The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1900. AFRIKANDERISM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 292, 8 December 1900, Page 4

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

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1900. AFRIKANDERISM.

For tho cause that lacks assistance, For the -wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that *ye can do.

Gunpowder and steel are notv the only factors in the solution of the South African difficulty; and now that they have played their chief part, and played it successfully, that point is becoming more and more apparent. The alarming revelation lof disaffection among the Dutch of Cape Colony—the British Mother Colony of South Africa at the very moment when 'even Mr Kruger is forced to confess that his

cause is a lost one, puts us face to face with quite an unexpected position. The utter discomfiture of the , Free Staters and Transvaalers seems to have intensified the anti-British sentiment among their neighbours in Cape Colony, and it is plain that while active rebellion may be put down by force ,the. hostile spirit is more likely to be fostered by such methods. Since the commencement of hostilities, the danger which would arise from the survival of racial animosity after the war was over has been clearly foreseen. Now we must expect to experience it. How it is to be effectively dealt with is a most difficult question to answer, and it would not be a surprise if it proved a harder task to accomplish effectively than even the war has been. To bring into harmony the two opposing elements in the population will be a work requiring the most consummate statesmanship. On the one hand the Dutch must be made to forget as speedily as possible that they are a. subject race; on the other hand, the freedom accorded them must not, be such as to permit of their taking undue advantage of it to prejudice British interests. If left quite unfettered, which in most respects it is desirable they should be, their power to thwart even by semi-constitutional means British aims in South Africa is far from insignificant. In. Cape Colony, for instance, the Dutch have a substantial majority in the Legislative Assembly. In the Free State, where they constitute nine-elevenths of the population, the}' are paramount. And in the Transvaal their influence will, of course, be very considerable. That is to say, in three out of the five future Governments ofSouthAfrica the Dutch element will have the controlling hand.

The danger to British interests which that element constitutes lies in its homogeneous character, its singleness of aim, and in the fact that it is already organised in a large measure. Prior to the war the Afrikander Bond represented the most politically active of the Dutch population, and the great majority of those it did not actually number among its members were to all intents subject to its sway. The enormous interest which has evidently been taken in the conference of the Bond at Worcester, and the attempts on the part of the Boer prisoners to stir up the Dutch of Cape Colony before the meeting took place would indicate that the power of the organisation is still great. Indeed, .we are disposed to think it was never greater buttressed as it must certainly now be by the active favour of every Dutchman who is hostile to Great Britain, and looks to the Bond to win for him something of what the war has lost. The Bond is more than ever a force to be reckoned with, and what it may determine on cannot but affect the tempei of the Dutch residents in Cape Colon}*. That it should declare itself otherwise than hostile to British aims at this crisis was not to be expected for a moment, in June last, when a congress of the organisation was held at Graaf Reinet, only ten members supported Mr.

Sehreiners proposals to punish the ringleaders oi' the rebels with imprisonment and disfranchisement. Mr. Schreiner lost the Premiership on the same grounds, his colleagues siding with the Bond. These indications of the latter's true sympathies and objects were scarcely needed for them to be fully understood. They have been explicitly declared in the Dutch journals; and*it is not difficult to detect the same disloyal spirit when reading* between the lines of the more guarded official utterances of the organisation. The report of the Worcester Conference, which reaches us today, reveals the fact that temperate counsels are not in favour with the mass of the Dutch.

Without a doubt, before the Boer war, or even before relations had became so strained between the Transvaal and Great Britain as'to threaten hostilities, the Afrikander Bond contemplated an independent South Africa, and one in which the Dutch element would predominate. The position of things favoured such a hope. Only in Natal and Rhodesia did the British element prevail beyond all question. The Transvaal and Orange Free State were already independent Dutch State, and, as we have said before, the Dutch nominees held the majority of seats in the Cape Parliament, and the Government was under the thumb of the Bond. With the downfall of the Republics that hope has been decidedly overcast. Bereft of their independence they are no longer the stronghold of Afrikanderdom, which they once were, and will never again be in the position to render the cause that, military assistance which it no doubt counted on as a chief factor in the final struggle against Great Britain. The struggle, so far as arms are concerned, is at an end now. The wiser members of the Bond perceive that, and are entreating the Dutch Reformed Church, which, as the strongest ally of the Bond, exercises an enormous influence over all the inhabitants, to stop the useless and hopeless resistance. The Bond, however, while recognising the impossibility of offering an effective resistance to the British arms, will, we are afraid, relax none of its* -Sorts to cherish racial animosity, and to preserve distinct the racial sentiment and traditions of the. South African Dutch. The plan may not lead the Afrikanders any nearer to the consummation of their dream-=an independent Dutch South Africa—but it must oppose very serious obstacles to the policy of reconciliation Great Britain has in view.