Upon this topic a few remarks may be placed under the assumption that the
arch enemy's triumph in the present war will be circumscribed by the havoc
and the bereavements created by it, and by the forfeiture inflicted upon the
poor deluded Boers of their special heirlooms. One of the considerations
would be the war cost and its recoupment, and another important one is the
measures needful to prevent a repetition of a Bond revolt.
As
to the war indemnity: it is well understood on all hands that the supremacy
of Great Britain, when once established as the result of the war, will
greatly enhance the value of all existing capital investments—10 to 50 per
cent., and many even 100 per cent. It is not to be denied that capitalism
has evinced decided eagerness that English supremacy should be asserted, and
it is in a manner amenable together with the Afrikaner Bond, for secretly
striving to bring about the contest each independently in its own way, but
without the least concert with each other. It appears therefore equitable
that capital should become contributable to the cost of the war which will
eventually result in so largely enhancing its invested values.
A
tax of 2-1/2 per cent. upon the aggregate investment values and a royalty
upon the mining industries of 25 per cent. of the net profits would appear
reasonable.
The 2-1/2 per cent. tax might bring a sum of
15 millions
The royalty could be reckoned at capitalized value
50 "
The confiscations might reach
10 "
And the underground rights around the Johannesburg mines might
realize 50 "
Thus together 125 millions, possibly not sufficient to cover the entire war
cost if pensions are to be included. It is a sad reflection to note that the
entire wealth which constituted the national heirloom of the Transvaal will
have been wasted, and comes far short to cover the actual war expenditure.
In regard to preventive measures against another Bond war, nothing appears
clearer than the necessity of applying the lex talionis upon the Hollander
element in South Africa (though not in that inhuman fashion as was practised
upon the English refugees before and at the commencement of the war).
Whilst not so guilty to the same extent of enormity as the coterie in
Holland, who devised all the Bond mischief at a safe distance, the
Hollanders in South Africa were nevertheless their eager abettors and
sedulous henchmen. It will be remembered that the Bond cry had been "Drive
the English into the sea, out of Africa," and that the first earnest in
carrying out that fiat was practised some months before the outbreak of the
war upon the unaggressive coloured British subjects, traders, merchants,
etc., whose removal from their residences and businesses to ghettos outside
the towns practically compassed their ruin and expulsion from the Transvaal.
This was followed, first by a voluntary and afterwards by the forced exodus
of Uitlanders at the rate of thousands per day—men, women, and children
packed in uncleansed coal and cattle trucks, together with Coolies, Kaffirs,
and Hottentots, and hustled over the Portuguese border, dumped down at that
death-trap Komati Poort if unable to pay the railway fare for fifty-three
miles further to Delagoa Bay. Those refugees were obliged to abandon or
sacrifice their belongings—they had no time allowed to realize them; it
meant their financial ruin.
That Hollander element comprises the most insidious menace, and, like a
cancer, must be unsparingly excised from South Africa, unless encouragement
is intended to be given for an attempt to go one better next time, with a
repetition, or rather an aggravation, of the horrors of war and the cost in
life and treasure, turning the sub-continent into a second vast Algeria,
with perhaps such another "Abd El Kadr" to subdue, and without any reserve
asset, as now, to fall back upon towards reimbursing the expense. Their
expulsion should, however, not be effected without giving some fair notice
affording them time for the realization of their estates. As to the Dutch
language, it will not entail any excessive hardship if it is equally
banished as an official language, seeing that English is on the whole not
more unfamiliar to the bulk of the Boer people than pure High Dutch is, and
seeing that the dual right was accorded to Dutch as an official language
under this almost inconceivable feature, that it admittedly had yet to be
learnt to become of any practical use or utility other than as an instrument
for keeping the races apart and to facilitate the Bond objects of usurpation
and revolt.
