rts
of one great scheme of national dismemberment and betrayal. Boers,
Irish, and Soudanese savages, all were confusedly lumped together as
dangerous people whom it was England's duty to conquer and coerce.

The South African War of 1899-1902 came and passed. People will discuss
to the end of time whether or not it could have been avoided. Parties
will differ to the end of time about its moral justification. For my own
part, I think it is pleasanter to dwell on the splendid qualities it
evoked in both races, and above all on the mutual respect which replaced
the mutual contempt of earlier days. I myself am disposed to think that
at the pass matters had reached in 1896 nothing but open war could have
set the relations of the two races on a healthy footing.

But bold and generous statesmanship was needed if the fruits of this
mutual respect were to be reaped. The defeated Republics were now
British Colonies, their inhabitants British subjects. After many
vicissitudes we were back once more in the old political situation of
1836 before the Great Trek, and the policy which was right then was
right now. Bitter awakening as it was to our proud people after a war
involving such colossal sacrifices, it was still just as true as of old
that in Ireland, Canada, Australia, South Africa, or anywhere else, it
is utterly impossible for one white democracy to rule another properly
on the principle of ascendancy. It was physically possible, thanks to
Ireland's proximity, to deny that country Home Rule, but it would not
have been even physically possible in the Transvaal and Orange River
Colony. Yet the idea was conceived and the policy strongly backed which
could only have had the disastrous effect of bringing into being two
Irelands in the midst of our South African dominions. It is not yet
generally recognized that we owe the defeat of this policy in the first
instance to Lord Kitchener. From the moment he took the supreme military
command in South Africa at the end of 1900, while prosecuting the war
with iron severity and sleepless energy, he insisted on and worked for a
settlement by consent, with a formal promise of future self-government
to the Boers. In this he was in sharp opposition to Lord Milner, who
desired to extort an unconditional surrender. Of these two strong, able,
high-minded men, the soldier, curiously enough, was the better
statesman. In temperament he recalls the General Abercromby of 1797 on
the eve of the Irish