ght be
strengthened." At the People's Congress, held at Graaf Reinet (May
30th) he rose to his full stature. "The worst foes of the British
Empire," he said,[220] "were not the Boers, but those who had set up
the howl for annexation." And he concluded by urging his audience to
renew their hopes, for he believed that "if they did everything in
their power to show what was right they would win in the end." On the
following day Mr. Hargrove was asked, in the name of the Congress, to
continue his agitation in England. The Congress, however, did not
propose to rely exclusively upon Mr. Hargrove's efforts. It resolved
to send a deputation of Cape colonists "to tell the simple truth as
they know it" to the people of Great Britain and Ireland.

[Footnote 220: As reported in _The Cape Times_, Cd. 261.]

There is one other fact which is disclosed by this official
correspondence from the High Commissioner to the Secretary of State
which cannot be overlooked. Mr. Merriman and Mr. Sauer both repudiated
absolutely President Krueger's statement that Mr. Hargrove "had come
here [_i.e._ to Pretoria], as he says, from Sauer and Merriman." In
view of this repudiation, it is somewhat startling to find that the
letters covering the minutes of the conciliation meetings, forwarded
to Lord Milner from time to time with the request that they may be
sent on to the Colonial Office, bear the signature of Mr. Albert
Cartwright, as honorary secretary of the Conciliation Committee of
South Africa. Mr. Albert Cartwright was editor of _The South African
News_--that is to say, of the journal which, as we have noticed
before, served as the medium for the expression of the political views
of Mr. Merriman and Mr. Sauer. At the period in question _The South
African News_ rendered itself notorious by circulating the absurd, but
none the less injurious, report that General Buller and his army had
surrendered to the Boers in Natal and agreed to return to England on
parole; by publishing stories of imaginary Boer victories; by
eulogising Mr. Hargrove, whose acceptance of the L1,000 from the
Netherlands Railway it definitely denied; and by its persistent and
vehement denunciations of Lord Milner. At a later period Mr.
Cartwright was convicted of a defamatory libel on Lord Kitchener, and
condemned to a term of imprisonment.[221]

[Footnote 221: See p. 477.]

[Sidenote: Mischievous effects.]

The situation thus brought about is described by