PAUL KRUGER AND CO.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 17

PAUL KRUGER AND CO.

THE BOND, THE r OREIGN PRESS, and the pulpit. (By Pam Botha-, memoer o-z tnG irico State Triad.) .Mr Paul Bor hi, a typical, rugged, intelligent, and upright Boer, who has been for thirty year? a- member of the Free State Yoiksraad, a progressive legislator, and the right-hand man or Mr John George Frater, is just publishing at Capetown a book on the war. Our correspondent at Bloemfontein, who lias seen the MS of this work, states that its appearance will cause something of a sensation. He has been permitted by Mr Botha to forward the following chapter fer publication-in- the “Daily Mail.” “I have been told that there are people in Europe., in England, and in America who admire Paul Kruger. “I can understand our ignorant Boers being misled by a man of powerful personality, who’, • knowing them well, can play upon their weaknesses and prejudices like an expert player on the strings cf a violin. But vl.*at Com Paul should dupe well educated people, that I cannot u nd ers t a n cl. ' J.iio only way I can explain this mystery is that a veil cf romance has grown round this rugged old man, and that Europe being 6000 miles away accepts him as seen through the eyes of hi? duped burghers. “He made the burghers believe that he was a. prophet, who, like Moses, was the means cf communication between God and his chosen people. This is literally true. In the early days ho often vanished for long periods, and when he came back lie made the people bolieve that he had been communing with God. It was absolutely believed by the burghers that Kruger, who was in Heidelburg at the time, a hundred* miles from the scene, knew the result of the battle of Majuba on the very morning on which it- was fought. “Add to this nis indomitable will, through which he made himself believe that there were two Gods, one in Heaven aiid Paul Kruger on earth, and his undoubted courage, proved in many Kaffir wars, then yon will understand his de?potic influenee. HOME TRUTHS. “Let me tear this veil of false romance from him, and let me try to show the man to you as he really is, and as those Beers whom he has not succeeded in duping always knew him to be. “We know him—an avaricious, unscrupulous and hypocritical man, who sacrificed an entire people to his cupidity. His one aim and object wrA to enrich himself, and lie used every means to this one end. His ambition for power was subordinate to bis love of money. He used the Transvaal as a. milch cow for himself and liis following. “I ask his admirers to show me one good thing he did for his country during 3-1 i his years of power. He spent millions' of the country’s money in protended benefits, millions which were in reality expended for the purpose of feeding; up a crowd of greedy favourites and aasvogels (vultures), men who were necessary to him for the furtherance of Lis own ends. Paul Kruger has been accused of creating many monopolies, but the greatest of all was the monopoly, on a truly impudent and gclossal scale, for swindling the Transvaal—at the head of vhieh ho himself stood. Anyone behind the scenes knows how impossible it was, even for the most dishonest- man, outside of this ring, to gain any advantage out of the Transvaal. In proof of what I say, take the scandals over the mealie and donkey contracts, the dynamite monopoly, the liquor and jam concessions the Netherlands railway, Lewis and Mark’s bottle concession, and numerous others; and; I ask: What benefit has the country derived from any of these” Are there any institutions for the public benefit in the Transvaal, such as schools, universities, industrial mstitu- ; tions, public works, roads, or railways, to justify the vast expenditure of money? 'No! - ' KRUGER’S AVARICE. a “If you want to: know where the money has gone, search the pockets of Paul Kruger and Co. “To: show Kruger’s avarice and Hypocrisy, look at minor matters. His salary as president was £BOOO per annum—and £BOOO which he hoarded year after year; he lived, not like the president of a country ; but like any Dopper farmer, never spending a single sixpence on charities or any other matter of public benefit. And then he had actually had the effrontery to make an application to the Volksraad for an allowance of £BOO a year as entertainment money, of which he also pocketed the larger portion, as the only entertaining he ever did was to give cups of morning coffee and a pipe of tobacco. “The very house in which he lived was a gift of Nelmapius, the concessionaire founder of the Hatherley Distillery. This man was afterwards justly prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced by the presiding judge, but subsequently released on the order of Oom Paul, which proceedings resulted in the resignation of the

judge concerned, who was, it is interesting" to* recall, a- son of Sir John Brand. •’The Matron of the Dynamite Explosion Hospital talks to tins day or Oom Paul’s crocodile tears when he visited the wretched sufferers, mostly Dutch. He talked of his “arme” (poor) burgher-, large tears rolling down liia cheeks, but he never gave a single sixpence to help them. He did, in fact, donate £lO, which he never paid. “During the war, how did Kruger and Steyn feed the destitute wives and children of their “arme burghers” who; were risking their lives on commando? Their rations consisted of mealie meal, Boer meal, and nothing else whatsoever. X know because I was on the relief committee at Kroonst-ad. When I now see the country around Kroons tad made into a- desert, the farm's burned, and the Beer men, women and children huddled together in refugee camps, absolutely destitute, and living on the charity of the British, then I tingle with in- . dignation to hear that the cruel author of all this avoidable misery, rich, smug and safe, is on his -way to Europe, and! going to be received by the Queen of Holland and made a hero of a hero who was known in the Free State thirty years ago, before he. found better means of enriching himself, as a swindling dealer in oranges and tobacco, and one whom wo strongly suspected cf being a. very cute slave dealer. THE CRIES .OF HIS 'GANG. Paul Krugers successful policy against England, for which England is much ro blame, perverted the minds cf the greater portion of the Dutch population of the whole of South Africa. I am convinced that Kruger’s influence completely changed the character of the Bond—an organisation which I believe Hofmeyr started at the Cape with the legitimate purpose of securing certain political privileges, but which, under Kruger’s henchmen, Sauer, Merrinian. Te Water, and others, raised unrest in the Cape Colony. This, successful anti-Bri-tish policy of Kruger created a number of imitators —Steyn, Fischer, Esselen. Smut.s, and numerous other young educated Afrikanders of the Transvaal, Orange Free State, and the Cape Colony, who, misled by his successes, ambitiously hoped by the same means to raise themselves to the same pinnacle. “Krugerism under them developed into a reign cf terror. “If you were anti-Kruger you wer® stigmatised as Enuelschgezind (pro-Eng-lish), a traitor to your own country, and unworthy of a hearing. I have suffered bitterly from .this taunt, especially under Steyn’s regime. The more hostile you were to England the more patriot you were accounted. “This gang, which I wish to be clearly understood spread over the whole of South Africa, used the Bond, the Press, and the pulpit to further its schemes. HIS PRESS AND HIS PULPITS. “Reitz, who I believe to have been an he rest enthusiast-, set himself up as second sponsor co the Bond, and voiced the doctrine of his gang: ‘Africa for the Afrikanders,’ ‘Sweep the English into the ?ea.’ With an alluring cry like this it will be readily understood how easy it was to inflame the imagination of the illiterate and uneducated! Boer and to work upon his. vanity and prejudices. “That pernicious. Tag,’ Carl Borckenhagen’s ‘Bloemfontein Express,” enormously contributed in spreading this doctrine in the Orange Free State. I myself firmly believe that the ‘Express’ was subsidised by Kruger. It. was ns mystery to nie irom where Borekenhagen, a full-blooded German, got his ardent Free State Patriotism. In the Transvaal this was done by the ‘Volksstem,’ written by a Hollander, and subsidised by Kruger ; by the “Rand Posh/ also written by a Hollander, also subsidised, by Paul Kruger ; and in the Cape Colony by the ‘Patriot,’ which was started by intriguers and rebels to their own Government at- the Paarl-—a hotbed of false, Af rikan der is m. ‘Ons Land’ may be an honest paper, but', fostering impossible ideas, it has done ns incalculable, harm. It. grieves .me to think that my poor people, through want of education, had to swallow undL luted the poison prepared for . them by such unscrupulous schemers. ; ~ h " “When I come to think of the'abuse the pulpit made of its influence I feet as if I cannot find words strong enough to express my indignation. , . ‘“God’s word was prostituted; a religious people’s religion was used to. urge them to destruction; a minister of God told me himself, with a, wink, that he had to preach at . the English because otherwise he would lose favour with those in power. These parsons who snorted fire and destruction from the pulpit,, however, carefully stayed at home during; the war. I heard one anxious parson in a war sermon urge his burghers, ‘Go forth, meet we enemy; I shall remain on the mountain top praying for you like Moses of old’ ; solemnly adding that his dear wife, who felt for them as much as he did, would take the place of Aaron and support him when he got tired.” .