South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2455, 31 January 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1881.

1 listoiiv repeats itself. The progress of the .Doer insurrection—or what may be more appropriately denominated the Transvaal war of independence—is a vivid illustration of this truism. We do not rejoice at the slaughter of British subjects or the defeat of British colonists, but the disaster that has befallen Bir George Colley’s foolhardy expedition is not likely to excite very widespread regret. Sir George Colley’s impulsiveness required a cheek. He cnleied wiih impetuosity on the vindication of a bad cause. It is very doubtful whether his thousand martial followers shared his ardour. It is more likely that they shared his medical comforts as long as they lasted, and then their courage died down into their shoe leather. Colonial scapegraces are not the best material for soldiers, and seeing that Sir George Colley’s ignoble mission was not alone the reestablishment of British rule, but the subjugation of liberty, we may be sure that he had not the pick and choice of the manhood of the Cape behind him. Sir George Colley has been taught the same lesson that many brave and amiable British noblemen learned on American soil at the hands of Washington and his heroic forces many years ago. We may safely presume that his defeat was not due to superior numbers on the part of the Boer population, hut to the fact that an intelligent, steadfast, home-loving, law-abiding population, believing their cause to be a righteous one, have resolved to fight, to the last extremity against an unjust and unprincipled invasion. When the British forces were defeated in America, the British Government was enraged, but the true-hearted British people secretly rejoiced. They bewailed the expenditure of life—the slaughter of unfortunate soldiers—but they welcomed the triumph of a just and honest cause. The fate of Bir George Colley and his ragged army of poltroons will elicit but little sympathy for a similar reason—because the war is an iniquitous one. When the cause is the cause of liberty, the succour and encouragement of the great British nation will follow the footsteps of her soldiers and commanders, prompting them to deeds of true heroism, hut not when the battle is an un-English one. The heart of the nation is opposed to the Boor war, because it is a case of might against right. It is a battle in which the so-called British forces are arranged on the wrong side. And soldiers nowadays are not what they were a century ago. They arc not mere shooting machines, instructed in drill and nothing else. The arms of intelligent soldiers may be directed against honest industrious colonists, whose cause is simply the common rights of mankind, but they will fire over the heads of the foe rather than stain their hands with such blood. During the American war of independence the authors of that struggle were glad to turn from their half-hearted forces to the cruel relentless Indian, and the scalping knife was freely urged against the fathers of the rising republic. In a similar way the Government of Groat Britain dare hardly trust the ordinary British soldier in the Transvaal, and hence the Sepoy is to be called into requisition. But if anything will thoroughly exasperate the Dutch residents of the Transvaal, it will be the face of the black man of the jungles. One can imagine, if the tables were only reversed, how a community of British colonists, resolved upon self-government, would act under such treatment. Before they would lay down their arms they would have to be exterminated. The battle would be fought to the bitter end. The Boers arc represented to be a slowgoing population, but if they are not armed with energy and heroic fortitude in the coming struggle they deserve to suffer. In their conflict with Indian Sepoys and the scum of the African diamond fields, they will undoubtedly have the silent sympathy of the Great British nation. Already this sympathy has been clearly demonstrated by the influential deputation that waited on British Ministers the other day, and urged that the claims of the Boers to self-government should be respected, and that human blood, even the blood :of Seypoy unfortunates, should not be shed in a bad cause. It may be said that such an exhibition was unpatriotic, but what is patriotism ? Is it not that feeling which stimulates men to deeds of valour irrespective of nationality, when they knorv that their cause is good and j ust ? When Garibaldi liberated Italy his greatest friends were British recruits, and Italy to this day remembers with gratitude how nobly they fought for her emancipation. The true Briton will not stand idly in a hand to hand encounter when he finds the weak of any other country oppressed. With the name of his country he associates the name of liberty, and when the dogs of war tear the two asunder he resigns the real for the ideal. “ Thrice armed is he whose cause is just,” and in this struggle for independence the cause of the Boer certainly seems to be the right one. Let us hope that the defeat of Sir George Colley’s army of invasion will have the effect of deterring the British Government from entering further upon a struggle which, however it may terminate, must form one of the darkest pages in the history of the British Empire.