uoted in defence of the British treatment of
prisoners. They behaved, he wrote, "as perfect gentlemen towards the
prisoners." "The testimony of a responsible writer of this kind," says
Dr. Spaight, "is more valuable than the catch-penny stories of British
inhumanity which flooded the Press of Europe at the time of the war."
"One is surprised to find such a writer as M. Arthur Desjardins lending
his authority to back the uninformed newspaper abuse, and ascribing the
brutality of the British Army (which he presumes) to the fact that 'a
certain number of its soldiers, accustomed to fighting away from Europe,
have not the least notion of the laws and customs of war obtaining among
civilised nations'." (Spaight, _l.c._, p. 275.) Dr. Spaight's comments
on such outbursts is: "There was a popular demand [in Europe] at the
time for denunciation of England, the hotter the better, and the writers
were too good journalists not to suit their output to the popular
taste." I will not spoil the rather rich humour of these extracts by any
remarks of my own.

Undoubtedly the Boers usually behaved well. Undoubtedly, too, there were
some bad lapses. A Free State commandant was, for instance, convicted of
putting prisoners in the firing line and driving starving prisoners on
foot with a mounted commando. Such things, however, were very far from
being the rule. During the guerilla warfare treatment depended entirely
on the local commandants. The stripping of prisoners before they were
turned adrift was often carried out, "and there is some force in De
Wet's contention that the seizure was justified by the British practice
of removing or burning all the clothes left in the farms and even taking
the hides out of the tanning tubs and cutting them in pieces." In some
cases starving, unarmed and practically naked men were abandoned far
from any white settlement. What is and what is not allowable in war
seems so largely a matter of "military necessity" that the layman is
reluctant to comment, for, in the last resort, it is only the
_needlessly_ barbarous that is condemned in war.

CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

On our side, we cannot, I think, contemplate the history of the
concentration camps with equanimity. Let us recall a few of the facts.
The following are amongst the death rates recorded in July, 1901:
Norval's Pont, 218.4 (per thousand per annum); Bloemfontein, 242.4;
Springfontein, 462.0; Kronstad, 459.6. In June the _average_ death rate
was p