The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1898-10-13
GLADSTONE AND TIE noERs
Why He Ga lack 4 cir Territory t.
the Poor Dutchmen.

Why He Ga lack I cir Territory tn
the Poor Dutchmen.
After my first visit to South Africa,
when the opportunity was afforded me
OF seeing much of those who had suf-
fered for their loyalty to England, this
feeling of shame and indignation was
redoubled, says Harper's Weekly.
Firmly believing that Mr.. Gladstone
had acted wrongly in the retrocession
or the Transvaal, l returned to England
with the conviction that his South Afri-
can policy was governed by motives of
political expediency. 1t was in that
frame of mind that l met Mr.. Glad
stone, in a country house, on Easter
Monday, 1886. / shall never forget the
nrst serious conversation l had with
MIN. He introduced the subject by re-
ferring to my recent visit to Africa.
beileving that an opportunity had risen
not TO be missed, l said to him, speak
ing in he interests of my countrymen
and countrywomen who had lost their
all by reposing faith in England's
promise that the British flag should
never be hauled down so long as the
sun was in the heavens: "Sir, l think,
II you had been, as / have been, in the
homes of those Englishmen and loyal
Dutch Beers. who have been ruined for
no greater fault than a foolish conf
denc in Great Britain think your
cabinet would not have surrendered the
Transvaal." Taking me by the arm and
with his marvellous onyx eyes blazing
with indignation, he gazed out of the
window at the sky and the budding
trees, and spoke for nearly twenty min
utes, in a low, rich voice. He raised
his arm with the gesture with which
a lion raises his paw, and l realized for
the first time, the greatness of the man.
What he said, in effect, was this: 1--WE
nave given back the Transvaal to it's
owners because it was acquired from
them by fraud. A small country, a
mean country, a country less sure of it.
self, could not have done this thing.
Perhaps England alone, with her 800
years of history behind her, could have
dared to do this act. To have done it
shows the greatness, not the smallness
or England. The common people
wished it. They hate injustice; they re-
fuse to profit by fraud. The common
people are always right. They were
right in Macedonia; they were right in
Judea." And then he added, with a
sweep of his arm so vehement that l
hougnt he was about to crush me:
1ney are right now" He said a great
deal more on the subject, to which I
Will not refer, but he burned in upon
my soul the conviction hat it required
less courage to destroy the Beers than
to face the hatred and the contumely
of those Englishmen who believed that
the honor of their country had peer
outraged. Mr.. Gladstone, nevertheless,
did not convince me of the rectitude of
the policy he had adopted, and on cool
reflection afterward l detected much
misty if noble generality in his argu-
ments. However, that is not in ques-
ton at the present time. What l want
to bring out is the fact that to one who
has always been and still is opposed to
the policy of the Transvaal r~etroces-
sion Mr.. Gladstone succeeded com
pletely and generously, in convincing
him that his much-debated act was an
act of courage-not an act of c%owardice;
the act of a great man who believed in
the possibility of national Christianity;
not the act of a mere politician who
sought to derive party gain from the
pusillanimous betrayal of a proud PEG,
D1p