THE VOTE FOR THE WAR 27 an extreme. nary circumstances, put his rifle to his shoulder and go into the battlefield the next; the burghers had no hired soldiers; but their treaties and their feelings could not allow them to remain like cowards and see the sister republic fight it out. It was truly race-feeling again. There was something almost pathetic about it, enthusiasm for Dutch descent carried beyond all reason-carried, at any rate, to And this was occurring in a state which in practice acknowledged the justice of Great Britain's demands by giving the franchise after three years' residence, a period which had been the same from the first; and which further showed regard for complete fairness and necessity by still using English and Dutch indiscriminately in the state schools, while it was perfectly understood that full attention should be paid to the official Dutch language. While internally the government stood in most favourable contrast to the Transvaal, externally its tradition had been not to approve the policy advocated by Dr. Leyds, as European emissary of the Transvaal, of trying to set up Transvaal ministers and ambassadors all over Europe. The Orange Free State was a small state; SO was the Transvaal. Dr. Leyds's ambitious policy was wholly inappropriate. The Orange Free State appointed a consul in London simply for business and commercial purposes; indeed, it was one of the Free State's misfortunes that they could not get their official views at this crisis adequately represented in London, because their consul took the other side. Dr. Leyds, by his endeavours to coquette with the powers of Europe, was contravening the Convention of 1884 in spirit, if not in letter. From all points of view it is perfectly plain that the Free State would have had everything to gain by peace. She could have obtained it if she had stuck to her old policy, President Brand's policy, of nonintervention, and Great Britain would certainly not have interfered with her. She lost it because she chose to follow Presi LOST ADVANTAGES 29 dent Steyn's anxious craving for alliance with the Transvaal, and he only voiced the official programme of the Afrikander Bond. We may be quite sure that at the very last the Free State would have done anything in its power for the preservation of peace, which all must have heartily welcomed in the cause of humanity, and which, in fact, really might in the long run have better served the policy of President Kruger and of the Bond. The Free State would almost have acted the part of a mediator if it could; would have supported a representative and fair commission of enquiry; would even have thrown over President Kruger if a pretext in its opinion sufficient and reasonable had been offered. But shrewd as President Kruger is to see wherein lies his best course, his obstinacy on this occasion got the better of his shrewdness. His ultimatum plunged the Free State with himself into the abyss. CHAPTER III. TRANSVAAL MISGOVERNMENT UR journey from Pretoria and Johannesburg to the Natal frontier, very shortly before the declaration of war and only two days before railway communication was stopped, was the occasion on which we were brought most directly face to face with the hostile racial feeling which circumstances had rendered so acute. The train, like other mail trains leaving for Natal and the Cape Colony, was crowded with refugees; it was by the merest good fortune that we had not to travel in cattle trucks; and the custom of seeing friends and families off at Johannesburg had turned the central station into such a pandemonium of counter-demonstrations and breaches of the peace, that the authorities had been |