The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1899-12-02

because in 1881 we cruelty deserted the
loyalists-Boer, English and Kaftlr-ln
the Transvaal The Beers, Whatever
their faults, would have been incapaple
of such conduct. and they could not not
understand it in US. They put 1t doWL
to fear, and from that moment nave
waited for an opportunity to drive US
out of South Africa
we reserved equal rights to all the
inhabitants of the Transvaal territory
1t was the last rag with which we COW
cred the nakedness of our SURRENDER
But where are those rights today! Plece
by piece, under the name of law ana
without it, they have, been f1lched away
and repudiated. until now the man VINO
is called an Outlander, and VINO ouSnt
to have exactly the same full prlVl-
leges as any burgher in the country.
because the convention guaranteed
them. has no more rights than Fan
zibar slave.
The unpopularity of the Outlanders
in England is accounted for in two
ways. The British public has never
heard anything heroic about them.
nothing that appeals to the national
pride; their tale is tale OF complaints
and fights. This is not their fault, or
at any rate the fault of the mass of
them: it is their misfortune. which,
however undoubtedly has produced an
effect upon the public mind. The sec
ond reason is that the man in the street
thinks of an Outlander as a million
aire, with a palace in Park lane and
half a county of deer forest; as a per-
too, on whose account we are going to
spend millions of money and nobody
knows how many lives Of brave men
in order that he, without risking a fin
ger or halfpenny beyond mis-. income
tax, may see his kingly revenues
doubled and trebled. OF course, the
judgment is unjust, as, to begin with,
not one Outlander in 5000 is a. million
aire, or ever will become one.
The real thing is whether England
is or is not going to remain dominant
n South Africa. AS even the Beers adj
init, the real fight is a fight for the
eminent deserves. great credit, Know
ing what they must expect, for the de-
terInined way in which they are facing
the Situation. How can the war be pop
ular among a people of whom a great
proportion entirely misunderstood the
real issues and believe, with the liberal
forwards, that it is waged to increase
the wealth of a few millionaire Out
landers?
In my opinion, it is a dreadful war,
and no success can make it otherwise,
because of the legacy of hatred which
it must leave behind it. How many
generations mustago by before the Boer
child ceases to be taught by it's mother
to hate the Engiishmani
The war was unavo dable; we are
paying for 1881.
L believe, that. if generals could only
be got to understand it, the Beers could
be conquered without any advance at
all by sitting still around their bound
aries, fighting the fight of the sit
down. as the ZulUs call it. If Sir
George ColleY would have sat still in
1881 it was the general opinion that the
Beers would have melted away without
a blow being struck. The Boer will not
keep long in the field at one time. His
cry is always 'Huis-toep (home). He
will not wait in the weld for an indef-
mite period. 1 think him 0verrated as a
soldier. Since the game has gone he
does not shoot as his father did. There
is no man on earth so cautious of his
own life as the Boer He has always
been reported to be so fond of fighting,
but few people understand his idea OF
fighting. 1t is to sit in a laager or
behind rocks himself and shoot men in
the open. This is what he did at
BronkeT'S Spruit. Laing's Mex and at
IngOgo; indeed. Brokers Spuit was
nothing but a massacre, where UMPIRE
pdIGU bTlllSn SOLDIERS were Sn0t down
by Beers who already had pegged their
distances carefully. That is what they
did also in all the Kaffir wars: the
Beers in lager received the assault
Of numbers of brave but unarmed KAT
frs, whom they beat of with their eIe-
plant guns with little loss of life to
With the single exception
of the Weenen massacre by the Zulus
which was not a fight, they never lost
any great number. and then the vic
TINS, for the most part, were women
and children. The only occasion when
they met English soldiers in the open,
under the command of Sir Harry
Smith, at Boomplatz, they were at once
signally defeated
'Majuba stands by itself. When the
Beers saw Sir George Colley's force
upon the top of the mountain they in
spanned their wagons for flight: then
oy an afterthought they sent. the recon-
n2issance of about eighty men UP the
hill. These men, who were gradually
reinforced by others until they may
nave reached a total of 300. finding that
not bullet touched them, all passing
over their heads, went on until they got
near the brow, whereupon the British
led. l talked afterward to one of the
three Beers whom we hit upon that
occasion. He showed me the groove
along his temple where the bullet had
yrazed him. The rooibatjes nearly did
t for me, mynheer, he said, but Allie