forms in England as incompetent,
uncivilised, dishonourable, untrustworthy, corrupt, bloodthirsty,
treacherous, etc., etc., so that not only the British public, but nearly
the whole world, began to believe that we stood on the same level as the
wild beasts. In the face of these taunts and this provocation our people
still remained silent. We were forced to learn from formal blue books
issued by Her Majesty's Government and from dispatches of Her Majesty's
High Commissioner in South Africa that our unscrupulous State
Government, and our unjust, unprincipled, and disorderly administration,
was a continual festering sore, which, like a pestilential vapour,
defiled the moral and political atmosphere of South Africa. We remained
silent. We were accused in innumerable newspapers of all sorts of
misdeeds against civilisation and humanity; crimes were imputed to us,
the bare narration of which was sufficient to cause the hair to rise
with horror. If the reading public believe a hundredth part of the
enormities which have been laid at the door of our people and
Government, they must be irresistibly forced to the conclusion that this
Republic is a den of thieves and a sink of iniquity, a people, in fact,
the very existence of which is a blot upon humanity, and a nuisance to
mankind. Of the enormous sums which we are alleged to have spent out of
the Secret Service Fund in order to purchase the good opinion of the
world there has been no practical result or evidence, for the breath of
slander went on steadily increasing with the violence of a hurricane.
But our people remained silent, partly out of stupidity, partly out of a
feeling of despairing helplessness, and partly because, being a pastoral
people, they read no newspapers, and were thus unaware of the way in
which the feeling of the whole world was being prejudiced against them
by the efforts of malignant hate.

The practical effect has been that our case has been lost by default
before the tribunal of public opinion. That is why I feel compelled to
state the facts which have characterised the attitude of the British
towards us during the Nineteenth century. Naboth's title to his vineyard
must be cancelled. The easiest way of securing that object, according to
the tortuous methods of British diplomacy, was to prove that Naboth was
a scoundrel and Ahab an angel. The facts which have marked Ahab's career
have been stated. I shall now proceed to draw my conclusions, which I
subm