W. Basil Worsfold

“ Say what we will, the controversy always seems to relapse into the old ruts—it is the British Government on the one hand and the Boers on the other. The question how a particular policy will affect not merely our enemies, but our now equally numerous friends, seems seldom to be adequately considered. And yet it would seem that justice and policy alike should lead us to be as eager to consider the feelings and interests, and to retain the loyalty, of those who are fighting on our side, as to disarm the present enmity and win the future confidence of those who are fighting against us. ”

“ Our fathers fought with the courage of despair, and retook the land with God's aid and with their blood. But England is not satisfied. Again is our freedom threatened by the same people, and not only our freedom, but our language, our nationality, our religion! Must we surrender everything, and disown our fathers? I cannot agree with this. The thought is hateful to me—the thought of trampling on the bodies of our fathers as we extend the hand of friendship to those who have slain our fathers in an unrighteous quarrel.... But some may say that the Bible teaches us to love our enemies. ”

“ On either side I could see stretches of mountain slopes luxuriously wooded, while the brown stream Tji Sadanie, a tributary of the Kali Besar, or "great river" of Batavia, playing hide-and-seek with the railroad, [139] afforded more than one charming "bit" of river, tree, and mountain.
As we get away from the mountains the view widens. Masses of palms, dark green bamboos, and other tropical growths fill up the distance. In the foreground are irrigated rice terraces, with gleaming waters and the freshest of verdure. Here copper-coloured natives are at work. ”

“ It is impossible for any one who has not lived in South Africa to realise the sickening distrust and dread produced in the minds of the loyal subjects of the Crown by this statement. War they were ready to face. But to go back to every-day life once again bowed down with the shame of a moral Majuba, to meet the eyes of the Dutch once more aflame with the light of victory, to hear their words of insolent contempt—was ignominy unspeakable and unendurable. ”

“ Did ever a High Commissioner for South Africa speak in this wise before? But beneath the light words and unstudied diction there is the weight and sureness of the 'inevitable' thought. A man who has pursued a single task for eight years with unremitting effort and unswerving devotion can afford to put his mind into his words. And in all that Lord Milner says there is an absolute sincerity, born of high integrity of purpose and an assurance of knowledge, that compels conviction. ”

“ There the Dutch lived by themselves; the wide streets, education, Christianity, were for them exclusively. Here it was otherwise. Even the native streets were well drained and lighted; for the Englishman shares his civilization with the native races. The glory of the place is its splendidly turfed and tree-clad esplanade; and in the centre of the broad carriage-road there stands the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, for five years Lieutenant-Governor of Java and the founder of Singapore. ”

“ No man, placed as I have been in a position of singular embarrassment, exposed to bitter attacks to which he could not reply, and unable to explain his conduct even to his own friends, has ever had more compensation to be thankful for than I have had in the constant, devoted, forbearing support and confidence of all those South Africans, whether in this Colony, in Natal, or in the Republics, whose sympathy is with the British Empire. ”

“ Seen from rising ground, they enrich the landscape with the beauty of their graceful elevations; from the lower levels of the town, and in contrast to the foliage of palm or bamboo, their sheer height is manifested by the intense blueness of the background they afford.
Buitenzorg has long been the favourite resort of the officials and merchants of Batavia. In course of time the train service will no doubt be improved; as it is, busy men run down to see their families, or merely to enjoy the comparative coolness of the air for the "week end," or even for a single night. ”

“ Whatever good effect was produced upon the public opinion of the continent of Europe and the United States of America by the obvious reluctance of the British Government to make war upon a puny enemy, was more than counterbalanced by the spectacle of a great Power prevented from employing the most elementary military precautions by a nice regard for the susceptibilities of its political and commercial rivals. The idea that the sentiment either of the world at large or of the over-sea British would be favourably impressed by the three months of futile negotiations was a sheer delusion. ”

“ The Dutch can never own a perfect allegiance merely to Great Britain. The British can never, without moral injury, accept allegiance to any body politic which excludes their motherland. But British and Dutch alike could, without loss of integrity, without any sacrifice of their several traditions, unite in loyal devotion to an empire-state, in which Great Britain and South Africa would be partners, and could work cordially together for the good of South Africa as a member of that greater whole. ”

“ Lord Kitchener was the humane and successful general, anxious to bring the miseries of the war to an end, and anxious, too, to close a campaign which, in spite of its difficult and arduous character, had afforded little or no opportunity of reaping military honours commensurate to the skill and endurance of the army or the sacrifices of the nation. Lord Milner was the far-sighted statesman, responsible for the future well-being of British South Africa, and, above all, the jealous trustee of the rights and interests of the empire. ”

“ Now or never the foundation of a wide-embracing nationalism must be laid.... The partition wall has disappeared ... never has the necessity for a policy of a colonial and republican union been greater; now the psychological moment has arrived; now our people have awakened all over South Africa; a new glow illumines our hearts; let us lay the foundation-stone of a real United South Africa on the soil of a pure and all-comprehensive national sentiment. ”

“ To save England in spite of herself; to keep South Africa a part of the Empire in spite of ignorance at home, in the teeth of an armed Republic and an Afrikander ministry, required not merely an iron will and mastership in statecraft, but a reasoned and unfaltering belief in the justice of the British cause. ”

“ Dear countrymen of the Transvaal: Brothers of our religion and language: Our hearts are burning for you all: when your brave men fall, we pray to God night and day to help you with His might; we are powerless by ourselves—the English are so angry with us that they have taken away our ammunition, all our powder and cartridges; if you can provide us each with a packet of ten and a Mauser, you will see what we can do ”

“ Asquith spoke, was destined to be brought into play so prominently during the "eight dusky years" of his South African administration, that to the distant on-looker it came to be accepted as the characterising quality of the man. To some Milner became the "man of blood and iron"; determined, like Bismarck, to secure the unity of a country by trampling with iron-shod boots upon the liberties of its people: even as in the view of others his clear mental vision—never more clear than in South Africa—became clouded by an adopted partisanship, and he was a "lost mind." ”

“ Chamberlain continued, "although he repeated that statement three days before the ultimatum was delivered, and a week before the invasion of Natal took place. I do not speak, therefore, of his foresight. But what is to be said of the patriotism of a man who is not a single individual but who represents a great party by virtue of his position—although he does not represent it by virtue of his opinion—what is to be said of such a man who, at such a time, should countermine the endeavours for peace of Her Majesty's Government?" ”

“ The five years' franchise—the Bloemfontein minimum—was in itself a compromise. What Lord Milner said, in effect, to President Krüger was this: "I have a whole sheaf of grievances against you: the dynamite monopoly, excessive railway rates, interference with the independence of the judiciary, a vicious police system, administrative corruption, municipal abuses, and the rest. I will let all these go in exchange for one thing—a franchise reform which will give at once to a fair proportion of the Uitlander population some appreciable representation in the government of the Republic." ”

“ Lord Milner's inflexibility was, in its essence, a keener perception of duty than the ordinary: it was a determination to do what he believed to be for the good of South Africa and the Empire, irrespective of any consideration of personal or party relationship. It was in no sense the incapacity to measure the strength of an opponent, still less did it arise from any failure to perceive the cogency of an opinion in conflict with his own. ”

“ A century of wars, missionary effort, British expansion, industrial development, of lofty administrative ideals and great men sacrificed, had left the two European races with political ambitions so antagonistic, and social differences so bitter, that nothing less than the combined military resources of the colonies and the mother-country sufficed to compel the Dutch to recognise the British principle of "equal rights for all white men south of the Zambesi." ”

“ No merely local question affects so deeply the welfare and peace of her own South African possessions. And the right of Great Britain to intervene to secure fair treatment to the Uitlanders is fully equal to her supreme interest in securing it. The majority of them are her subjects, whom she is bound to protect. But the enormous number of British subjects, the endless series of their grievances, and the nature of those grievances, which are not less serious because they are not individually sensational, makes protection by the ordinary diplomatic means impossible. ”

“ The scarcely veiled demand for the independence of the Cape Colony, now put forward by the Afrikander nationalists, is as magnificently audacious as the ultimatum. Knowing the infamous character of the methods by which the agitation in favour of the Boers was being promoted, Lord Milner might have been excused if he had given way to some strong expressions of indignation. No such note, however, is heard in his reply. He is as dry and passionless as an attorney receiving his clients. ”

“ We do not want to see the misery and the suffering and the loss which a war of this kind entails. We do not want to see our sandy plains drenched with the best blood of England again, fighting against white men in this country. ”

“ By representing the new British population, which followed in the wake of the mineral discoveries, as "fortune-seekers" and adventurers and not genuine colonists, the Bond endeavoured, not merely to widen the natural line of cleavage between the townsman and the countryman, but actually to detach the older British settlers from sympathy with the mother country, and, by drawing them within the sphere of Afrikander nationalist aspirations, to make them share its own antagonism to British supremacy. ”

“ Considering the tract of country over which these border inhabitants are dispersed, the rude and uncultivated state in which they live, and the wild notions of independence which prevail among them, I am afraid any attempts to introduce civilisation and a strict administration of justice will be slow in their progress, and likely, if not proceeded upon with caution and management, rather to create a spirit of resistance, or to occasion them to emigrate still further from the seat of government, than answer the beneficent views with which they might be undertaken. ”

“ Lord Beaconsfield, who was the first statesman to give practical expression to the belief that the maintenance of empire was not inconsistent with the welfare of the masses of the home population, was in power. British statesmen, and the class from which British statesmen are drawn, had begun to study Colonial questions in a more hopeful and intelligent spirit. Something had been learnt, too, of the actual conditions of South Africa. And yet it was at this epoch that what was, perhaps, the most ruinous of all the divergences of opinion between Capetown and Downing Street occurred. ”

“ Race hatred is something quite distinct from personal enmity. When I meet an Englishman as a private individual I must regard him as my fellow-creature; if, however, I meet him as an Englishman, then I, as an Afrikander, must regard him as the enemy of my nation and my religion—as a wolf that is endeavouring to creep into the fold. ”

“ It seems a paradox, but it is true, that the only effective way of protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our subjects. The admission of the Uitlanders to a fair share of political power would no doubt give stability to the Republic. But it would, at the same time, remove most of our causes of difference with it, and modify and, in the long run, entirely remove that intense suspicion and bitter hostility to Great Britain which at present dominates its internal and external policy. ”