desirous of surrendering, experienced was that they were not
allowed to remain in their own districts, and were afraid of the
penalties attached to not having adhered strictly to the oath of
neutrality, which they had, in most cases, been made to break by
the coercive measures of Boers out on commando, he wished to give
the burghers still in the field every opportunity of becoming
acquainted with the treatment he proposed now to extend to them,
their families, and their property.

"Instructions had been issued to form laagers for all surrendered
burghers, their wives, families, and stock, on the railway in
their own districts under military protection; and, except where
it was proved that a burgher had voluntarily broken his oath and
gone out on commando, no difference would be made between those
who had not taken the oath. To protect deserted women and
children they would also be brought into these laagers, where
their husbands and sons, who desired to live peacefully, could
freely join them.

"It was essential that the country should be thus cleared,
because so long as the means of subsistence remained in and on
the farms, so long small commandos were enabled to continue in
the field. In return, Lord Kitchener expected every assistance
from those to whom he gave protection. They must each and all
help to the best of their ability by influencing in every way in
their power those still in the field to surrender. These measures
would be applied gradually, and extended if they proved
successful. Burghers must understand that no responsibility could
be accepted for stock or property, except for that which they
brought in with them, and then only if they kept it within the
limits of the protection he was prepared to afford."[241]

[Footnote 241: Cd. 547.]

The report of Lord Kitchener's speech from which these paragraphs are
taken was printed in Dutch and circulated by the Burgher Peace
Committee. It is certainly significant that a measure which was
subsequently held up to the execration of the civilised world by the
official leader of the Liberal party and the friends of the Boers in
England, should have been carefully explained by Lord Kitchener to an
audience of Boers at Pretoria, and accepted by them as a means of
enabling the peaceably disposed burghers to escape from