The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1900. THE PROFANITY OF PRESIDENT KRUGER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 61, 13 March 1900, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1900. THE PROFANITY OF PRESIDENT KRUGER.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the won? that needs resistance, For the Muio in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Milton's Satan, Goethe's Mephistopheles, even Burns' "Auld Nickie-ben" are not altogether depraved creations of human genius. When these various types of the devil are rolled into one by the modern novelist, they make a respectable gentleman in frock-coat inclined sometimes to become a preacher. Let us not be. pessimistic. Even Judas had conscience enough to hanghimself. Some good thing may vet be found in President. Kruger.

31 is best friends admit that his patriotism is soiled by eovetousness; that his republicanism is of a peculiar kind —the rule of a handful of men under his dictation. They admit, too, the corrupt- conduct of this imperious oligarchy. The. cunning- of this government in peace and war. and the treachery of this people vmreproved by their Government have become proverbial. \s false: as a Boer must become a

standing- pr;ovei'b,

Kruger's political hypocrisy in casting- the responsibility of the -war upon the British is becoming- manifest to all, except to a few blinded pro-Boers. The testimony of the brother of the Cape Premier and of Olive Schreiner in the January number of the "Nineteenth Century" should convince the most prejudiced as to the existence of a genuine conspiracy ag-ainst the British years before the grievances of the Uitlanders and of the Jamieson Raid. He declined to join the Africander Bond because of the veiled rebellion of its aims as expressed in its constitution. The founders and members of this disloyal society—the fenian society of Africa—did not even trouble themselves always to tell lies about it. They g-loried sometimes openl3' in the formation of a rebellion powerful enough to sweep the British from Africa —if need be into the ocean. Yet Kruger still protests his innocence, and imputes all the 'blame of bloodshed to the British, although lie, and his Gommander-in-Chief Joubert, and the leading lights of the Transvaal and Orange Free State were up to their ears* and eyes in this public

sedition.

Political hypocrisy is bad enough in a man of spotless integrity, as this Transvaal saint among- political sinners professes himself to be. Yet evil communications corrupt, gtood manners. We could fancy even an upright and most truthful man sorely tempted lo turn aside from the clear straightpath by the customs of modern diplomacy. The demands also of ancient and modern warfare have niot been conducive to the progress of truth among- mankind. Bismarck, for example, would have smiled with scorn at our simplicity for expecting- anything else than •political hypocrisy in Kruger. Europe ; required" -this -in order to secure its sympathy ag-ainsi the British, ami- the pro-Boers in the Bri.ti.sh Parliament required this political hypocrisy also in Kruger in order to hamper the Government in the prosecution of the war,'and to perplex it in claiming" a•'rightful settlement of affairs when the war is over. Let us then be charitable. A political saint may be tempted to become a political vsinner. White-wash him, as .many Germans and French do, with the diplomatic brush of Bismarck and Xapoleon.

Yet a still more serious charge remains—a. charge of downright, profanity, arisingl out of the ugliest type of religious hypocris}' under the .fair jfjuise of religious patriotism. The London Times is our authority for this open charge of priofnnity against Kru-g-er. It prints front the communication of an American journalist, the letter sent by the President of the Transvaal to the President of the Free State, after the battle of Modder River, when many dead Boers were treated toy their friends as dog'sand cast with a,stone, roxind their necks, into the river—in order to save the trouble of ■burial, and perhaps also in order to pollute the water and destroy the

British by plague or fever. This letter read 'on the 2nd December to the officers and men of the Free State ■blaming' them for want of courage in the fight and inspiring- them to heroic deeds is a precious document, quite worthy the most fanatical Transvaal ''Dopper" and lay-preacher. For example, lvruger says. '"The Lord has shown that He is with us, as the enemy have to regret the loss of hundreds, -while we have only t!o lament the loss of a few!" This barbarous conception of the special favour of the Most High is about equal to that of the Hottentots enslaved by the Boer. The greatest tyrants and persecutors killing- hundreds and thousands of the best blood of the earth might make the same profane claim of divine favour. But Krug-er knew well and happily the Free State Boers knew better by painful experience the falsehood under-lying- the profanity of this utterance. The untold number of dead in the Boer trenches and cast like unclean carrion into the river must have given the lie to this barbaric religious utterance. But the heartless profanity under the guise of patriotic piety is not yet exhausted: Kruger adds, "The decisive struggle is fast approaohing, which is to prove whether or not we shall surrender the country. By no means must we give up the country even if it costs us half of our merr. Your honour must impress upon the officers and burg-hers that they must resist to the death. In the name of the Lord with this detei-min-ation, and with a powerful attack, f have confidence we shall secure the victory. For Christ has said, "Whosoever "would keep his life shall lose it, but whosoever wiould lose it for truth's sake shall keep it." The words of Christ so grandly true when rightly used are made profanely untrue here by this canting- misuse of them. The defeat of .Toubert's hosts on the hills by Buller and his ■brave men determined to relieve Ladysmith at all costs is a proof of this, and the folly of Cronje in offering- battle to Eoberts in the river bed a more striking- proof still. Had Kruger written in a humbler tone, had he recalled his own sins and the crying- sins of the. Transvaal Boers, calling- for severe retribution — as the sister of Olive Schrener writes —we might have had some faith in the reality of his confidence in the Most Highland if defeat should bring- about this, humiliation, accompanied by a change in their oppressive habits towards the natives of Africa, their white flag- treachery, their firing- on ambulances and women's laag-ers, their cowardly murders by poisonl ing rivers, usingl explosive and (poisoned bullets, and their wanton i barbaric destruction of property in the i country through which they pass— practices that violate the cardinal principles • cf civilised warfare —some progress in civilization and Christianity may then be expected. :