Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-11-28

John Gladstone, secretary
Gladstone of state for home affairs,
as governor general of
o'enor' united South Africa The
appointment is important for many rea-
sons and chiefly as an indication that the
liberal government proposes to carry out
liberal policy and accord home rule in
South Africa.
The London Times, discussing the APP
pointments to be made in Canada, South
Africa and India, declared that outside Of
Europe there was nothing so important
to the crown. Lord Selbourne, the sue
cessful incumbent, had been a prominent
member of Mr.. Balfour's administration.
The position in South Africa was unusual
ly important. The feeling there for the
mother country was good, but 1t was
sensitive, and the governor general should
be a constant and potent influence for
good. The Times is manifesuy hostile To
Mr.. Gladstone's appointment and de-
nounces him as a failure and non
entity in the present ministry
A writer in the Quarterly Review says:
Ten years ago South Africa presented
the spectacle of two self-governing British
colonies confronted by two allied ana
quasi independent Dutch republics. VI
the two British colonies one was small.
but really British in population and sen
timent The other, the largest OF all the
South African states, both In area ana
population, was divided as To its white In
habitants about equally between EnShsn
and Dutch and with political power at
the moment substantially in the hands OF
the latter. In the larger Of the two re-
pubIics on the other hand, there was a
great community of Britons more than
ea11al in numbers to the Dutch population.
hearing practically the whole burden of
taxation, but deprived Of political rights
and denied all legitimate influence In the
COVE. nment.
X
Upon such fragile and fallacious fabrics
rest the arguments which British writers
are preparing for the his
Ritter tory of South Africa,
avoiding, of course, the
reellhS' inexcusahIe and dastardly
raids of the inexcusable and dastardly
Dr. Jameson.
The peace of Vereeinging left the coun-
try exhausted and disunited, and its
population of two racial camps filled with
more than ordinary bitterness toward
each other The Boer was sulen in the
presence of a cause that had been lost
only because lacking in money and men.
The Briton was ugly and morose because
his pride and vanity had been humbled
many times by the valor and superior
military prowess of the Boer soldier That
out of such relations there shou d come
a rapprochement will constitute a per-
petual surprise to the future historian.
Nj. Biard d Aunet, formerly French con-
sui in Alexandria, Egypt, and recently
consul general or France in Australia,
treats the subject of the union of the
South African colonies in forcible arti-
Gle in the Revue De DeuX Mondes, say
ing: Nevertheless the ties that hence
forth impose upon these colonies COM
mon destiny have been voluntarily
created and created more closely than in
any other federation. 1t is fact with
out precedent and without sim: iarity in
history"
The area of the British colonies in East
Africa is nearly that of the United States.
Stretched over twenty-five degrees of lati-
tude, in distance that from Norway o
a geria, they offer various climates, but
in general salubrious. Their population
Is not much more than S,CG0,G 900, of which
100000 belong to the white race. 1llese
latter are at the Cape, Orange, Transvaal
and Natal.
From the foregoing there is gathered a
dominating fact, namely, that South
Africa, its future and it's tranquility,
above all depends upon the native ques-
ton. In the United States, Canada and
Australia that question was always Sec
ondary, and since a long time has dis
appeared. In South Africa it Is in the
front rank and will remain there.
NJ. Biard d'Aunet is of the opinion that
the colonization of the country is entirely
new. 1t is not besides an
Remedy economic problem alone:
1t carries with it moral
SouSn1' responsibilities. The ap-
probation of these difficulties by Boer
as well as Briton was one of the chief
causes of the unionist movement. Fa-
tigued by the frequent interventions OF
the British government, the colonies con-
Guided that only a central government
could have sufficient authority to render
intervention useless Only a central gov
eminent could impose impartial meas
ures and lead to the best utilization of the
native labor, at the same time in aug
menting their common wellbeing and
bringing them little by little up to the
rank of citizens.
The realization of this alluring program
will be laborious, but experience in Cape
Colony IS reaSSuring.
When the Beers, under the pressure of
numbers. after heroic conflict extend
ing over thirty months, abandoned the
contest and signed the treaty of Veree-
inging, May 81, 1902, no one in Europe
dreamed of the possibility of an early
reconciliation of the conqueror and the
conquered.
the vigorous arraignment of the invader
by Mr.. f. W. Reith, the former prime
minister of President Kruger The his
tory of the Boer during the nineteenth
century, be gun in 1896. was a century of
conflicts with Great Britain.
Mr.. Reith protested in the name of vio-
lated rights, which. even in England, had
found some defenders. He invoked the
judgment of Froude, who had condemned
in his book "Oceanica' the unjust and
imprudent' conduct of Britain toward
the Beers. He cited also Gladstone as
having said at the time of the first annex
alton of the Transvaal, in 1877, that
England had no right to impose by force
upon the Inhabitants of a republic ma
tionality which they did not want
Still more vivid in the memory of the
Beers were the painful quarrels begun
after the discovery of gold mines, in
1856, accentuated in 1892 under the i'm
pulsion of Cecil Rhodes, aggravated in
1896 by the Jameson raid (when Emperor
William addressed his famous telegram
to President Kruger), by the refusal Of
the English to accept arbitrage; then
the repetition of pressing and incessant
demands launched by Chamberlain, the
complaints of Uitlanders, laws as to ma
tives, alcohol. dynamite, customs duties
and railways, incidents or accidents
transformed into affairs of state-for ex-
ample, the Lombard. Edgar affairs and
that of the amphitheater at Johannes
burg So many pretexts for interven-
ton. Finally the question of the po-
litical rights of strangers. which assumed
suddenly an imperative demand, render