The non-Boer population, however, at Johannesburg and elsewhere have a genuine grievance on the question of the franchise and other rights of citizenship. In order to maintain their exclusive sovereignty in the land the Boers insist upon a fifteen years' residence for full naturalisation.... The period is too long, and it would be prudent on the part of the Boers to reduce it. There is no reason to suppose that they would refuse to do so, were the demands of the Uitlanders advanced in a regular manner.... But even were the Boers ever so deaf to justice and so blind to their own interests as to meet the Uitlander case with an obstinate non possumus, what pretext does this afford for armed intervention by the Chartered Company? A pretence it is true has been made that, before commencing their Raid, Jameson and his men resigned their positions under the Company; but even if such a form were gone through, it is obviously only a colourable pretence. The invading force was drilled, armed, and maintained by the Company. At its head was the administrator of the Company. On his staff was the Company's generalissimo. It took with it the ammunition, equipment, and horses of the Company.... Neither in the political aims of the Uitlanders, nor the position of the Johannesburgers was there a shadow of justification for Jameson's Raid..... The proceedings bear their character on their face and are of a piece with all that has gone before in the history of the Company. The design was to play the Matabele coup again on a bigger field. What was the origin of the Raid on Lobengula? The Company had obtained Lobengula's permission to occupy Mashonaland and dig there for gold, and had no further right beyond this. When occupied, Mashonaland was found to have no paying gold. The shares of the Company were unsalable rubbish. A pretext was therefore found for making war on Lobengula and seizing Matabeleland—a pretext as transparently dishonest as the pretext for the invasion of the Transvaal. All the circumstances showed in that case as in this, that the coup had been carefully prepared long beforehand. When the train had been laid, a quarrel was picked with the Matabele, who had entered Mashonaland at the Company's request, and they were attacked and shot down by this same Jameson while doing their best to retire in obedience to his orders. Instantly the whole of the Company's forces, all held in readiness, entered Matabeleland under the pretence that the Matabele and not the Company were the aggressors. Lobengula's savages were mowed down by thousands with Maxims. Those who were taken prisoners were killed off to save trouble. The envoys sent by the King to try and make terms were barbarously murdered. The King himself fled and died before he could be captured. His territory and the flocks and herds of his people were parcelled out among the Company and the band of freebooters who had been collected by promises of loot. One million new shares were created by Jameson's principals and colleagues, and, in the subsequent boom, shares were unloaded on the British public at prices ranging up to £8 per share. Matabeleland, however, has proved no richer in paying gold than Mashonaland. The shares have been going down again. What were the Chartered gang to do next? In the Transvaal there are extensive paying gold mines, and money which the gang would like to pocket is going elsewhere. Forthwith the Chartered Company's forces are marshalled again. A sudden and obviously factitious agitation springs up at Johannesburg. Rumours of deadly peril to the alien population are put in circulation, goodness knows whence. The women and children are packed off—so it is said, but no one knows why or at whose instigation. Simultaneously a message imploring aid from the quaking citizens reaches Jameson, no one knows how, and in a moment the fighting doctor and his bold buccaneers are once more over the border. There, however, all resemblance between the two coups ends. The Chartered heroes have not to deal this time with naked half-armed savages, but with white men as well armed as themselves, and as well able to use their arms. There are Maxim guns on the other side this time and Krupp guns as well. Result: after a few hours' fighting, the conquerors of Matabeleland are killed or taken prisoners, and the doughty Jameson and his staff are lodged in Pretoria Gaol. I have no desire to exult over their fate. It is a shameful and abominable business all round, out of which no Englishman can extract a grain of satisfaction. But if ever men died with their blood on their own heads, they are the men who fell in this raid, and if ever prisoners of war deserved scant mercy, Jameson and his comrades are those prisoners. They may thank their stars that they have fallen into the hands of men who are not likely to treat them as they themselves treated the Matabele wounded and prisoners.[4]
He continued his attack in a series of articles. The burden of his argument was always the impurity of motive arising from the financial interest involved. "What a comment on our morality," he writes on April 2, "has been our action during the last few months! We quarrelled with the Americans about Venezuela about a bog in which we fancied there might be gold; we remain in Egypt because we are looking after the interest on Egyptian bonds, and finding salaries for a herd of English employees; we are engaged in a Soudan Expedition because Dongola is fertile, and its possession will afford a plea to us to violate our pledges to leave Egypt; we are disputing with President Kruger because he has fallen out with a crew of company mongers; we are backing up a company in Rhodesia because its shares have been put up to a high premium on the Stock Exchange. But, pledged as we are to see that there is good government in Armenia, we are supinely looking on whilst Armenian men are being slaughtered, Armenian women ravished, and Armenian villages burnt. Why? Because there is no money to be made in protecting Armenians, and our financiers have no interests in Armenia."[5]
Mr. Labouchere thought, rightly or wrongly, that the Imperialism of Mr. Rhodes was little more than a mask to cover the desire for financial expansion. Not that he thought badly of Mr. Rhodes personally. He thought that he deceived himself in perfectly good faith. While he detested his aims, he could not help admiring the energy and skill with which they were promoted, and something simple and direct in the character of the man himself.
The estimate I had formed of Mr. Labouchere's opinion of Mr. Rhodes as a private individual was recently confirmed by the following extract from a letter which I received from Mr. Charles Boyd containing a reminiscence of an interview he had with Mr. Labouchere in 1897:
That was the year [he wrote] of the British South Africa Commission of which he (Mr. Labouchere) was a member, and which, as George Wyndham's Secretary, I regularly attended; he was, of course, very much "over the way," in Mr. Jaggers's sense, to what one may call the Imperialist view of the South African question. It was, I think, in May, or, at all events, near the end of the sitting of the Commission, that I conceived the spirited notion of offering myself for the post of Imperial Secretary to the High Commissioner for South Africa, Sir Alfred Milner, then recently appointed; though without official experience, I had some good backers on the strength of some little study of the South African problem. Among these was one of the kindest of men, the late Mr. Moberley Bell, manager of the Times, with whom one morning I sat in his house in Portland Place considering that forlorn hope, as it most properly proved to be of my ambition. "The only thing is," said Mr. Bell, "what are you going to do with Labby? You know you are a child of the opposite camp." I agreed with gloom that, if I had any chance, and Mr. Labouchere "took notice," my antecedents might not be a recommendation. The imperial South African Association was then about a year old, and active and formidable enough to have caught the eye of Truth. Mr. Bell, leaning his big head on his big hand, had a benevolent inspiration. "If I were you," he said, "I'd jump into the nearest hansom and drive straight to 5 Old Palace Yard. It's a sort of move he may quite well love. You will be 'squaring Labby,'" and Mr. Bell dismissed me with his blessing. Yet a little and somewhat nervous-like I stood in the presence of your Uncle, in that wonderful room which you will so well remember giving on the green turf of the Abbey precincts. I stated my case, and displayed one or two testimonials, including that of his friend Sir Charles Dilke. "And now," said I indignantly, "if I do have any chance, I am told that I am in danger of Truth." "Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Labouchere. "I have, to begin with, a considerable admiration for George Wyndham, and, as for yourself, your having the nerve to come straight to me is sufficient proof of your fitness for the Imperial Secretaryship or for anything else," and with a graceful movement of his wrist he disengaged some cigarettes from a sort of gilded network basket of the same, which depended from the wall, and bade me sit down and smoke. He talked of the Commission, and asked me what I thought of the evidence of Mr. Rhodes, with whom, of course, he had considerably crossed swords, not to say whom he had bated. I expressed, possibly with an air of defiance, an extreme sense of Mr. Rhodes' candour. "But bless you," said Mr. Labouchere, "I know all that as well as you. I like Rhodes, I like his porter and sandwiches. An entirely honest, heavy person. On the other hand, did you ever see anything so fatuous as the performance of H——?"
Presently he returned to my candidature, and said, "I'd better write you a testimonial myself, and that will allay your fears..."
As is well known, the troubles of South Africa did not come to an end with the settlement of the Jameson Raid. The aggrieved Uitlanders had not availed themselves, when it came to the point, of Dr. Jameson's action, and their unredressed grievances—that they suffered from serious grievances was admitted even by Mr. Labouchere—festered in their minds and produced, as time went on, deeper and more widespread dissatisfaction. Nor was the appointment in 1897 of Sir Alfred (now Lord) Milner as British Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner for South Africa by Mr. Chamberlain, who had taken office under Lord Salisbury as Colonial Secretary, calculated to allay the resentment of the Boers, his Imperialist sympathies being well known. Towards the end of 1898, Sir Alfred Milner left South Africa for England. He was away for three months, and during his absence several things occurred to hasten the unfortunate crisis—the outbreak of war. General Sir William Butler had been selected to fill the chief military command in South Africa, left vacant by the sudden death of Sir William Goodenough. Sir William Butler, immediately on his arrival in South Africa, allowed his sympathy with the Afrikander party to be very apparent. He was convinced that the English population of the Transvaal had no real grievances, and were only striving to make mischief. When Sir Alfred Milner returned to the Cape, on February 14, 1899, he was faced by a very different situation to the one he had left. In almost all the towns of Cape Colony and Natal meetings had been held by the Colonists protesting against the continuation of the existing state of affairs in the Transvaal, and demanding the intervention of the Imperial Government. Dutch feeling was no less agitated. Among the extreme section of Afrikanders everywhere a movement was on foot for the formation of a National League which should bind together all Afrikanders in strenuous opposition to any attempt of the Imperial power to intervene in South African affairs.[6]
In England, the first indication of what was coming was revealed to the discerning public who read Parliamentary reports by the publication of the army estimates, in which a sum not exceeding £1,211,900 was asked for to cover the military expenses (March, 1899-March, 1900). Mr. Dillon asked why it was considered necessary to increase so enormously our forces in South Africa. The Colonial Secretary (Mr. Chamberlain) replied to the effect that the Transvaal Republic, which borders on the colony of Natal and Cape Colony, had enormously in creased their offensive or defensive forces within the last few years. They had spent large sums in forts, artillery, and rifles, and millions of cartridges had been imported. Therefore, as long as the British Government was responsible for the peace in South Africa, a like increase of warlike preparation was necessary on our part. Mr. Labouchere replied aptly that the increased defensive measures adopted by the Boers had only followed upon the scandalous and outrageous raid which had been made upon their country by the minions of the Chartered Company. Then a paragraph appeared in the Times to the effect that the Commander-in-Chief had been engaged in completing the organisation and composition of the "larger force which it will be necessary to dispatch to South Africa in the event of the negotiations at present in progress with the Government of the Transvaal proving unsuccessful." Mr. Labouchere asked, on July 7, whether the officers mentioned in this communique as going to South Africa to organise the forces, were to go into Cape Colony and into Natal to organise them, and, if so, whether it was with the consent of the Ministers of those Colonies? To which question Mr. Balfour replied "I do not know."[7]
On October 17, Mr. Dillon moved an amendment to the Address in answer to the Queen's Speech, praying for arbitration to settle the difficulties between the two Governments, so that "an ignominious war may be avoided between the overwhelming forces of your Majesty's Empire and those of two small nations numbering in all less than 200,000 souls." Mr. Labouchere seconded the amendment, and pleaded eloquently for arbitration, suggesting President McKinley as the best arbitrator possible. The peroration of his speech was excellent, but, alas, it fell at the time upon ears already eagerly alert for no other sounds than the music of triumphant victory and glorious marches home after a course of deeds of valour, which the mere fact of British nationality was to render as easy of achievement as an afternoon's football. It reads now with a different ring, and testifies to the spirit of justice and temperance which were so characteristic of all his policy in those crises when the English nation gets stirred up, as it sometimes does, to a spirit of hysterical enthusiasm, in comparison with which the excitability and nervous agitation of the "foreigner" is a mere joke. "I confess that I feel very sorry for the end of these unfortunate Boers," he said. "They are fathers of families, they are farmers, honest and ignorant if you like. They are fighting for that which they believe to be the holiest and most noble of causes—their homesteads and their country. We must all regret that their country is not only turned into a battlefield, but that a number of these men, the breadwinners of families, will be slain. For my part, I cannot accept the responsibility of contenting myself with merely washing my hands of an injustice like this. It might be a very politic thing to say: 'There is a feeling in favour of war; I protest against it, but I wash my hands of it, and shall criticise hereafter the conduct of the Colonial Secretary.' I have not criticised the conduct of the right hon. gentleman in this matter except indirectly, because that is not the question of the moment. The question is to do the best we can to put an end to this war, and that is why I have seconded, and why I would venture to urge the House to agree to the amendment which has been moved, because then the war would cease in a very few days."[8]
On October 20, Mr. Labouchere pointed out that, although the total cost of our army is £22,000,000, we are "positively spending £10,000,000 in sending troops to South Africa." He added, with some truth, that, as the Government had a majority, to ask the House to vote against these proceedings was useless. But he declared that, in his opinion, before the war was over, it would cost the country a hundred millions. A burst of laughter and ironical cheering from the Ministerialists greeted the statement of the member for Northampton. They all imagined that Buller would be in Pretoria before Christmas, and that there would even be some change out of the ten millions voted. What a chill would have fallen over that light-hearted assembly if some hand had written on the wall at that moment the real sum which the South African enterprise so gaily entered upon would cost the nation! Something well over two hundred millions did not cover it.[9]
In March 1900, the War Loan Bill raising a sum of thirty-five millions was passed through both Houses of Parliament. The events of the war which had taken place by this time were, briefly, these: The British dispatch which led up to the Boer ultimatum was presented in Pretoria on September 25, and the mobilisation of the Boers commenced on the 27th. The Transvaal ultimatum was presented to the British agent on October 9, and the war began upon the 11th. At the end of the first fortnight the English claimed the victories of Talana and Elandslaagte, whilst the Boers could boast that they had swept the whole of Natal down to Ladysmith. At Pretoria there was great jubilation, and the highest expectations of success for the farmers' arms were entertained. Before Christmas the defeats of Nicholson's Nek, Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso had plunged England into depths of gloom. The investment of Ladysmith had been completed, and the first stage of the war marked by the advance of the Boers into British territory was over. On the 22nd of December, Lord Roberts had set sail from Southampton to the Cape. To him the British Government had turned in its hour of need to restore the shaken prestige of the British army and to bring the war to a successful conclusion. Their confidence was justified, though the conclusion of the war was still far distant. The horrible disaster of Spion Kop occurred in January, but the middle of March saw Lord Roberts in Bloemfontein. Ladysmith and Kimberley had been relieved, and the whole vast territory south of these points was in uncontested occupation of the British troops.
In Mr. Labouchere's speech of March 13, on the occasion of the second reading of the War Loan Bill, he had pleaded eloquently for a cessation of hostilities in South Africa. The Boers, he said, had now been driven out of British territory, but the only terms upon which the British Government would make peace were degrading to a brave and honest people, namely the surrendering of their independence, and the blotting of their nationality out of existence. "Can you tell me of any war," he asked, "in which the vanquished side asked for terms and were told that the victors would grant terms only in the capital of the defeated country, and on condition of their surrendering their independence? I call this thing an iniquity, and a disgrace to this country to propose such terms. Perhaps the question of iniquity does not appeal to hon. gentlemen opposite. It is not only a crime—it is a blunder. I do not believe this is a way to establish peace and harmony and good feeling in South Africa.... You are at present appealing to the lowest passions outside of this House. I do not believe you will succeed in the long run; it may be that the people will be carried away by the feeling which at present exists among Englishmen, but they will soon see that they have been fooled into this war by the vilest body of financiers that ever existed in this world, and that the opportunity had been taken to lay hold of the territory and gold, which Lord Salisbury himself boasted we did not wish for."[10]
There is no doubt that Mr. Labouchere was extremely unpopular in England during 1900. It was difficult for the man in the street to separate his political attitude, with regard to the war, from that of the Irish Nationalists, with whose policy he had been so long identified, and who welcomed the war as supplying fresh food for their campaign of denunciation against the British Government, and who openly expressed their exultation at the Boer successes. Mr. Labouchere did not rejoice at the British humiliation. The point that he always had in view was the prevention of more bloodshed, and the injustice of the annexation of new territory by the force of numerical superiority. Further, he considered that the negotiations which took place in the summer and autumn of 1899, before the outbreak of war, had not been carried on with fairness towards the Boers. After the President of the Transvaal Republic had agreed to a seven years' Franchise Law, retrospective in its action, for the colonists, Mr. Chamberlain took exception to a provision of the new Bill, which required that the alien desirous of burghership should produce a certificate of continuous registration during the period for naturalisation. He suggested further that the details of the scheme should be discussed by delegates appointed by Sir Alfred Milner and the Transvaal Government (July 27). The Transvaal Government, as it had a perfect right to do, instead of immediately accepting Mr. Chamberlain's suggestion, submitted alternative proposals to the British Government, which gave most liberal concessions to the Uitlanders, the details of which were to be discussed with the British agent at Pretoria. To these proposals were attached certain conditions, one of which was that "Her Majesty's Government will not insist further upon the assertion of suzerainty, the controversy on the subject being tacitly allowed to drop" (August 19). Mr. Conynghame Greene, the British agent at Pretoria, wired the Boer proposals and conditions to Sir Alfred Milner. Sir Alfred Milner wired to Mr. Conynghame Greene in reply: "If the South African Republic should reply to the invitation to a joint enquiry put forward by Her Majesty's Government by formally making the proposals described in your telegram, such a course would not be regarded by Her Majesty's Government as a refusal of their offer, but they would be prepared to consider the reply of the South African Republic on its merits."
In Mr. Labouchere's opinion, it was at this point of the negotiations that the disingenuousness of Mr. Chamberlain's action was most apparent. The formal reply of Her Majesty's Government to the Boer proposals was delivered on August 30. It declared that the Boer proposals were accepted, but that the British Government utterly refused to consider the conditions attached to them. It was obvious now that the Boers had no other course open to them but to fall back upon the Commission proposed by Mr. Chamberlain on July 27, and to which their proposals and conditions were the alternative, and, according to Sir Alfred Milner's wire to Mr. Conynghame Greene, understood by both Governments as such. On September 2, therefore, they asked for further information as to the Joint Committee which they were now par force majeure and faute de mieux prepared to accept. The reply they received on September 12 was that "H.M. Government have been compelled to regard the last proposal of the Government of the South African Republic as unacceptable in the form in which it was presented"; that they "cannot now consent to go back to the proposal for which those in the note of the Government of the Republic of August 19 are intended as a substitute"; and that, if those proposals of the Transvaal Government, taken by themselves and without the conditions attached by that Government, are not agreed to, "H.M. Government must reserve to themselves the right to reconsider the situation de novo and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement." On September 15, the Secretary of State of the Transvaal Republic replied that he learned with deep regret of the withdrawal of the invitation to a joint enquiry. The proposal of August 19, made by him in the name of his Government, involved the danger of affecting the independence of the Republic, but his Government had set against this danger the advantage of obtaining the assurances mentioned in the conditions. He protested against the injustice of being asked to grant the original proposals without the conditions annexed, and he could not understand Mr. Chamberlain's present refusal to accept the Commission which was his own alternative. The reply of the Republic consequently was that it could not grant the first half of the August 19 offer without the second, but would accept the Joint Commission which had been proposed by Mr. Chamberlain; that it welcomed the introduction of a Court of Arbitration, and was willing to help in its formation, but that it was not clear what were the subjects mentioned as outside the Court of Arbitration, and it deprecated the foreshadowing of new proposals without specification. Mr. Reitz finally implored the acceptance of the Joint Commission, as "if H.M.'s Government are willing and able to make this decision it will put an end to the present state of tension, race hatred would decrease and die out, the prosperity and welfare of the South African Republic and of the whole of South Africa would be developed and furthered, and fraternisation between the different nationalities would increase." On September 25 Mr. Chamberlain replied that no conditions less comprehensive than the final offer of H.M. Government could be relied upon to effect the object for which they had been striving. The dispatch concluded with these words: "H.M. Government will communicate to the High Commissioner the result of their deliberations in a later dispatch." On September 30 the British agent at Pretoria telegraphed by request of the Secretary of State of the Republic to ask what decision had been taken by the British Government. Mr. Chamberlain replied on October 2 that "the dispatch of H.M. Government is being prepared but will not be ready for some days." In the meantime Parliament had been summoned to grant supplies, the Reserves were called out, and ships were chartered to convey all available troops to South Africa. From September 27 to October 8 the President of the Orange Free State telegraphed frequently to Sir Alfred Milner. He complained of the concentration of troops on the frontiers of his State and of the Transvaal, again and again preferred his good offices to avoid all possibility of war, and in almost every telegram urged that Her Majesty's Government should at once make known the "precise nature and scope of the concessions or measures, the adoption whereof Her Majesty's Government consider themselves entitled to claim, or which they suggest as being necessary or sufficient to secure a satisfactory and permanent solution of existing differences between them and the South African Republic, whilst at the same time providing a means for settling any others that may arise in the future." To this request Sir Alfred Milner made no reply.[11] On October 9 the famous Ultimatum was presented to the British agent at Pretoria. Amongst other plain statements it contained words to the effect that the Transvaal felt obliged to regard the military force in the neighbourhood of its frontiers as a threat against the Republic, and that it became necessary to ask Her Majesty's Government to give an assurance that no further troops should be landed in South Africa, that troops on the borders of the Republic should be withdrawn either by friendly arbitration or some other amicable way. In the event of a refusal the Secretary of State of the Transvaal must regard the action of Her Majesty's Government as a formal declaration of war. War broke out, as has been said, on October 11.
When Lord Roberts marched triumphantly into Pretoria on the 9th of June, some important letters were found in the capital of the Transvaal out of which great political interest was made against the group of Englishmen, of whom Labouchere was one of the most important, who were known as the "little Englanders" in contradistinction to the ever growing numbers of "Imperialists." These letters were sent to Mr. Chamberlain, and a correspondence on the subject ensued between him and Mr. Labouchere. Mr. Labouchere published the whole of it in Truth, prefacing the letters with the following remarks:[12]
"The correspondence which I print below speaks for itself. I had not supposed that I was one of the three M.P.'s whose letters had fallen into the hands of Mr. Chamberlain, as I do not think that I ever wrote to any one in Pretoria. But I did, before the war, both write and talk to Mr. Montagu White, the Transvaal representative in London, and it would seem that he sent some of my letters to Pretoria. What there is requiring explanation in either my conversations or correspondence I do not know. The advice which I gave to Mr. White was that his Government should make reasonable concessions, and should gain time, in order to tide over the false impression created by Mr. Chamberlain's appeal to the passions which had been excited by statements in regard to Boer rule derived from the 'kept' Rhodesian press in South Africa and the correspondents of the English newspapers, who were nearly all connected with that 'kept press' and with the Rhodes gang. Had my advice been followed, there would have been no war. The difficulty which stood in the way of its being adopted was that President Kruger and other leading Boers were fully convinced that Mr. Chamberlain had been in the counsels of the Jameson-Rhodes conspirators of 1895, and that—no matter what concessions the Transvaal might make—he was determined to have his revenge for President Kruger having got the better of him on that occasion."
Here is the correspondence:
Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. Labouchere
COLONIAL OFFICE, Aug. 6, 1900.
SIR,—I beg to call your attention to the enclosed copy of a letter from Mr. Montagu White, with copies of two letters purporting to have been written by you, and to inquire if you desire to offer any explanations or observations with regard to them.—I am, Sir, Your obedient,
J. CHAMBERLAIN.
(Enclosure) Mr. Montagu White to Dr. Reitz[13]
58 VICTORIA STREET, LONDON,
Aug. 4, 1899
DEAR DR. REITZ,—I feel tired and done for to-night. It is past six o'clock and I still have forty miles to go before I get home. My inclination is to wire to you, asking you to tell the British Government to go to the devil and to do their "darnedest." It is perfectly sickening the way one is kept in a continual state of suspense and nervous excitement. Everything is as quiet as possible on the surface, and there has been a tremendous decrease in press cuttings which is a sure sign that matters are relapsing into a normal condition. But I have been able to judge of the effect upon our friends of hints that we may not be able to accept the proposed Commission. Without exception, they are one and all dead against our refusing it, and all agree that we shall have to face a very serious crisis if we refuse the proposal, and that without the friendly support of the majority of the newspapers which have hitherto been on our side. Spender of the Chronicle, who has fought consistently and well for us, tells me that none of them can understand in what way we shall be worse off for accepting the Commission, for (if) your people disagree about the finding of the report what can Mr. Chamberlain do further? Even our best friends say that by rejecting the report of the Industrial Commission two years ago, we have allowed things to go so far that it is unwise to talk of intermeddling in our home affairs as a refusal to entertain what public opinion here endorses as a fair proposal. The essence of friendly advice is: Accept the proposal in principle, point out how difficult it will be to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to statistics, etc., and how undesirable it would be to have a miscarriage of the Commission. In other words: gain as much time as you can, and give the public time here to get out of the dangerous frame of mind which Chamberlain's speeches have created. Spender is of opinion that after two months' delay all danger will have vanished. I cannot say I share his optimistic views, for this sort of thing has been going on for three years. Labouchere said to me this morning: "Don't for goodness sake, let Mr. Kruger make his first mistake by refusing this; a little skilful management, and he will give Master Joe another fall." He further said: "You are such past masters in the art of gaining time, here is an opportunity; you surely haven't let your right hands lose their cunning, and you ought to spin out the negotiations for quite two or three months." I must leave off now. Please remember one thing: I do not send you my advice. I send you the opinions of friends and the tendency of public feeling here.
Some one sent me some lines parodying R. Kipling's Lest We Forget. I got it published in Truth.—Yours very truly,
MONTAGU WHITE.
(Enclosure) Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Montagu White
5 OLD PALACE YARD, S.W., Aug. 2, 1899.
DEAR MR. MONTAGU WHITE,—You will see the lines in Truth. I have altered one or two words to make the grammar all right. I do hope that President Kruger will manage to accept in some form or another the reference (proposed conference). Bannerman and all our Front Bench believe that it is only a way devised by the Cabinet to let Joe climb down. The new Franchise Act stands. The onus probandi of showing that it does not give substantial representation to the Uitlanders and yet leave the Boers masters is with Chamberlain. The difference between five and seven years is not a ground for proof. The details for registration do not prove it. Let President Kruger quote our Registration Laws, which you had better send him, and do not forget that a lodger has to register every year; he is not automatically on the Franchise list. In connection with this, Milner suggested in his dispatch six years. He afterwards said that six was a mistake for five. But Chamberlain in his reply approved of six. It is impossible to calculate the effect without knowing how many Outlanders there are, and how long each has been in the country. To discover the basis of inquiry would take a long time. As the decision would go by the majority, the question would be on the Chairman, who would have a casting vote. Surely it could be arranged with Natal; the Cape and the Orange Free State, as well as the Transvaal, should be represented, with the Chairman an Englishman who has not yet expressed an opinion.
My own impression is that comparatively few will ever become Boers amongst the English; they will not like to give up their nationality. The President has a great opportunity to give Joe another fall. If at the same time the Dynamite Concession is abrogated there will be a rise in many shares, and this will be regarded as a barometer that everything is going on well and satisfactorily. The great thing is to gain time. In a few months we shall be howling about something in another part of the world.—Yours truly,
H. LABOUCHERE.
(Enclosure) Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Montagu White
5 OLD PALACE YARD, S.W., Aug. 4, 1899.
DEAR MR. WHITE,—It is the general opinion that Chamberlain "climbed down." As Bannerman put it to me: "His speech was a little bluster of his own with the main parts arranged by his colleagues, and they sat by like policemen to see that he read them." As a matter of fact he did read all the important parts.
If the President agrees to the Committee it will, under clever tactics, take months to settle conditions, and then it will take further months to come to a decision. If the basis is established that there shall be a substantial representation of the Uitlanders, yet not such as can endanger the majority of the Boers, no harm can well come of the Commission. The only difficulty is that it is a sort of recognition of our right to meddle. But this might be avoided in two ways: (1) By getting Schreiner into it and making it a sort of South African affair; (2) by making a bargain and agreeing only on the understanding that there should be arbitration on all matters affecting the true reading of the Convention. But if the latter is proposed then the President should put in some proposal for the Chief Justices and one Imperial Judge or Governor to be the tribunal.
The universal opinion is that the Cabinet has forced all this upon Chamberlain, and that they are determined not to have war and to do something to let him down easily. Salisbury's speech was conceived on these lines, and a little vague bluster but nothing more. I accentuated Bannerman's declaration about hostilities; this pledges the Liberal party against war.—Yours truly,
H. LABOUCHERE.
Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Chamberlain
HOTEL AND PENSION WALDHAUS,
VULPERA TARASP, ENGADIN SCHWEIZ, Aug. 18, 1900.
SIR,—I beg to acknowledge your letter of Aug. 6, enclosing copy of a letter of Mr. Montagu White, with copies of two letters "purporting to have been written by me," and inquiring if I desire to offer any explanation or observations with regard to them.
For what I may have written or said to Mr. Montagu White I am responsible to the House of Commons, of which I am a member; to my constituents who have done me the honour to send me there; and to the law. To you I owe no sort of explanation. I ascribe, therefore, your invitation to furnish you with one in respect to the enclosed letters to the singular illusion that no matter what course you may see fit to adopt, whether as a Conservative or a Liberal Minister, all owe you a personal explanation who take the liberty to disapprove of it, and to do their best to prevent its bringing us into unnecessary hostilities with some foreign power. Whilst not recognising this pretension on your part, I will, however, offer you some observations in regard to these letters, as you apparently desire that I should do so.
The letters of mine enclosed were, I do not doubt, written by me. The only exception that I have to take to the copies is that a few of the words in them are, I should fancy, erroneously copied, as they do not make sense. The advice tendered in them seems to me to be excellent, and I know of no reason why I should not have addressed it to Mr. White, who was then the representative of a country with which we were at peace. Many letters passed before the War between that gentleman and myself. He was most desirous that all possibility of war should be removed, and that harmony and good feeling should be established on a firm basis between Great Britain and the Transvaal. This we both thought could only be effected by a full recognition of the Convention of 1884, as explained by Lord Derby, who signed it for Great Britain, and by reasonable concessions on the part of the Transvaal Government in regard to the naturalisation and electoral franchise of the Uitlanders domiciled in the Republic. I therefore suggested that the Transvaal Government should grant to such domiciled aliens naturalisation and electoral franchise of the Uitlanders on precisely the same terms as they are granted to aliens in Great Britain. A law thus framed would, I thought, not be open to objection on your part, and would put an end to all the carping criticisms raised by you in respect to small and unimportant details in the concessions that you were forcing on the Transvaal in regard to these matters, and which seemed to me hardly calculated to bring about a peaceful solution of the situation. If I remember rightly the last letters exchanged between Mr. White and myself were just before the close of the normal session of Parliament last year. Mr. White in his letter informed me that he had received a communication from Mr. Reitz, the Transvaal Sec. of State, in which that gentleman told him that, although he had always been a strong advocate for all reasonable reforms in respect of the Uitlanders, and although he had used all his influence to promote a peaceful solution of the pending issues between the two countries, your despatches were so persistently insulting in their tone, and all concessions made by his Government were so invariably met by you with fresh demands, that even the most moderate of the Transvaal Burghers were becoming convinced that you were determined to oblige them either to surrender at discretion to all that you might demand, or to defend by arms the position secured to the Transvaal by the Convention of 1884. He therefore suggested that the negotiations should be taken in hand by Lord Salisbury, in which case he was convinced that a settlement satisfactory to both sides would be easily come to. As I entirely agreed with this opinion of Mr. Reitz, and believed that you were the chief impediment to such a settlement, I replied to Mr. White that the tenor of Mr. Reitz's communication should be conveyed to a leading member of the Cabinet, and that I hoped—although I did not expect—that the suggestion would bear fruit.
As I gathered from your observations in the House of Commons that you had not made up your mind whether you would publish the letters of Members of Parliament to Transvaal authorities that had fallen into your hands, I will—so far as my letters are concerned—relieve you of further consideration by publishing them myself, together with this correspondence. I have often urged that the public should have the advantage of a full knowledge of all documents which are likely to enable them to form a sound judgment in respect to the issues that have arisen in South Africa. Might I, with all respect, venture to suggest to you that you should follow my example? The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (whoever he may be) and Her Majesty's representatives in foreign capitals correspond not only by despatches, but by what they are pleased to term "private letters," which are to all intents and purposes despatches. I presume that the same course is usual between Secretaries of State for the Colonies and Her Majesty's Colonial Governors. You have announced that you are in favour of a "new diplomacy" in which nothing is kept back from the public. Would it be too much to ask you to inaugurate the "new diplomacy" by publishing all the so-called private letters that have been exchanged between you and the Governors of Natal and the Cape Colony; and all the letters and despatches exchanged between these Governors and our military commanders in South Africa, of which you may have copies? Without these documents it is impossible that either the House of Commons or the electors of the United Kingdom can form a true conclusion in regard to the "diplomacy" that led to the war, or be able to affix the responsibility on the right shoulders in respect to our lack of preparation for hostilities in South Africa and our initial reverses. If it is too much to hope that you will act on this suggestion, I would venture to urge that at least you should publish the correspondence between yourself and Mr. Hawksley in regard to your alleged knowledge of the contemplated Rhodes-Jameson conspiracy of 1894. Mr. Hawksley is still, and then was, the solicitor of the Chartered Company of South Africa, and is a close friend and confidant of Mr. Rhodes. When the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into all connected with the conspiracy was sitting, Mr. Hawksley was a witness. He alluded to this correspondence. But when I wished to examine him about it—which was my right as a member of the Committee according to Parliamentary usage—this was not permitted by the Committee. After the Report of the Committee was published Mr. Hawksley made public his conviction that, if this correspondence saw the light, a guilty knowledge of the conspiracy would be brought home to you. When the debate on the Report took place in the House of Commons, he placed the correspondence in the hands of a member with instructions to read it if you made any attack upon Mr. Rhodes. Far, however, from doing this, you went out of your way to assert that Mr. Rhodes had done nothing to invalidate his rights to be considered an honourable man, although only a few days before you had agreed to a report in which he was branded as having been guilty of dishonourable conduct. Since then, again and again, you have been asked to produce the correspondence. But this you have persistently refused to do, although no public interest could suffer by the production. Yet, if Mr. Hawksley is wrong in the inference he deduces from the correspondence, it is obvious that its publication would go far to allay the suspicion which led President Kruger to doubt your desire for a peaceful solution of the strained relations that existed between Her Majesty's Government and that of the Transvaal Republic, and which even now militates against all good feeling between the colonists of South Africa of British and Dutch origin.
I trust that you will excuse my venturing to make these suggestions. I do so because I heartily agree with you as to the desirability of the "new diplomacy." It is the only way in which that popular control can be established over the Executive which is essential in a self-governing community, if it is to escape from falling under the domination of some purely unscrupulous adventurer gifted with a ready tongue.
I believe with my leader, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, that the war might and ought to have been avoided, and I cannot help hoping that my letters which have fallen into your hands will show you that I laboured to the best of my ability in order that it should be avoided. Unfortunately these efforts were not successful. The war was commenced under a lamentable ignorance on the part of Her Majesty's Ministers of the resistance which the two Dutch Republics would oppose to our arms. Reverses followed owing to the meddling of civilians in military matters. Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Bloemfontein are in our hands. The Orange River Free State has been annexed. The Transvaal Republic has been annexed. Under these circumstances peace and prosperity can only be restored in South Africa when all suspicion is removed that the Secretary of State for the Colonies was actuated by his previous relations with the Rhodes-Jameson conspiracy in forcing a war. I am sure, too, that you will agree with me that it will not be right for the electors of the United Kingdom to be called upon to pronounce an opinion on the policy of a war which has cost us thousands of valuable lives and tens of millions of money, as well as on the mode in which the war has been conducted, until all that can enable them to arrive at a conclusion has seen the light.—I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,
H. LABOUCHERE.
P.S.—If you desire to offer any explanations or observations with regard to your action in respect to South Africa, they will receive due consideration.
The Rt. Hon. J. Chamberlain, etc., etc.
Mr. Labouchere wisely remarked at about this period of the South African War: "War is war. The old Greek line holds good that in war the great ones go mad, and the people where it takes place weep. This must inevitably always be the case." With equal force, but less elegance, he also remarked: "I do not waste my time in answering abuse. I am accustomed to it and I thrive under it like a field that benefits by the manure that is carted on to it." He must have thriven exceedingly during the summer of 1900, for the amount of abuse collected and thrown over him was phenomenal. Most of it was extracted from the most shadowy appearances of fact possible. The Conference, or Commission, referred to in the Pretoria correspondence, was understood by papers of quite high standing, such even as the Birmingham Post, to be the Bloemfontein Conference, the abortive proceedings of which had come to an end early in June, 1899. Nevertheless, Mr. Labouchere was accused by the press of having, in his letters to Mr. Montagu White, elaborated a scheme, to make the conference at Bloemfontein not only a failure, but a deliberately planned sham. With regard to the cry of treason which was raised against him indiscriminately, the dates on the letters—even had his communications been of a treasonable nature—rendered such a charge childish in the extreme.
As soon as Mr. Labouchere received Mr. Chamberlain's letter with its enclosures, which followed him to the retired Swiss Valley where he was spending his holiday, he wrote at once to the leader of his party telling him of what had occurred. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was spending August at Marienbad, and wrote him the following letter in reply:
MARIENBAD, Aug. 22, 1900.
MY DEAR LABOUCHERE,—I am much interested in your story, and shall look forward to my Truth with extra avidity. All you describe was perfectly proper and legitimate this time last year, or indeed at any time: and where high treason comes in I cannot see. My little facetiousness will do the great man no harm if it is published. I remember the fact perfectly. All the while the statesman was speaking, Aaron-Balfour and Hur-Hicks Beach were not holding up his hands, but watching, with anxious faces, his every word.
Mark Lockwood, who is here, told me that you were one culprit, and that the other was no other than the ingenuous John Ellis, who was guilty of writing to some lady asking whether the stories of strange doings under martial law were authentic! If this is all one may exclaim tantæne animis cælestibus iræ? Can our Sec. of State be so small-minded!
What a gorgeous palace you are living in! It quite eclipses anything here, even in your favourite St. John's Wood quarter. They are all there: at least a fair representation, ready for Him. But alas He does not come. Weather superb here, but not much company to amuse or interest.—Yours,
H.C.B.
The war dragged on until the May of 1902, when the Boers were obliged to make peace, not so much on account of the military situation as because the burghers were weary of fighting and wanted to lay down their arms. And what else could be expected of them? Half the national army were prisoners of war, nearly four thousand had been killed, the rest were weakening and dwindling hourly, twenty thousand women and children had died in the concentration camps, thousands more were perishing on the veld. There was no help from Cape Colony, no help from Europe, no help from the sympathetic minority in England itself.[14] The national representatives of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State were given three days in which to consider the conditions of peace which were put before them by Sir Alfred Milner, and which they were told were absolutely final. Their answer was given on the 31st, at five minutes past eleven, only an hour before the expiry of the term of grace. The last few moments of their conference were occupied by President Schalk Burger, who closed the melancholy meeting with these words:
"We are standing here at the grave of the two Republics. Much yet remains to be done, although we shall not be able to do it in the official capacities which we have formerly occupied. Let us not draw our hands back from the work which it is our duty to accomplish. Let us ask God to guide us, and to show us how we shall be able to keep our nation together. We must be ready to forgive and forget whenever we meet our brethren. That part of our nation which has proved unfaithful we must not reject."
In considering the part Mr. Labouchere played in the discussions that took place in Parliament and in the press, during the pitiful struggle, no attitude but one of admiration for his consistency and envy of his courage can be maintained for a moment. This chapter cannot be better closed than with a repetition of his own words, expressed valiantly at the moment when he was of all men in England perhaps, the most unpopular: "The best settlement that can be made now will be worse for all parties than the settlement which could have been effected by tact and self-restraint had the Boers never been goaded into war. I adhere to everything that I have ever said as to the causes that brought on this war, with all its disastrous results. I retract not one word that I have published in Truth, or spoken in Parliament, or written in any letter, or uttered in any shape or form about the Chamberlain diplomacy and the Chamberlain war."[15]
[1] Times' History of the War in South Africa, vol. i.
[2] The Hawkesley telegrams. These were subsequently published in the Independence Belge.
[3] Report from the Select Committee on British South Africa, 1897.
[4] Truth, Jan. 9, 1896.
[5] Truth, April 2, 1896.
[6] Times' History of the War in South Africa, vol. ii.
[7] Hansard, vol. 74, July 7, 1899.
[8] Hansard, vol. 77, Oct. 17, 1899.
[9] Henry W. Lucy, The Balfourian Parliament.
[10] Hansard, vol. 80, March 13, 1900.
[11] Truth, Sept. 13, 1899.
[12] Truth, Aug. 23, 1900.
[13] Secretary of State of the Transvaal Republic.
[14] Times' History of the War in South Africa, vol. v.
[15] Truth, Sept. 6, 1900.
We have seen the depth and intensity of Labouchere's political views. Conservatism in its Tory or Whig form he hated and relentlessly fought. On the other hand, it is not to be doubted that some of the modern developments of the social side of radical policy since his retirement from politics would be far from meeting with his approval. The fact is that he was as strongly anti-socialist as anti-conservative. He believed in competition as a principle of social existence and inequality as a natural fact, although he held firmly that the natural inequality of men should not be reinforced or distorted by the artificial inequality of rank. He did not believe that the task of government could rightly be held to imply moral responsibility towards weaklings; such as were unable to survive by themselves should not be assisted to do so. This was his theory; in his personal relations with others he often failed to practise it. "A fair field and no favour" was his social formula. Government might legitimately intervene to prevent such abuse of opportunity as might result from the business relations of employers and employees; but when all was done that could be done in that way, it was a man's natural qualities that enabled him to swim or doomed him to sink. Any attempt to interfere by legislation with this ultimate differentiation of nature was in his opinion immoral and sentimental folly. A Cabinet had no charge of souls, it was merely a business concern running the affairs of the nation as cheaply and effectively as possible.
It is evident that a man holding these opinions could not be other than unfavourable to Socialism. The question of Socialism, indeed, as a practical factor in politics hardly presented itself during the most active period of his political life, but in later days it came to the fore, and that, as might have been expected, in his own constituency, so largely composed of workers. In going through Mr. Labouchere's papers I have come across the report of a public debate which he held with Mr. Hyndman, the well-known Socialist leader, in the Town Hall of Northampton. The discussion is interesting as illustrating very clearly Mr. Labouchere's own view of the whole problem of labour and also as showing the definite line of cleavage between the spirit of the older radicalism in popular estimation, at all events, and much that is identified with the radicalism of to-day.
Mr. Labouchere had been heckled in a more or less friendly way by some Socialist listeners at one of his meetings and had in consequence consented to meet Mr. Hyndman in debate. The subject of discussion was: "The socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interest of the entire community, and the complete emancipation of labour from the domination of capitalism and landlordism, with the establishment of social and economic equality between the sexes."
Mr. Hyndman opened the discussion with a speech of great eloquence. He began by denouncing the terrible evils of poverty and sickness among the working classes. "There are through the length and breadth of England large proportions of the population sunk into the most terrible misery—misery which I will defy you to find equalled in the most savage tribes on the planet." The growth of wealth and poverty were admitted to be simultaneous and out of the total wealth produced the workers only took a quarter or, on the most favourable showing, a third. "That means that for every stroke of work the producer does for himself he does three for other people. It had been said that the prevalent misery had been exaggerated by Socialists, but according to the statistics of Mr. Charles Booth, who was no Socialist, 180,000 families were living in London below the level at which a family could subsist. City life debilitated country stock, and the third and fourth generations of those who have come into our great cities become valueless even for capitalists to make tools out of."
All this was misery due to capitalists and the system of wagedom. On the other hand, the economic forms of to-day were rapidly weakening, and the probability was that capitalism would drift much sooner than was expected into universal bankruptcy. "I long to see—I am not afraid to repeat the words—a complete social revolution, which shall transform our present society, by inevitable causes, from senseless and miserable competition, in which men fight and struggle with one another like pigs at a trough (the biggest hog perhaps getting his nose in first, and, it may be, upsetting the whole thing), into glorious and universal co-operation where each shall work for all and all for each.
"Even now, if it were not for competition, there would be plenty, and more than plenty, for all. I say that the economic forms are ready for the transformation I have spoken of. But first, what is our position of to-day? The old Malthusian delusions are gone. Everybody can see that where the power to produce wealth is increasing a hundredfold, at the same time the population is increasing but one per cent. per annum. It is not over-population that causes the difficulty, but the miserable system of distributing the wealth which the population creates. What are the conditions to-day? What are the powers of production at the control of mankind? Never in the history of man were they near what they were to-day. At this present moment, Mr. Chairman, according to the evidence of the American statist, Mr. Atkinson, on the great factory farms in the west of America, four men, working with improved and competent machinery upon the soil, will provide enough food for 1000; and in every other department of industry it is true in a like, or almost in a like degree. The power of man to produce cloth, linen, boots, for instance, is infinitely greater than ever before in the history of the race. What is more, it has trebled, quadrupled, centupled within the last fifty or a hundred years. What is then your difficulty at the present moment? Not as in old times, a difficulty to produce enough wealth, but the fact that your very machines which are so powerful to make wealth for all, are used against you in order to turn thousands of you out on the streets. It is no longer, as at was in some earlier communities, the power to produce wealth that is lacking. In Northampton as in every industrial town in England, you see great mechanical forces around you, but the workmen instead of controlling the machines are controlled by them. And the products? What is our theory? This. All production to-day is practically social. Everything that is produced is produced for exchange and in order to make profit. Commodities are socially produced by co-operation on the farm, in the great workshop, in the mine. But the moment the product is produced it ceases to belong to those who have produced it and goes into the hands of the employing capitalist, who uses it in order that he may make out of it a personal gain. Consequently, you have here a direct and distinct antagonism between the form of production and the form of exchange. On the one hand, you have got great mechanical forces socially used simply for production for profit, whereas if they were socially used and the product socially exchanged every member of the community would benefit. To-day every increase in the power of machinery may result, frequently does result, in hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of hands being thrown out unemployed on the market. Under the system of society we are inevitably coming to those very powers which will engender wealth, happiness, and contentment for all."
Mr. Labouchere then rose and replied as follows:
"As your Chairman has already told you, this meeting is the outcome of a remark I made the other day when I was down here. Some of those who entertain strong Socialist views were asking me this or that question on the occasion of my giving an account of my stewardship before the electors of this town. I pointed out that Socialism was only one of the subjects I had got to deal with, but if they would excuse me from going into details then I should be able to come down and discuss with them. I did not anticipate then that we were to have the pleasure of Mr. Hyndman's company in that discussion. I thought it was to be a sort of free-and-easy between the Socialists and myself. But you have sent for your big gun to demolish me. I can only lay before you my own views and those of the Radical Party upon social matters, and make a few observations, showing, as I think, that Mr. Hyndman's system, a very millennial system it is no doubt, is neither practicable, nor, if carried out, would effect the ends which he anticipates. Now, Mr. Hyndman's system, I fully admit, is for the entire regeneration—he has told us so, I think—of the world. It is to be carried out by a scheme which has never yet, since the commencement of the world, been tried. No doubt, as Mr. Hyndman has stated, there are evils, very great evils, and much misery in the world under the present system. But it is not enough to prove that to show that any particular remedy will do away with them. There is, no doubt, a great deal of sickness in this world. That we all admit. But we should be amused if a doctor came forward and said: 'If you try this particular pill you will find that all sickness will be driven away from the entire world. You are a criminal, you are mistaken, if you don't take that pill.' But Mr. Hyndman's plan goes much further than the example of the pill. You must remember that if Mr. Hyndman's plan were not successful it would ruin this country and everyone in it. Surely, then, it is our business as practical men to look thoroughly and cautiously into this plan before we adopt it. Mr. Hyndman himself will admit that it is, at least, a leap in the dark. Mr. Hyndman has a light in his hand, but this light is not sufficient to tell us what would occur if we were to take this leap. I am not going to say just now whether it would be successful or unsuccessful; all I say is, we ought to look at this matter in a thorough strict and business manner, not dealing with it in vague generalities, but looking into it in all its details, because when it comes to a question of any business, the real consideration in deciding whether the business is a sound one or an unsound one is not of generalities but essentially of details. Now I think that Mr. Hyndman, whether his plan be good or not, somewhat exaggerates the evils of the present system. Mr. Hyndman told us just now that in towns labour was in such a condition that those who engaged in labour faded out in three generations. Well, I confess I was astonished at that. I don't suppose you are all descended from Norman ancestors or anything of that, but I put it to you. Many of you can surely remember that you had great-grandfathers; many of you had great-grandfathers who lived in Northampton. There are many of you whose grandfathers, whose fathers were engaged in labour. You are engaged in labour yourselves. Do you feel yourselves such a puny miserable body of men that you are going absolutely to die out? But I forget. It is not that you are going to die out, you have died out according to Mr. Hyndman. Then what do I see before me? As the American says: 'Is there ghosts here?' Are you human beings? There you stand; you have been engaged in trade; you have been for many generations in Northampton; I do think you have utterly deteriorated—that you are absolutely worth nothing. But statistics prove the contrary of what Mr. Hyndman says. If you take the death-rate in any large town—Manchester, Birmingham, or London, for instance—you will find that, so far from having gone up, it has gone down. Notwithstanding the misery that no doubt exists, the towns are more healthy now than before. Now, I do not think that Mr. Hyndman seems to understand precisely the present system under which we live. ['How about yourself?'] My friend says 'How about myself?' I am going to explain the present system. In an argument it is always desirable to take some common ground, and we may take this as a common ground: the end of all government is to secure to the greatest numbers such a condition of existence that all may obtain fair wages for a fair day's work, and that all may be employed; and that the government is good or bad in proportion as it approaches to this goal. Now, gentlemen, there are Individualists and there are Collectivists. Modern Radicalism, I would point out to you, recognises this perfectly. It recognises perfectly that while Individualism is a necessary basis for social organisation, yet there is a very great deal that the State can do. Modern Radicalism is in favour of both Collectivism and Individualism. Now I will read to you some words I wrote down some time ago—words that were used by a statesman whom I do not always agree with on foreign politics, but who, in domestic politics, is a very sensible man. Speaking before some association, Lord Rosebery said this:
"'Do not be frightened by words or phrases in carrying out your designs, but accept help from whatever quarter it comes. The world seems to be tottering now between two powers, neither of which I altogether follow. The one is Socialism, the other is Individualism. I follow neither the one school nor the other, but something may be borrowed from the spirit of each to get the best qualities of each—to borrow from Socialism its large, general conception of municipal life, and from Individualism to take its spirit of self-respect and self-reliance in all practical affairs.'
"Upon that subject those are essentially my views; and I would contend they are the views of the Radical Party as it at present exists. Now I am coming to our present system. I am going to say something for this poor old system. I have often, in different parts of Northampton, attacked the details of the system. I am now going to say there is something good in it. Mr. Hyndman seems to consider that the world is composed of a great many men who are engaged in labour on the one side, and on the other a great many huge capitalists who exploit those men. Mr. Hyndman told you that the man engaged in manual labour only receives a third of the value of his labour, and that the other two-thirds go to those horrible capitalists. Gentlemen, I essentially and absolutely deny that such is the case. But allow me to point first to these capitalists. Now a difference is often made between the amount obtained by labour and the amount obtained by those who do not engage in manual labour. It is exceedingly difficult to arrive at exact figures, and for this reason, that when you take what you call the national income of the country it is often forgotten that the national income is very much counted twice or three times over. Take, in the first place, the income tax returns. I want to show you how money is really distributed. There is about £100,000,000 coming to individuals in England from investments in foreign bonds. Very well, and you surely will admit that that is not derived from the labour of Englishmen. Then £49,000,000 is paid to officials. It sounds an enormous quantity, this £49,000,000 paid to officials of the imperial and local government. I have often thought that a great many officials are paid a great deal too high, but we are not entering into that this evening, and there must be some officials; there must be some government, and payment of the officials does not directly come from the sweat and labour of working men. Then there is £143,000,000 derived from public companies. Now these public companies are all in shares. These shares, too, are held by small men, not by great men. A vast number of men hold them. Remember that the whole system of limited liability companies are really created in order to enable small men to act together and hold their own against the very rich men.