inue the war, and if it should
afterwards appear that everything has been in vain, our responsibility
will be only the heavier, the blinder our confidence now is. And over
and over again we shall hear, 'He is dead,' 'and he, and he.' Will not
this make our remorse all the more bitter? Our commandos are so weak,
our country so exhausted, that the loss of one great battle, the
surrender of a single strong force, would spell ruin for us.

"'But we have managed to hold out for so long.' Yes, but there is a
natural reason, a military reason, why this has been the case. The fact
that our commandos have been spread over so large a tract of country has
compelled the British, up to the present time, to divide their forces.
But things have changed now; we have had to abandon district after
district, and must now operate on a far more limited territory. In other
words, the British army can at last concentrate its forces upon us.

"I firmly believe that, under like circumstances, no other nation in the
world would have fought as our nation has done. Shall such a nation
perish? No! we must save it. If we delegates are convinced that we can
no longer offer resistance to the enemy, it is our plain duty to tell
the people so. We must not let them be exterminated for want of timely
advice. More than twenty thousand women and children have died in the
camps during this one year.

"There are men of our own kith and kin who are helping to bring us to
ruin. If we continue the war, it may be that the Afrikanders against us
will outnumber our own men.

"What is there left to hope for? Are we to retain our independence by
ceding a part of our territories? Most assuredly yes, if such a
compromise is feasible. As regards Swaziland, it is of so little
importance to us that we can give it up without a thought. Then there
are the goldfields--let them go. They are but a cancerous growth,
sapping the very life of our country.

"We must face the fact that things are not at a standstill: we are
slipping back every moment. We must all pull together, or everything is
lost. If our sacrifices will buy our independence, well and good. But
suppose that we are compelled to give it up--well, if it even comes to
this, we must never do so unconditionally. An unconditional surrender
would be well enough if the leaders only had to be considered. But we
must think of the interests of the nation. We must say to our people,
'We have no thought of ourselves: our