Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner - Uncat
Archive	Cory Library, Rhodes University, Grahamstown
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	11 February 1897
Address From	London
Address To	W. Hay Esq, Cape Register, Cape Town, South Africa
Who To	William Hay
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 302-3

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to William Hay, 11 February 1897, Cory Library, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Cory Library for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of their collections.

1:  London
2:  Feb 11 / 97
3: 
4:  Dear Mr Hay
5: 
6:  I am sending you a copy of my little story, which is to appear on the
7:  17th of this month. Please let me know what you think of it. I shall
8:  send you a bound copy as soon as I get them.
9: 
10:  I have a great, a very great favour to ask of you. It is most
11:  necessary we should have here as soon as possible some exact quotation
12:  from Mr Rhodes's speeches at the Cape P bearing at on his attitude on
13:  the native question & ^on^ imperial rule.
14: 
15:  In a st speech made ^which I heard him make^ in the House about four or
16:  five years I think on the Pondo-land matter where some valuable
17:  remarks as showing his attitude on the native-question, “I prefer land
18:  to niggers” &c &c.
19: 
20:  Again at ^in^ a speech of what I read an account (a speech at some
21:  public dinner Cape Town) he made a very strong anti-imperial speech,
22:  in which, among other things, the words that the “Imperial Factor must
23:  be eliminated in South Africa.
24: 
25:  Would it be possible for you to send me the copies of a few such
26:  statement in Mr Rhodess own words as reported in the news paper, & or
27:  parliamentary books.
28: 
29:  Will you please be very sure to send me the account for the time &
30:  trouble which, any person you get to collect them for me must be put
31:  to. Kindly forward them to (if you are good enough to get the extracts
32:  copied for me) to 19 Rus-sell Rd,
33:  Kensington
34:  London W.
35: 
36:  That address will always find me even if I go abroad. I have been
37:  present at, or read in the papers, at least 16 speeches of Rhodes
38:  which have contained statements, implying an anti-imperial feeling, &
39:  an anti-native feeling.
40: 
41:  I should also very much like to have a copy of that speech he made to
42:  the bond members (I think when they visited him as an anti-scab act
43:  deputation at Groote Schuur) in which he spoke of the importance of
44:  keeping strangers out of the land, & the land in the hands of the old
45:  inhabitants. &c &c. I think it was on the memorable occasion of the
46:  snuffbox & the stone!
47: 
48:  I regret exceedingly that I never made a collection of these
49:  statements at the time.
50: 
51:  (They would be of immense use not only to my-self but to some of the
52:  politicians here that
53: 
54:  That
55: 
56:  I think if I had seen that statement from the Globe which you printed
57:  in the Register, I should have replied to it. The great difficulty
58:  here is the terrible way in which the press has fallen into the hands
59:  of the Rhodes party. I suppose you know it was Beit who bought the
60:  Saturday Review.
61: 
62:  Please forgive my troubling you. I would not do so but there is no one
63:  else in Cape Town, whom I could ask.
64: 
65:  Yours sincerely,
66:  Olive Schreiner
67: 
68:  My Husband sent some cuttings from the Cape Register to the Chronicle
69:  some days ago, & they have been inserted. But you have no doubt seen
70:  the Chronicle.
71: 
72: 

Notation
The address this letter was sent to is provided by an attached envelope. The ‘little story’ referred to is Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland. The version of the letter in Rive (1987) has mistakes and minor omissions and also omits the part of the letter after Schreiner’s signature.