ACTOR AND WAR CRITIC.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7296, 8 January 1902, Page 3

ACTOR AND WAR CRITIC.

♦_ INTERVIEW WITH MR WILSON BARRETT. PRAISE OP NEW ZEALAND AUDIENCES. AN ANSWER TO THE PRO-BOERS. [FROM OUB CORRESPONDENT.] DUNEDIN, Jan. 8. In an interview yesterday Mr Wilson Barrett said: "Not only I, myself, but every one of my company, have been exceedingly pleased wiith our visit to Dunedin from every point of view. We have all been delighted with your scenery, and have been making excursions daily, "to our great- enjoyment. As to the audiences, they have been wonderfully receptive and appreciative, and the pleasure of playing to what seems like a Home audience so far from. Home, has been a very great one. Personally, I should like _to fay how miich, I have appreciated the criticisms of the various plays which have appeared in the Press here. Not only has there been an absolute understanding of what I have tried to do both as an actor and author, but this has been expressed in a manner which has enhanced praise in my estimation. Sometimes a notice praises very highly, but gives little satisfaction from the manner in which it is written. In the cases of the plays that have appeared so far, the quality of the Press notices has doubled my satisfaction at receiving them. I must not fail to mention the hospitality we have met with in Dunedin. It has been very great,- ihdeed, and all seem to have gone out of their way to make our visit a happy one for us.'* On the subject of the Boer war Mr Barrett said : " The assertion thait -Mr Chamberlain was responsible for the war is,, to my mind, not oniy unjust but in the highest degree absurd. Mr 'Chamberlain, had no more power to declare war or prepare for it without the consent of the rest of the Cabinet than any other of his associates in the Government.. The war was declared not by Great Britain, but by Mr Kruger, who chose his own time, • knowing that we were . totally unprepared to meet the force h& had gathered together. Then he sent forth a defiant, brutal and impertinent ultimatum, that left England no other course than war. That the Boers were thoroughly ready I am convinced, and that their aims and designs were beyond the mere holding of their independence I am also 1 certain. Piet Grobler was studying minutely history bf the Roman. Republic, and had tha Transvaal Government continued to exist he would probably, in the fulness of time, have become its President. Visions of a greater republic, that would embrace the whole of South Africa, were potent in his mind, it seemed to me, and the fact, of the Boers, commencing war and marching into our territory was another proof of their intentions, It is evident that th 6 British were to' be ousted from even ths semblance of a suzerainty. Any Englishman that travelled in South Africa before the Jameson Raid will tell you that, though many acts of courtesy, kindness arid hospitality were shown by the Boers to "Englishmen, yet, upon the other hand, a solitary Englishman, surrounded by a number of Boers in any public place, would be grossly insulted. It was not an uncommon thdng for half a dozen men to spit a circle of saliva, round an Englishman, in the hope that he would lose his-tem-per and retaliate. That, with other insults, rendered it impossible for Englishmen to live side by side with the Boers. In my opinion the Boers were prepared long before the Jameson Raid to fight, not only for their independence, but for the acquisition of the rest- of South African territory. Whatever the faults of the present Government in lack of preparation and foresight may have been, it is perfectly certain that neither individually nor collectively have they 'been responsible fcr the war."