Francis Fletcher Vane: Boer War
The War and One Year After
Containing reports made by an Imperial Officer to the Colonial Office respecting farm burning, the arming of natives, martial law mal-administration...
Dedicated Without Permission
to the
RT. HON. J. CHAMBERLAIN,
The Great Reformer
Who in recent years has completely revolutionised our ancient British system, both in Diplomacy and in War, by eliminating the antiquated methods of courtesy in one and of chivalry in the other.
The great Minister who is chiefly responsible for a war in which some 60,000 lives and some 250 millions of treasure were lost, a war apparently waged for the purpose of showing the world, and especially South Africa, that they had been mistaken in believing in such quixotic ideals as are for instance, British honour, justice, and fair play, and replacing these by the more practical policy of "Commercial wiles and ancient craft."
The great Statesman who, more than any man, can claim to have created a living nationality in South Africa, opposed it is true to his commercially founded Empire, but determinately loyal to its own ideals; who moreover has shown such great patriotism for the country of his birth that he is now attempting to induce the poor and struggling of his land to show such reverence for his Commercial Empire, as to cause the 12 million Englishmen who live on the verge of starvation, to pay, out of a wage which in this Colony no Kaffir would accept, an additional sum levied on every article of domestic consumption.
The great Politician who, in the House of Commons, patriotically denied that farms had been burnt, natives armed, and enemies shot for wearing khaki, while at the time he possessed the evidence of British officers, clearly proving that all these things had been done by orders directly emanating from his Government, and against the wishes of the officers themselves.
The great Merchant who, by means of the company with which he and his family are connected, supplied in the most patriotic and the most businesslike manner, arms and ammunition for the troops, and with self-sacrificing energy refused to allow the male members of his family to have any part or share in the honours of the war, preferring that they should command a Kynoch rather than a Yeomanry Company.
Then as Minister, Statesman, Politician, and Merchant, while fearing that he may not succeed in converting his countrymen from their archaic convictions, respecting justice and fair play, while fearing no less that such exploded political theories as those of honour, of economic science, and of logic, may yet prevail in this unenlightened age and not yet be replaced by the newer and the more efficient commercial methods of bluff and swagger, yet in his noble attempt to achieve the impossible, I feel he is deserving of the reward which he assuredly will obtain.