PRETORIA-DISCONTENTED CHAPTER XIX CITIZENS-PLOTTING OF THE EX-GENERALS- NATIONAL MISLEADERS OF THE A Two hours' railway journey-first across the golden reefs dotted with battery houses and hills of gleaming tailings, and then across a pretty undulating country deliciously green-brought me to Pretoria, a city in strange contrast to the one I had left, a quiet town nestling among magnificent trees and luxuriant gardens, with no smoking factory chimneys nor din of traffic, a sober, peaceful spot indeed after feverish, bustling Johannesburg. But one soon begins to feel that this is an oppressive, and not a grateful calm; it is like the sullen stillness that precedes the storm. In the place of the cheery, active business men of Johannesburg, you see in these streets sour-looking Dutchmen of the wealthier class slowly strolling, apparently with but little to do, discontented discourse occupying much of their heavy leisure. Many of these men have good reason for discontent, for they belonged to the gang of officials, great and small, who lived like parasites on that corrupt organisation, the late Transvaal Government; but now they can no longer fill their purses by levying blackmail on industry. These are the really dangerous people in the new colonies. Here, as in the DISCONTENTED CITIZENS 239 Orange River Colony, the bulk of the population, the farmers, 'bywoners,' storekeepers, and others, are settling down quietly, and the reconciliation of the races will gradually proceed if the leaders of the people will leave them alone. But there is abundant proof to show that with a few exceptions this is exactly what the leaders will not do. There is an organisation supported by abundant funds whose object it is to keep race feeling alive, to engender hatred of Great Britain by the spreading of malignant lies. When charged with not keeping the pledges they have given to Mr. Chamberlain the leaders are virtuously indignant and strenuously deny. Their denials carry no weight with Afrikanders, but are intended to hoodwink the trusting and generous people at home, who forget that these same men have denied over and over again, even when the proofs against them were driven home. From Kruger downwards they boldly denied in the face of convincing evidence that they received bribes from the dynamite and other concessionaires. 'Am I the slave of my word?' runs the Boer saying. It is disheartening to have to come to the conclusion that we cannot take the leaders of the Boer people at their word; but, if we do so, painful may be our awakening. It is certain that the Bond is appointing its agents in these colonies with the object of effecting the combined action of the Dutch throughout South Africa, and so ultimately attaining the political supremacy of the race. The Bond now calls itself the South African Party, following its old policy of ignoring the very existence of a British South Africa. A weekly paper published in South Africa points out that this is as if our Little Englanders dubbed themselves the English Party. If the Bond,' to quote the paper, chose to term itself the "Little South African Party" no one would have the slightest objection.' It is unwise to shut our eyes to the present slimly' manoeuvred AntiBritish propaganda. In the Cape Colony, Bond organs wish to reopen old sores by pressing the Colonial Government to appoint a commission to inquire into the working of martial law. In nearly every hotel, farm, and store I visited during my tour through the Orange River Colony I found copies of the Anti-British paper which is published at Bloemfontein. British, and Boers, too, if they were 'hands-uppers,' bitterly complained of the mischief it was doing. Then why do you subscribe to the paper?' I inquired. They explained that they did not subscribe to it, that it was sent to them, that it was apparently being distributed freely throughout the country. Funds are not wanting to push this cause. 6 One would have thought that if there was one thing that would have tended to knit the Boers to us it was our kindly treatment of their women and children throughout the war. It is surely descending to very mean methods for Boer politicians-when they feel that the people are slipping away from them and are likely to become reconciled to British rule-to make an organised attempt to embitter the Dutch population by the spreading of calumnies in which all the oft-disproved stories of British barbarity are revived. And yet these are exactly the tactics that ex-Generals Botha and Smuts are now pursuing. It is well that we should be forearmed by being fully forewarned. While I was in Pretoria Smuts and Botha, having a considerable fund at their back, attempted to purchase a Dutch paper published here, and they distinctly stated their object to be the ventilation in the Boer papers of the atrocities PLOTTING OF THE EX-GENERALS 241 committed by British soldiers and the ill-treatment of Boer women and children in the refuge camps. Delarey, too, was mixed up in this affair, but I think innocently. He may have lent his name to a scheme which he would have repudiated had he known its full bearings. Delarey is one of the few Boer leaders who is trusted by both sides, and it is impossible to believe that the most gallant and chivalrous of our late enemies is playing a double game. Smuts and Botha were baulked by the disclosure of their plans, and the negotiations for the purchase of the paper fell through. Then another Dutch paper, which before the war was owned by a dynamite concessionaire, attempted to absorb the paper in question, offering terms to the proprietors that, from a purely business point of view, were ridiculously generous. It would be well if this conspiracy could be nipped in the bud, before it works harm among the ignorant farmers who wish to eschew politics and re-establish themselves on their land. There are many other signs to show what is going on below the surface. It is better that people at home should know the whole truth; for if, in ignorance of the facts and over-optimistic with regard to the situation, we fail to trust and support our able administrators on the spot when they act firmly, we are likely to rue it. Fortunately, in Lord Milner, Sir Arthur Lawley, and Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams we have the right men. It is the educated Boer of the towns who is the breeder of all the mischief. He is the real enemy of his own people, retarding the progress of the country and postponing indefinitely the boon of representative government. He wages in politics as useless and wantonly destructive a guerilla war as did De Wet in the field. R A curious place indeed is Pretoria at the present time. Being the headquarters of the educated Boers and Hollanders who supported and lived on the corrupt old régime, it is naturally not altogether a loyal or a contented city. British Government officials and Dutch lawyers and doctors fraternise at the club, however, and one sees Boer barristers, who fought against us in the war in the capacity of generals and commandants, now fighting cases in the law courts, wearing the robes of the British Bar, and apparently on the best of terms with their British colleagues. There are few outward signs in Pretoria of the hatred of our yoke and the subtle intrigues against Great Britain of whose existence there is undoubted evidence. As might be expected, the more educated and wealthy people are the most bitter. As far as the Boer farmers and the uneducated people are concerned, they are rapidly reconciling themselves to British rule, and would do so even more quickly if their former leaders in war left them in peace. These men of the old Oligarchy who used to send their sons to be educated in Cape colleges and British universities, while they kept the people in ignorance so that they might not break away from their influence, are not the true representatives of Boer feeling. Nearly every Dutchman with whom I conversed impressed this point on me. In the Rustenburg district, for example, I met a very intelligent farmer who had come in under Lord Roberts's proclamation and had been persecuted in consequence. 'The ex-generals,' he said, 'tell the world that they speak in the name of the Boer people. They only speak for a minority.' He alluded to the scheme for the amalgamation of Dutch papers under the editorship of a Hollander who used to conduct Mr. Kruger's pet organ before the war, supporting all the |