THE TRANSVAAL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1440, 5 October 1899, Page 52

THE TRANSVAAL.

ESTIMATE OF BOER FORCES. REPUBLICAN RAADS. SECRET SESSIONS CONTINUED. NO TURNING BACK. ATTITUDE OF FREE STATE. TRANSVAALERS LOOTING. SHOTS AT A BRITISH COLUMN. DESPATCH BY LORD SALISBURY. PRETORIA, Wednesday. Some of the burghers are olamouring for the resignation of General Joubert, the Commandant-General, unless lie acts with promptitude. Many Boers doubt the effectiveness of the Mauser lifles, and assert that the cartridges supplied with them are worthless. CAPETOWN, Tuesday. Mr Rose-Innes. ex-Attorney-General, «5,n.d other members of the Cape Afrikander party, hare urged President Kruger to yield to Great Britain's demands, as Mr Chamberlain now guarantees the independence of the Transvaal against any attack. They point out that the word suzerainty was not used in the British despatch. Endeavours are also being made to induce the Transvaal Government to renew the offers to give the franchise to outlanders on the basis of five years' residence, and also increased representation of the goldfields in the First Volks-r-aad. CAPETOWN, Wednesday. The secret deliberations of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Volksraads continue. It is undoubted that there is complete unanimity on the part of the Governments of the two Republics. The general impression at Pretoria and io this city is that war is inevitable. LONDON, Tuesday. A cablegram received by the Transvaal Committee of the British Liberal Forwards from Mr Smuts, AttorneyGeneral in the Transvaal Government, declares that the Republic adheres to the Convention of 1884, which does not allow any interference by Great Britain in the internal affairs of the Transvaal. Mr Michael Davitt, M.P. for East Kerry, in the course of a speech, said that every Irish Nationalist earnestly desired that God would strengthen every Boer who shouldered a rifle to defend the independence of his country. LONDON, Wednesday. The embarkation of three batteries of a/-tiilery at Birkenhead for South Africa was witnessed by 40,000 persons, who enthusiastically cheered the departing menSir Matthew White Ridley, Secretary of State for the Home Department, sneaking at Blackpool, said that though the British Government was conciliatory and patient in its dealings with the Transvaal, it would not turn back from the course which it had entered upon. The "Times" states that Sir Aured Milner, British High.'commissioner for South Africa, has submitted to the Cabinet drastic proposals for dealing with the whole difficulty. It is said that included in Sir Alfred Milner's proposals is a memorandum prepared by Mr J. G. Kotze, formerly Chief Justice of the Transvaal, recounting his interview with President Kruger in 1895. vrhen, the President threatened him with suspension from the Bench unless the Judges upheld the resolutions of the Vbiksraad. The "Daily Telegraph" states that General Joubert reckons on 18,000 troops in the Transvaal, 16,000 from the Orange Free State, 8000 Boers in Cape Colony, 2000 in Natal and 6000 Ho'lande>- and German volunteers. PARIS, Wednesday. The ''Temps" and the "Debats" both publish articles on the Transvaal crisis in which they advise the Boers vo attack before the British are ready. MELBOURNE. Wednesday. A movement has been inaugurated en the Stock Exchange to raise a fund or £-20.000 with which to insure the lives of any Victorian volunteers who go to the Transvaal, and £SOOO a.as'already been subscribed. The -conference of -Australian Commandants convened by the Victorian Government to consider the question of the ce-3patch of a Federal Australian eonluigenb will take place on Friday. The Minister of Defence (Mr McC-ul-lor/h) considers that the colonial Governments should find the cost ov transpmt to South Africa, otherwise the gift r-o the Empire will be a poor one. The Aberdeen liner Australasian, which ha.s sailed for Capetown, Nat-a? -and London, took 170,000 sovereigns, 2500 bnies of compressed fodder and a large quantity of provisions for Sout.i Africa-. Other steamers are filling up wuh.cargoes for the Gape.

(Received September 29, 0.35 a.m.) PRETORIA, Wednesday. The "Standard and Diggers' News," one of the Boer organs at Johannesburg, says that President Kruger is more determined than to resist the British demands, and that the authorities at Pretoria are not desirous of another enance of settling the points at issue. PRETORIA, Thursday. The latest British despatch has intensified the independent spirit of the Boers. It is expected that President Kruger will demand that the mo ring forward of British reinforcements be stopped pending the receipt of Great Britain's final proposals. A run on the banks doing business in Pretoria has set in. BLOEMFON xjlIN, Thursday. The Orange Free State Voiksraad, by unanimous resolution: has instructed the Government to try to ensure peace without violating the honour and independence of the Republic, and has also promised tiiat the Free State will faithfully fulfil its treaty obligations to the Transvaal. President Stewi has sent his family to Capetown. DURBAN, Thursday. Cape boys employed as muleteers by the British at Ladysmith have mutinied, and refused to go to the front. Two shots were fired at a. British column which was marching to Dundee, near the Transvaal border, but the persons who fired them were not discovered. CAPETOWN, Wednesday. Boers are looting on the Bechuanalaud border, and molesting the Chinese and blacks in Johannesburg, hoping thereby to force Great Britain's hand. CAPETOWN, Thursday. Attempts are being made by the Transvaal authorities to purchase large supplies of wheat and tinned meats in this city. LONDON, Wednesday. The Marquis of Salisbury has in a despatch assured the Netherlands Government that the integrity and independence of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State will be guaranteed if the advice of Great Britain, which is in the interests of all races, be accepted. Great Britain's preparations for war have already cost a million sterling. LONDON, Thursday. The steamer Sumatra will convey the Ist Battalion (34th Foot) of the Border Regiment from Malta to South Africa. the British War Department is nurchasing 20,000 mules in the United-States and Italy for employment in South African opera Lious. MELBOURNE, Thursday. The Minister of Defence estimates Victoria's share of the cost of the proposed Australian contingent for the Transvaal at from £50,000 to £60,000. BRISBANE, Thursda y. in the Legislative Assembly the Premier (Mr Dickson) stated that the Government intended to obtain the sanction of Parliament before sending troops to the Transvaal. He was unable to say whether the expenses were to be borne by the colony till a reply was received from the Imperial authorities. ALBAN y, Thursday. Three Imperial ofheers are passengers by the K.M.S. Himalaya, which has just arrived from London. They are on their wav to Melbourne to purchase horses. SVDNEx, Thursday. An Australian circus has purchased ihe lion which was presented by Mr Cecil Rhode; to Pretoria, and ivhch President Kruger caused io be returned.

'THE GAME IS UP." The "Broad Arrow," tne British military newspaper, t wrote recently:—lf constant meetings of the Mobilisation Committee and the preparation of programmes had any necessary result, an army corps would at this moment be as good as on its way to the Jape. Troops have been detailed for the service, ships to carry them have been inquired for, the necessary supplies for a force in the field have been duly listed, and the cost of an expedition has been carefully estimated. It is certain that the existing force at the C.tpe is entirely inadequate for the enforcement of a policy of insistence. : whilst it is understood that we are going to insist. As things stand there would be direct danger in formulating demands which might be answered by an immediate declaration of war on the part of the South African Pvepuhlic. This is admitted by the military authorities, and as a preliminary step it was first judged necessary to double our army in South Africa. But the arrangements for this were abandoned, not. we believe, because 10,000 men were not urgently needed, hut because it was judged that nothing short c-f a complete army corps should be employed, to make a safe thing of the latest, and it was to be hoped the last, of the Transvaal wars. The necessjties of the ease are variously estimated. There are schemes in hand, we belive, varying from 10.000 to 40,000. Sir Eedvers Builer is sold to incline to the latter figure, and probabiy bo is right. The Boers have so far had success, and they may put their faith in the God of Bat-

ties, whom they believe to be on their side. But they cannot refuse to accept facts when facts are brought home to them ; and when 40.000 troops are placed under orders for South Africa there is no misunderstanding what this means. It means that the game is up. BRITAIN MUST ASSERT HER PARAAiuiiiNTCY. The Capetown correspondent of the "Age" writes: One thing only seems clear, namely that Great Britain at last realised that unless by some striking act—tc quote Sir Alfred Milner's famous words —she demonstrates her real paramountey in this country, she will lese South Africa, and send a shoo': throughout the Empire that may end in a general disintegration. We South Africans feci that if that, point or v has been reached, we have nor suffered in vain: hut that, seeing the fac is established, ue ore prepared to suffer yet more if only the striking act—l ".o not mean necessarily war—be speedv and be effect've. How necessary a speedy solution has become may be judged from a single statement of fact, which I have at firsthand. I was talking last week to a member of the Johannesburg Jtveiief Committee, who t.-d" me that in one week the committee had dealt with 1500 cases of real dist t-s* in the so-called golden city: and that, in spite cr denials, he had witnessed with his own eyes the great ex his from the goldfields of the class ,-ho are the mainstay of all theso busmesses which <..eal in goods beyond tin- bare necessaries of life. Trade on rke Rand—as the goldbearing district which has Johannesburg for its centre i.s called —is practically at. a standstill, rending a settlement of the tremendous problem: Is the outlander. British pad foreign, to continue a degraded helot, or is he to be placed upon a political equality with his fellows of white complexion who, by an accident—or, as some say, by a terrible blunder—hold the reins of government—it would he to say who rule the South African republic J' Nor is Johannesburg alone a sufferer. The shrinkage of trade occasioned by the stagnation on the Rand affects every port in the country, from Capetown to Deiagoa Bay; it reacts upon Great Britain and the other European manufacturing centres; it affects America; and last, though by no means least, it affects Australia, whose exports to South Africa, already of large and ever-increasing volume! would be indefinitely increased were the Transvaal once at rest. There is another way in which Australasia is affected by the existing state of things. Your sons and daughters who have come over to try their fortunes in this country, and so unconsciously to demonstrate the homogeneity of the Empire, have been bitterly disappointed, and in to.o many cases have returned to your shores, simply an ! solely because they could not endure the political serfdom of the Rand, coupled with the impossibility of keeping soul and body together amid the depression which has settled down upon the city from which they had hoped such great things. MR H. M. STANLEY'S IMPRESSIONS. We make the following extracts from Mr H. M. Stanley's book "Through South Africa," written last year as the result of a tour through Rhodesia, the Transvaal, Natal and the Cape: MAFEKING. "An hour later we arrived at Mafcking, on the Moloppo river, a tributary of the Orange river. Mafeking will always be ceb hrated in the future a-s the place whence Jameson started on his desperate incursion into the Dutch Republic. The Moloppo river contains lengthy pools of water along its deepened course, but the " inhabitants of Mafeking are suoplied by copious springs from Montsioa's old f-M'rn. The town lies on the north, or right bank, and is 870 miles from Capetown. It is 4194 ft above the sea. Already it has been laid out in broad streets, which are planted with trees, and, as these are flourishing, they promise to furnish grateful shade in a fewyears. Outside of the town there is not a tree in sight, scarcely a shrub, and consequently it is more purely a prairie town than any other. Due east of it lies Pretoria, the Boer capital, about 180 miles distant." JOHANNESBURG. ''Reduced to matter-of-fact figures, Johannesburg proper covers four square miles; its roads and streets are 126 miles in length, 21 miles of which are macadamised, and 10 miles have tram lines. The city's parks and open spaces occupy 84 acres. xiieie have bean 20 miles of gas-piping laid, while the electric light is supplied by 42 miles of wire. The - waterworks supply bQO,OOO gallons of water daily for domestic use, exclusive of what is required for the mines and street watering. The population of the town at the census of July, 1896, consisted of 7.9,315 males and 22,763 females, of whom 82,357 males and 18,520 females were Europeans, making a total European population of 50,8/ s. It is believed that during the seventeen months which have elapsed this population has been augmented to aoout 55,000. "The .streets of the city 7 generally are about 50ft wide, while the principal business streets average 90ft in width. Several of these are flanked by buildings which would be no discredit to any provincial city in England, while the array of shops have their windows as artistically dressed with wares as those of Regent street, in London, which gave me some

idea of the character and good taste of the people." THE PRESIDENT. 'T do not supoose there axe.any people in the world so well represented by a single prominent man as the Boers ot South Africa, are represented by Mr Kruger. He is pre-eminently the Bocj of Boers in character, in intellect, and in disposition, and that is one reason why he has such absolute control over his-people. His obstinacy—and no man with a face like, his could be otherwise than obstinate—his people call strength. Age and its infirmities have intensified it. . . The spirit of the Boer, as it has impressed itself on rav mind since I crossed toe Vaal, forbids me to believe that while Kruger lives there can be any amelioration in the con ait-ion of the Johannesburger. The Boers have endowed Kruger with almost absolute power, and if tip to 72 years of age Kruger has been the incarnation of hostility to England, it woyiM be a miracle indeed if in his extreme old age he should be converted. " \ND THE" PRESIDENTS PROFESSIONS. •Tfc strikes me with wonder that with our astuteness, our experience, and our knowledge of human nature, we .should be so credulous of these ninny professions of amitv from the Transvaal. I am fresh frcm'my visit to Mr Kruger. It was b\\: yc r :Ter.iay I heard Ibe dismal complaints or Johannesburg; I have now co:ne back from o look at the fortified heights of Pretoria/ I open the last Blue Book and extract the following from'th'o Boer (despatches :—. i. 'No unfriendliness; is intended by Voiksraad; it -would be unfair to interpret it as such. _ 2. ■This Government also can give tae assurances that, it lias no other than peaceable intentions, 3. 'This Government again expresses its opinion that through friendly co-op-eration the confidence'so rudely shaken as well as peace and prosperity will he restored. 4. 'The Government readily gives the assurance that there is no intention on its part of infringing its obligations. 0.~ 'This Government need hardly assure her Majesty's Government that it will comply with its obligations as soon as it is m a position to do so. 6. 'His Honor the President requests me to assure you that there is no intention on his part to depart from the terms of the Loudon Convention, and that he is anxious to act throughout in conformity with those assurances.' "One who knows. anything about the conditions under- which the Johannesburgers live need not come to Pretoria, to .know how hollow and insincere these and countless other professions are but when read at Pretoria, with those four forts constructed with lavish expense, commanding the approaches to the capital from the Johannesburg direction, the- mendacity of the writer seems appalling. . . . One cannot but conclude that though the President reads the Bible daily, he must have overlooked the sentences that apply to liars." THE BOERS~: A CRITICISM." "It is now some years ago," says a. writer in the "Church 'Gazette," -ant I had an opportunity of making the acquaintance of several members of the Boers' Government, but I well remember the day and the conversation. We soon became quite friendly, because, as it happened, my father's name, which was at one time well known to all the religious people in Holland, was quite familiar to them. They had read several of his books. .We talked of educational matters, and I left my hosts half an hour after with a feelhig.that I could respect, them, especially from a distance, but that I shou.u be very sorry to live under their paternal Government. They are strong men. these Beers, in whom the old Balavirhr blood mingle-, with that of the Lev Teuton and "the Huguenot; but, like the _ma- • jority of forceful men, they are especially one-idea'd. The great workers pr the world have generally been monomaniacs. With the Dutch Boers, the uppermost thought in their minds is that they are the chosen people. Consequently a Boer speaks of himself and his,countrymen as 'Mensclv' (human beings): the rest, of humanity is described as 'sohrosei' (creatures). When they migrated from the Cape Colony in 1837, one of their grievances, as stated in the solemn declaration which they issued at the tune was the emancipation of the siaves bv the British. That the coloured people, in fact, that anv terrestrial being should,, be placed on perfect political equality with the Boers, seemed to them perfectly monstrous. It was a wicked attack en ; their divine prerogatives. They naturaliv think that thev are prime favourites with Providence, and, that outlanders belong to a different category from themselves. Elementary education in the Transvaal is still in a very backward condition; Six months' schooling: is considered sufficient irnnost cases. The principal subjects of instruction are the Old Testament and the Heidelberg catechism. Geography and history are studiously avoided. A young lady, a farmers daughter, was surprised to learn that Europe was larger than Johannesburg. A youthful farmer gave it as his opinion that 300 Boers Avould have routed the French and German armies combined. The schoolmaster is now busily at work, and a change for the better may, therefore, not unreasonably be hoped for. The two features in Boerdom which will probably never alter are its overwhelming or- . thodoxy and its habit of sleeping in the clothes worn during the day."