It is not to be supposed that Mr.
Gladstone really cared anything about the Transvaal or its independence
when he was denouncing the hideous outrage that had been perpetrated
by the Conservative Government in annexing it. On the contrary, as he
acquiesced in the Annexation at the time (when Lord Kimberley stated
that it was evidently unavoidable), and declined to rescind it when he
came into power, it is to be supposed that he really approved of it, or
at the least looked on it as a necessary evil. However this may be, any
stick will do to beat a dog with, and the Transvaal was a convenient
point on which to attack the Government. He probably neither knew
nor cared what effect his reckless words might have on ignorant Boers
thousands of miles away; and yet, humanly speaking, many a man would
have been alive and strong to-day, whose bones now whiten the African
Veldt, had those words never been spoken. Then, for the first time,
the Boers learnt that, if they played their cards properly and put
on sufficient pressure, they would, in the event of the Liberal party
coming to office, have little difficulty in coercing it as they wished.
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