The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1899-06-24
THE TRANSVAaL IN DANGER.

ii t. Dutch were the ClV1ZeQ Pioneers III AoOulll
Africa. While scientific societies were proving
or dsprovng theories about the photography
of the Dark Continent, and Great Britain and the
United States rading the slave coast for captves
to work under the lash in the West Indies and to till
the cane and cotton fields OF the South, the Dutch
were penetrating the wholesome uplands treating the
tribes like human beings and laying the foundation of
the first free state.
Their original plant spread and grew. The Beers
built homes reared families and developed civilized
order by being orderly. When England became con-
scientious about slavery and concluded to use her
shipping in something else because Wilberforce had
touched the national heart by denouncing the traffic
in human flesh and the destruction of life in the hor
rors of the middle passage, the sum OF all vii
lanies" she discovered that while she had been
making battues of the natives and driving men,
women and children like cattle to the coast where her
slave ships lay the plodding Dutch had created in
peaceful ways, by showing respect for human rights
something worth Coveting. and she coveted it.
Since then she has pushed north from Cape Town
until she has crowded the Dutch across the Vaa, and
there the descendants of the people OF William the
Silent and John of Barneveldt have made their last
stand England, meanwhile has loaned money to
Egypt and has followed her coupons, shears in hand,
up the Nile to the Soudan When she looked across
that blear desert she thrown into epilepsy OF
horror by finding some Arabs engaged in the slave
trade In her merchant marine ships still in
commission that had been loaded below the modern
Plimsoll line with slaves in the days when she
willing to turn an honest penny in human chattery
But when she caught these Mahometan Arabs doing
the same thing it struck her sympathy as severe a
blow as il il had been the first time trapped
like animals and sold in the marketplace. Then, be-
sides that it gave her for invading the Sou
dan to abolish the slave trade to get brave Gordon
slaughtered in Khartoum, and then to send
punitive expeditions to suppress false prophets and
incidentally steal the country
Having successfully shouldered the white mans
burden in Africa north OF the equator she is now
preparing to follow the Dutch across the Wall The
Transvaal is an independent 1t has all the in
situations and muniments Of government It enforces
order and protects the rights OF persons and property
judciay and is equal to all its international obliga
tons. To protect itself it guards and limits the fran
ohse. Men OF all nations may enter the Transvaal,
but Dutch it was founded and Dutch it shall remain,
the Beers can have it Emigrants, Uitanders,
may come and stay and assimate and become Dutch
and participate in the Dutch franchises But they
will have none of the benevolent assimilation that has
overrun religion and language in Poland and Finland
England, having gone among peaceful people from
the Hifnalayas to COnnemara, to soak the soil in
blood, by oppression to produce disorder, and them
in the OF civilization, restore order by
murder and introduce the pax Britannica at the
mons mouth, is always moved by desire to inter
fere in vindication OF some right. After we whipped
her in our Revolution she insisted upon the old
nonarchical doctrine, "once a subject always sub
ject, and denying the right of expariaton claimed
the privilege of searching merchant ships at sea
and impressing into her navy all sailors who could
not prove that they were born subjects of Great
Britain. This was only eighty-seven years ago. She
was then denying the right Of the United States to
admit British subjects to citizenship, and right to
protect them against her after their naturalization
This republic had existed only twentythree years. 1t
was small and weak and might be crushed So for
admitting her subjects to citizenship, she tried to
crush us, but failed.
Observe now her pretext against the Beers. The
Transvaal Republic is to be overrun and destroyed
for refusing to admit British subjects to citizenship
and British square is about to carry the pax Bri-
tannica across the Wall
1t is not her first attempt She tried it before and
was cut to pieces at Majuba Hill When that disaster
befe her arms an American illustrated paper which
is devoted to increase in the gayety OF nations,
published cartoon Illustrating the humiliation OF the
great empire by people few in number but great in
spirit and ran under it the legend NIeets Civilized
Foe at Last"
1t was a biting sarcasm, for the last civilized foe
England had met was Russia in the Cri1nean war
After that she had occupied her arms in benevolent
assimilation, and in using the blood of the weak to
manure her stolen plantations in the tropics.
If the god of battles give the Dutch another
Mauba Hill we trust that British suzerainty over this
country is not firmly established as to make it
lese maeste to cheer the Beers
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