W. T. STEAD.

Thames Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9619, 23 April 1900, Page 2

W. T. STEAD.

HIS INCONSISTENCY EXPOSED. The above gentleman, who has lately made himself a rather- pitable exhibition to flthe world, is fond of drawing "the deadly parallel" . upon Mr Chamberlain and Mr Cecil Rhodes. These gentlemen can afford to. treat his hysterical effusions with that silence which is more effective than even contemptuous recognition, but the smaller fry are tempted to answer back, and they at times do it very neatly. For example, a correspondent of the Daily. News calls attention to what he describes as the hopeless inconsistency of Mr W. T. Stead on the Transvaal question. In the 'Review of Reviews' for August, 1895, Mr Stead said: "Of course the situation in the Transvaal cannot last: The Republic is dominated by a majority of Boers, who constitute an oligarchy, whose domination is obnoxious to an immense majority of the white population. These aliens or Uitlanders have formed themselves into a National League for the purpose of demanding a franchise under certain conditions (which are set out). There is no intention on the part of the Boers to yield to this demand. There is, however, oneUitlander who is persona gratissima to the Boers, and tha.t is the Hollander., who appars to run the Republic in the interests of Amsterdam, and who is the rally centre of Boer resistance to the enfranchisement of the Uitlander." In the issue of February 1896 (just after the Jameson raid), he puts the question : "What was the situation in which the Johannesburgera found themselves'!" and remarks that that question "was very effectively answered by Mr Gairett, whoso conduct ont he Cape Times during this critical time has been simply superb, and worthy of the best traditions of British journalism." Mr Ga-r----rett says: "For weeks it (the Government of President Kruger) has been ostentatiously bringing offensive arms to bear on Johannesburg. Tho Uitlandef has seen contracts entered into for building with his money forts opl the latest pattern of scientific destructiveness, which can be aimed at no one but himself; a fort at Pretoria at .£250,000, openly commanding Johannesburg. . . Nay, more, a battery of quick-firers has been established on the Hospital Hill, directly overlooking the streets of Johannesburg. Why, the town has .been living under a perfect grinning arsenal of threats of bloodshed. Such action.may terrify men into submission, but it may also madden them into an outbreak." In the same issue Mr Stead describes President Kruger as the "official patron of the red-handed filibusters of 1881." In the issue of October, 1896, Mr Stead says: "President Kruger 1 is as little araenablo to reason as Abdul Hamid to the representations of the friends of freedom. He keeps his two captives under lock and key, he was spent nearly a million sterling over arms and munitions of war, and he is securing laws from the Ra-ad which will enable him to gag the Press, to banish every Englishman whon he distrusts, and to confiscate to an indefinite extent the property of the crold miners of the Rand. For the present we must just grin and bear it We have made sufficient mistakes to deter us .from action. It » now t.h« turn of the Boer to make the inevitable blunders which will enable us to recover lost ground. The more he oppresses the Uitlanders the more chance there is of that interesting settler asserting his rights with resolution and, if need be, by revolution.' We can imagine what would now be said by Mr Stead, in his present campaign of whitewashing the Boers, if Mv Chamberlain bad used such, language in 1896,