II.

THE CAUSES OF THE WAR DATE FAR BACK. THE FAULTS OF ENGLAND TO BE
SOUGHT IN THE PAST. A REVISED VERDICT NEEDED. DOWNING STREET
GOVERNMENT AND SUCCESSIVE COLONIAL GOVERNORS. M. MABILLE AND M.
DIETERLEN, FRENCH MISSIONARIES. EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE COLONY.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY BY GREAT BRITAIN. COMPENSATION TO SLAVE
OWNERS. FIRST TREK OF THE BURGHERS.


There is nothing so fallacious or misleading in history as the popular
tendency to trace the causes of a great war to one source alone, or to
fix upon the most recent events leading up to it, as the principal or
even the sole cause of the outbreak of war. The occasion of an event may
not be, and often is not, the cause of it. The occasion of this war was
not its cause. In the present case it is extraordinary to note how
almost the whole of Europe appears to be carried away with the idea that
the causes of this terrible South African war are, as it were, only of
yesterday's date. The seeds of which we are reaping so woeful a harvest
were not sown yesterday, nor a few years ago only. We are reaping a
harvest which has been ripening for a century past.

At the time of the Indian Mutiny, it was given out and believed by the
world in general that the cause of that hideous revolt was a supposed
attempt on the part of England to impose upon the native army of India
certain rules which, from their point of view, outraged their religion
in some of its most sacred aspects; (I refer to the legend of the