The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-07-12
THEIR GRIEVANCES.

THEIR GRIEVANCES.
The conditions i'm the Transvaal are
but vaguely understood, and i'm many
minds the Uitlander question is one of
the British Government trying to
coerce a small power on her borders,
and that it is John Bulls Unsuitable
land hunger which causes the trouble.
The Beers are essentially an unpro-
gressive people. A recent writer has
described them as a portion of the six
teenth century surviving in the nine
teenth. They We're content and would
now be content to live in exactly the
same manner as their forefathers,
and not to advance one step beyond
the plane of civilization they had
coarseness, all the ignorance, all the
bigotry and all the good qualities of
dead and gone past.
Into such a community has penetrat-
ed one of the hardest, most adventur-
Gus, and most advanced conglomera-
ton of nationalities belonging to the
present. The thirst for gold and dia-
remained, building up the ideas of the
present, cheek by jowl with the ideas
of the past. What happened to the
Spanish population of California when
the wave of '49 struck it? 1t has dis
appeared leaving only a memory of a
name in good American Sepulvedas
and Pachecos. The Spanish popula-
Wit hon .;,
ply vanished. The Boer population
having plenty of backbone, strives to
save itself from the inevitable by
harsh and determined measures. But
it is impossible to stay the march of
progress, and their attitude will only
bring about collision and bloodshed.
The Uitlanders have developed the
country, have increased the value of
the taxes a thousand fold, and have
made the individual Beers rich. The
Beers have granted them no privileges
in return, and have hampered their
principal industry by oppressive taxa
ton. This brought about the Jameson
raid, an effort to redress grievances
by violence, which ANONYMOUSLY fail
ed. Ever since there has been agita-
ton, and the Uitlanders have for
mulated their grievances in such shape,
that they have carried conviction into
the minds of people powerful enough
to insist upon their being redressed.
1t must be remembered that the Uit-
landers are by no means entirely Eng
lish, but that there are many Ameri-
cans among them, and of the promi-
nent and wealthy many come from
California and the West
According to a recent publication the
! Uitlanders grievances may be sum
married. as follows: They have no vote
in the leVying of taxes, no voice in the
municipal government of their town,
johannesburg Their newspapers are
gagged and their editors can be ban
ished without trial. They are not al
| lowed to hold public meetings. They
cannot become citizens till twelve years
after they have taken the oath renoun-
cling allegiance to their own country,
and even at the end of that time they
cannot become citizens without a
llIee-QudTleIS vote III Inelf IdNOf from
the burghers of their individual dis
trict. This practically shuts them out
from citizenship.
The juries are not chosen from their
peers, but only from the burghers.
They pay almost the entire taxation
of the country The country is burden
ed with monopolies, which make them
pay eXOrbitant prices for inferior
goods. Children born in the country
have no birth right of citizenship. The
President of the Republic may expel
from the country any member of their
community without trial.
There are other grievances but these
are the principal ones and they GER
tainly form a very tolerable list; it
may be agreed that the Uitlanders
might stop at home. But when there
are mines and lands to develop the
march of population advances, it can
no more be penned in, than a torrent
can, and when rocks get into the way,
the torrent sweeps them away, rolls
them over, and at times splits them and
grinds the fragments into rounded
pebbles. The grievances of the Uitlan-
ders are very real, and they are of a
class that we on these Islands can
thoroughly appreciate We were never
as badly off, politically as the Uitlan-
ders.