Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed | Page 8

in Johannesburg, where hardly any Uitlander
understood Dutch, whilst every Boer official was well versed in
English: market and auction sales were to be conducted only in Dutch;
bills of fare at hotels and restaurants were also to be in full-fledged
Dutch only--and all this, it must be remembered, some years before the
Jameson incursion took place.
The judiciary, which, according to the "Grondwet" (Constitution), was
the highest legal authority, was by one stroke of enactment rendered
subservient and subordinate to the First Volksraad. The then Chief
Justice (Kotzee) was ignominiously deposed for honourably contending
against the grave departure from right and justice in subverting the
sacred prerogative due to the highest tribunal, which Boer and
Uitlander alike relied upon for independent justice.
A new system of education was next introduced which admitted only
High Dutch as the medium of instruction in public schools. As only
Hollander children could benefit by such tuition, and whereas those of
other immigrants could not understand that language, the effect was
that parents of English and other nationalities had to combine in
establishing private schools or else to employ private teachers at their
own expense--whilst paying, in the way of taxation, for Hollander
public schools as well. That oppressive system was subsequently
somewhat modified in a manner which admitted the English language
as a medium for a portion of the school hours, the proportion so
accorded being larger in Johannesburg and other such wholly
English-speaking centres than in other parts of the State; but the
amelioration did not take place until after much irritation and expense
had been occasioned, nor did it meet the case of hardship more than
half-way. I may here place the remark that the public educational
department is conducted without stint of expenditure in providing from
Holland the amplest and best school equipments and highly salaried
Dutch professors and teachers.

Irritating class legislation began to be systematically resorted to, to the
prejudice of Uitlanders (the majority of whom, it will be borne in mind,
were English), which painfully pointed to a fixed determination on the
part of the Boers to lord it over them as a totally inferior class, allowing
them no representation, and to treat them, in fact, just as a conquered
people placed under tribute and proper only to be dominated and
exploited.
Boers could walk or ride about armed to the teeth, whilst Uitlanders
were forbidden to possess arms under penalty of confiscation and other
punishments (except sporting-guns under special permit). The like
irritations became rampant by 1890 already.
The alien population were at first too much occupied with their
prosperous vocations to combine in the way of protesting against such
prevailing usage. The Press was, however, eventually employed, and
the Government was approached with respectful petitions praying for
redress of the most glaring causes of discontent; but those were
invariably either disdainfully rejected or ignored, or, if some matter
was relieved, other more exasperating enactments were defiantly
substituted. They were cynically told that they had come to their (the
Boer's) country unasked, and were at liberty, and in fact invited, to
leave it if the laws did not please them. This was said, well knowing
that to leave would involve too great sacrifices of homes and
investments. The Uitlanders could not, however, be brought to the
belief that the Government of a conscientious people could persist in
dealing with them as if a previous design had existed--first to inveigle
them and their capital into their midst, with the object of goading and
despoiling them afterwards. The course of petitioning and respectful
remonstrances was therefore persevered in, but all to no purpose.
Indignation and resentment were the natural result of those failures.
There appeared no alternative but to submit or else to abandon all and
leave the country.
It is true that numerous Uitlanders acquired competences, and some
were amassing fortunes, but such prizes were comparatively few. The
majority just managed, with varying success, to reap a reasonable
return for their outlays and energies, or only to live more or less
comfortably. The fashion of luxurious and unthrifty living, so prevalent
among the "_nouveaux riches_" and the section who vied with them,

impressed the Boers with the notion that all were getting rich, and that
soon there would be nothing left for them in the race. In their Hollander
Press they were reminded that the gold, in reality belonging to them,
was rapidly being exhausted, and the wealth appropriated by aliens,
whose hewers of wood and drawers of water they would finally become.
All this galled them to the heart, and the Government readily lent itself
to proceedings intended to balance conditions in favour of their
burghers, as the process was described. I will adduce a few instances.
As is well known, it is only burghers and some privileged