THE DEATH OF GENERAL BOTHA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 286, 29 August 1919, Page 6

THE DEATH OF GENERAL BOTHA

The news that General Botha is dead will bo received with deep and heartfelt regret all over the Empire. Few statesmen have exercised a more potent influence for good upon their generation, or have done more to promote, the cause of human brotherhood. The loss of (such a guide and leader is all the more to be deplored at a time when the process of worldreconstruction is impeded, by serious difficulties and perils, and not least in the country he served so well. Throughout his life General Botiia pursued the noblest ideals with unfaltering devotion. As Oommander-m-Chief of tho Boer forces and in his subsequent career as statesman and soldier uiyler the British flag he-unfailingly displayed the highest qualities of heart and mind. His life wns comparatively short—ho was only 56 years of age when he died—but in it he compassed a series of achievements any one of which would have ensured his lasting fame. His leadership of the Boer armies'' in the South African War was as gallant a forlorn hope as history- records. As to his political career, it is certainly clue more to General Botha than to any other man. that the union between Briton.and BoeY is an accomplished and permanent fact, whatever malcontent minorities may think or say. At successive ImConferences General Botha established the name and fame of one of the greatest statesmen of the Empire he,had formerly opposed in arms. His conspicuous and distinguished achievements since the outbreak of the world-war are fresh in memory. In the suppression of the ill-considered revolt that broke out in 1914 'and- in much that followed he discovered a rare combination of qualities, showing himself capable at onco of th,e most resolute action and of the broadest tolerance. His conquest of ' German South-West Africa in 1914-15 was a masterly achievement of its kind. In recent time he had been less in tho public eye, so far as Imperial affairs are concerned, than his able and versatile colleague, Gb:t.ral Shuts. Butit is probably doing r.c one injustice to say that in the qualities that count for molt in the leadership of men and nations Borm overtopped all his -South African contemporaries. Undoubtedly, given continued life and health, he would I have clone much to pilot not his own J country only, but tho Empire, j through the stormy times x)\u lie I ahead..