of every description.




CHAPTER XII.

"CAPITALIST INTRIGUES" AND THE WAR.[17]


1.--_A War of Capitalists._

"It is a war of capitalists against a set of poor Boers who have no sort
of interest in the dispute!" Such is the general cry.

Let us look at the facts.

The other day, anent the attempt upon the Prince of Wales, I referred to
the anarchist and socialistic attacks of certain Pro-Boer and Anglophobe
journals on capitalists, financiers, and the wealthy "metal-hearted
mine-owners," as Dr. Kuyper calls them. I reminded my readers that
Professor Bryce himself treats as absurd the tale that the aim of the
Jameson Raid, as stated by those papers, was the conquest of the
Transvaal for Rhodesia. I shall now show by documentary evidence that
the war did not break out through any action on the part of gold-mine
proprietors. In the first place, the greater number of these proprietors
reside in Europe; and as much in France, Germany and Belgium, as in
England. Their representatives in the Transvaal may hold more or less
important interests in those mines, but they are imbued with a full
sense of their responsibilities.