Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1899-12-20
A WAR FOR EMPIRE.

we Tem6uUGE W DdNO oCSH oo"S
where-just where does not mat
ter-a picture showing in the hands
of little Negro boy, human skull,
just turned out of the soil by an old
white haired Negroes plow. The plow,
of course, had stopped and the con-
ception of the artist presented the
scene just at the point when the little
pickaninny was asking, "Whut wuz
dey er fightin' erbout? ?"
Up to the time of the breaking out OF
the war between the British and the
Beers, our knowledge of South Africa,
like that of many other people in this
part of the country, was confined
principally to such facts as were de-
rived from stories of hunting adven'
lures, occasional newspaper para
graphs, and reports of gold mining
operations in the Transvaal. Since
the war broke out, however, we have
had access to great mass of literature,
in the newspapers and magazines, and
of course, have had occasion to study
the encyclopedias, maps and other
available sources of information.
We are not yet able to fully and
satisfactorily answer the question as to
what they are fighting about, any
more than the ex-slave could answer
the pickanniny. The old Negro, no
doubt, answered, "To set us free" and
many will say that he was correct
but there are thousands of others who
claim that his freedom had nothing to
do with the matter. Indeed, many OF
our writers of today-a full generation
afterward-are still quarreling among
themselves even over the name that is
most applicable to the war in which
the man to whom the skull in question
formerly belonged, laid down his life.
Perhaps all of these writers would ad-
NIT that if there had been no slaves,
there would have been no war, at least
not then. In the same manner, we
believe that if there had been no dis
covery of the golden wealth of the
Transvaal there would be no South
African war, at least, not now. We
are persuaded, however, that the hy-
pothesis in the one case is as far from
being entirely satisfactory as it is in
the other.
While the Transvaal gold mines have
their bearing on the South African
war, as we shall presently indicate,
the great issue is really one of empire.
The British have long had their eyes
on the whole of the African continent,
and for many years past prominent
Englishmen-Cecil Rhodes, the fore
most among them-have been enter
tanning a great dream of the "United
States of South Africa" as British
dependency. Leading Dutch states
men have entertained this same idea,
with the exception that in their dream
the states were Dutch to the core, and
as independent of any other nation as
is the United States Of America, the
ideal model of all the dreamers on
both sides. Here, then, there is good
reason to presume, is the real motive
of the war.
For years and years events develop
ed smoothly enough and to the entire
satisfaction of the British. They had
to interfere occasionally, here and
there, to keep the trend of progress in
the desired direction, and it was not
until the discovery of gold in the
Transvaal that their arrangements
began to suffer. 1t was then that the
race commenced to wax hotter and
hotter. Previously the little Dutch re.
public, composed of simple, contented
farmers and herders who paid the few
taxes they had to pay at all in skins,