The Sunday herald. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1866-1887, 1881-01-02
TIE BOER REBELLION.

d
THE BOER REBELLION.
The American newspapers, always so de-
servedly merry when Engishmen make any
about our affairs, are confidently |
abusing " Beaconsfeld and Bartle Frere"
for the annexation of the Transvaal during
I" the Zulu war; as the ibd of this city
sapiently puts it, Our impression is that
Sir Theophius Shepstone was the guilty
man in the case, and his crime of hoisting
the British flag over the alleged " Republic"
somewhat antcdated the Zulu outbreak,
being one Of the measures, in fact, designed
TO prevent that calamity. OF course the
British nation and its statesmen may now
be regarded as accessory after the fact, but
there were grave difficulties in the way of
disavowing Shepstone's proclamation as soon
as it was issued, as there are yet, and some
maintain that if all were to be done over
again, his course would he the only one TO
pursue.
great deal of sympathy threatens to be
wasted ON these "hardy Beers in the use
less bloody struggle they have character
istically begun by what reads very like the
massacre Of the guards of an English supply
train. 1t might as well he understood from
the start that, 10 say no worse, they are a
set of born land-grabbers and slave-drivers.
Their pretense TO hold their country by any
sort Of divine right superior to the British is
absurd, because they are the merest
squattcrs, seiaing the soil in derogation OF
native rights, and in political point Of view,
are mostly If not all British subjects who have
+" trekked" back from the settlements in
search Of freedom, not Gas we have before
said in this connection) "to worship God
but TO lick niggers. Their revolt is quite
analogous to that of the Southern Shareholders
in 1861, or to imagine case nearer parallel il
is as il the Mormons had claimed to form an
independent republic in Utah, after trekkine
back so far as to secure immunity for theii
peculiar crime.
The legislation of this Bcer anarchy may
be judged from the fact that the right !:
claimed to seize native Africans passing ove
their own former domain (Which they do fo
the purpose Of working in the diamond fields
and reduce them to involuntary and of cours
indefinite servitude. This is an instance {
the brutality and ferocity of claws whcl
were rendered worse in their effect by tn
real weakness and spasmodic energy of til
authorities " () by whom they were SUP
possed to he enforced. Every Boer, in til
midst of the vast tracts TO which he boldl
, laid claim, was really kind of feudal prime
or ungovernable p,tentate, alternately pei
scouting the natives and being besieged b
them, and so keeping the frontier in di:
' graceful and harassing turmoil. In I'll
< British possessions, on the other hand, ju.
. = as in the United States to-day, there is til
I efficacy as well as the show of government
combined with the largest civil liberty, an
, what may not be SO generally known to exi
N there-negro suffrage. Our citizens woul
o consider it a blessing for turbulent Stat
u u in worse condition than even Mexico, wit
e civil order dropping TO pieces, public del
y growing ruinous, and continually embroil,
" with powerful tribes on the border by unrul
is settlers, to be taken into the Union on al
; terms. Civilization and social developmel
y would certainly receive an impetus, thoug
II personal ambition and license might
rs curbcd. Why should we not allow as fair
> motive to our cousins who are laboring Fl
II the redemption of South Africa
y We regret as much as any one the u
= happy events in the Cape settlements pc
m haps we have given closer attention to the
ID than many. But they seem inevitable, al
- if any sympathy is to be bestowed, it shou
70 certainly go either to the better class
colonists or TO the natives; in neither
which cases will il touch the sulen al
sulky Beers, who come near to being the eau
of the whole trouble. As to the late chi
commissioner, now recalled in Difference to
blind clamor, why not consent to regard hi
10 as unfortunate instead Of making him o
y an idiot or fiend, neither Of which he i:
~ He came into illomened conjunction with
> dusky rival having equally "imperial
- tendencies, and in destroying him was hil
~ self destroyed.
80 Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere
~ Nor could one Afric brook double reign
y. OF Ceewayo and Sir Bartle Frere.''
,e That seems to be the whole of the story.