"A charge for forage which includes a concertina, a great coat, and a set of vases is simply an impertinence on the part of the accountant, and my Lords feel sure the Secretary of State will not wish them to charge the consolidated fund with the cost of Sir Theophilus Shepstone's hat, Mr. H. C. Shepstone's hair-brushes, Mr. Finney's cricket-bat, or Mr. Thirsk's. fishing-rod."

Sir Theophilus Shepstone's manifesto of April 9, 1877, addressed to the President, intimating his resolve to deprive the Transvaal of its independence, began pompously as follows: "When with several gentlemen of my staff I met your Honour."

The gentlemen of the staff were the accomplices of Sir Theophilus Shepstone in this barefaced act of brigandage. Merciful heaven! to think of a noble nation like the Boers subjected to war, pestilence, famine, and all their attendant evils, that such miscreants as Sir Theophilus Shepstone and his staff of gentlemen, relying on the complacence of the Home Government, might be in a position to pick the pockets of the British public.

Attention was drawn just now to the silence of the clergy on the subject of South Africa. It may perhaps be said that the war craze has got such a hold on the minds of the people that no minister of any Protestant Church, unless he is a man of iron nerve and tender conscience, dare speak against the war from the pulpit. This may be so, but there is a privileged place where the dignitaries of the Church can speak out if they are so minded. Why do they not do so? There are many venerable upright and learned men on the bench of bishops in the House of Lords whose silence must naturally be interpreted by their lay colleagues as a tacit approval of the work that is going on in South Africa. Are they willing to be thought aiders and abettors of crime? Do they approve of it, and if not, why do they not testify in favour of righteousness and peace?

To judge by results it would appear that English statesmen, with rare exceptions, never consider the ethical side of the question, and it is high time for them to begin. They would find in the celebrated work of the late Henry Sidgwick, Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy in Cambridge University, on Practical Ethics, ample food for reflection. It is highly probable they would be obliged to recognise themselves as the "unscrupulous statesmen " who have "made wars that were substantially acts of conscious brigandage," and have been "applauded for so doing by the nations whom they led, who have suffered a temporary obscurity of their moral sense under the influence of national ambition." Professor Sidgwick, who wrote a considerable time before the Jameson Raid, seems to have had a foreknowledge of what was about to happen. "Coming events cast their shadows before," and the shadow cast upon the Transvaal was black and terrible beyond conception as subsequent events have proved. Anyhow, although Professor Sidgwick was generalising, his words appear to have a special applica

bility to the Boer War, the action of the Colonial Secretary in regard to it, and to the obscuration of the moral sense of the people of England on the subject. But to cite Professor Sidgwick again : "The immorality of such unscrupulous aggression is simple, and the duty is no less clear for any individual in the aggressing country to use any moral and intellectual influence he may possess-facing unpopularity-to prevent the immoral act." I now come to the most remarkable of Professor Sidgwick's utterances, most remarkable for the reason that with singular prescience, still of course generalising, he mirrors forth with startling effect what actually took place in other words, how the Boers were drawn into the war:

"Let us place ourselves," he says, "at the point of view of a nation that is being drawn into what it regards as a just war according to the received principles of international justice. . . . War is not only obviously just against actual aggression, but when aggression is unmistakably being prepared the nation threatened cannot be condemned for striking the first blow, if this is an important gain for self-defence."

I have in former articles pointed out the fraudulent use made of the so-called Outlander grievances, and various other false pretences, to mask the deliberate resolve of the British Government to grab the Transvaal. Eventually diamonds were discovered in the two Republics; the usual rush of English diggers took place, and in 1871 the annexation of the diamond fields was effected, an act of robbery which Mr. Froude calls "perhaps the most discreditable incident in British colonial history."

On January 21, 1881, there was a big debate in the House of Commons on the question of the annexation of the Transvaal. There is always a full-dress debate in the House when anything particularly shameful has been done, for the reason that there are always some respectable men in Parliament who object to aiding or abetting the Government in its dirty work. The late Mr. Rylands, Member for Burnley, moved:

"That this House is of opinion that the annexation of the Transvaal was impolitic and unjustifiable, and would view with regret any measure taken by her Majesty's Government with the object of enforcing English supremacy on the people of the Transvaal who rightly claim their national independence."

The issue is here put plainly by an honest Englishman; Mr. Cartwright, Member for Oxfordshire, seconded the motion. Nothing could be fairer or stronger than the terms in which mover and seconder spoke in condemnation of the act of annexation. Now, by whom was the motion opposed and in what interest? It was opposed by two London bankers in the interests of Mammon worshippers, et hoc genus omne-by Sir John Lubbock, Bart., Lombard Street, Member for London University, a great authority on hymenopterous insects of the genus formica, and by Mr. R. N. Fowler, also

a London banker, hailing from Cornhill. The mere mention of the fact is sufficient to indicate the nature of the opposition and its source. The motion was defeated. The gold interest won; then came the retrocession of 1881, the rearrangement of 1884, the recognition of the autonomy of the Transvaal, and the dropping of the claim of suzerainty. But Majuba had to be avenged; the conspirators were still at work. A bogus insurrection hatched in Johannesburg resulted in the miserable fiasco of the Jameson Raid. Then came more plotting and more conspiring. All the artifices of the juggler, the impostor, and the cheat were practised to induce the Boers to give up their independence and come under British rule. But all the tricks and stratagems of Chamberlain, Milner, Rhodes and Co. were met bravely and resolutely with a determined non possumus. Finally, the brave President, the undaunted Paul Kruger, was called upon by Chamberlain to "Stand and deliver "; whereupon the Dick Turpin of the affair is treated to a fight the like of which the world never saw before, nor is it likely ever to see again-a fight that was not expected and is not yet over.

Before concluding I desire to refer to the testimony of a distinguished and disinterested Englishman, an impartial witness, as to facts within his own knowledge. Any person who wishes to verify the citations can refer to the London Times, October 24 and 31, 1899. I allude to the letters of Mr. F. C. Selous, the celebrated traveller and hunter, who lived for twenty years amongst the Boers. He was there at the time of the Jameson Raid. My recollection is that the conspirators attempted to implicate him in the Raid, either before or after the event, and that he withdrew from the country and returned to England to avoid taking any part pro or con on the occasion. In reply to charges against the Boers,

he says:

"I have never met with anything but hospitality and kindness, and naturally at the present moment, when I firmly believe that there is a design in certain quarters to force a war upon them which it will be made to appear that they have forced upon us, I feel a great deal of sympathy with them."

Mr. Selous proceeds:

"As for the Boers having a contempt for Englishmen as individuals, that is nonsense. They hate the British Government, and, knowing their history, I for one think they have ample reason for doing so; but the individual Englishmen that they know they take at his real value."

I conclude this article with an aspiration few Englishmen will venture to join in. May God defend the right!

W. J. CORBET.

THE BISHOP OF LIVERPOOL'S ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE BOERS EXAMINED.

"The sense of a good, that is, speaking generally, a defensive cause, of fighting for hearth and home, of delivering no blow except in answer to one given, or intended and prepared, is not only a moral warrant, but a real and fertile source of military energy."-W. E. GLADSTONE, Gleanings, vol. iv. p. 212.

"The question is whether the Boers were justified in assuming that they were about to be attacked. If so, the invasion was a measure of legitimate defence."Daily News, July 20, 1901.

ALTHOUGH I dissent from most of the statements in the Bishop of Liverpool's letter to the Swiss clergy, who appealed to British Christians to stop the present war in South Africa, yet I must admit that thanks are due to him for presenting in so compendious a form the case for subjugating and annexing the devastated territories of the Boer Republics.

The pleas used and the accusations made by the Bishop have been so much circulated during the last two years in the pro-subjagationist press, and are now so widely accepted among all classes of the community, that it has become almost imperative in the interests of truth alone, to say nothing of those of justice, to submit them to a searching examination, in order, if possible, to determine the exact degree of accuracy or inaccuracy attaching to them. Before, however, coming to close quarters with them, it is, I think, desirable for me to state as clearly and briefly as possible what my own position is with regard to the subject to which they relate.

Rightly or wrongly, I hold that the attempt on the part of the British Government to destroy the independence of the two Dutch Republics is a deliberate violation of the golden rule to do unto others as we think others, in similar circumstances, ought to do unto us. I am convinced that if the Boers were in the position of the British, and the British in that of the Boers, the British would think their enemies were doing wrong in seeking to destroy for others what they so highly value for themselves. If this is pro-Boerism I plead guilty to the charge. It seems to me, however, that such a position is an absolutely impartial one. It has, I humbly conceive, nothing whatever to do with special preferences for this nationality or the

other nationality. That it seems at present to make for the advantage of the Boers is a mere accident of its application. The day may not be far distant when the British will be glad to avail themselves of it without being able to do so. Correctly described, my position is no more pro-Boer than pro-British. It is based upon a dictum, not only of Christianity, but of the reason which was before Christianity, and which would remain if Christianity ceased to be. It is based upon a law binding equally on all mankind, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether Boers or Britons. In that law there is no recognition of any distinction between Christians and non-Christians. It commands all men simply and solely in virtue of their nationality, and quite irrespective of the particular religions to which they may or may not assent. It commands men simply and solely as men. By it, and not by their religious beliefs or non-beliefs, are they judged. Not he that crieth "Lord, Lord," but he that obeys the moral law of the Eternal is the man to whom alone can apply the words: " 'Well done thou good and faithful servant: enter now into the knowledge and love of God, which is joy without end."

Whether it benefits Boer or Briton, whoever it benefits or whoever it injures, I trust that the outcome of this struggle for freedom and for independence will be the triumph of right, and the overthrow, utter and complete, of wrong. This sentiment, no doubt, Dr. Chavasse will heartily reciprocate, and the bulk of the British people will echo it in their hearts. I must give them credit for continuing the struggle because they honestly believe that the object for which they fight is a right object, and worthy of a great people. If this. is so they will be able to understand the Boers whom they claim to be actuated by a similar conviction. a similar conviction. The struggle in one form or another will go on until one of the two contending parties acknowledges itself in the wrong. The British profess to have placed their trust in God. The Boers profess to have done the same. We shall see to which side victory is ultimately given. On the Boer side. there is no doubt as to the result. We can't lose," said one of the Boer women whose husband was at St. Helena; we can't lose; it would not be right. God would never allow it." "God will see us righted," said a Boer prisoner at St. Helena to Mrs. Green when she visited that island prison. And the manifesto which President Steyn issued to his burghers on the outbreak of the war concludes. with these inspiring sentiments:

"Let us look forward with confidence to a successful issue of the struggle, trusting to that Higher Power without whose assistance human weapons avail nothing. To the God of our fathers we humbly commend the justice of our cause. May He defend the right, and may He bless our weapons. Under his banner we proceed to battle for freedom and for fatherland." 1

1 Times' History of the War in South Africa, vol. i. p. 375.