hat he had come there with a
definite mission.

Judge Hertzog wished again to explain the rights of the question from a
legal point of view. One must ask: If the nation were here, what would
it wish to be done? And one must act in conformity with what one thinks
its answer would be. The Judge then proceeded to speak on the matter in
general. What, he asked, were the arguments in favour of continuing the
war? In the first place, England was growing weaker just as their own
nation was. Any one could see that with their own eyes. It was true as
regarded the financial side of the question. No doubt England could
still collect millions of pounds, if she wished, but the time would come
when she would have trouble with her tax-payers. Already the British
Government found it difficult to pay the interest on the sum borrowed
for war expenses, as was proved by the fact that a corn tax had been
levied in England. That tax would not have been levied unless things had
been in a serious condition. In the second place, he would ask how it
was they had not been allowed to meet their deputation? It would only
have taken the deputation fourteen days to perform the journey; by now
it would have been among them. But permission had been refused them. And
why? It was said that to grant a permission would have been a military
irregularity. But the present meeting was also a military irregularity.
There must be something more behind that refusal. But what were the
arguments against going on with the war? He would enumerate them--the
situation in which they found themselves was critical; the country as a
whole was exhausted. Nearly all the horses had died or had been
captured. The strongest argument of all, however, was that some of their
own people had turned against them, and were fighting in the ranks of
the enemy. Then the condition of the women caused great anxiety; a fear
had been expressed that a moral decay might set in among the families in
the camps. That consideration had great weight with him. No one with any
heart could remain indifferent to it. If there was one thing which more
than anything else made him respect Commandant-General Botha, it was
that the Commandant-General had the heart to feel, and the courage to
express, the importance of that consideration. The present war was one
of the saddest that had ever been waged. He doubted if there had ever
been a war in which a nation had suffered as they had. But all those
sufferings