Ebook The War in South Africa

During the summer and autumn of 1899 I spent several months in South Africa examining the political situation in the Transvaal and Cape Colony. I was at Pretoria during the most critical period of the negotiations, at Bloemfontein when the Raad of the Free State decided to stand by the Transvaal, and at Cape Town when the war began, and I had the opportunity of personal intercourse with many men of political prominence in the Republics and the Colony. The earlier chapters of this book are chiefly revised and amplified impressions of what I saw and heard, and include detailed studies of "Outlander grievances" and of the feelings of Dutch and British Afrikanders upon the eve of the present conflict. Several of the chief issues I have detached for separate treatment, fortifying personal experience and intercourse by documentary evidence, some of which has not been before published in this country.

The latter part of the volume is chiefly devoted to an economic and political analysis of those factors in the situation which throw light upon the possibilities of a stable settlement upon the termination of the war, and of a peaceful and prosperous future for South Africa.