THE DUTCH ELEMENT AT THE CAPE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7, 15 February 1900, Page 6

THE DUTCH ELEMENT AT THE CAPE.

Mr AB. Patersi n(' Banjo '), writing from Capetown to the Sydney Morning Herald, says : — ' After landing was finished I went up the town and met my first Boer. I heard that a Boer prisoner on parole was at one of the hotels, and a mutual friend introduced us. He was not long and wild and hairy. He was a refined and educated man, a doctor of medicine, and had seen several battles. He at once offered to play me billiards, and said he had occasionally made breaks of over 50. I thought it wise to decline. He says that the Boers are having a long way the best of it as regards the fighting. They lose positions but they save men. They shoot till the last moment and then run. All the talk about the Boers being Bavages is nonsense. They treat the wounded well. I saw a man today who had four bullet wounds, and he had nothing but good to Bay of the Boers. They assisted him in every way they could Here the ultimate success of England is looked upon as assured. bu r there is a deep political question underlying it all. The Cape Ministry is looked upon as pro-Boer, and the British organs call them all sorts of name*. But the fact remains that they hold office by a vote of the majority of the local House. There are more locals against the war than for it, and the extremist papers on the English side here are urging that after the war the franchise should be taken from the pro- Boer party. This seems ntiange in view of the tact that the war itself is undertaken solely to get franchise for the Outlanders The fact is that the Cape is very Dutch, and it cannot be expected that these people will look kindly on a war in which their own kinsfolk are engagtd. Aft» r England has beaten these Boers she will still h.ive a sullen and discontented population to deal with, not only across the Vaal but in the p.irent colony. All classes ot the community are impregnated with the Dutch element, not that they profi ss any pn ference for Dutch over English, but th. ir sympathies naturally are with their kinsmen in the Boer Republic. One never knows, even in a club or hotel, who may be a Boer '-yinpathiser. Very little feeling is openly expr sstd. People are frighten* d to make any open declaration of hostility to England or of opposition to the war, lest they or their relatives Bhould incur punishment when the day ot reckoning comes. That the Boers will have to pay the reckoning is looked upon as beyond a doubt. Boer money is already advancing in price in the expectation that tht re will be no more Boer coinage after the war.'