THE NEW TRANSVAAL GOVERNMENT.
WE are very glad that General Botha has virtually accepted the Premiership of the new Transvaal Government. Given a Het Volk majority over all other parties in the Legislative Assembly, we could not wish for a better man. It may be noted here that the results of the elections in the outlying districts have been announced at last, and that Het Volk have won altogether thirty-seven seats in the new Assembly, the Progressives twenty-one, the Nationalists six, the Labour Party three, and the Independents two. If General Botha had refused office,
we should have thought the sign ominous. As it is, we think no better token of good faith could have been given. Experience has shown that when Afrikander Dutchmen con- duct an intrigue they prefer not to accept responsible posi- tions in open political country. They find it more profitable to conceal themselves inside a wooden horse, and, as in the case of that enterprise at Troy, it has sometimes only been the excited murmurs from within that have revealed their presence and their intentions. The Bond was strong before the war in proportion as its power was hidden. It is because General Botha has followed up the electoral speech in which he accepted the supremacy of the King, and the position of the Transvaal as a self-governing Colony within the Empire, by undertaking the highest office under the new Constitution that we believe in the sincerity of his intentions. General Botha seems to say by this act : "I wish to make government possible, not impossible." He has taken exactly the opposite course to that which has always been taken by Irish Nationalists. The Irishmen pledge themselves morally, if not verbally, never to accept any of the high Government offices. Their policy is destructive, not reconstructive, as we see reason to believe that General Botha's will be. At this moment the force and eloquence of Mr. John Redmond, and the high legal ability of Mr. Healy, not to mention his wit, are alike lost to the service of the Empire. Here some Irish Nationalist might exclaim :—" But the Transvaal has been given the very thing we have been demanding. Give us self- government, and you will see different results." It is only to avoid unprofitable challenges on this point that we digress here to say that we could not, of course, admit for a moment that there is any parallel between the remote Transvaal and Ireland, which is an integral part of the administrative area of the "United Kingdom. We are not sure, indeed, that General Botha's position is not a better guarantee of service for the Empire than his position as leader of a Parliamentary minority would have been. He has accepted responsibility. He is enlisted in the service of the Empire. He has taken the Imperial King's shilling. He has given his word. It is a great occasion ; and the eyes of the world are upon him.
It is not as easy to praise oneself as some people think ; but we cannot refrain this time, at all events, from the reflection that probably no other Empire in the world would have granted self-government to a colony dominated by those who were less than five years before the Empire's enemies in the field, and have allowed one of the most distin- guished of the enemy's generals to become Prime Minister. As the Johannesburg Star remarks, the Ministerial Front Bench will be filled by "an almost exact replica" of the staff of the late burgher army. Our policy has always been inspired by a supreme faith in the efficacy of freedom, and this is surely a supreme example of it. When our Colonial Premiers tendered help for the war, and when our Home Government accepted it, on both sides there were professions of the rectitude of our aims. We were fighting for "equal rights" for all. It is satisfactory to think that within eight years we have been able to satisfy our own promises in this respect, but it is much more satis- factory to find that our Continental neighbours acknowledge that, after all, we have been just. The sympathy of France with two small nations struggling against a powerful Empire, and the manner in which she expressed that sym- pathy by lending a rather too ready ear to casual tales of our alleged baseness, are all an old story now. We do not wish to revive what has long since been forgotten in a happy understanding ; we only mention it for the pleasure of pointing the contrast between the comments of those days and the comments in the French Press to-day. These seem to have an undercurrent of astonishment at what is regarded as a piece of Quixotic faith in human nature. Thus the Temps says : " It is a great honour for England to have kept her word so boldly. It is to be hoped that the Boers will respond to her confidence by a clear- sighted loyalty." The Journal des Debuts says : "It is doubtful which is the more to be admired—the irony of events, or the generous confidence of England in allowing a Botha Ministry to govern the Transvaal." The Matin says that it is a great revenge for the vanquished and a great example by the victors. Being told on such authority that our action is magnanimous, we may perhaps venture to believe that.on the whole it is so. But magna- nimity has its risks. We knowingly accept those risks, and
put ourselves at the mercy of the predominant Dutch element. This postulates magnanimity on the other aide. We trust that we shall not look for it in vain. If we were to prove utterly wrong—which heaven forbid!—we believe that the feeling of this country even then would simply be that the application of our immemorial policy had not been altogether in vain, because it had revealed the exact character of the problem before us ; and in such deplorable circumstances we believe that the Empire would not shrink from another war even as arduous as the last.
There is a particular matter in which a Dutch Ministry may do a vast amount of good work if they choose. The Transvaal, as we all know, is divided into interests—the towns and the land—which are as clearly defined as the geographical divisions of Solon's Attica. Het Volk are the representatives of the land, as the Progressives are the chief representatives of the towns. The greater part of the revenue may come from the Rand and the towns for many years, but in an ultimate sense the prosperity and stability of the country must depend upon the contentment of the people on the land and their acceptance of the established order of government. This is "the stake in the country " which the Botha Government do unquestionably under- stand, and if they look after it equitably, without prejudice to the other interest which at the moment is financially far more important, they will do a real service to the Transvaal. We imagine that for their own credit they will not do anything in the way of wantonly tampering with their one sure source of revenue. That they will com- mand an obedient and undivided vote with which to do almost what they will is already certain. The elections proved that. The British divisions into Nationalists, Independents, and Progressives, once accomplished, remained an electoral weakness, in accordance with the habit of Englishmen, who cannot renounce the fearful joy of possessing their political souls in comparative solitude even in face of a crisis. But in the case of the Boers, when the time came all the bitter- ness, of which we had been told so much, between " Bitter- enders" and the " National Scouts " vanished into thin air. Success was organised if ever it was. Discipline was complete. But apart from these matters of party temper and organisation, it is surely fair to say of the Colony as a whole that it embarks upon its career in the right political spirit. The best men in the country evidently mean to " go in for polities." The complaints of the want of distinction in the nominated Upper House merely point to a defect of a virtue. The best men having stood for the Assembly, and having renounced the right to offer themselves for the other House in case of failure at the polls, there are few eminent men left over. That seems to be the chief explanation. Provided that the Upper House is not subservient, we would rather see it composed of men distinguished for nothing in particular than of men who have made themselves notorious without being eminent.
In conclusion, we would say that General Botha has before him one of the opportunities of history. There will be no attempt here to prejudge his way of turning it to account. We trust that the working arrangement of Het Volk with the British Nationalists will be a sign that political questions are not merely particular expressions of a racial feud. We shall watch to see that our English conceptions of what is due to all natives are nowhere violated. We have not forgotten that General Botha, like Joubert, was himself on the side of reform long before the downfall of Krugerism ; and in that fact, and in his coolness and courage as a soldier, we find a guarantee that he has the ability, if only he has the will, to make such a success as will be a monument in history.
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