The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-10-05

VIII go 10 the devil, so far as the
British empire is concerned.
eve shall be lucky if we save Cape
Town and Simon's Bay out of the
wreck. But these we must have, be-
cause Cape Town is the keystone Of
the imperial arch. It guards the ocean
route to India, and everyone knows the
Gibraltar-Suez route will go to pieces
in thirty days after we go to war with
first-class naval power. We have
lost South Africa and all the people
in it. But you can never make these
English understand it. They'll not get
glimmer of the truth till after it's
all over. Our troubles will only have
begun when we have annihilated the
fighting Beers and ended the war. Be-
fore the war it took only 5000 British
soldiers to guard our interests in South
Africa. Chamberlain himself says that
after the war it will take $4,000 men
to keep the British flag flying down
there.
"Kruger has always hoped the Brit
ish people would repent That is his
hope today. That is what he is wait
ing and fighting for. It is true that it
is only by repentance that we can be
saved, but there are few signs of con-
triton at the present moment. The
British masses have become so besot-
ted, so drunk with blood and conquest,
that If tomorrow news were to come
that by outlawry, rapine and murder
the last Boer had been wiped off the
face of the earth, wild, hoarse scream
Of joy would go up from British press
and people. They would say: We'll,
this is something like business at last
''There is nothing more brutal than
an empire. 1t is the incarnation of
force. It destroys all moral perfection.
But it should be remembered that there
is nothing more enduring than a ma
ttonality. History is whitened all
along the ages with the tombstones of
empires. Few nations have died. It
is almost impossible to kill them. They
rise from the ashes of ruin and defeat
and live again. AS for the Dutch, they
are people who never yield. They
beat off the Spaniard tyrant; they will
beatsoff the English invader.
"No greater disaster could happen
to the British empire than that we
should gain the victory in South Afri-
ca. When a nation is wrong it should
be whipped, and soundly whipped, as
we were in the American war. We did
not learn our lesson then. There are
less signs that we are learning it now.
But in the end the lesson will be un.
derstood. We may not then be so
handsome, but we shall have gained a
clearer perception of political morality.
''Two of the greatest blessings to the
British empire were great defeats.
Jeanne dare was the saving angel OF
England. We were laundering out of
the right path, and she cleared us out
of the continent and saved us from
Europe. George Washington cleared
us out of your country and saved us
from America. The Beers will save
us from Africa. They will clear us
out Of there, and they are blessing in
disguise.
''How can we now get out of the
scrape?
''It is easy enough. Cut off Cham
berlain's head and send it on charger
to old man Kruger at Helversum, say
ing unto him: Here, take this. It
means the end Of wrong. 1t means
that we have come to make amends
eyes, cut off Chamberalin's head.
That's the easiest way to stop the war.
There never would have been any war
If Chamberlain had not refused Kru-
gers offer to arbitrate. AS a result
25,000 good men have been put under
the sod, and $4,000 more have had
their lives blighted by wounds. We
refused to arbitrate because we knew
we were wrong and because we be-
lieved we could easily whip the little
nation that had the impudence to ask
for arbitration. When he started the