THE BOER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11202, 24 October 1899, Page 3

THE BOER.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—A full-length portrait of the Boer (that figure most conspicuous on the world's stage at the present moment) has just been sketched by Mr. Sydney Brooks in the North American Renew. If the etching is a faithful transcript of the original, your readers will admit that this type or humanity is by no means the loftiest that has graced, the annals of the race! A scrutiny, moreover, will reveal the fact that nothing in development foreshadows or warrants the supposition that this unique Dutch element will evolve any of those great characteristics which make men skilful, wise, virile, honourable, just, creditable to themselves, and 'beneficent and useful, to those tribes by whom they are surrounded. They are far more likely to die of political cramp or asphyxia, be suffocated in the stifling atmosphere of crudc, narrow, and selfish measures than they are to be annihilated by the adoption of broad, progressive and liberal legislation. Here is what our American cousin tersely writes anent the Boers:—"A half-nomad people of sullen and unsocial temperament, severed from Europe and its influences for over 200 years, living rudely and contentedly on tho vast arid holdings where their sheep and cattle are pastured—each man as far as may ho from his neighbour—disdaining trade, disdaining agriculture, ignorant to an almost inconceivable degree of ignorance, without music, literature or art, superstitious, grimly religious, thoy are in all things, excopt courage and stubbornness of character, the very antithesis of tho strangers settled among them. The patriarch Abraham in Wall-street would hardly make an odder contrast." Lord Salisbury, in a recent speech, stated: " It is better to induce a man to remove out of the way than have to kick him therefrom," and not only will tho friends of the British Empire confess, but her most bitter and implacable foes bo compelled to admit, that forbearance, persuasion, and patience, have been strained to their utmost limits in order to remove tho Boer from his illegitimate and unwarrantable position on the path of progress, before recourse to the logio and arbitrament of war was resorted to. Tho Boer has been placed in the balances and found wanting; he might easily have laid oil the scale tho righteous and moderate concessions demanded by Sir Alfred Milner, but he would not, and is therefore confronted by tho pomp and circumstance of an ugly war. The dogs have already been let loose, tho far-reaching and tremendous issues of the campaign are momentous in the extreme. It would be presumption, folly, madness, to predicate how long the campaign will last, where and when the great battles will transpire, tho sum total of rank and file that will fall on both sides in tho bloody encounters which are imminent, the hosts of combatants, which on both sides will be engaged in the struggle wherein will loom up the confused noise of the warrior and the garments rolled in blood. But while all these circumstances remain shrouded in the folds of conjecture, while only an approximate realisation of these possibilities can 'bo reached, 'there are three things which are absolutely certain, (a) The annihilation of the Dutch oligarchy, including the figure-head of Kruger and all his works, (n) Tho ratification of a new imperial principle, that whoa the British Empire engages in war, her auxiliaries will be drawn from the remotest parts of that glorious Empire on which the sun never sets. (o) An object-lesson of spontaneity which, in j the prompt manner it has seized and drawn forth the contingents from the colonies, abundantly demonstrates that the British ! Government has but to speak to her patri- | otio and stalwart sons in the far-off lands i to como forth under her colours and it is j done ; she has but to command, and it stands I fast. , Much might bo advanced on each of these ' points, but space will not allow. Yet some j of the germs will none the less stand out and I remain vital long as the British nation shall I endure. Verily, till that flag, which is an abiding symbol of freedom, justice, honesty, ! and truth, shall have faded in colour and I have passed into tho limbo of oblivion. I Hitherto in New Zealand wo have had only I the tie of patriotism, now we have the ! stronger tie of blood linking us to the bravest and most humane battalions on the planet, and in that noble little company we are sendI ing to the Capo to do.ro and die, there is a pledge and earnest, that, notwithstanding thousands of miles may sever us from the homo of our fathers, we are ready and willing with knightly valour and courtesy to go •forth and fight in tho great cause of liberty and freedom, tho acquisition of which has made Great Britain so pre-eminently glorious and great.— am, etc., Jno. Abbott. St. Georgo's Ray Road, October 17.