THE AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
VOLUME VIII NOVEMBER, IQ02 NUMBERS
THE NORTH SLESWIC QUESTION. A FORTY YEARS' WAR.
IN a struggle between races, as between individuals, it is not always easy for the disinterested observer to find the proper point of view from which to estimate the relative merits of the opposing claims advanced by the two contestants. With cool impartiality to place in their just relations the humanitarian impulses born of a natural sympathy with the weaker and those considerations of ulterior end forcing themselves upon the judicious mind, has ever been a difficult task. No nation at war with a neighbor, whatever the bone of contention, has enjoyed the moral support of an undivided public opinion in the world at large.
Great Britain in her campaign against the Boer republics is a case in point. An evident disposition among broad-minded people generally to view with favor the theory of her champions, that an extension of the English dominion in South Africa would mean a corresponding advancement of the best interests of civilization, was met by a strong undercurrent of skepticism, not wholly confined to quarters hereditarily hostile, as to whether even factories and schoolhouses, built up on the ruins of a nation's freedom, might not be bought too dearly. This lack of enthusiasm in applauding their aim, and their means of pursuing it, has undoubtedly been a source of surprise to those English
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