This is the wonderful incongruity I spoke of that such a President and
people as above described should be rulers over the enlightened
progressive community of Johannesburg. At a dinner at the Club I
quietly suggested a corrective of this incongruous and unprecedented
condition of things, and said that it lay in the saying: "It was
expedient that one man should die for many." I was conscious of being
stared at, and, indeed, if with all their intellectual capacity the idea
never entered their minds before, I can quite understand their surprise.
But it appears to me that if, according to their own admission, they
have tried everything--pleading, arguments, petitions, resolutions,
menaces, bribery--and all have failed, relief can only come through one
of two things, viz.: Active interference of England, or a determination
on their own part to endure no more. As to the first, every public man
in England knows that the active interference of England in a matter of
this kind is impossible. It may be her moral duty to interfere, but
those bright, clever men at Johannesburg should know as well as we do
that the present age and times will not admit of national action on
grounds purely moral. The story of their wrongs will always receive
sympathy, but to move a nation to action something more than sympathy is
required. We delivered the Transvaal territory over to the charge of
its own citizens, and they only are responsible for what happens in
their territory. If their laws are oppressive or unjust to the
strangers residing amongst them, the strangers may withdraw, or endure
the evils of which they complain as well as they can. It is not for us
to advise them what they should do; the choice must lie with themselves.
They may fly the country or leave their properties in the charge of
trustworthy Boer agents, if any such can be found, or they may continue
to suffer all that the Boers may choose to inflict, or they may all
unite in ceasing work and pay neither dues, taxes or bribes until
justice be done to them, but we cannot interfere until we know what
Johannesburg has resolved upon doing. What we may do in any event is
not worth discussing--no, not until the Johannesburg people act like
Englishmen.