that.'

'The people are with us. They are disgusted and heart-sore with the
whole business.'

'I grant you that such is their frame of mind, but I think their
attitude will be different when they come to consider the facts, and
face the responsibilities of our position in South Africa. The only
difficulty with me is to communicate the truth to the public mind.'

I was much impressed by this interview. Did this influential editor
represent a large number of English people? Were they in their own minds
out of South Africa, and resolved never to return?

... 'I do not know what you think, Mr. Mackenzie, but we are all saying
here that Mr. Gladstone made a great mistake in not recalling Sir Bartle
Frere at once. In fact, we are of opinion that Frere should have been
tried and hanged.'

The speaker was a fine specimen of an Englishman, tall, with a good
head, intelligent and able as well as strong in speech. He was a large
manufacturer, and a local magnate. His wife was little and gentle, and
yet quite fearless of her grim-looking lord. She begged that I would
always make a deduction when her husband referred to South Africa. He
could never keep his temper on that subject, My host abruptly demanded,
'But don't you think that Frere should have been hanged?'

'My dear, you will frighten Mr. Mackenzie with your vehemence, and you
know you do not mean it a bit.'

'Mean it! Isn't it what everybody is saying here? At any rate I have
given Mr. Mackenzie a text, and he must now give me his discourse.'

I then proceeded to sketch out the work which Sir Bartle Frere had had
before him, its fatal element of haste, with its calamitous failures in
no way chargeable to him. 'In short, I concluded, but for the grave
blunders of others you would have canonized Sir Bartle Frere instead of
speaking of him as you do. He is the ablest man you ever sent to South
Africa. As to his personal character, I do not know a finer or manlier
Christian.' ...

'I am quite bewildered,' said my host, at the end of a long
conversation. 'I know more of South Africa than I knew before. But we
shall not believe you unless you pitch into someone. You have not done
that yet; you have only explained past history, and have had a good word
for everybody.'

'Then, Sir,' I quickly answered, 'I pitch into you, and into your
Governments, one after another, for not mastering the facts of South
African life. Why do you now refuse to protect your own highway into