RACIAL WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 107, 8 May 1896, Page 2

RACIAL WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—rl have carefully followed your views as expressed from time to time on South African affaire, and have in the main coincided wibh them. Bub from your lead ing article bhis evening, I fancy that you, like many others, look on tbe threatened racial war aa one between bhe Transvaal Boers and the English. I may be wrong, bub I imagine that the dreaded war ia one between the black and white races, as 1 well remember Sir Thomas TJpington saying fifteen years ago thab such a war was the bhing mosb bo be dreaded. Hia reasons were that the blacks and coloured population were on bhe increase in South Africa, and that whenever the natives saw white troops defeated, as in tho Boer war, their respect vanished and tbey immediately thought they could scour the country. The very fact thab bhe Transvaai Government has offered helpi n Matabeleland to their late enemies justifies my assumption bhab they (the Boera themselves) recognise tha danger of a racial war between blacks and whites.

Of course, the worried question still remains between England and the Traansyaal, but I am one of those who think that there never was a greater mistake made than Gladstone's magnanimity in bowing the knee to Presidenb Kruger, for putting asido all other reasons there yet remains the small, bub solid, sound and sensible, reaeon thab the Boers have no word in their language which can be translated into magnanimity.

My only reason for addressing you on this subject, or for expecting tbat you would give space for these lines in your paper, is that I have spent five years in South Africa, and know many good men there.—l am, etc., H. A. L. Harvest.