TO many people, and especially to all Germans, the attitude of the South African Boers in the Great War has been one of its most surprising features. It was not a surprise to Raemaekers, and here, in this cartoon, he states his reason, as the plain homely figure of the old President Kruger expresses it to General Christian de Wet, who took the wrong side. Kruger does not forget how the Kaiser led him on by telegrams and secret messages of sympathy, and after all, when the war broke out in South Africa, this same Kaiser made no attempt to implement his promises. Some time later all the world learned the facts from the Kaiser’s own lips, when he boasted of having been the friend of the British and of having helped them during the South African War, by communicating to General Roberts a strategic plan for crushing the Dutch. There is certainly no reason to suppose that Roberts or Kitchener made any use of the Kaiser’s plan, because they won the victory. If they had used the plan, the result would have been different.

In this cartoon the Kaiser is the ingenious diplomatist once more. Though he deceived the Dutch formerly, he is now trying to induce them to join him against Britain; and he did succeed in perverting the judgment of de Wet. But the solid, homely sense of the Dutch came to the right conclusion. The man who has once deliberately deceived a people is not likely to succeed in deceiving them a second time.

WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY.