Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1896-05-14
The Qrads.
A Democratic Newspaper.
KRUGER'S THIRD VICTORY.


President Kruger has proved
himself not only a master hand
in the game of war on two trying
occasions, but also one of the
shrewdest of living statesmen.
Bismarck said of him long ago:
HE is the only born diplomat
that I have ever known" Cham
berlain, who is not a born diplo-
mat, nor anything but a born
idiot IN diplomatic matters, tried
to circumvent the wise Transvaal
statesman and has come out of
the attempt badly worsted. He
invited Uncle Paul to visit Lon
don and discuss the situation.
Kruger might have replied by
informing the Brummagen states
man that it was exactly rs many
miles from Pretoria to London
as from London to Pretoria, and
that the Engllshman might come
to the Transvaal to hold the pro-
posed palaver; but he politely
waived that point and simply
said that his government would
not agree to the proposition Of
Mr. Chamberlain.
Meanwhile the trials of the
Uitlanders accused of treason
against the Boer republic went
on and ended last week in the
conviction and sentence to
death of FIVE prominent foreigns
ers connected with Jameson's
piratical raid. Then Mr.. Cham
berlain, with the su%percilious
faulty which has marked his
conduct from the beginning, tells
egraphed President Kruger that
the British government expected
that lenity would be shown to the
condemned, The Transvaal au>
thorities, ignoring the imperti~
nent message, treated the pris-
oners according to their prear-
ranged programme and commit
ed the sentences as though Mr..
Chamberlain and his government
never existed. But Uncle Paul
significantly stated that he would
look to England for Indemnity on
account of Jameson's robber raid.
He knew, as the world knows
now, that behind Jameson, the
buccaneer, aiding and abetting
his scheme of plumber, stood Ce>
Gil Rhodes and others high in the
confidence of the British govern
ment. He held in bis possession
the original cipher dispatches of
Jameson and his hackers, and
what was more to the purpose he
held the key to those messages,
found in the saddlebags of Jam-
eson after his ~inglorious surren-
der. The proofs of guilty CONS
plicity are absolute and incon~
troyertible.
1t was all a sordid, naked plot
to seize the newly-discovered
gold fields of the Transvaal, an
Undertaking morally no higher
than that of any vulgar burglar
who had ''piped off" the location
of another mans money box or
silverware. The Uitlanders con-
cerned in the contemplated bur-
glary we're foreigners enjoying
the hospitality of the Boer Re
pnblic. One of them, we are
sorry to say, was an American,
who should have been above
participating in a conspiracy to
plumber his hosts. His gratitude
to Cecil Rhodes seems to have
obscured his sense Of honor and
justice when he joined in the
scheme to overthrow a republic
for the benefit of a gang as mer-
cenary of motive as any advent~
urers who ever aided Morgan or
Drake or Lolonis in plundering
the Spanish Main.
The wonder is that President
Kruger did not hang off hand
every member of Jameson's crew
and infict a scarcely less severe
punishment on their abettors in
johannesburg. There was no war
between England and the Trans
vaal when Jameson and his BUGS
cancers invaded peaceful State
with intent to rob and murder.
The best, and what a shameful
best it is, that his English apol~
ogists can offer is that his raid
cannot be extenuated because it
did not succeed! Success might
possibly have been excused, "