Page:The truth about the Transvaal.djvu/9

 brought to the notice of the House of Lords on Feb. 21st, 1881, when the Earl of Kimberley agreed that "irrefutable evidence has been brought forward to show that, whether or not with the direct countenance, at least without being prevented by the Government of the Transvaal Republic, the Boers did, in many instances, violate that provision of the Convention." Lord Kimberley, however, went on to say that "these transactions, for the most part, took place a considerable time ago," and that although isolated instances of slavery had doubtless occurred, he believed that of late years the Boer Government was not so much to be blamed. Being pressed, however, for the evidence upon which he made a statement so contrary to the facts disclosed by the Blue Books, Lord Kimberley simply relied upon a statement made in a letter to Lord Carnarvon by the Boer President Burghers himself, of which it may be said that to accept as conclusive, against a mass of documentary evidence, the unsupported statement of one of the accused parties, is a course as contrary to the procedure of a Law Court as it is repugnant to common sense. The best proof, however, of the truth of the charge against the Boers with regard to slavery is the intense hatred which is entertained towards them by the native races. This at least is a fact which cannot be denied, and a perusal of the following statements will show that for this feeling the Boers have given but too ample a justification. Mr. Sellar continues by saying that "from 1852 to 1877 the task of governing these Boers was undertaken by a central Boer authority." This is not quite correct, and it is well to be accurate upon these points. There was no recognition of any South African Republic by the Sand River Convention, nor could there have been, since no such Republic existed. All that was done by that Convention was to guarantee to the emigrant farmers, on the part of the British Government, "the right to manage their own affairs and to govern themselves without any interference on the part of Her Majesty's Government," "it being understood that this system of non-interference is binding upon both parties." For some years after 1852 the "emigrant farmers" divided themselves into three separate Republics, and no attempt was made to establish any union until 1858. Indeed, Lord Kimberley stated, in the debate already referred to, that the so-called South African Republic continued to consist of three different portions up to 1865, and he contended that "the trade in black ivory"—that is, the enslaving of native children—was practised in one of these only to any extent. In any case, Mr. Sellar is perfectly correct when he goes on to say "the Boers would acknowledge no authority. If the law was obnoxious to any class of men, they either threatened the Legislature into rescinding it, or they defied the Executive to put it into force. They refused to pay any taxes, or to come wider the responsibility of any form of government." Unfortunately, this dislike to and refusal of "any form of Government"