A vacillating and timid policy has been England's great mistake in South Africa; it is this very vacillation that has brought about the present war.
Dr.Kuyper bitterly reproaches the English for having in 1842, six years after the Great Trek, claimed those emigrants as British subjects.

The Great Trek was similar to the emigration of the Mormons.

The United States have never admitted that they were at liberty to found a separate State within the limits of the national possessions.

If on the same ground alone English had proclaimed their suzeranity over the Boers who were endeavouring to form States in Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, they would have been perfectly within their rights; but Dr.Kuyper forgets that as far back as 1836 England promulgated the _Cape of Hope Punishment Act_.

The object of that Act was to repress crimes committed by whites under English dominion throughout the whole of South Africa, as far north as the 25 deg.