Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-03-15
TO THE BITTER END.
Continued from page -

sin would not take advantage Of Eng
| Lands complications for furthei
| Asiatic advance. The KreuZ Ieitune
| declares that this information is au-
| thentic.
In high political circles here no sur
prise was felt at Lord Salisbury's re-
ply to the Kruger Stcyn proposals
Doubtless just such an answer was ex-
| prcted. Nor is it believed in the same
| circles that the war will last much
| longer. a leading foreign official said
today, that there would be no further
talk about intervention with the Sails
bury-k iuScr St yn correspondence now
made public ana the entire interview
ton question is done away with.
The papers, this evening, generally
express sympathy with the fate Of the
| Beers. but take it for granted that the
contest viii soon bcuvcr
New York. March l4.-The first word
from Rudyard kipling since he went
to South Africa viii be printed in this
| weeks issue of lIarper's Weekly. MI.
kipling cables long account of Brit
ish dislUyalty which he calls the sin
of WitrhClaft.' The burden of his
complaint is that British civil officials
in cape Town wink at semi Unreasonable
acts and 10 quote his own words. the
government Will take care il does not
pay any one To be loyal" He says.
The loyalist IN the border has his
house ripped inside out by Beers or
rebels, or both. the dislayalist's farm
- v.eInHtlI aud la,
the enemy with food. horses ana in
formation, Ills risk il small. H. may
possibly-but not ii his friends cam
stop it-bc arrested on a charge Of
treason. He may then hc sent down
country to be tried by a sympathetic
jury. H. hopes ana not without re4-
son to have his farm restored to him
after he has undergone some abSurdly
Inadequate punishment. Meanwhile.
the loya!ist's piano is lying wireless on
the vcranda; photographs Of his house.
show the rooms as though cyclones had
met To Wrestle there: his tIoyks and
herds are gone: and the baby linen is
lying on the dung heap. lie and his
family crawl into Cape Town in over
packed trains ana get what consolation
they can from singing 'Britons never
shall be slaves on the platform. Then
do MeSsrS Kruger and Steyn enter in
to correspondence with Lord Roberts
as 10 the atrocities committed on a
virtuous population by a brutal and
liCentious soldiery.
The loyalists declare that. properly
handled, open disIoyalty could be re-
duced to a negative quantity What
then. they demand. is the sense Of
creating and nropping and supporting
the thing as YOU created and propped
and supported the Transvaal till ii bit
you" They have a certain amount of
well reason on their side. and it may as
we'll set out To defeat. to delay, to
eVade and nullify the workings of n
just punishment. a first cautiously
but later made bold by liberation. with
an inSOlent CareleSsness of security. to
preach sedition under guise of abject
loyalty. To malign unscrupulously and
TO lie Indignantly ana with knowledge
among an ignorant people is a merry
and profitable game while it endurcs.
The players. however, do not see or.
busy with their small intrigues. will
not realize that for each man whose
neck they save arises another. and yet
another. desiring nothing less than
their necks.
1T is 4 brutal way to put it, but
things are not all cream ana honey in
Cape Town just now and | confess it
gives me the cold creeps to watch these
smooth-talking. smiling men explain
ing to their initiates. as they have ex-
planned these 10 years past, how this
and that will surely be softened down
in the interest of some imperiled
rebel: how help will come from here
and support from another quarter: and
how little in any case to be feared is
the British government. The home
government is weak and Of many
kinds: they are present. omnipresent:
they maintain intimate relations with
all sides: with the front and the far
more important back front which be
gins at Pretoria
The colonial troops see this disloyalty
which the government does not punish
and Mr.. Kiplng voices their feelings in
these words:
Now. men who are used to dust in
their food do not care 10 nave it thrown
in their eyes. Five, six and seven thou
sand miles away. anxious young commu-
mites are waiting for WORD of their men
No detail of their doings goes unrecOrded
| by the big dailicS whose wrappers YOU
nave never opened. or by the little cheau
newspapers with the Patent insides. Move
mixed colonial contingent 80 miles here
across country. ana Winnipeg, Quebec
Canterbury. Wellington ana Brisbane are
also moved over: and above that they
will write to their papers. These men 5
letters Will be read ana re-read at cross
roads stores. in railroad round houses in
the WaYsile dossers camps at up-col1n-
try race meetings. at little Masonic
! lodges along the wharves Of big export
ing houses and in the clubs of ali the
white mans world. DO you see. there
fore. that the long enduring score the
terse. sticking contempt the happy cpl
thct Splt out in dusty camp. to turn vi
double-eaded in a journal Of so 900 circll-
iation on the other side of the world will
not come from England?
The colony viii be branded by her own
brethren, by the open-air men who have
voted regularly since their majority and
who own the house they live in. She dare
not saw that they have been bought by
the capitalists, influenced by the press or
prejudiced by their insular training. 1t
is her own caste in Punchayet that will
strip the colony of her caste. She will be
left with her climate ana her geographi-
cal advantages, but her place among our
peoples Will go over 10 little Natal, while
her honor is trailed around the world at
the heels of these returning hOrSemen.
This is unjust-bitterly and cruelty I'M
just.
II developed the forecast at some
length 70 South African and there are