acclimatization and perfect knowledge of the country. Lastly, but by no
means less important, is the rational practice of always going as light
and unencumbered as at all possible, preferably with stripped saddle,
and to subsist mostly upon meat when in the field, both serving to
enhance staying power and to provide a reserve of stamina and of energy
for occasions of supreme effort, which often decide the fate of battle
against combatants, however courageous, who are fagged out with marching
on foot, and through being overladen with accoutrements and pack and a
lumbersome diet as well. What can such panting, unsteadied men do in
conflict with Boers who are fresh and in well-preserved form, and whose
steady sharp-shooting simply results in Calvaries for their opponents,
however brave, disciplined and well equipped they may be?
Yet to be noted is the small commissariat needed for Boer horses and
mules. These are accustomed to subsist altogether on grass, and when it
is plentiful, during summer and fall, to keep in good condition, working
six to ten hours daily, if only allowed to graze during the rest of the
time. They are then usually knee-haltered, _i.e._, one foreleg tied to
the halter, with about eighteen inches space between. A few feeds of dry
mealies (maize) will be amply supplementary when the pasture is
inferior, or if the animals have to be picketed much.
As said before, alcoholism does not prevail among the Boers, and any
tendency to it is sedulously checked by legislation and public
reprobation. President Krüger is an absolute abstainer from intoxicants,
and even at banquets he will sip water only when joining in a toast. His
contention is that the effects generally go beyond a harmlessly
exhilarating point; the action of alcohol unbalances the nervous
equilibrium, producing in most cases an excitement above the normal
level, followed by a corresponding depressive reaction below it,
creating an appetite for repeating the potation, with exactly similar
and progressively aggravated results. Then man's moral standard and
general efficiency and dignity become impaired, to the serious damage of
his own welfare and involving the common weal as well. When at the
outbreak of the war the sale of intoxicants became totally prohibited
the measure was received with willing submission and hailed with general
approval, which speaks volumes for the burgher population and without
doubt also tends to preserve their efficiency and stamina.
PRESIDENT KRÜGER
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Krüger is about the most accessible President
on record. Every morning--except Sundays and holidays, after family
worship, that is to say, from 5.30 in summer and 6 in winter to 8
o'clock--he gives audience to Boer and Uitlander, rich or poor alike,
and also on each afternoon, from 4 to 6 and even later. His residence in
the west end of Church Street, Pretoria, is quite an ordinary modest
building of the bungalow type. The only distinction observable is two
crouching lion figures, life size, on pedestals about three feet high,
at the balustrade entrance to the front verandah. A lawn of about thirty
feet across extends to the street limit, where at a very unpretentious
gate two armed burgher guards are constantly stationed. These will
receive an intending visitor's name, an unarmed domestic guard will then
come forward, who, after a short scrutiny, if the person is a stranger,
will report to the President and will immediately return to conduct you
to that dignitary, who may be sitting under the front verandah or in the
adjoining reception-room. There the President will readily shake hands
and point to a chair, rather near by because he is slightly hard of
hearing, the domestic guard standing or sitting between, but a good way
back. By his questions and final remarks one feels assured that the
topic introduced has been attentively listened to and fully grasped.
While conversing, other audience-seekers would drop in, and, while
waiting their turn, coffee would usually be served to all. The manners
observed are devoid of any stiffness of etiquette, but rather marked
with a cordial decorum approaching intimacy, most assuring to the
simplest and humblest visitor.
The only leisure the President enjoys is the interval from 12 to 2,
between his official labours at the Government buildings, which are
about half a mile distant from his house. He drives there and back in a
modest carriage attended by a guard of mounted policemen. His Honour is
invariably dressed in black cloth, with the usual tall silk hat. Six
feet high, with a slight stoop, broad shouldered, deep-chested, with
well-developed limbs, arms rather long, the President presents a
stately, burly figure, portly without obesity. When younger he was
noted, as something like a Ulysses, for personal strength and prowess as
well as for sagacity. Although seventy-five years old now, Mr. Krüger
has still a remarkably hale bearing and an intellect of undiminished
quality. His eyesight, however, has been suffering of late, rendering
the attendance of an oculist necessary. His Honour is in his fifth term
of presidency, and has held the office twenty-two years. His salary is
£8,000 per annum, of which he probably does not expend £1,000, his
habits being exceedingly simple and frugal, Mrs. Krüger being equally
conservative and thrifty, preferring rather to expend money for her
children and in unostentatious benevolence than in superfluities.
President Krüger is an exemplary Christian, an earnest student of the
Bible since his youth, ever ready to employ his gifts to strengthen the
faith of his people and to maintain their religious standard. He often
occupies the pulpit, and on other occasions gives exhorting discourses.
Upon the completion of the imposing Johannesburg synagogue his Honour
was requested to preside at its dedication. It was an impressive
function, and withal so anomalous and unrabbinical a departure--the head
of the State, a devout Christian, opening the edifice for Jewish
worship and addressing a discourse to the thousands of assembled
Israelites. In his zeal and concern Mr. Krüger could not refrain from
adverting to their blessed Messiah, the God-man of Jewish stock,
rejected through ignorance by their forefathers, exalted since, but who
loved His people nevertheless, as typified by Joseph's narrative when he
revealed himself to his brethren in Egypt. He adjured them to a
prayerful reading of their Old Testament, and he invoked God's mercy to
remove the veil which obscured from their eyes their own and also the
Gentiles' glorious Immanuel. The ceremony was concluded with perfect
decorum, despite the surprise that the address had drifted into an
impassioned Gospel sermon.
This grand old Boer is the very personification of noble patriotism and
devoted concern for the welfare of his nation. While admiring and loving
the man, what sorrow on the one side and indignant execration on the
other do not overwhelm one, seeing that such a pattern and leader of men
should have become the victim of that heartless Hollander coterie! One
cannot but marvel at the same time at the alert skill and wily patience
which must have been employed during the many years past to hold
President Krüger with State Secretary Keitz and President Steyn in the
Afrikaner Bond leash ready to let loose with unshaken convictions upon
the supreme contest designed for them and their people by the
machinations intended for upraising Holland at the risk of immolating
the victimized Boer nation.
PEACE ADJUSTMENTS
Upon this topic a few remarks may be placed under the assumption that
the arch enemy's triumph in the present war will be circumscribed by the
havoc and the bereavements created by it, and by the forfeiture
inflicted upon the poor deluded Boers of their special heirlooms. One of
the considerations would be the war cost and its recoupment, and another
important one is the measures needful to prevent a repetition of a Bond
revolt.
As to the war indemnity: it is well understood on all hands that the
supremacy of Great Britain, when once established as the result of the
war, will greatly enhance the value of all existing capital
investments--10 to 50 per cent., and many even 100 per cent. It is not
to be denied that capitalism has evinced decided eagerness that English
supremacy should be asserted, and it is in a manner amenable together
with the Afrikaner Bond, for secretly striving to bring about the
contest each independently in its own way, but without the least concert
with each other. It appears therefore equitable that capital should
become contributable to the cost of the war which will eventually result
in so largely enhancing its invested values.
A tax of 2-1/2 per cent. upon the aggregate investment values and a
royalty upon the mining industries of 25 per cent. of the net profits
would appear reasonable.
The 2-1/2 per cent. tax might bring a sum of ....... 15 millions
The royalty could be reckoned at capitalized
value ............................................ 50 "
The confiscations might reach ...................... 10 "
And the underground rights around the Johannesburg
mines might realize .............................. 50 "
Thus together 125 millions, possibly not sufficient to cover the entire
war cost if pensions are to be included. It is a sad reflection to note
that the entire wealth which constituted the national heirloom of the
Transvaal will have been wasted, and comes far short to cover the actual
war expenditure. In regard to preventive measures against another Bond
war, nothing appears clearer than the necessity of applying the _lex
talionis_ upon the Hollander element in South Africa (though not in that
inhuman fashion as was practised upon the English refugees before and at
the commencement of the war).
Whilst not so guilty to the same extent of enormity as the coterie in
Holland, who devised all the Bond mischief at a safe distance, the
Hollanders in South Africa were nevertheless their eager abettors and
sedulous henchmen. It will be remembered that the Bond cry had been
"Drive the English into the sea, out of Africa," and that the first
earnest in carrying out that fiat was practised some months before the
outbreak of the war upon the unaggressive coloured British subjects,
traders, merchants, etc., whose removal from their residences and
businesses to ghettos outside the towns practically compassed their ruin
and expulsion from the Transvaal. This was followed, first by a
voluntary and afterwards by the forced exodus of Uitlanders at the rate
of thousands per day--men, women, and children packed in uncleansed coal
and cattle trucks, together with Coolies, Kaffirs, and Hottentots, and
hustled over the Portuguese border, dumped down at that death-trap
Komati Poort if unable to pay the railway fare for fifty-three miles
further to Delagoa Bay. Those refugees were obliged to abandon or
sacrifice their belongings--they had no time allowed to realize them; it
meant their financial ruin.
That Hollander element comprises the most insidious menace, and, like a
cancer, must be unsparingly excised from South Africa, unless
encouragement is intended to be given for an attempt to go one better
next time, with a repetition, or rather an aggravation, of the horrors
of war and the cost in life and treasure, turning the sub-continent into
a second vast Algeria, with perhaps such another "Abd El Kadr" to
subdue, and without any reserve asset, as now, to fall back upon towards
reimbursing the expense. Their expulsion should, however, not be
effected without giving some fair notice affording them time for the
realization of their estates. As to the Dutch language, it will not
entail any excessive hardship if it is equally banished as an official
language, seeing that English is on the whole not more unfamiliar to the
bulk of the Boer people than pure High Dutch is, and seeing that the
dual right was accorded to Dutch as an official language under this
almost inconceivable feature, that it admittedly had yet to be learnt to
become of any practical use or utility other than as an instrument for
keeping the races apart and to facilitate the Bond objects of usurpation
and revolt.
FINIS