[ADJOURNED DEBATE.] [SECOND NIGHT.]

HC Deb 16 March 1883 vol 277 cc703-56

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [13th March], That, in view of the complicity of the Transvaal Government in the cruel and treacherous attacks made upon the Chiefs Montsioa and Mankoroane, this House is of opinion that energetic steps should be immediately taken to secure the strict observance by the Transvaal Government of the Convention of 1881, so that these chiefs may be preserved from the destruction with which they are threatened."—(Mr. Gorst.)

And which Amendment was, To leave out from the first word "the" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "very grave complication that must attend intervention in the affairs of the native populations on the Western Frontier of the Transvaal, this House is of opinion that the action of British authorities in those regions should he strictly confined within the limits of absolutely unavoidable obligations,"—(Mr. Cartwright,) —instead thereof.

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Sir, like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael nicks-Beach), I cannot think it right to vote for the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), though my reasons may not be altogether the same as those of the right hon. Gentleman. But I confess I am glad that the debate on this important question is upon the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman rather than upon the Motion of which Notice was given by the right hon. Gentleman. It is a most difficult question, and my object in taking part in the debate is to seek to confer with other Members of the House as to what can be done in the present and in the immediate future. The right hon. Gentleman will, in the exercise of his rights, rather prefer to turn the discussion upon the question of a decision on the past, as to whether there is blame and to whom blame is duo. It will be a long controversy, the question of this blame, if there be blame at all, and to whom it belongs; and I shall be much alarmed if, in merely discussing that question, we should forget the important matter that we have before us, and the duties which it seems to me we are called upon to perform. Now, I think those Members who listened to the debate last Tuesday will feel that, although there was some difference of opinion on many matters, there was general concurrence in the acknowledgment of one fact. This fact is that, since the Convention with the Transvaal Republic, the Natives of the Bechwana country to the South-West have been invaded, despoiled, and robbed, not merely of their independence, but of their property, their cattle, their means of living, and their land, and that from having been a comparatively prosperous people they are now in a state of the greatest distress, poverty, and discouragement. I do not think there is any difference of opinion on that fact, whatever difference of opinion there may be on other matters. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) has made a remark in regard to this people to which I must allude. I think it is important that we should realize what kind of men these Natives are. They are not savages. The hon. Member said these Native Chiefs were little better than the marauders and filibusters who had invaded their country. We have, from a variety of sources, information in regard to them. There have been Missionaries there for upwards of 50 years, and I do not know that in all the annals of Missionary effort—certainly of English Missionary effort—there have been any much more interesting, and, upon the whole, much more hopeful until now, than the record of the Missionary effort in this particular country. There were great men connected with it. I need hardly allude to Livingstone, who was certainly a great man. Then there was a man who was a hero among Missionaries, old Mr. Moffat. Still living, he settled in the country 50 years ago, and the progress under him, and those who assisted him, has been very great. I do not know if hon. Members have seen a truthful description of these people by the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie, tutor of the educational institution which has been set up in this so-called savage country, in its capital town. From this book it appears that cash has replaced barter, that there are shops open at which, instead of beads and brass wire being sold, there are cotton and woollen and hardware goods, besides groceries—as tea, coffee, and sugar. I have a letter from Mr. Moffat to a friend about a year or two ago, in which he computed the trade in this Bechwana country to represent, at least, £250,000 per annum. Fountains have been opened up, and watercourses and drains constructed. Potatoes, wheat, and other crops are grown, and cattle are exported in considerable numbers into the neighbouring country. Large numbers of the people have given—such was the expression—outward adhesion to Christianity. That may not be thought much of; but I do not think we have a right to complain, for I am afraid that, even amongst ourselves, our own Christianity is often merely an outward adhesion. The schools are well attended, there are village churches almost everywhere, and actually there was a boarding school for both boys and girls established in the chief town, at which £4 or £5 was paid in advance. The enter-prize and progress of these people is one reason why we hear so much about them at the present moment. They have got their lands into cultivation, and have made them so valuable that they are a great temptation to the marauders and filibusters. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) said it was a land of lawlessness, and warfare, and robbery. It has been so since the Convention. It was not so before. It had been regarded as free from lawlessness and robbery. From 1854 to 1857 there was a war with the old Transvaal Republic; but that was arrested by Sir George Grey in 1858. A great wave of agitation arose among the Natives in 1878; the men from the neighbouring country of Griqualand West came to the Bechwana Chiefs, and the Chiefs had some difficulty in dealing with them. The difficulty was so great that they put themselves under our protection, and obtained the help of the administration of British officers. But the state of the country then was nothing to what it is now. The hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley)—and he must allow me to congratulate him on his speech, and also the House upon the great accession to its debating power—at once faced the real question, and he says—"Here you have these people. Be they good or bad, why should not they be absorbed by the Transvaal? That is not our affair." Well, that is the real question—Is it our affair or not? Now, I will at once state—and I think few Members will go further than I will in enforcing the fact—that war, if possible, especially in these countries, should be avoided, and that annexation is most undesirable, and should be avoided. But there is another result which should be equally avoided, and that is the desertion of an Ally—desertion of Allies in their utmost distress, after assistance has been sought by us and received from them. I gather from what has fallen from those who have spoken on behalf of the Government in the course of this debate, that it is their opinion that we are not very much concerned with the civilization of these Native Chiefs, that the Missionary efforts that are being made to convert them to Christianity are of no particular importance to the British Empire; but I ask, are we entitled to repudiate their claims to be treated as Allies because they are Black men? The noble Lord the late Secretary of State for the Colonies, speaking in "another place," made a remark that very much astonished me, when he said that not only were these Black men never subjects of the Queen, but that they could not even be correctly described as our Allies. As regards the claims of these Black men to be regarded as subjects of the Queen, I do not care to dwell upon that point, and I will content myself with saying that for two years they placed themselves under the Queen's power, and that they were acknowledged during that period by our officials at the Cape as being under the Queen's power, and their affairs were administered by British officers. I am, however, quite aware that their territory was never formally annexed to the British Empire. As to their being our Allies, however, our officials at the Cape certainly do not take Lord Kimberley's view of the matter, because nothing could be stronger than Sir Hercules Robinson's statement that they were our Allies. I need not trouble the House by reading a large number of despatches bearing upon this point; but I will content myself by referring to two. Sir Hercules Robinson, in a despatch, dated July 6, 1882, says— Such being the treatment to which Native Chiefs within the Transvaal are liable, it would certainly be a cruelty and an injustice if we were to assent to the Batlapin and Baralong Chiefs, who have always been our firm Allies, and whose independence we have explicitly recognized, being forced to become Transvaal subjects against their will. In another despatch, dated January 22, 1883, he refers to the "grievous wrong inflicted upon our Allies, Montsioa and Mankoroane." But there are Allies and Allies. The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, in his very able speech, did not deny that the Chiefs were our Allies; but he said that, after all, there were British Native Allies, and Boer Native Allies, and that our Native Allies were no better than the Boer Native Allies. I do not think, however, that that has much to do with the matter. In making that statement, the Under Secretary is certainly laying down a new doctrine of Alliance. Thus, if during the march of the Allied Powers upon Paris we had said—"The Russians are no better than the French, and are, perhaps, not quite so good, and, therefore, we will cast off our Russian Allies," I think that we should have been laying down a doctrine of Alliance which would have been perfectly new. In entering into an Alliance, you cannot enter into the question of whether they are better or worse than the people with whom you are contending. The hon. Gentleman also stated that these Native Chiefs were our Allies for their own interest. I dare say that they were; Alliances are generally entered into for the mutual interest of all and each of the Allies. It is, however, very important that the House should consider what kind of Alliance this was between ourselves and these Native Chiefs. The month of April, 1881, was a very critical time for our Government; it was just after the rising of the Transvaal, and it was just before the Battle of Lang's Nek. On the 7th of January in that year Colonel Moysey, our Agent at Kimberley, sent a telegram to the High Commissioner, Sir George Colley, in which he says— Bethell reports on the 31st from Molopo, Zeerust and Lichtenburg both taken by rebels. Volunteers and many loyal Boers joined under threats of death. Rebel force collecting near Montsioa, who is sheltering the English and 50 waggons. Boers sent to demand Bethell, and preparing to attack. Moffat nearly murdered in Zeerust. Machalis joined the insurgents. Moshette doubtful. Montsioa has 6,000 men collected, but very little powder. Montsioa's messengers arrived to-day with letter asking for permits to buy ammunition at Kimberley to defend himself and those with him. Says he is also ready to help Government if desired. Mankoroane writes on the 4th asking for ammunition to defend himself, and expresses continued loyalty. Mathlabane also asks through Border Agent on same grounds. I think, without giving Natives powder, we ought, under present circumstances, to let them obtain it for defence, and should throw away their loyalty by refusing. I can get permits here for the asking. Four hundred Boers said to have come down threatening the Native Border, and the Griqualand farms they claim. The messengers are here waiting your reply. Some difficulty in letting powder leave this owing to spies; but difficulties will increase daily. In reply to this telegram Sir George Colley sent the following telegram, dated the 9th of January, to Colonel Moysey— Encourage Montsioa, Mankoroane, and Mathlabane in their loyalty. Inform them of large forces arriving from England and India, and that troops will shortly enter Transvaal; and tell them British Government will not forget their conduct if they remain true. Let them obtain small supply of powder if satisfied required for their safety. Tell them Government does not desire assistance, is well able tore-establish order, and forbids their attacking Boers, but desires them to remain quiet and faithful, and to give shelter to loyal people. Unfortunately, the Government was not able to re-establish order. It is perfectly true that we did not ask these Natives to attack the Boers. Had we done so we should, doubtless, have met with unfavourable criticism in this country; but we did make use of these Natives to give protection to fugitive Englishmen, and they did give that protection greatly to their own danger and ultimate loss. It may be said that, after all, this was only Sir George Colley's despatch; but Lord Kimberley himself, almost immediately afterwards, made a most important statement in the despatch, in which lie acknowledged the receipt of that of Sir George Colley. In that despatch, the noble Lord says—"I approve the terms of the reply which you forwarded to Colonel Moysey." I am sure that the noble Lord must have forgotten that despatch when he made his recent statement. Let me refer to two other short despatches bearing upon this matter. The first is from Major Buller to Sir Evelyn Wood, dated the 5th of June, 1881, in which he says— Montsioa's conduct, in constantly refusing to have anything to do with the Boer authorities, and giving protection to any loyal Boors or English who chose to go to him (I understand that at one time there were between 60 and 70 Whites at his station) gave great offence. That is what our own Agent has to say upon the matter; but what does the Transvaal Republic say in reference to it? Addressing Mankoroane, they say— Take notice that as soon as you or any of your people are found armed, fighting against burghers of the South African Republic, which Government is now re-established (Messrs. P. Krüger, Martinnus, Pretorius, and P. Joubert being at its head), or should you give any assistance to our enemies the English Government, which we have already overthrown, we shall consider you and your people as our enemies, and treat you accordingly. We have always considered you and your people as the friends of the Boers, and we are still willing to treat you as such, provided you live peaceably, and we alone are able to work out the English: but you may send us some of your people to gather in corn on our farms, and we will accordingly pay your men and treat them well. Let us know immediately whether you are our friend or our enemy. We have these facts, therefore, before us—that we availed ourselves of the assistance of these people; that we told them that we would not forget them; that we got them into hostilities with the Boers, and that the Boers informed them that if they aided us they would treat them as enemies, and that they have treated them as enemies because they did aid us. Then came the Convention by which we made our arrangements with the Boers. I believe that it was felt at the time both at home and abroad that these Chiefs and their people had some claim upon us—first, in respect of the fact that they had been de facto our subjects, and had been, at all events, under our protection, and then that they had a still greater claim upon us, inasmuch as they had stood by us in our need. These claims, I repeat, were at the time both felt and acknowledged. A good deal has been said about the Award of 1871. That was an Award made at the joint request of the Transvaal Boers, and of the Natives of the Transvaal Republic. After it was made, the Transvaal Republic refused to abide by it, very much to the indignation of the noble Lord the then Secretary of State for the Colonies. At the final settlement which was tried to be made at the time of the Convention, it was thought desirable that a now line of boundary should be drawn between the territory of the Transvaal Republic and that of the Native Chiefs. A new line was drawn, and it was acknowledged by the Convention. It was inserted in the very beginning of the Convention as part of the defined boundary of the Transvaal Republic. That new line is now objected to by both the Boers and the Natives. The Rev. Mr. Mackenzie, a gentleman of high reputation, tells me that he had much intercourse with the Natives at the time, and that they complained very strongly against this line; but he said to them, and they believed it—"This is the line the British Government are drawing; the Boors must not be allowed to transgress it." Therefore, there was this new line made, which the Boers accepted, and which the Natives understood the British Power would protect. Then there were the terms of the actual Convention. I do not know upon what grounds Her Majesty was requested to be Suzerain of this new State except for the protection of the Natives. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister must allow me to allude to the speech he made on the 25th of July, 1881. My right hon. Friend, in defining the Suzerainty of the Queen, said—"It is intended to signify that certain portions of Sovereignty are reserved, and expressly reserved." What were they? "Those which concern the relations between the Transvaal community and foreign countries." It might have been supposed that "foreign countries" meant European Powers—as, for example, Portugal. But my right hon. Friend went on to say— This reservation of foreign relations was a most important one as regards the interests of the Natives, because a very large portion of the Native interests of the country would involve the Natives beyond the Frontier of the Transvaal."—(3 Hansard, [263] 1858–9.) Therefore, questions affecting the interests of the Natives beyond the Frontier of the Transvaal would be retained in the hands of the British Government by the retention of the Suzerainty. My hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Evelyn Ashley), in alluding to this matter, stated that the Convention merely gave us the right to interfere, but imposed no obligation. There might be, he said, obligations on, the Government, but they did not arise from the terms of that Convention. I must venture to express some disagree- ment to this statement. There are obligations. I think there is an obligation to the British public; especially to those of the British public—and they are not few—who care about the interests of the Natives. I believe that the terms of the Convention would have been received with much greater disfavour in the country if it had not been that it was supposed that the interests of the Natives were provided for. I know that would have been my view. But the obligation was not merely to the British public. Undoubtedly there were obligations to the Natives themselves. There was, it is true, no Treaty with them. But what were the terms of the Convention? The Natives were not so ignorant of matters deeply affecting them as not to know that we had declared that we should protect them, and that this was our mode of protection; and, undoubtedly, they felt that they would have a right to call upon us for protection. The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies made one or two remarks with regard to the advisers of these Native Chiefs. I think he said these Chiefs had European White advisers, who, in nine cases out of ten, were not a bit better than the wandering Boers. These were the gentlemen who signed the pathetic "documents"—alluding to the claims which had been founded on the Convention. As to the pathetic documents, the greater number of them are specimens of Native thought and Native phraseology. But I do not think this applies to these particular Chiefs. There have been Agents—Mr. Jenkins, for instance—who have been of the greatest service, both to the Natives and to the British Government. I suppose my hon. Friend must have had in his memory a despatch, signed by Mr. Bethel, on behalf of one of these Chiefs, Montsioa. Mr. Bethell is not an adventurer. He is an Agent whom we employed during our administration of the territory. When the administration ceased, he remained with the Chief. He had been a lieutenant in the Army, and was connected with a most respectable family in Yorkshire. If my hon. Friend alluded to him, it was under a mistake. I will refer to that despatch. If hon. Members will refer to page 58 in the Blue Book, November, 1882, they will find this despatch. It is well worth reading, because it gives the history of what has happened to Montsioa. In it Mont- sioa states that he was attacked by lawless Boers and by the forces of the Chiefs in the Boer interest; and How each, time that these freebooters crossed the line of the Transvaal State I could have followed and destroyed them; but I trusted in the promises of the Government. Sir Hercules Robinson confirms this statement. In no ease did this Chief transgress the Border. He goes on to say— I wrote to the Boer Leaders, to the British Resident at Pretoria, and to Her Majesty's High Commissioner at Capo Town, requesting that now I had driven the invaders over the Convention boundary, the parties to the Convention Treaty would prevent their re-crossing it to attack me; but my appeal was without effect. I have, therefore, lost confidence in the promises of the Pretoria Convention. In this despatch he makes three proposals to our Government—first, either to annex his country, the Natives to pay all costs; or, secondly, to expel the freebooters from the country; or, thirdly, to "open the sale of powder to us loyal Chiefs, as the rebels obtain it from the Transvaal and Free State." Before that time he had sent, through Mr. Bethell, a similar request. On the next page I find this statement—"The Boer Forces were repulsed by Montsioa with heavy loss." On the same page there is mention of his request to the High Commissioner for ammunition, and the reply that the request cannot be complied with. What happened to this man? He was willing to help himself, and to do what he could. He called upon us, first, to carry out the Convention, or to take him under our protection, or to let him have ammunition. All these things were refused; and now hear the result. On January 22, 1883, the High Commissioner writes— The freebooters have appropriated, as Montsioa says, 70 per cent of the whole of his territory, and 95 per cent of his plough lands, leaving him a corner only, in which the allowance of water is insufficient for a seventh of his tribe. Montsioa may well ask how he is to live under such conditions. He had no assistance from his late Allies, and on October 5, 1882, he found himself forced to make application to the Transvaal Republic, and requested the Government of the Transvaal to take him under its protection. I could toll the same story with regard to other Chiefs. Let me say one word about Mankoroane; and here I must allude to a remark of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) in his speech, as it has appeared two or three times in the public organ which he conducts with so much ability. He says that Mankoroane has only himself to thank for his present position; and he quotes the despatch of Sir Hercules Robinson of April 1, 1882. I think, if he had read a subsequent despatch, he would have found that Sir Hercules Robinson acknowledged, and evidently believed, that Mankoroane was acting in self-defence. The fact was that ho, at any rate, did not desert his Ally, and, indeed, was only carrying out the advice of the Under Secretary, who says that if the Chiefs would unite, as it were, into one family, the Boers would not be able to carry on successful invasions of that sort. In the end, however, he helped his friend, and they have both been destroyed. In a despatch from the Civil Commissioner at Kimberley, of the 8th of August, 1882, a message was referred to, which was sent by Mankoroane to the High Commissioner, in which that Chief stated that he had lost nearly everything in carrying on a war as much for the maintenance of the English name as for his own protection, and that he desired the British Government not to trouble about him any more, and that his old friend Montsioa was then being threatened by the Boers with invasion. His troubles, however, are not over. Mr. Mackenzie has given me a letter received from that Chief in January, 1883, in which he says that the Peace which he made with the Boers was not a stable one; that the Boers were enraged against him in consequence of the action he had taken, and that they were about to take by force his territory, laying down a boundary line which would leave nothing either for himself or his friend Montsioa. He goes on to ask Mr. Mackenzie to speak to the English people and the Government of the Queen, because it was well known that during the war between England and the Boers he had received and protected the Queen's people. He says that he still has confidence in the Queen's Government, and begs Mr. Mackenzie to plead for him. Well, now I dare say I shall be told that these freebooters are all filibusters and marauders, and that the Transvaal Government is too weak to prevent this invasion of the Native terri- tory. But I very much doubt that. The filibusters and freebooters go into this country together with all the mauvais sujets of the neighbourhood. They foment quarrels among the Native Chiefs, and after a state of lawlessness has gone on for some time then steps in a Transvaal Republic, gets a Treaty made, contrary to the terms of the Convention, and the upshot of it is that the Republic annexes the territory. I do not believe that this state of things arises from the weakness of the Transvaal Government. If there be weakness, it is not so much the weakness of the Transvaal Government to prevent outrage as of the British Government to protect people from being outraged. But, at any rate, this Transvaal Government is strong enough to defy our Government, and to treat the engagements of our Representatives with contempt. I doubt whether in any other Blue Book you would find our Representatives treated with such utter contempt. In one case, when 15 Natives were murdered, our authorities proposed that a Joint Commission should be sent from the Transvaal and the British Governments to inquire into the matter. Upon what ground did the Transvaal Government refuse assent to this proposal? Lord Kimberley characterized this as one of the most impudent answer she ever read. They invented some complaint against the Governor of Natal of having received some Natives from the Transvaal, and said that, therefore, they could not join our Commissioner. Again, one of the chief stipulations in the Convention was that the British Government, as Suzerain, should have control over the relations of the Transvaal Government with Native Chiefs. After this—not intending, of course, that the British Government should know of it—despatches were sent, which appear on pages 11 and 13 of the Blue Book of November last, to two Chiefs, in which the Agent of the British Government was called a poison-strewer. Now, the final result of all this is that our loyal Allies have been forsaken, and therefore despoiled and ruined, the Convention has not merely been broken, but it has been treated with absolute contempt, and all assurances to the Natives and to the English people for the protection of these Natives have proved of no value. And now, what is to be done? My hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies says—"Appeal to the public opinion of the Boers." [Mr. EVELYN ASHLEY: No, no!] Well, my hon. Friend said "that the Boers were much more amenable to public opinion than hon. Members opposite supposed."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, his hon. Friend referred to the public opinion of this country.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Well, as to our opinion acting on the Boers, I am afraid that that will not have much effect. I shall not be surprised, in that case, if we should have some clever despatches appealing to public opinion as represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley). The noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies (the Earl of Derby) says—"Let there be a remonstrance." Well, a remonstrance may have some effect if it is supposed to be in earnest. But if not, it will have no effect, and merely be a humiliation for us and a trap for the Natives. There are really only two courses open—either to fulfil our duty, or to delare with honesty and due humility that we will not and cannot—or, at any rate, that we will not. We must submit to the humiliation of deserting our Allies, or we must protect them. Both in this House and in the other there has been some allusion to some middle course—that is, to compensation; but I really am afraid that that cannot come to much. It was stated in "another place" that a message was sent to Sir Hercules Robinson asking whether the Chiefs should be compensated in land or in money. If in land, how are we to get the land? I suppose that there is no unpeopled, cultivated land available such as these Natives had. We should have to put them among some Natives, who, in all probability, would not like their coming; and I appeal to my hon. Friends below the Gangway that that might be a costly matter—that that might require some compulsory action—some use of force to protect these Natives whom we put in the fresh land against the wish of the other Natives. Well, is the compensation to be in money? The Under Secretary said yesterday that it was proposed to give small pensions from the Imperial funds to these two Chiefs, and such other Native Chiefs as may appear to have special claims on this country. Well, I am afraid we cannot settle the matter like this. It is not the Chiefs only with whom we have to deal, but the people. In the remaining territory of Montsioa there is only land enough for one-seventh part of the population. I perfectly admit that the Chiefs are not those with whom we feel most sympathy. They very often have not headed the Native Tribes in the progress of civilization. It is the people you have to look after and protect; and I think, also, there would be some protection and compensation due to the Missionaries. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members say "No, no!" I will just put it before the country. These English Missionaries, who do great credit to the English name, and are loved and revered in that country, have succeeded in civilizing, to a great extent Christianizing, these people. They have built churches, chapels, and schools in this territory; and what will be the result of our deserting our Allies? I think these buildings would be in danger of being destroyed; and would not this give a claim upon this country for some compensation? I agree with the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) that the Vote which gave compensation in money would not be easily passed; if it was a small Vote it would be thought paltry; and if it was a large one there would be a strong feeling about it, and hon. Members would ask—"Are we brought to that point that we have to compensate our Allies by paying them to live in compulsory exile?" I confess that my opinion is that we should not desert them. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) speaks of "absolutely inevitable obligations." I think this an absolutely inevitable obligation, and I think it would not be so costly or dangerous as is supposed. In my opinion, there has been great exaggeration on that point. A few months ago, if the filibusters had thought that the Government meant to notice them, they would have desisted, for directly they heard that the Government was taking the matter up they immediately began to act in a very different manner.

MR. EVELYN ASHLEY

That was on the reported joint action of all the neighbouring States.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Not at all. I will read a letter from a Native teacher to Mr. Mackenzie. It has the following passage:— We find that when the false report that the English were coming to Mankoroane's help was first heard, they (the filibusters) were very much frightened…but in a day or two, when they heard it was not true, they began again. Even now, I believe, when the Transvaal Envoy comes over, and I understand he is coming shortly, if the Government say—"We have duties to fulfil towards these Natives, and we shall take care that they are fulfilled," if the Envoy believe the Government, and I think he might be made to believe them; if he really come to the conclusion that the matter would be seriously taken up, I believe it would not be at all difficult to put an end to this business. There is an immense amount of exaggeration with regard to this district; it has been said to stretch northward as far as the Equator, but that is not the case at all; it is a well-defined district, between the Transvaal and British territory, and this is not a question which implies anything except the management of that particular district; and I believe that at the worst the cost would not be greater than was the cost of the administration of Basutoland under the British Government, which was an undoubted success, and not at all costly. Well, I am obliged to hon. Members for having heard me. They may, perhaps, be surprised at the warmth of my feeling in the matter. It is no new feeling; it has grown with my growth, this feeling of our duty towards the Natives, and especially the Natives of South Africa. But now I must say a word about the actual Motions before the House. I cannot vote for the Amendment. If I might put my own interpretation upon the terms "absolutely inevitable obligation," I would vote in favour of it; but I am afraid there are persona who would say that no obligations were absolutely inevitable the fulfilment of which could possibly be got rid of. I should prefer that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cambridge should come before the House, because I think that points out a mode in which the Government should act; and I repeat I am very sorry that we should have turned off this most important question of what should be done into what has been done. Therefore, I regret the Motion of the right hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach). But, after all, it is not a question of votes. It is a question of bringing the facts before the Government, and the House, and the country, and obtaining the verdict of the country upon it. I must be allowed to make an appeal to my old Colleagues in this matter, and to the hon. Members around me with whom I act, and to the hon. Members below the Gangway who do not agree with me. Now, I shall be supposed to be partial; but, after all, it is a very serious matter for such a country as England to make the acknowledgment that it is too weak to protect its Allies. It may turn out to be a dangerous and even a very costly act. Carry it out logically, and it implies withdrawal from the Cape altogether, except, perhaps, some Naval Stations. There may be some Members who would adopt that policy; but I doubt whether the country is prepared for it, and if not, then this first acknowledgment, that we are not strong enough to protect our Allies, or, at any rate, that we are not willing to use our strength to protect them, will increase the cost when at last we do protect them. But, supposing this policy of desertion adopted, you could not stop at the Cape; logically, withdrawal from India would result. I do not think there is a Member present who could dispute that our Indian Empire would never have been formed, and could not be maintained, without supporting our Allies. The announcement of this inability to interfere or protect will be a new departure. It is new in the history of British policy; but it is not new in the history of Britain. Centuries ago the Roman legions were withdrawn from this country on the ground that the Empire was too weak to protect the Britons, and history tells us what became of the Roman Empire.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, I think there cannot be a more suitable moment for me to intervene in this debate than after the speech of my right hon. Friend. My right hon. Friend has, indeed, put out of sight in great part, probably effaced from many minds, the recollection of the speech with which the debate was introduced. But as distinctly and as plainly, and as ingenuously as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) represented what may be called, in Parliamentary phrase, the extreme view of non-intervention, on the one side of this very difficult question, so my right hon. Friend who has just sat down, being, as he says, a man of peace, has, notwithstanding, in the most unequivocal terms, taught us to-day the doctrine of war—["No!"]—in circumstances which I shall endeavour briefly to describe; and he has gone even a point beyond that, by doing everything in his power to make the adoption of any measures, in discharge of such obligations as we may have contracted to any South African Chiefs, as difficult and as ridiculous as he could. [Cries of "No!"] I hear some hon. Gentlemen say "No;" but I am not well aware of the grounds of that negative. I thought it was to be by military means—by military means distinctly—that we were to announce our intention as to what my right hon. Friend called the fulfilment of our duty. If there is any mistake in that, let him correct me. If there is no mistake in that, as I judge from his silence, I trust those negatives will not be repeated; but that Gentlemen who used them will perceive that they were wrong.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Since my right hon. Friend has challenged my assent on his interpretation of what I said, I think I must remind him that I stated it was my firm belief—and I repeat it—that if an Envoy of the Boers comes over, and representations should be made to the Transvaal Government that we were in earnest in the matter, I did not believe military measures would be necessary.

MR. GLADSTONE

I understood my right hon. Friend scoffed at all remonstrances which were not couched in such language as to show that we were what he termed in earnest. What did he mean by the words, "in earnest?" He meant that if the remonstrance was not successful, it was to be assisted and enforced by military measures. That is exactly the thing that I mean, and neither more nor less, when I say that my right hon. Friend has preached unequivocally the doctrine of war. Sir, although, as I have said, the appeals made by my right hon. Friend had, in some degree, put out of view the able speech with which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) introduced this subject to the notice of the House, yet common justice compels me to refer both to the tone of his speech and of his Motion; and I must say that both the speech and the Motion were couched in language which appeared to me to deserve the frank acknowledgment of the Government. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in his Motion—and his speech concurred with his Motion—did all that was in his power to separate from this subject retrospective controversy and Party issues, and to direct the mind and attention of the House, without embarrassment and without complication, to the grave issues that were involved, both in regard to the honour of the country, and in regard to the welfare of the Natives of South Africa. Sir, I offer my acknowledgments to the hon. and learned Member for pursuing that course. In my opinion, it is a course eminently fit to be pursued, not only as a general rule, but especially with respect to the questions of South Africa. Some Gentlemen who have addressed the House, and others who have interfered by their cheers in this debate, appear to suppose that the question of South Africa is a very simple one. I listened to the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the North Biding (Mr. Guy Dawnay)—an animated speech, with the expression of many honourable sentiments, but delivered apparently without the slightest consciousness that South Africa had had a history, and that our Colonial relations with South Africa were a history of difficulties, continual and un thought of. Sir, this is not the first time that it has been my duty to represent the embarrassments of the South African people. It has been the one standing difficulty of our Colonial policy, which we have never been able to settle. In other parts of the world difficulties have arisen—difficulties in the West Indies, difficulties in Canada, difficulties in New Zealand. Every one of these has been dealt with, and has been satisfactorily disposed of; but never in South Africa. It was my lot, Sir, in the latter part of the Administration of Sir Robert Peel, to be Secretary of State for the Colonies; and on the breaking up of that Administration I held, as is not uncommon, a friendly interview with my distinguished Successor in that Office, the present Earl Grey, and handed over to him the cases, as I conceived them to stand, of the several Colonies of the Queen, and on that occasion I distinctly told Lord Grey that the case of South Africa presented problems of which I, for one, could not see the solution. And so, Sir, it has continued from that day to this—difficulties appeased, and were sometimes, as it seemed, driven underground for a time, but always recurring, never solved. My right hon. Friend thinks it quite easy. "Oh," he says, "you have nothing to do but to make a certain announcement to the Dutch Representative, and it will be all right." Considering that the right hon. Gentleman has had experience at the Colonial Office, he ought to have known better. ["No, no," and "Order!"] I will take no notice of that. I think he ought to have formed a more adequate estimate of the magnitude and the complication of the question with which we have to deal. I must tell the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) what are the reasons why, while we appreciate the manner of his proceeding, and while I, for one, heard with the greatest satisfaction his emphatic disclaimer of the construction which he will agree with me has been largely put upon his Motion—namely, that it meant another South African War—why we cannot concur in and adopt the terms of that Motion. The hon. and learned Gentleman calls upon the House to assert the complicity of the Transvaal Government in the outrages and crimes which have been committed beyond the Western Frontier of the Transvaal. Now, Sir, upon that question I would point out that it may be a matter of controversy whether this complicity exists. I am not here to assert with confidence the negative; I am here to say that, with respect to the fulfilment of the Convention of 1881, we, as a British Government, reserve entire liberty to do that, and act not only with regard to the Bechuanaland, but in regard to all the other stipulations of the Convention. But I will point out to the House that it is a very serious matter for an Assembly of such dignity and authority as belong to the House of Commons to assert, upon evidence which is necessarily imperfect, the complicity of the Transvaal Government in these outrages. I do not think it would be just, upon such knowledge as we possess, to embody in a vote of this House an assertion of that complicity. I must say I differ entirely from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), as upon many other subjects, so upon the belief, which I am surprised he has expressed, that it is in the power of the Transvaal Government to restrain the feelings of the Boers and those influences among the Boers which have undoubtedly been productive of crime and outrage in Bechuanaland. The Transvaal Government, whatever else it may be, is eminently a popular and representative Government. In its virtues, if it has them, and in its vices, if it has them, it represents the sentiment of the community over which or among which it rules; and if wrong has been done by the Transvaal Government, you may rely upon it that the root of that wrong lies far deeper than the surface. It lies in the feeling of the population which is behind that Government. Nor is the matter confined to the Transvaal. One hon. Gentleman who spoke in this debate stated—and he thought he was adducing a strong argument in favour of his own view, though it appeared to me to have a very different bearing—that in the Orange Free State, at the time of the action which took place a couple of years ago, he heard the people of the Orange Free State exulting in the miscarriages which had befallen British arms in the Transvaal. Then, that sympathy that exists between the Transvaal Government and the Transvaal population you admit goes beyond the Boers of the Transvaal, and pervades the Orange Free State as well. Does it stop there? Does it not go into the Cape? Are you not aware that a strong feeling of sympathy passes from one end of the South African Settlements to the other among the entire Dutch population? And let it be borne in mind by Members of this House that what my right hon. Friend invites us to do, in holding out to us the prospects of resort to those military measures, is to go into conflict with the sentiment of the mass of that Dutch population forming a considerable majority in the European Settlements of South Africa. Well, Sir, that is a very serious state of things. I have no doubt it was the consideration and a sense of that state of things which prevented the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) from attaching to his Motion the construction that he contemplated warlike measures, and which may, perhaps, have deterred the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) from promising support even to the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham, because it is open to that construction. I am bound to say that I must take a second objection to the terms used by the hon. and learned Gentleman, for I do not think he can secure the interpretation that he attaches to it. If we are of opinion that steps ought to be taken in this matter, undoubtedly they ought to be not deficient in energy; but he has himself seen what construction is placed upon those words, and although it is a construction he has absolutely disclaimed, yet I think he will feel that the majority of those who in some sense sympathize with his Motion adopt the view which lies at the basis of the speech of my right hon. Friend, and consider that these energetic steps must include the contingency, the alternative, of a distinct resort to force—that is, of a military expedition and a military occupation. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. E. N. Fowler), who seconded the Motion, did not hesitate for a moment frankly to accept that construction, being also, as he said, in perfect truth and sincerity—no one will question that—a man of peace, but thinking that this is a measure which must be contemplated with a view to the fulfilment of our obligations. Well, Sir, what are the propositions from which I am inclined to differ in the speech of my right hon. Friend who has just sat down? He seems, in the first place, to resent exceedingly the reference made by the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Evelyn Ashley) to the conduct of the European Agents in South Africa, as having been a source of great mischief—not European Agents friendly to the Boers, but European Agents hostile to the Boers—of much of the mischief that we have so grievously to lament. Sir, I would refer my right hon. Friend to an authority—to a Missionary—Mr. Bevan, who has said something on the subject, and I must quote what he has said, although it tends to illustrate the unsafe nature of the ground on which my right hon. Friend treads with such confidence, for he seems to think these are cases perfectly simple, and cases where, on one side, there is nothing but guilt, and, on the other, nothing but innocence and purity. But the Missionary, Mr. Bevan, in a letter which he writes on the 19th February, addressed to Major Rowe, says—"Mankoroane," that is one of the Chiefs on whose behalf we are asked to interfere with military measures—"Mankoroane has persistently tried to force Montsioa to war for a long time past." That is the testimony of a Missionary with regard to Mankoroane, and in this he has been urged on by the Agents and other White people, who, as you know, are the bane of Native Chiefs; and also, indeed, are, in a great degree, responsible for the wars which are going on in that country. I am not at all surprised at my right hon. Friend when he speaks highly on behalf of the Missionaries, and I sympathize with him in the language he used; but I think it was a little too much when he cast the shield of his protection over those Agents of South Africa. My right hon. Friend, if I understand him aright, has represented that before the Convention of 1881 lawlessness and robbery had been suppressed in Bechuanaland. It is represented as a land which before that time was a laud of peace. Now, we do not agree with that description of the country. It has been a land of turbulence and disorder, which has hardly known peace; for instead of being in the position of a considerable district of country under a single authority—such as happily prevailed in Zulu-land some six years ago—Bechuanaland has been divided among a multitude of independent Chiefs, each of them anxious for the supremacy, and none have been strong enough to reduce it to unity and to order; and at this moment, perhaps, the greatest mistake that is made upon this question is, that this is represented as if it were a case where we were invited to interfere on behalf of the Natives of Bechuanaland against the freebooters and the Boers. But, Sir, it is not so. The Boers have their friends in Bechuanaland just as they have their enemies. What that friendship will be ultimately worth to the Natives I do not at present venture to predict; but they have their friends and their Allies faithful to them, and taking their side, just as there are others who are hostile to them, and who have leaned rather to British connection. It is a question of taking part when my right hon. Friend says we are called upon to admit that we must acknowledge our inability to protect our Allies. What he really means is, that we are not sufficiently willing to please him—not sufficiently willing to interpose in a Native quarrel between one part of the people of Bechuanaland and another part of the people of Bechuanaland, where one portion only are favoured by the Boers, and the other are hostile to the Boers. And those who are hostile to the Boors are, at the present moment, the weaker party. I say at the present moment the weaker party, although my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies is perfectly right in saying that the rational thing for these Chiefs to do would be to unite among themselves; and if they did unite among themselves, they would have something better to rely upon than the appeal now made to us to interfere by military aid in the intestine quarrels in South Africa. My right hon. Friend also says that we asked certain Chiefs for assistance. He quoted a passage, but I think he must have been conscious that the passage he quoted contradicted the statement that he had made. I will refer to the latter part of the passage which he quoted. When you are said to ask Allies for assistance, I apprehend the meaning of that is tolerably well known. The meaning is that you want military aid. [Cries of "No, no!"] You want their aid in military measures in some shape or other. So far from that, it was "expressly desired of them to tell them that the Government does not desire assistance." It forbids them from attacking the Boers. It desires them to remain quiet and faithful, and to give shelter to British settlers. We are not here to deny that we do not adopt the language,—we never adopted the language of saying that this was to us a matter of indifference. We could not take the ground with perfect consistency which was taken up in this debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley). But do not let it be supposed for one moment that we have asked assistance from these Native Chiefs; on the contrary, our great object has been at all times to exclude their assistance. We have declined to avail ourselves of their assistance. We should deem it to be a fatal mistake to enlist them as fighting Allies in a quarrel with Europeans in South Africa. Next, my right hon. Friend says that the Natives for whom be speaks represent the people of Bechu- analand. They represent one of the sections into which Bechuanaland is divided. It is not a question between Bechuanaland and some other country or some other people; it is a question between one portion of the people of Bechuanaland and another portion, which other portion is backed unquestionably both by sympathy and co-operation, and which in the strictest sense—I will not say the strictest sense, but which is in a substantial sense, in alliance with the Boers of the Transvaal. Then I want to know what is the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman's views of the obligations we have undertaken by the Convention of 1881? He objects to the definition given, or the description given, by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, who said that we had acquired a right, but that 'we had not incurred an obligation. There is nothing strange in that language. It is language which was habitually used with great authority by Lord Palmerston in respect of territorial guarantees, and I believe it is language which most justly describes the position in which we stand. Under the Convention of 1881 we acquired a right—that is to say, we reserved a title, as against the Boers of the Transvaal, to support the Natives, and to restrict their action upon the Natives to whatever extent justice and equity might seem to recommend. But if I understand my right hon. Friend his construction of that Convention is this—that we invested every Native unjustly suffering on the frontiers of the Transvaal all round the country with the right to call upon us to go to war in his behalf with Bechuanaland. When I say to war on his behalf, I beg to insert the same qualifications that he leaves, to remonstrate on his behalf with the intention of going to war. But I say that this is not a rational construction of the Convention. It is our duty in these matters to consider what lessons we have derived from experience, and what means we possess, and what is the magnitude of the ends in view as compared with the operations that are necessary to obtain those ends. Sir, we are not without experience of war in South Africa. It is a melancholy history. We have not had a Colony in South Africa yet for a century, but we had wars in 1811, in 1819, in 1834, in 1846, in 1850, in 1877, in 1879, and in 1880–1. The people of England know something of the cost of those wars. £12,000,000, I am persuaded, do not represent it. The cost of the Zulu War was £4,890,000, the military operations in the Transvaal cost £2,720,000, and in the earlier times the war between 1846 and 1850 cost little short of £3,000,000. If these were matters which belonged to clear obligation; if they had contemplated ends; if they had proceeded on reasonable calculations and upon just aims, far be it from me to quote their cost against them; but their elements must be taken into view. And what were the causes of most of those wars; indeed, all of them? Even the Zulu War, which I look upon as one of the most monstrous in our history; one of the most monstrous in point of policy—and one of the most clearly indefensible in point of principle—was a frontier war. It depended upon frontier considerations. It has always been the defence of a frontier which has been in question. A fighting frontier has been incessantly the cause and object of war. But my right hon. Friend says that in this case there is no frontier to Bechuanaland.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

NO, no; I said there was a defined frontier.

MR. GLADSTONE

I understood my right hon. Friend to say it was a land included between the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

It is quite true that the Orange Free State is one of the borders; but what I mainly said was that it was the dividing territory between the Transvaal and British territory.

MR. GLADSTONE

Between the Transvaal and British territory; but that does not include the whole of Bechuanaland. No; there is another frontier to Bechuanaland towards the North; and if you now, in compliance with the advice of my right hon. Friend, go and plant yourself in Bechuanaland with a military force, putting up the Natives whose cause you befriend, and putting down the Natives whose cause you oppose, with the filibusters who support them, or the freebooting farmers who support them, you will have this difficulty—that the emigrants who come in among you will go out again beyond your frontier to the North, and never, as long as there is fresh land to occupy, will you be able to restrain them. All along it has been the same. The tendency of Colonists has been to go beyond the frontier, beginning long ago with the rivers nearer to the Gape, and gradually extending from one river to another; and thus it has been a process of indefinite extension. And whatever country you occupy you will have the same difficulties to contend with. You must still face this difficulty in South Africa—that your emigrants will go out beyond your frontier wherever they find farms convenient to be taken; and you will have the same difficulties and conflicts with the Native Tribes as you have here. The wars that we have at former times undertaken took place, however, under very different circumstances from the war which my right hon. Friend urges us to undertake; or, at any rate, to signify to the Transvaal Government that we are ready to undertake if it does not comply with our wishes. They were wars which were fought close to our base of operations. My right hon. Friend urges us to undertake what I shall take leave to designate as a war which is 1,100 miles from the base of our operations. My right hon. Friend does not take into view the fact that in these former wars we had facilities for carrying them on by the aid of the sea, which made the conveyance of supplies a work of comparative ease. This is a proposal to march 1,100 miles into a country with respect to which we would have the aid of a railway for the shortest part of the way; but which, with regard to the rest, everything would have to be done over miserable roads. But greater difficulties still are those which arise when you consider the nature of the country into which you would send your expedition; for it is impossible to contradict the fact that whereas, when we were dealing with the Kaffirs, we dealt with an organized community, the Chiefs of which could answer for the covenants into which they entered, we are now invited to proceed to make war in a country where the Chiefs are divided one against another—in fact, to take part in a hopeless Native conflict. Well, Sir, I apprehend the House will agree with me that a march in such a country of 1,100 miles, especially after what has happened in South Africa, is an undertaking which ought not to be attempted except with an ample military force. It is quite true, as the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) has said, that we contemplated some time ago the establishment of a very limited mounted police force, numbering no more than 200 men which, as we were given to understand, would be sufficient to cope with and to put down marauders. But then, Sir, the essential feature of the plan, which, we found ourselves totally unable to realize, was that those 200 men were to represent the united authority of the whole South African Settlements, as well as the authority of the Crown in this country. Two thousand men would hardly effect, by the invasion of the country—where there was no support from the European population of the Transvaal and the Orange River Free State; but, on the contrary, the strongest reason to expect anything but support—2,000 men would hardly be able to effect what, under happier circumstances, 200 men might have effected. It is very difficult and very perilous, especially for one in official responsibility, to refer to many topics which are involved in this question. But I must say that I hope the House will consider that we are not entitled to speak either with contempt or with disrespect of the Dutch portion, which is the majority of the South African population. We cannot, in fact, pronounce sweeping condemnations upon the Dutch race without running the risk of pronouncing a good deal of condemnation upon ourselves. They are our near kindred; their vices have been our vices as regards policy towards Native races. We have made, perhaps, an earlier repentance. Our earlier repentance possibly may have followed upon greater sins and offences. Be that as it may, we are in contact with them there. They did not create the conflict in South Africa. The Natives were there before them, but they were there before us. We went into South Africa and planted ourselves there; but the influence and the strength of the Dutch race are not diminished in consequence. They still continue to be the dominant influence, not absolutely throughout the whole of that country, but through the principal parts of it, with the exception of the Colony of Natal; and it is essential to a sound policy in South Africa that you should well weigh your relations to those people. If it were the fact that there was an outlying handful of those people, severed from the rest and isolated from the rest in sympathy and feeling, that would be one thing; but it is not so. If there is one thing comes out more clearly than another in the history of recent years it is that the Dutch population is, in the main, one in sentiment throughout South Africa, from the Cape to the Northern Border of the Transvaal; and that in dealing with one portion of it you cannot exclude from view your relations to the whole. These are considerations which, I must own, I am unable to view lightly; but I cannot be too explicit, I think, in saying to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) that, whatever scorn he may bestow upon any measures, except warlike measures, in this case it was not necessary for his purpose. My right hon. Friend went on to show the difficulties—amid the delighted expressions of the Party opposite—and, as it appeared to him, even the absurdities that would attend measures taken on behalf of any injured Chiefs of the Bechuanas, except measures to be enforced by the sword and by the cannon. Sir, I believe the enormous efforts, risks, and uncertainties of the expedition which my right hon. Friend contemplates, and would place at the back of his earnest remonstrances, are entirely out of proportion to the objects that are in view, or to the ends that you could possibly achieve. I doubt very much whether my right hon. Friend will find that there is that disposition in this House or out of this House to overlook the enormous difficulties of the question in deference, I admit, to a high and honourable sentiment which he seems to support. It was only yesterday that a deputation—I believe a very influential deputation—of the Wesleyan Methodists, who are foremost in the ranks of Missionary effort, waited upon the Secretary of State to urge the important considerations connected with this subject; but these Wesleyan Missionaries, when asked what they would recommend, distinctly refrained from recommending the measures which my right hon. Friend would undertake. They decline to be responsible for those measures. It is not quite true my right hon. Friend says—"Only speak firmly, and you will never have occasion to resort to the sword." I say no Government is worthy to hold Office in this country for a day that would hold firm language of that kind without being perfectly prepared to support it. What is the value of the opinion given by my right hon. Friend that there would be no occasion to resort to war, and what would be our predicament if, after holding that firm language, we had to support our remonstrances by a difficult, a costly, and almost hopeless military expedition? What would be our position if, when we were involved in the difficulties and responsibilities of that expedition, we endeavoured to turn round upon my right hon. Friend and say that his sanguine assurances and his confident prophecies were not borne out by the facts? I will not now say what it may be our duty to do, or what it may not be our duty to do, in regard to the Transvaal Government. I advisedly repeat what I stated upon that subject, because—especially if there be an Agent coming to this country—and we, I believe, do not know at this moment whether there is an Agent coming or not—it is desirable that no false inferences should be drawn from this debate. But what we decline to do is to undertake a military expedition for the purpose of rectifying disorders in a country which has always been disorderly, although we know that those disorders are now aggravated partly by the intervention of Boer freebooters. That is a responsibility we cannot assume, and which we will not impose upon the people of this country. I have said that we do not deny that there are obligations, within the limits of reason and prudence, which we ought to acknowledge and desire to fulfil. I am not so clear about the extent of them as my right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster); but still it is our belief that there are Chiefs, and there may be—I cannot say to what extent—others besides the Chiefs, who have claims of equity and justice upon us. We have acted upon that principle. We have recognized that it was our duty to study measures for the pacification of that country if they could be hopefully undertaken. When we failed in that which was by far the best measure—that devised by Sir Hercules Robinson for united action on the part of the several States with a complete and combined authority—we quite recently, and as if almost in despair, inquired whether it would be possible for us by our own means to proceed against those freebooters and others implicated in those transactions who were British subjects. Do not let it be supposed that they are all Dutchmen. There are others, deserters from the Army, who are Englishmen, against whom you would have to act. However, it is part of our duty to repress the misdeeds of those men whenever we can get at them. We did it in New Zealand. New Zealand was a distracted and an unhappy country before the British occupation. We occupied it and reduced it to order. New Zealand was a country of unlimited space, and unlimited space, as history has often shown, is a more formidable foe than armed hosts. We believe that, even if we were in Bechuanaland, there is no possibility of composing it and quieting it. It is a question of armed occupation. It is, therefore, a question of annexation with the certainty that in making that annexation you are only preparing the way for a new and further discontent. The old settlers in Bechuanaland can go beyond the frontier and again involve you in a similar controversy; so that to speak of proceeding to the Equator, or as far as a cultivable or desirable land extends towards the Equator, is no figure of speech and is no exaggeration. But we shall do the best we can, subject to jeers and perhaps Party taunts, to obtain justice for those who have in any manner acted on our behalf, nor will we renounce any right whatever that we now possess as against either the Transvaal Government or freebooters proceeding from the Transvaal—I say we will renounce no rights. We will leave it open to ourselves to take whatever measures we may find to be practicable; but we will not delude this House by undertaking to go to war until and except we may see our way to making a just war, with a reasonable computation as to the means to be employed and the ends to be attained, and as to the satisfactory arrangements in which it is to terminate. This is the method in which we intend to deal with this subject, and I believe that if we attempted to deal with it on any other basis we should receive the support neither of this House nor of the nation. It is necessary for me to refer again to the question of procedure as it stands before us. We have before us the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), with regard to which I have pointed out the anomalous position in which he stands in placing a construction upon the most important part of it, which I think I may say is not admitted by the generality of the House. Then comes the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright). In the terms of the Amendment we agree; but I cannot feel very anxious, for the reasons I have explained, that the House could adopt it. If the House were to adopt the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire as an adequate expression of our intentions in regard to this very serious question, in which, undoubtedly, the obligations of equity and humanity are involved, it would seem like an expression on the part of this House that either nothing was to be done, or that everything was to be cut down to an absolute minimum. Speaking in one simple phrase, it would be a negative expression on the part of the Government. Well, under the circumstances, and considering the nature of the topics involved, and the length of this discussion, and considering the freedom with which we have admitted from the first that the state of this remote country is a grievous mischief which we ought to be most desirous to mitigate, as the question has been raised here, I should not think it would become the dignity and the duty of the Government to depart from it with an expression purely negative. I hope I have made my meaning clear, and if I have I cannot help hoping that the hon. Member for Oxfordshire will not put us in the position of having to vote against the additional words which I cannot disapprove of, but which I must admit do not quite meet the demands of the case under the circumstances in which the Motion is submitted to the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) interposes another Motion, under the name of an Amendment—a wider Motion, involving different sets of topics, and carrying us back to a renewal of the discussion of matters which we have formerly had before us. We should be obliged to vote against the words of the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst). We then hope that the hon. Member for Oxfordshire will, perhaps, be so good as to withdraw the words of which he has given Notice, as they do not raise a perfectly clear issue. If that is done, the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire can be moved as an Amendment on the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham. That, of course, we shall meet with a negative; but it would not, perhaps, be right that the Government should leave the question in a position purely negative, and we shall be prepared to move words of this description. I am supposing now that the three impediments—the three obstacles have been removed. If this is done, we shall be prepared to accept the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire down to the word "Transvaal," and move these additional words— In view of the grave complications, and of the inability of the Transvaal Government to restrain those agencies which have been productive of crime and outrage in Bechuanaland, and have aggravated the disorder, the House trusts that Her Majesty's Government will make adequate provision for the interests of any Chiefs who may have just claims upon them. That, we believe, would leave it open to us to take any measures we thought fit, and which we may find to be recommended by policy and justice. I do not think the House should leave this question without some expression of opinion, and if an opinion is to be expressed, that is the form which we hope it will take; but in no circumstances can we undertake, as matters now stand, and with the views now held out to us, to give the pledge which has been demanded from us in terms of so much animation by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

There is one sentence in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down with which I cordially agree, and that is his reference to South Africa as one of the standing difficulties of our Colonial policy. I am, however, bound to add that I was sorry to hear, in spite of the full appreciation which he has of the difficulties not only of the present, but of the past, the right hon. Gentleman go on to characterize the Zulu War as one of the most monstrous wars of our history, without a thought of justice to those who had to meet difficulties equally great with those which have had to be met by the Government of which the right hon. Gen- tleman is the head. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I said monstrous on the ground of policy.] The speech of the right hon. Gentleman has thrown doubts upon certain facts on which the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) was founded, and which I had understood had been practically admitted in the course of this debate. I understood that both in this and in "another place" it was frankly admitted by those who spoke on behalf of the Government that the Convention of 1881 had been directly violated by the Transvaal Government. I was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman express some doubt upon that point. I thought that it had been admitted that the Bechuana Chiefs were persons to whom we are under special obligations; though I am afraid that it cannot be considered as admitted that those obligations are unavoidable, because we have the most practical evidence that Her Majesty's Government have made up their minds to the contrary. I thought that it was clear from the speech of the noble Earl who was for some time Secretary of State for the Colonies, and who is now Secretary of State for India (the Earl of Kimberley), and from the speech of the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), that these Chiefs were our faithful Allies, and had done everything for us in times of peculiar difficulty which we had permitted them to do, by protecting our fellow-subjects from our enemies; and that it was perfectly clear from the Blue Books that the very reason why the territories of these Chiefs were excluded from the boundaries of the Transvaal by the Convention was that on account of their great services to this country they had made themselves obnoxious to the Boers. The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies stated the other evening, fairly and frankly, that the acts that had occurred in the territory of these Chiefs were a disgrace to humanity. I regretted to hear from the right hon. Gentleman who has just addressed us no expression of sympathy for the Natives. He contented himself with giving utterance to an expression of sympathy with the Boers. Yet what has been done in these territories has been done—to use a word which fell from the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India—with the connivance of the Transvaal Government, who had accepted the cession of part of them, and had profited by the mischief which has been caused. And there can be no question in anyone's mind who is conversant with the facts that, whereas it is admitted by the Under Secretary of State that during the occupation of the Transvaal these territories were peaceful and progressive, they are now described by the British Resident as the scene of disease, starvation, and death, and that the murders and crimes committed there against children and defenceless prisoners are at least as worthy of the indignation of the right hon. Gentleman as any outrages committed in Bulgaria. Now, Sir, it is clear from the Convention, and from the arguments used by Her Majesty's Government at the time at which it was concluded, that the Government retained control over the foreign relations of the Boers, precisely in order that they might deal with circumstances of this kind. I think we are fairly entitled to ask, what is to be done? What is the answer of the Government? Nothing. I venture to say absolutely nothing, butthis—namely, the suggestion that these Native Tribes should unite among themselves for their own defence—a course which would probably lead to a far more serious war in South Africa than anything which has yet occurred, and the statement of the Under Secretary of State that donations are to be made to these Chiefs, and provision made for them, if possible, in British territory. I believe the country will object to such an interpretation of our obligation to control the external arrangements of the Transvaal; and I agree with the right hon. Member for Bradford in the remarks which he made on this point. I think the real question at issue is this—Why have the Government suppressed what the Under Secretary of State terms "their natural impulses of humanity," and their desire, with which I am perfectly ready to credit them, to carry out their obligations so recently undertaken? Why are they not prepared to enforce the terms of this Convention? The right hon. Gentleman has given us several reasons in proof of the difficulties which such a course would entail. He has spoken of the danger of an indefinite extension of our boundaries in South Africa. He has shown how an intervention of this kind once begun might have to be persisted in ad infinitum. He has spoken of the difficulty of unlimited space, and it is the most formidable one with which any Government could have to deal in such a question. He referred to the distance from our base of operations; of the difficulties of an Expedition solely undertaken by this country without the cooperation of the South African Government; and in all that I cordially agree with him. But how is it that the Government have only now recognized these difficulties? How is it that these difficulties did not enter into their minds before they concluded the Transvaal Convention? Surely when they concluded that Convention, they believed in the reality of the obligations they were undertaking, and in their power to perform them; surely they recognized that it might become necessary, looking to past history, that such obligations should be met even against the will of the Transvaal Boers. Did they really believe that the stipulations which they made on behalf of the Natives could be practically carried out? I have always myself felt, and ventured to express an opinion in this House in 1881, that there is one difficulty in the way of the working of that Convention to which the right hon. Gentleman has not alluded. It might have had a chance of satisfactory working, but on this condition only—that before its conclusion the Boers should have been taught to respect those with whom they concluded it, and that the Government should not have shrunk, through a false notion of "blood-guiltiness," from carrying to a successful termination their operations against those who were in arms against the authority of the Queen. By the manner in which this Convention was concluded after the defeat of our Army in South Africa the Government absolutely threw away any chance of its being observed by the Boers in those stipulations which were at all repugnant to the Boer people. Now, I do not think that it can be asserted that the Government did not put forward the Convention as a reality in 1881. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford has already quoted the terms in which the Prime Minister then referred to this very stipulation on behalf of the Natives. I remember that the right hon. Gentleman was not the only Minister who alluded to that question. We also had a speech from the President of the Board of Trade, who said that the Government had not employed their strength to conquer those Boers, because they were satisfied that peace gave this country everything that victory could have given. Those were the arguments used at that time. There were, as the right hon. Member for Bradford had said, very many persons in this House and the country—and I must say I was one of them—who felt the gravest doubt whether anything whatever had really been done to secure the interests of the Native population. If the language had been then held by the Government which they now employ, I think the House would not have expressed the blind confidence in the future which it then exhibited. Even if the obedient majority which follows the Ministry had saved them from defeat, their policy would, at any rate, have been censured by no inconsiderable number of persons in the country at large. I should now like, Sir, with the permission of the House, to put forward a wider view of the case. It seems to me that this Convention must have failed, because, from the first, the terms of peace on which it was based were interpreted in directly opposite senses by the Government and by the Boers. The Government always put forward the terms of peace as practically giving to the Boers nothing more than they had been willing to concede to them before military operations were undertaken. The Boers, on the other hand, regarded the terms of peace as giving them their complete independence; and during the discussion, and before the ratification of the Convention, objections were raised by the Boers on almost every point which limited the perfect independence of the Transvaal Government. I think it is clear that a Convention of this kind had in itself the elements of almost certain failure. We have had now from the right hon. Member for Bradford and the hon. and learned Member for Chatham a full statement of the particulars in which this Convention has failed with regard to the Bechuana Chiefs. I do not want to dwell upon that case, because it has been fully established. But I will allude to certain other points which ought to come under consideration. The Correspondence, I think, shows that, from the very outset, the Boers determined that their view of the peace—namely, that it gave them complete independence—should be carried into practical effect, whatever there might be to the contrary in the Convention. The obligations upon them were made, in all important particulars, a dead letter. The authority it gave them was not only carried to its fullest extent, but was stretched beyond anything warranted by the Convention. Take, for instance, the provision that they should strictly adhere to the boundaries of the Transvaal. How did they interpret that obligation? They have referred, in their official Correspondence, to schemes involving the extension of those boundaries as proposals to insure the necessary preponderance of the Whites over the Blacks. They have claimed, as the right hon. Member for Bradford has told us, this Bechuana country as land cut off from theirs, but as lawfully belonging to them, and this in spite of the boundaries laid down in the Convention to which they themselves agreed. And more than that. Circumstances have occurred which show a deliberate intention on the part of the inhabitants of the Transvaal, unchecked by their Government, to extend their boundaries in a more dangerous direction to the peace of South Africa—namely, in the direction of Zululand. And when remonstrated with by Her Majesty's Government on the subject, the Transvaal Government say they are going to take no steps at all in regard to the matter—a statement which was properly characterized by the Earl of Kimberley as "impudent." But had they done anything to protect the rights of the Native population within their territory? In 1881 the Prime Minister insisted at great length on the provisions which had been made for the protection of Native rights, and especially on the extent of the control that Her Majesty's Government had acquired by those provisions over the relations between the Transvaal Government and the Natives within their territory. I should, however, be glad to hear from Her Majesty's Government if anything has been done in this direction. The Native Location Commission has never yet done anything at all; and why? Because of the war with Mapoch. And what was the real cause of that war? In spite of the expressed hatred of Mapoch, and of hundreds of thousands of other Natives to the Boers, Her Majesty's Government included their territories within the limits of the Transvaal; and the majority of the Royal Commissioners justified this inclusion, on the ground of its enabling them to obtain better provisions for the protection of the Bechuanas and other Tribes on the South-West border. The result had been ruin to the Bechuanas, and a war between Mapoch and the Transvaal Government, which still continues, and is attended by those terrible circumstances which invariably attend wars of this nature. There are other less important considerations. There is the financial question. I do not know what view the Chancellor of the Exchequer may take upon this point. Nothing could be more unnaturally liberal, I was going to say, than the treatment which the Transvaal Government received from the Treasury with regard to the amount of the debt. Allowances were made even for the salaries of ministers of religion during the time of their employment in the Boer camp, while the Boers were in arms against the authority of the Queen. And yet, notwithstanding that liberal treatment, I will venture to say that there is hardly any of the financial obligations undertaken by the Transvaal Government which has yet been performed. They have paid, it is true, the interest on part of their debt; but they undertook to pay £100,000 last August towards the capital of the debt, and not a penny has been paid. According to the terms of the Convention, it was agreed that a Joint Commission should be appointed to decide on the amount of compensation to be given for injuries or losses occasioned to private persons by the fault of either party during the war. That Commission was appointed; the Boer Government was to pay half the cost of the Commission; they have not paid their share. They were to pay the claims decided against them. Her Majesty's Government have advanced £120,000 to meet those claims; and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer professes to think that the money will ever be repaid, I must say he is of a more sanguine disposition than lam. Then there is another point—the question of Suzerainty. The Suzerainty of the Queen was described by the Pre- sident of the Board of Trade as something practically undistinguishable from Sovereignty. How has that Suzerainty been interpreted by the Boers? According to their view, the Transvaal is not the Transvaal State at all, but is entitled by them in all their official communications with Her Majesty's Government as the "South African Republic." And it is a small, but a very significant fact, that at an official banquet at Pretoria, to which the Representative of this country was invited, the toast of the "South African Republic" was given first, while that of the health of the Suzerain, Her Britannic Majesty—as the Transvaal Government call her—was only fourth on the list. The Suzerainty of the Queen in the Transvaal amounts to the responsibility for the misdeeds of a State to which Her Majesty's Government have given independence, though it is, in their opinion, unable to control its own subjects, but which is, nevertheless, too strong to be dealt with by Great Britain. I have gone over these points because I was anxious to show the House that the questions brought before it by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham by no means exhaust the whole matter of the working of this Transvaal Convention, which I think may be described as a complete and absolute failure. We are fairly entitled to ask, then, what is to be done in the circumstances in which we are placed? That is the question which the hon. and learned Member for Chatham has propounded to the House. It seems to me to be a question, primarily, at any rate, rather for Her Majesty's Government than for the House to reply to. I am not prepared to recommend a policy to Her Majesty's Government in a condition of things which it seems to me they have brought upon themselves. I am not prepared to support a Motion which, to my mind, can mean nothing but a war which nobody wants, though that interpretation is repudiated by its Mover. I should like to know—and on that point there is great force in the remark of the right hon. Gentleman—if this Motion does not mean that this country is to go to war, what it does moan? What are the "energetic measures" which the hon. and learned Member for Chatham would recommend? It cannot be mere inquiry. We have had enough of that; the facts are established beyond dispute. It cannot mean further remonstrances. Our remonstrances are received with evasive answers, if not with contempt; and even the remonstrances of so energetic a Minister as the present Colonial Secretary will have no better effect. Therefore, I am unable to support the Motion. What I feel is this, that in our present position we have a choice between the alternative of a South African War—which, in the present state of feeling in South Africa, would be the most serious war ever undertaken by Great Britain in that country—and the disgraceful desertion of our Native allies. That seems to me to be a position in which we ought not to be placed, and assuredly somebody must be responsible for it. Who are responsible, unless it be the right hon. Gentlemen who, nearly for the last three years, have sat on that Bench, who are the Government of this country, who concluded this Convention, and who now have failed to carry it into effect? What I am anxious to do is to bring before the House and the country what appears to me to be the real question at issue. Has the policy of Her Majesty's Government in South Africa, especially in the Transvaal for the past two years, been a success or a failure? That is the point on which, I think, this debate should turn—that is the question which I am anxious to submit, and which the concluding portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman gives me hope that I may be able to submit to the deliberate judgment of Parliament and of the country.

LORD COLIN CAMPBELL

said, that as he listened to the powerful speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) he could not help thinking that, but for the obligation of Party discipline, the cheers with which that speech was greeted by the hon. Members opposite would have been re-echoed from the Ministerial Benches. The Prime Minister, in referring to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, had alluded to him as a man of peace, yet who had taught them, in unequivocal terms, the doctrine of war. Surely, if there was anybody in the House who might deserve the title and designation of a man of peace it was the right hon. Gentleman himself. But had he not taught the doctrine of war—and some of them, perhaps, might think a rather novel doctrine of war—in Egypt? He ventured to say the war in Egypt, when contrasted with any war which they had waged in South Africa, or were likely to wage in South Africa, would suffer by the contrast. With respect to our general policy, the Prime Minister said that the difficulties in South Africa were "constantly recurring," and he alluded to the great difficulties there as almost an "insoluble problem." He charged the right hon. Gentleman with thinking the settlement "an easy task." The question arose, why were these difficulties always recurring? The question had relation to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who spoke first. It was mainly because of the weakness, the vacillation, the irresolution of British Governments. It was the want of a consistent policy; it was the want of continuity in their policy; and the right hon. Member for Bradford's offence was really this—that he called upon the Government to put an end to this deplorable vacillation, even at the cost of war, and not to allow their action to fall short of the Convention; or else frankly to avow that by making that Convention they had made a very great mistake. The speech of the Prime Minister seemed to him, from first to last, to be an argument against the Convention itself. He spoke in favour of a forced and strained interpretation of that Convention. Nobody had laid it down—nobody had said—that the British Government in South Africa should be at the beck and Sill of every Native who chose to ask for assistance; but they had to deal with many flagrant instances of the violation of the Convention, and the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister throughout his speech minimized the gravity of these violations. He thought the House was placed in a difficulty by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright), and which it was now proposed to withdraw. If it became the substantive Motion, he did not see why the hon. and learned Member for Chatham and those who supported him should not go into the Lobby in favour of it, because the Amendment and the Resolution were really identical. They were so, because the duty of succouring the Bechuanas, the duty of binding the Boers to observe the Convention, and the duty of proving ourselves in earnest, whatever might be our policy in South Africa, were duties and obligations of paramount importance, and might be fitly described in the language chosen by the hon. Member for Oxfordshire as "absolutely unavoidable obligations." He had not previously had the opportunity of expressing the conviction formed after a visit to South Africa, and after some careful study of the South African Question, that the Convention which they concluded with the Transvaal Boers placed this country in a position essentially false, precarious, and uncertain. It embodied, in fact, a wholly indeterminate policy; it embodied neither the policy consistently and ably advocated by the Secretary to the Treasury, nor did it embody the opposite policy as consistently and as ably advocated by the great bulk of the White Colonists in South Africa, exclusive of the Dutch—the policy of intervention. It was essentially a halting-place; it was not, and it could not be, a resting-place. By that Convention the country was placed in a position in regard to which it depended not upon our own action, not upon our own wishes and our own will, whether we should advance or recede from it, but it depended absolutely and entirely upon the action of the Boers themselves; it enabled them to force our hand at any moment, and compel us either to undertake a war, which we were not willing or not able to undertake, or to beat a most ignominious retreat. He believed no one could expect peace from the Convention who did not entertain most extravagant opinions regarding the character and good faith of the Boers. He believed no one could expect peace from the Convention who remembered their former cruelties, their policy, and their aims. He did think it was time that we shook ourselves free from great delusions with respect to them; from the delusion that they had been grossly maligned, that they were the most harmless, because they happened to be the most Bible-reading nation of the world, and that if they were only left to themselves they would show to what extent they had been maligned. Their policy, their tendency, their actions in every way might be forecast and predicted as certainly and as accurately as it was possible to forecast and predict any human affairs. There were two parties in the Transvaal; one friendly to the British Government, earnestly desirous of keeping faith with us, and observing their obligations under the Convention; the other implacable, moved by an inveterate hatred of the British Government, embittered by our former dealings with them, and resolved, at all hazards, and by every means, whether fair or foul, to break the Convention, and free themselves from their obligations. It was really absolutely immaterial which party was in power. The relation of the Frontier Boers to the Central Government at Pretoria might be compared to the relation of certain Russian Generals to the Russian Government at Petersburg. It was sometimes impossible to control these Frontier gentlemen, and at other times it was highly inconvenient. Nobody could read the despatches without seeing that Mr. Bok, the State Secretary, had the smallest possible regard not only for the Convention, but for Her Majesty's Government. These despatches seemed to him to be couched in a tone of insolence and of thinly-disguised hostility which made their perusal humiliating in the extreme. The facts of the case were extremely simple, although their gravity had been minimized by the Prime Minister. They might be told almost in a single sentence—the Frontiers of the Transvaal had been wantonly, unscrupulously, impudently extended. Not the smallest regard, not the slightest deference, had been paid to the Queen's Representative. Mr. Bok had absolutely nothing to say with a view to palliate the atrocious aspect which these hostilities with the Natives bore throughout. He had nothing, or next to nothing, to say with respect to the gross breach of faith involved in the Treaty with Montsioa. He contented himself with the remark that if there was anything wrong it was a mere "defect of form;" and he concluded with the ironical question, "Has Her Majesty's Government any other suggestion to make with a view to bring peace to these disturbed districts?" It would be almost impossible to point to any communication ever made to a Representative of the British Government which was more insolent, more barefaced, and more unscrupulously insincere; and this was the conduct, and this was the writing, which met with a somewhat mild and honeyed remonstrance which they fouud in the 38th despatch of this series! If they were to content themselves with such remonstrances, it would be much better, it would be far more honourable in every way, if they were to make up their minds to tear up this Convention, and withdraw our Resident in the Transvaal, who was now a sort of diplomatic "Aunt Sally," placed there for the private delectation and recreation of Mr. Bok. The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies had drawn attention to the character of what he somewhat ironically and cynically termed "our Native allies," and in doing that he had followed the example of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley); but although it might be very convenient to disparage our Native allies in this manner, it did seem to him that the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) was perfectly correct when he pointed out that this had really nothing whatever to do with the question. There might be little to choose between Natives and Natives in South Africa, although he must say that, when they read these despatches, it was impossible not to have a feeling stronger than pity for these unfortunate people; but the point the House had to consider was the conduct of the Boers, who, in order to extend their frontiers, had employed one set of the Natives as a catspaw with which to carry out their object at the expense of another set of Natives. There was one exception to his agreement with the speech of the right hon. Member for Bradford—namely, when he laid it down that they had no right to consider when a question arose between allies as to a casus belli. He believed it was the fact that it was lawful for allies to consider whether a casus belli had or had not arisen. But surely on that point they might be satisfied by the despatches of Sir Hercules Robinson. Again, the Under Secretary of State had said that the English troops were not sent into the Transvaal in order to protect the Native Tribes. Well, that might or might not be true. It was a point that had relation, and relation only, to the policy of the late Government. But this at least was certain—that if British troops were not sent into the Transvaal in order to protect the Natives, they were only withdrawn from the Transvaal on the condition that the Natives should not be oppressed. Again, it might be true that the destruction of the Zulu Power was the source and origin of all these troubles; but if that were so, truly one might make the remark that the Zulu War, at the time that Convention was completed, was a matter almost of ancient history, and its effect and bearing upon our policy in South Africa, its effect upon our Treaty with the Boers, was as plain and intelligible as it was at this moment. The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies had said that it would be "almost criminal to give way to our natural feelings of humanity in this question." He must say that was a most remarkable sentiment. It condemned a very large amount of the British policy in South Africa, and, indeed, in every part of the world. But if it were true that it would be criminal, this seemed to follow from it—that the Convention itself was criminal, and they had been very insincere about carrying out their "criminal" intentions. These Papers contained abundant evidence of the most horrible atrocities. He thought these atrocities had taken nobody by surprise, except those who had insisted upon investing those people with a wholly imaginary nobility of character. Everybody who knew the Boers, everybody who had taken the slightest pains to investigate their character, knew that, with respect to the Natives, they had absolutely no feeling of humanity, and for this very plain and simple reason—that they denied to the Natives all the attributes of humanity. In their own language, the Natives were known by a word he did not know how to translate—"skepsals." It did not correspond to the "missing link;" it was not half-brute and half-man; he must leave it to the House to translate the word. It was quite certain that the Boers thought it the greatest folly and weakness to pay to these "creatures" the regard due to humanity. Consequently, the Boers flogged, shot, and destroyed the Natives whenever it suited their purpose to do so. The Convention which they had concluded with the Transvaal Boers was founded on the desire—and, it must be confessed, the very noble desire—to free this country from the charge of blood-guiltiness; but he ventured to question whether it was possible for this country to wash its hands of that charge, when it fulfilled in a feeble or incomplete manner the great duty of affording that degree of protection which was commensurate with their position as a great nation and a civilized Power. He thought it was far better that they should abdicate—that they should withdraw from a position which could not be honourably maintained except by firm, consistent, and vigorous action, than that they should remain, and, by a display of weakness, give occasion to Boers and Natives alike to disbelieve in their sincerity. Let it be one thing or another. If they were going to protect the Natives, let them cease from this pottering, drivelling action. Let them require reparation to those who had been injured. Let them demand the prompt and condign punishment of the offenders. He knew well that this might cost the country a war—and a very great and terrible war—greater, certainly, and more terrible than the war from which they had just issued; but, for his own part, he must say that it would be less selfish, and do infinitely more for the cause of progress and civilization.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, the Motion of which the Prime Minister had given Notice had, to a great extent, changed the colour of the debate; but the House was now in the difficult position of having four separate Motions on the same subject to decide upon. He had, however, no doubt that, so far as his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gorst) was concerned, the matter would be much simplified. He was glad that the Government appeared to understand that the Motion was not in any way a Vote of Censure upon them, nor that it implied any want of confidence. He quite agreed with the Prime Minister that the question ought not to be made one of Party; but he might remind the House that the Prime Minister was himself the first to make South Africa a Party question in his Mid Lothian speeches. The Motion of his hon. and learned Friend was intended to be a Vote of Censure upon the Transvaal Government, and that was the essential difference between the Motion and the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach). The only object of the Motion was to bring under the notice of the House the imminent jeopardy of the Tribes which were long our allies. He understood that the Motion was not to receive the support of the Front Opposition Bench. He was, of course, very sorry; but he must say that such a loss was not absolutely fatal to the Motion. The Motion affirmed the complicity of the Boers in atrocities against the Natives, and the necessity of taking steps to protect the latter. It was not necessary to detain the House with reference to the first point, nor could he understand the extreme caution of the Prime Minister in dealing with it, for the Earl of Kimberley had stated plainly that he had not a word to say in defence of the Boer Government; and after such an expression from such an authority the House might accept the charge of complicity as fully proved. It did not appear to him that the want of ability to restrain was sufficient defence; and if the Boers were guilty, as the Earl of Kimberley said they were, what an extremely awkward position the Suzerain Power was placed in. If this country remained the Suzerain Power over the Transvaal, and if it did nothing to put a stop to the atrocities, he affirmed that it would become as morally guilty for the atrocities as the Boer Government itself. The Government could not retain the name of power without incurring its responsibilities. No one denied that they had the power, but naturally they were not anxious to send out a large Military Expedition. The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Prime Minister had asked what they could do. There was one thing which he thought they could do—that was, without loss of time to renounce and repudiate for the future all title and all claim to the Suzerainty of the Transvaal. They could so act that the people of this country should not be implicated in the extermination of those Tribes; and by withdrawing all power over the Transvaal, the English Government would stigmatize the Boer Government as being outside the pale of civilization owing to their persistent extermination of human life, and a Government with which Great Britain, therefore, refused to associate with either as Suzerain or as Ally. He would probably be told by some of the Members on that side of the House that such a course would be extremely agreeable to the Boers, and would do nothing for the Natives. It might be agreeable to the Boers for the moment; but the time would probably arrive when the Boers would bitterly regret the loss of the protecting power of Great Britain. The annexation of the Transvaal was welcome to the Boers because they were in danger at that time of being overwhelmed by the Natives; and if that were to happen again, England would be called upon to protect them as Suzerain from the danger which their own cruelties and misrule had brought about. Again, if the Native Tribes knew that all communication between the British Government and the Transvaal was broken off, and that they would no longer be responsible for Transvaal affairs, then the Natives would combine and carry on the war; and he thought that in such a contest the sheer weight of numbers would carry them through. Thus it was that the Suzerainty over the Transvaal not only directly and indirectly implicated them with Boer misrule, but was actually a source of danger to the Natives in whose interests it had been mainly and originally undertaken. But the Government might do more; they might act on the suggestion of Sir Hercules Robinson, without waiting for the concurrence of the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony, and at once raise a small force of mounted police to keep order on the Frontier where those disturbances were occurring. He could not see the difficulties which were raised by the Prime Minister on that point; and he believed that if such a force were to treat the Boer marauders as the Texas Rangers treated the pirates and half-breeds who infested and plundered the prairie settlers, and do this for the protection of the Natives in alliance with the Natives, they would very soon put an end to those ruffianly Boer aggressions. He wished to point out that they certainly owed something to these Natives. They might carry out the suggestion of the hon. Member for the North Riding of Yorkshire (Mr. Dawnay)—allow English Military officers to go out to instruct the Natives in the art of war; and he believed, with his hon. Friend, that there were many officers who would glory in performing such a duty, if only to pay off the debt incurred at Lang's Nek and Majuba Hill, the more particularly when they knew they were fighting against oppression. There were numberless ways in which the Government might bring pressure to bear upon the Boers to compel them to see the advisability of amending their pernicious policy. The Resolution of his hon. and learned Friend, to which the Government had said they could not altogether agree, asked them to take energetic steps, and it had been said that energetic steps meant war; but he thought it would be an energetic step to accept the Resolution. He did not see why they should assume that the Dutch population in the Cape Colonies sympathized with the atrocities; and if there were such a sympathy it would not justify them in neglecting their duty. It was known that an Envoy from the Transvaal was coming to this country to negotiate upon certain points affecting the Convention. Let the first thing to meet his eye when he landed here be a Vote of Censure passed by Parliament on the Transvaal Government, expressive of the indignation of both Parties, who alike condemned the cruelty and wickedness of the Boers. Look what the Government had done for these people. They could have followed them up and scattered them to the four winds of Heaven when they had 14,000 troops on the spot; yet they had forborne to do so, and in consequence had incurred the obloquy of Europe. Never before did an English Minister make such sacrifices for an alien race, and yet what a return had been made. The Natives were being robbed, murdered, and exterminated. Englishmen could not reside in the Tranvaal, and the Convention which was negotiated when their Armies were on the spot, was violated contumaciously and contumeliously the moment their Armies had withdrawn. It was not possible, therefore, that the Government should refuse to accept the spirit of the Resolution, which, to his mind, simply expressed the indignation of Parliament at the conduct of those whom they had saved from imminent destruction. Their responsibilities in South Africa were very heavy; and he thought he might imitate an expression of the Prime Minister, that there was not a spot on which you could put your finger in South Africa and say there England had done good. As the Prime Minister had admitted, the South African Colony had been a constant source of discredit and shame; and at this moment, if they refused to stir a finger to save the Natives, their cup of misdeeds would indeed be filled to over- flowing. The Under Secretary of State had stated that they must not yield to the ill-regulated impulses of humanity. Well, that was a remark which sounded peculiarly—he would even say badly—coming from one who bore the name of Ashley; and he could not help thinking that when the hon. Gentleman said this he was making a most audacious attack on his Chief, who had been remarkable for his constant and prompt compliance with the ill-regulated impulses of humanity. It was those ill-regulated impulses of humanity that had made him the friend of Italian, Grecian, and Neapolitan freedom, which induced him to extend the electoral franchise at home, and made him justify it by saying that the class who received it were our own flesh and blood; that had made the Prime Minister the deadly foe of the unspeakable Turk; and, finally, it was those same impulses which led to conclude this disastrous Convention with the Transvaal. And surely the right hon. Gentleman was not now, at the bidding of an Under Secretary of State, going to turn his back on those ill-regulated impulses of humanity, on which so large a measure of his power was secured. It was the ill-regulated impulses of humanity which as much as any other cause had directed and driven the British race to every quarter of the globe; and he could not imagine any more certain indication of decay than if they were to suppress those impulses which had had so large a share in the extension of their Empire all over the world. He regretted that Her Majesty's Government did not see their way to accepting the Resolution of his hon. and learned Friend; and he was bound to say he should have liked a stronger Resolution in place of it than the one Government had proposed. They must recollect one thing, however—that everything said in that House would be telegraphed to Pretoria; and, if the Resolution of his hon. and learned Friend was rejected, and if a Resolution not strong enough for the occasion was accepted by the House, the construction the Boers would put upon it would be that they were free to work their wicked will to the utmost against the Natives. If the House were to accept the Resolution, they might for a time check the ruin of the Natives; but if they accepted a Resolution not sufficiently strong enough to express their sense of the deeds of the Boers, they might positively precipitate cruelties and atrocities worse even than those that had taken place. But he admitted that the Resolution of the Prime Minister was better than the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), and the Government were in a better position to judge how far they could go with prudence. It certainly did promise to the House that the Chiefs referred to should not be destroyed, and on that account he preferred it to an Amendment which simply proposed to revive a barren past and to re-open controversies on which the House had decided. Therefore, he hoped his hon. and learned Friend would obtain the permission of the House to withdraw the Motion he had brought forward, so that the Resolution of the Prime Minister might become the Main Question, and that they might be able to give a decided Vote.

MR. RATHBONE

asked permission to say a few words, as he had the honour to move the Resolution by which the House approved, by a large majority, of the action of the Government in withdrawing from the Transvaal. They must all admit that it was impossible to read Mr. Rutherford's Report, or Mr. Hudson's letter of the 6th of January, or Sir Hercules Robinson's despatch of the 22nd of January, without a feeling of horror at the series of cruel, cowardly, and cold-blooded murders which were described. He was, however, much impressed, after perusal of these despatches, with the danger of this House interfering with the discretion of the Executive Government, and of their wise Representatives on the spot. The real question was, Were they going to make themselves responsible for everything that went on between White and Native Races in South Africa? If so, had they recognized the fact that this meant the control of another great Empire—an Empire likely to prove as expensive in the blood and treasure of Englishmen as their Indian Empire? They would find it impossible in Africa, as it had been found in India, to limit the extension of their rule. They would be dealing with a poor country, without the rich material resources which made India self-supporting. They would be met, too, with this enormous difficulty—that they would have in Africa a race akin to ours, as pugnacious, almost as energetic, more numerous on the spot than ours, and intensely jealous of our rule. In fact, they had got the most vigorous savage races in the world, and one of the most tenacious and vigorous European races mixed up in a climate in which they could both exist, multiply, and flourish; and they, though fewer in number than either of these races, were going to undertake, at the expense of the blood and treasure of the unfortunate English nation, to keep the peace between these races over this vast region. It was impossible for them, consistently with their present responsibilities and duties to their vast Empire, to undertake the police duty over these vast, thinly-populated districts, inhabited by such races as he had described. It was the blood-tax more than the money-tax, which an African Empire would inevitably involve, that made every prudent statesman—that made the country at the last General Election—shrink from the extension of their Empire in Africa. He would only detain the House while he stated one other point. He read the history of the past to show that the Native African Races did not require them to attempt the impossible task of becoming their special providence all over the world. They might do much by influence and example; but until they were both omniscient and omnipotent, they could not benefit them by undertaking this responsibility. Cruel and arbitrary as the rule of the Boers had often been in the Transvaal, results showed that it was a distinct improvement on the anarchy and misery which preceded them. The stronger races in Africa had almost annihilated the Hottentots, and were at constant war with one another. The Transvaal, when the Boers came there, was almost depopulated. During their sway the population had increased enormously. While the Government might, perhaps, do something towards putting things right, he hoped they would follow the course which their Representatives in South Africa clearly indicated, of leading the Natives, as soon as possible, to rely upon themselves, and make their own arrangements with the Boers, and enforce them without looking to us. The speech of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) was a most statesmanlike speech, and there was a great deal in what he said about the influence of public opinion in this country upon the Transvaal Government. He (Mr. Rathbone) thought they might impress upon the Transvaal Government that their conduct had excited the reprobation of the civilized world; that they were degrading themselves below the level of the savages they despised; and that should the time come, as it undoubtedly would, that they were again face to face with the retribution they deserved, if they proceeded in their present course, they would find the people of this country not only unwilling to give them the slightest protection or aid, but powerful to prevent any aid reaching them from any other quarter. This country must never forget that in their great Indian and Colonial Empire they had undertaken a task and the responsibilities of an Empire more extended, more scattered, and greater than any nation had ever succeeded in performing; and it would be simple madness to add to obligations already so heavy the responsibilities which the formation of a vast South African Empire would entail.

It being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till tins day.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

asked the Prime Minister what course he proposed to pursue as to the continuance of the debate?

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

asked the Prime Minister when he would put on the Notice Paper the Amendment of which he gave Notice on behalf of the Government?

MR. GLADSTONE

said the Amendment should be placed on the Notice Paper immediately; and with regard to the continuance of the debate, the next two weeks must be considered as nonexistent for that purpose. In these circumstances, the best course to adopt would be that the debate should be adjourned until the first Tuesday after the Recess, at 2 o'clock.

The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.

The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,

House adjourned at five minutes after Nine o'clock till Monday next.