THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2370, 3 August 1899, Page 63

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION.

GRAVE POSSIBILITIES. (Fbom Our Own Cohkespohdhnt.) LONDON, June 16. Two oi' three months ago 1 warned my New Zealand readers that the centre of international interest was about to shift from the Soudan and China to South Africa, where grave events were ponding, whose outcome no living soul could foresee. Already those grave events have approached within measurable distance, and the horizon of the near future is heavily overcast. It is not surprising that the various movements on behalf of a national memorial to Mr Gladstone make little or no orogress. The Ration is gradually growing to realiue the direness of the legacy v.hieh lie has bequeathed. "We have only jußt recovered Khartoum — all we couJd now do toward wiping out the stain left on the national honour by our abandonment of it and of Gordon in 1885. Mr Gladstone amazingly characterised the murderers of Gordon, the devastators of a vast country, the enslavers of a large population, the most atrocious and blood-ihirety barbarians on the fane of the earth, a« " a people rightly struggling to l>e free !"' Ho also insisted on '* scuttling " from the Transvaal after oar defeat at Majuba HilJ, lest we should incur "the sin of blood-guiltiness." And now we are reaping the fruit of the miserable seed of cowardly shirking of national duty, which he thpn sowed. But this doe? not come upon us by surprise. It has long been foreseen by all thoughtful persons. And that fruit of past Gladstonisrc is at the present moment the imminence of a South African war. Ere many days bo past that imminence may have become actuality. Nearly three years ago, when I first began to call your attention to the vast preparations for war which were being made with extraordinary energy and profound secrecy by the British Government, when I mentioned the decision — recently announced in an Australian paper as a new discovery — that in case of war the Suez Canal would be blocked and all mails sent round by the Cape, I also referred to some curious preparations which were silently going forward in South Africa, the objact of which evident ly was to secure tho. means of blockading t'ue Traiu/aa.l, should such a step become necessary. Those steps, it may be remembered, included plans for the stoppage of all access to the Republic by sea. And you may perhaps also remember my announcement later of a special understanding between England and Germany, the precise nature of which was not disclosed. All these mysteries are now made clear enoutjh. Siitish troops ha\e been gradually accumulated in South Africa until there are now 10,000 on the spot. This came out through Parliament having to be asked to vote a sum for barrack accommodation. Thereupon there at once arose a shriek from the Little Englanders that this massing of troops was intended as a means of bullying and coercing the poor harmless Boers and of enslaving them once more. The Government offered an " explanation " consisting of vaguest generalities, and the money was voted by a large majority. Since then more and more soldiers have been quietly moved in the fame direction. An understanding has been arrived at with Germany and with Portugal that in case of trouble Germany will not only abstain from interference — even by sympathetic telegrams from the Kaiser to Oom Paul, — but also will offer no objection to the occupation — temporary or permanent, as might be arranged subsequently — of Delagoa Bay, with the consent — already obtained — of Portugal, in order to have a naval base whence to blockade the Boers, and, if need should be, virtually to starve them into submission. All this time President Kruger has not been idle. He has been arming the Boers, fortifying tho country in thoroughly up-to-date style, by means of money wrung by grossly unfair taxation from the oppressed and unrepresented Outlanders. He has 26,000 Burghers ready to take the field — men of whose quality as fighters we have twice had grievous experience, and who, since their defeat of our forces under the unhappy and incompetent Colloy at Majuba Hill, and their capture of the cowardly and tricky crew of Raiders at JCruurersdorn. bp.liave themselves invincible.

I especially against Britishers — of whom, the servile" and'submissive Outlanders are the best specimens they have personal knowledge of. Thus there is no dread on the part of the Boers of war with England, and no dou^t whatever as to its results. They despise tis utterly as Mr Gladstone taught them to cb, and they will not be deterred by any fear of consequences from supporting Kruger m any extremities he may resort to. He therefore has a free hand, and can do as" he pleases. But it must not be supposed for a moment that Kruger himself either holds England so cheap or is willing to drift into war. Quite the contrary. The wily old President is perfectly well aware of his country's relative weakness, but he knows better than to let his people into the secret. He requires to have them solid at his back. And this he has. So he is practising against Great Britain all the arts and wiles of the skilled diplomatist. His policy is to give as little as possible, to delay as much as possible, to obstruct and resist England passively until the very verge of war is readied, and then to concede a trifle with the air of yielding everything, so as to gain time and a fresh starting point for more interminable parleyings and negotiations. He does not mean to fight, and has not tha slightest intention of doing so — if he cs.n help it ! Unhappily, his tactics are just of the overclever kind, which usually over-reach themselves, and to the astonishment of the performer suddenly give way and plunge him into the depths. That is the real danger now. Oom Paul is presuming upon the proverbial forbearance and long-sujferingness of the British people ; he is deliberately practising upon their pationco and reluctance to adopt pxtreme measures, especially against a smaller nation. And so ho hangs back and allows fragmentary concessions to be extracted from him morsel by morsel, only yielding these when the last alternative — " yield or fight " — j is close in sight. j Meanwhile the Oullanders are active in j pressing upon the notice of the British Government the hardship of their case. And they have large support in this country, especially among the Onionisl party, but aiso on the Liberal side. It is urged against their claims to the intervention of the Suzerain Power thai tis they chose to settle and to in- j vest their capital in a practically foreign and independent country they must take the consequences and their chances of being well or ill treated. But on the other side it is pointed out that they settled and invested in the Transvaal on the faith of the proviso in the convention that equality of treatment should be accorded to the Boer and the Britisher, and that this proviso has been flagrantly <n.i at nought by the Boer Government, the Outlanders being reduced to the abject position of mere helots, utterly under subjugation to the Boer masters and rulers. At the same time, it' must not be forgotten that as the Outlanders have un enormous numerical superiority over tbo Boors, and have the advantage also in point of wealth, j the fear lest, if granted th« franchise, they might, by out- voting tho Boers, gradually turn tho tables on them so completely as to* reduoe them in their turn to- the condition of helotry in which they now hold the Outlar*ders is by no means unreasonable. Moreover, tho Boers have in this view the uctivo concurrence of the Orange Free State and the more pa-ssive sympathy of the Dutch section of the Cape colonists, by both of whom any forcible measures against the Transvaal would assuredly be deeply resented, and perhaps desperately resisted. Here, then, will be perceived the foimidable nature of tho difficulty in which England linds hcrseJf through the infamous surrender and betrayai of the country's interests hy \ Mr Gladstone in 1881. If we give active and j substantial support to the Out landers in the shape of coercion as applied to the Boers, then we offend the Orange Free State and the Afrikander Bund. Tf we leave the Outlanders to their fate, wo or.cc more accept a slap in the face fro:r> the Bocsjwe outrage every British subject in South Africa and \v& offer a premium tc the initiation of an overt movement — already often talked of in private— foi the repudiation in South Africa of the British rule, which had proved itself so incompetent, and for the establishment of a Soutli African Republic in which Britishers, Afrikanders, Outlanders, and Boerd might all live and work side by side in pct^o and harmony. I have reason to believe that this latter Possibility is by rip me?ri« ignored by Mr Cecil Rhodes; that, indeed, it nas been very earnestly impressed by him upon the Imperial Government. Much excitement has Iveen caused by tho sudden publication in a Blue Book of a despatch from Sir Alfred A'lilncr, dated May 5. in which he advises that a '" striking proof " I should be given to the Boers of British power j and supremacy. On the other hand, this is ; somewhat qualified by his more recent speech, in which moderate counsels prevail. As to the attitude of the British Government, that is best summed up in a quotation 'from one of Mr Chamberlain's latest despatches, in which he Fays: "Her Majesty's Government are most unwilling to depart from their attitude of reserve and expectancy, but having regard to the position of Great Britain as tho paramount Power in South Africa, ar.d the duty incumbent upon them to protect all British subjects residing in a foreign country, they cannot permanently ignore the exceptional and arbitrary treatment to which their fellow-countrymen and others are exposed, and 'the absolute indifference of the Government of the Republic to the friendly representations which have been made to them on the subject." Upon this The Times offers the following suggestive comment: — "Few Englishmen — few fair-minded men of any nationality, we believe — will refuse to recognise the remarkable sobriety and firmness of this pregnant passage, written in circumstances of no common provocation. \Vo earnestly recommend it to the mature consideration of Mr Kruger."