[‘Not well fitted for stimulating the Imperial British sentiment’: Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, Times foreign correspondent, assesses a volume on South Africa with ‘Cape Dutch’ sympathies.] Autograph Letter Signed (‘D. M. Wallace’) to Lady Jersey.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. On bifolium. A thin strip (no more than 1 cm deep) has been cut away at the head of the first leaf, with no loss of text, otherwise in good condition. Folded once. Written a few months after Wallace’s return from his duties as Private Secretary to the future King George V on his world tour on HMS Ophir, and during the Second Boer War. Wallace has just been struck by the thought that ‘though I returned the Volume on South Africa to the address in Victoria Street’ he forgot to give her his opinion of it. ‘The author is evidently Dutch in nationality and sentiment. (I mean, of course, Dutch in the South African sense of the term) and he is very proud of the exploits of his countrymen in their struggles with the blacks.’ As an example of the author’s attempt at impartiality, Wallace gives his account of ‘the incident which gave rise to the celebration of “Dingan’s Day”. About recent events also he tries to be impartial and he is very reticent as to burning questions. See particularly his account of the Jameson raid.’ Nevertheless, on reading a great part of the volume, Wallace was in no doubt where the author’s ‘innermost sympathies tended. His state of mind is I should think very much that of the Cape Dutch under the peach-trees, as graphically described in an article published in the Times last Tuesday.’ Wallace’s conclusion is that the volume is ‘not well fitted for stimulating the Imperial British sentiment in children or young people, but it may be read with advantage by open-minded people of a less tender age’.