LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
"A HIDEOUS BLUNDER."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—As a Liberal, who feels strongly how important it is for all party spirit to be laid aside at this crisis, I must protest against your presuming that the peace made in 1881 after Majuba is looked upon by the British people as "a hideous blunder," to be compared to the coming to terms again on the first little reverse now. The action of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet in 1881 may have been a blunder, though many Liberals must think that it would have been praise- worthy from a utilitarian as well as from a moral point of view, had subsequent Governments and Governors been strong enough to keep raiders of all degrees in hand, but no policy which was founded on a chivalrous desire to do right, and which has been hampered in its development by such then unforeseen contingencies as the crowding of Outlanders into Johannesburg, deserves the name of "hideous blander." The Jameson Raid was a hideous blunder. Those who instigated it were guilty of a crime. In the opinion of many that blunder has never been adequately repaired; the crime has certainly never been adequately punished. It would be well for President Kruger if he could understand that the Liberals, who regard the peace of 1881 with the admiration that all noble essays deserve, and much of the action of the prominent supporters of the Outlanders with disgust, are convinced that for the sake of ultimate peace in South Africa, for the sake of the Transvaal itself, and for the sake of the still higher claims of political justice, the spirit in which the English made the peace of 1881 must be respected by the Boers. If they drive us to war now we mast leave nothing to their generosity in the future. This does not prove that we were making a hideous mistake in 1881, but only that the situation we neither of us were quite able to understand then, is different now.—I am, Sir, &c.,
W. W. V.
[We contend that the peace after Majuba had not in reality a moral basis, but was a "politic act," and was intended as such. If the grant of autonomy to the Boers had rested on moral considerations Mr. Gladstone would have granted it on the strong appeal made to him by the Boers when he became Prime Minister. Instead, after deliberately considering that appeal, he rejected it in specific terms, and supported that rejection by force of arms. When he was beaten he changed his mind, doubtless because he held, as a politician, that it was not worth while to go on with the war. We do not say that, per se, there was anything wicked in this, but it was, as we have said, essentially a " politic act," and turned out a hideous blunder. At the same time we admit that thousands of Mr. Gladstone's followers at that time really believed that the peace was based on moral considerations, and supported it on those grounds. They forgot Mr. Gladstone's peremptory refusal to give back the Transvaal before the war. We have, of course, again and again insisted that the Jameson Raid was "a hideous blunder," and have condemned in the strongest terms the conduct of all concerned therein.—ED. Spectator.]
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