tell you they
made a mistake. They recognize that they were wrong and that we were
right. [Cheers.]

I quite endorse what the Chairman says about the success of the
mobilization, and I will slightly glance at the state of affairs as they
at present exist in South Africa. I have the advantage of having spent
some time in South Africa, and of having been--not only General
Commanding, but Governor and High Commissioner, with high-sounding
titles given me by her Majesty. I know, consequently, not only a little
of South Africa, but a good deal of Boer character. During my stay as
Governor of the Transvaal, I had many opportunities of knowing people
whom you have recently seen mentioned as the principal leaders in this
war against us. There are many traits in their character for which I
have the greatest possible admiration. They are a very strongly
conservative people--I do not mean in a political sense at all, but they
were, I found, anxious to preserve and conserve all that was best in the
institutions handed down to them from their forefathers. But of all the
ignorant people in that world that I have ever been brought into contact
with, I will back the Boers of South Africa as the most ignorant. At the
same time they are an honest people. When the last President of the
Transvaal handed over the government to us--and I may say, within
parentheses, that the last thing an Englishman would do under the
circumstances would be to look in the till--there was only 4_s._ 6_d._
to the credit of the Republic. [Laughter.] Within a few weeks or days of
the hoisting of the British flag in the Transvaal a bill for L4 10_s._
4_d._ came in against the Boer Government, and was dishonored. [Renewed
laughter.] The Boers at that time--perhaps we did not manage them
properly--certainly set their face against us, and things have gone on
from bad to worse, until the aspiration now moving them is that they
should rule not only the Transvaal, but that they should rule the whole
of South Africa. That is the point which I think English people must
keep before them. There's no question about ruling the Transvaal or the
Orange Free State--the one great question that has to be fought out
between the Dutch in South Africa and the English race is, which is to
be the predominant Power--whether it is to be the Boer Republic or the
English Monarchy. [Cheers.] Well, if I at all understand and know the
people of this nation, I can see but one end to it, and