THE YOUNG BOERS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIII, Issue 15000, 22 November 1899, Page 2

THE YOUNG BOERS.

A special correspondent of tho Age writes: — In my previous ■remarks concerning the brutalities practised towards the refugees I, have spoken mostly of young Boers, but I have done so with good reason. Old fashioned colonists are utterly astonished at the stories of. brutality and gratuitous insults, ' which come from the Transvaal and Free State. They remember tht, even at the time of the last war when public feeling was strained almost beyond endurance, the old Boers, who boat us at Majuba, exhibited many kindly traits, and in their rough way showed what had been called the "chivalry of the veldt," which kept them in the main from conduct such (is now makes it impossible for Englishmen to live with their descendants until they have been .taught /their lesson. Readers of General Butler's "Memoirs of Sir' George Poineroy Colley" will remember the kindly and appreciative terms in which poor Colley spoke of the patriots who were arrayed against him. Colonel Anstruther, on his deathbed, bore testimony to the kindness of his captors. It is true that during the war there were some lamentable instances of brutality, and breach of faith, particularly in the cold blooded murder of Captain Eliot; but these, after all, were isolated instances, and upon the whole the Boers in their rough way behaved very well. Above aIL things, there was no cases of mis behaviour towards helpless women and children. One fruit of their line of conduct was that although there was naturally much bitterness amongst the defeated English after the retrocession, it was found quite possible for English and Dutch to get on in South Africa, and except for the strain that was caused by the events that led up to the Warren expedition in 1885, relationships were not at all bad until the growth of the present trouble, which began a few years ago. It is *a marvellous thing to observe in colonists that the very worst formehters of the present strife are the young educated Afrikanders, who have inherited all the worst qualities of their rough parents, "anil added thereto the veneer only of a civilisation which thay seem unable fully t6 übsorb., f '-.ill "<y thfo f O r them, that ciriU- «

sation as it. has been presented to them by J | the corrupt and demoralised community at Johannesburg has not been very good . training for .young people. Sober Jonnnnesburgces themselves admit that the pla.-e 1 in which they ''make their money is not the ' best place to bring up their inmilie.-, and as a matter ot fact they protect their own ! children us far as possible by sending them away to school or college in. Europe. The half-baked young Africander to whom 1 refer are certainly a most peculiar product of civilisation. They acquire a university education in,' South Africa, o.v rather, 1 snoiid say, they undergo examinations by I the Cape' University after a few years ir | local colleges. They go to London or ' Edinburgh, or even Oxford and Cambridge They have the opportunity of mixing with all the best the o'.d world has to give them. They learn to attire themselves in a faultless fashion that would be no discredit io ' Piccadily. They assimi'ate the most subI tie argot of the music halls and fast qunrI ters ot London, and are not a little vain I o£ their superior acquaintance with matters which sober <IA colonists long ago from ' the mother country have forgotten, or, better still, never knew. Being all lhi<. these young men came back ready to be pitch-forked into eminence over the heads lof men double their age. In the peculiar | condition of thingsr obtaining in the two republics, many of them have been able to ' have' their ambitions gratified. A case in I' point is' that of Advocate Smuts, the present State Attorney of the Transvaal, who is a mere stripping in appearance, and lacks, I should imagine, some years of thirty. This young man *pent five years at Cambridge, ami travelled through thb Continent, yet so little had he absorbed of English spirit that when I was talking to him the other day during the"-conference week at Bloemfonttin, he denounced free spleecli and a .free Press — sentiments to which he has given practical effect of late by driving every decent journalist out of the Transvaal.