THE CAPE DUTCH.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—All will agree with your article on " The Cape Dutch" in the Spectator of December 9th that the Cape Ministry had a most difficult game to play; few will think that they have succeeded in neutrality, unless indeed an ultra-benevolent neutrality towards the Boers. To the last moment before the war was declared the Cape papers were full of com- plaints of how the Ministry were issuing the latest and best rifles to notoriously disaffected Bonders, while refusing any
to the loyal Volunteers. It is only now that they are calling out the Volunteers, while on December 11th, before the news of Gatacre's reverse arrived here, 1 heard complaints from t'? :e Cape that if their Volunteers had been called out, as they ought to have been at first, they would have been quite strong enough to have patrolled their own frontier and prevented the enemy getting a footing in the Stormberg country. It will take stronger facts than you adduce to persuade " heady " (to use a favourite word of yours) politicians that the Cape Ministry are, with the possible exception of Mr. Schreiner,
either loyal, honest, or neutral.—I am, Sir, &c., C. M. P.S.—The Standard of December 11th, in its Cape corre- spondence, supplied two suggestive commentaries on your article:— (1) "Mr. Schreiner is at loggerheads with the loaders of the Afrikander Bond, who argue that he is betraying the cause by co-operating with Sir Alfred Milner."
(2) Mr. Piers, the loyal Magistrate at Paarl, will be retained in his post, owing to an emphatic protest by Sir A. Milner against his removal.
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