere in the Transvaal speak out, and let them denounce what they believe to be an oppressive and un- justifiable policy. There is sense in such action, but to advocate moral pressure, and at the same time to openly and deliberately abandon that which makes moral pres- sure a reality, is utterly absurd. If those who advocate moral pressure, but who also desire to make it quite plain that they will never use force, were to think of the questions where moral pressure has been exerted before, they would soon realise how entirely its efficiency depends upon the possibility of force behind. Take the case of Turkey. We put moral pressure upon Turkey in regard to Crete, and that pressure bore fruit. But does any sane person suppose that this moral pressure would have succeeded if we had begun by proclaiming that we would never use force in the case of Turkey ? If we had done so, depend upon it Turkey would never have yielded. It was only the knowledge that, though Europe might be very patient, she would in the last resort use force which obliged the Turks to yield. In the case of the Armenian massacres, on the other hand, moral pressure failed, and failed because, though we used an immense deal of it, it was quite well understood by the Turks that we did not intend in the last resort to use force. Moral pressure was seen in that case to be a matter of words, and it at once becamE, absolutely valueless. We do not, of course, in taking this illustration, suggest for a moment a com- parison between President Kruger and the Sultan. To do so would be in atrociously bad taste, for President Kruger, whatever may be his faults and however short- sighted his policy, is as a man worth a wilderness of Sultans. Abd-ul-Hamid's character does not, however, in the least interfere with the truth of the proposition that if you are trying to induce a man, or a body of men, to do what they do not want to do, moral pressure with nothing behind it is a perfectly worthless thing. It will be urged, no doubt, against this view that moral pressure has often had an effect when used by those who either were not willing to go to war or Who had not the power of doing so. Granted; but we believe it will be found that in these cases the Power on whom moral pressure was brought to bear never realised that war was impossible. When war is deliberately and in so many words ruled out of the possibilities, a strong man like President Kruger immediately becomes im- movable to moral pressure. He believes himself to be in the right, and why should he move from his position when it is made clear to him that he will never be forced to do so ? Those, then, who advocate moral pressure, but say that the use of force is not to be dreamt of, are stultifying themselves. They are giving with one hand and taking back with the other. The advocates of unsupported moral pressure are really for non-interference, and would, we hold, better serve the interests of peace and of the Empire if they were to proclaim the fact. Their proposals for unsup- ported moral pressure are simply useless irritants. The true issue (and it is beat that it should be clearly shown) is between moral pressure supported in the last resort by force, and non-interference. As our readers know, we hold that we have a moral right to exert moral pressure upon the Transvaal Government, and in the last resort -to support that moral pressure by force. We also believe that it is politically expedient that we should exercise this right in order to end a situation which is seriously injuring South Africa, and ruining the prospects of the formation of a self-governing South African Dominion,— under the British flag, and yet as free as the Dominion of Canada. But granted that we ought to exercise moral pressure of the only kind that is effective, there still remains the question as to the point at which force must be employed. That is, of course, primarily a matter for the Executive. They, and they only, know the real condi- tions, and know when action has become imperative, and can be most wisely taken. All that outsiders can say in the case of the Boers is, that the more patience there is exercised the better, and that we ought—as long as we are not being played with—to allow a great deal of slowness and procrastination to the Boers. And even if the Boers were at last to refuse point blank to grant the franchise in a fair and reasonable manner, or were to propose impossible conditions, we do not think that we ought to take immediate action. We would rather even then impose an interval. We would point out to the Boers that we had warned them that they were treating the Outlanders with injustice, and that on the first occasion on which they tried either to prevent the Outlanders from organising and combining, or in any other way used coercive measures, we should take action. But unless we are greatly mistaken, President Kruger will not oblige us to take any such steps. He will, we believe, yield to moral pressure, if only he is convinced that in the last resort the moral pressure we employ rests upon force. In spite of what, from his point of view, is a very natural tone of exaggeration, he knows quite well that the grant of the franchise to the Outlanders does not mean the loss of inde- pendence to the Transvaal, or for very many years to come of the loss of the present ascendency enjoyed by the Boers. But war means the immediate and final loss of the Boer ascendency. Under such circumstances President Kruger is almost certain to yield. The one danger is that he may be so badly informed as to the intentions of our Government as to think our slow, persistent moral pressure is merely words and has nothing behind it. If he does, then we may be forced into taking action. Remember, however, that there are plenty of stages yet at which President Kruger may yield. It is quite con. ceivable that the troops may be on the sea and yet no war occnr, for that may be the very moment chosen by President Kruger for his compromise.
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