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Reason for War.

Heroes Remember

Reason for War.

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Transcript
Interviewer: Nobody seems to win in the war, do they? (Huh?) Nobody wins in a war. Nobody wins, I guess not. But you know, all that was unnecessary. (You think so?) Oh, my gosh! Interviewer: What was it all about? Why were you there? Well, look here it comes down to common sense. Now here we've got a country right here in Canada. Now you've got minerals, minerals here of all kinds and United States comes in here and they want to take over these minerals exclusively. They, they want to take over the whole gawl darn shooting match and well, we're gonna say, "You're not going to do that." You don't have a franchise. You've got to have to have a franchise to vote on this to see whether we'll take it or not. And, well that means it ends up in a controversy. And something's got to be done about it. Well, the United States will say, "Well, I've got your billions, and billions of dollars invested here in Canada and you've only got a few billion, a few million. What are you going to do about it? We want our money back or we want satisfaction. We're gonna have it." And that was the outcome of the war. The British had money invested in them diamond mines and gold mines there and Paul Kruger wouldn't have given them the franchise. He said you, you can have it after seven years, and after the seven years up, still they didn't get it. And they didn't get it and it ended in that controversy. That's how the war started. Interviewer: So it was all economic! (What?) It was all economic. That's just what is was and... Interviewer: Did you, did you realize that when you joined up? Did you have any idea of the political implications? No, no I didn't. No, I didn't know. Not til after I got out there Interviewer: You know today this, this is interesting to me as a, as a student of this affair for the simple reason that the explanation that's given in these books that your holding right now is more of a, (educator) political explanation in that, today imperialism, is a dirty word. (Yeah, that's right.) And historians of today, a lot of them have branded England as, as the imperialist power that went out to crush the little guy. (No, no not at all.) And they've glorified, they've gloried the Boers in saying that they were a valiant people fighting for their country, fighting for, and made out to be a war of national independence. Now how do you feel about that? No, no, no. The British went in there, they fought that war. They succeeded. They went to and they ransacked all the farms and stock and created an awful lot of damage. The war ended, what did the British do? They turned right around and reimbursed and reestablished all them Boer families that was annihilated in during that war. What other country would have done that? (Not too many) No, it's just the same in the all countries they've done. They've done it just the same with India. They've done it with every place they've gone to, even in Africa, all over. And they've got the dirty end of it in the long run. Interviewer: Do you still consider yourself a British subject? (I do so.) Are you a Canadian citizen? No I, well I, I suppose I am supposed to be a Canadian citizen, but I'm still a British subject. Interviewer: Still loyal to the Queen? Yes sir. I am still loyal to the old union jack
Description

Mr. Weaver gives his thoughts on the reasons for war.

Frank Weaver

Frank Weaver was born in England, April 7th, 1881 and moved to Canada following his service in the South African War. At the time of this interview Mr. Weaver was 97-years-old. This interview was recorded in Saint John, New Brunswick on August 13, 1971 as part of the Living History Project completed by students and faculty of Military and Strategic Studies, Department of History, University of New Brunswick. This interview is used with permission of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. Mr. Weaver's interview was taped outdoors. VAC apologizes for the sometimes poor audio quality of these clips.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
05:01
Person Interviewed:
Frank Weaver
War, Conflict or Mission:
South African War
Branch:
Army

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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