Page:The Psychology of Jingoism.djvu/36
be proved. As for the still graver charges launched against the Cape Dutch of conspiring with the Republics to destroy the British supremacy and to establish a Dutch South African Republic, belief in them still rests on the bare word of Sir A. Milner, unsupported by any valid shred of evidence. It is a very grave scandal that he has allowed this language, uttered nearly two years ago, to operate upon the mind of the British nation without adducing any evidence of his charges against 'a certain section of the press' in the Colony and 'a large number of our Dutch fellow-colonists.' That the actual rising of a number of Dutch Colonists from sympathy with what they regarded as an unwarranted attack on the Republics should be taken as proof of the charges made by the High Commissioner is but one more signal instance of the corrupted intelligence of the patriot.
Charges of treason against the Afrikander Bond, of an avowed policy to 'drive the British into the sea,' and armed preparations dating far back into the eighties, have been so persistently repeated from so many quarters as to win a half-conscious acceptance among many who distrusted the sources of the original accusations. It may therefore be well to invite any