The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-09-12
Average Circulation
of
THE JOURNAL
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555,4F5
Boer Disabilities.

General Botha said in an interview at
Amsterdam, yesterday, that the non
compliance of the British government with
the demands of himself, General De Wet
and General Delarey at the recent confer
ence with Colonial Secretary Chamber
lain, will work, great hardship on the Boer
farmers and that thousands of them will
be ruined.
The Boer generals, in these supplement-
airy demands, made some which could not
possibly be complied with, as the pen
sioning Of all the MANNED. Beers and the
widows and orphans Of those who had
fallen by disease or battle, by the Brit
ish government. In the conference at
Vereeniging. where the terms which ended
the war were negotiated last spring, the
Beers gained about all they had demanded
at Middleburg the year before, securing,
for instance, the pledge Of the British
government to bring back at its own ex-
pense the many thousands Of Beor pris
oners who had been send to Bermuda, st.
Helena and Ceylon, and to advance money
to the Boer farmers to buy stock and re-
plenish their farms. The Beers were &C
corded full amnesty and full political
rights, with ultimate self government for
the Transvaa1 and the Orange River Col
ony. The terms also stipulated that the
British government would give validity
and protection to the war debt of the
Beers. In some of the demands made at
the recent conference the Boer generals
seem to have forgotten that these had
o1. I,,E ~, 49, ;or;,,
terms with which the majority of the
Boer conferees expressed themselves
satisfied, although all demurred naturally
to the loss of what separate nationality
they had possessed before the war. The
British government, besides the other
pledges Of aid, agreed to pay the Beers
cash indemnity Of S15,000,000 for the
restoration of the structures and stock of
the Boer farms devastated during the war,
and it was stipulated, to satisfy the Beers,
that none of this money should be OBJ
taned by levying taxes - the Beers
General Botha said in his speech, yester-
day, that they had every reason to believe
that no compensation for the destroyed
farms would be forthcoming; in other
words he denied that the British govern
i ment would keep the pledges it made at
Yereeniging, which, of course, is an as
sumption without a basis, for there is not
the slightest reason to- believe that the
imperial government will repudiate its
solemn obligations.
The British government, in adding the
Orange Free State and the Transvaal tc
its South African possessions, finds Itself
threatened with another Kaffir war; with
discomfort Of the loyal Alexander element
over what they call the too liveral terms
to the insurgent Beers; with serious
question as to the labor supply for the
gold mines Of the Witwa tersrand; with
such loss to British manufacturers and
traders of South African trade to enter
prising Americans that the former are
trying to combine to preserve what is
left and find that British shipping rings
are giving Americans much lover freights
than they give British shippers to South
Africa. Lord Miner, British high com
missioner for South Africa has had
an an assistant appointed as lieu
tenant governor of the Transvaal
and both both are graphing with the new