Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-31
IN DEFENSE OF THE Beers
Mr.. 0. F. Hershey Talks of the Feeling
Abroad.
Baltimorean Who Has Just Returned
From Europe Talks of Situa-
ton In TransvaaI.

.. F. Hershey of the law firm of Grain Il
Hershey OF Baltimore has just returned
with his family from a four months tour
| abroad. In an interview yesterday he said
| he was surprised to see how little interest
was being taken here in the Transvaal
| question as compared with the Dreyfus
| case. Discussing the situation. he said:
France has done great wrong to one
man and violated a great principle bu:
| England is about to do a much greater
wrong to a whole nation and do violence
| to greater principle The English papers
are apparently covering their own sins by
excessive indignation over those of France.
When 1 left London everybody expected
war. The expansionists want 1t and the
peace party realize that Kruger is stand
| ing up for right and will not yield except
| to bullets. There is the same division Of
| sentiment in England on this question that
| there is with US on the question of expan-
! SION The Independent press and the So
called NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., professors,
| scholars-are bitterly opposed to England's
policy of brute force in South Africa.
These are tainted Little Englanders'
| by the commercial element, and every
where, in the clubs and shops, one hears
! the brutal doctrine that might is right:
| England is strongest, therefore England is
sovereign. She desires the Transvaal.
| therefore it is her duty to seize it. 1t is
| a simple doctrine and all the stock brokers,
mine promoters, patronage jobbers and
| Rhodesians rise up and call Old England
blessed for eSpouSing 1t.
THE public at large seems strangely in
different, although, thanks to the lesson we
! taught their fathers years ago, every bus
driver and shopkeeper interviewed prompt
ly declared that taxation without repre-
sentation is tyranny, and Kruger is ty-
| rant. Africa belongs to us, anyway, said
! a tobacconiSt on Piccadilly, and the Dutch
man has no business there That's the
| Greater England philosophy in a nutshell.
THE Beers were the first in South Africa.
| Through f3lllt wish theirs Eng
land obtained dominion them at the
| Cape, and after various vicissitudes they
| finally, sixty years ago, penetrated into
| wilderness over which England had no
claim. There, after the most thrilling rec
| ord of struggle and suffering known to his
tory. they conquered the savage and the
| jungle and founded their little state Eng
| land had no more to do with it than the
United States
They are now a little nation of simple
| folk, loving the land they won with their
blood, and living in peace and plenty far
| from the rush of cities and the madding
| crowd. In their veins Is the same Teu-
| tonic blood that made England and the
| north of Europe what it is. They are well
| governed and ask only to be left in peace
| Among them and about them are many
| South African English. They are bitterly
| opposed to England's present policy.
But for the discovery of great mineral
wealth in the TranSvaal the present Situa-
| ton would never have arisen. The hunt
| for gold has brought into Johannesburg
| more foreigners than there are Beers in
the whole state. 1t has brought with it
| all the evils and all the characteristics pc
| culIar to large mining towns. The foreign
| money is everything. 1t buys legislators,
corrupts police. opens gambling and drink
places, produces discomfort: it did it in our
| mining cities; it does it in the Transvaal.
For this state of things Englishmen hold
! the Beers responsible and demand that
| they abdicate their rulership.
| The Outlanders have all the wealth
J made in the Transvaal; the Beers have the
| taxing power. The foreigners came unso-
| licited; they can go when they please, but
| they stay and cry for blood They demand
the franchise and various rights and con-
cessions which, if granted, will enable
| them to wipe the Boer state from the face
| OF the earth. According to famous Mary
| land statesman, two outvote one' and no
| one knows this better than Kruger and his
| followers.
! BY the way, according to some news
| papers, one would infer that the Beers are
| all a set of ignorant farmers. On the con-
| trary, the new generation of Beers has
more than its percentage of highly educat-
| ed lawyers, doctors, preachers, scientists.
| scholars The simple and struggling life
| Of the fathers is telling in the splendid vi
tally and superiority of the sons.
| "A South African whom | met at Edin-
| burgh assured me that the level of inteli-
| gence in the Transvaal was considerably
| higher than it is in Yorkshire. The Beers,
| said he, will fight to the last ditch. They
| are inspired with the same spirit that sus-
| tanned the Greeks at Thermopylae or the
Americans at Bunker Hill. England can
| slaughter them, but she can never con-
| quer them. The hour of external success
| in South Africa will be the hour of ulti-
| mate failure. 1t will be the same sort Of
| victory Cromwell won in Ireland Berke-
| ley in Virginia.
| No one denies that the situation is bad;
| that the Beers have made many mistakes:
| that foreigners suffer wrongs they would
| not suffer at home; that taxation is noto-
| rtously unjust; that the dynamite monopoly
| is moral and economic monstrosity; that
there is gross corruption; that there is
| some disorder: but if this justifies armed
| Intervention. then some other nations had
| better beware of John. Bulls virtuous
| sword. The truth is the Beers have done
| remarkably well under the situation