Word: rights
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...Princeton speakers. Bruce began rebuttal work in his first speech, the second on the Harvard side, whereas the first two Princeton speeches were entirely set and made no attempt to meet the affirmative's arguments. The Harvard stand was that the conditions justified interference, that England had the right to interfere and that her methods of interference were justifiable. But Princeton showed conclusively from the blue-books that the conditions which were attached to the franchise offered the Uitlanders were not such as to warrant hostilities between England and the Transvaal. In the rebuttals, the teams showed equal strength...
...question under discussion is a political, not a sentimental one. It is an acknowledged fact that the Transvaal is the weaker state, but weakness of itself has never argued righteousness. Is the Briton or the Boer right? To decide it we must dismiss our sentiment and fall back upon our judgment...
England in this controversy claims first that the condition of affairs in South Africa is intolerable and demands a remedy. Second, as a nation she has a right to secure the remedy. Third, the best remedy is a reasonable franchise grant to the Uitlanders. Regarding the first of these, that the condition of affairs in the Transvaal demanded a remedy, he cited cases to prove that there was no representation in equality before the law, grievous economic burdens and insecurity of life and property. He then went on to show that grievances in South Africa are wide spread and deep...
British colored citizens were maltreated, and in the law British subjects received unfair treatment. These two facts gave England the right to interfere. Even setting aside the special justification of England's claim, there still remains the broader, the firmer, the higher ground of the supreme law of mankind, the inalienable right of any international state to protect its citizens from injustice in a foreign land...
...agents of the Transvaal, and the means of obtaining legal redress have been exhausted in vain, since British subjects have suffered from the unfair administration of the laws, and since the laws themselves have constituted grievous oppression, the general principles of international law sanctioned England's claim to a right to interfere...