THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 1990

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 3, 7 June 1900, Page 2

THE WAIMATE ADVERTISER THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 1990

ignoraut and superstitious ; they are out of touch with the world, and out of sympathy With, and behind the spirit of the times ; their notions are crude and primitive in the extreme, and their conduct is by a standai-d of morality which has little in common with that which regulates the remainder of our white population. humming up, Mr Schreiner says :—": — " These men constitute the strength of the Bond ; this is the section of the Dutch to whom onr pitiable invertebrate politicans are bowing the knee and selling the country for a meas < pottage, to the utter' degradatio of political morality and to fi great detriment of the b j st interests of the colony." He considered the influence of the Bond on Cape politics was decidedly pernicious. One more quotation from his memorable speech is the following :—: — It is the Bond which . . . has directed all its enegies to resisting the measures the country needs, to introduce the Taal into Parliament arid *tlie Law Courts, and to raising the franchise so as to give the Dutch Boer element more voting power., lv' fact, the Bond has sacrificed the welfare of the country for years to the selfish attainment of O7ie object, nam-dy, the supiemacy of the Dutch--ipeaking inhabitants of the ooloaies regardless of the rights of the others ; the imagined good of an ignorant clique of the Dutch has been preferred to the good ot the country. These man must not have power ; they are wholly unfit to have it. When the delegates arrive their utterances wz'i be subjected to much criticism, but it is to be hoped they will receive a hearing. They will at all events see around them what treatment the Boers will receive while thay live under the British flag.

! The Afrikander Bond recognise one thing at least, that is, that colonial opinion is an important factor in Imperial politics. The latest move of this organisation is to send a delegate to New Zealand and Australia to explain the reasons given by the Bond for opposing the annexation of the rebellious republics by Britain This* move is rather late in the day to have any effect on the fate of the Orange Biver Colony and the Transvaal, bat if we get from these delegates the Boer version of the case, we will be a little better able to understand their actions, and will be by so much the better off. The Bond have taken care that their side of the case should not be entirely misunderstood, and have distributed many pamphlets concerning it. The opinion of one ardent pro- ■ Boor might be worth quoting, but *ye are afraid the Boers themselves might object. Mr Schriener, in October, 1893, ™«a o public his then opinion of the Afrikander Bond, which ha probably now ; regrets, but which is not made any the less strong against them on that account. This opinion, which was given - before the Jameson Raid, was also given before he married his Dutch wife, and this latter event probably .influenced his opinions not a little. He delivered a speech on " Political Ethics and Political Organisations" to a Farmeps' t Association in Cape Colony and was reported by the Daily News to have uttered the following :—: — " Whatis the Afrikander Bond ? It is anti-English in its aims ; its officers and its language are Dutch, and it is striving to gain such power as absolutely to control the Gape Parliament. The vast majority of bondsmen a c nearly illiterate, ignorant, and governed almost entirely by emotion instead of by reason ; the wisdom of the Bond represents to a large extent the ignorance of ; the farming population of the colony. Reason and argument are of no avail with such menu; ,'they ..re bad, non-progressive farmers, and their actions, prompted by "Ignorance, are governed by unthinking prejudice." % ij He described tTieLwhite popufllition of SouthliAfirica: as being divisible into * three^ classes : civilised educated' foreigners, most of^whom wei-e British, educated Afrikanders, and « third class ll composed almost entirely of Afrikanders engaged in farming, speaking a patois of very limited vocabulary, called by them * the Taal,' the great majority being unable to speak English." He desdescribed the latter in the following words :—: — They are descendants of the old Dutch pioneerb, and through having been for a long time a' most entirely cut off from communication with civilisation as many of them are yet, they have noc advanced ; their isolation and illiteracy has prevented any intellectual progress ; rather they have deteriorated. The narrow oaivinism of their ancestors has developed into a gross fatalism. They are almost illiterate, very