The Hastings Standard Published Daily SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1897. THE RAID INQUIRY.

Hastings Standard, Issue 375, 17 July 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily

SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1897. THE RAID INQUIRY.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The report of the Transvaal Raid Inquiry Committee fully bears out the anticipations as to Mr Chamberlain's absolute ignorance of the intended invasion. And it is feasible enough, for main lhe object of the financial marauders would be to keep him in ignorance or to so deceive him and yet give his official acts a compromising appearance. This is practically what the Committee says. The Raid was engineered by Mr Cecil Rhodes, and although perhaps the events may have marched more quickly than he desired still there is no disguising the fact that he and his immediate friends prepared the scheme, helped to finance it, and left Dr. Jameson to carry it out as best he could-. Now that the measure of guilt lias been ascertained --and much of it was anticipated—what a wholesale screeching there is about Cecil Rhodes. From the point of view of some journalists and publicists nothing is too harsh to say against him. We fancy the tune would have been very different had the raiders succeeded in their venture and Kruger been brought to his senses at the poinc of the bayonet. 'Under such conditions Mr Rhodes would have been a high Imperialist, an astute nation-builder, and a statesman fit to rank with a Pitt or a Fox. lie has failed and consequently he is a marauder, a millionaire filibuster, a financial fraud and a political poltroon, and all his past brilliant services to South Africa and to England are swamped in the single failure. There was of course no legal justification for the raid ; but those who are even slightly conversant wilh the grievances of the Uitlanders as they existed prior to the raid will admit that morally it was justified. A handful of illiterate, arrogant Boers led by a few crafty concession-hunting, money-spinning Hollanders, sweated the foreign white population —the population too that raised the Transvaal from the poverty level to one of affluence. The Uitlanders, mostly British used to fairness and freedom, were being exploited and robbed by the very creatures whom they had raised from the gutter. Strictly speaking they ought to have submitted to all this ; at any rate that is the opinion of the class of poltroons who think it statesmanlike and grand to flout their native land, and have relied upon constitutional methods to obtain redress. Petitions, deputations, and diplomacy —the only constitutional means afforded the Uitlanders—were tried without success, and British nature at last revolted ; and we venture to think that under similar conditions anywhere else the Britishers would assert themselves in a somewhat similar manner. But in spite of all, the grievances of the Uitlanders continue, and where it has been possible the Boers have heaped up more disabilities Indeed flushed with their success over Jameson's troopers they have given way to arrogance, and were only brought round to their senses when British red-coats began to assemble on the frontiers. With the South African inquiry finished, Mr Chamberlain should feel himself free to bring to a speedy settlement the differences that still exist between the Government of and the British Government. These differences Mr Kruger desires to have submitted to arbitration, but this is scarcely to be granted by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The object of the London Convention is to secure to Great Britain paramountcy in South Africa, and it is not likely, therefore, that any foreign Power will be permitted to get a footing there even in the capacity of arbitration. Wa shall not be surprised if vigorous action is taken to bring about a settlement, and if this cannot be accomplished in a peaceful way then there is nothing for

it but to bring jtlie Maxim gnus and mule batteries into action. A settlement of the political trouble of South Africa has a direct interest for Now Zealand, because so long as these troubles continues our minerial resources will not receive the attention of London financiers.