WAR-CHARGE ON TRANSVAAL 123 war expenses. It is said that it need not be a vindictively heavy tax, but that it is very desirable, so as to bring the charge to bear upon the farmers who have largely caused the war. The best reply to this proposal is that the war has largely been undertaken for the mining industry. Another query which I constantly asked in South Africa was, "In the event of war, or after the war, how long will the spirit of racial animosity last?" To few questions have I received. a greater variety of answers. Some extremists doubt whether the bitterness can ever be overcome; some loyal Dutchmen fear it may not be dispelled for a generation; and some competent judges believe that it will be lived down comparatively soon, say in a few years. I am disposed to think this last opinion is rather sanguine, and that the possibility of a real union of hearts will be longer delayed. At the same time it is conceivable, though it sounds strange, that the Dutch will sooner lose their resentment about the war if they feel they have done their best and fought courageously. Hard battles sometimes increase mutual respect. All are conscious that English and Dutch will have to continue living on together in South Africa whatever the result of the war, and that the sooner a better feeling is cultivated and arrived at the better for all concerned. To prophesy that South Africa has now no destiny but to become a hotbed of simmering discontent is to assume that the Boer character belongs to a lower standard than it does. No friend of South Africa, least of all a South African, can desire to make the outlook of South Africa hopelessly black. Much of course depends upon future A future dominant system government. such as President Kruger's can only give rise to the same trickery, and tumult, and disaster, which have already been the sources of so much misery and bloodshed; because the canker would not be removed. What is needed is a governor, it may be in each disturbed state, who will exercise FUTURE RACE-FEELING 125 a sympathetic but firm control to stem personal and racial animosities, and will tactfully raise a backward public opinion to a higher level of reciprocal sympathy, toleration, and goodwill. The task would be a hard one, but it is feasible in capable hands. CHAPTER VIII. TRAVELLING IMPRESSIONS WE E were shown so much civility and hospitality throughout our journey by people of very different shades of opinion, that a chapter on travelling impressions is one of the best means of acknowledging that their kindness was appreciated. To have landed in Cape Town only a month before the war, to have been in the Transvaal after the last British despatch had been received, to have been in Ladysmith on the day war was declared, and in Natal for three weeks after the colony had been invaded, and afterwards to have visited Beira and Rhodesia before returning home by Madagascar and Zanzibar, are experiences which do not occur twice in a |