Stet Ju'y. A man who can only see one side of a thing is not a guide on whom implicit reliance should be placed; but when he sees it so clearly as Mr. A.J. Wilson sees any object: to which he directs. his attention, and gives you his view so graphically, his account of it is delightfal to read. The majority of his readers will doubtless decline to go all the way with Mr. Wilson in his opening article on "The South African Farce but they cannot. but enjoy its force, and the diamond-cut sharpness with which its conclusions are displayed. "Every fresh glimpse.of light," he begins by saying, that there is on the still obscure South African mystery,.shows more and more'clearly that the whole of the proceedings that led to and resulted from Dr.. Jameson's escapade began, continued, and are likely to-end in sheer humbug."
For us, indeed,. there jis not much mystery about it; we believe, as we hinted when the first telegraphic news came of-the raid, that Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Belt finding that Mashonaland and Matabeleland. were practically valueless, that.is that they would not repay.in any reasonable time the-money that the Chartered Company had spent on them, simply set out to steal the Rand, which "was a certain mine of wealth. the most' barefaced excuse for the raid. yet made public. is. that contained in.; the Nineteenth Century over..the signa: ture of Mr. G. S. Fort, who attracted attention by getting people*: to "believe, erroneously, that he had been recently. private secretary to Lord Loch. His positive statement is that the chief object of the raid was " to secure documentary evidence" of.a secret alliance between. the. I'ransvaal and Germany, which evidence, " was believed,: on reliable authority, ito. be.in. possession of President Kriiger in Proto As the New York Nadion says: he idea: of sending 800.troopers:..to steal some documents! One.skilled burglar would have been much better.. It, would have been just like the wicked Ktiiger to burn: every last: secret treaty the moment he heard the English raiders were coming. The. guilty goldman would know what they were. after. 'I'here is also certain humour, of which Mr. Fort seems wholly unaware,'in sending a man after ineriminating documents who himself was loaded. down, with incriminating documents. Dr. Jameson ought at least to have swailowed:.the key to the cipher telegrams captured with him."
But to return to the; Jnvestors' Review. It not this excellent writing,, as well'as being very little exaggerated "A mere stock-jobbing, market-rigging, bucket shop..swindle hag been glorified into an "honourable: movement, on the part of met who felt that they could not. fulfil their noblest mission as went has been shed about the perso of the heroes' who were so overplentiful in Johannesburg, by.the addition of the swomen-and-children-in-danger' catchword."
After some well-deserved den un tion. of the treachery of Mr. Rhodes towards. the Imperial Government, its representative at the Cape Sir Hercules Robinson, and the Dutch Afrikander party, Mr. Wilson goes.on to say that "'the fact that Mr. Rhodes endeavoured to postpone the invasion of-the 'Trans: vaal, because the actual moment did not seem to him to be suitable, does not palliate either his: bad faith or his folly in concocting the scheme.. Does Mr. Rhodes imagine' that the Orange Free State and the Cape Dutchmen would have: stood. by: and done-nothing, if the Chartered Company and the Johani burg wire-pullers had succeeded seizing the transvaal by a coup de main? And does he think, that the, British nation would. have allowed the independence that we have solemnly gnar-anteed to the. Soath African Republic, to be wrested from it by the force and treachery of, money-grabbing financiers, who talk big about political grievances, when their only objects are monopolies, concessions, and royalties? Some day, perhaps, he will find out, to his cost, that the British nation has a stronger sense of justice and honour, than its leaders and spokesmen. would have us believe."
Mr. Wilson goes on to show, how well President, Kriiger's dignity comes out in contrast with. the tactless mistakes that Mr. Chamberlain has made in the course of the negotiations as to. the fate of.the so-called Reformers, and he winds. up by saying—and. with this quotation we must close our notice this morning "It is all very funny but comedies that last too Jong sometimes degenerate into tragedies, and there are materials in South Africa for one of the bloodiest. tragedies in history, 'Chere is Mr. Rhodes. appealing to: the Surrey-side: gallery with telegrams about ' fighting the. Matabele to-morrow,' and. the Johaunesburgers smarting under. the ridicule and disgust that their Indicrons failure has earned for them. On the other side, there are the Boers, justly incensed by this attempt against the independence that was guaranteed in 1881 and again in 1884; the Orange Free State, which knows that the destruction of the transvaal independence would be the death-knell of its own and the Dutchmen of the Cape who have supported Mr, Rhodes' policy all these years, only to find that ready to sacrifice his Afrikander principles in favour of stock-jobbing Impenalism.: On this side we have. Minister.svho, is- content. to leave the question of Mr. Rhodes'. resignation. to the directors, who regard him as their "only asset,' postpones investigation, on the flimsiest pretexts, into his complicity inthe plot which he is practically acknowledged-to have organised, and continually irritates the Boers' sensibilities by his bullying. discourtesy, expressed in peremptory telegrams and tactless speeches, made at the most unfortunate moment possible, about their corrupt tien' and other shortcomings. And public opinion prates about. the grievances' of the Uitlanders of the 'Transvaal, forgetting that, owing to the action of the Uitlanders, the shoe.is now on the other foot, and the grievance' is all on the side of the Boers, Before the revolution' we might have urged reform upon the 'I'rausvaal; though, after all, the Uitlanders went to live in the Republic of their own will, and might fairly have been. expected to accept things as they found them, But now that the Uitlanders:; have.put themselves in the wrong: by. their own
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.