TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. THE news that the Executive Government acknow- ledged by the Transvaalers still in the field have passed through Pretoria in a British train under a British flag of truce in order to enter the Orange River Colony and confer with the Executive of the Free Staters has been very generally taken to indicate that the Boers are preparing to make definite overtures of peace. If they do, what answer should we give them ? In our opinion, - the only answer that can be given is—complete surrender and acquiescence in British rule. That is, the Boers must be treated not as conquered foreigners, but as men who have been in revolt, but men, of course, entitled to the rights of belligerents. In fact, they must be regarded as the Southerners were regarded by the North at the end of the Civil as men who, though beaten, will become British citizens, and alongside of whom the loyal British already in South Africa and the new British who will come there in the future will have to live. In other words, there must, on the one hand, be no making of terms which will set up even in the remotest and smallest degree an imperium in imperio in South Africa ; and, on the other hand, no unnecessary harshness which will make the future difficult instead of easy. But though this full surrender and acquiescence, tempered by as much mercy and kindliness as is safe and reasonable, must be the principle of action, there is no reason why the feelings of the Boers who will propose the terms of peace, or rather of surrender, should not be respected. We would, that is, do all that we possibly can to " save the face " of the Boer leaders in the field. As long as nothing substantial in principle is sacrificed we would make submission as easy and as little painful as possible. When Grant nego- tiated General Lee's surrender he took the greatest trouble to avoid humiliating his foe, and in order to avoid hurting General Lee's feelings by asking for his sword, he added at the end of the terms that all officers were to retain their side-arms. That is an illustration of the temper in which the negotiations should be approached. But though every- thing possible should 'be done to " save the face " of the Boers, there must not, as we have said above, be any making of terms which will give the Boers, or any portion of them, at any future date the power of pointing to a treaty and declaring that it._has been violated by the British Government. Whatever terms are made must be in the nature of a grant by the British Government, and not of a contract, and care must be taken that the British Government—or, say, the King in Council—shall be the final interpreters of the terms granted should any dispute arise as to their meaning.
We take it that the matters upon which the Boers will try to concentrate their efforts in the matter of terms will be six. First they will want some concession in regard to the Banishment Proclamation. Here we shall not attempt to advise the Government. They, and they alone, know the facts upon which the decision must rest. But we may venture to express the strong hope that the Cabinet will find it possible to relax the Proclamation, at least in some degree. To say this is not to condemn the Proclamation. It may indeed prove extremely useful as giving the government something over which to make concessions. One of the chief troubles in negotiating, not with a Power that is to remain but with one which is to be absolutely extinguished, is the difficulty of finding anything in regard to which the winning side can yield. We trust, then, that here at last the Govern- ment will be able to meet the Boers, if not half-way, at any rate in some degree, and will not find it necessary to de- clare an absolute non possumus. The next point on which the Boers will desire concessions will, of course, be the question of reinstatement on the farms. Here it seems to us that the guiding principle should be, first, that care must be taken that the Boer is not placed in a better position than (1) the men who have remained loyal to us all through ; (2) the men who surrendered early in the war; and (3) the new soldier-Colonists or other British settlers. , These conditions satisfied, we think the Government should be guided in this question solely by the interests of South Africa. They must not, in order to punish the Boers, miss a chance of resettling a very useful class of farmers on the land. To be concrete, there should be very few total forfeitures, but a considerable reduction of estate'areas ; and the tenure on which the Boer should. be reinstated at first should not be freehold, but a lease ripening into .a freehold after a period of, say, ten years' good behaviour. As to supplying money to restock the farms, the natural thing would seem to be that the millions taken out of the country by Mr. lirager should be given over by him to the men he misled and ruined. Presumably, however, he and his entourage will not be willing to part with their money, however great the sufferings of the Boers who have remained in the field. In that case some money help by way of loan will be necessary. Thirdly, the question of the forty thousand prisoners will be sure to be canvassed. Here the Government can make no bargain ; but there is no reason why they should not inform the Boers generally of the nature of the policy they mean to pursue in regard to the repatriation of the prisoners. Probably the Boers, misled by Hollander lies, imagine that our policy will be extremely severe. Fourthly, the Boers are pretty certain to want assurances as to the Cape and Natal rebels. Here again, of course, no bargaining is possible ; but we might very well point out to the Boers that, except where murder has been proved, the sentences, even on prominent rebels, have been very light. Fifthly, the Boers are certain to make an attempt to get some concession in regard to the natives,—in regard, that is, to what they consider their sacred and inviolable right to treat the native like an animal rather than a man. It is owing to this absolute refusal by the Boers to tolerate in any shape or form the notion that the native can have positive rights that in the last resort the war became inevitable. The Boer, as he has said in his own Constitution, will not, except by reason of superior force, tolerate the notion of putting the legal status of the native on any equality with his own. His feeling is that of the Southern slaveowner. Here, however, the Government must be absolutely inflex- ible, and must risk the prospect of another year of war, and all the contumely that the Pro-Boers will, no doubt, heap on them, rather than make any concession which will give the native less security before the law than the white man. The right of the Boer " to wallop his own nigger," in however indirect and insidious a form it is claimed. by the men who are so strangely championed here by the Pro- Boers—our Pro-Boers appear to consider the killing of negroes not to be murder—cannot be allowed. We do not want to see the native given the vote, but before the law he must be given absolute equality like a minor... We would rather the war should go on for ten years more than place the native again under the heel, first of the Boer and then of the white man generally, who wouldvery soon be demoralised by the Boer example were we to admit the inferiority of the native in legal status. Sixthly, the Boers will probably ask for terms as to the language question. Here the answer should be plain. There will be no persecution of Dutch, but English will be the official language till self- government is given. Then let the majority decide the question for themselves.
We have only attempted a very rough and slight sketch of some of the points that are likely to arise. Very possibly the most difficult matter in the negotiations will, as often happens, turn on some point which is unknown to us. In any case, we feel sure that the essential thing,- as we said at the beginning of this article, is to be absolutely firm on the leading principles, but subject to that to do everything that is possible to " save the face " of the Boers in the field. They are brave men, and for their bravery, as well as on grounds of policy, they deserve every con- sideration that can be shown them which is consistent with the safety of the State and the future welfare of South Africa.
We have one more thing to say. While the Boers are discussing what offer they shall make, or if they shall make any offer at all, the war must be prosecuted by us with the utmost possible vigour.
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