AFRIKANER BOND GUILT IN GRADATIONS


The promiscuous details and incidents, together with the circumstantial
and _primâ facie_ evidence thus far adduced in arraigning the Afrikaner
Bond combination, point mostly to conditions existent before the war
broke out. We had the smoke before the conflagration--it is a wonder how
people could manage to ignore the menace. Now the war torch is over us
in its full luridness.

Ordinary fires, if not kindled, originate either from accident,
spontaneous combustion, or incendiarism. With war the origin may be
traced to similar causes either singly or in combination, or, when we
cannot hit the exact diagnosis, we explain it with a handy word and call
it evolution, as we may do in the case of the present Anglo-Boer
conflict.

We may for a moment review the material and then also the agencies and
incentives which operated that evolution against harmony and peace, and
to which the conflagration is due. We have noted the legal acquisition
of the Cape Colonies by Great Britain, the equally recognised occupation
under treaties with England of the two Boer Republics, the English and
Boer races in progress of friendly assimilation and in happy prosperity
all over South Africa. This was essentially the position in 1881, until
it became gradually marred by an invidious element. We have further
noted the declining condition of Holland, its moribund language, and
finally the prospects which South Africa presented for that nation's
restoration to powerful significance, the English factor only standing