REAL CAUSE OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 31, 8 February 1900, Page 2

REAL CAUSE OF THE WAR.

SOME OF THE ELEMENTS OF THE J FINAL SETTLEMENT. ( The following speech was delivered j by Mr. Drage, M.P., at the Drill Hall, , Derby (Eng.), on 7th December, 1899, and published by the Imperial South j African Association: —Mr. Geoffrey j Drage, M.P., on rising to address the , meeting, said: Mr. Bowring, ladies and gentlemen. Sir Henry Bemrose , has asked me to-night to deal with the question of the war in South Africa. , At a time like this, when our troops , are fighting in the faco of the enemy, it seems to me that all such questions should be dealt with from a national, and not from a party standpoint. Therefore, in the remarks I am going to address to you, I shall deal with

the large, the national, issues conneoted in the first place with the real causes of the war, and in the second place with a final settlement, such as I hope will be approved by you. You have heard from Sir Henry Bemrose some of the main causes of the war. A famous Greek historian divided the causes of the great war which he described into two classes, and the causes of the Transvaal war could also be divided into two classes. First, the immediate causes. Everyone knows what they are—on the one hand, the grievances of the Uitlanders, which everone in Derby understands, and the determination of the British Government to obtain redress for those grievances; and on the other hand, the determination of the Boer Government not to give redress, and to send such an insulting reply as must inevitably lead to war. That reply was followed by the invasion and annexation of British territory. These gentlemen, are the causes, as the whole world sees them. I am now, at the invitation of Sir Henry, going to ask you to go with me into matters which have not hitherto been considered in this country —some of the history, the closer and mote intimate history, of South Africa, In this regard, the negotiations of the last six or eight months have been but a small chapter in the great drama, the great tragedy, which has been played out in our empire in South Africa. The first and foremost cause of the war that the democracy here at ho* ha 3 not properly controlled the home Government in the past, and that the weakness and vacillation of our policy ia South Africa lias been one of the greatest eyesores, and one of the greatest causes of our undoubted failure there in the past. Sir Bartle Frere, in 1882, wrote a remarkable letter, in which he said that he had never been able to discover any principles in our policy in South Africa, excepting that of giving way whenever any difficulty or opposition, |has been encountered. In another letter he made a still more remarkable' statement. He *said that all our J difficulties had arisen from attempting | to evade the responsibility which came upon us.when we hoisted the English flag over the castle at Cape Town. That is the first and foremost cause of i the troubles which we now have ' to ; deal with. The second is even worse. i One by one, strong governors—and, you have sent out to South Africa from time to time some of the greatest , and best Englishmen—have been abandoned. Sir Benjamin Durban, Sir George Grey, Sir Bartle Frere were all thrown over when the home Government met with opposition. In each case no sooner had the man taken a strong line, and no sooner was there ! opposition in party politics at home, than the Government abandoned him, and he fell. Each of these men could i alone have been the saviour of South Africa. The first instance of a strong man receiving the support of the Go- ' vernment is the present High Commissioner, to whom we owe a debt of the profoundest gratitude—Sir Alfred Milner. When history comes to be ! written, aud the last year or two are i described by a great English historian, the pathetic, the tragic spectacle of that man standing alone, without any counsellor to advise him, face to face 1 with the most difficult problem, will j not be one of the least striking pictures , history has engraved on her pages. • He has with undoubted fortitude, ' through a most difficult time, sus- ; tained the honour of Great Britain; and you will have to thank Heaven . that, at a time and crisis like this, , the man was found able to take up : that difficult duty and carry it through, j ■ But there was another cause which led [ our adversaries in Cape Colony and South Africa totally to misapprehend the temper of the people of Great Britain. You know perfectly well, those of you who are keen students of history, what happened to Natal in 1881. They were invaded then, as i they are invaded now ; their property was looted, and their cattle driven off; and if you were to go to that colony, ■ as I have been, it would be with a ; feeling of shame that you would hear that no adequate compensation was given to our own colonists for the injuries they had sustained in the de- - . fence of our empire. I mention these ; points because I think the temper of ' the people of this country will not | permit such a thing to happen again. The same thing happened in the . Transvaal. In the negotiations you i can read how a smn of £ 1,400,000 was i to be provided to meet the claims of the British subjects, and how, on the Boers objecting, that amount was cut ' down to £400,000; and you can read [ how many a man was ruined, becauso i he trusted that "when the Transvaal L was annexed to Great Britain, Great ' Britain would take up his quarrel as a British subject. The next causo I comn to is one of the most extraordinary of ; all, and in this, people who have been tu South Africa will bear me oaf. Tho i Hoars have always thought that the ; British soldier cannot fight—they sn • ttnlearaiug that now. And, if you go one step further, there was another bsluf, t qually vital ia ennjurasing tho Oufch to go forward. It was believwl : iti 1881 that tho Transvaal was given i hack lo the Dutch because the Government of Great Britain whk afraid of ■■ha Dutch in Capa Colony, un<l afraid of tho Orange Free State. Now, g.wnl,--J •"en, .there aro a groat ui.ny pjoplf !- who s'-ill hold that the war was concluded owing to tho magnanimity < f "•• yrdu'' PVituMGcn t,h#n ia p m>r . | but we know that outside this coumry' :

—in Europe, in tha Colonies, and moat of all in South Africa—everyone believed that it was due to fear, and fear alone. We know, from a recent admission of a great Liberal statesman, Lord Kimberley, that it was owing to fear, at any rate, en the part of some of the members of the Government. But what I am trying to bring home is that all these things pointed to the fact that the war was coming, slowly and imperceptibly perhaps, but chat it was coming inevitably upon us, owing to the mistakes made by our Governments in times past. There was another extremely important factor. Not only did the Boers think of this weakness on our part, not only had they no idea of the power of Great Britain but they also counted on another great source of Btrength to themselves. They thought the Orange Free State would join them —the Orange Free State has. They thought also that the Dutch in Oape Oolony would join them—but in this respect they have not, up till now, received assistance to any great extent. But, over and above all, they believed there were European Powers who were only too anxious to get at the wealth of this country. Some of them are our commercial competitors, others represent tyrannies as against democracies. The Boers expected a coalition of these Powers to overthrow the power of Great Britain for ever; but in this direction also they have been disappointed in their expectations of assistasce. Still, there is a question which, every elector should lay to heart, and that was, that if the Government in times past has not always acted with sufficient vigour, it has been due to want of interest, and want of information of the part of the electorate. Gentlemen, this is democracy. It is true that the Queen is on the throne, but behind the throne stands each and everyone of you—thinking members of this great people. If you do not inform yourselves whether your Government is doing right or wrong, you cannot carry out your duty to the great and vast empire which has been handed down to you by generation after generation of able, hard-working, fighting men. I have said, in the early stages of this struggle, that I was convinced—and it was at a time that very few people thought that the working classes in this country could be brought to care for their fellow subjects in the Transvaal—l was convinced that if you could only bring home to the working men, whether Liberals or Conservatives, the iniquities, and tyrannies under which their fellow subjects laboured out there, there would be only one voice, and it would not be possible for any Government to do otherwise than invoke the forces of 1 tha Grown and sweep away those iniquities. That belief of mine has been signally verified, Sic Henry referred to the association of which I - had the honour to be made chairman just at the time tha crisis arose, and 1 1 think that Sir Honry Bemrose, and Mr. Gretton, and the rest of us con- ' nected with that association, may per--1 haps claim some little credit for having 1 done our best to disseminate throughout the country literature and speaches 1 calculated to bring conviction to the i working classes. And, gentlemen, ■ while I am talkiug on the subject of , South Africa, I may say that I have no < shares, nor any personal interest of i any kind, in any of the mines or corn- . mercial undertakings of South Africa ; and of course the chairmanship of the i Imperial South African Association it. ' an expense, and not a profit, to me. My only interest in South Africa, is the interest of this country, the commonweal of the empire, and it is that interest and that interest only which dictates my actions in public lift*. I have spoken with some vehemenco on this point, perhaps with more vehemence than it deserves, for I don't think in Derby anyone would accuso me of any other motive than a desire to work for the general good. There is another subject, and a very important one. We have in this town and throughout the country, a class of men for whose motives personally I have, in many cases, great respect. They are known as the Little Englanders, and I know many of them personally, in the House i of Commons, in this town, and else- , where. To my mind they are mis- , guided, but I firmly believe that these men are as jealous of the honour of Great Britain and the honour of the Queen as you or I are. But you must bear in mind what these men have done in this particular case. By the tone of their speeches, and the strong views they have taken, they led South Africans to believe that the scuttle of 1881 was likely to be repeated at the ; present time, Now, gentlemen, I have seen sufficient of life in our colonies to : take this view: When I hear of a dispute between one of my countrymen ; and a foreigner, I always assume that ■ my countryman is in the right until ; he has been proved to be in the ( wrong. Now the cardinal mistake , the Little Englanders make where a quarrel between an Englishman and a ; foreigner is concerned, is that they begin by assuming that their own countryman is in the wrong. That appears to be the difference between them and myself. By their speeches , the Little Englanders led Mr, Kruger to believe that nothing would induce this democracy or the Crown to go to war. To my mind, however, in this case no great harm has been done. To my mind this war was coming slowly but inevitably upon you; you could not avoid it, and all they have done—and we have to be devoutly thankful for it—is to bring on the war at the one time of all others when the European situation was most suitable for it, and at the one moment when I should have been inclined to say, " Now, lot them all come." Our f'rien-ls on tha other side have pushed Mr. Kruger's nose right into the war. lie finuly believed this country would ... vi r undertake the war; he tried the pfrienca of Great Bricain a little too much, and once and for all he is now going to learn what Englishmen will Jo for t heir kith and kin when they know that; they are being wronged. Thera is another seriou3 question in thi-i connection, aud it is a question which has not yet been brought before a British fiudience. You have seen in the pipers a great daul i-f what is called the Boer " conspiracy." To my mind the term onspiracv is au offensive term, and one 1 winch I should avoid, It is one ol the

terms which darken counsel. On the j one _ hand, you have had the continual vacillation of Great Britain, and on the I other a people who founded empires before your forefathers founded this, and who have spread commerce and Christianity over the surface of the globe. The Dutchmen believed themselves capable of great things; they have been moved by an ambition—not conspiracy in the ordinary sense of the word—an ambition to seize the sceptro that they thought was falling from your faeble grasp. That was where they made the mistake. | (To be continued.)