LETTER XVI

JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR


BLOEMFONTEIN, _April_, 1900.

Yes, certainly, my own reason for fighting is plain and strong. I am
fighting for a united South Africa. A united South Africa will, in my
opinion, justify the war. The Boers are genuinely patriotic, I haven't a
doubt. They have every right and reason to fight to the last for their
freedom and independence. But the continued existence of independent
States on the pattern of the Dutch republics in the midst of South
Africa is bound to be a perpetual irritation. The development of the
resources of the country will be checked. The effort to remain separate
and apart has obliged, and will more and more oblige, these States to
build themselves round with a whole system of laws specially directed to
hamper immigration; and the richer are found to be the resources of the
country, the more harassing and stringent will this system of laws have
to become. In fact, in this great, free, and undivided country, to hedge
a State round with artificial barriers of this sort, in order that it
may enjoy a kind of obsolete, old-fashioned independence of its own,
soon becomes intolerable. It is unjust to all the rest of the continent.
The country, if it is to have its due weight and influence in the
affairs of the world, must be united and make itself felt as a whole.
It is not fair on such a country, young but rapidly developing, to take
two of the richest tracts of it right in its midst and to say, "You may
go ahead with the development of all the rest, but these two portions
are to be left on one side, to drop out of the running, to be withered
and useless members, and instead of contributing to the total, and