The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-10-03
washington time q D. m. st. Paul..
AS 1T NOW STANDS.

At the outset of the discussion of the
difficulties existing between the Boer
and the British governments the Globe
expressed the conviction that so far as
President Kruger and his people were
disposed to block the path of modern
progress they must inevitably, sooner
or later, leave that path or be trampled
out of existence as a people. That
statement remains as true still as it was
then. Unless the Beer government,
while being republic in name, chooses
to be a republic in fact, it must go to
the wall.
Whether or not the 1884 convention is
to be taken as confirming Britain's SUI
zerain rights over the South African
republic the Beers make a tactical as
well as a substantial, mistake in allow
ing it even to appear that they are
trying to keep outsiders from co-equal
civil rights with their own people, if
those outsiders manifest a real desire to
become citizens of the republic.
This does not corcede that England
has the right to coerce the Beers into
making the concessions she demands for
the uitlanders. Neither does it assume
that those whom England affects to rep
resent in their right to participate on
equal terms in the government of he
country they inhabit have any real and
sincere wish to forego their allegiance TO
the British empire. Indeed the cen
trary seems more likely to be the fact,
especially if one judges of the disposi-
ton which British subjects temporarily
residing in other countries show in that
behalf
It is not necessary to go beyond our
own city,'o or to seek for proof outside of
the local polling lists during the past few
years, to get strong proof that the born
Englishman is usually much more wiling
to secure for himself the advantages CT
American citizenship without surrender
ing his British allegiance than he is to
forego that allegiance and take his place
as a member of the American body poll
tic.
But, even cOnceding that the British
residents of the Transvaal are not as
anxious as the British government would
have tie world believe them to be to
surrender their British allegiance, the
requirements of modern life demand that
a people willing to fight for their own
to be, should not be unwilling to extend
to those who come among them The
right, under reasonable restrictions, to
enjoy that freedom with them.
There is always the contingency shat
the population which increasing wealth
brings into the Transvaal will outnum
Der in time the native Dutch-descended
population. That circumstance of itself
will not justify President Kruger ard
his people in excluding that population
from the right to participate in the con-
troll of the government which controls
their lives. Looking at the situation
from purely disinterested standpoint
and laying all prejudice aside, the wrong
of the British position is that. while de-
handing the concessions mentioned. there
is nothing absolutely nothing; as the re-
gotiations now stand-conceded by The
British to the Beers. These people have
established and maintained their govern
ment in spite of England They
seek political independence. This
England now denies the republic, while
there is much evidence to show that in
the earlier stages of the negotiations with
reference to the uitlanders the prospect
of complete political liberty was held out
by the British representatives as an in
ducement to the Beers to grant the con-
cessions now demanded at the point of
the bayonet. If England makes war as
matters now stand, it must be regarded
as simply another of the brutal wars of
conquest waged against weaker races for