blow at Sannah's Post.

With this experience of the actualities of war, Lord Milner, leaving
Bloemfontein on April 2nd, had returned to Capetown. On the 12th he
was presented with an appreciative address, signed by all, except one,
of the Nonconformist ministers of religion resident in and around
Capetown, in which personal affection for himself and approval of his
policy were expressed. The action of these men was altogether
exceptional. It was justified by the circumstance that in England Lord
Milner's policy had been subjected to the bitterest criticism in
quarters where Nonconformist influence was predominant. Not only to
Lord Courtney, but to other Liberal friends and associates, the High
Commissioner had become a "lost mind." To the Afrikander nationalists
he was "the enemy"; the efforts which had barely sufficed to keep the
administrative machinery of a British colony at the disposal of the
Imperial Government were represented as the unconstitutional acts of a
tyrannical proconsul; having ruthlessly exposed the aspirations of the
Afrikander nationalists he was now to become the destroyer of the Boer
nation. The personal note in the address was, therefore, both
instructive and welcome, and it elicited a response in which the charm
of a calm and generous nature shines through an unalterable
determination to know and do the right:

"As regards myself personally, I cannot but feel it is a great
source of strength at a trying time to be assured of the
confidence and approval of the men I see before me, and of all
whom they represent. You refer to my having to encounter
misrepresentation and antagonism. I do not wish to make too much
of that. I have no doubt been exposed to much criticism and some
abuse. There has, I sometimes think, been an exceptional display
of mendacity at my expense. But this is the fate of every public
man who is forced by circumstances into a somewhat prominent
position in a great crisis. And, after all, praise and blame have
a wonderful way of balancing one another if you only give them
time.

"I remember when I left England for South Africa three years ago,
it was amidst a chorus of eulogy so excessive that it made me
feel thoroughly uncomfortable. To protest would have been
useless: it would only have looked like affectation. So I just
placed the surplus praise to my credit, so to speak, as something