The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-05
That Is How the Generalization
to Kruger Is Regarded
in Great Britain.
OTHER DISPUTES CAST ASIDE.
Now There Are Converts to the Plan
of Arbitrating the Venezue.
Ian Controversy.
Copyright, 1896. by the New York Times.

of the British relief expedition up the
Nile toward Khartoum, eleven years ago,
l have witnessed no such universal popu-
lar excitement as has reigned in London
in these opening days of the new year.
No matter how deeply opinions may diff
fer on the rights and wrongs of the Trans
vaal business, There is no doubt that every
body high and low is profoundly stirred
up about it. 1t would be an easy enough
matter to satirize the English attitude
toward this extraordinary and probably
momentous catastrophe and to give an air
OF eplgram to numerous commonplace
about English greed, perfdy and the rest
in which the whole Continental press is
reveling delightedly. But that would be
to beg entirely the true character of the
episode. What is really to be seen in it is
strange survival of the original processes
by which the British empire was created,
suddenly revealed and expounded to peo-
pie five generations removed from the
knowledge of them by the magical opera
ton OF modern electrical science. Ii Eng
land 140 years ago could have followed
Lord Give with telegraph wire British
India would have never existed.
Englishmen now, while they curse the
inexplicable block in the communications
which kept them for forty-eight hours
without news from Johannesburg, dimly
understand that they are Witnessing some
thing to which they are ancestrally related,
but which they thought had been dead
and buried for century or so. Their
judgment commands that they should dis
approve it sternly, but all the inherited
impulses of their blood impel them to
cheer and wave their hats. 1t is a genuine
conflict between their respectable modern
civilization and the old Berserker island
instincts in their veins. Ii they were left
alone there would be no doubt as to the
result of the struggle. The nineteenth
century would win, and in their calmer
mood they would see to it, as in 1880, that
the Beers had scrupulous justice dealt to
them.
But unhappiiy the German Emperor,
who is too much of an Englishman to
mind his own business and too much of
a Prussian to understand what tact means,
leaps into the middle of this perplexing
situation with drawn sword and infuriates
every body.
Yesterday seven -eighths of thinking
England were against Cecil Rhodes and
his South African dummy company, and
were glad to hear that Dir. Jameson and his
filibusters had been soundly whipped by
the Beers, but last evening when the
terms of the German Emperors insolent
dispatch reached London this mood began
to change as the newspapers could spread
the news. To-day, while nobody has
altered his mind specifically about DR..
Tar orf rs ha
speaks or thinks of Germany S interference
without an angry glisten in the eye.
Every aspect of this imperial message,
upon examination, reveals a fresh ground
for wrath.
If it were intended to enrage England
on as many sides as possible, it is
triumph of ingenuity. It's rejoicing that
English blood has been spilled, its refer
ence to friendly powers which would have
interviewed ii President Kruger had asked
them, it's calm denial of England's
suzerain treaty rights, the fact that it was
sent alter an imperial council at the
Foreign Office, in which naval members
ostentatiously predominated - all these
give to it the character of deliberate, in
territorial affront. No living Englishman
remembers any such other premeditated
slap in the face What counsels second
thought may bring it is impossible to say,
but England tonight wants to fight Ger
many more passionately than she has de-
sired anything else since the time of the
Georges.
To this violent climax has come then all
the last years of anxious and gingerly in
triguing for alliances in the troubled Con-
fjnnntat 1irNlpro A ba -,
of Wales thought that he had fastened
such hooks into his nephew, the young
and timid Car, that nothing could shake
England's grip. He came back from st.
Petersburg elated by this belief and took
no pains to dissemble the presence in his
citation of the thought that he had out
witted that other nephew of his in Berlin,
that insuffera bic nephew who read him
lectures on how princes should behave, but
he smiled TOO soon. Germany on the in
slant made overtures to France and
proposed a partnership with Russia as a
third in Chinese waters, which should shut
England out. Then she egged Russia and
France on to make Lord Rosebery's
Armenian intervention an empty sham.
Then when Lord Salisbury came into
power and finding these two powers
hostile worked to get the triple alliance
also identified with Intervention, Germany
took him at his word, came into the
European concert and made it Immediately
an antl-English concert. To-day the or
ganization of Europe against England is
practically complete.
Even Italy, despite all its natural lean.
ings, has been forced into the significant
step of intrusting the protection of the
Italians in the Transvaal to the German
Consul. These foreign considerations,
however, though recognized as weightv.
are subordinated in the public mind to
wonder at what the next step will be in
the battle royal between Joseph Chamber
lain and Cecil Rhodes.
AS pointed out at the time, Chamber
lain took the Colonial Office largely with
the view of trying fall with this power
full person, and in the first round of the
wrestle he has scored an extraordinary
victory, but it is a sort Of triumph which
seems more embarrassing than fat
defeat.
President Krueger's part in the business