The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-09-12
THE BoER AND THE BRITISH.
A Powerful Appeal to Lord Salisbury
Against the Action OF Mr.. Chamber

49, iNNSLIS LictL liSOll W Lulu Ddll9
bury, has been sent to us for publica
ton:
10 the Marquis of Salisbury, Prime
Minister, Chief Secretary Of State
for Foreign Affairs.
My Lord: In crisis of our history
those who fear that England may be
dragged into an unjust and ominous
war turn all their hopes Of peace on you
ana your principles of action. You are
the chief of the Government and the
accepted head of the most powerful
party known to recent times. No other
living statesman can pretend to such
experience as yours in all international
aHalrs, nor does any other possess in so
eminent a degree the confidence of the
nation. To many of us it seems an
unnatural thing that our country should
be on the very of formidable war, the
Interior complications of which no man
can predict, while you are more or
less in the background; at most, a con-
senting part to protracted negotiations
w
personal Share.
1t is mere accident, or, rather, a de-
tail of official arrangement, that the
moving power In this crisis rests with
the Colonial and not with the Foreign
Office.
1t is not the business Of the Colonial
Office to embark this empire in a for
eign war. 1t is no duty of the Minister
FAr fJo CA1~
make war inevitable. 1t is idle to tell
us that this crisis is a purely Colonial
difficulty, to be settled by Colonial in
terests. A war which Eve are told) may
open with the bringing into the field of
$4,000 British troops in a distant CONT
nent, which will inevitably lead 1--WE
are told) to prolong military occupation
or vast tract, which must shake the
whole empire to its base, and may lead
conversational complications yet upper
celved-such war is an imperial uues-
tlon, Qf any can be,) question for the
mead of the Government to decide, and,
for the head Of the Foreign Office to
take under his immediate eye and re-
sponsibility 1t would be monstrous if
a mere administrative ARRANGEMENT
should enable department, pressed aJ
1t is by local ambitions, to drag these
kingdoms into a tremendous inter-
national struggle, wherein the empire
is certain to be strained, If not brought
to extreme peril, by opening its vulner-
Lille sides at once to all its enemies and
its rivals.
No legal quibbing about "suzerainty
can persuade us that the South African
Republic is a part of the empire If it
Is not part of the empire it must be O.
foreign State, even though it be one
over which by agreement Great Britain
has some control. But this control Is
solely concerned with the external, not
with the internal, relations of the re-
public. The point in dispute solely re-
lates to the internal relations of the
Transvaal. No one pretends that the
dispute concerns the dealings of the
republic with foreign nations. There
fore, the cause of war, if war there is
to be, arises from matters between
Great Britain and the home affairs OF
a republic which is not within the en-
pire, not within the dominions of the
Queen. If war is to be declared against
such republic, it is prominently war
for which the Foreign Office is virtually
if not technically, responsible in which
the whole future of the empire will be
staked; for the justices and consequent
ces whereof the Prime Minister of our
country for the time will be judged by
his countrymen and by their descend |
ants.
My Lord, it is you whom history will |
hold responsible for this war and for all |
it's Interior results. 1t is Louis Napol- |
con whom France holds answerable for |
Sedan; and not Eugene, Olivier, or the |
Marshals. Mr.. Chamberlain may be |
technically within his rights in ptting !
himself against President Kruger, as I
If he were defying the Opposition across
the floor of the House But it will be the
Marquis Of Salisbury who will plunge
this empire into war whom France,
Germany, Russia, and the rest, will call
upon to deal with all it's Interior COM
plications. And 1t is you, my Lord, |
whom our Queen will hold to be that |
one of her servants on whose head lies
the weight of a war cloudlng the end of
her long and glorious reign-a war
which the majority of Englishmen
know to be mean and unjust, which
many men of great experience look on
as charged with permanent trouble and
possible disaster to our vast and scat
tered empire.
A majority of Englishmen, I assert,
know in their hearts that this war
would be unjust, even if too many Of
them, knowing that, desire it to go on,
it's injustice. 1t Is not
true, however, loudly 1t be repeated, that
the great majority of Rnglishmen do
seek to push the war to the end. Noisy,
arrogant and trading groups Of men
organized and intriguing for their own
ends, are doing this But they are not
the nation. On all sides there are quiet
protests being raised against it, by men
of all parties and of all interests, out
side those interests which are playing
their own game. The same quiet but
convinced reluctance is to be heard
from sensible and honest Conservatives.
They. pas we all do put their trust In
YOU. In Africa, whether among sub
iects of the Queen or those outside her
1ominions it is a universal feeling
that, if you took this matter into your
,Wn hands 1t could be settled in week
You. my Lord, whose reputation for
patience, peaceable COM
promise of international ENVIRONMENTS