he idea that
the causes of this terrible South African war are, as it were, only of
yesterday's date. The seeds of which we are reaping so woeful a harvest
were not sown yesterday, nor a few years ago only. We are reaping a
harvest which has been ripening for a century past.

At the time of the Indian Mutiny, it was given out and believed by the
world in general that the cause of that hideous revolt was a supposed
attempt on the part of England to impose upon the native army of India
certain rules which, from their point of view, outraged their religion
in some of its most sacred aspects; (I refer to the legend of the
greased cartridges). After the mutiny was over, Sir Herbert Edwardes, a
true Seer, whose insight enabled him to look far below the surface, and
to go back many years into the history of our dealings with India in
order to take in review all the causes of the rebellion, addressed an
exhaustive report to the British Government at home, dealing with those
causes which had been accumulating for half-a-century or more. This was
a weighty document,--one which it would be worth while to re-peruse at
the present day; it had its influence in leading the Home Government to
acknowledge some grave errors which had led up to this catastrophe, and
to make an honest and persevering attempt to remedy past evils. That
this attempt has not been in vain, in spite of all that India has had to
suffer, has been acknowledged gratefully by the Native delegates to the
great Annual Congress in India of the past year.

In the case of the Indian Mutiny, the incident of the supposed insult to
their religious feelings was only the match which set light to a train
which had been long laid. In the same way the honest historian will
find, in the present case, that the events,--the "tragedy of errors," as
they have been called,--of recent date, are but the torch that has set
fire to a long prepared mass of combustible material which had been
gradually accumulating in the course of a century.

In order to arrive at a true estimate of the errors and mismanagement
which lie at the root of the causes of the present war, it is necessary
to look back. Those errors and wrongs must be patiently searched out and
studied, without partisanship, with an open mind and serious purpose.
Many of our busy politicians and others have not the time, some perhaps
have not the inclination for any such study. Hence, hasty, shallow, and
violent judgments.

Ne