DE BOEREN EN DE MIJNWERKERS VAN DE ZUID AFRIKAANSCHE REPUBLIEK. EEN VRIENDSCHAPPELIJKE BRIEF AAN PRESIDENT KRUGER (1896)

Pamphlet.

16pp. Text in Dutch.

Some foxing on the wraps. Contents clean.

Scarce!

'An open letter written by the Rev. John Mackenzie to President Kruger a few months after the Jameson Raid. The Boer statesman is reminded of the fair treatment accorded to the Republic in 1883-4, when the western border of the Transvaal was fixed by the Convention, and stress is laid on the advancement of the country, in the succeeding years of peace. He is warned that his method of practically disfranchising all classes of people except the farmers could never tend to the prosperity of the State, and is plainly told that the "miners are equals of the farmers at least." Mr. Mackenzie asserts that in no country in the world is this cleavage made between farmers and miners, and urges that the latter should have equal rights with the landowners. He refers to the President's remark that "the Republic was an infant learning to walk, toddling among the legs of the great European powers," and tells him that every one of these Powers knew that this was quite a misapprehension on his part, that they knew that the Transvaal was under the suzerainty of Great Britain, and that any competing agreement with any other European Power and the Republic would be regarded by Britain as a hostile action. In referring to the Jameson Raid the author, while admitting the ability and foresight exhibited by President Kruger in the matter, considers that the reform leaders were treated by him with misplaced severity, and warns the President that he has set himself an impossible task if he intends to follow the advice of those who would urge him "to follow a policy of repression and unfair treatment towards one large division of the people." The author advises the President to announce that his settled policy is to weld together the two classes of his people, and should the Volksraad oppose this policy to dissolve the Raad and appeal to the State direct, and in case the Burghers refused to support a conciliatory policy to the miners, he recommends President Kruger to resign the Presidentship - "refusing to rule over a people who were either ignorant of the lessons of history or who refused to learn anything from them."' - Mendelssohn Vol.I, p.952-953