If the Angel of Death should spread his wings across the land and
strike dead in one night every man and woman and child of either the
Dutch or the English blood, leaving the other alive, the land would be
a land of mourning. There would be not one household nor the heart of
an African born man or woman that would not be weary with grief. We
should weep the friends of our childhood, the companions of our early
life, our grandchildren, our kindred, the souls who have loved us and
whom we have loved. In destroying the one race he would have isolated
the other. Time, the great healer of all differences, is blending us
into a great mutual people, and love is moving faster than time. It is
no growing hatred between Dutch and English South African born men and
women that calls for war. On the lips of our babes we salute both races
daily.
Then we look round through the political world, and we ask ourselves:
What great and terrible and sudden crime has been committed, what
reckless slaughter and torture of the innocents, that blood can alone
wash out blood?
And we find none.
And still we look, asking what great and terrible difference has
suddenly arisen, so mighty that the human intellect cannot solve it by
means of peace, that the highest and noblest diplomacy falls powerless
before it, and the wisdom and justice of humanity cannot reach it, save
by the mother’s drawing a sword and planting it in the heart of the
daughter?
We can find none.