THE HUMANITY OF BOTHA.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19032, 9 June 1924, Page 10

THE HUMANITY OF BOTHA.

(By Stuart Hodgson.) “Dear Madam and all, me and General took Winduk recently. The General keeps well.” So Genera] Botha’s English manservant (who had fought as a British soldier through the South African War) to Mrs. Botha, when “me and the General” were busy conquering German South West Africa, proving that the right sort of great man may be a hero even to his valet. Another story of the same man looking at photograph of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘‘Last Supper,” and saying to Miss Botha, “I can’t make out where the General is sitting at this dinner, can you, Miss?” is equally eloquent. And scattered hints and stray sayings and doings of the “General’s” make you understand this devotion. He was so human in his wisdom and so wise in his humanity. “Never kill a man if you can capture him, or he will never have a chance to be sorry” is one gem; and there is another charming picture of him towards the end. He was on strict diet, but feeling very well at sea one day he exceeded on preserved ginger. Mrs. Botha was seriously exasperated with him and showed it. So after dinner he came to her and said, “Smile at me again, Annie.” Small things, but the sort of thing that makes a man luved in this queer world of inealcuable values. REBELLION STORY. The best chapters in Lord Buxton’s admirable study are those of the rebellion. The story is quite simply told, but the effect is surprisingly vivid. As a description by a very competent and well-informed eye-witness of this obscure drama of the war, I imagine these chapters have permanent historical value. It is a dramatic story, both in the' curious inconsquent accident which ruined the chances of the revolt at the beginning. Maritz was a mere crook; Beyers a weakling, perfidious from pusillanimity; but de la Rey was a man of refined and even beautiful character, passionately beloved by Botha himself. The patrol who fired on Beyers and de la Rey as their car drove out of Johannesburg, ignoring the signals, were merely doing their ordinary police duty; but their action had extraordinary political results. An accidental shot killed de la Rey; Beyers was so frightened that he relapsed into momentary loyalty in the decisive days that followed; and the crook, Maritz, was left swinging in a noose of his own making. Even so, it was touch and go. Not so much that the leaven of war bitterness still worked, as that the temper of the people was so remarkably indifferent and regarded the issue so lightly. Thus teachers, out with the rebels, wrote to the Director of Educa tion, apologising for their absence, and suggesting that the time might bje de ducted from subsequent leave. A railway man, also “out,” wrote to say that he had taken three cases of petroleum, and they had better stop the price out of his pay. The wife of a major in the Defence Force, who had deserted, was very angry because the Government would not advance part of his pay on a “stop order,” and said her husband *s private affairs had nothing to do with her. One of the rebel leaders in prison applied to be let out on parole to attend the wedding of his daughter to an Englishman who could no Dutch. Where so few cared or understood for what they were taking tho field, it was manifestly most doubtful right up to the end on which side they would fight.

WHAT BOTHA DID. Botha was a man of very slight, formal education, and a corresponding restriction of interests. He spoke English always rather haltingly, and he had the slow, cautious utterance of the farmer type to which he belonged. But if character be a title to greatness (and to believe the contrary is surely to despair of mankind) he was a very great man. His influence with his countrymen while he lived was probably much greater than that of Smuts; and it was exercised uniformly on the side of wisdom and humanity. Few men in all history have been - tried so cruelly. A man of deep, slow affections and intense loyalty to his own people and his father’s house, he had to take arms against his old friends and neighbours in the cause of an Empire against which only a few years before he had been fighting on their side; to hunt them down in the company of men, some of whom had perhaps aided in buring the farmhouse where he bad spent the happy years of his early married life. He did this, and he dil it successfully; such was the personal influence of “the most loving man in South Africa,” as a Dutchman called him in broken English, that he persuaded all his old lieutenants to join with him in the ungrateful task. Judged even extensively by his actual achievement, Botha was a considerable man; judged intensively by the contrast between the statesman like breadth of nis view of life and his extraordinarily narrow opportunities, he will bear comparison with almost any other figure in history.