of Belfast Transvaal formerly Orange Free State Burgher
SECOND EDITION
LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27 PATERNOSTER ROW MCM
Butler & Tanner The Selwood Printing Works Frome and London
The present book had been intended for publication in South Africabefore the end of 1899, with the object of laying bare the wicked anddelusive aims of the Afrikaner Bond combination, to which the Anglo-Boerwar alone is attributable, and to counteract its disastrous influencesso far as then still possible. But until quite lately circumstances hadconspired so as to prevent the writer from leaving the Transvaal, andwhen he at last obtained the required passport to Lourenço Marques hewas there denied a permit to visit a colonial port. He therefore sailedfor London in order to publish this book without more loss of time.Though too late to serve as a deterrent, the contents may be effectivetowards showing up the really guilty parties—the instigators andseducers of the deluded Boer nation, and so pave and widen the avenue ofpeace and of conciliation between Boer and Briton who were duped andvictimized alike.
The exposure of the actual culprits and originators should also operatefavourably, and in mitigation in behalf of the much less guilty Boers,so as to dispose the victors to the exercise of magnanimousconsideration. In exposing the villainy of the Dutch coterie in Holland,the writer is far from impugning the honourable character of thatnation, the better part of whom, when once undeceived, will be the firstto reprobate and disown those arch-plotters who sacrificed the peace ofSouth Africa for personal and national advantage.
Some other information regarding the Boers and South Africa will befound interspersed in this study, which will be found of use to theuninitiated and to intending emigrants to that sub-continent. As thereader proceeds with the examination of this book it will suggestcomparisons and even analogies which may commend themselves assingularly apposite and instructive in relation with the study of thepresently budding Eastern question.
C.H. THOMAS
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION
The issue of a Second Edition has afforded an opportunity to correct a few linguistic blemishes, but the work has only been very slightly revised.