grievances and complaints enumerated and set forth in this humble petition and to direct Your Majesty's representative in South Africa to take measures which will insure the speedy reform of the abuses complained of, and to obtain substantial guarantees from the Government of this State for the recognition of their rights as British subjects." 8

With regard to the government of South Africa by the British, it is a fair statement of the situation to say that while a few of the governors were arbitrary and narrow and bigoted, most of them were not. The local administration on the whole was quite efficient. In 1877, the South African Republic was annexed to the British Crown by Sir Theophilus Shepstone. The majority of the Boers were against this, but seeing its advantages, would have become reconciled, had not the English government followed it up, as Mr. Bryce says, with three "capital blunders": (1) Failure to grant the local autonomy Shepstone had promised. (The Volksraad was never convoked, the constitution was never promulgated.) (2) The selection of a successor to Shepstone,—a military officer who was personally very unpopular, would not "mix" with the Boers, and was wholly incapable of dealing with the delicate political work at hand. (3) Removal of the two native dangers the Boers had feared: (a) Extinguishing of the Zulu Kingdom; (b) Reduction of Sikuhum's strongholds and establishment of peace in the northeast.

All over South Africa was heard the one cry of oppression by the Boer government, and that those who would be free must themselves strike the first blow. That war was at hand, that arms were stored away for that purpose and the visitor invited to see them was a matter of common knowledge. The Marquis of Loure in an article in the North American Review, March, 1900, rather sides with the British. While admitting that the thirst for gold will lead any people to extremes, he .says that the Boers had an ancient and narrow form of government with a hateful intolerance of all free institutions of the Anglo-Saxon type. The conflict is only the inevitable one between progress and stagnation. He says, "We who are sowers of freedom have a right to reap the harvest and we prefer to have the envy and malice rather than the contempt of those who have not plowed the straight furrows we have made." P. 311.

"Against the wish of every wise Boer, against the wish of every loyal colonist, in spite of addresses, in spite even of deputies sent to London, the English government insisted wantonly and wilfully in 1852-4 on founding two independent Boer States to mar the unity of one African dominion and built up with deliberate carefulness all the pain, anxiety and danger that we have to face today; such was the beginning of our trouble in South Africa.” 9

This is only one example of the numerous administrative blunders that the English government made in South Africa, Mr. Curt (quoted above) further remarks: "Democratic in principle the Boer republics are, in fact, limited oligarchies” -and says that today (1900) it is "the clash between that most modern of all communities, a gold-field population and the most antique and intolerant government in the world.”

Now, after considering these different views and opinions, some of them, indeed, all but absurd, what conclusion are we to come to! It is evident, to begin with, that we cannot accept without modification the statements of either the English on the one hand, or of the Germans on the other. The Germans and French charge the whole trouble to English imperialism and greed for gold. The British insist that they had to protect the rights of their subjects in South Africa, and that the discovery of gold, and the consequent inrush of immigrants, an event which could not be foretold, was responsible for the war. Now, laying aside all the little events, pretexts, and grievances, and admitting that the Boer control in South Africa in the period 1877-1900 was mediæval, tyrannical, and wholly uncalled for and unjust, the real causes of the war, it seems to us, may be summed up as follows:

(1) Colonial expansion policy of Great Britain. (And she has more of an excuse for this policy than any other nation except possibly Japan, because it has been, and its maintenance is, vital to her existence as a great world power.)

Henry Curt, in North American Review, 170, p. 205.

(2) The incompatibility of the English liberal political system with the oligarchical government and rude, unprogressive social life and customs of the Boers. (This seems to me the great fundamental cause of the whole struggle. But for this, a great South African nationality might have developed, blending together all the discordant elements, without war, and without the race antagonism that prevailed.)

(3) The discovery of gold, and the consequent exploitation of the mines by English capitalists and financiers. This, however, was more the nature of a mere event, than an underlying cause.

CHAPTER XI

CAUSES OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR (1898)

THE

HE causes of the Spanish-American War, like those of all other wars between different races or systems of government, can be understood and explained only by a study of the diplomatic relations of the two countries along with their political and economic (especially commercial) systems, as well as the essential inherent characteristics and peculiarities of each people.

Admiral Chadwick, in his excellent volume, "Relations of United States and Spain-Diplomacy," characterizes these relations as "the story of more than a hundred years of what has been really a racial strife." He says, "The chief cause was in the absolute racial unlikeness itself, and this racial temperament still has an influence over the relations of men-more potent-than any other force in humanity." 1 The war was but a final episode in a century of diplomatic ill feeling. There was a great difference in the civilizations and the political traditions of the two countries; but, "it was more than antiquity, more than an old civilization, which produced the differences which made it impossible for the North-American Anglo-Saxon to live near his Spanish neighbors without friction." 3

The author's hypothesis that this hundred years of diplomatic struggle between the United States and Spain "was really a racial strife" is not altogether correct. It does not explain all. It is unquestionably true that lack of mutual sympathy and understanding contributed in "no slight de1 Introduction, p. 4.

'Ibid., p. 3. Introduction, p. 3.

gree" to the outcome, but economic considerations are also very important (e. g., the struggle over the right to navigate the Mississippi River and the "greed of American and Spanish protectionists" which was at one time at the bottom of the Cuban revolt) in 1895.

Professor Hershey, in his review of Mr. Chadwick's book, observes that it is justly pointed out (in Mr. Chadwick's volume). . . that at the time this message (McKinley's final war message to Congress) was sent in, Spain had practically yielded to all the American demands which were officially presented to her. She had revoked the order of reconcentration, and had, at the eleventh hour, granted the required armistice to the Cuban insurgents. In short, President McKinley surrendered to the war advocates at the very moment he had won an apparent victory for peace. McKinley's weakness was not in his failure to yield to those demanding peace, but in not insisting on "the absolute independence of Cuba as the sine qua non of peace." Mr. Chadwick deals with the causes of the war, as we would expect, from the standpoint of diplomatic relations. But the reviewer observes that "diplomatic relations do not tell the whole story of the causes of any war." 5 He indicates that a study must also be made of the "economic, social and general political relations between the two peoples or races." 5

The reviewer agrees with Chadwick that it was a good and wise thing "to cut this Gordian knot" with the sword; and adds "what misery and bloodshed might have been avoided if it had been cut by General Grant in 1873, or, perhaps better still, by Sec. Webster in 1850."

Why did not Cuba gain her liberty from Spain in 1825, along with the continental Latin-American states? The answer is, the United States prevented her. That the United States interfered in the Latin-American attempt to help Cuba to independence in 1825 and prevented that action, is 4 Hershey in N. A. Review, 16; pp. 148-50. "Hershey in Review of Chadwick's Book.