British Blunderland

Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 30

British Blunderland

TO THE EDITOB.

Sib, — Thai Africa is the land of black men, black crimes, and black moral darkness is well known; but it also so manifestly the land of black British blunders that it ought in future to be called British Blunderland or Bungleland as p corrective to our nationl conceit. Our connection with Africa dales from the acquisition of Tangier in 1660, and our blunders begin with the surrender, a few years later, of that most valuable foothold on the coast of Africa by Charles 11, a prince who even among such sovereigns a 9 Edward IV, Henry 111, and George IV may dispute with John the bad preeminence of being the worst — yet withal a clear-sighted and clever man, who knew what be wanted and how to get it. That Charles revered his father wo have no reason to doubt; but his heart was filled with hatred of England, her Parliament, her people, and even of her religion. If it were maintained that Charles had determined, in revenge for the tragic fate of Ilia father, to plunge England, the cause of all that father's woes, and of the miseries of his own early years, into an abyss of shame and disgrace, he may be said to have entirely Bucceedod. Charles was a thoroughly selfish man, but perhaps neither great enough nor base enough to act so infamous a part. He returned to England resolved to dovote himselt to a life of pleasure, and the policy of his reign •was directed to maintaining himself in his position, and to obtaining money for the expenses of his luxurious life. So Tangier was abandoned, Dunkirk sold, and a pension accepted from France. His immoral life led him to abandon the church which his father had so sincerely loved, because it could not grant him absolution for such a life as his, and to enter one which did claim that power, and when after five-and-twenty years of a luxurious and voluptuous reign lie died shriven, absolved, and oiled, he had the satisfaction of believing that he had made the best of this world, secured his happiness in the next, and wounded in the inmost sanctuary of its honour the nation that sent his father to the scaffold.

I will not dwell, however^ upon the loss of Tangier, nor on the surrender of Egypt after its conquest by Nelson, Abercrombie, and Hutchison, nor on the long apathy that characterised British policy in Africa from 1815 to 1870. But I will halt at the year last-men-tioned. Never in the whole course of our history had such an excellent opportunity been offered to a British. Government to widen the sphere of her colonising and commercial activity, and to extend her civilising and beneficent influence in Africa and elsewhere than at the epoch of the Franco-German war. It may be quite true that in 1815 the supremacy of Britain, both on land and sea, was even less disputed; but at that date her finances were disorgatised and her energies exhausted by a lorg and costly war; her resources were only partially developed , her mills bad enough to do to supply domestic requirements ; and lastly her population was comparatively small, and not in excess of the wants of the rapidly-in-oreasing factories of the kingdom. In 1870, however, almost the whole-continent of Africa lay open to her enterprise. Her banks were overflowing with money, her warehouses with goods; and her numerous population were clamouring for more outlets for their energy and their manufactures. But through the fatuousness of the politicians (statesmen I will not call them, for their politics never rose above the level of a barber's shop) who then administered ihe affairs of Great Britain, the golden moment was lost never to be regained. TJp to 1884 the coast of South-west Africa from the Orange River to Cape Frio had been generally regarded as British, and was usually so coloured even on German map 3. Prince Bismarck, however, was aware that the British Grovernment had never formally annexed it, and civilly enough invited Lord Granvilie either to take the coast or leave it to Germany. His .Lordship could not make up hia_ mind to do either, but began- writing procrastinating despatches to Berlin, and thundering at the Cape Government for presuming to expect an Imperial policy from him. Afc length, after waiting several months for a decided answer from the fit mouthpiece of a timid and irresolute Cabinet, " the man of blood and iron " seized, and seized for ever, those ample regions.

Then broke out the petulance of the irritated nobleman, but his plaintive despatches and his angry remonstrances were all useless ; the hour for action had come and iound Lord Granvilie wanting, and had gone and left him in the lurch with nothing better to do than to admire the sweet simplicity of a meridian as a barrier against an aggressive and implacable rival, instead of our ever-faifchful ally,

" The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.' :

Lord Granvilie, however, did not immediately give up the game he resolved to try and over-reach Bismarck! He proposed to limit the new German possession to a narrow strip of the coast. But he knew 110$ the man he had to deal with. That astute statesman invented for Lord G-rairville's special benefit the principle or law of the " Hinterland," which Germany and France have since worked with such infamous success at the expense of Great Britain, and our Government was coerced into dividing south-west Africa into two fairly equal parts.

In 1878 Lord Beaconsfield annexed the Transvaal, arid by securing possession of Walvisch Bay, pointed out what he considered should be the policy of G-reat Britain m South Africa.

In. 18S0 Mr Gladstone, m conjunction with his colleague Lord Derby — par ignobile fralmm — transcended al] former blunders by giving back the country lo the Boers — an act winch has paralysed to this day British influence in South Africa, and which, unless it. can he undone, seems destined lo totally destroy it. There is no occasion to deny or under-ratc tho generosity of the feeling which prompts a vastly stronger nation to yield to a weaker rather than to break it ~bj oppression But thaiexcuse is not at Mr Gladstone's service. It was by his orders that British regiments were .sent to the Transvaal to nhoou down all Boera fond m araied resistance. What mocking spirit was it then thai tempted Ei Gladstone on the eve of Laing'p Nek to pose as the god or war, to flash the lightning from his timid eyes pjid ia roar. iko. iiiunder .with, his jjallid

lips; and after Majuba to trip upon the scene bedizened as the seraph, of peace, prattling to the jeering Boers a lot of hypocritical cant about the naughtiness of war, and the beautifulness of brotherly love. Mr Gladstone is a great financier, a very learned, virtuous, and religious man, and has the gift of saying nothing in more and finer words than the subject deserves. But liis eloquence is merely an interminable stream of words, now spreading widely over meaningless shoals, and now flowing in a portentous flood through unintelligible (Jeeps. Volumes upon volumes have been filled with his speeches ; but fifty volumes and fifty years of talk have not produced one pregnant sentence to echo in posterity's ear; not one flash of humour to charm away a care ; nor one stirring phrase to quicken our blood and hearten \is to some nobie enterprise. With your permission I shall return to the subject in ar futue issue. — I am, etc.,

SOUTHLANDEB.