A short drive northward of the suburb placed me in a position to view
the far-reaching desolate wastes of the primitive veld, and to realise
more fully what human intellect, skill, energy, and capital have done on
Hospital Hill and in Johannesburg itself. Twelve years ago there was
not a vestige of life--human or vegetable, except the grass--to be seen
within the entire range of vision from the Hill, and yet the creators of
the remarkable transformation we had just seen were to be threatened
with slaughter and devastation if once they plucked up courage to exact
the rights which every civilised Government would long ago have granted
to them!
JOHANNESBURG AND ITS GREAT INDUSTRY "SUBJECT TO SENILE MADNESS AND
BOORISH INSENSIBILITY."
It were well now, after briefly showing what Johannesburg and its
population is, that the chief of the State and his rustic burghers, in
whose hands lie the future of this remarkable city and its industry,
should be presented to your readers, in order that they might realise
the striking incongruity of first-class mechanical ingenuity, spirited
enterprise, business sagacity, and tireless industry being subject to
senile madness and boorish insensibility. That such a thing should be
is most preposterous and contrary to all human precedent. For
elsewhere, and since the dawn of civilisation, Intellect has always
become Master, Captain and King over Ignorance, but at Johannesburg it
is Asinine Ignorance which rules Intellect. Another reversal of human
custom is seen in the submissiveness of Intellect to Ignorance, and
though, being naturally sensitive under the whip and restless under the
goad, it remonstrates sometimes, its remonstrance is in such a sweet
mild way that the spectator can only smile and wonder.
"OVERMASTERING SURPRISE" AT THE STATE OF THINGS ON THE RAND.
Fitting words are wanting to describe my overmastering surprise at the
state of things in the Transvaal; I am limited by space and time, so
that I must let my pen race over three pages and trust largely to the
intelligence of those who read the lines. I have a printed cutting
before me of a discussion in the First Raad of the Boer Republic, during
which the President, in the support of his views, stands up and says
that Isaiah had been told by the Lord that Israel had been punished
because the rulers of that people had not hearkened unto the voice of
the poor. Another speaker of similar intelligence rose up to contend
that the Lord had enjoined that the rich, not the rulers, should help
the poor, and Isaiah had not been told that the poor were to be helped
with other people's money. This construction of Scripture raised the
President of the State to his feet again, and he reiterated the fact
that the Lord had meant the rulers, whereupon another Senator
interpolated the remark that some people were in the habit of shielding
themselves behind the Bible with a view to saving their own pockets.