MR. STEAD AS A PATRIOT

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4396, 29 June 1901, Page 8 (Supplement)

MR. STEAD AS A PATRIOT

“I myself hav e always told the Beers that England is delirious with a political influenza. The Government, in its resolve to refuse any Mud of independence, is as ruthless as death and the grave. Wc—t.ho pro*Boers are a small and almost contemptible mine, rity, and can do nothing—absolutely nothing—to affect or to thwart the policy of the Government. “If we had encouraged the Boors to believe that w e could help them, how bitterly they would reproach us to-day: but I have never had one word of reproach from them. “I would not feel justified in advising the Boers to 1 continue fighting, unless I were prepared to take up the rifle and share their risks. It is a matter for those to decide whose lives depend upon the issue, not for outside critics, who look at the campaign as spectators who witness a tragedy from a comfortable arm chair iu-the stalls of & theatre. I have always told the Boers that they have bnly two friends in the world— God and the Manser rifle. If you would ask m e what the Boers ar e banking on now, I should say two things. They have nothing more to lose by fighting excepting their lives, and everything to, gain by protracting the struggle. The war is costing England £250,000 a day; why should they make us a present of that sum ? They hav© no reason to love us; they are calculating on the future. They are trusting to England becoming embroiled in, say, a war with Russia in China, or some other international complication. “If I am not entirely mistaken, we are on th e verge of a storm across the Atlantic which will rudely shatter our peaceful calculations. When Congress meets the Clayton-Bnlwer treaty will bo torn up into little bits and flung in our faces. It will he a repetition of th e Cleveland message, and we shall have to choose whether we eat humblepie or fight. Tho first serious discussion of the possibility of war between Britain and the United States will do more to keep the Boers from laying down their arms than all tho speeches of all the pro-Boers in existence.”