TRANSVAAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8198, 31 July 1906, Page 5

TRANSVAAL.

THE CONSTITUTION

LETTER TO THE TIMES,

Received July 30, 9.42 p.m. LONDON, July 30

Mr B. R. Wise, in a letter to The Times, appeals to the House of Oommous to consider the oonstitu tion of the Transvaal and Orangia us affecting the whole Empire. Every year Canada, Australia and South Africa ure druwiug nearer together, and are more mutually dependent on one another. The dream of a closer union has aheady fired the imagination of their peoples. But the obvious condition of any political union la a similarity of civilisation aud sympathy of politic ideala. There would be no such similarity between the progressive democracies of Australia and Canada ana the narrowminded predicants and unread farmers who, if the Transvaal is handed back to the Dutch, will withiu five years rule in South Africa. "If we believe that Sritißh rule is more conducive to personal freedom aud social justice than the rule of any other nation it would be a crime against the Empire and humanity to hand the Government over to a race so undeveloped as the Boers," stated Mr Wise. It should, be remembered that sujh liberal statesmen as Lcri Durham and the first Lord Elgin, in giving Canada self-government, made the British supremacy a paramount consideration.