ver has there occurred in history a great struggle such as the present
which has not had a deep moral teaching.

England is now suffering for her past errors, extending over many years.
The blood of her sons is being poured out like water on the soil of
South Africa. Wounded hearts and desolated families at home are counted
by tens of thousands.

But it needs to be courageously stated by those who have looked a little
below the surface that her faults have not been those which are
attributed to her by a large proportion of European countries, and by a
portion of her own people. These appear to attribute this war to a
sudden impulse on her part of Imperial ambition and greed, and to see in
the attitude which they attribute to her alone, the provocative element
which was chiefly supplied from the other side. There will have to be a
Revision of this Verdict, and there will certainly be one; it is on the
way, though its approach may be slow. It will be rejected by some to the
last.

The great error of England appears to have been a strange neglect, from
time to time, of the true interests of her South African subjects,
English, Dutch, and Natives. There have been in her management of this
great Colony alternations of apathy and inaction, with interference
which was sometimes unwise and hasty. Some of her acts have been the
result of ignorance, indifference, or superciliousness on the part of
our rulers.

The special difficulties, however, in her position towards that Colony
should be taken into account.

It has always been a question as to how far interference from Downing
Street with the freedom of action of a Self-Governing Colony was wise
or practicable. In other instances, the exercise of great freedom of
colonial self-government has had happy results, as in Canada and
Australia.

Far from our South African policy having represented, as is believed by
some, the self-assertion of a proud Imperialism, it has been the very
opposite.

It seems evident that some of the greatest evils in the British
government of South Africa have arisen from the frequent changes of
Governors and Administrators there, _concurrently with changes in the
Government at home_. There have been Governors under whose influence and
control all sections of the people, including the natives, have had a
measure of peace and good government. Such a Governor was Sir George
Grey, of whose far-seeing provisions for the welfare of all classes many
e