§ [FIRST DAY'S DEBATE.]
§ * Mr. J. E. GORDON (Elgin and Nairn)It has been my privilege to have allotted to me the distinguished task of moving in this House—the great House of Commons —the reply to the Queen's Speech. In the first place, I must ask from hon. Members that indulgence which they ever give to those who are placed in the rather peculiar position that I have now the honour to occupy. There are at least two reasons why I do crave that indulgence this afternoon. In the first place, although I have had the honour of a seat for five years in this assembly, I think my colleagues will acknowledge that I have never unduly trespassed on their patience; and, in the next place, we have before us to-night no ordinary message from the Crown whereby I might take refuge in an empty recital of innumerable classes of projects of legislation. The Queen's Speech is remarkably short, but I will venture to say that this session need be no per- 98 functory session; for in contrast with the shortness of the speech is the magnitude of the events with which the House is called upon to deal. We are on the present occasion not in the position of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who recollect the political controversies of a quarter of a century ago, when minor subjects such as toll-bars, school-boards, and hares and rabbits caused the uprising and the downfall of ministries; but at the end of the century we are on a higher level of thought. The constituencies of this kingdom which have returned us for the discharge of the onerous duties we are about to pursue are realising that they are called upon, as trustees of a wider empire, to demand of us, as their representatives, no longer to waste our time on trivialities or petty party projects, but at this great national testing time to address ourselves to issues which I venture to say have never been surpassed in, their gravity, and which demand the attention of this honourable House. Three times in this century, so soon to close, we, as a nation, have had occasions of trial—at the beginning of the century, in the middle, and now at the end. And although we are fighting a foe small in numbers, we have during the last fifteen months realised the fact that we are on our trial as a nation and as an empire, and if in this session of Parliament, perhaps with a minimum of debate but with a maximum of energy, we assume a correctness of attitude towards these great issues with which, I believe, the country has so recently called upon us to deal, then this session of Parliament will not be lost, but be for ever memorable in the annals of history. I may remind the House that we who are honoured by the confidence of our constituencies are also called upon to show that our political correctness is only vouched for if our attitude in this House is not only in consonance with the feelings of the localities from which we come, but with that of the wider race of English-speaking people whom we now represent in this great Empire's Court of Appeal. I may be allowed to congratulate the Government upon having carried on the war with vigour up to this point, and we may congratulate the nation upon the statement of the Field Marshal, who is now about to return to this country, that the war, in its main aspect, is almost over. Lord Roberts has indeed earned 99 the gratitude of this people. Some years ago he completed a great and laborious life in the East, and yet he seems to have entered upon a new chapter of national labour, and is about to lay the nation under a deep indebtedness, not only for a successful campaign in South Africa, but, we hope, for the reconstruction of our Army organisation. We have been fighting with President Kruger, and all those influences he has gathered round him. May I remind the House of the three calculations with which Mr. Kruger commenced the campaign. The first was that he had organised out of the ignorance which exists amongst the Dutch colonists of South Africa a Dutch rebellion amongst our fellow-subjects 7,000 miles from our base of power. In the next place he expected to get assistance on the Continent. There is nothing more gratifying to me, as a private Member, than to recognise that, whilst on the Continent there is a most distinct, dangerous flood of hostility towards us, in the courts and councils of those great nations there is a correctness of attitude which we recognise and appreciate. There was another calculation, and the Boers, no doubt, unfortunately formed a belief upon it which subsequent events have shown had no solid basis, and that was that if war broke out there would be a certain amount of sympathy with the Boers even in this country itself. We have seen it in the press and heard it on platforms. Regrets are generally vain, but I often feel that if the almost universal present harmony as to the war policy had been advertised more clearly and distinctly before the ultimatum, events might have been otherwise—had Mr. Kruger seen us a united people. I think when history comes to be written, those who blame the action of this nation with its expenditure of life and treasure will always look back to the time when peace and war were in the balance, and Mr. Kruger and his advisers were hesitating to issue the ultimatum. This message from Her Majesty points directly to the cost of the prolongation of the war, but I think I may congratulate the House upon the fact that it comes at a time when the country is not only able to sustain its burdens, but at a period when the revenue has been increasing by leaps and bounds. If our expenditure with regard to this war is likely to be 100 gigantic, it is at least not likely to reach the amount of one year's revenue or one year's expenditure on drink. There are some who have told us that had we known the cost in life and treasure we might not have embarked upon this war [Opposition cheers.] Allow me to reply to that cheer from the opposite side. Let me suppose that any of the hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office and this country was being threatened by a Continental nation; that cheer simply means that if the threat was strong enough, and the force behind it of sufficient magnitude, the Gentlemen in office instead of defending our Empire would submit to threats instead of enforcing our rights. Let the hon. Gentlemen calculate what the cost of yielding to that ultimatum would have been. If the Government had not had the courage to grasp this problem in both hands two years ago we should have lost our friendly colonists in South Africa; we should have lost the one colony without which this Empire cannot be complete. I do not suppose that if one of our great colonies was to come with good reason to this country and say it had deliberately come to the conclusion that its welfare would be better met by a severance from the mother land, any Government would come here and ask for supplies to prevent such severance, except in the one case, the case of the Cape. And that is why the other colonies have come to the assistance of the Empire. These old continents are only now awakening, and those who come after us will see that our expenditure at the Cape, though it may be vast and appear somewhat excessive, that after all it is only the foundation of a greater Empire, extending towards the Pacific We have been sometimes charged with a want of morality with regard to this war, but I have been unable to see that. Is the re-establishment of good government no longer to be considered a moral and just cause in a defensive war? Was not slavery going to be re-established under a Boer confederation in South Africa? We are now fighting; the last great slave war—that is to say, we white men are trying to save the blacks, so that not only the Boers and British shall have equal liberty when our arms are thrown down, but that the civilised black shall also have that liberty for which he could not hope under the rule of the Dutch. We can, I think, con- 101 gratulate ourselves upon the success of our arms. Some people seem to think and speak of Africa as if it were only a unit of geography, but those who have visited that vast continent will sympathise with our soldiers, who, often without proper boots or clothes, have traversed the country from one side to the other. In a long illness I have often heard the period of convalescence is a dangerous period, and I hope I may be allowed to ask the Government to remember this when the time for negotiation arrives. We have fought a brave fight, but there is always a danger to a nation like ours devoted to the industries of peace and unaccustomed to the conditions under which the Boer has lived all his life; and I feel sure, now that the General Election has taken place, the people of this country and the people of South Africa are looking to the Government for an assurance that there is not to be any turning back from this campaign, and that our friends shall be amply protected, and our agents in Parliament, whether they be here at home or at the Cape, in the council chamber or the field, shall receive the undivided, hearty, and loyal support of this House until the campaign is at an end. I have trespassed too long upon the attention of the House, but the proceedings of this House are now being scrutinised by our friends in every quarter of the globe, eager to give and to receive support in the work of promoting Anglo-Saxon civilisation; and by our rivals that perchance they may be able to detect some signs of national degeneracy in the centre of our power. In moving, as I now presume to do, an Address to our Sovereign (whose gracious personality has played so large a part in our Empire's unity of progress), I feel confident that this House, the Kingdom, and the Empire will heartily support the policy of Her Ministers.
§ * Mr. J. F. HOPE (Sheffield, Brightside)In rising to second this motion, I feel that I must crave the indulgence which I understand is always given by this House, but which is specially needed by one who is an entire stranger to it. I feel, after the very eloquent words of my hon. friend, that no long speech is needed to commend this motion to the House. We are asked to vote the means which are still needed to bring to a close a just and a necessary war. 102 Opinions have been expressed both in public and in private which endeavour in some way to make the justice of the war dependent upon its cost and success. Those opinions have already been alluded to by the proposer of this motion, when he said that opinions had been expressed that we never should have fought this war if we had known what the cost would be. I protest against this notion. The smallest expedition to the north-west frontier of India or in West Africa is too dear if it be not rightly undertaken, whereas the cost of the great war of a century since, which added hundreds of millions to the National Debt, was well fought and was cheaply won. Now, Sir, the justice of this war has been impugned by many a foreign, and, here and there, by a domestic critic, but nothing in any of the criticisms which have been passed can supply an answer to the three test questions which may be put regarding the origin of this war. First of all, had the British subject in the Transvaal any real grievances? Why, Sir, our men are harassed and obstructed in every field of civil life, in official dealings, in industry, in commerce, in local government, in the use of their own language, in education, and, in some part, in religion. I say that the man who denies that they have grievances does not know what freedom is. In the second place, had Her Majesty's Government a right to interfere, assuming that there were grievances, to obtain redress? Sir, surely, I would submit, Her Majesty's Government has a right to interfere to redress the wrongs of Her Majesty's subjects in whatever part of the world they may be pursuing a lawful calling; but when those subjects are suffering from wrongs inflicted by the subordinate Government of a dependent State, which was created by the tolerance of the people of the United Kingdom, which was protected by our arms, and which was re-established through our misplaced weakness or generosity, it is not so much a question of the right to interfere as of a bounden and imperative duty. In the third place, granted the right, how is it to be done? Some will say by diplomacy. Yes, Sir, but diplomacy has its limits. The idea of negotiation implies willingness on both sides to give and to take something; but when years of memoranda, conferences, and interviews have disclosed the fact that on the one side everything is expected, and 103 from the other side everything is demanded, it is surely time when diplomacy must stand aside, and to let a stronger force come in. It is true, Sir, that in this case there were special features, owing to circumstances to which I will not particularly refer, but will any man maintain that the memory of one sordid and ignominious fiasco, which arose not only without the connivance of Her Majesty's Government, but without so much as the knowledge of any of its members, should for ever paralyse the power of England? We owed it to ourselves to invoke in the last resort the force of arms. It is true that we were spared this necessity through the rash insolence of our adversaries, but we cannot deny that it might have been our duty to take the initiative and to call in arms where words had failed, for I submit that we should have been as dead to our interest as to our honour if we were never prepared to throw the sword into the scale. This war has revealed in some ways our strength, and in others our weakness. It has revealed our strength in the bravery of our soldiers, in the excellence of our transport, and in the loyal devotion of our colonies. In the same way also it has revealed our weakness in our military organisation, in our military education, and, perhaps, in our constitutional machinery itself. This is not the time to go into these matters, and I mention them only for one reason. Foreign critics have painted for themselves a picture of this country in which we are represented as a nation of unscrupulous, deliberate, calculating aggressors. That is not the view of foreign Governments, whose friendly attitude we gladly acknowledge, but it prevails too widely among their subjects. Now, Sir, if anything has been proved by this war, it is that for a war of aggression we were wholly unprepared. Therefore, I think our critics are reduced to this dilemma: that either as aggressors we had not sufficiently mastered our role to be formidable, or else that we had essayed to play the part at all. There is another point to which, for a moment, I would briefly allude: It is that this war was brought about, and that its settlement will be manipulated by the machinations of capitalists and by those connected with the mining industry in the Transvaal. Sir, I do not deny that the capitalist, or the mining shareholder, will prefer the new Government of that country to 104 the old, but not one whit more than the humblest mechanic who does his work. One privilege alone the capitalist and the mining shareholder will have over the mechanic— that of paying, and not lightly, for the freedom which both alike are to share. I do not think that any burden is likely to be put upon the people of our colony in the future that will cripple its industry or check its development, but short of that I think that we may fairly assure those connected with the mining industry that they may look forward with patriotic enthusiasm— those at least who are British subjects—to making a substantial contribution towards the reduction of their country's liabilities. But, Sir, when all has been paid by the Colony that the Colony may fairly be asked to pay, there will still be a heavy balance which the people of the United Kingdom will gladly meet. Once the people of this country are convinced of the justice and the necessity of the war, it is no longer a question of more or less. You cannot have your twenty millions or your fifty millions' worth of war—and stop. The liabilities of a war like this are secured upon the resources of the British Empire, and the work must be put through no matter what the cost, what the trouble, or the temporary or incidental suffering which either party may be called upon to endure. In seconding this resolution I feel that I am but expressing a loyal people's assurance to Her Gracious Majesty of their unalterable determination that the blood and tears of the past year shall not have been shed in vain.
§ Motion made and Question proposed, "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
§ "Most Gracious Sovereign,
§ "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament. "—(Mr. Gordon.)
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)Mr. Speaker, my first duty is to express—and I am certain I can do so on behalf of all those who have 105 been present and who have heard the two speeches to which we have just listened —our warm appreciation of the ability and eloquence and clearness with which the mover and seconder of the Address have discharged the important duties entrusted to them. And I think I may be permitted to say of the seconder especially—who, I believe, is entirely a novice in Parliamentary life—that he has shown himself able to take his place among us, and has in no sense, except in the matter of priority of time, come behind his hon. colleague, to whom we have often before listened with pleasure in past years. Now, Sir, Parliament has been summoned at this season, as it was called together in the autumn of last year, for a short session, necessitated by special circumstances, and I understand that it is the desire of the Government to follow the course which was taken last year, at the instance, I believe, of some Members sitting on this side of the House—namely, that our proceedings and discussions on this occasion should be confined to matters of immediate importance relating to administration and policy connected with the circumstances in which we are met, and that all other topics, as, for instance, projects of legislation, or promising fields of legislation, may be reserved till the ordinary session, which will open at the usual time of the year, when there will be again a Speech from the Throne and ample opportunity for all Members of the House to bring before the House matters in which they are interested. That opportunity, of course, will be a full and unrestricted opportunity, embracing the subjects with which this short session may have concerned itself, and which may then have assumed a more developed state, and ranging over the whole administrative and legislative policy of the country. If this is to be the understanding, I do not anticipate that there will be either any desire or any tendency to unduly prolong the present session. Now, Sir, my attention is naturally called in the first place to the Speech which has just been delivered from the Throne, and, perhaps, as this is a new Parliament, to prevent any mistake in the minds of new Members, 1 may observe that when we speak of the gracious Speech from the Throne, the graciousness arises from the mouth into which the Speech is put and 106 from which it comes, and that the Speech itself is the production of Her Majesty's Government, which we are entirely at liberty to criticise without fear or favour. I have heard this Speech spoken of as a brief Speech. If I wanted to search for a perfectly apposite adjective I should say that it is in every sense of the word a jejune Speech. There are one or two remarkable omissions from it, and variations from the ordinary practice I have already posed before the House to-day as a supporter of the Constitution. On this occasion I have to present myself again in that character, because I do think that these ancient forms and phrases, however pedantic it may be to dwell upon them as of great importance, do cover certain principles or certain views of politics which it is most desirable that we should preserve. The first thing that I observe in this Speech is that it omits a declaration which is always satisfactory and always courteous, and, I think, need not be omitted for the mere sake of saving the paper and ink that would be used by it—a declaration of the satisfaction with which Her Majesty can assure us that her relations with other Powers are excellent. I think that just at this time it would have been peculiarly apposite to have had such a declaration—not that we have any doubt on the subject, but that we think that good relations between ourselves and foreign Powers are so peculiarly necessary and essential to us at this moment that it would have been a satisfaction to everybody to have been assured of them. I have investigated the matter to see if this is the first time that Her Majesty's Government have omitted these words, and I find that in the short session of October last there was not any explicit statement as to the relations with other Powers, but we were told that "the condition of the world, except in South Africa, continues to be peaceful," and that, I suppose, included the other assurance. Now there is nothing of the sort. There is such a hurry to be at us with a demand for money that there is no time even for the most courteous and complimentary reference to the relations of Her Majesty's Government with the other Governments, of the world. The next observation I have to make is that the Speech plunges rather abruptly into the presence of the war; there is no explanation, no allusion at all to the necessity for 107 coming at this time for more money for the war. The two hon. Gentlemen who have just spoken have, indeed, treated us to disquisitions upon the war and upon nothing else, bringing up before us old arguments and old views with which we are quite familiar, and which they expressed with novel and conspicuous force. But in the Speech itself it is assumed, apparently, that there is war going on, and that money is required for the operations of the armies in South Africa and China; and then comes a peremptory, not to say somewhat cavalier, demand for money. "Pay, pay, pay!" appears to me to be the tune to which this portion of the Speech is adapted. And this demand is couched in a somewhat singular manner. Was there ever a Speech before at the opening of a session at which money was expected to be voted, in which there was not a special appeal to the Members of the House of Commons to vote the supplies that were necessary? Even if it was not common sense and common decency, I have here the highest authority controlling our information and our views upon this subject; for Sir Erskine May's book says, describing the Speech from the Throne—
The Sovereign addresses the Commons and demands the annual supplies for the public service, and acquaints them that Estimates will be laid before them of the amount that will be required.We are not so informed here. There is no mention of Estimates. On the contrary, both the Lords and Commons are invited to "sanction enactments." It is quite true that there is a certain enactment called the Appropriation Bill to which the sanction of the House of Lords will no doubt be given, but we are rather doubtful in this House as to the powers of the House of Lords even over that particular measure, and certainly there ought to have been— and I should like to know why it has been neglected—an appeal to the House of Commons in the ordinary way to exercise its usual liberality in the voting of supplies. Then there is another omission of an even more remarkable kind, and that I shall refer to with all solemnity. Has there ever been a Queen's Speech before that did not end with an invocation of the blessing of Almighty God on the proceedings of Parliament? Here, as I said before, they are in such a hurry to get money 108 from us that they talk of enactments and of our sanctioning enactments, and leave out the prayer. It seems as if they think us past praying for. They have left out all idea or notion of laying any petition on the subject before the Throne of the Almighty, which has been included, I believe, in every Queen's Speech that has ever been printed before. These are very small matters, no doubt, in one sense, but as I have said, it is not mere pedantry. Depend upon it there is something in even the smallest of these forms, and I think that, however short: the session, and however desirous people may be to get rid as soon as possible of the inconvenience of staying in London, the Queen's Speech, at least, might have retained the usual terms in which such a document is couched. Now the fact which above all others forces itself on our attention on finding ourselves here again is the change that has come over Her Majesty's Government since we separated a month or two ago. I am at a little loss; to know how to speak or to think of the Government opposite. Is it the old Government or is it the new Government? The materials, if I may so put it, the ingredients of its composition, are the same, but they are somehow differently mixed, and there are two conspicuous figures whom we are accustomed to see on the bench opposite, and whose absence we remark and deplore. There is the late First Lord of the Admiralty, who has had a long, a strenuous, and a most honourable career in this House of Commons, who held strong opinions and expressed them strongly, but who always managed not to lose the good opinion and the kindly feeling even of his opponents, and in whom we were accustomed to admire, even more than; his marvellous intellectual acuteness, the loftiness of his character and his obvious earnestness and sincerity. He was of the old school of public men—a school which; is gradually but rapidly disappearing from among us. The best wish that I can formulate for the new school is that it should retain and exhibit some of the virtues of the old. I would say this of Mr. Goschen—that there are many of us whose pleasant recollection of him will not be made less pleasant because of his parting declaration that during the last two or three years he was so engrossed in the business of his 109 own Department that he could pay but little attention to the general policy of the Government with which he was connected. Again, there is the late Home Secretary, who, though still, I believe, a Member of this House, is, if we are rightly informed, shortly going to leave us. He has conducted the affairs of his Department in a benign and careful spirit, the precise spirit that is required for such delicate and vital interests as those he has had to deal with. He, too, like Mr. Goschen, apparently, has found his duty too hard for him, although ho was in the plenitude of his meridian strength, and he has asked to be relieved of office. It must have been with a pang that the Prime Minister and his colleagues parted with him, for they know how much they owed to him, but they could not resist his appeal. I do not extend this melancholy list to include the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford, whose sorrows have been so frankly exposed to the sympathy of the world, because we are all of us delighted to know that we are to retain among us his genial presence and his stately and sonorous rhetoric. But Lord Salisbury, who is the great manipulator, has given a turn of the wrist to the kaleidoscope, and all the brilliant little pieces of glass have fallen into a new collocation with each other. It is wonderful; we cannot yet say whether it is beautiful; it will be some time before we can judge whether the new picture is prettier than the old. But I must make this remark. It is much to be regretted that the country, when it was consulted only a few weeks ago, was not allowed to see or to know anything of the constitution of the new Government which was so soon to take the place of the then holders of office. Who can tell what difference, either in diminished or increased confidence, such a glimpse of the reality would have made? On the whole, when one thinks of it, perhaps the right hon. Gentlemen, or those who advised them, exercised a wise electioneering discretion in keeping the future dark and speaking only vaguely of strengthening and reconstructing. Pursuing the same line of thought, I would seek an explanation. Will the right hon. Gentleman, when he comes to speak, explain how it comes about that, within a few weeks of a general election, a financial exigency has arisen which requires Parliament to be summoned? 110 We heard nothing of it during the General Election. Were they aware of it? If so, why was not a hint or whisper given? Or were they not aware of it? Can it be they did not foresee it and, in that case, is this a fresh instance of the practice we have so often witnessed when those who steer our barque of State and are scanning the horizon or looking into the immediate future carefully apply the telescope to a blind eye? Surely the electorate when called upon to choose a Government ought not to be kept in the dark on so grave and significant a fact as this? Some explanation, nay, I will say some excuse, ought to be offered for such an inconsistency between silence in October and urgency in November in this important financial matter. On this, the first occasion of our meeting, a good deal will naturally be thought and said about the recent General Election. I am quite aware that there is always a great soreness left in men's hearts after a General Election. I am quite aware that in the hurly-burly many wild things are said and done which are better forgotten, and I am not constitutionally disposed either to cherish myself or encourage in others resentment or recrimination in such a case. But, Mr. Speaker, the recent General Election was not an ordinary General Election. It was exceptional in its time and in the manner in which it was conducted. Now that we are away from the clamour of excited meetings and free from the dust and noise of platforms in this calmer atmosphere we may look at it coolly, and, while I have formed a strong opinion on the subject, and have not hesitated to express that opinion in unequivocal terms which I should be ready to use again, I wish tonight to maintain moderation of tone, and merely, if the House will allow me state some of the reasons for the opinions which I have been driven to form. Now, the election of a new Parliament is a grave and solemn constitutional act, and it ought to be effected at a time—unless some unforeseen emergency comes in the way—when the popular voice can be most fully consulted. But on this occasion the election was fixed for the very time of the year above all others when the number of available voters was at the lowest ebb. It was in England within a week or two, and in Scotland positively within a day or two, of the expiry of the old register. Now, on all occasions 111 when there has been a necessity for an autumn election there has been a special measure passed for the purpose of expediting the new register. But Parliament was prorogued in August, and nothing was said when we dispersed about this election, which the Government there kept up their sleeves. I am a simple-minded person, and am ready to believe in the straightforward conduct of all public men, and I declare that I refused to believe, down to the very last moment, when the announcement was made—and I could bring friends of mine on both sides of the House to bear witness to it— that a British Cabinet could be capable of such an act. The election took place at the most unfavourable time of the year. It had been deliberately selected, I do not say for that reason, at a time when a large number of voters were practically disfranchised. What were the excuses for this premeditated precipitancy, as I would call it? If the excuses are inconsistent, that is not my fault. The first was that the war was ended in September, therefore we must have a dissolution. The next was that the war would not be ended until a large majority was returned for the Government, showing what the feeling of the country was. The next was that the Government must have the support of the country—I think one member of the Government said the unanimous support of the country—for their policy of settlement in South Africa which they had ready to disclose. But what do we see, and how do these excuses fall in with the facts? Was the war ended in September? No. Has the result of the elections stopped it or caused it to abate? No, Sir. Have we heard from Britisher, Boer, or Free Stater—has anyone heard—a word or syllable of the system of settlement which was so urgent, and which necessitated the election at that time? Not a word, Sir, and there is no reason why the election should not have been held in January just as well as in September and October. The weeks as they passed have shown how hollow and empty were those excuses, and we are driven, therefore, to the real motive which the course and conduct of the election have frankly disclosed—namely, the desire to use the patriotic feeling of the country, which is the common pride and property of every citizen, whatever his political views, for the party advantage of Her Majesty's 112 Government. Therefore it was necessary to hasten the election before the glamour was over. Now, Sir, I have said we had no announcement of the intention to hold the election while Parliament lasted. I mean by that that we had no authoritative announcement. But we had certain volunteered and irresponsible suggestions that it should take place, and among these I remember one, a letter sent to The Times by a Conservative Member of the House, a copy of which I have got here, in which he pointed out the reasons why it was, in his view, necessary for the Government to take advantage of this effervescence of feeling in the country before it subsided. He ends his letter by saying—I have every confidence in that appeal to a sworn jury, but I have none if the record of the Unionist party he behind us and if only common local electioneering is before the people.He knew there would be no confidence in the result of the election if they had only the record of the Unionist party to draw upon. Therefore he says—Every week after our troops have reached Pretoria will add to the ignoble army of shallow critics, and among them all large principles will be submerged or lost.That was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, of an independent man who exercised practically little authority. But the Government evidently could not have thought the writer either a foolish person making a preposterous suggestion, or a blundering person letting the cat out of the bag, and possibly the wrong cat, because they have selected the writer of that letter for the delicate, confidential, and important duty of moving the Address.
§ * Mr. J. E. GORDONAs the right hon. Gentleman has alluded to me, I may say that naturally he has not read the whole of my letter. Had the right hon. Gentleman done so he would have seen that my appeal was to a responsible electorate, and that my reference to common local electioneering was naturally not to the electioneering on my own side.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThe fact which pleases me most in the utterances of the hon. Gentleman is that in which he says that if they trusted to the record of the Unionist party he had 113 no confidence in the result of the General Election. Now, Sir, there is not a man on the other side of the House who, as a man, and forgetting he is a politician, as we ought all to do occasionally—there is not a man who does not know that we who sit opposite to him are actuated by every whit as high patriotic motives as he is. We may be wrong-headed, short-sighted, if you like—["Hear, hear"]—I am obliged to my hon. friend for his complimentary cheer—but, however wrong-headed and short-sighted we may be in so far as some of us object to the policy of the Government in this respect or that, it is because we think it will injure instead of benefiting the Empire; and yet at the recent General Election we were held up to odium as being, most of us, traitors, as desiring the success of the enemies of our country, and the electors were warned again and again that votes given for Liberals were votes given for the Boers, and this not by some small partisan or local agent, or some obscure wire-puller, but by Cabinet Ministers. Sir, I am not going into any details on that gruesome subject; but, in the interests of that moderation of tone which I am seeking to preserve, I refrain from frankly characterising such manœuvres and artifices. I am content to leave them to the condemnation which they will receive in the sight of the world. But there is another episode to which I must particularly refer. There was the unauthorised publication of private letters—letters of different kinds, some by Members of Parliament, some by distinguished men at the Cape. Why were they published? They were picked out from a large number of other letters, no doubt, but were they published for any public purpose? No. Under any public necessity? No. What, then, was the object? Simply to discredit and blacken, if possible, the opponents of the Government. Even if one or two were a hundredfold more improper than any of us think they were, still they were private letters. Every one of them was a private letter. What is said of a man in private life who publishes a private letter for his own advantage that has somehow come into his hands? Why, he is visited with the extremest penalty that a society unorganised by law can inflict. Am I to be told that an act of this kind, which would exclude a man from honourable 114 society, is an honourable act on the part of a Minister of the Crown? No doubt much more may be said on subjects connected with the elections, but for the present I leave them behind me, and turn to others, larger and more pressing, but not more important; for these are incidents which appear to me to mark a serious deterioration, a step towards the degradation of the public life of our country. The war in South Africa still engrosses our attention and interest, and what is the most remarkable circumstance when we think of it now? It is that the British public know so little about it. Never has a war, great or small, been conducted with so little communication of authentic information as to its incidence and policy. Since the earlier days of the war we have not had a despatch published. We have had newspaper correspondence with stories not always to be relied on; we have had private letters, some of which have been published in the Press; we have had scrappy, hasty telegrams—I do not complain of their being hasty and scrappy in the circumstances in which they were despatched by officers in command—but we have had no despatch whatever explaining or summing up any one incident in the whole of the campaign. Now, I hold that this is not respectful to the British public or to the House of Commons. We hear a good deal in these days about a thing called "Imperialism," and everybody is contending with everybody else as to the best kind of Imperialism to profess. There is an Imperialism in the sense of devotion to and desire to maintain our Empire. But there is an Imperialism which may have, and does have, another meaning, when an Executive Government takes on itself to manage all the affairs of the country and the representatives of the people are ignored, when the country is kept in the dark, when plans are laid to evade the interference of the Legislature, when things are done and resolutions announced at the moment when the representative body has become dumb and when all doubters, critics, and scoffers are classed together as discreditable persons guilty of a sort of Lèse majesté against the Executive Government. That is Imperialism as we have seen it in other countries; is there not a little danger that we may drift into some sort of squalid, shabby imitation of it here? Two reasons have been given for 115 the non-publication of despatches. Earlier in the war certain despatches were published in relation to the Spion Kop incident, despatches in relation to the then recent event, indiscreet despatches indiscreetly handled, and therefore the subject of comment and criticism. We asked what good could be gained by the publication of such despatches. We called the Government to account for the publication of those despatches, and they said—or at any rate if they did not say as much they acted as if it was their feeling—" Since you will not have these we will give you no despatches." So that the petulance we have sometimes seen manifested has been magnified in this case into a policy, and for months and months we have had no despatch. Another reason given is that we are promised a full and searching inquiry into the conduct of the war, the preparations for war, and the execution of plans in relation to the war in South Africa. There has been some inclination indicated by mistaken views in some speeches made as if the Government were seeking to get out of this obligation, but it is useless for them to attempt this, for they are pledged as never was Government pledged before. This is all very well, but that is no reason why meantime we should be kept entirely in the dark. The final autopsy may be interesting, instructive, and valuable, but are we not to know anything of the course and cause of events as they occur? Taxpayers have poured out their money like water; there are men and women whose sons and brothers have lost their lives and been exposed to hardships in all the reverses and successes, assaults and defences, captures and surrenders, marching and lighting, through all these months, and am I to be told that these are to have no reasonable and sufficient explanation of what has occurred and of events which oftentimes seem hard to understand? Why, it is carrying reticence to a ridiculous extent to say because there is to be a grand inquisition at the end of all these things there shall be nothing done in the meantime. This was not so in the Crimean War, or in the Peninsular Wars, or in the Indian Mutiny, or in any former war. When, I ask, is the veil to be lifted? I trust that at least some satisfaction will be given to the natural and reasonable interest that is being displayed by our countrymen. There is yet 116 a larger question on which information may be sought, and ought to be given, perhaps that may be included in the final inquiry, but at least we ought to have some explanation how it is that from first to last of this long story, every promise, estimate, and expectation held out to us from the Treasury Bench—I will not say promise, but every estimate and explanation—has been falsified by events. Miscalculation has followed miscalculation, one following on the heels of the other from the beginning, miscalculations of finance, of power and of the force and temper of our enemies. At the present moment the chief subject on which information is earnestly, even impatiently, sought—I am sure I am right in saying— in the country, is the policy of the war. I do not mean the South African policy of the Government; I do not mean the question of the origin of the war or any of those points upon which we have had discussions and which are accepted and over; what I refer to is the policy being pursued, or to be pursued, in the war with the view of bringing it to an early close with as little suffering as possible, and also—let us not forget this—with as little damage as possible to the future prosperity and happiness of the South African population. The Government must be aware there is great uneasiness on the subject, and I believe, for my part, there is no difference of opinion in the House as to the objects and end to be kept in view. What is the state of things at present? We were told during the election that the war was ended, but how many men have we now in South Africa? I cannot say with accuracy, but I suppose some 200,000 or 220,000, and these men are not there in idleness or safety. I have not seen any representation of the occurrences during November, but I have seen a map for the month of October showing the places in the Transvaal and Orange territory where fighting took place during the month, and, counting these, I found they numbered over 80, in most of which lives had been lost. And yet we were told the war was over. Our daily papers contain long lists of casualties. Once a week we send out drafts to South Africa, and there is no serious reduction, and apparently there can be no serious reduction of our force there yet. I think it is very desirable that the right hon. Gentleman should tell us broadly what are the intentions of the Government in regard to 117 certain classes of men—the Reservists, for instance, who left their employment and whose places were kept open in many cases by patriotic employers. Surely these on the first opportunity should be allowed to return to civil occupations. Then, also, there are the gallant Yeomanry and Volunteers who, in the crisis of their country, sprang to arms and served so nobly. Surely these should not be kept on service a day longer than is absolutely necessary. It would be a poor reward for the alacrity with which they volunteered. I do not wish to play Cassandra's role, but I may say that we are coming to the time of year when the frightful scourge of enteric fever may be apprehended, and bad as it was last year, it may well be worse this year, because the germs of the disease will remain. You have a vast territory, ranging over which are armed bands varying in numbers from a score or less to a thousand, mobile, lightly equipped, inured to the climate, fond of the life, knowing the country, and facilitated in all their operations by the inhabitants. In these bands are all sorts of men, from reckless adventurers to stern patriots, but they are formidable foes with whom our brave fellows have to cope. They are able to cope with them, and I do not doubt for a moment that they can give a good account of them, but it will be a long, painful, and costly business, costly in life as well is in money. That is the situation at present. Now in the course of meeting these irregular hostilities certain harsh measures have been authorised and taken, the burning of farms, the destruction and carrying away of property, the deporting of women and children, and it cannot be denied that these things have moved the country and that many a heart revolts against them. I am not going to dwell upon them, still less am I going to criticise them. I decline to express any hostile opinion upon the subject; we have not the information to justify it; but, knowing the feeling of the country, I call upon the Government for facts. What is the system pursued, what are the instructions given, what are the intentions of these proceedings? I shall await that information before even attempting to form a judgment. But when I come to form a Government [loud laughter]—form a judgment—I for my part, and I am sure most of us, will be animated by two sentiments. In the first place, the most 118 perfect confidence in the humanity and generosity of the British soldier and the British officer. We hear the most preposterous attacks made upon them in some places, with which I have not only no sympathy, but which I repudiate with indignation and scorn. As to the imputation of cruelty, why we know the British soldier, we know that he is the most warm-hearted, the most tenderhearted, the most soft-hearted creature, and if we went no further than the old adage nemo repente fuit turpissimus, we know that the men in the ranks of the British Army are not capable of excesses of the kind attributed to them; on the contrary, when put to this duty, in the case of all alike, whether officers or men, it is sorely against their liking. I have always been a disbeliever in the stories that have been told, on both sides, of discreditable, irregular, and cruel outrages. In the second place, I yield to no man in the absolute homage I would pay to military necessity. I have no desire, and I am sure the people of this country have no desire, through over-sensitiveness, to weaken or hamper the conduct of the war. Yet even from the point of view of the war, and the hope of a speedy termination to it, I am slow to believe, with a brave, resolute, stubborn enemy, come of a stubborn race, that to drive him to despair is the way to make him surrender. The common desire of us all is to end this war, with its miseries and sufferings, and to prevent it from dragging on, but that is not our whole desire. We desire also that when hostilities end they should leave behind them the best elements, the greatest promise of harmony and contentment. It cannot be so in every case. I can imagine a punitive expedition sent against some turbulent tribe of Afridis, or mutinous Sudanese, or half-civilised people of that sort, where it may be a defensible policy to harry them, devastate their homes, and in punishing them to make them an example pour encourager les autres, and then to leave them to recover themselves as best they may. But these men we have now in arms against us are not going to be left behind in some strange country to sink or swim as they can manage. They are the very men, they and their kinsfolk, who feel with and for them, whether in the two States or in the colonies, who will be our future fellow-citizens; they are the men whose loyal 119 and friendly relations to us we are to depend upon in South Africa. And what sort of beginning do you make of it if you drive them to desperation? I would earnestly invite the right hon. Gentleman on behalf of the Government to declare their policy; the opportunity happily offers itself in this meeting of Parliament. Let them declare a policy which will not only tend to the early cessation of war, but will open auspiciously the new era of British rule in those countries. British rule is not in question; we are all agreed as to the incorporation of those territories—[An Hon. Member: No.]— with that exception, with all respect to my unknown friend behind me, whom I do not see, and therefore with no personal disrespect the exemption may be disregarded. I, at any rate, regard the incorporation of those territories as an absolutely necessary sequence of the war; there is no question of that, but that is all that has been announced. These men that are in the field against us just now, what do they know of the policy of the Government or of this country? All they know is that they are to be deprived of their independence as a nation. They know nothing else. Why should they not be told that their co-operation as citizens will be sought, and that by-and-by, when things have settled down and there is safety, they will have their share in the full rights of self-government? Why should it not be announced to them that if they will lay down their arms, leaders and burghers alike, if they will return to their homes and resume their old life, they will enjoy their property with their families, and that their kinsfolk who have been sent as prisoners to exile will be restored on the same terms? Would not such a proclamation lift the cloud of despair from off them and let the dawn of a new hope soften their feelings towards their conquerors? Enough, surely, has been done through the bravery of our soldiers and their sacrifices for honour and for dignity. Let the statesman's voice now be heard in sounding the first notes of a new concord between the races, and if this announcement was of no avail, if it should so happen that these obdurate men disregarded it and pursued their hopeless struggle, then at least the people of this country, yes, and our fellow-subjects in the African colonies, and our friends, such as remain to us, in the world, would 120 have the satisfaction of knowing that nothing had been left undone in the interests of humanity and of peace, and, let me add, in the humbler interests of common sense. The history of Her Majesty's Government has been such that, having started with but a poor equipment of confidence in them, I have long since lost that with which I was originally endowed. But I believe them to be men entirely of generous and humane impulses; I trust that they may be prepared to give some satisfactory assurances on this grave matter. If we do not receive such assurances I hope that we shall have an opportunity before this debate ends of recording our strong desire for some such policy as I have indicated. I have to make the usual appeal for papers; I think there must be some regular papers due long ere this, besides the despatches and other items of information to which I have referred. Turning for a moment or two to the other part of the world to which our business in this session as defined in the Speech refers, namely, China, I have to renew this monotonous complaint of lack of information. We are sadly in want of authentic official information on that subject. In the absence of papers it is impossible, it seems to me, to discuss the question, which has been greatly complicated since the prorogation. Shortly before the prorogation the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, then Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, made a statement which was then reassuring, discreet, and reasonable, and gave great satisfaction to the House. But since then matters have become much more complicated. As I have mentioned the Department previously represented here by that right hon. Gentleman, let me interpolate the expression of a hope that there will not be continued the curious rule, originated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and novel to the House, of restricting the number of questions that can be put to the representative of that Department. I cannot understand why any such rule should exist, and if it has been assented to in the House of Commons it is simply because the House has been too astonished at it to bring the Government to book. The right hon. Gentleman and I the other day expressed our perfect confidence that Mr. Speaker would be able to conduct all our proceedings with perfect 121 order, and in nothing has Mr. Speaker been more energetic and successful than in the preventing of unnecessary questions. Let us trust to him to prevent anything exceeding the points of ordinary propriety, but do not let us have this spectacle again, which reduces questions really to a farce, of allowing the representative of a great Department to sit dumb in the presence of a number of questioners. That is an aside. Now I come back to China. There has been much movement of troops, the advance on Peking has taken place, there have been expeditions in different directions, much marching and counter-marching, the object of which it is almost impossible to follow. There is another subject on which we must, of course, have detailed explanation, and that is the agreement with Germany. We have only had such information as could be got from the newspapers, but we require a good deal more than that—the explanation of the circumstances. I would say of that that I am satisfied that there will be a general appreciation in the country of a good understanding with Germany which would accord greatly not only with our interest but with the general disposition and feeling of our countrymen. But there must be a strong hope at the same time that we are not committed to any isolated action, to any remote expedition, or to any extreme measures. I trust that on these points we shall be reassured by what the right hon. Gentleman can tell us. As to the money Vote which the Chancellor of the Exchequer no doubt has in his pocket ready to present, although there is no mention of it in the Speech, we know nothing of the amount; but I do not anticipate that the regret with which we shall all greet it will run into anything like reluctance to grant it. But the Government must take account of the universal dismay with which the rapid growth of the war expenditure is regarded. Here we have in October a claim for £10,000,000, in February £13,000,000,in March nearly £38,000,000, in July £8,500,000 for South Africa— £70,000,000 altogether. Absolute finality was not claimed on any occasion, but a guess estimate was formed on each occasion, and terrible disappointment has been caused, I am sure, to the House and the country. This is going on and mounting up. While this is by no means the 122 primary consideration in favour of the view which I have ventured to lay before the House and to urge upon the Government, it at least strengthens and confirms it. To make some modification in our attitude and action towards the people of the two conquered States in South Africa, which, while completely preserving the results of our efforts and sacrifices, and involving no departure from our fixed policy, may yet abate the exasperation or the estrangement of races, will do more than anything else, in my opinion, to bring this great war expenditure to an end. But of far greater value than any saving of money would be the initiation of a noble policy of conciliation and harmony upon which alone can be founded a hope for better days for the people of South Africa, and greater strength and security of the British power in that distracted continent.
§ The FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.Before I attempt to address myself to the long series of questions and commentaries in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I must associate myself with him in the well-merited eulogies which he passed on the mover and seconder of the Address. The task of a kind which, I think, is never easy, was rendered peculiarly difficult on the present occasion by the circumstance that the area over which they could travel, the topics over which they could with propriety indulge, were necessarily of a very limited character, and they were, indeed, confined to the one single and solitary subject which has required us to meet together at this unaccustomed time of the year. That they should in those circumstances have acquitted themselves not merely to the satisfaction of their friends, but to the general satisfaction of the House, is a matter on which they deserve our warmest congratulations, and I am glad to think that their performance to-day gives us such excellent promise of what we may expect from them on other occasions in the future. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly justified—indeed he followed precedent—in raising a very large number of topics, and I suppose he would think me guilty of discourtesy if I omitted in my reply to deal with them seriatim I will therefore start by one word of reply to his commentary upon a matter which I certainly was surprised to hear him 123 raise at this time—namely, the form of answers to be given by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs to questions put to him in this House. The right hon. Gentleman would have us believe that the practice which has been in operation for two sessions at least is one that does not meet with the general approval of the House, and is only acquiesced in by the House through a feeling of helpless astonishment and surprise. Well, Sir, astonishment and surprise that last through two sessions without any serious criticisms show that the practice must have something in its support. I observe, if I may judge from the cheers with which that part of the speech was received, that his chief supporter in desiring greater facility to put questions without notice to the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs—his chief ally in that direction — was my hon. friend the Member for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield, whose fertility in putting questions to the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs is well known to the whole House. But it is not for the convenience of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs or that of the Government sitting on this Bench that that rule was initiated. The truth is that an answer given in this House by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs is an answer which may have results of not merely European, but universal consequence. It is most deplorable, in my opinion, that the Under Secretary should be asked to give an answer without an opportunity of consulting either his chief or the Cabinet at large, and it is putting him in an impossible position. That would, in itself, be a small matter, but it might produce difficulties of an international character, which we have no right to run the risk of.
§ Sin H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANHow did they get on before in all these years?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI do not think we always got on very well, and the practice is not an immemorial practice. It is not one of those constitutional precedents of which the right hon. Gentleman has to-day made himself the guardian. It is a practice that has grown up within the lifetime of Members sitting in this House. The whole method of putting questions has entirely changed in the last thirty years. I have so much to say to the 124 House that I will not pursue that subject further, but I could not let the right hon. Gentleman's commentary pass without saying that, so far as the Government are concerned, we think the practice of the last two or three years is a very great improvement on the practice of former years. The right hon. Gentleman began by a very severe criticism on the gracious Speech from the Throne, for which lie truly said not Her Majesty but Her Majesty's Ministers are responsible. He said it was a jejune Speech. I am not aware that flowers of rhetoric arc usually introduced into Her Majesty's Speech. A business like statement of the work before the House is the object for which that Speech exists, and I think it is an object which the present Speech completely fulfils and completely carries out. It is perfectly true, however, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, that there is a departure from precedent in the Speech. He mentioned, I think, three departures from precedent. But, Sir, I quite admit it. Let me say at once that if there is a departure from precedent in this Speech it is not because the Government have the least wish or desire to alter the general form of the Queen's Speech in ordinary sessions, but because it appeared to us that this session is not an ordinary session, that the circumstances and the formality which may be well in place when you meet for legislative business in February and look forward to six months of strenuous work may be out of place when you come together, not for the purpose of discussing policy, but for the purpose of getting a supply of money for one particular and limited object. Well, Sir, I think that is not an important matter, but one way or the other there is no question of constitutional etiquette. I deny absolutely that there is anything of that kind. There is absolutely no breach of constitutional etiquette, and if the common form of the Speech has been departed from on this particular occasion, and this particular occasion only, it is because this is a special occasion. This is a question upon which I confess I should have thought that we need not spend much time. Let me make this further observation: the ordinary practice would have been, as we intended it to be last year, that when the House meets on this sort of occasion it should be at the beginning of a session not limited to one particular 125 subject, going on till next July or August. That was objected to last year. We framed a Speech last year, holding that view; it was objected to, and to meet that objection we gave way. We quite admit that for the convenience of the House we should reserve till February next a Speech giving a proper survey of controversial topics and other matters interesting to the House and the country. That differentiates this brief session at once from the autumn session, and I see no reason why we should be criticised because, on this exceptional occasion, we have adopted once in a way a form of Speech to which the right hon. Gentleman objects.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThe rights of the Commons are interfered with.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI leave that question, which is more of an antiquarian than a practical character—at least, in my opinion. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of rights of the Commons interfered with. What right, what privilege, what power of ours has been curtailed? What right of speech, what right of vote? Every privilege remains where it was. I have not satisfied the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, and I do not expect to. It is a topic which is eminently suited to his constitutional mind, and I expect to derive great instruction from his comments upon it. I do not know that I need refer to what the right hon. Gentleman said about Mr. Goschen and my right hon. friend the Member for Blackpool, but we would all associate ourselves with the warm words of praise which he allowed to drop on the present occasion. Indeed the right hon. Gentleman's views about these outgoing Ministers are so favourable that I almost believe, if my right hon. friend the Secretary to the Colonies were to leave the place which he fills with such distinguished skill, the right hon. Gentleman would find it in his heart, amid the cheers of his supporters, to find virtue and patriotism even in that right hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)We must draw the line somewhere.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI come to the criticism which the right hon. Gentleman 126 has passed upon Her Majesty's advisers for having advised Her Majesty to dissolve Parliament in September. The right hon. Gentleman began that part of his speech with the statement that he meant to confine himself to the most moderate language, and that no criticism of an embittered character should be allowed to drop from his lips. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman began that part of his speech with all those excellent intentions; but he will forgive me for saying that his virtue failed him in the middle, and he could not restrain himself from indulging in what was for him an almost passionate outburst of indignation at what he regarded, and I am sure honestly regarded, as the constitutional laches of which the present Government had been guilty. What is the doctrine laid down by the right hon. Gentleman? It is that no Ministry should dissolve Parliament so late in the year—so near, therefore, to the new register—as the 25th of September.
§ Sir H CAMPBELL-BANNERMANUnless some unexpected emergency has arisen.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURIt is true the right hon. Gentleman did make that observation, but it seemed to me so extraordinary that I did not think it necessary to comment upon it. There never has been a Bill accelerating the register except in consequence of a Reform Bill. Has there ever been? Very well, do not let the right hon. Gentleman, who comes here as a stickler for constitutional practice, make so strange a suggestion. I pass by this crude notion of a special Bill brought in to accelerate the register, and turn to the main point of his criticism. Never will I give in to a doctrine so utterly subversive of the rights of the Crown and the smooth working of this Constitution as to say that there are six months or five months of each year in which the Crown is not to dissolve and in which the Ministry are not to ask the opinion of their countrymen. The doctrine is a preposterous one. It never was heard of until this election, and I trust, now that the election is over, it will never be heard of again. I object, on constitutional and prac- 127 tical grounds, in the strongest manner I to the doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman. But I want to know why he feels so strongly upon it. I do not believe that it is as a mere abstract student of politics that he objects. He thinks evidently that the party which he leads with such distinguished ability suffered some, unknown, some undefined wrong in having the election at that time. What ground is there for that supposition? Why does the right hon. Gentleman suppose that he and his friends are likely to have a smaller proportion of the favour of the electors on the 25th of September than, let me say, on the 25th of June or the 25th of February?
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANIt is not a question of the effect upon parties; I did not say a word upon that. But what I say is this. You go with a great parade of the necessity of appealing to the country on a great policy, and you select a time of year when the country is least in a position to give its opinion.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURThe right hon. Gentleman would have us believe that it is not because he thinks the time of year was injurious to himself or his party that he objects to an election in September. If he says that is his view I accept it freely. I have great power of belief, but it has its limits; and I do not believe the great mass of electioneerers throughout the country—on the other side—who objected to September did so on these abstract constitutional grounds. They objected because they thought it damaged them, and I cannot understand for the life of me why they should have held that opinion. But I will never subscribe to the doctrine that there is to be a "close time" of six months, during which the Crown may not dissolve and Ministers may not advise dissolution. Then the right hon. Gentleman could not abstain— and I am sorry for it—from dragging into our debates that embittered topic of the arguments used to and fro in the course of this election. I should be glad to have said nothing about it, because it is very difficult to say anything about it without raising passions and feelings which, especially on an occasion like this, I should prefer to allow to slumber. But the topic has been raised. The right hon. Gentleman has, with great passion, expressed his indignation at some of 128 the arguments used by us on this side of the House. He has chosen to throw down that challenge, and I cannot do otherwise than, with some regret though with no misgiving, take it up. The statement to which the right hon. Gentleman takes exception I understand to be that it was alleged by candidates on the Unionist side in the course of their speeches that a vote given for their opponents was a vote given to the Boers. [An Hon. MEMBER: The Colonial Secretary] He was a Unionist candidate.
§ Mr. LOUGH (Islington, W.)The word used was "sold" to the Boers.
§ The SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,) Birmingham, W.It was not "sold" I have seen that statement, and I expected it to be stated again, although I contradicted it the moment it appeared in the public Press. What happened was this: I was asked for hundreds of letters; during the contest, and in reply to one of these applications I sent a message which was in the exact terms of the statement made by the Mayor of Mafeking. The words were, "A seat lost to the Government is a seat gained by the Boers." When that telegram got down to its destination, I forget where, I was astonished to see it reported as "A seat sold to the Boers," which would have, been perfect nonsense. I thereupon inquired at the post office, and I have an apology from the postmaster, who says that, owing to the negligence of an official, the words were altered.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI must say I have never even heard of this. The right hon. Gentleman, at all events, never referred to this absurd story. What he complained of, as I understood him, was the statement that a vote given to the Opposition was a vote given to the Boers. He interprets that as being an accusation of want of patriotism on the part of himself and gentlemen near him. I do not believe that it ever was used in that sense.
§ Mr. BROADHURST (Leicester)What, then, was the object?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI will explain the only rational sense in which it could be used; and it never was used, so far as I 129 know, in any other sense. I am stating my own belief. I do not believe I ever did use the phrase—I really do not know. I am perfectly certain I never used any phrase throughout the whole election which could be reasonably interpreted to mean that any opponent of mine was lacking in patriotism. But I am of opinion that it is true that votes given to the other side were votes given to the Boers in this sense, and in the only sense in which it could be reasonably interpreted—namely, that it must strengthen the Boer cause; that the weakening or destruction of the present majority—the substitution for this majority of a majority drawn from the other side with the right hon. Gentleman as its leader — would have been interpreted in South Africa and considered in South Africa as an encouragement to further resistance. Is that a reasonable belief? I do not doubt that the gentlemen I see arrayed opposite me are as animated by motives of public spirit as gentlemen sitting on this side or upon this Bench. But is it not the fact that among the English and Scottish supporters of the right hon. Gentleman there are found men who honestly think that the war was an unjust war, and that even now the independence of these Republics, unjustly assailed, should be restored to them, and who, therefore, not from want of patriotism, but from motives sufficient in their own mind to justify their conduct, would be regarded, and rightly regarded, by the Boers and their leaders as people anxious to support and aid them? That cannot be denied. But that is not nearly all. I am talking of English and Scottish supporters of the right hon. Gentleman. But there are the Irish Members.
§ Mr. BRYN ROBERTS (Carnarvonshire,) EifionAnd the Welsh Members.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURThen there are Irish Members. I wish to be minute in my historical accuracy. I do not in the least suggest that the Irish party belong to the Radical party in the same sense that the Home Rule Members, let us say, for Yorkshire or Aberdeenshire belong to the party led by the right hon. Gentleman. I agree there is a difference. But those eighty Irish members count as part of the Opposition, and if the right hon. Gentleman had been sent for by the Queen in consequence of our party being 130 in a minority those eighty Irish Members would have been among his supporters, I presume, in the future, as they have been in the past.
§ Mr. LABOUCHEREWill you guarantee it?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURWe have a right to suppose, in the absence of information to the contrary, that the composition of the party opposite is what it was when last in power, when Lord Rosebery was Prime Minister, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire was leading the Government in this House. They had a majority which, I think, began at forty and sank to twenty and lower. [Opposition cries of "No," and laughter,] In that majority were always counted the eighty Irish Members of whom I speak; and lot me tell the right hon. Gentleman that eighty Members are a very considerable portion of any party, however strong it may be. Those eighty Irish Members, who are to the extent I have described—I put it with careful moderation—supporters of the right hon. Gentleman, are avowedly pro-Boers. There is no doubt about it. They are proud of it.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.)Hear, hear!
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURThey boast of it in this House and upon Irish platforms, and they make no secret of it.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYHear, hear!
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURIf those be the facts of the case—and no one can deny them—is it not true that if the right hon. Gentleman had been called upon to form a Government he would have had behind him an immense fraction of his party who were pro-Boers in their sympathies? Is it unfair to say, in those circumstances, that a vote given for the purpose of putting the right hon. Gentleman into power was a vote given for the Boers? If nothing worse was said in an election than that, I should watch the saturnalia of a General Election with more satisfaction than I do at present. The truth is that the party to which I belong have, perhaps, become inured to a certain kind of attack and insinuation, which we have begun to tolerate as an inevitable, but 131 necessary evil connected with elections, and we are, perhaps, therefore less sensitive than right hon. Gentlemen opposite who have not been so tried. I have all my life been accustomed to be told on these occasions that I belong to the selfish and privileged minority, that the object of our policy was to give doles to our friends; and I remember seeing the walls of my constituency placarded with an interesting caricature in which I was represented as rejecting the legitimate claims of the starving Indians for the purpose of benefiting the squire and the parson. That is what hon. Gentlemen opposite think legitimate. Their sensitive consciences do not shrink from that.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)Because it is true.
Mr. A. J. BALFOUBExactly, you think that is true. We think the other true. The only difference is that I have shown some conclusive reasons why our opinion is right, and you have so far failed to show any reasons why your opinion is right. I am myself an advocate, and always have been an advocate, of fair treatment of opponents even at elections; and so far as I am capable of forming an opinion—I suppose it will be regarded as a partial opinion by hon. Gentlemen opposite—though neither side is impeccable in this matter, the burden of guilt lies far more upon the shoulders of hon. Gentlemen opposite than upon those on this side of the House. Then what says the right hon. Gentleman further about this election? He says it was a scandalous attempt to avoid the real issue that ought to be raised at the General Election by appealing to the patriotic feeling of the country.
Mr. A. J. BALFOUBYes, using the patriotic feeling of the country. Of course we appealed to it, and I am glad to think that the patriotic feeling of the country sustained us. But I want to know why the right hon. Gentleman complains of that appeal? Why should we not appeal to the patriotic feeling of the country? And was there not sound instinct behind the response given by the country? The great mass of our countrymen do not believe the right hon. Gentleman to be lacking in patriotism and 132 ability. They know he is both an able man and a patriot. But they apparently had a sound instinct that if this policy is to be carried out in South Africa, and vigorously carried out, it ought to be left to a united party, and not given to a party which by its own confession, on this subject at all events, is rent and shattered in all directions. If ever there was a General Election justified by public policy it was this General Election; if ever it was desirable to show in the face not only of our Boer enemies, but in the face of Europe at large what policy this country supports and by what strength of opinion it is supported, that time was last September. I think to have dragged on through all the difficulties of this winter, through all the difficulties which are still in front of us in regard to a settlement— difficulties which we are the last to minimise—to drag on through all these difficulties with a constant suggestion of doubt from hon. Gentlemen opposite as to whether we did or did not represent the true opinion of our countrymen would have been fatal to any sound or consistent policy. I must say that the Prime Minister was most well advised when he gave that advice to Her Majesty which has resulted in showing to all whom it may concern, friends and foes alike, in whatever quarter of the globe they may live, that the policy consistently pursued by the present Government— supported, as I understand, by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and a large section of his friends, but not supported by his party as a whole—is a policy to which this country is determined to adhere. And, holding that opinion, I am forced to the conclusion that constitutional usage has not suffered, and that the public weal has greatly gained by the policy which we have pursued. I think, as time is passing, I had better refer to the one or two questions of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the publication of despatches. We had hoped that the serious part of the military operations would, ere this, have been over, and that no further objection could be felt to the publishing of all the despatches which we have in our possession. But the further despatches we have received, and the further consideration of the subject, have convinced us that it would not be to the public interest that every despatch should be published. We therefore do not mean to publish 133 all, but soon after Lord Roberts's return, we hope to publish the great majority of despatches which have been sent us from the front. As regards the despatches we do not mean to publish, of course they may be called for by any body which will be appointed to inquire into the general conduct of the war, but we do not think they should be laid upon the Table of the House in the ordinary course. The only other topic of importance to which the right hon. Gentleman referred was the conduct of the generals and troops in the measures which they have been obliged to take, such as the burning of farms and so forth, in the conduct of the war. The right hon. Gentleman spoke on that topic with studied care and moderation. I am sure that in so speaking he had the sympathy of gentlemen on both sides of the House. He paid an eloquent, but not at all extravagant or exaggerated, tribute to the rare humanity of our troops and their leaders; and so long as we are assured that the troops and their leaders have been actuated by humanitarian sentiments it would be very difficult to judge accurately and properly of their action in any particular case at this distance and with our very imperfect means of information. I should like to remind the House how very difficult is the task of a belligerent fighting under the conditions under which our troops are fighting in South Africa. The ordinary laws of war as practised by civilised countries depend essentially upon drawing a sharp distinction between combatant and non-combatant. The combatant has his particular privileges, the non-combatant has his particular privileges. What has been universally found intolerable is that a man should oscillate, according to his convenience, from one category to the other—be a peaceful agriculturist when it suits him and an effective combatant when circumstances seem to be favourable. That practice is so intolerable that I believe all nations have laid down the severest rules for repressing it. I have in my hands the instructions to the army of the United States in the field, dated 1898. I should like to read to the House two extracts from this document. Rule 52 says—
If a people of a country, or any portion of same already occupied by the army rises against it, they are violaters of the laws of war, and are not entitled to their protection.134 The 82nd Rule is to the effect that men, or squads of men, who take part in raids of any kind without permission, and without being part or portion of an organised hostile army, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured are not entitled to be treated as prisoners of war, but shall be treated as highway robbers or pirates.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYWill the right hon. Gentleman give us the date of that? Was it the 1st of May, 1898?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI am afraid I cannot say the date is 1898.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThey were just in the same stew as you are in South Africa.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI only read those rules, not to illustrate what is now going on in South Africa, but to show the extreme difficulty in which any general is placed who has to deal, not with an organised enemy, under recognised leaders, wearing a uniform which obviously marks him out as belonging to the military and not to the civilian part of the population, but who is subject to sniping, as it is called, from a presumably peaceful farmhouse.
§ Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT (Monmouthshire, W.)Do you adopt those rules?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI neither adopt them nor refuse them. That is not what is going on in South Africa, but that is an illustration of the difficulties which civilised countries feel when they are dealing with bodies of men such as those described.
§ Mr. JOHN MORLEY (Montrose Burghs)Have we no rules of our own?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURIf the right hon. Gentleman will put a question to the Secretary of State for War, when he comes back on Monday, I am sure he will give him any information he can.
§ Sir WILLIAM HARCOURTWere there no rules settled at the Hague?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI do not understand the meaning of the right hon. 135 Gentleman's interruption. I am sure the House will understand the difficulties which must occur under the circumstances I have mentioned—when the organised forces are to a great extent disposed of, and you have a civilian population rising sporadically here and there. Under no circumstances could that lie permitted, and I am sure the general in command would be wrong to permit such a thing. I entirely associate myself with what fell from the right hon. Gentleman when he said that, in dealing with this war, we must always remember that the men against whom we are fighting are going to be our fellow subjects. I feel, and the Government feel, and I am sure the generals on the spot feel, that everything that can be done should be done to prevent embittering the feeling which the horrors of war, alas! must inevitably produce. I confess that, much as I feel the terrible evils incident to the prolonged continuance of this war, much as I feel the burden which it throws upon this country, both in blood and in money, much as I deplore the loss of valuable lives and waste of treasure, much as I feel for the sufferings necessarily inflicted upon those with whom we are at war—upon women and children as well as upon those engaged against us in the field—that which I think is the worst of all is the embitterment of feeling on the part of those with whom we are at war. It is a melancholy reflection, and I cannot help asking myself whether a heavy weight of responsibility for it does not rest upon the Boer leaders at the present time. From the men who are bravely and courageously fighting against us one cannot withhold, one ought not to withhold, one's sympathy. They are brave men fighting, if not for liberty, at all events for independence, and one does not ask them to form a judgment as to the exact hour at which fighting ceases to be a virtue and becomes a crime. That decision, I admit, rests not with the Boer soldier; it does rest, and must rest, with the Boer leader, and now that every man of sane judgment—be he Englishman or Dutchman, be he for the one side or the other, or be he simply an indifferent Continental critic—knows perfectly well that the prolongation of hostilities can lead to no useful object, that it produces endless suffering with no compensating advan 136 tages, that it sows the roots of future hatred and discord between the races when their only hope for happiness and prosperity is living together in amity, I say that the leader who, under these circumstances, prolongs, and necessarily prolongs, all these horrors is not giving proof either of patriotism or of courage, but is only showing how reckless he is of human life and human suffering, how indifferent he is to the great issues for which he is in part responsible.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYIt would be bettor for the Boers to be dead than to be English.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURThe right hon. Gentleman appears to be of opinion that some great object would be served if we could make some declaration of policy to the Boers, which would mitigate their objection to British rule, and which would bring these deplorable incidents to a termination. If there be any means of bringing home to the great bulk of the Boer population the policy which we have always professed in and out of this House—the policy which I believe is shared by both sides, on which I believe there is absolutely no difference of opinion between the leaders there and the great body of gentlemen on this side—if we could bring home to the Boers these views it would be well, as it might have some effect possibly in convincing them that they had better cease this wasteful and miserable struggle. What more can be done than has been done? We have stated over and over again that what we look forward to is a condition of things in the two colonies in which the Dutchmen and Englishmen shall have equal privileges, in which the blessings associated with British colonial rule in all parts of the globe shall be shared by the inhabitants of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as they are shared by others of Her Majesty's subjects. That has been stated over and over again, Does the right hon. Gentleman opposite allege that we have ever suggested that the permanent condition of things in South Africa should be that of a Crown colony? No such suggestion has ever been made by a Minister of the Crown or by any gentleman on this side. Of course there must be a period of transition in the case of these colonies as there 137 has been in the case of every other colony—a period of transition before the full immunities and privileges can be guaranteed. The intention that the English colonial system in South Africa shall be what it is everywhere else, a free system, has never been disguised. It has been publicly and openly avowed by every responsible Minister, and I do not believe there is a single statesman in South Africa who does not know it. If anything could be suggested which would bring those truths, known as they are to the public here and to the public in South Africa, more home to the minds of the Boers I should be very glad to see that expedient adopted; but I am afraid we have not got to convince the Boers what their true interests are. We have got to convince the leaders of the Boers that the time has now come when patriotism requires them to lay down their arms, as patriotism may once have required them to take those arms up. We believe—the right hon. Gentleman believes as we believe—that the war on our part has been a just war. [Cries of "No."]
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI did not say so.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI never quite know where I have got the right hon. Gentleman. Well, at all events, the hon. Gentlemen sitting on each side of him both said it was a just war. I should very much like to go down that front bench and ask each gentleman in turn what his opinion is; it would give us the exact measure of unity which the right hon. Gentleman says exists on this most important question Well, the right hon. Gentleman's neighbours on that bench say it was a just war. We believe it to have been a just war, generously carried out; but we know that every war must produce infinite suffering to those engaged in it, and we know that when a war gets to that stage when it ceases to be a conflict between organised bodies, and becomes guerilla fighting, the suffering is developed and no useful object is attained. If any method can be suggested by which we can bring home to the Boers that great truth we should gladly adopt it. In the meantime our duty is plain. It is to conduct these military operations with all the vigour in our power, and, looking to the future, not only with all the humanity which common morality suggests, but 138 with the humanity which a statesmanlike view of the future interests of South Africa must impress upon the mind of every impartial spectator. That is the policy of the Government—to proceed with the war vigorously and unremittingly, to carry it out with all possible humanity, and to let it be as widely known as possible that our object in absorbing these colonies is not to curtail freedom, but to spread it. That being our policy, we ask the House to support us, as I do not doubt they will, in this short session by supplying us with the means by which alone the great body of troops now in South Africa can be maintained in a state of efficiency. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that, as far as he is concerned, he is anxions that the discussions on the Queen's Speech and on the Vote should be, relatively speaking at all events, brief and concise. On that matter there is no divergence of opinion between the two sides of the House, and, under these circumstances, I hope we may be able to postpone to a more favourable opportunity all those subjects of embittered controversy which may, and perhaps must, inevitably arise in the ordinary conflict of parties. In the meanwhile, and for this brief session, we may, I hope, be allowed to forget our differences and to carry out the policy on which we are all agreed.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANChina?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOUROh, yes; papers will, I suppose, be laid on the subject of China. Meanwhile, I do not know that there is anything bearing on policy to mention, or upon our military operations, the object of which was thoroughly explained to the House when the Vote was taken.
§ * Sir CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)I should not have risen at the present moment but for the extremely perfunctory nature of the reply of the right hon. Gentleman on the last subject. The right hon. Gentleman was asked a definite question with regard to the Anglo-German agreement. [An Hon. Member: No.] Yes, a definite question was put as to what explanation the Government had to give of the isolated agreement lately entered into by them with a single Power. [An Hon. 139 MEMBER: No.] I am in the recollection of the House, and I appeal to the recollection of the House. I distinctly assert that the Leader of the Opposition put to the right hon. Gentleman this question: Why did you make an isolated agreement with a single Power? I should like to repeat the question put by the Leader of the Opposition on that point. In August last the statement was made that the Russian flag had been hoisted at a port where we had a large trade, Niu-chwang. We are now informed that the Government have taken a most important step since that time. They have announced to the country that they have concluded a convention with Germany which they say essentially changes the condition of affairs. The Leader of the Opposition has asked for information, and no reply is made by the Leader of the House. I will put the matter very briefly to the House. We had the Note of the United States asking the Powers for a declaration of their disinterestedness in China, and to that Note all the Powers have made a satisfactory reply. After recent events in China there would have been no difficulty in following the usual course and producing a protocol declaring the disinterestedness of the Powers, which would have been signed by all the Powers. Yet our Government go out of their way to recognise those rights against which we have protested—isolated and exclusive rights in certain parts in China. I wish to know, and the House wishes to know, why that isolated agreement was made with a single Power. It seems to weaken previous agreements on the same subject. We want to know what is the theory that lies behind this new agreement, and why it is preferred to the action proposed in the American Note. I am afraid that a number of Members have represented to their constituents that this agreement is in the nature of an alliance with a military Power, which the Colonial Secretary has recommended to the country as better than a higher standard for our fleet. I am one of those who think that a higher standard for our fleet is far more satisfactory and important than any alliance with a military Power; but it is the most dangerous delusion any Englishman, or body of Englishmen, can harbour, to suppose that it is possible for us to turn Germany from her settled policy of friendliness to Russia. It has been represented that 140 this single-handed German agreement is a step towards an alliance against Russia. That is one of the most dangerous delusions that can possess the British mind. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that we are to limit our debate, and I am quite glad to fall in with that view, but I think it is useful to put certain questions to the Government which have not been put on this occasion. The Government have said nothing to-night about military reform. A specific-question was put to the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the information, which will be given to us, and the-right hon. Gentleman has replied that, a large number of despatches will shortly be laid before Parliament. The Queen's Speech seems to me to be wholly unsatisfactory. The right hon. Gentleman talked about antiquarian and pedantic notions on our part. It is not an antiquarian and pedantic matter that we should be asked for money without the information on which alone that money ought to be granted. I should like to put this question. The Government have pledged themselves over and over again not only to give the general, despatches to this House, but to give specifically the results of the inquiries held into the surrenders of British troops which have taken place during this war. I do not know that the right hon. Gentleman is familiar with these matters. In February last I brought forward the question of the surrenders, and I brought it up again on 27th July last.* I said it was necessary that we should know, for the sake of the future training and recruiting of the Army, where the blame was to be fixed. The right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State readily assented, and in reply used these words—
There have been very large surrenders on the part of our men. That is a question which must be most carefully and searehingly inquired into. No one feels that with greater conviction than the Government, the Commander-in-Chief, and the Adjutant-General.But the "full publication" which the Under Secretary promised was "at the end of the war." These pledges are very strong indeed. It is for the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether the time has not come when the information might be given to us. We are told that the larger* See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth. Series], Vol. 1xxxvi., pages 1541, 1623.141 operations of the war are concluded and that Lord Roberts is coming home. The right hon. Gentleman must remember that the Under Secretary has admitted that those matters affect the recruiting and the training of the Army. Many commanding officers have been removed from their commands as the result of the inquiries which have been held. Commanding officers have been sent home, while general officers have been put into civil employ on account of the inquiries which have been held. These inquiries are to be published, and the question is, when are they to be published? There is only one other matter which I should like to put in the form of a question with regard to military affairs. It is a question which ought to be asked to-night. It comes before us now, I think, with singular force. Lord Roberts is coming home, and that fact has been alluded to by every Unionist candidate as meaning that Lord Roberts is to become the trusted adviser of the Government in military matters. No statement has been made as to whether Lord Roberts is to take the office of Commander-in-Chief on the conditions under which it is now held or whether larger powers are to be given to him. If Lord Roberts is to take up the office only with the same powers the Commander-in-Chief now has, it will be necessary to call the attention of the Government to what has been said by the outgoing Commander-in-Chief. In April and July last debates took place in which the question of Army guns was discussed. No exaggerated Statements were made on that occasion by my hon. and gallant friend on the other side when we raised the question of the field guns of the British Army, and said that they were not equal to the field guns of certain foreign Powers. Reassuring statements were made to us at that time, but the outgoing Commander-in-Chief, in a speech at the Cutlers' Feast at Sheffield, used these words—A man like himself, charged with the purely military side of our affairs, might feel it necessary to bring before the Government of that day the fact that … its guns were old … The nation was not taken into the confidence of the Queen's Ministers and allowed to judge between the specialist who recommended the changes and the Treasury who refused to pay … It was only necessary that the facts should be laid before them that we wanted … a different class of guns.142 I mention that because here you have the outgoing Commander-in-Chief, who implies in these words, if they have any meaning at all, that he gave advice to the Government on that question, and that the Government did not take it on the ground of the expense alone. That was never stated to the House, but we were told that in the opinion of the military advisers of the Government—at least, so I understood it—we had the best field gun in Europe. I give that as a specific instance. Is Lord Roberts becoming Commander-in-Chief with only the limited power's attaching to the office as lately held, or with the fuller powers under which it was formerly held? I ask the Leader of the House to answer the question to-night. If it is not answered, we shall have to put it again next week before we vote the money which is asked for in this unusual form.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThere is no representative of the War Office here, owing to the facts which the House is aware of. Perhaps I may, however, very briefly, for the convenience of the House, say one word. I am sorry it falls to me to do it, but the right hon. Gentleman knows that I am deprived of any military advice at this moment. About the surrenders, no doubt any pledge that was given will be fulfilled, but I should doubt whether this is a convenient time to make any of these documents public, as I am afraid that some of the surrenders have been of so recent a date.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKEI am speaking, of course, of the earlier ones.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI think it would be better, perhaps, that the matter should be deferred. Then the right hon. Gentleman asks me another question, as to the position of Lord Roberts as Commander-in-Chief. Lord Roberts, as I understand the matter, takes the office of Commander-in-Chief, and must take it, under the old conditions, because you cannot begin to discuss War Office reforms until he returns. You must take the War Office as you find it, and wait for his return before you discuss any reforms. I need hardly say that the fact that Lord Roberts has taken it now does not necessarily end the matter, but, of course, so great a change as that suggested by the right hon. Gentleman cannot be taken 143 with advantage until we have had an opportunity of personal conference with Lord Roberts.
§ MAJOR RASCH (Essex, Chelmsford)I only desire to say half a dozen words as to the War Office, which, as has been well said, during the past twelve months has displayed the foresight of the ostrich and the firmness and decision of the jelly-fish. I do not wish to criticise any suggestion made, or likely to be made, in regard to the future. I do not think there is any doubt about the opinion of the man in the street and the constituencies. I know that he is not by any means satisfied with the casual and light-hearted utterances of the great, wise, and eminent persons who have spoken on the reform of the War Office during the past six months. I allude with the greatest possible respect to the speech made on 9th November by Lord Salisbury at the Guildhall. Then there was another speech made by a Cabinet Minister—the Home Secretary—addressing his constituents at Croydon, who said it was not for them to say to whom with reference to the War Office they should award praise or blame. We had a statement by Lord Lansdowne, the late Secretary for War. He said the other day that the War Office had done its work with a degree of success which was admitted by all who had specially watched it for the last twelve months. We were told that we were going to have fresh blood, and although it is not for me, a humble supporter of the Government, to object, I would say that the fresh blood which we have seen is provided by the appointment of the present Secretary of State for War, who himself was for ten years in the War Office, and was imbued with its traditions and its red tape, and must be so. He has been the optimistic apologist for everything the War Office has done since the year 1885, with the exception of five years; he is the man who elevated the position of the War Secretary and lowered the position of the Commander-in-Chief; he is the man who was opposed to every reform that was suggested on either side of the House, and, with Mr. Stanhope, eight years ago, reduced the Horse Artillery batteries in the teeth of every opinion. To him has been added the hon. Baronet, against whom I have not a word to say, but he has been a clerk on 144 the civil side of the War Office. That is how the promise has been kept to introduce new blood into the War Office. It is true that something like 200,000 men were sent to South Africa, but if it had not been for the Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteers we could not have put an army like that in the field. That says absolutely nothing for the War Office. It is like the defending counsel in a case of rape, or arson, or murder telling the jury that it is on record that the accused once gave sixpence to a blind beggar. Perhaps I may say half a dozen words germane to this subject with reference to stores. Of course hon. Members know that the equipment of an army means more than a bag of biscuits or half a dozen nails. Some time ago—I think it was last January—it was found that the War Office was millions of pounds deficient in stores. The other day it was stated that the guns in the eastern and southern fortresses of this country were obsolete, and Lord Wolseley has stated that they might as well be defended by bows and arrows. In June 1895 circumstances occurred which led the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition to retire from the War Office. It was said then that they were deficient in cordite. Here the Secretary of State for War admits that he was deficient four millions in stores, and yet at the next General Election he gets a majority of 130 to support him. We cannot get the men we want for the Army. I have not a word to say against the Reserve battalions. I think they are the finest body of men I ever saw, although they measure rather more round the waist than round the chest. That would doubtless cure itself in time, if there was time, but there is not. These battalions were raised in March; part of the time they have been on furlough, part of the time they have had no arms or accoutrements, and sometimes only one officer to about 300 men. The raising of these battalions, and the keeping of them more or less disciplined, would cost something like £3,000,000, and when March comes and they are disbanded there will be absolutely nothing to show for that money except the bill. I regret that I have not been able, like some of my more fortunate colleagues, to go to the front, but that is perhaps another instance of the fatuity and incompetence 145 of the War Office, because if they had let me go they might have got rid of me and never seen me again. People generally, all over the country, are not prepared to put up with the casual and light-hearted utterances of the men in authority; they want the pledges given at the last General Election, in reference to the reform of the War Office, properly carried out.
§ MR. BROADHURSTI take it as exceedingly unfortunate that the Leader of the House did not appropriately finish the very interesting speech which he made in the earlier part of the evening. The right hon. Gentleman had the courage and the good feeling—which is not very prevalent upon his side of the House—to acknowledge the skill, the devotion, and the patriotism of the enemies now fighting against Her Majesty's forces in South Africa. Had a Liberal Member, only a few months back, used such language with regard to the Boers he would probably have been hooted out of the hall and most certainly would have been called a pro-Boer, and it would have been said that he was making speeches in the interests of the enemies of the Queen's rule in South Africa. The right hon. Gentleman made a noble, manly, and courageous speech, in which he appealed with considerable eloquence and with a great deal of effect, so far as the Members of this House are concerned, and he expressed the hope that there would be a speedy ending of the unhappy and disastrous conflict which is now proceeding in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. He spoke of the liberties which they would enjoy if these people came back to their homes and assimilated themselves under British rule and British law, but what I think the Leader of the House failed in was that he did not make a specific statement as to the terms to be submitted and offered by this country to the Boers still in the field. I thought he was going to finish his speech by making such a statement, which I am sure would have been cheered and approved by all parties. I thought he would have said that Her Majesty's Government would adopt some means of communicating to the Boers who are still fighting the terms of settlement which they would receive if they surrendered, together with an assurance that if they surrendered no punishment would 146 follow, and that there would be a restoration to them of the property and effects which belonged to them in their own country. I hope that the Leader of the House has not said the last word tonight upon this question, and I trust that he will have the further courage to make a statement on the lines I have suggested, and make it in such a manner that it can be said to these people with authority, in order that they may have an opportunity of ceasing this conflict upon terms which will be acceptable to honourable and noble men, such as the Leader of the House has described them. I am sure that if the right hon. Gentleman could do that, although some wild-spirited men, who are more patriotic than they are wise, may rail and disapprove, yet the nation at large would welcome any reasonable proposal or concessions on the part of the Government to bring this unhappy, miserable and bloodthirsty strife to a conclusion. I further wanted to ask the Leader of the House, had he been present, what assurance he can give to the country in regard to the information we are to receive as to the future progress of this war. I want to know whether what has appeared in newspaper paragraphs upon this subject is true. What I understand is that all war correspondents are now to be kept at the rear, and they are not to be allowed within the fighting area of the army at all. I understand that Lord Kitchener is to have supreme command, and that he will control all things in connection with this conflict. What I wish to ask Her Majesty's Government is, how are we to-obtain news and information as to what is going on at the front under these circumstances? Lord Kitchener is not a man renowned for liberality of information as to his own operations. We have had considerable experience of him in this respect in times past in other parts of the world, and this does not inspire us with confidence as to future arrangements in South Africa. Is Lord Kitchener to be the sole source of communication and information as to the war to the people of this country? Is there to be a still stronger press censorship in that country of news before it reaches England? These are all things which we should like to know something about. We should like to know as to the truth or otherwise of the alleged burning of farms and the destruction of property in 147 the Transvaal. There has lately been a long list of allegations specific in their nature. There have been many charges of the wanton destruction of property in that country. What we want to know is, are those statements true or false. If they are false then they are capable of being disproved, and I should be very glad if they can be disproved. If they are true, then why not admit the fact and tell us so, instead of leaving us in doubt? Do not leave us for our supply of information to unofficial or unreliable channels. The policy of the sword we accept, but the policy of the torch is hateful to the British mind. Hundreds of thousands of the people who have hitherto stood by the Government are horrified beyond description at the harrowing accounts of the destruction of property which is taking place, or which is alleged to be taking place, in South Africa. They do not believe that the soldier is the best man to remain in charge after the people have been practically conquered, for the soldier's policy is always destruction. He can spend and waste money, and, as my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition has said to-night, money has been poured out in South Africa as though it were water, and of no value. We do not want, and the Government do not desire, the complete annihilation of every home in the Transvaal. If you are going to destroy all means of sustenance by the destruction of farms and property in the country, what prospect is there in the future of the return of the population and of any return of prosperity to the people? I cannot imagine a more unwise policy than that of destroying the property of the people whose country you have invaded, and whose country you have to a large extent conquered. I should have been glad if the Leader of the House had gone so far as to declare that this policy should cease except in cases where it was absolutely necessary for the defence of the lives of our own men. In such circumstances any policy is justifiable to protect our men from treachery, but to make war in this way upon men because you cannot beat them otherwise is not a policy associated with the best history of the British Army. Our soldiers like to fight their men fairly and squarely in the open, and then act as soldiers and as Britishers 148 afterwards towards their foes. I am making no accusations against the soldiers. I am simply appealing to the Government, because they are responsible for this policy. Can this policy not be stopped? I know of nothing that is doing more injury to our sense of self-respect and to the good name of the British Empire, its Army and its traditions, than the allegations which are being sent broadcast throughout the country and throughout the world of the wanton destruction of the property of non-combatants in South Africa. My contention is that if these allegations are not true the Government should tell us so, and give us some proof of their untruth, or an assurance that if they are true this policy shall be stopped. There is only one other subject which I will mention now, and that is the question of the General Election. The Leader of the House, by a very clever manœuvre, of which he is a great master, wriggled out of the corner into which we had put him with regard to the charge of bringing on a General Election by an unconstitutional practice. The General Election was sprung upon the country when there was absolutely no necessity for it, and the time of the election was so appointed as to give the Government the greatest advantage in the contest against the Opposition. [Ministerial cries of "No, no."] At any rate that is my charge, and, of course, I do not expect hon. Members opposite will agree with me. I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite have gone fairly into the subject and mastered the facts. I assert that the Government did wantonly and with malice aforethought, without any justification except self-interest, bring on an election at a time when the greatest number of our countrymen were disfranchised. That is the charge which I make against the Government. We went to war to enfranchise a few men in Johannesburg, a great number of whom had been charged with attempted murder, and many of whom had been ordered out of South Africa. This is the class of men we went to war to obtain the franchise for. And this Government, after having gone to war to give foreigners the franchise, defends that war by having the General Election at a time when it practically disfranchises our own countrymen by the million. At any rate they were disfranchised in large numbers by the policy of Her 149 Majesty's Government. We were startled when we were told that the war was virtually over, because we could not believe it. This statement was made throughout the country at the General Election, and we sincerely hoped then that it was true. That statement, however, turned out to be absolutely untrue, and it was only invented for electioneering purposes by the Tory party. But that is not the whole of the case against them. They fixed the Proclamation dissolving Parliament upon a day which made it impossible to have any contest upon a Saturday, and why? Because by so doing they avoided the election taking place on the day which is the most suitable for the overwhelming masses of the people to record their votes. The Colonial Secretary is still left in the Government, and there is no man in England who is a greater master of electioneering arrangements than the right hon. Gentleman. I speak from personal experience of him, and I am sure that the cunning has not yet forsaken his hand in these matters, as it has not clone in other matters. I say that it was a grave and serious unconstitutional act on the part of the Government to dissolve Parliament at a time when no dissolution was necessary, and at a time when it disfranchised hundreds and thousands of people, and the Government must have known this. The Government dissolved Parliament under such circumstances as made it impossible to have the polling day on the one day of the week which is the most convenient to the greatest number of the wage-earners of this country. I think these are complaints which we are quite justified in making. We made these complaints at the time upon our platforms, and we are entitled t o make them here at the very first opportunity we have got of facing the Government. The Leader of the House seemed to think that nobody suffered any particular disadvantage in this respect during the recent election, but the Government had got the power and the machinery and other advantages over the Opposition, and they took a mean advantage over the Liberal party in that contest. Nothing could exceed the vulgarity of the machinery used by the Government at the last election. We had to wade through a perfect forest of lies, and through oceans of vituperation and vulgar abuse. There never was an election known 150 to equal it in this respect. Before this debate closes to-night I hope the Leader of the House will find an opportunity to make a further offer of a peaceful settlement calculated to bring this war to a conclusion upon honourable terms, and if he does this I am sure his offer will be received with universal acclamation throughout the length and breadth of the land. We are all tired of the war; many of us are ashamed of it; and others think that they have paid already more for it than ever they intended, and we are all anxious that it should be brought to a conclusion. I do hope the noble Lord opposite will make an appeal to the Leader of the House when he returns in the terms I have indicated. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to supplement the latter part of the speech which he made to-night by a more definite offer to our enemies in the field, to the effect that, if they will surrender, honourable conditions will be offered to them, in the interests of peace and the future welfare of that unhappy country.
§ * THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount CRANBORNE, Rochester)The hon. Member who has just sat down has made an appeal to the Government to put an end to the war. I am confident that every member of the Government is anxious that the war should come to an end; but we are convinced that there is no means of bringing it to an end except that every friend of the Boers, whether in this country or elsewhere, should impress upon them the absolute hopelessness of resistance. As soon as the leaders of our enemies are convinced that such is the case the war will be brought to an end. Until then I am afraid the war must be continued. In replying to certain questions put to me in the course of the evening I should like to claim the indulgence of the House in addressing it for the first time as the representative of a Department which has to deal with many important and grave subjects. The Leader of the Opposition asked a question with reference to the presentation of papers on China. Undoubtedly papers will be presented, though there will be some difficulty, amounting almost to an impossibility, in presenting complete papers. I shall probably be able to-morrow to inform the House how far the papers can be 151 presented. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean asked me one or two questions with reference to the recent history of the Chinese question. The first question had reference to Niu-chwang, and he wished to know whether the Government could give any information to the House in respect to what had taken place there. There is no doubt that the Russians occupied Niu-chwang, and that they hoisted their flag on the Custom-house there. I certainly am not inclined to complain of the right hon. Gentleman being particularly sensitive to British interests, whether there or elsewhere, but I think it is quite impossible to apply the same kind of criticism to the action of Russia, or of any other Power in China, in time of war as might have been applied in time of peace. And that is not merely a technical observation; it is not merely that it is a time of warlike operations in China, but that there are in the district in question disturbances attaching to those warlike operations. With regard to Niu-chwang, there was a Boxer propaganda in full swing in the neighbourhood, and disturbances arose which had connection with the troubles in China. Under those circumstances the Russian commander on the spot occupied Niu-chwang, and though, of course, opinions may differ as to the necessity which was laid upon him to take such a step, I think it would be impossible to condemn him, without further information, for doing so. However, the representatives of several of the Powers were anxious that the interests of the countries they represented should not suffer, and they at once made representation to the Russian officer, asking him why he thought it necessary to occupy Niu-chwang, and why he had hoisted the flag of his country there. He explained perfectly candidly that it was a temporary operation, and that the rights of other persons and other Powers would not be prejudiced in any way by his action. I think that is a sufficient answer.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKEHas the Government any information as to the new step of collecting the land tax there, which looks a little like a claim of sovereignty?
§ * Viscount CRANBORNEI have no information to give the House on that 152 point, but undoubtedly, as we all know who know anything of South Africa, when once a military occupation has taken place, it is necessary to transact all the business of the Government without exception while that occupation is continued. The right hon. Baronet then asked me about the Anglo-German agreement. I may say, parenthetically, that I believe it has not actually been laid on the Table, but I believe it will be in the course of a few days. He complained that we had singled out one Power, and gone to that Power and made an arrangement of a character which he described. I think we acted in a very natural and proper manner, and one which need give no reason for surprise in any quarter. We were aware that the interests of Germany in China were closely analogous to our own, and we were therefore glad to join with Germany in making an agreement which declared the policy which both the Powers were prepared to pursue. The House is aware that the Government have never varied in declaring the main principles upon which their policy is based—equality of opportunity and territorial integrity — and those two declarations are to be found in the Anglo-German agreement. I do not mean to say they are carried to their full logical conclusion, but the spirit of those two principles governs the whole of that agreement. No sooner had we come to that agreement than we invited the adhesion of all the other Powers, so that there was no desire to have what the right hon. Gentleman complains of— namely, isolated action as between us and Germany.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKEIsolated action after the general agreement had been come to, after the replies to the Note of the United States.
* VISCOUNT CARANBORNEIf charged with isolated action, we say, in reply, that we at once invited the adhesion of the other Powers, and we have no reason to be dissatisfied with the response they made. The right hon. Baronet complains that the agreement followed upon the replies to the American Note, and is in some way to be differentiated from it. Certainly it is to be differentiated from it; it was a step in advance upon the reply to the American Note, because that dealt only with equality of opportunity; it did not 153 deal with territorial integrity. Both those principles are to be found in the Anglo-German agreement, so that it was a substantial advance on what had gone before. But, of course, even if that had not been so, if the new element which I have shown was introduced had not been introduced the mere fact of the formality of the agreement was, diplomatically, a step in advance. The right hon. Baronet is very familiar with these subjects, and knows how the diplomatic history of these questions may begin with discussion, and go on with exchange of views, until a definite proposal is made and a final compact or agreement of some kind arrived at, and that is the step which was taken in the Anglo-German agreement. There was a solemn declaration on the part of two Powers, who invited the adhesion of all the other Powers to the view that, in their opinion, equality of opportunity, as far as the littoral of China is concerned, and territorial integrity were the two pillars upon which their policy was based, and to which they looked for future action. We conceded nothing, and, in that view, neither did Germany; we have always declared that such is our policy. It was an agreement of mutual advantage to the Powers concerned, who did not intend to isolate themselves from others; it was a ready method of obtaining the agreement of others, and I think it can be said to have been a diplomatic success.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKEWill the replies of the other Powers to the agreement be communicated to the House along with the agreement?
§ * VISCOUNT CRANBORNEI imagine so. If the right hon. Gentleman will put a question to-morrow I will give him a definite reply.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)I confess that the declaration of the noble Lord with regard to South Africa gives me some apprehension. It differs in a very remarkable way from the declaration made this evening by the First Lord of the Treasury. The First Lord of the Treasury breathed a hope of conciliation; he pointed out to the House that we are dealing with persons whom we profess to regard as our fellow-subjects, but whom certainly we hope to have as fellow-subjects in the future. The noble Lord 154 took quite a different tone. He says the only hope of peace and a settlement is to persuade the Boers that their cause is perfectly hopeless.
§ The UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. JESSE COLLINGS,) Birmingham, BordesleyHear, hear.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESI congratulate my right hon. friend on that cheer, and even more on the fact that he is still able to cheer from the Treasury Bench. Hon. Members may cheer, but these are two opposite views, and I really do hope that it will not go forth that it is the settled resolve of Her Majesty's Government that they will listen to no terms and consider no scheme that does not involve absolute and immediate surrender on the part of the Boers. Take the question of the treatment of the country. It has been stated that we are burning; farms all over the country. If that be so, I think it is a most unfortunate preparation of the country for its habitation by our future subjects. If we find that on certain farms murders have been committed on our men, or that acts of treachery have been committed, then burn these farms; but there is a great difference between that and burning farms as a settled policy over whole tracts of country. I am giving the noble Lord an illustration of the sort of difference which I find between his declaration and the declaration of the First Lord of the Treasury. The declaration of the First Lord of the Treasury inclined me to hope that the general burning of farms as a policy would be abandoned; whereas the declaration of the noble Lord leads me rather to understand that it would be continued. I am dealing with the inference which I draw between the difference in character of these two declarations. I hope there may be no such difference, and that the use of the term "hopeless" by the noble Lord was an inadvertence. I do entreat the Government to remember that this is not an ordinary case of waging war in an enemy's country which you are going to leave, and to which you do not care what happens when you have finished the war. This country is our own country. All the property destroyed is the property of our fellow-subjects and of people with whom 155 we hope and intend to live in amity in future. I do hope that instead of acting in a spirit of hopeless resistance and unconditional surrender there will be rather a tendency on the part of Her Majesty's Government to deal with the Boers in the spirit indicated by the First Lord of the Treasury, which is a proper and admirable spirit, and one which I hope will be confirmed by the Colonial Secretary when he comes to speak on the subject. There is one other point. I cannot understand for the life of me why, during the whole continuance of these affairs in China, no papers have been presented to the House. I think it is without precedent that this House should be left to learn from foreign newspapers as to what is passing in China, what action England is taking, and what other countries are doing in consequence of that action. We have had German books, French books, and all sorts of books, but no single paper has been submitted to us. Of course Parliament was not sitting, and no Member was able to put an embarrassing question to the Government. But at least it shows a want of consideration for this House, and also a want of consideration for the country generally, that while the world was furnished with foreign accounts as to what was taking place in China, we had no official accounts whatever. I think that is very regrettable. Some of us have very serious doubts as to whether it was to our interest to enter into such a close alliance with the "Mailed Fist," and whether what we have done is as absolutely correct as it ought to have been. But I will not enter into that now. I find there is no representative of the Navy present, and I think that several other departments might also be represented here to-night. I do not know, whether, in the absence of the Minister responsible, it would be any use to ask if there is any further information with regard to the doings of the Navy in the South African War. I have more than once complained of the fact that the Naval authorities have failed to secure accurate information, the consequence of which has been that we have been seizing goods not liable to seizure, and that when vessels have been seized they have had to be released by orders from this country. There is one other matter I should wish to mention. I believe it is wholly unprecedented for the Sovereign to make a 156 demand for money to any other body than to this sole and only House of Commons. This House of Commons believes it is the possessor of—and it does possess—the sole right of imposing burdens on the people. That undoubted right has never yet been questioned, and has always been acknowledged by the Sovereign herself in the Royal Speech summoning a new Parliament, which, by the way, we have not yet had even in a very limited degree. Any special demand for money should be addressed to this House alone, but no such demand has been made. The House has not been promised that any estimate of the sum required will be laid before it, and whether there is to be any such estimate we know not; the demand of the Sovereign for funds is addressed to both Houses of Parliament. But I would point out that invariably the compliment has been paid to this House of addressing to it, and to it alone, the demand for the supplies required. That is a recognition of the position of this House in the country as the special representative of the taxpayers, and I am afraid that this is only another attempt to pass by the House of Commons as though it were not the special guardian of the public purse and the special authority for voting charges upon the people. I am afraid this attempt is only one of a series of attempts, which I have witnessed with concern, to regard the House of Commons as a body rather to be got rid of than reasoned with, and its rules and conditions as ancient and musty, and to be evaded rather than to be complied with in their spirit and letter. It is the act of the Ministry, not of the Sovereign, and I think it light to protest against the rules of the House of Commons being evaded and its traditions set at nought in this manner.
§ MR. E. J. C. MORTON (Devonport)Mr. Speaker, at the commencement of a session the subjects of debate on the Address, during the first day, cover so large a ground that it is almost impossible for those who desire to bring forward a particular subject to follow consecutively argument in debate, and, therefore, I feel to a certain extent that I must apologise to the House for harking back on a subject which I daresay is of less interest, at any rate to hon. Gentlemen opposite, than the subject matter of 157 debate in the last two or three speeches. Nevertheless, it is one which I feel I must refer to, because this evening is, I believe, the last occasion on which it will be possible to bring the matter before the House. The matter itself occupied a considerable position of importance in the speech of my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition, and it also occupied a considerable portion of the speech of the Leader of the House. I refer to the conduct of the last election by Her Majesty's Ministers. I think that, perhaps, the actual facts of the conduct of the election have not been completely put before the House even yet. I would like to ask attention to two facts. The first is that during the whole five years of the last Parliament the Government received the practically unabated support of a majority of 130 in this House; that furthermore, it has been generally recognised that a Government that is supported by a great majority can go on—and there is no reason why it should not go on—for six years. The late Government only went on for five years. In addition to that—I do not think it has been specifically stated yet, and it is the gravamen of the charge against the Government that was made by us at the last election in our several constituencies—the election was held after the Revision Courts had decided that at least 1¼ million of electors were entitled to vote and before, by the beautiful arrangement of our registration laws, that 1¼ million of electors were able to vote. That is an absolutely unique event. I have gone through the history of all the elections since the Reform Bill of 1832—I think it will be universally acknowledged that no precedent before 1832 holds good—and I find that there is no instance since 1832 of an election having been held between the time when the Revision Courts declared that an enormous number of new electors were entitled to vote, and the time when they were actually enabled to vote according to our Registration Laws. That is an absolutely unique condition of things. It has been already mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition that there is no precedent for an autumn election except on two occasions; and on both those occasions special Acts of Parliament were passed to accelerate the coming into force of the register, so that these elections were fought on the new 158 and not the old register. Those two occasions were the General Elections of 1868 and 1885. There is one point that I myself have noticed, and I never heard anyone else notice it until it was noticed by the hon. Member for Leicester in debate in this House. I want to reiterate this remarkable fact—and I think it is remarkable—that the proclamation of the dissolution was made on a Tuesday, and the effect of making it on a Tuesday was that the first day of the week on which an election could be held in any borough was a Monday, and the last the following Friday, the result being that no borough election could be held on Saturday, which was the most convenient day. I do not think that can be altogether held to have been accidental. I think we know the electioneering methods of Birmingham. Again, there was absolutely no issue put before the electors. What was the issue? Can any hon. Member tell us? The Hospital enquiry was still on in South Africa, and the war was not finished, and it is not finished yet. The only conceivable issue that could have been put before the electorate of this country was the issue of annexation or no annexation. But every party in the State, and every hon. Member, on whatever bench he may have sat in this House, including the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Montrose Burghs—probably the most extreme opponent of the war who sat on the Front Opposition Bench—had declared that, whether they liked it or not, annexation was inevitable. I claim that there was absolutely no issue whatever put before the country. Were there any grounds of public policy for holding the election under such circumstances? The Government had a majority of 130; if they wanted money they could have summoned the last Parliament and have had it voted, with the absolute certainty that at least half the Members on this side of the House would have supported any demand they made to prosecute the war to a successful issue. We had good reason for doing so. This is the first time for fifty years in which a Tory Government, having landed us in war, have had to pay the bill. It was not to our interest that they should not. I could name dozens of individuals, people who have been Liberals all their lives, and who have always voted Liberal, who abstained or voted with the Tories 159 in the last election for the simple reason that they were determined, as one of them said to me, "to force the Tory party to wipe up its own mess. "Under those circumstances the Government went to the most bogus election ever held in this country. There was no genuine appeal made to the electorate. It was a bogus election, not decided by the genuine electorate of this country. I will undertake to say— and I have been, in an amateur sort of way, a student of the history of the elections—that for half a century past there has never been an election in which such infamous calumnies were hurled against Liberal candidates as were hurled against the Liberal candidates at the last election. I wish the Leader of the House were in his place, because I acknowledge that, so far as he is personally concerned, he is an exception as regards the charges that we bring against some other prominent Members of the Government. In common with a large number of Members on this side of the House I was almost amazed at the protestation of ignorance the right hon. Gentleman made as to some events that had taken place during the election. Therefore it is just possible that the right hon. Gentleman is ignorant of what took place in one constituency. I know that probably the great majority of Members who are here present are perfectly well aware of this instance, but there may be one or two who are not, and possibly the Leader of the House may be one of them. I do not think that the English language can adequately supply a word which would stigmatise the abominable way in which the recent election was fought in the New-market Division of Cambridgeshire. The Liberal candidate in that division was a gentleman named Rose. Mr. Rose had only three sons, and all of them volunteered to the front. Two were killed, and the third got enteric fever. His father went out to nurse his only remaining son, and this so-called Unionist party put about the walls of that constituency a placard in which they represented Mr. Rose in the figure of a man with a rose as his head, pulling down the Union Jack, and announcing that he was a pro-Boer. A figure of ex-President Kruger was standing beside him helping to pull down the Union Jack. On the same placard was a figure of the Unionist candidate, and another representing Lord Salisbury, 160 pulling at a second rope trying to keep up the Union Jack. I am not going to bring charges against the legitimate Tories who are in the Cabinet. I see a representative of the Government here, the newly appointed Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, an appointment which I hope he will allow me to congratulate him upon, and which I believe has given great satisfaction. I believe Lord Salisbury has had a son at the front—a very clever son who has been risking his life. Go through the legitimate Tory party, and you will find that all of them have risked something for the cause—all except the Birmingham gang; and it is that gang which has brought those charges of treason—the most scandalous that can be brought against any politician. It is they who have embittered the politics of this country, and I venture to say that the time will come, and will come within the next two or three years, when the whole of this country will be sick and disgusted at the calumny and corruption that have been introduced into the politics of this country.
§ * SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT (Sheffield, Ecclesall)I venture to think that a great deal of the discussion to-night has been singularly futile. The question as to whether the General Election was taken at a time fair or desirable is surely a question of the past. The country gave a decision which was unmistakable, and that decision, I believe, was based not, as has been said this evening, upon the past record of either party, but upon the fact that the people of England and Scotland realised, with that commonsense which has always marked their decisions at a great crisis, that it would be absolutely unwise to trust the settlement of this great African question to a party so hopelessly divided as the party opposite—a party, moreover, without a leader or a policy. The decision has been made, and it is unmistakable. I do not propose, however, to deal with this subject to-night. We have all listened with the greatest possible interest, and I venture to say with considerable admiration for its ability, to the speech of the right hon. the Leader of the Opposition—a speech which will certainly rank very high among the speeches delivered in this House. During the last session of Parliament I rigidly abstained from saying any- 161 thing whatever about the war or the question of South Africa generally. I thought it undesirable to do so, though I had some right to speak on the subject, because I had seen something of the war, and had for many years devoted considerable study to South African matters. But I felt that until the war was practically settled it would be wrong, in the national and imperial interest, to indulge incriticism which might possibly have the effect of weakening the force of the party and of the Government which, in my humble judgment, were alone able to carry this question to a satisfactory settlement. But I think that the time for silence may now be considered to be passed, and that we shall be justified in addressing some criticisms with regard to the conduct of the war and the policy of the Government in South Africa. I do not propose to say much on this subject to-night. I think there will be other more favourable opportunities later on. I believe it is the general wish of the House that the debates before Christmas should not be protracted, and that the House should be able to rise as soon as possible. I would only indicate one or two questions to which I think the country will expect, and which it has a right to demand, an answer. This war has been costly, both in human life and in treasure, beyond all expectation, and I believe that one of the principal reasons for its great length and the great sacrifices of both life and money has been the fact that our military forces before President Kruger's ultimatum were not sufficiently strong in South Africa. I think we have a right to ask the Government why the demands that we have reason to believe were made by the military, and perhaps by the political authorities, for the reinforcements before the Boers made their attack, were denied to them. I think we have also the right to know—though this is perhaps more a military question—from the right hon. Gentleman who is now present on the Front Bench, and who was the mouthpiece of the sentiment, why the extraordinary mistake was made of advising that infantry should be sent out rather than mounted men. [Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman sent a telegram.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI did not interfere in the military question at all.
§ * SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTI have not got the telegram by me, but I have a very distinct recollection of his sending a telegram to one of the principal colonies—I think it was to Canada— saying that infantry rather than mounted men were desired.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI was only the mouthpiece. I asked for both.
§ * SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTExactly what I said. I said I presumed it was a military matter, and that he was acting under advice. Now he accepts my view of it. Another question which I would press very much on the House has already been dealt with by the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean, and that is why there have been no inquiries or no courtmartials—or, at all events, why we have no knowledge of such tribunals—with regard to some of those most regrettable, and I venture to say, most disgraceful disasters which have occurred during the war. I do think that the course which, so far as we know, has been taken with regard to such surrenders as Nicholson's Nek, Sanna's Post, Roodeval, Lindley, and Dewetsdorp the other day, are events which call for the closest examination in the interests of the Army. I am not speaking from a desire for punishment, but in the interests of these men who have done their duty and sacrificed themselves. It is most desirable that some such inquiry should have taken place. It is most clearly laid down in the Army Regulations that there shall be a court martial or inquiry in every case of the surrender of any considerable body of men in the field; and, therefore, we should like to know whether these inquiries have been held, and if not, why not. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition made a statement in regard to charges of cruelty against our own forces, which, as the Leader of the House has pointed out, met with the general consensus of the House, and he showed a most laudable disinclination to make himself responsible for these charges. I am satisfied from what I saw during four months of the conduct of the war and of our soldiers in South Africa that these charges are absolutely false. I was present at some of the most interesting phases of the war—the march from the Modder River to Paardeburg, the surrender of General Cronje, and 163 other engagements—and I believe that what the Leader of the Opposition has stated with regard to our soldiers and officers is true—that, if anything, they are too soft-hearted in war, that their whole conduct, their ideals, and practice of life, render the charges made against them absolutely unfounded and impossible of belief. I venture to say that when these charges are brought into thorough examination—the examples, for instance, given by the right hon. Member for Montrose in the papers, and those adduced by certain Boer officers now prisoners at Simonstown—they will be found to amount to very little. Certain farms have been burned, but it must be remembered that a Boer farm does not very much resemble a farm in other parts of the world, and the damage done would be comparatively slight. These farms are generally built of cement or stone, and the furniture is exceedingly rough. The reason why there may have been so much burning is that the hidden ammunition is almost always stored in the roof, and in cases of rapid movement it is almost impossible that it can be got at except by setting fire to the roof. It will be found that the amount of damage done in money value is very slight and easy to repair. I pass over the sniping of our troops, the abuse of the white flag, the treachery of the inhabitants of the farms, the giving of information to the enemy, etc., but would point out that the cases given by the Dutch officers related to a single district round Winburg, where partisan and guerilla warfare is particularly active, and where there have been many cases of the treacherous use of the white flag. I say again that our troops are wholly incapable of the offences brought against them. I think it is possible that more may be done to bring an end to this unfortunate guerilla warfare by allowing the Boer leaders and the Boer forces still under arms to know if it is possible—I do not pretend on this matter to offer any decision on the military question—to assure them that if they laid down their arms they would not be deported from the Transvaal, and that the mortgages on their farms would not be foreclosed, and that they would not be treated with severity. That might have a very great effect. I feel, however, that the decision of this question should be left in the 164 hands of those on the spot. I have the most absolute confidence in Sir Alfred Milner. I believe everyone who knows him, who has seen his work, who has watched his career and his conduct of affairs in South Africa, has that absolute confidence. He is one of the most moderate, one of the ablest and most statesmanlike men in the whole Imperial service. If Sir Alfred Milner is of opinion that the present course is the best to bring the war to a conclusion I am satisfied he is right. Again, I have absolute confidence in the leaders of the Army, especially in Lord Kitchener. The charges made against Lord Kitchener of cruelty and injustice are absolutely false. I believe Lord Kitchener is a thorough, perhaps a stern, but not a cruel soldier. No charges of injustice and cruelty against non-combatants have ever been proved against Lord Kitchener. I believe a certain idea prevalent of Lord Kitchener's severity is largely due to the fact that the Dervish forces suffered severely at Omdurman. That victory was due to Lord Kitchener's brilliant strategy, but the great Dervish loss was principally owing to the tactics of the Khalifa and to the reckless daring of the misguided Dervishes. I repeat that a great deal of the impression which exists as to Lord Kitchener's severity is based on a wrong assumption. I wish to say a few words about China, which is the only other subject mentioned in the Queen's Speech beside South Africa. We know very little of what is going on in China; but we do know that a great many most serious mistakes have been made there. We know, in the first place, that the Government unfortunately delayed moving troops for the relief of the embassies until almost too late. We know that they delayed their invitation to Japan to carry out the relief almost until too late. If Japan had been invited six weeks earlier, as might have been done in conjunction with one or two other Governments who were willing to press the same policy, the whole of this most difficult, most dangerous, and in many ways most horrible campaign in China might have been avoided. However, the opportunity was lost; and owing to the belief which the Government have professed in what I have before described as the most mischievous of all fictions, the Concert of Europe, we have been led 165 into a combined expedition into China, which, so far, has been of no advantage to this country, and which the more it is examined will prove to be more mischievous and full of peril for the future. The Concert of Europe, happily, has now, except in name, been practically abandoned, although no doubt that will be denied, and the Government have substituted for it an agreement or alliance with Germany and with other Powers in regard to China. They have recurred to the policy which Lord Beaconsfield twenty-two years ago carried out with such signal success in the settlement of the Russo-Turkish question. If that understanding is a practical one, and carried out with courage to a proper conclusion, it will be satisfactory to China. I congratulate the Government heartily on the agreement with Germany. I was sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean speak in the disparaging way he did of an alliance with a great military Power.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKENo.
§ * SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTThe right hon. Gentleman has previously spoken in the same sense.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKEWhat I said was that the Secretary for the Colonies had set up an alliance with a great military Power as against a higher standard for the fleet; and that I personally preferred a higher standard for the fleet.
§ * SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTIt is very difficult to corner the right hon. Gentleman, who for the last twenty years has never lost an opportunity of sneering and snarling at a possible German alliance—he having once tried to bring about an alliance with France and Russia.
§ * SIR CHARLES DILKENever.
§ * SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTMy recollection is different from that of the right hon. Gentleman. I refer to this matter not from any feeling against the right hon. Gentleman, or from any desire to obtain an advantage over him in debate, but to enable the House to appreciate the fact that he is always agitating against a 166 German alliance. Well, we have got a. German alliance, and we have seen one of the benefits of it in the fact that the German Emperor has declined to receive President Kruger at a very critical moment. This alliance with the stable German Monarchies is the true policy for this country. The Concert of Europe; is impossible. It cannot exist. You cannot have a real Concert between Powers like England and Russia or Germany and France, whose interests are diverse. You have a mere superficies, a mere pretence of a Concert which does not exist, which deludes the Government and the people, which informs our enemies of our aims, and gives them a lever for counter-working us. If you substitute for that Concert a real alliance or understanding with Germany, as I believe can also be done with Japan and with the United States, then; you have an alliance with the dominant force not only in the East, but elsewhere, and you can practically impose your policy on China. It is pretty clear that Russia realises that Her Majesty's Government are in possession, of that dominant force, although she and. France have pretended to fall in with the; conditions of the Anglo-German agreement. Now the point I wish to bring, before the House is this: that if this German agreement for any settlement of the Chinese question is to be really permanent, if it is to save China and protect British interests, you must prevent the permanent possession of Manchuria by Russia. The right hon. Gentleman I have quoted said that it was the fashion last session to declare that Manchuria is lost. Sir, the possession of Manchuria by Russia does not merely represent the possession of a certain tract of territory. The gravity of its possession by Russia is this: that Russia always, imposes her military conscription on every country she conquers; and from among, the ten millions of hardy Manchurians she could in ten years raise a splendid army, led and officered by Russians, which could overrun the central provinces; of China—in fact the whole of China. It would be almost impossible for any European Power, or combination of Powers, to resist the sturdy, armed population of Manchuria, drilled and led by Russian officers. That is the danger. And that danger, small now, will be increased tenfold the moment the Trans- 167 Siberian Railway is completed, for then Russia will be able to transport troops, guns, munitions, supplies, etc., across Asia to any extent. If this Anglo-German agreement is intended to stop Russia obtaining that advantage, then it is a most efficient instrument, and the country will owe Her Majesty's Government a debt of gratitude for having carried it into effect. I want to say one word about the way in which the campaign in China has been conducted. I think it is most regrettable—and this is one of the reasons I deplore our association with some other countries—that we read of the exceedingly cruel brutality with which this campaign has been carried on by some of the allies. I do not believe our own forces have been guilty of these crimes, but there is no doubt that there have been wholesale massacres, looting and plunder of every kind in the north of China. There have been massacres deliberately committed by the Russian troops, which are almost without parallel in modern times. We know what an outcry was raised against another Eastern Power—Turkey— during the Armenian troubles. We remember how the ruler of Turkey, and his army generally, were denounced because of what are called the Armenian massacres—denounced a whole year before the massacres took place. I confess with some feeling of shame that these horrible events in China have been passed over with hardly a comment by the Press or the Government. I have amassed evidence which proves beyond doubt that in a vast territory, five hundred miles in extent, the whole population, men, women and children, have been wiped out. The evidence is so strong that it cannot be denied. We have it from the Belgians, from the French, from the Americans, and English officers, all of whom have been eye-witnesses; but I will only quote what has been said by a Belgian eyewitness. He says, in a private letter home—
The scenes I have witnessed, during the three days since the steamer left Blagovetschensk, are horrible beyond all powers of description. 2,000 Chinese were deliberately drowned at Narxo, 2,000 at Rabe, and 8,000 in and around Blagovetschensk. Navigation was all but impossible. Every moment the boat had to plough her way through a tangled, mangled mass of corpses, strung and lashed together with their long hair. The river banks were literally covered with them … There is not a village left. The silence of death was around us.168 We are demanding at this moment the punishment of Chinese who took part in the massacre of 200 or 300 Europeans. Those massacres were horrible, and certainly demand condign punishment, but what must the Chinese think of those people— of those countries who are associated with such a country as Russia—when they find punishment of the Chinese criminals is demanded of them, whilst no mention is made of the punishment of Russian officers who have ordered the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Chinese? That is an inconsistency which must attract the Chinese world, and I think that is a reason for abandoning association with a Power guilty of such acts. I did not have the advantage, being absent from the House at the time, of hearing the speech of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but I congratulate him upon the position he now occupies. I hope the Anglo-German agreement may be effective. I understand the position with regard to the Shan-hai-Kwan Railway has now changed, and the possession held by Russia is only temporary. But we have had similar things happen before with regard to the railways both at Tien Tsin and Shan-hai-Kwan. Both of those railways were seized by the Russians in defiance of international rights, and one: only has been given up. But many things of this kind are occurring, the effects of which are most serious to this country. I allude to the insults put upon our flag and upon our soldiers by the Russians. It is possible, no doubt, to exaggerate events of this character, but hardly in this case. These offences are done with a motive. If we had English troops there it would not much matter, but they are Indian troops; and if these affronts are allowed to continue and we allow the Russians to march before us through Peking, there is no knowing what the influence may be upon our Indian soldiers. I trust that we shall soon be rid of this mischievous conjunction with certain other Powers in China, which can only tend to injure China and to diminish British credit and power.
§ * MR. JOHN ELLIS (Nottinghamshire, Rushcliffe)I do not propose to follow the hon. Member who has just sat down in his wide survey. His views are well known to us, and receive the respect that they deserve in this assembly. I have taken part in the business of this 169 House for a number of years in various capacities, but I think, nay, I am sure, that it is the first time I have ever troubled the House with words of mine upon a matter which had a personal element in it. If I do so now it is because I believe the matter of which I am going to speak has more than a personal element in it. I rise to call the attention of the House of Commons to the publication, since the last Parliament rose, of certain letters in a Parliamentary paper, headed: "The Correspondence relating to the Recent Political Situation in South Africa." Now, the first time that this matter came before the attention of the public of this country (not the first time it came to the attention of the public elsewhere; I do not propose to speak to-night of what happened at Cape Colony) was in the House of Commons on 3rd August, rather late in the session—within a week, in fact, of its termination.* On the 3rd of August the Ion. Member for Wandsworth—who, I believe, again represents that constituency in the present Parliament—had a question on the Notice Paper. The hon. Member for Sheffield, who has just sat down, also had a question on the Paper, as also had my hon. friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil. The hon. Member for Wandsworth asked if certain documents—
had been discovered during the search of the Government offices at Pretoria affecting certain Members of the House of Commons and other politicians who have taken a prominent part in the agitation in this country in favour of the Boers; whether there is any information he can give to the House on the subject, without detriment to the public interest; if such documents have been found, whether they will be laid before Parliament; and whether Her Majesty's Government are in possession of any correspondence between British Members of Parliament and Transvaal authorities; and, if so, whether it can be laid upon the Table."The right hon. Gentleman in his reply used this language—I do not propose to read the whole of his reply, but that part which is germane to the matter—When the Boer Governments fled from Bloemfontein and Pretoria they left behind them in the archives a mass of private correspondence.He then went on to indicate the character of some of these letters, and said—It includes copies of a number of letters purporting to have been written by an English* See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. 1xxxvii., p. 630 (3rd August); p. 904 (7th August); p. 1006 (8th August).170M.P. Her Majesty's Government have also in their possession copies of letters, and an extract of a letter purporting to have been written by two other M.P.'s. Two of them were dated just before the outbreak of war; the other is a request couched in a form which is certainly open to criticism for information respecting martial law.The right hon. Gentleman then used some other language which I do not quote, and concluded by saying—I propose to send them in the first instance to the alleged writers and ask if they desire to offer any explanation. Her Majesty's Government will wait their reply before deciding on the question of publication.Four days after, on 7th August, he whom I regret to call Sir Wilfrid Lawson, and whom we should still like to be able to call the hon. Member for Cockermouth, had a question down on the Paper. The right hon. Gentleman again replied—Copies of the letters attributed to these gentlemen were only sent to them last night, and I have had no time to receive an answer.On the next day, the 8th August, the debate on the Appropriation Bill took place, and, as it proved, was the last opportunity of speaking or doing anything in that Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman, in reply to criticisms made by one or two hon. Gentlemen in this matter, said—We cannot govern the time at which a matter of this kind becomes public property; but as we only received this correspondence from Bloemfontein a very few days ago—the first part only a fortnight ago—and as we were told there was more to come, my own idea was that we should wait until we had the whole of the alleged correspondence in our hands before coming to any conclusion.And he concluded by saying—As soon as we can get the replies we will come to an immediate decision as to whether the correspondence should be published or not.There was some other correspondence, but that is all that is material, and, as I have said, the session concluded on that day. Before passing from this I should like to say, both on the 3rd and 8th of August the right hon. Gentleman gave a sort of paraphrase of one or two of the letters, and he did not confine himself to that; he made use of language with reference to the merits of the letters, and, in fact, indicated his opinion of them; he did not quote the letters, but 171 used language of his own to describe them. The next stage was the publication of the Parliamentary paper to which I have alluded, which was divided into four sections. The first section contains four letters from the Chief Justice of Cape Colony, the Right Hon. Sir Henry de Villiers, a man whose name I cannot mention in this House without paying him the highest tribute of respect that it is possible to pay. The second section contains four letters from Mr. Merriman; the third contains certain letters of Mr. Le Water; and the fourth the correspondence of the Members of the Imperial Parliament. Now I take first the four letters from the Chief Justice of Cape Colony. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, in one of his election speeches, said that when the letters came into the hands of the Government he sent the letters to the Chief Justice of Cape Colony, asking his consent to their publication, and got it. Two questions I wish to ask with regard to those letters. In the first place, why was his consent asked and the consent of no other person asked as to the publication of this correspondence? Why was there any differentiation made between one person and another, and why, if his consent was asked, did not the Colonial Secretary publish his letter asking the consent of the Chief Justice with the reply which he received? In that reply the Chief Justice may have made suggestions in the letter giving his consent. He may have thought if he did not give consent his action might have been misconstrued in Cape Colony and in this country, and he may have suggested to the Colonial Secretary that all the correspondence, of which these four letters were only a part, should be published. That is my first question. Now the next case is that of Mr. Merriman; in that case consent was neither asked for nor obtained. Why was not the same policy pursued in that case? Mr. Merriman thirty years ago performed the duties of a Minister in Cape Colony, and has many times since been a Minister there. Why was not consent asked from him? I must also call attention to the action of the Governor of Cape Colony. Mr. Merriman was in constant association, as a member of the Ministry, with the Governor of Cape Colony, and yet, all the time, the Governor had in his pocket the private letter of Mr. Merriman, which he subsequently sent to the Secretary of State 172 for the Colonies. Can you find in the long roll of Colonial Governors any one who would have stooped to a thing of that kind—who, having such a letter in his pocket written by one of his own Ministers, sends it home behind his back and without his knowledge f Now I turn to the fourth section, which contains the letters written by the Members of the Imperial Parliament. One of those has disappeared. [Ministerial cheers.] I was prepared for that cheer, but two of them have not disappeared. [Opposition cheers.] I am one-of those Members, and I propose to deal with my share in this transaction. The right hon. Gentleman did me the honour to write me a letter—Downing Street, 6th August, 1900. Sir,— I beg to call your attention to the enclosed copy of an extract from a letter containing what purports to be a letter written by you, and to enquire if you desire to offer any explanations or observations with regard to it.I think I need not trouble the House with the enclosure contained in that letter. I do not dwell upon the question, of whether this is a correct copy of the extract from my letter. I take it the Colonial Secretary, as a man of honour, would not send me an extract unless it was accurately copied in this Parliamentary paper. I replied to the Colonial Secretary in these terms—8th August. Sir,—Your letter dated the 6th inst., with its enclosure, has reached me here to-day. The extract to which my attention is drawn appears to speak for itself. It occurred, I think—for I did not keep a copy— in a private letter, written by me in response to communications with respect to censorship and martial law in South Africa, and requests to bring certain alleged incidents before Parliament. I pointed out to the sender that the statements lacked precision, etc., and, so far as I recollect, summed up the matter in the extract forwarded in your letter.I have giver, a good deal of consideration to the matter, and I think now, as I thought then, that the extract speaks for itself. I am bound to confess that it was in my mind when I first received the right hon. Gentleman's letter to deny his right to ask me to explain, but I did not wish to expose myself to what no doubt would have been a certain risk of misconception, so I wrote these lines. That is the story so far. Now I should like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for the protest he raised to-night, not for the first time, against the publication of private 173 correspondence, and I protest in the most emphatic manner against a Government Department publishing private correspondence. The Postmaster General himself cannot publish private correspondence; he has to obtain the authority of one of the Secretaries of State even for seizing it. The sanctity and inviolability of the mail-bags is enshrined in Acts of Parliament. The rules are most close and strict. I sat as a member of a Committee to inquire into the business of the Post Office, and it was brought very forcibly to my mind at that time. Old Members of this House will remember that few things have ever excited so much indignation in this country as disclosures of the rifling of mail-bags or the seizing and opening of letters by the authorities of the Post Office. The Government may, after due formalities, go to the Post Office and open letters for the preventing of crime; but though they can seize letters they cannot publish them. I shall probably be told that these letters were seized under martial law for military purposes. But can anyone honestly pretend that this Parliamentary paper was issued for military objects, or the prevention of crime? No, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman gave himself away on that point, because on the 3rd of August he entered into a dissertation as to the merits of these letters, and by so doing at once put them upon a political plane. I say that the publication of this extract of a private letter from me to a personal friend in Cape Colony is a wanton violation of constitutional usage and most unprecedented in its nature. I now turn to the use which has been made of it. At the end of August the campaign of calumny, I think I am justified in calling it, commenced. At a small meeting held in my constituency a not very prominent M.P., who has now disappeared, like many others at the General Election, said Mr. Ellis had been false to his oath and a traitor to his Queen and country. That was the key-note struck, and the same note was echoed by the press, and then what happened all through the election? There were leaflets and pamphlets and placards—the hon. Member for Torquay, whom I am glad to welcome to-night, had as his opponent a young man who actually published in his address that I had been giving the enemies of this country—the Boers—advice. [Cheers.] Somebody cheers that, 174 but where do you find it here in this extract? A remarkable thing about these leaflets and placards was that they did not come into my own constituency; I suppose they did not dare to send them there. One thing I am surprised at is this: the right hon. Gentleman sent congratulatory telegrams and addresses to various candidates, but he did not send one to the gentleman who was opposing me. If he had done so it would have been worth its weight in gold to me. I will say this: that although in the constituency I represent these things were not circulated against me, it did make my blood boil that in the town in which I was born, and for which my grandfather sat in this House fifty years ago as its honoured representative, I should have been branded as a traitor to my country. I have to thank the Member for Leicester, who sits on the other side of the House, for at once withdrawing the placard on his attention being called to it. The present Secretary of State for War made an allusion to my conduct which was entirely erroneous, but upon my calling attention to it he immediately withdrew it and expressed his regret. That was conduct to be expected of a Secretary of State, and it is conduct which I am glad to say is still sometimes seen. The charges may be summed up in these words: that at the time when delicate negotiations were pending I invited and requested a damaging stream of facts, that I have been in treasonable correspondence with the enemy, that I have given advice to the enemies of our country, and that in fact I was a traitor. Anyone who desires to form any judgment or express any opinion as to my conduct or action with regard to this extract must, I respectfully submit, inform himself on three points—to whom was the letter addressed, where was the letter containing the extract seized by the authorities, and what was the matter and substance of the extract. The letter was addressed to a certain Mrs. Solly, an English lady in Cape Colony, a friend of my own, who married there a gentleman who occupied a high position on the Cape railways. Where was the letter seized? Now I come to a point to which I wish to call the particular attention of the House. On the 3rd August the right hon. Gentleman, in his reply to the question, spoke of the archives of Bloemfontein 175 and Pretoria, and of a mass of private correspondence found there. On the 8th of August he mentioned correspondence from Bloemfontein, and on the 28th September he said these letters were found at Bloemfontein. Now I cannot emphasise this point too much, and I want every man who listens to me at this moment to bear in mind dates. Bloemfontein was occupied and taken possession of by Lord Roberts and his forces on the 13th of March this year, and the letter was written by Mrs. Solly, forwarding the extract on the 5th of June. Weeks before the letter was written we were in possession of Bloemfontein. If the letter was found at Bloemfontein it must have been taken there by the British authorities, because they were in possession twelve weeks before. If it was not found at Bloemfontein why mix it up in a statement made in this House with a mass of private correspondence found at Bloemfontein? The extract from my letter was never outside Cape Colony at all. It was found between Cape Town and Lady Grey. I cannot emphasise this point too much, because half the charges against me fall to the ground. As to the matter and substance of my request, I had received during February, March, and April, from this lady, who is an enthusiastic philanthropist, a large number of statements in regard to alleged occurrences in Cape Colony which had horrified Tier. In May, I sat down and wrote her a private letter. It was written under the stress of a great deal of work. It was not written with any great care as to expression. In it I summed up my advice. I told her in that letter that such statements as she was sending to me were useless for Parliamentary purposes. I see hon. Gentlemen cheering. Does not that show that I was desirous not to trouble Parliament with anything irrelevant? I want to call attention to this specific matter. What I allude to in that extract relates not to military acts in relation to the enemy at all. It relates to acts alleged to have been done by the Government or its agents in places under its control. Then the right hon. Gentleman tenders me advice, and I appreciate it. He said at Bilston, on 28th September—If Mr. Ellis had asked for the truth about anything he had heard it would have been different, but he asked for a stream of facts.176 Is he quite sure I did not ask for the truth previously in the letter? I summed up by asking a stream of facts as to particular points. The right hon. Gentleman brought the thing to a climax when he said—Even now, if Mr. Ellis will say he made a mistake and he regrets what he wrote, he himself would not be inclined to press hardly upon him.I did not respond to that kind invitation, and I do not now respond to it. My conscience is perfectly clear; I made no mistake, and I have no regret to express to the right hon. Gentleman or to anybody else. The right hon. Gentleman really misconceived his position when he used those words. The fact that in 1895 and again in 1900 Lord Salisbury recommended him to the Queen for the high and onerous office of Secretary of State for the Colonies gave him no title whatever to ask his colleagues in this House to express regret for their mistakes. The whole constitution of Parliament is that we are all on a level here, and the Speaker treats us as such. I pass from the personal matter to the wider aspects of this subject. An English Member of Parliament is requested by an English lady to bring certain alleged matters before this House. He takes no notice for some time, but at last he writes the letter containing the extract which had been quoted. Is a man to be pilloried as a traitor for writing a letter like that? How does such action bear on the rights and duties and responsibilities of a Member of this House? This is the High Court of Parliament. The redress of grievances is one of its primary duties. Our ear should be open to the cry of wrong and suffering from any of Her Majesty's subjects. I remember the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton reminding us all that we were Members for India, in fact, though not in name, and that we were bound to listen to the cry of the oppressed people of India. You, Sir, at the bar of the House of Lords only two days ago claimed for the Members of this House all our ancient rights, freedom of speech, freedom from arrest, and free access to the Crown, not for the private interests of the Members, but for the public good. For what was the machinery of our Committees devised? To inquire, to investigate, to probe, and to gather a 177 stream of facts. Is there any obligation more incumbent upon the Members of Parliament than to test the stories brought to them, to prove whether they are accurate or inaccurate before he troubles the House of Commons with them? Is a Member who writes a purely personal letter to be pilloried and to have it published in the way I have described in a Parliamentary paper? Such a state of things has only to be put into English to prove that it cannot be tolerated for a single moment. We have heard a great deal of the new diplomacy being inconvenient. I think the new electioneering is scandalous. On one occasion the right hon. Gentleman said he thought he might leave it to the constituencies of these hon. Gentlemen to deal with these matters. My constituency has dealt with the matter. A good many more than 6,000 men in Nottinghamshire declared that the man it sent to this House should have uninterrupted and unrestricted power to gather a stream of facts with respect to matters affecting the public. But I am not responsible only to them. I am a Member of this high and honourable assembly, and have been for a good many years. This is not a party matter after all, and I acknowledge with the utmost gratitude the letters that have come to me and the remarks that have been addressed to me even in the last few days by hon. Members sitting in all parts of the House. The last few weeks have tried me in some ways, but they have revealed an amount of kindness and generosity among my fellow-countrymen which I shall remember to the end of my days. I assure the House that I have no higher ambition in life than to endeavour to the best of my ability to do nothing, to say nothing, even to think nothing, that is unworthy of a Member of this high assembly.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINMr. Speaker, I think the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is justified in claiming the attention of the House in order to give an explanation as to his personal position in reference to the matter he has brought before us. He is entitled to make any explanation he thinks fit, and, of course, to ask questions of the Government with regard to the matter of which he complains. I will endeavour to give him a full answer, though I am not certain that it will be a satisfactory answer to him; 178 but I am bound to bear in mind that the hon. Gentleman is not the only Member of the House who, on the first occasion of our meeting after the election, has made an elaborate and carefully-prepared attack upon the Colonial Secretary. I shall have to deal, therefore, with other speeches besides his, and I hope he will not think I am in any way disrespectful to him if I take them in their order. But, meantime I think I owe it to him to say that I for one have never for a moment accused him either of treason to his Queen, or his country, or of any offence of a very serious character. [Cries of "Oh!"] I say I have never done so.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI do not know whether the ignorance that is shown by these interruptions justifies, the slanderous attacks upon me. But, at all events, the interruptions are grossly ignorant. I have never used any strong language whatever about the hon. Gentleman, and I shall probably use stronger language to-night than I have ever done during the course of these events.
§ MR. LOUGHI am entitled to say that on the 22nd of September, speaking, in Birmingham, the right hon. Gentleman applied the word "traitor" to the whole of us.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThe statement of the hon. Gentlemen is inaccurate, but that is a matter I intend to deal with in the course of my remarks. To comeback to the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Rushcliffe Division, I would remind the House that when I referred to the hon. Member's letter in the first instance, I said it was a request, couched in a form which was certainly open to criticism, for information respecting the administration of martial law. That is not an accusation of treason, nor an accusation of a very serious character. I think I was very gentle with the hon. Gentleman, but I certainly had no desire to provoke anything like a personal controversy between him and myself. During the turmoil of the election I had very little time to see what was going on outside my own constituency. [Laughter.] I do not understand why lion. Members laugh. I say I 179 had very little time to see what was going on outside my own: "sphere of influence." I find, myself, when I am speaking every night, almost continuously and at great length, that I have not much time to read the newspapers, and therefore I learned for the first time, with very great regret, from the statement of the lion. Gentleman, that he was the subject of accusations of treason, which certainly I should never have supported, and which I believe to be wholly unjustifiable. I sympathise with him when he says that in his own district, where he has lived so many years, he was the subject of a campaign of calumny— of a conspiracy of vile insinuation. Is there nobody else living in his own district the subject of a campaign of calumny, of a conspiracy of vile insinuation? The right lion. Gentleman the Loader of the Opposition sent down thousands and tens of thousands of leaflets attacking my private character. Not my public action—that is a question upon which everybody is entitled to express an opinion—but my private and personal character were attacked in my own district—in a district where they did not even dare to bring forward a candidate against me, where, if they had brought forward a candidate, he would have gone back smaller than he came. In the meanwhile, what has been the course of this debate? Surely it is an extraordinary thing when we are met for a special purpose—a great and important purpose— which raises many issues, on the first night of this debate, from the right lion. Gentleman who opened it down to the lion. Member opposite, the time of the House has been taken up chiefly with an attack on one member of the Government. I cannot understand it. I cannot understand why gentlemen, who I may assume, from the malignity with which they pursue mo, are enemies of mine, should take such pains to advertise me and recommend me to the confidence of my fellow-countrymen. Of course, they clothe their attacks always under the pretence of public interest. At one time it is in the interest of fair play; at another time it is in the interest of purity of public life; then, again, it is the desirability that there should be no personalities. The case would have been very different indeed if there had been no personalities in the course of the late election. I treat most of these attacks with con-, tempt; I know that many of them are 180 made in a Pickwickian sense, by people who do not believe in them themselves. But, at the same time, I am bound to say it is with an ill grace that those who have lent themselves to attacks of this kind now come to the House of Commons and whine because, forsooth, hard words were used against them in the course of the General Election. Here is the right lion. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. What was part of his speech, with very slight cover—a cover which was removed by the cheers of the gentlemen behind him—directed to? What did it amount to 1 It was a protest against the verdict of the people under cover of an attack upon the Colonial Secretary. It is ludicrous. Suppose that the right hon. Gentleman and his party had been successful, suppose that they had won instead of us, suppose that they had even done what they expected to and had reduced our majority to eighty. Do you suppose you would have heard of "a seat lost to the Government is a seat gained to the Boers," or of any of the other complaints which they make now? No, Sir, it is simply because they are unsuccessful litigants. They complain of the verdict, they complain of the judge and the jury, and, above all, they complain of the prosecuting counsel. The right hon. Gentleman commenced his speech in an admirable manner. He said now the election was over he was not going to rake up episodes of this extinct controversy, he was not going to impute motives, as he was prepared to admit the patriotism of his opponents to be equal to the patriotism of himself and his followers. Yes, and what was the conclusion of this part of his speech? It was that we called for the election and promoted the election at a time which was to our advantage, and that we were animated by a sordid desire to gain a party advantage. [Cheers.] And you cheer him, and you complain of hard language. Well, you shall have the truth.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINwas understood to say that that was the language of a cad. [Cries of "Order, order!" and "Withdraw."]
§ Mr. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy Burghs)On a point of order I wish to ask you, Mi. Speaker, whether it is within the power 181 of a Member of this House to accuse another hon. Member of being a cad?
§ * MR. SPEAKERI did not hear that expression, but if it was used it should be withdrawn. [Cries of "Withdraw."]
§ Mr. DALZIELIt was used.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINWhatever I said was said under irritation caused by a statement which was called across the House that it was the first time that I had told the truth. It was rather in the nature of an ejaculation; but, whatever it was, I desire to withdraw it. The right hon. Gentleman complains of the time at which the election was taken. Well, my right hon. friend the Leader of the House has replied very fully to that allegation. But let me put one other point to the House. What was the state of affairs a few weeks before the election was taken? Why, lion. Gentlemen opposite were declaring, and their newspapers were declaring, that there was a reaction in the country. I remember a leading article in a most influential and able organ of the Opposition. It was headed, "The gilt off the gingerbread," and it stated that the party cry was worn out, that the misconduct of the War Office, that the accusations which were made against our generals and soldiers, and the expense of the war were all producing their effect, and the people of this country would give a very different verdict then to what they would have given a few weeks before, when the relief of Mafeking, and Kimberley, and Ladysmith was announced. Well, Sir, that was a challenge, and a most mischievous challenge. If we had allowed it to pass unnoticed, what effect would such a statement, repeated as it would have been day by day, have been likely to have upon public opinion abroad and in Africa? We did not think public opinion was so fickle as hon. Gentlemen opposite represent it to be. We accepted what was equivalent to a challenge, and we asked for the verdict of the people on the policy we had pursued. We asked for it, and we got it. The verdict was what I for one expected. I have more confidence in the people than hon. Gentlemen opposite, who flatter them at one time when they want something from them, and abuse them afterwards when the verdict is against them; they treat them as the Chinese treat their 182 gods: when good fortune follows them they adore them, but when ill-fortune comes they put them in the rain. The Opposition appeared, only a few weeks before the dissolution, to be anxious to take the verdict of the country on the mismanagement of the Government, which they said existed in every department of the Government, with regard to this war. Why do they complain, then, because we appealed to the people at a time when, in our opinion, it was of the gravest importance that we should stand before the world as really having the nation at our back? When we gave the this opportunity which they desired the note was changed. Before the dissolution we were being criticised every day for the injustice of the war, the policy of the war, and a policy of annexation. How my of the party opposite at the last election stood to those principles? My right hon. friend the Member for Montrose Burghs did certainly. He, with the courage we all know him to possess, although unable to appear personally, put his views in the clearest and most lucid way before the electors, and did not suffer in consequence, and we are glad he is returned again. But how many men followed his example who were pro-Boers? —I do not mean that in an offensive sense. I have never used the word "pro-Boer" in an offensive sense. [Opposition cries of "Oh!"] I have used the word because I know of no other way of describing the thing. A pro-Boer is a man who believes the Boers are right and the English are wrong. How many gentlemen opposite stood as pro-Boers at the recent election? The Leader of the Opposition, forsooth, in his speech to-day—that speech from which all imputations of motive were to be absent—accused us of using patriotism for party purposes. What about Newcastle-upon-Tyne? The Liberal party went about at the last election disguised in khaki in order to turn out Imperialists. To a small extent, no doubt, they succeeded. But on the whole I think the people saw through the plan. They had a plan of campaign, it is evident, because from the moment the dissolution was declared this kind of work was going on in every constituency. In my own district, where we have returned thirty-three Unionists out of thirty-nine Members, we were not opposed by a single man who professed the principles of Little Englanderism, 183 or who professed the principles which were voted for and adopted by one-third at least of the party opposite before the election. When we are accused of an attempt to misrepresent the issues of this election, I reply that the whole plan of campaign of the Opposition was a deliberate attempt to mislead the electors. They complain of my action and language. Why particularly of me? They pay me a great compliment. I think I heard one gentleman who interrupted the Loader of the House to-night say that one phrase which I used, but did not invent, was worth millions of votes to us. It is an extraordinary compliment to pay to any member of any Government or party to say so great an influence is attached to his casual expressions. They complain of my actions and language. I will deal with my actions. What is the action of which they complain? They complain of the publication of the letters. With regard to that I admit that the hon. Gentleman opposite was perfectly entitled to take the course he has done. Whether he has been well advised is a different question. The right hon. Gentleman opposite described the publication of these letters as a most serious offence. He went so far as to say—I am not using his words, but I think he will agree that I do not misrepresent him—that a person who could be guilty of publishing these so-called private letters ought to be cut off from decent society.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI said that he would be in private life.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINWell, that is a very painful thing. I regret deeply that I am to be cut off from the society of the right hon. Gentleman, which I never enjoyed —[Opposition cries of "Oh"]—and from others of his way of thinking. But there are two sides to the question. When you cut off a man from society—well, society cuts itself off from the man. In this case it is not a man, but a Government. Now I challenge the right hon. Gentleman, as I have before challenged him in the country without effect.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANWhen?
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINOh, often. I now challenge him in the House of Commons. This act, he says, is an act 184 which renders the person who committed it unworthy of his society. Very well; it was the act of the Government. Does any one suppose that I would have taken the responsibility in a matter of this importance without consulting my colleagues, with whom I hope I have always acted as loyally as they have acted to me? No, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman cuts himself off from the society of every Member of the Government. His accusation, so far as it is a just one, applies not only to me, but to the Prime Minister, to the Duke of Devonshire, to my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury, and to all my colleagues. That is the first thing I have to say. Perhaps that may give occasion to hon. Gentlemen opposite to reflect whether, after all, an: action which has been taken by such men is necessarily a dishonourable action which justifies the language of the right hon. Gentleman. What were the circum-j stances? The hon. Member for Rushcliffe has given them but incompletely. Let mo complete the story. Certain papers were found at Bloemfontein. The knowledge that those papers had been found got out—how I do not know—in South Africa. Everybody in politics I there know that they had been found, and knew that among them was some correspondence affecting Members of Parliament. That information, which was common property in South Africa for some days and I think for some weeks before any rumour got to this country, was repeated in this country with very great exaggerations, and thereupon I was asked in this House by two Members of Parliament on my own side, and by one on the other side, whether I had in my possession—that is, whether the Government had in their possession—any correspondence of the kind. I gave a reply which was strictly accurate, and in which I endeavoured—I will not say to minimise, but rather to prevent the exaggeration with regard to this matter which had previously prevailed. †
§ * MR. JOHN ELLISWas that reply on August 3rd?
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINYes. I spoke of the correspondence found at Bloemfontein. I said—
I have received instalments of it, but I†See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxvii., page 574; refer also to same Volume, pages 630, 904, 971, 991.185am informed that there is more to oome. The portion that I have seen is all previous to the outbreak of the war, and consists elderly of letters passing between British subjects at the Cape and persons in the two Republics, but it includes copies of two letters purporting to have been written by an M.P. Her Majesty's Government have also—I did not say they were found at Bloemfontein—in their possession copies of letters and an extract of a letter purporting to have been written by two other M.P.'s. Two of them were dated just before the outbreak of the war; the other is a request, couched in a form which is certainly open to criticism, for information respecting the administration of martial law.Then I went on to say—The most interesting feature of the South African correspondence—(that is, the correspondence of Sir Henry de Villiers, and the other gentlemen, which appears in the three first sections of the Blue-book)—is the general admission of substantial grievances and of the necessity for reform. There are, however, some suggestions that President Kruger might make temporary concessions and wait for a reaction in this country. I observe that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil speaks of the correspondence as treasonable —(that was an hon. Member on the other side of the House)—I am, of course, quite unable to give a legal opinion; but so far as my personal opinion is concerned, the letters ascribed to British subjects in this country are not treasonable, but they are not proper letters to be written by British subjects when Her Majesty's Government were engaged in difficult and important negotiations.I stand to every word of that; it is absolutely correct.
§ * Mr. JOHN ELLISWill the right hon. Gentleman allow me to say that no negotiations were going on at the date of the letter containing the extract, namely, 5th June, 1900?
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINNo, certainly not; but that is a purely technical point. I stated distinctly that as to certain letters, they were written before the war. If I had not done so the inference would have been more unfavourable than it was intended to be. I did not state that the hon. Gentleman's extract was written during the war; that might have given a totally wrong impression to the 186 House; it might then have been thought that a letter written at such a time would certainly have been of a treasonable character. Well, that was the answer I gave. I further said that the Government had not decided on the question of publication, and that I intended to send the letters in the first instance to the gentlemen concerned for any explanation they might desire to give. Now the hon. Member did not choose—I do not blame him; he was quite within his Tight—to give any explanation; he said his letter explained itself. We shall see how far that is the case; but to me he gave no explanation. Ho might have given an explanation so satisfactory that it would have been ridiculous to have published the letter. It would have had no public interest or importance whatever. The hon. Member for Northampton published his letter himself. The other hon. Gentleman, who also gave no explanation, simply acknowledged receipt of my communication. The hon. Member for the Rushcliffe division seemed to have forgotten what happened subsequently to the House. I was waiting for an answer to my communication, but, owing to the absence of the hon. Member for Northampton, I did not get his reply for a week or so later.
§ Mr. LABOUCHEREIt was sent after the House had broken up, I think.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINNo, the letter was sent before the House had broken up: it was sent to the hon. Gentleman's office, and I believe his letter—I speak from memory—
§ Mr. LABOUCHEREThe right hon. Gentleman is quite right.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINYou agree? Then I need not pursue that. The delay in publication was entirely owing to the fact that I was not able to get his reply. But what happened? My hope and expectation was that if after receipt of the replies the Government de sided to publish the letters, the whole might be printed and presented in time for the House to express itself upon the subject, and the only reason why it was not possible was because of the absence of the hon. Member for Northampton from the country. What happened, however, was this. On two occasions attacks were 187 made on me, violent attacks, by Sir Wilfrid I Lawson, by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Donegal, by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, and the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy.
§ Mr. DALZIELI beg pardon; I never alluded to the subject.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI think the hon. Gentleman is mistaken.
§ MR. DALZIELI may have asked a question.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThe hon. Gentleman is quite right; ho did not make an attack. I have the exact words. The hon. Member asked—
In the event of the alleged writers refusing permission to publish the letters, as the allegation is a serious one, will the right lion. Gentleman give the public the opportunity of judging of the correspondence hy himself undertaking the responsibility of publishing?Now that is the whole point. I was accused of deliberately withholding the letters, of refusing to publish, in order to damage my political opponents, in order that a General Election might take place with a general suspicion hanging over the heads of all the Liberal Members. The challenge was made to me to publish the papers in order that whatever was in them might be known, and if there was anything wrong that only the Members concerned might suffer, and that there might not be a general feeling that other members of the party were concerned. Under these circumstances I really think that hon. Members are very unreasonable. If we do not publish we are accused of taking a mean, dirty party advantage by placing a whole party under suspicion, and if we do publish we are equally accused of taking a mean, dirty advantage by using private letters for political purposes. Now there is one observation made by the Leader of the Opposition and repeated in a different form by the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division to which I must take emphatic objection. He talks of the sanctity of private letters, and goes on to say that however criminal a private letter may be it ought not to be published. Now this I hold to be a monstrous doctrine. It is contrary to common sense and practice, and it is perfectly absurd. Suppose there had come into our possession a 188 letter from Mr. Kruger to Mr. Stead, are we precluded from publishing it because it is a, private letter? Some of these were witten to Mr. Kruger, and they are not letters as between Boer and Boer. A member of this House wrote to Mr. Kruger and another wrote to Mr. Kruger's agent. What is the difference? Where is the sanctity attaching to letters of that kind? The only question was, Was any public interest to be served by the publication of these letters? And I say, Yes, there was. The letter from Dr. Clark contained a suggestion that the Boers should take the passes. ["No, no," and "Hear, hear."] Oh, yes, that will not do; we all know the significance of the advice, "Don't put him under the pump." The letter said:—I do not desire to advise you or them—this is to "My dear President Kruger"—as to the course which you should pursue. It might strengthen you in this struggle that seems inevitable if you were, to seize all the passes in order to defend yourselves against attack, but if you were to do this I am afraid it would have a had effect morally in this country, and would give rise to accusations that you have been all along intending to commence hostilities in order to have an anti-British South African Republic from the Cape to the Zambesi.[An Hon. MEMBER: That is a clear attempt to dissuade.] If there is any hon. Member who is prepared to defend language like that written by a British Member of Parliament to the President of a State with which we are negotiating in critical circumstances, I do not envy him the task. Although I have not called, in terms at any rate, either Dr. Clark or the hon. Member traitors, I have said that language of the kind they have used in the circumstances amounted to moral treason. But I now come to the other letters. These are letters from Sir Henry de Villiers. The Leader of the Opposition spoke very strongly in the country on that subject, but he spoke less strongly to-night. I had an idea that a Member who says anything against another in the country should repeat it in the same terms in this House. This is what the right hon. Gentleman said in the country—Supposing the letters were criminal, no man has a right when he accidentally came into possession of private letters"—I do not call it accidental; when we find them as prize of war, or when we find 189 them under the military censorship, it is not accidental—to select one, two, or three"—how does he know that I selected one or two?—and to publish them.The right hon. Gentleman makes no imputation of motive; the one thing he desires is moderation and the absence of imputation of motive!
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI did not say that I imputed no motive.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINThe right hon. Gentleman said he was not going to impute any motive in this House—where he could be answered.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANNo, I beg pardon. I rather implied the motive if I did not expressly state it. What I said was that I would use moderation of tone in the language I would employ in describing the act.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINWhatever the intention of the right hon. Gentleman might have been he certainly failed, and if he calls it moderation of language to impute dishonourable conduct to political opponents, and to assert that they are animated by a sordid desire to obtain a party advantage, I do not agree with him. He says—
to publish them because they might happen to do good to his cause and blacken his opponents.This is in reference to Sir H. de Villiers—He saw it publicly stated, and it was not denied—Good Heavens! if it were expected that a Minister should deny every lie, our speeches would have no end—that the nature of the so-called assent of Sir Henry de Villiers—startled, no doubt, as he was— how does the right hon. Gentleman know that he was startled?—at the idea of any public man doing such a thing"—(this is all imaginary and put into the mouth of Sir Henry de Villiers, whom 190 the right hon. Gentleman professes to admire and respect)—'was 'Publish my letter if you like, provided you publish other letters I have written at the same time to Sir A. Milner and others.' Did he receive that letter with that condition? If so, why did they not hear of that letter? Did Mr. Chamberlain stand up at a public meeting and say that an assent given under such conditions was a free assent?The facts are that when I read these letters of Sir Henry de Villiers, for whom I have a respect and an admiration equal with that professed by some hon. Members opposite, I thought they were most creditable to his patriotism, and at the same time that it would be most useful both to the Boers and to British interests that they should be published. I thought that when a man of his well-known character and capacity expressed himself as he did with regard to the merits of the controversy between President Kruger and ourselves it was desirable that his fellow-countrymen should know it, and desirable that we should know it in order that we might appreciate the patriotism he had displayed. I wrote to him a private letter—one of those private letters the sanctity of which the right hon. Gentleman is so anxious to preserve—and I said—These letters have fallen into my hands; I think they are most creditable to you, and I hope you will make no objection to their publication.Sir Henry de Villiers replied to that letter and said that he should not object to the publication, but that I must understand that they wore only part of a correspondence which he had in communications with Mr. Reitz, President Kruger, and Sir A. Milner, and he wished that the whole correspondence could have been published. [Opposition cheers.] Yes, but that is a very different thing from saying that ho made it a condition that the whole correspondence should be published. I wired again to Sir Henry de Villiers, thanking him for his permission, and saying, what was of course the case, that the only letters that were in my possession, the only letters I had ever seen of his, were the four I had submitted to him. I did not know, and I do not know, what he had written to Mr. Reitz, to President Kruger, or to Sir Alfred Milner, and I could 'not have published those letters under any conceivable circumstances, although I have no doubt they would 191 have been equally creditable to Sir Henry de Villiers. I have told the House all the facts. Could I have done more 1 If Sir Henry de Villiers had said, "I object to the publication of those letters," although it would have been a difficult and almost a risky thing to do, I do not hesitate to say I should not have published them. I have such an opinion of Sir Henry de Villiers that, if ho had thought it was undesirable, I should have felt that his opinion ought to have prevailed. But is it not a monstrous thing that in these circumstances the right hon. Gentleman should get up in the country and accuse me of dishonourable conduct, and invent a whole series of imaginary facts for which there is not one atom or one shred of foundation?
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANSir Henry de Villiers did not use the words that the right lion. Gentleman has just imputed to him. Anyone can understand that under the circumstances, it being demanded of Sir Henry de Villiers whether he would object to this publication, it was not open to him to object. [Ministerial cries of "Oh" and "Why?] Of course he could have objected, but ho would have lain subject to the greatest misapprehension. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that you are obtaining a man's consent when you present a pistol to his head?
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINI hope the House will appreciate that. The right hon. Gentleman's explanation has made the matter worse. Where does he get it that I presented a pistol to the head of Sir Henry de Villiers? I asked his permission to publish. I do not know the exact words I used, but I asked, "Have you any objection?" If he had said he had any objection, as I have told the House, I should not have published them. Is that presenting a pistol to his head? Why should he object? What possible reason could Sir Henry de Villiers have for objecting to the publication of the letters? He did not, and I venture to say that his sagacity and character for patriotism and loyalty did him greatest possible credit. Then there were published other letters by other gentlemen, some of them Dutchmen and colonists at the Cape. I did not publish them, as is now insinuated, to blacken their character; on the contrary, I thought, considering 192 that undoubtedly they were all strong partisans of the Boer cause, their letters did them great credit. I am not aware that any single one of them, although Mr. Merriman has objected, has said—I believe they have said exactly the contrary—that he was in any degree ashamed of the letters, or that he thought any harm whatever was done to him by their publication. I published these letters because I thought that it was in the public interest that it should generally known that even those who were, as I said, favourable to the Boer cause thought that President Kruger was wrong in not making the concessions we asked for, that the concessions were reasonable, and that we had offered the olive branch. They expressed their surprise —in some cases more than their surprise—that they had not been accepted and the war prevented. I come now to the letter of the hon. Member for Rushcliffe. Well, in the first place, it is perfectly true the letter was not found at Bloemfontein; it was intercepted by the censor, and sent by Sir Alfred Milner to me. The letter was written to a gentleman who has since been arrested for treason; he may be perfectly innocent—I am not prejudicing the case—but the fact that he was suspected of treason at that time is the reason why his letters were censored, and this letter was, no doubt, censored among others. I will read an extract once more to the House, although I have no doubt it is in their minds. This is the letter the lion. Gentleman wrote——
§ * Mr. JOHN ELLISThe extract—not the letter.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINIf the context in any way affected the words in my possession the hon. Gentleman should have sent it to me as his explanation. He said, "We want a stream of facts." Now that is an extraordinary expression by itself; it is not "We want the facts," but "We want a stream of facts," continually arriving. What about? About the general position in South Africa, or the general conduct of the war, or about a particular case submitted to his correspondent? Not a bit of it
."A stream of facts, concerning suppression of telegrams, opening of letters, arbitrary arrests, unfair trial, unjustifiable prison treatment, interference with free speech at meetings.193 That is to say, we want from you a stream of facts discreditable to the British Administration. And the motive of it is contained in the next sentence. This stream of facts, which are vital——
§ * Mr. JOHN ELLISNo; the right hon. Gentleman must not leave out the words; if he reads the extract he must read it through.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINI beg the hon. Member's pardon. [Opposition cries of "Oh!" and Ministerial cries of "Order!"] It is absurd to suppose that it was not quite unintentional.
§ * MR. JOHN ELLISI agree that it was quite unintentional.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINI thought I had read on. "Interference with free speech at meetings"—I had finished with the things as to which the hon. Gentleman called for a stream of facts. Ho then says—
But much information sent lacks the element of fulness, detail and accuracy which are vital for Parliamentary purposes.I quite understand that the hon. Gentle" man was a searcher after truth, but for Parliamentary purposes; and he is already in the position of a man who has received a number of damaging facts, but they lack the element of fullness, detail, and accuracy. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in the country said that this was a most praiseworthy and reasonable request. Is it a praiseworthy and reasonable thing to ask from anybody—because I have nothing to do with the character either of the lady to whom the letter was addressed or the gentleman to whom she in return replied—is it a praiseworthy or reasonable thing for any man to ask any other man for a stream of facts discreditable to somebody whom he wants to injure? If that were done in private life the person who did it would deserve to lose the society of the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member says I have no right to call upon him to make explanations or to make apologies. Certainly I have none whatever, and if the hon. Member is satisfied with his position—if he is still ready to justify the language which he used —all that I can say is that in that case I think his conduct was not creditable. If 194 he were to say, on the other hand, "These are not exactly the words I should have used if I had been writing in cold blood, and I admit that the letter bears the interpretation that I am asking for the views of one side only," I am quite sure the House and I would not be inclined to take a serious view after such an explanation. The hon. Member rejoices in his letter, confirms his letter, justifies his letter, but I say this is not a letter which I believe even a prosecuting attorney would be justified in writing with regard to a criminal he was prosecuting. You have a right to ask for the truth, and the whole truth, but that was not what the hon. Gentleman asked for. He asked for a stream of facts which he could use in Parliament to damage his opponents. My right hon. friend reminds me that there was another paragraph or sentence, which I have not got here, in which it was stated that the names were to be kept secret.
§ * Mr. JOHN ELLISThat is in the extract as published in the Parliamentary papers.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINBut it is not in the extract I have got here. It is one that I used during the election. Whatever may have been the sort of reports that were coming home, the right hon. Gentleman in one of the most eloquent passages of his speech, in which, I believe, the whole House sympathised, defended British soldiers and British officers against the cruel, wicked, and baseless accusations which have been brought against them and which have been copied into a good number of newspapers in support of the right hon. Gentleman. He, at all events, cleared himself by his disclaimer. But can you wonder, if inquiries of this kind are made, that there are plenty of answers and that people are ready to supply a "stream of facts" when they are asked for them in these terms? I confess myself I always look with the greatest doubt on these anonymous accusations where names are kept secret—anonymous accusations against British soldiers and officers—and I think I can understand how they are procured. The right hon. Gentleman and other speakers have complained not only of my action in regard to the letters, but also of the language I used during the elec- 195 tion. I spoke, I believe, a great number of times. I filled many columns in the papers, and I have not had the pleasure or the interest to read over any of those speeches since. But I am prepared, notwithstanding, to stand substantially by every word I said. I say substantially, because it is possible that in the hurry of a great deal of impromptu speaking a word may have slipped in here and there which was not intended, or that my speeches may not have been in particular parts as lucid as they should have been. One difficulty with which I had to deal in all my speeches was the character of the Opposition. We have not to deal with one Opposition. We have to deal with six, and, accordingly, when one is speaking at a public meeting of what one section of the Opposition has done it is always possible—I do not know whether it did occur—that I may have confused one with the other, that I may not have made it perfectly clear that I was applying to one section only words which I certainly should not have been inclined to apply to the rest. The right hon. Gentleman did not accuse me, but he said generally, I think, that the whole of the Opposition had been accused of being traitors.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANMost of us traitors.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINI ask who accused you? Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that I accused him 1 Does he mean any one else?
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANIt is not usual to discuss these matters like an Old Bailey cross-examination. I have in my recollection a speech of the right hon. Gentleman at Birmingham when he spoke of two-thirds of the Opposition being traitors and desiring the success of the enemies of their country.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINI beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon for daring to cross-examine him. I wanted to know what I was to reply to. Now I do know, and I am perfectly satisfied. He was referring to my speech at Birmingham, on 22nd September. My attention was called to that speech by a newspaper, and it is the only speech of mine at which I have looked for a second time. I must admit that there is a certain want of lucidity in the report, and I have no 196 doubt that it is correct, but I would even appeal to the right hon. Gentleman who is my accuser to read that speech as a whole and I am perfectly certain that he will see clearly that I was not so foolish—I will not use any other word—as to accuse him or the majority of the Opposition of being traitors. I never had it in my mind to do anything of the kind; and if I appeared to do so, I will explain to the right hon. Gentleman how it occurred, and I hope he will excuse me if he has been misled by my want of lucidity. I was speaking of the writers of the letters —of those particular letters which I have already stated to the House were, in my opinion, morally treasonable; and afterwards, in a kind of parenthesis, I went on to speak of the position of the rest of the Opposition. Then I did say of those men, "I will not call them traitors, I will call them misguided individuals." But what I wish to explain is that in that part of the speech I was speaking of the gentlemen who were in direct communication with our opponents.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANHow about the two-thirds?
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINI will point out what I said about the two-thirds. I have spoken with some indignation about them. I have said again and again that the last important division which we had in the House of Commons showed that the Opposition was divided into three parties; that one party was professedly pro-Boer and Little Englander; that another, under the guidance of the right hon. Gentleman, sat upon the fence; and that the third section commonly described themselves as Liberal Imperialists, but had not given us any assistance in the critical period immediately before the war. As regards these two-thirds, and especially as regards the right hon. Gentleman, I said again and again that by their speeches and action they encouraged the Boers to believe—though they did not intend it, they did as a fact encourage the Boers to believe that there was a large party in this country, including two-thirds of the Opposition, to whom they might look for support and who were opposed to anything in the nature of war, or preparation for war.
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI am rather in doubt as to the phrase which the right hon. Gentleman used. 197 The right hon. Gentleman says that he did not intend this dreadful thing. But I think he went on to say that we desired the success of the enemies of our country.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINNo, Sir. I certainly should not have said that of the right hon. Gentleman. But now he reminds me, I may have said, not of him personally, but of Members of the Opposition, that they desired the success of the diplomacy of the Boers rather than of our own. Why, they have always condemned my diplomacy; and some of them have stated and still state that the Boers were in the right. Appealed to by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House to say whether the war was a just war, the right hon. Gentleman opposite replied "No."
§ Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI said that I never said it was just.
§ Mr. J. CHAMBERLAINThe right hon. Gentleman is thoroughly consistent. But the man who believes that the war is an unjust war is still justified to his conscience in wishing success to the diplomacy of the party which is in the right rather than to the diplomacy of the party which is in the wrong. But the issue which I endeavoured to press upon the people of this country was that in the state of the Opposition, divided as it was, with only one-third of it heartily in favour of the policy which I believe to be the national policy, it would have been nothing else than a disaster to commit to that party the conduct of affairs, the prosecution of the war and the settlement after the war. Who are my accusers? Who are the gentlemen who complain that I used strong language? The gentlemen who, two or three days before the election, and down to the very end of it, entered into a perfect conspiracy of insinuation and charges against myself and against those who are nearest to me. I will not speak of that now, because I shall, perhaps, have another opportunity. Look for a moment—drop all allusions to personal and private character. I believe they are absolutely unknown in the history of our Parliamentary life. I have fought my battles as hard as I knew how, but I defy anyone to say that I have ever attacked any man's private character. I have attacked his public policy and public character, which I thought I was justified in doing, but I have never 198 attacked or gone into private or personal affairs, or endeavoured to damage him as a man, although, as I have said, I may have endeavoured to damage his policy. But that is not the way I am treated by my opponents. Whether they will gain by it remains to be seen. Take the ordinary course of the political orations on the other side. What did they say during the elections? The right hon. Gentleman, in a letter he wrote, said that the. country was rising against this Government of swagger, muddle, and electoral manœuvres. [Opposition cheers.] Yes, the country did rise, but not against us. But, while you talk about strong language, you say that the Government consists of cowards, knaves, and fools, for that is what you mean by a Government of swaggerers, muddlers, and persons given to electoral manuœvres. Then another right hon. Gentleman, an ex-Cabinet Minister, on the other side, used this expression. He said—
I believe that if a murderer were put up for Parliament, and were prepared to worship the right thing according to the Birmingham mandate, the whole party would vote for him.That is a courteous phrase to use. I do not object to it, and I do not suppose that the Tory party object to it; but I think it is rather cool for these wolves to come down and to accuse this lamb of using truculent language. The real fact is they have been beaten, and they take their beating badly. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman, in the leisure he has had since the election, has read a most admirable and interesting essay by one of his colleagues —the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, who has published a study of Cromwell. Whether we agree with him or not, we all have read it with admiration. In the course of that study, which I do not quote verbally, there is a quotation which I am not certain that I can give accurately; but it seemed to me to be worthy of the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose describes Charles I. He says Charles I. was vindictive in proportion as he was impotent, and he was a man who could not be beaten with impunity.
§ Debate adjourned till to-morrow.
§ Adjourned at five minutes before Twelve of the clock.