The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1901-03-19

known that our people sympathized
with every effort, every aspiration, of
any civilized people to set up or to de-
fend republican institutions.
The British Intervention in South
Africa was not response to any appeal
from so much as a fragment of the
Boer people. They were not only con-
tent with the government they had in
stituted, but passionately devoted to
it-with a readiness to die in its de-
fense that took no account Of age or
sex. No Boer in the Transvaal desired |
to become British subject; but very |
many British subjects in the Cape
Colony were so unappreciative of the |
advantages Of their condition as such |
that they passionately desired to throw
It off for citizenship in a Dutch repub-
lie. In other words, the men who were
discontented and rebellious were not
the citizens of the Transvaal or of the
Orange Free State, but those of Dutch
descent whose granfathers had by con-
quest become British subjects.
The political conditions in Cuba,
when we intervened, were the very op-
posite of those in the Transvaal. Our
Intervention was in behalf of the Gu
bans. We co-operated to free them
from the power of a government whose
expressions and cruelties had many
times before driven them into rebellion.
Great Britain's Intervention in South
Africa was against united people,
living in content-an ignorant content,
II you please-under a government of
their own construction; and the ground
of the Intervention was ostensibly the
interests of British subjects sojourning
there.
Many defects, incongruities and crud-
tiles in the Boer government and ad-
ministration have been pointed out by
the newspapers and other writer's of
Great Britain, and these have been
faithfully echoed by not few Amer
ican newspapers. Now, these faults
in Boer administration, in the main,
were such as affected only the Beers
themselves, and were not infractions
of the international rights Of aliens.
The use made of them was not, openly,
as justification of the war, but rather
as a check upon the sympathy of the
American people, which, 1t was feared
might, as 1t has been in the habit OF
doing, go overstrongly to the side of a
republic fighting for its existence. II
was to say: Don't make too much
fuss over the death of the man, or toe
strict an inquiry into the cause of the
quarrel; he was not in all respects an
exemplary citizen" The Beers were
said to have been favorable to slavery
as an institution, and to bear a grudgt
against the British because they abol
ished it, Now, the American, whose
country, until very recently. was th'
great slaveholding nation of the world
and the Briton, who gave his sympathy
and much material help besides, t
the states that sought by the destruc
ion of the American Union to max,
slavery perpetual-surely these canno
be expected to respect the autonom,
or mourn the demise of a republic tha
is suspected Of having had in the pas
: desire to hold slaves!
These Beers are not our kind O
people; they are not polished; the,
neglect the bath; they are rude an,
primitive their government is patriar
chal and, in some things, arbitrary. tt
be sure, they like these habits and thes
institutions; they abandoned old home
+ and made new homes in the wilderness
that they might enjoy them; but tn
homes are no such as we would hav
p, made; the Anglo-Saxon model has no
! been nicely followed. You have tn
consent of the governed'-yes; bu
+, Great Britain does not approve of yor
: and she stood by us in the Spanis
war.
That any self-respecting government
z which was strong enough to make il
Z diplomatic notes express it's true emo
! tions, would have answered Grea
! Britain's complaints by fiat refuse
l to discuss them, on the ground tha
y they related to matters of interns
administration. That such would hav
been the answer of the United States
! If we had stood in the place of tn
e Transvaal Republic cannot be doubte
}. and there Is no more room for doul
? that the answer would have terminate
t the discussion.
: If the subject of naturalization is M
Q a matter to be determined by natio
o for itself, and solely upon the consit
e Grafton of it's own interests and safet,
: there Is no subject that is free frol
d the meddlesome Intervention of otht
n states.
Q And as to the government monopol