Neither Boers or natives
understand our namby-pamby way of playing at government; they put it
down to fear. What they want, and what they expect, is to be governed
with a just but a firm hand. Thus when the Boers found that they could
agitate with impunity, they naturally enough continued to agitate.
Anybody who knows them will understand that it was very pleasant to them
to find themselves in possession of that delightful thing, a grievance,
and, instead of stopping quietly at home on their farms, to feel obliged
to proceed, full of importance and long words, to a distant meeting,
there to spout and listen to the spouting of others. It is so much
easier to talk politics than to sow mealies. Some attribute the
discontent among the Boers to the postponement of the carrying out
of the annexation proclamation promises with reference to the free
institutions to be granted to the country, but in my opinion it had
little or nothing to do with it. The Boers never understood the question
of responsible government, and never wanted that institution; what
they did want was to be free of all English control, and this they said
twenty times in the most outspoken language.
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