BOER AND BRITON.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 283, 24 November 1908, Page 4

BOER AND BRITON.

TROUBLE REVIVING. A NEW ZEALANDER'S OPINION. Mr. James Thorp, a native of Wanganui, who has been in .South Africa lor the past eight years, returned to Wellington a lew days ago. -Mr. Thorp fought as a New Zealand soldier throughout the war, and subsequently obtained a position as a surveyor and engineer under th'e civil administration on the Central South African railways. The young engineer was entrusted with the task of surveying and constructing the deviation from Waterval Uoven to Waterval Onder, Previously the Republican Government engineers, the Royal Engineers, and those of the succeeding Civil Service had attempted to iind means of carrying out this most complicated and difficult work, which subsequently cost £140,000. Mr. Thorp, who had been used to the rough country to be found in New Zealand, succeeded in completing this section of railway, which ' runs over seven miles of the most difficult country in the African colonies. ill-. Thorp has, with many hundreds of other civil servants, been "retrenched," and intends to proceed to China, where he believes there are many inducements for engineers. Speaking to a Times reporter, Mr. Thorp emphasised the opinions expressed by so many returned New Zealauders that the Boer and Hollander element in the South African colonies liad practically obtained by political means what it had gamely endeavored to get by force oi arms. Racial hatml between Briton and Boer had never been overcome, and never wouid be. The real Boer was slow-witted and fatalistic, but the smart Hollander showed him the way to go, and he was stubborn beyond comprehension, as ail simple are stubborn to the ideals of their leaders. The position in the Civil Service was that the Britisher now had to kow-tow to the Dutchman, and that if the Britisher showed any signs of independence he was immediately retrenched. The leaders of the ex-Repub-lics are the leaders of to-day. The war I had altered the position but tempo--1 rarilv. (leiientl Botha, the big man in polit'ics, was. he believed, absolutely sincere, but was really led by the clever Hollander element. The Dutchmen hated the thought of the withdrawal of the Rritish garrison, for in many centres the garrison was the only support of the people. .Much depression would follow such withdrawal. Boers were given positions wholesale, and this was natural enough. One remarkable condition was that where large numbers of Boers' were substituted for Britishers the Boers immediately became military volunteers, and as it was the policy of the Imperial Government to rather favor the Boers in case of dissatisfaction at any supposed difference o'f treatment, the Dutch were really forming the nucleus of an excellent armed and trained force. The Boers openly and freely discussed the possibility of again obtaining the possession of territory. Another curious phase which Mr. Thorp regards as something of a safety valve is tin' keen desire of Boer women to marry British men. The Boer regards his wife as a chattel; the Britisher treats his spouse as a companion. The fusion of the races by marriage is, as has been so often pointed out by experts, the only method by which race hatred can be made less virulent. In the meantime, the ex-Republics are little more British than they were in the days oi Kruger, whose name nn-1 fame are revered to-day as they were in the troublous times of 1900.