The times., 1898-06-26
SOUTH AFRICA.
KiplinG's Characteristic Descrip-
fion of the Beers.

non
BY virtue of his recent visit to
South Africa Rudyard Kipling was
the honored guest of the Anglo
African Writers Club. at their dinner,
writes the London correspondent of the
Montreal Herald Rider Haggard. who
presided, introduced his brother novelist
in a speech of graceful and candid praise.
He said that such men as Kipling are
the watchmen of the empire. If we are
plunged into war, then it is that we shall
see the advantage of Kipling. then Will
our Kiplings give US backbone. and ex-
cite the patriotism of the nation. He
has communed with the very spirit of our
race; in future his name will be one of
the few inscribed in living letters on the
books Of his generation
Mr.. Kipling. who is modest man. hur-
ried through a few words of Acknowledge
ment and depreciation. and then plunged
into the heart of his speech. 1t was all
about South Africa, and the problems
which offered there. He went with open
eyes, and he gave his hearers, as men
who know more about it than he does.
the result of his observations and the
effect of his views.
the strong men who are building up our
empire. there are none who need our help
and sympathy and understanding more
than the men who are carrying out our
work in our Africa. You must take my
thoughts as the disconnected maunder-
ings of casual trayeler-but here they
are. 1t seems TO me that those men have
10 deal with very large amount of
primitive and agricultural simplicity,
which SinlnlipirV n oil
which We understand as the elementary
rudiments of civilization.
1T objected to the simplest precautions
against the spread of disease among
sheep. That was inquitious 1t objected
emphaticaIly to all measures for the sup
preston of rindepest. That was wicked
1t objected more or less TO everything
which would develop the country-to rail-
ways and to roads % Of all kinds. That
was
What IL was posterity will never know
The meeting attached a capital ''R" to
the roads" and an entirely different
spelling. and burst into a shout of laugh
ter. Mr.. Kipling's moralization was
drowned.
at objected also Mr. Kipling con-
tinued. Ito little things like compulsory
education and compulsory inocuation.
and it founded political party to give
be the most real, lively and aggressive
thing in our Africa as 1 saw it, l saw
nothing more pathetic than the program
of progress laid down, unless IL was the
howl of protest with which that very
modest program was greeted. There it
seemed to me. was the difficulty on the
very threshold of new land.
Behind that state was another, and in
ii was a city armed to the teeth-a city
divorced from all considerations of bust
ness. city rotten through and through,
with every old worn out effete notion
of continental policy and continental
hush money and the like: hopelessly inept
and crippled, except for the efforts of
energetic men in its midst. We created
that state. We are Responsible for it. We
made it; we financed it; we supplied ii
with men.
II have never seen white men squashed
before, but L saw Them there. Beers were
riding through the streets armed to the
teeth. 1t was peculiarly sickening sight
There sticks in my memory one dinner
in Johannesburg. given to me by white
men who daren't speak their minds be-
cause they were spied on. was chucked
back into the methods or three hundred
years ago to see how / liked it-and 1
didn't
Mr.. kipling went on TO explain that
when one has been Lord Almighty over
ten square miles of earth 1t is not pleas
ant to be hustled by white men, who say
What's on your farm and what's under
meath il. and what will YOU take for it?''
Upon my word he said you cannot
blame them for hating the white man.
The land belongs to them; but unfortu-
nately no man and no race can keen a
land ne cannot develop. sooner or later