nd 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
joining in with the progress of the rest, are to do all in their power
to impede the general advance."

It is bad enough when any naturally separate State shows the retrograde
temper and an inability to profit by its own resources, but when that
State is an integral part of one great and young continent, then its
action becomes intolerable. I think it is not only the people in a
country that have claims, but the country itself that has a claim. If
you want South Africa to ripen ultimately into a great first-class world
Power (and that is _its_ claim), instead of a bunch of fifth-rate
antagonistic States, the first thing to do is to range the country under
one Government, and as a British Government will be progressive, and a
Dutch one will certainly be retrograde, you must put it under a British
one. That is the first essential, and if any genuinely patriotic
instincts are overridden