mposed in doggerel
rhyme, to the Boer forces to invade Griqualand West, signed by the
chairman of a district branch of the Afrikander Bond. The date is not
given; but as the proclamation under which Head-Commandant C. J.
Wessels annexed the districts in question is dated November 11th,
1899, it was obviously written during the first three or four weeks of
the war.

[Translation.]

"Dear countrymen of the Transvaal: Brothers of our religion and
language: Our hearts are burning for you all: when your brave men
fall, we pray to God night and day to help you with His might; we
are powerless by ourselves--the English are so angry with us that
they have taken away our ammunition, all our powder and
cartridges; if you can provide us each with a packet of ten and a
Mauser, you will see what we can do; Englishmen won't stand
before us, they will go to the devil. There are a few English
here, but we count them amongst the dead; for the rest we are all
Boers, and only wait for you to move us. Englishmen are not our
friends, and we will not serve under their flag; so we all shout
together, as Transvaal subjects, 'God save President Krueger, and
the Transvaal army; God save President Steyn, and all Free
Staters great and small!'"[151]

[Footnote 151: Cd. 420.]

[Sidenote: Ignorance of Liberal leaders.]

But, apart from this profound misconception of the real feeling and
intentions of the Afrikander nationalists in South Africa, manifested
with such disastrous effect during these critical months--June to
September, 1899--the leaders of the Liberal Opposition otherwise
displayed in their public utterances an ignorance of this province of
the Empire that can only be characterised as "wanton." For what
expression other than "wanton ignorance" can be used to describe the
habit of mind which permits public men to make statements in direct
conflict with the facts of South African history, as established by
ascertainable evidence, or to state as facts allegations which proper
inquiry would have shown to be untrue? Here again, from a mass of
material provided by the utterances which came from the Liberal
Opposition leaders on South African affairs, a few instances only can
be brought to the notice of the reader, and these in the briefest form
consistent with precision. On September 5th Mr. John Morley, speaking
at Arbroath, stated that Sir Bartle Frere had