Lord Salisbury's reply, sent from the Foreign Office on March 11th, is as follows:

This reply has been cited at length for two reasons. In the first place it affords a concise and weighty statement of the British case against the Republics, and, in the second, it contains a specific and reasoned declaration of the central decision of the Salisbury Cabinet, against which the efforts both of the Dutch party in the Cape and of the friends of the Boers in England continued to be directed, until the controversy was closed by the surrender of the republican leaders at Vereeniging. In the Cape Colony the cry of "conciliation" was raised to cloak the gross appearance of a movement which was, in fact, a direct co-operation with the enemy. And the same specious word was adopted in England, so soon as the strain of the war had begun to make itself felt in the constituencies, as a decent flag under which the party opponents of the Unionist Government in general could join forces with the traditional friends of the Boers and other convinced opponents of Imperial consolidation. The decision of the Salisbury Cabinet not to restore the system of the Conventions, which was in fact the decision of the great mass of the British people both at home and over-sea, was not reversed. It was confirmed in the House of Commons by 208 votes against 52 on July 25th, 1900, and by the verdict of the country in the General Election which followed.[209] But the political agitation by which it was sought to reverse this decision was none the less injurious alike to the Boer and British peoples, since it acted as a powerful incentive to the republican leaders to continued struggle which, except for the illusions created by this agitation, they would have recognised as hopeless in itself and unjustified by any prospect of military success. In both cases the effect of the agitation was the same: the war was unnecessarily prolonged—intentionally by the Afrikander nationalists, and unintentionally by Lord (then Mr.) Courtney, Mr. Morley, Mr. Bryce, and other opponents in England of the annexation of the Republics.

The Presidents had demanded the recognition of the independence of the Republics and a free pardon for the Cape rebels as the price of peace. The Afrikander nationalists at once began to co-operate with the Republics in the endeavour to wrest these terms from the British Government. Mr. Schreiner, as we have seen, had already incurred Mr. Hofmeyr's displeasure by allowing the Cape Government to render assistance to the Imperial authorities in the prosecution of the war. The breach thus created between the Prime Minister and Sir Richard (then Mr.) Solomon, on the one hand, and Dr. Te Water, Mr. Merriman, and Mr. Sauer, who shared the views of the Bond, on the other, was, rapidly widened by the "conciliation" meetings held throughout the Colony by the Afrikander nationalists in support of the "peace overtures" of the Presidents. The British population at the Cape was quick to realise the insidious and fatal character of the "conciliation" movement thus inaugurated by the Afrikander nationalists. The universal alarm and indignation to which it gave rise among the loyalists of both nationalities found expression in the impassioned speech which Sir James (then Mr.) Rose Innes delivered at the Municipal Hall of Claremont[210] on March 30th, 1900. The purpose of the meeting was to allow the British subjects thus assembled to record their approval of Lord Salisbury's reply to the Republics, and their conviction that "the incorporation of these States within the dominions of the Queen could alone secure peace, prosperity, and public freedom throughout South Africa." In supporting this resolution, Sir James Rose Innes said:

"This question of permanent peace is the key-stone of the whole matter, because, I take it, we none of us want to see another war of this kind. We do not want to see the misery and the suffering and the loss which a war of this kind entails. We do not want to see our sandy plains drenched with the best blood of England again, fighting against white men in this country. We do not want to see the flower of colonial manhood shot down on the plains of the Orange Free State and the Karroo, and neither do we want to see brave men, born in South Africa, dying in heaps, dying for what we know is a hopeless ideal. Therefore we say, 'In Heaven's name give us peace! Have a settlement, but make no settlement which shall not be calculated, as far as human foresight can provide, to secure a permanent peace.'"

These were strong words, and their significance was heightened by the well-known independence of Sir James Innes's political outlook.

A fortnight later Lord Milner declared his mind on the same question. Both the occasion and the speech are of special interest. The High Commissioner had just returned from a fortnight at the front. On March 19th he left Capetown in company with Sir Richard Solomon for the north-eastern districts of the Colony, which, having rebelled in November, had just been reduced to order by General Brabant and the "Colonial Division," when the Free State invaders had been drawn off by Lord Roberts's advance. After a week in the Colony, Lord Milner travelled on by rail to Bloemfontein, which he reached on the 27th. It was a stimulating and suggestive moment. He was now the guest of the British Commander-in-Chief at the Presidency, where, just ten months ago, as the guest of President Steyn, he had met Paul Krüger for the first time. The little Free State capital, then wrapped in its accustomed quietude, was now filled with the tumultuous presence of a great army. But, complete as was the revolution accomplished by Lord Roberts's advance, there were signs that the Boer was dying hard, even if he were not coming to life again. On the 30th a disquieting engagement was fought at Karree Siding, and on the 31st de Wet dealt his second shrewd blow at Sannah's Post.

With this experience of the actualities of war, Lord Milner, leaving Bloemfontein on April 2nd, had returned to Capetown. On the 12th he was presented with an appreciative address, signed by all, except one, of the Nonconformist ministers of religion resident in and around Capetown, in which personal affection for himself and approval of his policy were expressed. The action of these men was altogether exceptional. It was justified by the circumstance that in England Lord Milner's policy had been subjected to the bitterest criticism in quarters where Nonconformist influence was predominant. Not only to Lord Courtney, but to other Liberal friends and associates, the High Commissioner had become a "lost mind." To the Afrikander nationalists he was "the enemy"; the efforts which had barely sufficed to keep the administrative machinery of a British colony at the disposal of the Imperial Government were represented as the unconstitutional acts of a tyrannical proconsul; having ruthlessly exposed the aspirations of the Afrikander nationalists he was now to become the destroyer of the Boer nation. The personal note in the address was, therefore, both instructive and welcome, and it elicited a response in which the charm of a calm and generous nature shines through an unalterable determination to know and do the right:

It is the third of three critical utterances of which each is summarised, as it were, in a single luminous phrase. To the Cape Dutch he spoke at Graaf Reinet, after their own manner: "Of course you are loyal!" To England, on the Uitlander's behalf, he wrote: "The case for intervention is overwhelming." And now he gathered the whole long lesson of the war into the two words, "never again."

A month later Mr. Chamberlain, speaking at Birmingham (May 11th), made a general statement of the nature of the settlement upon which the British Government had determined. The separate existence of the Republics, "constantly intriguing as they had done with foreign nations, constantly promoting agitation and disaffection in our own colonies," was to be tolerated no longer; but the "individual liberties" of the Boers were to be preserved. After the war was over a period of Crown Colony government would be necessary; "but," he added, "as soon as it is safe and possible it will be the desire and the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce these States into the great circle of self-governing colonies." In making this pronouncement Mr. Chamberlain referred in terms of just severity to the injurious influence which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as the official leader of the Liberal party, had exercised upon the diplomatic contest of the preceding year. At the precise period when a word might have been worth anything to the cause of peace, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, he said—

"had again and again declaimed his own opinion that not only was war out of the question, but that military preparations of any kind were altogether unnecessary. I do not speak of the wisdom which dictated such an expression of opinion," Mr. Chamberlain continued, "although he repeated that statement three days before the ultimatum was delivered, and a week before the invasion of Natal took place. I do not speak, therefore, of his foresight. But what is to be said of the patriotism of a man who is not a single individual but who represents a great party by virtue of his position—although he does not represent it by virtue of his opinion—what is to be said of such a man who, at such a time, should countermine the endeavours for peace of Her Majesty's Government?"

And in the same speech Mr. Chamberlain warned his fellow-countrymen "against the efforts which would be made by the politicians to snatch from them the fruits of a victory which would be won by their soldiers; and in particular against the campaign of misrepresentation which had been commenced already by Mr. Paul, the Stop-the-War Committee, and the other bodies which were so lavish with what they were pleased to call their 'accurate information.'"

Had Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman seen fit to profit by the experience of the past, the whole of the suffering and loss of the next year and a half of wanton hostilities, in all human probability, would have been avoided. But Mr. Chamberlain's rebuke was disregarded. The senseless and unnatural alliance between the Afrikander nationalists and the Liberal Opposition was renewed. It is quite true that the official leader of the Opposition, in speaking at Glasgow on June 7th, two days after Lord Roberts had occupied Pretoria, declared that, in respect of the settlement, "one broad principle" must be laid down—

"the British Imperial power, which has hitherto been supreme in effect in South Africa, must in future be supreme in form as well as in effect, and this naturally carries with it the point which is sometimes put in the foreground, namely, that there must be no possibility that any such outbreak of hostilities as we have been witnessing shall again occur.... The two conquered States must, in some form or under some condition, become States of the British Empire."

But when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman proceeded to inform his audience how this was to be done, he used expressions which not only robbed his original statement of all significance as an indication of British unanimity, but conveyed a direct intimation to the Afrikander nationalists that their endeavours to frustrate the declared objects of the Unionist Government would receive the support and encouragement of the Opposition in England. His words were:

"We need have no doubt how it is to be done. By applying our Liberal principles, the Liberal principles from which the strength of the Empire has been derived, and on which it depends. Let us apply our Liberal principles, and whether our party be in a majority, or in a minority, I think that it is well in our power to secure that these principles shall be applied. [The General Election was imminent.] Let us restore as early as possible, and let us maintain, those rights of self-government which give not only life and vigour, but contentment and loyalty to every colony which enjoys them...."

"Liberal principles," when applied to a given administrative problem, as Mr. Chamberlain took occasion to point out (June 19th), meant, for practical purposes, the opinions which prominent members of the Liberal party were known to hold upon the matter in question. Lord (then Mr.) Courtney was for autonomy—"the re-establishment of the independence of the two Republics." Mr. Bryce advocated "the establishment of two protected States, which would have a sham independence of not much advantage to them for any practical or useful purpose, but very dangerous to us." And then there was Mr. Morley. Now Mr. Morley, only a week before, at Oxford (June 10th), had condemned not only the war, but by implication, the rejection of President Krüger's illusory Franchise Bill.

"I assert," said Mr. Morley, "that the evils which have resulted from the war immeasurably transcend the evils with which it was proposed to deal.... I abhor the whole transaction of the war. I think in many ways it is an irreparable situation. We have done a great wrong—a wrong of which I believe there is scarcely any Englishman living who will not bitterly repent."[212]

With these words fresh in his memory, Mr. Chamberlain continued:

"Is Mr. Morley a Liberal? I do not know in that case what would become of the new territories if his principles were applied. But this I do know—that in that case you would have immediately to get rid of Sir Alfred Milner, who is the one great official in South Africa who has shown from the first a true grasp of the situation; and you would have also to get rid of the Colonial Secretary, which would not, perhaps, matter."[213]

And so in 1900—after the Raid, after the long diplomatic conflict, after the sudden revelation of the military strength of the Republics, after the ambitions of the Afrikander nationalists had been unmasked, and after the Dutch subjects of the Queen had risen in arms—the Liberal friends of the South African Dutch set themselves to do again what they had done in 1880. Just as then President Krüger wrote,[214] on behalf of himself and his Afrikander allies, to Lord (then Mr.) Courtney: "The fall of Sir Bartle Frere ... will be useful.... We have done our duty, and used all legitimate influence to cause the [Federation] proposals to fail"; so now these Boer sympathisers prepared to work hand in hand with the Afrikander nationalists in their endeavour to secure the "fall" of Lord Milner, and to cause the Annexation proposals to "fail." Happily the analogy ends here. Upon the "anvil" of Lord Milner the "hammers" of the enemies of the Empire were worn out—Tritantur mallei, remanet incus.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER IX

THE "CONCILIATION" MOVEMENT

The correspondence forwarded to the Colonial Office during the first half of the year 1900 by Lord Milner, and presented to the House of Commons in time for the Settlement debate of July 25th, furnishes a complete record of the origin of the "conciliation" movement. The whole of this interesting and significant collection of documents is worthy of attention; but all that can be done here is to direct the notice of the reader to one or two of its more salient features—features which illustrate the extraordinary condition of the Cape Colony, and explain how the disaffection of the Dutch subjects of the Crown was to be first aggravated, and then used as a means of saving the independence of the Republics. The position taken up by the Bond at the end of January (1900) in view of Mr. Schreiner's gradual conversion to the side of the Imperial Government, is sufficiently indicated in the resolution prepared for submission to the annual Congress, to which reference has been already[215] made. It was, in effect, a condemnation not only of the British Government, but of the Cape Government also, in so far as it had co-operated with the Imperial authorities, and a determination to prevent the war from being carried to a logical and successful conclusion by the incorporation of the Boer Republics into the system of British South Africa. The annual Congress, at which these opinions were to be affirmed, was announced to be held at Somerset East, on March 8th. Lord Milner, however, represented to Mr. Schreiner that it was very undesirable that such a demonstration should take place; and, through Mr. Schreiner's influence, the Congress was postponed. But the Prime Minister, in undertaking to use his influence with the Bond to prevent a denunciation of the policy of the Imperial Government at so critical a period, expressed the hope that the loyalists on their side would refrain from any public demonstration of an opposite character.

This abstinence from agitation, which was obviously desirable in the public interests at a time of intense political excitement, by no means suited the leaders of the Bond. Ons Land, in commenting upon the postponement of the Congress, incidentally reveals the real consideration which made it worth while for the Bond to promote an agitation of this kind. The Bond organ regrets that the Congress has been postponed. And why?

"It is said that the [South African] League would have held a Congress had the Bond Congress been held. We have nothing to do with what the League does or does not do; as a matter of fact, its opinion has already been published in the Imperial Blue-books. We were of opinion that it would have been the duty of the Afrikander party to express itself at the Congress in unmistakable terms, and resolutely, in order thereby to maintain its true position and strengthen the hands of its friends in England who have courageously and with self-sacrifice striven for the good and just cause."[216]

This, then, was the real object of the agitation—to "strengthen the hands of the friends of the Afrikander party in England." The writer of this article suggests, however, that there is still a prospect that the "good cause" may be promoted, after all, in the way which he desires.

This prospect was speedily realised. With characteristic astuteness, the Bond leaders discovered a method by which their object could be achieved without exposing themselves to the reproach of "stirring up strife." The meetings were to be held, not as Bond meetings, but as "conciliation" meetings. The manner in which the machinery of the conciliation movement was originally set in motion will appear from the following telegram, which President Krüger sent to President Steyn, on January 20th—that is, a little more than a month before the Bond Congress was postponed:

"A certain E. T. Hargrove, an English journalist, about whom Dr. Leyds formerly wrote that he had done much in Holland to work up the peace memorial to Queen Victoria, has come here, as he says, from Sauer and Merriman, who are ready to range themselves openly on our side, to make propaganda in the Cape Colony, provided an official declaration is given that the Republics only desire to secure complete independence. He wished that I should write a letter to Queen Victoria, but this I refused, and thought it desirable that I should write a letter to him personally, in which an answer is given to his question. He thinks that a great propaganda can be made in the Cape Colony, whereby influence can be brought to bear again on the English people and the world. I myself do not expect much result, but think that a letter can do good, and should be glad to have your opinion and observations as soon as possible."[217]

This telegram, one of the many documents found at Bloemfontein upon its occupation by Lord Roberts, is supplemented by the further facts disclosed by the investigations of the Concessions Commission, that a sum of £1,000 was advanced to Mr. Hargrove by the manager of the Netherlands Railway on February 3rd, 1900, and that this loan, paid in specie, was "debited to the account 'Political Situation,' to be hereafter arranged with the Government." The purposes for which Mr. Hargrove secured this large sum are stated in the following question and answer:

Three months later President Krüger's telegram was laid before the two ministers whose names it contained by Mr. Schreiner, at Lord Milner's request, in order that they might have an opportunity of "repudiating or explaining the allegations affecting themselves which it contained." Both Mr. Merriman and Mr. Sauer denied that Mr. Hargrove had received any authority from them to use their names "in the manner which he appeared to have done." And on April 19th Mr. Merriman himself wrote to Mr. Hargrove to ask for an explanation. To this letter Mr. Hargrove replied immediately:

"This is not an answer to your note of this date, but is to ask you to allow me to show your note to a friend of yours and of mine. As it is marked 'private' I cannot do this until I hear from you. Would you be so good as to send word by the driver of the cab which waits?..."

In a second letter, written on the same day (April 19th), and presumably after he had consulted the mutual friend in question, Mr. Hargrove wrote:

"Knowing as you do that I never told you of my proposed trip to Pretoria, that I never talked the matter over with you in any shape or form, you may be sure that when I got there I did not speak or make promises in your behalf. But I did mention your name in this way: I told President Krüger of a conversation I had had with Mr. Sauer, in which I had asked him what his attitude would be in the event of the Republics offering to withdraw their forces from colonial territory on the condition that their independence would be recognised. Mr. Sauer's reply was that, in those circumstances he would, in his personal capacity, most certainly urge the acceptance of that offer, and that, although he could speak for himself only, he thought it probable you would do the same."

Mr. Hargrove adds that the "misconception" embodied in President Krüger's telegram is due to the circumstance that it was probably "dictated in a hurry, amidst a rush of other business," and contained a "hasty and more or less careless account" of a "long talk" translated to the President by Mr. Reitz from English into Dutch.

Mr. Hargrove at the same time forwarded a copy of this letter to Mr. Sauer. With this latter minister of the Crown he enjoyed a more intimate acquaintance, since, as Lord Milner points out,[219] he had been Mr. Sauer's travelling companion during this latter's "well-meant, but unsuccessful, journey to Wodehouse, which was immediately followed by the rebellion of that district."

This, then, was the character of the man who travelled throughout the Colony, addressing meetings of the Dutch population, in order that "the hands of the friends of the Afrikander party in England might be strengthened." At the People's Congress, held at Graaf Reinet (May 30th) he rose to his full stature. "The worst foes of the British Empire," he said,[220] "were not the Boers, but those who had set up the howl for annexation." And he concluded by urging his audience to renew their hopes, for he believed that "if they did everything in their power to show what was right they would win in the end." On the following day Mr. Hargrove was asked, in the name of the Congress, to continue his agitation in England. The Congress, however, did not propose to rely exclusively upon Mr. Hargrove's efforts. It resolved to send a deputation of Cape colonists "to tell the simple truth as they know it" to the people of Great Britain and Ireland.

There is one other fact which is disclosed by this official correspondence from the High Commissioner to the Secretary of State which cannot be overlooked. Mr. Merriman and Mr. Sauer both repudiated absolutely President Krüger's statement that Mr. Hargrove "had come here [i.e. to Pretoria], as he says, from Sauer and Merriman." In view of this repudiation, it is somewhat startling to find that the letters covering the minutes of the conciliation meetings, forwarded to Lord Milner from time to time with the request that they may be sent on to the Colonial Office, bear the signature of Mr. Albert Cartwright, as honorary secretary of the Conciliation Committee of South Africa. Mr. Albert Cartwright was editor of The South African News—that is to say, of the journal which, as we have noticed before, served as the medium for the expression of the political views of Mr. Merriman and Mr. Sauer. At the period in question The South African News rendered itself notorious by circulating the absurd, but none the less injurious, report that General Buller and his army had surrendered to the Boers in Natal and agreed to return to England on parole; by publishing stories of imaginary Boer victories; by eulogising Mr. Hargrove, whose acceptance of the £1,000 from the Netherlands Railway it definitely denied; and by its persistent and vehement denunciations of Lord Milner. At a later period Mr. Cartwright was convicted of a defamatory libel on Lord Kitchener, and condemned to a term of imprisonment.[221]

The situation thus brought about is described by Lord Milner in a passage in the despatch[222] which covers the transmission of the newspaper report of the People's Congress at Graaf Reinet. After stating that in return for Mr. Schreiner's efforts to secure the postponement of the Bond Congress, he had himself persuaded the leaders of the Progressive party to abstain from any public demonstration of their opinions, he writes:

"There was a truce of God on both sides. Then came the 'conciliation' movement, and the country was stirred from end to end by a series of meetings much more violent and mischievous than the regular Bond Congress would have been, though, of course, on the same lines. The truce being thus broken, it would have been useless—and, as a matter of fact, I did not attempt—to restrain an expression of opinion on the other side. Hence the long series of meetings held in British centres to pronounce in favour of the annexation of both Republics, and to give cordial support to the policy of Her Majesty's Government and myself personally. On the whole, the utterances at these meetings have been marked by a moderation totally absent in the tone of the conciliators. But no doubt a certain number of violent things have been said, and a certain amount of unnecessary heat generated. I do not think, however, that those [the loyalists] who have held these meetings, under extraordinary provocation, are greatly to blame if this has occasionally been the case."

That the "conciliation" movement exercised a most injurious influence in a colony of which a considerable area was in rebellion or under martial law, and where the majority of the inhabitants were in sympathy with the enemy is obvious. But from the point of view of the Afrikander nationalists it was an intelligible and effective method of promoting the objects which they had in view. What is amazing is the part which was played in it by Englishmen, and the confident manner in which the promoters of the movement relied upon the political co-operation of the friends of the Boers in the ranks of the Liberal party in England. Every Afrikander who attended these meetings knew that he was doing his best to arouse hatred against the Englishman and sympathy for the Boer. The nature of the resolutions to which he gave his adherence left him in no doubt on this point.

"The war," said Mr. A. B. de Villiers, at the People's Congress, "was the most unrighteous war that was ever pursued. The simple aim was to seize the Republics. If that was persisted in, Afrikanders would not rest.... Britain would efface the Republics and make the people slaves. Race hatred would then be prolonged from generation to generation."

To publish abroad such opinions as these was obviously to invite rebellion in the Cape Colony, to encourage the resistance of the Boers, and to embarrass the British authorities, both civil and military, throughout South Africa. This was precisely what the Afrikander nationalist desired to do. But what is to be thought of the Englishmen who, both in the Cape Colony and in England, took part in this "conciliation" movement? Surely they did not desire these same results. Were they, then, the comrades or the dupes of the Afrikander nationalists? This is a question upon which the individual reader may be left to form his own judgment.

This much, at least, is certain. What gave the Afrikander nationalists the power to bring about the second invasion of the Cape Colony, and to inflict a year and a half of guerilla warfare upon South Africa, was the co-operation of these Englishmen—whether comrades or dupes—who opposed the annexation of the Republics. The intense sympathy felt by the Afrikanders for their defeated kinsmen was natural; but the means by which it was enflamed were artificial. Lord Milner himself, with his accustomed serenity of judgment, refused to take a "gloomy view" of the question of racial relations in the Colony, still less in South Africa as a whole.

"If it is true," he wrote on June 6th, "as the 'conciliators' are never tired of threatening us, that race hatred will be eternal, why should they make such furious efforts to keep it up at the present moment? The very vehemence of their declarations that the Afrikanders will never forgive, nor forget, nor acquiesce, seems to me to indicate a considerable and well-justified anxiety on their part lest these terrible things should, after all, happen."

But while the Cape Colony was in the throes of this agitation, British soldiers were gallantly fighting their way to Johannesburg and Pretoria. During the six weeks of Lord Roberts's "prolonged and enforced halt" at Bloemfontein (March 13th—May 1st), and subsequently, while the Army was advancing upon the Transvaal, considerable progress was made in the work of clearing the Colony of the republican invaders and re-establishing British authority in the districts in which the Dutch had risen in rebellion. In the course of these operations a large number of rebels had fallen into the hands of the Imperial military authorities, and it was the question of the treatment of these colonial rebels that was destined to bring Mr. Schreiner into direct conflict with those of his ministers who still held the opinions of the Bond.

In the middle of April Lord Milner had received from Mr. Chamberlain a despatch containing a preliminary statement of the opinion of the Home Government upon the two questions of the compensation of loyalists and the punishment of rebels, and on April 14th he requested his ministers to give formal expression to their views upon the subjects to which Mr. Chamberlain had drawn his attention. A fortnight later Lord Milner reported to the Home Government the conclusions at which Mr. Schreiner and his fellow-ministers had arrived. Trial by jury for persons indicted for high treason must be abandoned, since it would be impossible for the Crown to obtain the necessary convictions, and a special tribunal must be established by statute. As regards the nature of the punishment to be inflicted upon the rebels, Mr. Schreiner wrote:

"Ministers submit that the ends of justice would be served by the selection of a certain limited number of the principal offenders, whose trials would mark the magnitude of their offence and whose punishment, if found guilty, would act as a deterrent. For the remainder, ministers believe that the interests both of sound policy and of public morality would be served if Her Gracious Majesty were moved to issue, as an act of grace, a Proclamation of amnesty under which, upon giving proper security for their good behaviour, all persons chargeable with high treason, except those held for trial, might be enlarged and allowed to return to their avocations."[223]

The substance of the Ministers' Minutes containing these conclusions, and the arguments by which they were supported—notably an appeal to the "Canadian precedent"—were telegraphed to the Home Government, and on May 4th Mr. Chamberlain replied, also by telegram. While the people of Great Britain were animated by no vindictive feeling against "those who had been or were in arms against Her Majesty's forces, whether enemies or rebels"—did, in fact, desire that all racial animosity should disappear in South Africa at the earliest possible moment after the war was over—the "sentiments of both sides" must be taken into consideration. The consequences which would ensue from "the rankling sense of injustice" that would arise if the rebels were actually placed in a better position after the struggle was over than those who had risked life and property in the determination to remain "loyal to their Queen and flag," would be no less serious than the bad results to be anticipated from any display of a revengeful policy on the part of the loyalists. He continued: