soldiers had not
repulsed their enemies, but were themselves the defeated party.
We here do not attach any importance to those things. We rate
them at their true value because we know something about their
authors--but what do you think is thought of them when they go
out to South Africa? What do the Boers and their leaders think
when they read the newspapers written in England which are full
of these things? The Boers have many faults, but they are a
simple and patriotic people. They never can imagine that English
newspapers would print these things, that English members of
Parliament would speak them, taking always the side of their
country's enemies, unless these things were true. They are
deceived. They greedily swallow all this as representing the
opinion of a great section of the public in this country, and
those who have said these things and those who have circulated
them are the parties who are guilty before God of prolonging this
war. There are the Irish Nationalists. Let me read to you words
which I heard with the greatest pain in the last session of
Parliament from the leader of the Irish Nationalists, a man of
consummate eloquence and perfect self-control. What did Mr. John
Redmond say? He prayed God that the resistance of the Boers might
be strengthened, and that South Africa might take vengeance for
its wrongs by separating itself from the Empire which had deluged
it with blood, and become a free and independent nation. We in
England pass over words of that sort, though I believe they would
not have been uttered with impunity by a member of the
Legislative Assembly of any other country in the world."

[Footnote 268: September 26th, 1901. See Cd. 820 for report
of this action.]

[Sidenote: Campbell-Bannerman's reply.]

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's reply to the charge brought against him
by Lord St. Aldwyn, and subsequently by Lord Salisbury,[269] is
contained in the words following, which were spoken by him at
Plymouth, on November 19th:

[Footnote 269: Letter to Miss Milner, November 11th, 1901.
See p. 416.]

"Now I declare, ladies and gentlemen, for myself, that from first
to last I have never uttered one syllable that could be twisted
by any ingenuity into encouragement by the Boers. No, I have
never even expre