she might receive permission to remain at Cape Town for a time, because for a time, until the republic became strong enough to protect itself, it would be to their interest to have protection; and as England itself would cling to Cape Town as a halfway house on the road to India—it is rather a wild, chimerical design—it seems to have been thought that it might be possible to arrange terms with England to remain there, partly for her own protection, and partly for the protection of the South African Republic. It was chimerical, but there is no doubt whatever that that design—and more especially within the last two or three years—has been in the minds of the Dutch in the republics, and that an attempt has been made to instil it into the Dutch population of Cape Colony. It has been advocated largely in the press of both republics, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. That that is not only an English opinion at the Cape I will give you this proof. Sir James Sivewright, who was at that time a member of the Ministry of Sir John Gordon Sprigg, complained vehemently of the line taken by the press in the two republics, and of a republican propaganda and emissaries to support it which he said were actively at work in the districts of Worcester, Wellington and Paarl in the colony, therefore very near Cape Town itself. He made that complaint on 20th January 1897, in a public speech of which President Steyn of the Orange Free State took notice and attempted to refute it. But Sir James Sivewright in reply instanced "the writing of the republican press, notably the Express of Bloemfontein and the Volksstem of Pretoria, as taken over by the newspapers of the colony," adding "with the knowledge which from experience I have gained of the power and position of the writer in at least one of the papers named[1]." No notice was taken of the speech in the Transvaal so far as I am aware, and indeed it would have been difficult for the Transvaal
- ↑ See for this incident the Bluebook c. 8423, pp. 91, no—112, 125—8.
