Dr. Abraham Kuyper, the author of the following masterful criticism and review of South African affairs, is a great Dutchman whose opinions cannot but command the respectful attention of thoughtful men and women in this country to whatever political party they may belong. Dr. Kuyper has won distinction as a scholar, a theologian, a journalist, and a statesman. He was born in 1837 and, after a brilliant career as a student at the University of Leyden, where he graduated D.D. in 1862 he became a famous preacher in Amsterdam. In 1880 he was appointed professor of Theology in the Free University of that city — a position which he still holds. His “Encyclopædia of Theology”, has been translated into English and is well known to students of the science of religion on both sides the Atlantic. In 1898 the University of Princeton, U.S., conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D., and two years ago he was appointed to deliver the “Stone Lectures”. He was welcomed by the American people with remarkable enthusiasm. “The Dutch Gladstone” was the title appropriately conferred upon him in the American press. Dr. Kuyper is also a brilliant journalist. He is President of the Dutch Press Association and in 1897 his silver jubilee as editor of “De Standaard”, one of the ablest and most influential daily papers in the Netherlands, was celebrated by friends and opponents alike in a manner worthy of his fine character, his great intellectual powers, and his far-reaching influence. It is however, as a Statesman that he has made his name familiar as household words to Dutchmen all over the world. He is the leader of a great party in the States General and is a master of parliamentary eloquence and debate. He is a man of tireless industry and finds rest only, as Mr. Gladstone found it, “in change of occupation”.
He is a voluminous author and many of his books have been translated into various languages. A distinguished Dutch journalist who is one of Dr. Kuyper’s political opponents, has described him to me not only as a brilliant, but as a most lovable man, who has won the reverence of his friends and the respectful admiration of those who disagree with him.
At Dr. Kuyper’s own request I have undertaken the translation of his powerful article on the South African crisis which he recently contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes, which in the following pages is reproduced in English dress. I cannot claim to have done justice to it, and I am well aware that the force of the author’s style and reasoning must have been weakened in the translation, but I can only hope that while I cannot pretend to have preserved the charm of his style, I have made his meaning sufficiently clear.
Dr. Kuyper has long been an admirer of British institution, and the British people, and it is with manifest pain that after impartially investigating the causes which led to the present war, he has been forced to the conclusion that the Government in determining to settle the South African difficulty by force rather than by arbitration has dishonoured the best traditions of British Statesmanship.
A. E. Fletcher.
Great Holland near Colchester. May 25st 1900.