‘I think it currish to be perpetually barking and snapping at a man, as so many of the Jingo imperialistic papers and private amateur politicians are continually doing. You do not see it because you do not wish to do so; but just watch the actions of the Government, no matter _what_ they may do or decide upon doing, but it is reviled and cried down. They may do something with the most honest intention of pleasing the Uitlanders, but some sinister intention is found, or supposed to be found, lurking behind it. No contract is given out for some public work, no matter if the man be the best workman and has sent in the lowest tender, but somebody is sure to have taken a bribe from the contractor to work into his hands, and so with everything, just because it is a Boer Government; any stick will do to beat a dog with, or--a Boer official.’
‘Well, all the same, it is hard lines that an educated Englishman should submit to laws made by ignorant, uneducated Boers; we won’t submit to it. Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, Britons never, never will be slaves; there you have my opinion.’
‘My dear fellow, no one wants you to submit to it. I don’t believe you got an invitation from the Boer Government to come here and live under their laws. All you have to do is to submit to it or leave. No one will prevent you or ask you to come back. I do not say this because I wish to make myself nasty, but, in common fairness, you must consider what is right. Here you come into a free Republic, inhabited by a quiet, peace-loving, God-fearing people. They have obtained their country after herculean struggles against enemies from within and without. Again and again they had to fight for country and liberty, and at last they seem to be safe, and wealth comes to them. Strangers from afar come unto them. (Strangers, besides, who are of the people who have persecuted and chased them from their old home, “into a new country, and out again”; and still are they threatened by the Government of these self-same strangers.) They share their wealth with these strangers, they give these strangers the protection of their laws, on an equal footing with themselves. But these gold-hunting strangers are not satisfied with this. It is not enough for them to share with the original owners of the soil--no, they want to be _masters_! And because the owners of the soil will not walk quietly out of their country and give everything up to the would-be usurpers, they are reviled, libelled and abused. You are an Englishman, an Englishman’s boast is supposed to be _love of “fair play,”_ where does your love of fair play come in here?’