The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1900. POLICY AND PROPHECY IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 34, 9 February 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1900. POLICY AND PROPHECY IN SOUTH AFRICA.

♦ The circumstances of the present Anglo-Boer war are so much the outcome of all that has gone to make the J history of the English occupation of South Africa that an intelligent grasp of the situation can only be gained by taking all this past history into ac, unt. This is evidenced by the constant reference that is being made to the actions and predictions of those men who at different times during the past 200 years have been deputed to administrate the country in question. Many of these men have long passed away, while others have more lately left the scenes of strife. The war, however, has summoned their ghosts before the public, and in the recital of their doings and the quoting of their speeches they are made to once more take part in the troubles with which t their personalities are indelibly interwoven. Not the least important of these ex-South African statesmen is the late Sir Bartle Frere, a aian around whose name has gathered the golden mists of romance, and some of the clouds of public disfavour—the former because he was one of the truest and most chivalrous heroes that our times i | have seen, and the latter beciuse of the i way in which his policy was misunderstood, and the political martyrdom he was subjected to by those in authority over him. In one respect his name take 3 an unique position amongst the many connected with South African history in that while present events I have shadowed many reputations they [are clearing his from the reproach cast upon it by a group of vaccillating and incompetent politicians, for whose sins he was made the scape-goat—a group whom public opinion blindly and ignorantly followed. Every phase of the present difficulty goes to show that Sir Bartle Frere was in the right, not only as to the policy he advised and would have carried out had he been allowed by the English Government, but also in his prophecy as to tho result of the policy the Down-ing-street maladministrators adopted and pursued. It is not saying too much when we state tbat Sir Bartle Frere's policy was such, had he been permitted to carry it out, as would have prevented the very possibility of the evil that is now happening and others that may yet come to pass. But he was sacrificed to the exigencies of Home politics and official and public ignorance. Sir Bartle Frera was High Commissioner at the Cape from 1877 to 1880, holding the same position as does Sir Alfred Milner at the present time. In 1879 he made the following statement, which has lately been published in a Home journal:— " Any attempt to give back or restore the Boer Republic in the Transvaal must lead to anarchy and failure, and probably, at no distant period, to a vicious imitation of some South American Republics, in which the more uneducated and misguided Boers, dominated and led by better-educated foreign adventurers Germans, Hollanders, Irish Home Rulers, and other European republicans and socialists—will become a pest to the whole of South Africa, and a most dangerous fulcrum to any European Power bent on contesting our naval supremacy or in injuring us in our colonies." Both the expedients which Frere so strongly deprecated wire tried, one after the other, with | the ex.ict result anticipated in each case. What never was tried was the plan which he as urgently recommended: (1) To keep a firm hand on fho Transvaal; (2) to grant the people a, iibar.il con.-.ti::ution under the British Crown; (ij) U> do away with every genuine grievance j -*'Thore is no escaping from tbo r sponsibiiity which his ah'ady iucuvrod ever since the English fbg was planted on the O tJititi i;t rv. All our real diffiouldos have ailfeoii ami still arise from attempting to evade or shift thjs re !ponsi'iil'ty. ... If you abdicate the sovereign position, the abdication has .'lways to be heavily paid for in both blood and treasure Your object is not conquest, but simply supremacy up to Delagea Bay, This will have to bo asserted some day ? and the assertion will not become easier by delay. The trial of strength will b$ [forced on you, and neither justice nor I humanity will be served by postponing Mm trial if W4i a'.ept with a gnod .ause," j Ho convinced was Sir {Juf.lo Fura of! tho sounduwi of his poihy Wisii ha yf.s-l content to appeal from the injustice of hiK contemporaries to tbo ultimate vui - diet of the country he serv. A »■>! uobly; —" It is quite possible that that verdict may not jsoraein my time. All! your history points to similar cases of j I men who hayo done their oee.t aeeorsnr» | to tl-f.tr lights, and to whom j'.isic was not done till long after they had j piss:d away/' By 't>itt«-r exporiencoj England is knrniug that thfe f#'-Bt:oiug j statesman was right, and that £ho.;.e J who sunt him to political oblivion ■)•,• j I&eir- criminal blunders and folly havcii brouglit ao* <?t':i of bitterness and blood-; lulled upon tbo whole of South Afn ith/.s vviil be a perpetual stain uuju

their name, and is even now responsible for the terrible doings of the grim war-demon now raging amongst people who had been in peace and concord had Sir Bartle Frere's advice been heeded and his policy pursued.