A DREAM RAID.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 141, 13 June 1908, Page 16

A DREAM RAID.

Tidings of another projected raid in South Africa have leaked out owing to the loquacity of General Francois Joubert Pionaar, the ex-Boer leader, who surrendered with 1200 men to the Portuguese authorities at Komati Poort in September, 1900, rather than take the risks of an engagement with the pursuing British force under General PoleCarew. Pienaar was interned in an old castle at Lisbon until the conclusion of tne nar, when he was released and left penniless in Europe. He threw himself on the mercy of the Colonial Office, and •was so well treated that ho "shed tears" at their kindness. He went out in October, 1905, to Portuguese West Africa, with the intention of settling. He purchased property, and was elected leader of a Boer colony there. He went with a Boer force to assist in an expedition against a Kaffir chief, and saw so much of the horrors of the Portuguese slave trade that he felt bound to write to the Lisbon Government. At once a system of persecution arose against him, and he was compelled to leave the colony. He said that if it had not been for the British Consul he would not have got . out of the country alive.

General Pienaar tried in vain to get compensation from the Portuguese Government through the Colonial Office, and arrived in this country last autumn to seek redress in person. It h not on record that he got any, but he appears whilst here to. have foregathered with certain other choice spirits not unknown in Fleet-street, and to have hatched a plot for the invasion' of Portuguese West Africa. Among his associates in tiiis enterprise were, it is understood, several well-known London journalists, including our old friend "Smiler" Plales, and Mr. Alfred Edmonds, editor of the "Throne" nswspaper. Most raids have some humanitarian disguise. In the ease of the Jameson Raid it was alleged to be desired to liberate the '•helots" of the Rand. The Pienaar .raid is alleged to be directed against the slave trade of Portuguese West Africa, and inter alia the suppression of Portuguese influence in that country. The conspirator's plans included the raising of a force of 500 armed men, ■with two Maxim-Xordenfeldt guns and a mule train at a cost of £30,000. "Smiler" Hales was to be second in comn.dnd of this force.

Pienaar's English confreres appear to have kept their mouths shut concerning, the proposed raid, but on going ta America in search of additional capital for the enterprise, the ex-Boer leader apparently allowed the true nature of his project for the "civilising and evangelising" of Portuguese West Africa to leak out, with the result that the Foreign Office got wind of the enterprise. In December last the General received a plain warning that his contemplated attack "on certain possessions of Powers -with -which His Majesty the King is at peace ,, would entail upon him as a British subject serious penalties under Section 2 of the Foreign Enlistment Act. To this General Pienaar replied, disavowing complicity or connivance in any act unapproved of by the British Government, but he added: "I cannot refrain from saying, however, that in my own mind I am thoroughly convinced that it is the God-given mission of Great Britain to Christianise and civilise the' peoples of the Angola and Congo, and I cannot see how this is to be done unless these countries become British possessions, and I hope when my Government awakens to this fact it will make use of my humble services in carrying out such an event."

The British Government, however, with strange and unaccountable obstinacy, refuses to take -up its "God-given Mission," and has apparentlj- no uee for Pienaar in any role. So he lingers in America, trying nobly to raise money for the suppression by peaceful means of the slave trade in Africa. So far his success appears to have been inconsiderable when viewed from the rinancial standnoint.

Socially, he appears to enjoy in New York much the same sort of vogue as was onjoyed a few years ago in London by Buffalo Bill. As he appears in American society to-day; with hie carefully trimmed beard and moustache, well groomed, an-d generally fashionably dressed in frock coat, silk hat, and diamond tie pin, General Pienaar has more in common with the Parisian boulevardier than the Boer general as commonly pictured. General Pienaar, however, was ill ways a bit of a swell, and believes in going with the times. Being a handsome man, of goodly proportions, he looks exceedingly well in his smart London clothes, and is a general favourite with the fair sex.