with the Boers. We have the Empire at our back now.
We have the command of the seas. We are very wealthy. These are all new
and important factors.

The revolt of the Boer States against the British suzerainty is much
more like the revolt of the Southern States against the Government of
Washington. The situation here after Colenso was that of the North after
Bull's Run. Mr. Methuen has much to say of Boer bitterness, but was it
greater than Southern bitterness? That war was fought to a finish and we
see what has come of it. I do not claim that the parallel is exact, but
it is at least as nearly exact as that from which Mr. Methuen draws
such depressing conclusions. He has many gloomy remarks upon our
prospects, but it is in facing gloomy prospects with a high heart that a
nation proves that it is not yet degenerate. Better pay all the price
which he predicts than shrink for one instant from our task.

Mr. Methuen makes a good deal of the foolish and unchivalrous, even
brutal, way in which some individuals and some newspapers have spoken of
the enemy. I suppose there are few gentlemen who have not winced at such
remarks. But let Mr. Methuen glance at the continental press and see the
work of the supporters of the enemy. It will make him feel more
charitable towards his boorish fellow-countrymen. Or let him examine the
Dutch press in South Africa and see if all the abuse is on one side.
Here are some appreciations from the first letter of P.S. (of Colesburg)
in the 'Times':

'Your lazy, dirty, drunken, lower classes.'

'Your officers are pedantic scholars or frivolous society men.'

'The major part of your population consists of females, cripples,
epileptics, consumptives, cancerous people, invalids, and lunatics of
all kinds.'

'Nine-tenths of your statesmen and higher officials are suffering from
kidney disease.'

'We will not be governed by a set of British curs.'

No great chivalry or consideration of the feelings of one's opponent
there! Here is a poem from the 'Volksstem' on August 26, 1899, weeks
before the war, describing the Boer programme. A translation runs thus:

'Then shall our ears with pleasure listen
To widow's wail and orphan's cry;
And shall we gird, as joyful witness,
The death-watch of your villainy.

'Then shall we massacre and butcher
You, and swallow glad your blood;
And count it "capital with interest"--
Villain's interest--sweet and good.