The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-03-12 00:00:00

PEACE WITH THE BOERS.

Under the above heading the St. James's Gazette of 'Alon-
day had an article, from which we make the following
extract
It is upon the peace proposals themselves, and upon
the conditions under which we have made them,
that the whole question of policy turns ; and it is
impossible to regard the present attitude of the
Government, so far as we can judge of it from the
information before us, with satisfaction. Many per-
sons in England will be of opinion that this is no time
for making advances to the Boers at all; and that
no such advances should have been made until
we had at least repelled the invasion of Natal and
retrieved the reverses of our arms. There will
be many, we repeat, ta maintain that a vigorous
blow should have been inflicted on the Boer
rebellion before we consented, much less offered, to
treat with the rebels. 4But if words were to be tried
first—if negotiations were to be opened on our side for
a settlement of the quarrel, there is, it seems to us,
but one condition upon which this could be done with
safety and with honour. The Boers should have been
told that whatever might be the nature of their claims,
and however willing we might be to entertain them in
a liberal spirit, we must refuse to consider them so long
as they were preferrel by men in arms against
the British Government and encamped in a British
colony into which they had penetrated as invaders.
We sbould have said to them: "You, the inhabitants
of the Transvaal, may assert if you choose that Tou
are still an independent people, but it is an assertion
to which we on our part cannot for a moment listen.
The question is not one of mere t xecutive policy—
not one which can be settled in your favour by an
English Government merely revising the act of one
of its agents abroad, Your case has been de-
liberately reviewed by the British Legislature,
and you are now British subjects by Act of
Parliament. We could no more consent to re-

cognise your claim to independence merely because
you assert it with rifles in your hands than we could
consent to treat the Act of Union as a nullity if the
Irish people rose in armed rebellion for the establish
ment of Home Rule. So much for the legal and con-
stitutional side of the question, as we are bound to
regard it, and as you by payment of taxes, by obedience
to British officials, and by the acceptance, some of you,
of British pay, have up till lately been content to re-
gard it yourselves. Upon this view of the question you
are simply rebels, and nothing more. But upon
another view of the matter you are something more
than rebels—you are invaders also. - You are at this
moment in military occupation of a part of our terri-
tory which you admit to be indisputably ours, and on
which you have no right or business whatever; and so
long as you remain there we not only will not recog-
nise your demand for independence, but we will not
entertain any of your demands at all. Retire
from Natal into the territory which you have
quitted, and to which you shall be allowed
to retire without molestation from our troops;
and we will then, in an equitable, or even
something more than an equitable spirit, consider
what concessions can be made to your demands,
what extent of local autonomy can be given
you consistently with the maintenance of our
sovereignty. But until Oa do this until
you withdraw from the colony which you have
invaded—we will hold no parley with you
i
whatever." This, we distinctly hold, s the utmost
limit of the advances which any British Government
ought to make to the Boers in the present state of
affairs; and of course we do not yet know whether
her Majesty's Government have gone any further
than this. But if they have, and if they propose to
negotiate while the Boers remain in their intrench -
ments at Laing's Nek, we may disguise the fact how
we will, but we are simply suing for peace. There
can be, and there will be, no doubt of that.

MR. GLADSTONE ON AIIBLIC GRANTS.
On Tuesday Mr. Gladstone received a Deputation
from the Parochial Boards of Scotland, who asked
that the Medical Relief Grant to Scotland should
be on the same scale as that given to England and
Ireland.
The Prime Minister expressed regret that nothing
in the nature of an attempt to deal with the dis-
tribution of public grants could be made this Ses-
sion. He was of opinion, however, that the pre-
sent system was an altogether erroneous one, as it
tended too much to centralisation, and grants given
in one direction were too large, while those given in
other directions were too small—a result which gave
rise to considerable jealousies. His own view was
that while the Government should control and
regulate the amount and nature of the various grants
in aid, the work of distribution should not be left to
the Government at all, but shoulil be confided to the
various local, municipal and county authorities; amd
when the Government had a fair opportunity ofdeal-
ing with the question that was the direction in which
he thought they ought to proceed.