The Washington times., 1901-10-27
LIVE EUROPEAN TOPICS.
LabOuchere's Gloomy View of the
Situation in South Africa.
The Government Criticised for Sup
pressing War News-Romance of
BouIanger RccaIled-Discourag z
Outlook for English Agriculture.

The war has lasted two years. 1t has
cost us about 600. 900 600. We have sol
emnly decreed that it is over. but no one
sven pretends to believe that it is. The
decree was merely raised in order to en-
able the Government to secure a majority
at the last general election. We have
ravaged and depopulated vast districts in
the Transvaal and the Orange State, and
by the mode in which we have carried on
hostilities we have converted the passive
sympathy entertained by the Dutch in
Cape Colony toward their klth and kin in
the two Boer States into what appears to
be every day becoming racial hatred of
us.
Our last exploit was to issue procla-
nation announcing that if the Boer lead
ers dared to continue their resistance aft
cr September Is they would be banished
forever from Africa, and that they would
he called upon to pay for the prison fare
of their wives and children, whom we
have herded into concentration camps,
where the death rate has now reached the
terrible figure of e19 Der LEGO per annum.
Week after week since the proclamation
was issued we have been assured that the
Beers would surrender before the term
was reached. 1t has come and gone.
There have been no surrenders. but the
moment has been seized by the Beers to
show their contempt for this appeal to
their interests by renewing the war with
a vigor that may have surprised our Colo
NAL Office and the egregious newspapers
that are its organs, but which has sur
rrised no one who knows anything of hu
man nature in general and Boer nature
in particular.
If one thing has been proved more than
another it is that wars are not brought
to an end by savage proclamations. We
cannot shoot prisoners taken In arms
because-apart from the probability of
our soldiers refusing TO take part in such
an atrocity-reprisals would follow, and
two armies both shooting prisoners is too
horrible a state of things for public opn-
ion at home to tolerate.
We cannot attempt to starve out the
enemy by burning their farms, seizing
on their cattle and destroying their crops,
for we have already tried this, and we
have learned that the hardy Beers man
age to live, notwithstanding these at
tempts to starve them. We cannot re-
duce the niggardly allowance Of food that
We dole out to our enemys wives and
children as mode of forcing surrendors.
for we have already tried this, and so
abominable was this deemed that the or
der was withdrawn. In the Cape Colony
we cannot do more to promote loyalty
than we have already, by repression.
done
We have suspended the constitution.
we have harried or imprisoned all those
whom we suspect of sympathy with the
enemy. and we have carried this scheme
so far that. only week or two ago. half
q dozen young girls were sent to prison
Tor having given a meal 10 some Beers in
arms. And vet the only result of our
campaign has been that the Dutch popu-
lation appears to have Joined in large
numbers the forces fighting against u.s.
Is it not. then, full time. l would ask.
that the country should seriously consider
whether the Cabinet, the men in the
street, and the howlers in the lingo press,
really are pursuing e course that Is to
the advantage of the Empire2
With Mr.. Chamberlain the dispute has
always been a personal one. The war
was due to his dislike of Mr.. Kruger and
to the eXigencies of his position Rad
Zeal in Tory Government. II has been
a bitter disappointment to him. He now
hates those who have interfered with his
schemes of ambition, and wolld wreck
the Empire in order to be revenged on
them. Lord Milner is merely priggish
buresEcrat who seeks in bungling fash
ion 10 carry into effect the aims of his
chief.
Are we to spend another hundred mill
Eors, TO lose thousands more valuable
hVcs, to be false to all our old and hon
'ored traditions. to leave il to other pow
ers 10 cut us out in commerce. and to
decide upon all international questions
without oE= claim to have our legitimate
part IN their solution for a year or so
more. because We are engaged in the al
most hopeless task of putting ar end TO
a national resistance over vast area in
the centre OF South Africa, when victory
itself will only open out a prospect of fur
ther trouble and expense. at the bidding
of Mr.. Chamberlain and OF his collea CUES?
Is the country to let itself become a tin
pot tied TO the tail of a mad dog?-Henry
in London Truth.