But when the men, who came penniless to our shores and have acquired
millions out of our substance, are not content with their gains; when
they seek to dye the South African soil which has received them with
the blood of its citizens--when they seek her freedom--the matter is
otherwise.
This is the problem, the main weight of which has fallen on the little
South African Republic. It was that little ship which received the main
blow when eighty thousand souls of all nationalities leaped aboard at
once; and gallantly the taut little craft, if for a moment she shivered
from stem to stern, has held on her course to shore, with all souls on
board.
We put it, not to the man in the street, who, for lack of time or
interest, may have given no thought to such matters, but to all
statesmen, of whatever nationality, who have gone deeply into the
problems of social structure and the practical science of government,
and to all thinkers who have devoted time and study to the elucidation
of social problems and the structure of societies and nations, whether
the problem placed suddenly for solution before this little State does
not exceed in complexity and difficulty that which it has almost ever
been a necessity that the people of any country in the past or present
should deal with? When we remember how gravely is discussed the arrival
of a few hundred thousand Chinamen in America, who are soon lost in the
vast bulk of the population, as a handful of chaff is lost in a bag of
corn; when we recall the fact that the appearance in England of a few
thousand labouring Polish and Russian Jews amidst a vast population,
into which they will be absorbed in less than two generations forming
good and leal English subjects, has been solemnly adverted upon as