The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, NOV. 3, 1906. SOUTH AFRICAN TROUBLES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1922, 3 November 1906, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, NOV. 3, 1906. SOUTH AFRICAN TROUBLES.

The decieaso of whites on the Hand is almost weekly the subject of cable report, and slowly but surely the British public are waking up to the fact that British administration in South Africa since the war has been productive of much dust and ashes. White men are starving in all the largest centres in South Africa, and the outlook generally is dreary and hopeless. The exodus which set in two years ego has become a steady stream of people, who, wiih faces set to other parts of tho wcrld, are thankful means are vouchsafed them to try their fortunes elsewhere, and that they are not of the number who have sunk below the level of the Kaffir. The war and advent of the Chinese is now ancient history, but.it is bitter history, and will stand forever as a blot in the annals of our time—22,ooo lives and £400,000,000 of British treasure have been entirely lost, and to-day England is on the threshold of tho discovery that her gupromacy in

3outh Africa is iu (langur ot Loing I jompletoly- undermined. Wliou tho g Srumpots woro blaring, awl digs Hying, and colonials and BrititmotH y wcrn hurrying from all parts of tlio I , world to Mouth Africa, tbo man who I | lifted up his voico and cried “ Halt :' 1 i was reviled ami decried as “pro-Boer,’ a traitor to his country ; hut to-day, when our fervor has cooled down and 1 one can look on tho question with a ' coolness and judgment born of after events, one sees that for at least once in our history victory has hr night a bit'or penalty owing to tho influonc's at work. To-day tlio Brit.isli popula tion is being driven out by want, jet tho it and in producing inoro gold than over it did before. VVhon the Chinese 1

were engineered into tho country by the lloggonhoimors of tho Band, a deluded public thought of tho abundance of work that was to follow. Home on tho spot would perhaps have made a more determined effort at the time to convince tho British people that a great mistake was being made, but tlio “ Raud.ords ’’ choked tho lifo out of ad opposition, packing their mootings with reuogades and foreigners of every description at £l per head, amt by these and other means carried their point. With what result ? To-day every Britisher who loaves Mouth Africa weakens our hold on the con.dry. At tbo coming elections tho chances are manifold that tho Dutchman carries tho day, that his will be tho majority in tho new' Government' One vote one value must give it him, and that, majority will bo more sub atantial it' the stream oE emigration is not checked. Capo Colony is also f«ci to face with a similar situation, aw the J ameson Government will probabl;

be the last really British Governmexit in Cape Colony for many years, for it must be remembered when they were 0 returned to power 10,000 Boers were h disenfranchised. Mince then those Boers have been reinstated. Moreover e the exodus from Cape Colony has been t even greater than from the Transvaal, ■l2 000 Britishers taking ship iroin i January to Juno this year for other i parts In Capetown recently people ] woro looting shops for bread. Ihe U ran go River Colony is in the same boat with the Transvaal, and the only colony that can be said to be solidly British is Natal. She has a British Parliament sneaking the British tongue. In the Cape Parliament the Dutchman speaks his language and the Englishman his, and the Transvaal House will be likewise. Racial hatred is far worse since the advent of the Chinese, and another phase of the question must not be lost sight of, in the fact that many who were once loval Britishers now espouse the cause of the Dutch. Who can say they have not some reason for so doing ? When one considers the Chinese question, the Kaffir vote, the colored troubles, the racial hatred, the British exodus, tho alien flood, scab, locusts, rinderpest, and the conglomeration of troubles that are wrapped around the Mouth African problem, one despairs of trying to pierce the dark clouds hanging over this unfortunate eoun* try. Lord Milner, Mr Chamberlain and other British statesmen have signally failed in solving the Mouth African problem, and to day its future is assuredly largely in the hands of the Dutchmen and foreign capitalists.