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Read Ebook: The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It Vol. 1 No. 20 March 25 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls by Various
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Ebook has 348 lines and 18657 words, and 7 pages
THE GREAT ROUND WORLD
AND WHAT IS GOING ON IN IT
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE. MARCH 25, 1897 Vol. 1. NO. 20 .50 PER YEAR
A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON. PUBLISHER
NO. 3 AND 5 WEST 18TH ST. NEW YORK CITY
NOTICE
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School and College Text-Books
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NEW ADDRESS, 5 West 18th St.
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VOL. 1 MARCH 25, 1897. NO. 20
A Committee has been appointed by the English Parliament to inquire about the raid made by Dr. Jameson into the Transvaal in December, 1895.
All London is deeply interested in this matter, so much so that a number of the great English peers are present at the meetings, even the Prince of Wales having attended several of them.
These meetings are held in Westminster Hall, which is one of the most interesting buildings in London.
It was begun by King William Rufus, about 1090, and was used by the early English Kings as a banqueting hall.
This grand old building with its wonderful arched roof has seen many great assemblies in its 800 years of life, but this inquiry into the affairs of the Transvaal is by no means the least interesting of them.
If you take your map, you will see that the southern part of Africa is divided into several states and colonies.
Cape Colony, the most southerly of all, belongs to England. Then comes the Orange Free State, and then the South African Republic, or the Transvaal, as it is called. You will notice that the English possessions creep up the coast in front of the Transvaal, and also form its western or land boundary.
These Boers are governed by a clever old man named Paul Kr?ger,--Oom Paul, as his people call him.
England, as you will see by your map, owns vast tracts of land in South Africa, and according to her regular practice she is trying to enlarge her possessions still further. Wherever England establishes a colony, she reaches out on either side of her, and takes, if possible, a little piece of land here, and another little scrap there, until by and by she has laid hold of the greater part of the land around her.
She has been following her usual custom in South Africa.
But the Boers are not fond of the English, and they have been trying with all their power to keep these neighbors of theirs as far away from them as possible. As the English have advanced, the Boers have retreated, even giving up the diamond mines of Kimberly in the process of moving.
One day, however, rich gold-fields were discovered on the Witwaters Rand. A Rand is the high land on either side of a river valley.
This settled matters for the Boers. From the moment gold-fields were discovered, Englishmen poured into the Transvaal.
The Boers, who, as we have said, are a quiet farming people, were not pleased with this invasion of foreigners. They christened them Uitlanders, which means outsiders, and they are decidedly not in love with them.
The capital of the Transvaal is a town called Pretoria. It is the seat of the government, and is a simple, unpretentious town, situated in the centre of the little Republic.
When the Uitlanders poured over the borders into the gold-fields, they desired to have a town somewhat nearer to the Rand and the gold-fields than Pretoria was, so they founded Johannesburg.
This town flourished amazingly, and soon far outstripped Pretoria in size and importance, just as the Uitlanders had outstripped the Boers in point of numbers and wealth.
The native population of the Transvaal is very scattered. They are a nation of farmers, and at the present time there are only about 15,000 Boer men in the whole territory, while of the English-speaking Uitlanders there are more than five times that number.
No sooner did Johannesburg grow to be a powerful city, than the Uitlanders, her citizens, demanded that they should have a voice in the government of the country.
They complained that they were hardly used by the Boers, and made to pay heavy taxes.
The taxes are certainly heavy, but they are levied upon the gold miners, who have come to the Transvaal for the sole purpose of making fortunes out of the gold deposits; these fortunes they wish to carry away with them to their own country.
The Boers, very naturally, think that some portion of these riches should be paid to the country which gave them, and they cannot see by what right these foreign gold-hunters expect to have a voice in the government.
One of the great grievances of the Uitlanders is that the Boers will not have English taught in the schools, and that their children are obliged to learn the language of the country if they go to the public schools.
These demands of the Uitlanders will seem all the more absurd when it is understood that they do not ask for a voice in the government as citizens of the country. None of these English-speaking people have so much as offered to become citizens of the Transvaal. They are not even willing to be. They wish to keep their right of citizenship in their own country, that they may have the protection of England, and be able to return there as soon as they have made their fortunes.
However, while they are in the Transvaal, digging their gold out of its soil, they want to be able to govern the country in their own way, and are loud in their outcries against the Boers for preventing them from doing so.
Under the laws of the Transvaal it is very easy to become a citizen.
A man has only to live there two years before he can become a citizen, and have all the share in the government that he is entitled to.
But this the Uitlanders are not willing to do. They want everything for nothing.
Does not their request seem outrageous?
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