Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1881-03-04

follows NoDOuy connects the stuNuy
Beers. who are just now whipping the
British forces in the Transvaal and silenc-
ing artillery parks with rife bullets. with
ANYTHING like the history of Ireland.
Some Of the most distinguished British
soldiers and some English statesmen and
editors speak out plainly enough, and
call the Beers revolt by its right name,
a war Of independence, and a righteous
warm this view. But it takes a broad
view to put certain things together, and
to show that the policy Of England has
been, in this whole South African mat
ter, simply an eviction of rightful govern
ments to place barren scepters in unlineal
hands. The last in the series was the
turning out Of the Government of the
Transvaal, and flying of the British flag
over the Dutch State by a pretended
transfer. The first was an eviction Of
the Dutch settlers from Cape Colony
itself, and from other stations. These
thrifty, peaceable people have been COM
PEELED to move on and out, precisely as a
blanket Indian has to 'get up and get
before the polished revolver of the land
grabber and if the strong Dutch settlers
have neither died out by whisky and
smallpox, nor starved out on potatoes
and typhus-if they hold their own as
neither Indians nor Irish have been able
to do, there is something remarkable in
the country and the people, as well as In
the justice of their cause.
In the first place, the inevitable con-
fict and dissatisfaction and friction with
the British occupants Of South Africa
which these Beers have kept up now for
forty-tive years, show that it is not only
Ireland that gets into constitutional OPP
position with Downing street and British
headquarters, and that it is something
more than a difference of religion and a
chronic hatred that is the matter. In
the second place, it is not only Irish
poverty, the failure Of the potato crop,
and the water-logged soil of Ireland, that
makes the people rebellious for the eli
mate and soil and material prosperity of
these South African colonies are wonder
fnl-yet still there is war. As Colonel
Butler remarked in the last Contem-
porary Review, "if South African rivers
do not yield a water supply to the coun-
tries in which they lie, nor the Drakens-
berg a permanent watershed, there is a
never failing outflow Of blood shed to
make up for it."
For forty-fve yearsthe Dutch have been
evicted from one settlement after another,
and the fact that an officer of the British
army has the courage to number these
''rack-rents, and put the blame where it
belongs, should help us to see the mixed
Transvaal matters as they really are. In
1885 there wa a ''trek," or emigration,
of a large number of Beers from the Cape
Colony, yer the unexplored territory
across the Orange river, to the north and
east. They did not fancy British rule,
SO they sold out their farms and houses,
went from the once Dutch colony, and
started out into the wilderness. They
even issued a parting address, which ran
thus "We quit this colony under the
full assurance that the English Govern
ment has nothing more to require OF US,
and will allow us to govern ourselves
without its interference in the future"
The Attorney General of the Cape Colony
summed up that they had, as emigrants,
q right to 70 away and be no longer
British subjects; and so they journeyed
away, with aver this old shoe for good
luck thrown after their ''exodus' by the
British Government at the Cape. They
settled in the district that is now
Natal. Then they fought the Zulus and
conquered them, and when they had
peacefully established a government, laid
out towns, and were about to possess the
country, down swooped the Cape Colony
Government upon Natal, with a protect
ing detachment of a hundred British SOL
diers, and made an entering wedge by put
ting a British finger in the pie. In three
years the Republic of Natalia" pros
pered 1.-THE British one hundred had been
withdrawn and the town Of Petermaritz-
burg was a fl~ourishing settlement, when
in 1912, the port of Natal wal taken
possession Of in the Queens name, on
the pretence of protection" in a time
of peace. What wa really desired to be
protected was the growing Importance of
Port Natal. Expostulations were not
even entertained at the Cape Colony, and
instead of fighting the invaders the peace
full and religious Beers started out again
to go. They crossed the mountain again
into the wilderness. and attempted an
other settlement south of the vaal River,
and were met by another proclamation,
declaring that also to be British Terri
tory. Then they fought, in lS49 at
Boomplatz, were routed, and fed across
the Vaal. Here they found a partial
and prosperity, and here, finally, a
guarantee was signed in 1852, by the
British Government "a trading and
agreement-that acknowledged
the independence Of the Transvaal, and,
years later, the Orange River State,
lying south. was acknowledged to belong
to the Dutch farmers who had settled
For twenty-five years the Trans
vaal managed its own affairs. until it be-
gan to grow too rich as a neighbor. In a