THIRD READING.

HC Deb 27 October 1899 vol 77 cc765-84

Order for Third Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third Time."

SIR WILFRID LAWSON (Cumberland, Cockermouth)

I suppose this will be the last occasion on which we shall have the opportunity of discussing the war policy of the Government. Many of us, I think, will remember that only about two months ago, towards the close of last session, a speech was made by the right hon. Gentleman, the Colonial Secretary, in which he said, "We have put our hands to the plough, and we will not turn back." ["Hear, hear!"] Yes; he did put his hands to the plough, and he is now reaping the harvest bitterly. This is said to be the shortest session of modern times. That may be so, but in my opinion it has been, beyond doubt, the most horrible session for many and many a day. Now that we are going away to our amusements, to our vacations, to our recreations in the country, what shall we have during the recess? I suppose we shall have, day by day, horrible accounts of brave men dying in misery and wretchedness, of massacres, and of contests between two Christian nations, while the surrounding savages look on in astonishment at what we are capable of doing; and here we are witnessing all the misery entailed on the widows, orphans, and families of those who have fallen. I ask to-day, for the last time, that I may have the opportunity of asking the question—what is it all about? We hear different statements of this. Sometimes it is said that it is for supremacy; sometimes that word is altered to paramountcy. That is nothing more than the robber's plea that might should be right. I see that the Colonial Secretary has been writing a letter to the Ministerial candidate in the Bow election, and that he urges the electors to support that candidate, "to prevent President Kruger and his advisers from impairing the suzerainty of the Queen." I think that even the Colonial Secretary should have dropped that word now, after what has been said in this House by all who are qualified to speak on the subject.

There is another plea urged, and that is, that this is a war for equality of rights. We all want equality of rights; the only question is, how are you going to enforce it? I do not understand how you should go to war to obtain equality of rights in this way in the Transvaal. If the Government say that those who have not equality of rights must use force to obtain it, they are entering on a revolutionary course which will have very far-reaching consequences. I saw my friend Mr. Davitt an hour before he made his speech intimating his intended resignation. He told me that he was going to leave the House of Commons, as he could do no good here for Ireland, and that in future he should resort to physical force to obtain political rights for his countrymen. I told Mr. Davitt I thought that was wrong. But what can you say to Mr. Davitt and every person who thinks with him? How can you object to Mr. Davitt using force to obtain political rights for his fellow countrymen, when you use force to obtain political rights for the Uitlanders in South Africa? Surely one is as wicked as the other. I object to it strongly, and I say that the Government are leading the way in that direction. It is abominable and not a course which we ought to pursue. Then we are told that we are fighting to get rid of an oligarchy. Why, this country is governed by an oligarchy. The House of Lords is an oligarchy, just as much an oligarchy as the Boer oligarchy; and much worse, for an hereditary oligarchy is worse than any other. If the people of this country rise up to upset the House of Lords what are you going to do? I am bound to speak as I am doing, because I do not think that there has ever been such a lowering of public tone and public morality in modern history as there is at the present time in this country. Some people blame the Colonial Secretary for what is going on. He has his own standard of honour. It is not for me or anybody else to impugn his standard of honour, but we can say it is not ours. What is the Colonial Secretary's standard of honour? Well, as a member of the South African Committee the Colonial Secretary signed a Report in which Mr. Rhodes was described as a traitor, a deceiver, a filibuster, and a misleader of his subordinates. I do not think that you could have a worse character than that in the whole range of politics, an yet, having written that Report and signed it, the right hon. the Colonial Secretary came down to this House and said that Mr. Rhodes is a man of perfect honour. If the conduct of Mr. Rhodes is the Colonial Secretary's standard of honour, it is the most atrocious I ever heard of. And the right hon. Gentleman's standard of honour is that of the Cabinet, because they agree with him. It is the standard of honour of this House, because we support the Government; and I am sorry to say it is the standard of honour of the country, because the country supports this House. ["Hear, hear."] Yes, and a very horrible state of things it is. Then, after all, the right hon. Gentleman comes down to this House and makes a sickening appeal to the God of battles. Who is the god of battles? Why, Mars—a heathen deity. It is not the God whom we Christians are supposed to worship, who is the Prince of Peace. What the right hon. Gentleman worships is the heathen deity Mars. ["Oh, oh!"] It is true; and I think in all this horrible war, and all that is going on, the most sickening and horrid thing is the gross hypocrisy of the religious people getting up and talking about the God of battles. I think the religious world is rapidly losing all power over the people of this country, from what is going on. It seems to me we are rapidly getting into the same condition as France, in giving up everything to the false idea of military glory. Well, I have only one hope, and that is that when the people of this country begin to think and to read day after day what is going on, they will agree that they have had, perhaps, enough of slaughter, and that Christianity, generosity, and humanity may have some influence upon them after all. At present we all admit that these feelings are absent from the public breast, but when they begin to assert their supremacy once more, the people will insist that the Government shall stay the carnage that is now going on. They can do so. There can be no difficulty about it. All the blood that is now being shed is on their hands, because, although I quite admit that they are supported by the country, it is the Government and the party which supports them who are primarily responsible for it. If the Government will only do that just thing they may alleviate something of the horrors from which we are now suffering, and which are making a shameful record of the close of the nineteenth century.

MR. STRAUSS (Cornwall, Camborne)

I wish to contradict certain statements that have been made about the treatment of the Uitlanders by the Boers, which may leave a wrong impression on the country. As the House is probably aware, miners form a very large proportion of the electorate of my constituency, and many of them who were Uitlanders7 in the Transvaal have recently returned home. I made it my business last week to mix with them and confer with them both in private interviews and at public meetings. It has been stated here that this is a war waged in the interests of capitalists. That term certainly does not apply to the Cornish miners who have found either a permanent or a temporary home in the Transvaal. It has also been stated that the working men in the Transvaal are quite contented with the government of that country, and had nothing to complain of. Now, there is hardly a man of all those Cornish miners who have returned who has not related some incident in his own experience where they had to suffer injustice without redress, most intolerable insolence, bordering on ill-treatment, until the impression was forced upon them that it was almost a disadvantage to be the subject of a Power which prided itself in being supreme and paramount. They appealed to the British Government, and so far from the signatures to the petition to Her Majesty being demanded by their employers, there were thousands of these miners who would gladly have signed it if they had had the opportunity afforded them. Even if the recent negotiations had been successful, they would have left the country where they were treated with hatred and contempt. They were all convinced that nothing but the clearest manifestation of the supremacy and the power of this country would make it possible for them to return to their work in the Transvaal, and to live in peace and in self-respect. At several public meetings, which were attended by hundreds of these Uitlanders, there was a unanimous expression of full confidence in the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and I was asked to convey to the Colonial Secretary the earnest hope of these men that when a settlement was come to it would be such as to secure those rights and that justice which every British subject is entitled to demand who lives in a country under British sovereignty.

*DR. CLARK (Caithness)

I rise to call the attention of the House for a few minutes to another mistake or misunderstanding which has been disclosed in the course of these discussions. During the debate the other day the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary read an opinion expressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South Shields as to the question at issue between this Government and that of the Transvaal, as to what would be the effect of the law passed in July last granting the seven years retrospective franchise. The Transvaal Government claimed that under that law some 30,000 Uitlanders would be naturalised, and would receive the full franchise. My hon. and learned friend thought that under that law there could not be more than 200 or 300. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary pointed out how well qualified my hon. and learned friend was to speak on the subject, and that his testimony, coming from this side of the House, ought to have weight with the House. I have had some correspondence with the hon. and learned Gentleman, who has stated to me the basis of his opinion that the franchise was practically a fraud, and would not give fair and immediate representation to the Uitlander population. My hon. and learned friend said— I have gone carefully through the proposed Franchise Bill, by which President Kruger claims to have given the seven years franchise to the Uitlanders, and I do not hesitate to say that that Act is a grotesque and palpable sham. I asked my hon. and learned friend as to the basis on which he made that statement. He said— I have examined the Act as it is printed in the Blue Book, and it is a grotesque sham because Section 4, which gives, or purports to give, the franchise, does not give it at all. It was in the Bill before the Bill went through the Volksraad, but as it passed through the Volksraad the franchise was actually taken away. Unfortunately, when I received this communication from my hon. and learned friend the Transvaal Consulate was closed, and I could not get at once the Staats Courant, but had to send to the Brussels Legation for it. Only yesterday I received a copy of the Staats Courant, and have had an opportunity of comparing it with the statement in the official Blue Book; and I find that there is a complete misrepresentation of the facts in the Blue Book issued by the Colonial Office—a misrepresentation which misled and deluded my hon. and learned friend; because in Article 4, in the Blue Book version of the Act, the words "with complete franchise rights" are omitted. I do not allege that the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary, or Sir Alfred Milner, or Mr. Conyngham Greene would be a party to criminal negligence of this kind. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary said he had read through the Act, and had come to the same conclusion as my hon. and learned friend the Member for South Shields. I would like to ask him, what Act did he read—did he read the Act passed by the Volksraad, or this lying misrepresentation published in his Blue Book? This is a very serious question affecting the honour of this country. We have charges made against the honour of the Transvaal Government, that they did certain things fraudulently and for the purpose of misleading this country and the world. Now we have here a most important portion of a clause in the Act, either designedly and wilfully, or carelessly and negligently left out of the Blue Book. I do not know which is the most accurate view—whether the Act would enfranchise 30,000 or only 200 or 300; but it is a very unfortunate thing that that which purports to be a fair translation of the Act, but which is not so, was sent home by Mr. Conyngham Greene, and that it did mislead my hon. and learned friend the Member for South Shields, and would mislead anyone to come to the conclusion that the Act was fraudulent.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,) Birmingham, W.

The hon. Member complains of serious misrepresentation of fact, but in the main his observations had reference to a question arising between himself and the hon. Member for South Shields. [HON. MEMBERS: No, no.] The hon. and learned Member for South Shields is not present, and I have no right to speak for him. Whether it be the fact that he based the statement which I read verbatim to the House the other day upon some misconception of the Act, of course I do not know, but this I say, that certainly nothing I have said was based upon any misconception whatever. The hon. Member makes a reference to the Blue Book, but he did not give me any notice of his intention to raise this matter, and, consequently, I have been unable to communicate, as I should have to do, with Sir A. Milner and my own office. But this I may assert, that we printed the Act exactly as we received it, and I do not doubt for a moment that it was given to us exactly as it was received from the State Secretary in the Transvaal. If there be any mistake I take it the mistake arose unintentionally in the Transvaal.

*DR. CLARK

It is the question of translation. An impression might get abroad that it was officially sent, but it was published as from the Press newspaper, July 29th, 1899, and so it is not official.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

This shows the inconvenience of raising a question like this without the slightest notice. I do not know—I have not the Blue Book before me—I know nothing on this point. As I understand, the hon. Member says it was copied from a newspaper?

*DR. CLARK

From a newspaper called the Press.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

Is that an official organ?

*DR. CLARK

I do not know.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

Well, the point does not seem to me to be material. All I am interested in is to assert the honesty of the officials in my office and at the Cape. What I was going to say was that, even if it be the fact—as to which I say nothing—that the hon. and learned Member for South Shields was misled by this alleged omission, then I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is the only Member of this House who has been so misled. My point is this: the wording appears to indicate that what was to be given after seven years' residence was naturalization. We all understood that. I have always argued on the understanding that what was to be given was a seven years retrospective franchise. There was never any mistake upon that. The whole argument in the Blue Book the reports and criticisms furnished by Sir A. Milner and printed in the Blue Book, and other information collected by my office are based on that view of the Act. Nobody supposed for a moment that it was intended to give naturalization after seven years, and that then there should be another seven years after naturalization before the franchise. That would be a patent absurdity; it would have gone back to the fourteen years franchise which existed before the negotiations began. We understood the fourteen years franchise was to be changed for a seven years franchise, and that it was to be retrospective. When therefore I said, as I say again now, that that Act was a sham and would not have given representation to any considerable number of Uitlanders, or have justified our acceptance of it, I did so perfectly well knowing it was a seven years retrospective franchise.

MR. BRYN ROBERTS (Carnarvonshire, Eifion)

The last admission of the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary is significant. It means that we are at war in order to force into the franchise in the Transvaal people, the majority of whom have not been in the country seven years. Has there ever been a war started on so slight a ground as that? There are Uitlanders in every country. There are a great number in England. I venture to say that there are a larger number of Uitlanders in London than in the whole of the Transvaal. I suppose there are hundreds of thousands of aliens in this country, all of whom are without the franchise—all of whom pay rates and taxes, and none of whom can have the franchise unless they are naturalised. I observed that in the West Kensington Registration Court, held three weeks ago, a claim was made to be put on the voters' roll by a Frenchman, who has been a resident in this country for thirty-seven years. His claim was objected to on the ground that he was an alien. When asked by the Revising Barrister if he had been naturalised, he said "No"; and he was informed that unless he was naturalised his name could not be placed on the roll. He replied that, although he had paid rates and taxes for thirty-seven years, he did not wish to change his nationality. The case of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal is not nearly so strong as that of that Frenchman. The Uitlanders do not wish the franchise. ["Oh, oh!"] That is my firm belief, and the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary and Sir Alfred Milner have discovered that. Therefore, if the franchise had been granted in terms, the only result would have been that the right hon. Gentleman and his servant, Sir Alfred Milner, would have been shown to occupy a ridiculous position—that they were struggling to risk a war for a franchise which nobody desired to have. When that was discovered, as I have said, there was a frantic effort to change the issue, and we were then told that there was a huge conspiracy on the part of the Republic to upset British supremacy in South Africa. I do not think that there is a man in this country who believed that for a moment. If anybody says that if we had not interfered with the internal affairs of the Transvaal and had strictly observed the terms of the Convention of 1884, and had given the burghers no ground of suspicion that we meant to break that Convention—if anybody said that it was the intention of the Transvaal to invade our territory, then his sanity might be questioned. To return to the point that the Uitlanders have no desire for the franchise. There are several classes of Uitlanders. First of all there are the speculative capitalists. Then there are the prodigal sons and the offscourings of the world. These are the men who loaf about the public-houses, and are the Jingoes. A third class are the working miners who have gone to the Transvaal to save money and return home. I venture to say that of this last class not ten per cent. approve of this war. Hundreds of them have come back, and their unanimous testimony is that this war is a capitalist job, and they all say that there was no occasion for it. They declare that they were treated well in the Transvaal, paid well, and were better off there than in England, and that all they wanted was to be left alone. I was in a small mining village the other day where two young men wrote home from the Transvaal stating that their sympathies were with the Boers, and that they proved that sympathy by enlisting in the Boer army. Another man from the same village returned home, after having been only five years in the Transvaal, with £700. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary has put himself entirely in the hands of the Jewish capitalists and foreign financiers, and he has accepted as gospel everything that these people say. Articles in newspapers which are supported and financed by these capitalists are accepted by the right hon. Gen tleman as gospel truth, and this country has been forced into a war as the result of a system of lying misrepresentation. No real attempt has been made by the right hon. Gentleman to get at the truth and the real feelings of the Uitlanders. We find that men of every nationality have joined the Boers, including even a large number of Englishmen, which shows that the alleged grievances are perfectly illusory. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary has not made a single charge against the Boers or President Kruger, except on vague and general grounds. No one in the whole course of these debates has heard a specific case of oppression which would bear the slightest investigation. It is said that the municipal government of Johannesburg is no better than that of London before the County Council was established. Then that the sewerage and drainage might be improved, and that the water supply is almost as bad as that of East London. Then false charges are made as to the right of public meeting. The right of public meeting exists in the Transvaal in full. The only restriction is that for a public meeting in the open streets permission must first be got from the police, exactly the same as in regard to a public meeting in Trafalgar Square. Meetings may be held without restriction in buildings. There was only one case of a meeting having been broken up, and immediately afterwards the promoters of that meeting held another which was fully protected. All these charges are shameless misrepresentations. There is not one of the alleged grievances of the Uitlanders that is not felt in every country. We have had more public meetings broken up in the last few weeks in England than during the whole existence of the Transvaal Republic. I venture to say that had 45,000 of our fellow-countrymen suffered grievances ten times greater than those of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal, nobody here would have lifted a finger to redress them. The alleged grievances are simply tales of a war game mixed with specula- tion. I am proud to say that every vote I have given in this House has been against this war, and I say that, even at the present moment, we ought to return to the honest course and withdraw from making an attack on a country whose only crime is that she is weak.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES (King's Lynn)

Really the speeches we have heard seem altogether inadequate to the occasion. I regret that the hon. Baronet the Member for Cockermouth has thought it right, in a moment like this, when the House is about to be prorogued, to address the House as he has done. When a British force in Natal is defending itself against an overwhelming invasion the hon. Baronet has thought it right to indulge in such ridiculous arguments as that it would be right for the Irish to rise in support of Home Rule, or perhaps in support of local option.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON

I did not say that. I said that if they did rise in support of Home Rule you would have no right to condemn them.

*MR. GIBSON BOWLES

We should have just as much right as I have to condemn the hon. Baronet himself. Then comes the hon. Member for Caithness with some belated yarn about a mistranslation from a paper for which nobody is responsible and which nobody has heard of before. And then comes the hon. Member for the Eifion Division of Carnarvonshire with the ordinary tales of the virtues of the Boers. Really these speeches are altogether inadequate at a moment when this House is about to rise and to leave in the hands of Her Majesty's Government issues more momentous, more fraught with awful consequences than any ever left in the hands of a Government uncontrolled by Parliament. I am one of those who look upon this war as a lamentable and abhorrent thing. I lament it bitterly, and while I gravely doubt if the war can lead to any good, I feel that it may bring this country into awful calamity. The greatness of the responsibility for the negotiations that have been carried on by the Government during the recess is as nothing to the greatness of the responsibility they now assume for the conduct of the war just begun. I do not think that the negotiations were very creditably conducted. It is not because the negotiations were conducted openly. There is a worse diplomacy than open diplomacy, as was proved with Fashoda, but these negotiations were more open than diplomatic. They failed. The essential object of diplomacy is to persuade your adversary, and that they have not done. I think the issue raised—that of the franchise—was a false one, and the negotiations were throughout carried on upon false ground; and I am corroborated in that by the Duke of Devonshire, who told us on the 1st October that the franchise had never been an essential point of difference between us and the Government of the Transvaal, but had been suggested by Sir Alfred Milner. However that may be, I have seriously, after much consideration and a full study of the Blue Books, come to the same conclusion as has the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary, that this war was from the first inevitable. I am afraid that even if the negotiations had been as successful as they were unsuccessful, if they had been put on the right instead of the wrong ground, and if everything had gone as hon. Members opposite would have wished them to go—if all the Boers' demands and offers had been accepted—I still fear that this war must have come sooner or later, and sooner rather than later. That being so, I think it behoves us all to put behind us all reference to the negotiations and to fix our attention on the situation with which we find ourselves at present confronted. I have said that this war was inevitable. My belief is that it has been inevitable for the last eighteen years—ever since that day in 1881 when Mr. Gladstone's Government made the surrender which followed Majuba—a day which bred contempt in the minds of the Boers and caused them to despise us and oppress the Uitlanders. I am not going to apportion the responsibility for the Majuba surrender: what part belongs to the Colonial Secretary, who says now that he made a mistake; what part belongs to the Duke of Devonshire, or to Lord James of Hereford, or to the right hon. the Member for Bodmin, who were all then members of Mr. Gladstone's Government; or what part to the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, although absent in Constantinople on a special embassy, was still a supporter of that Ministry. I won't now apportion the blame. The mischief was done and that mischief has to be undone, and unhappily it can only be undone, if at all, by force of arms. One thing I desire to say, and that is that I never have believed and do not now believe, that this war will be the military promenade which some military experts have told us it would be. I have heard it quoted as the belief of one of the highest military authorities that the difficulty will be to find anybody to fight with when the army corps gets to South Africa. I think there will be no such difficulty. But there will be other difficulties. There will be the difficulty of the length of the lines of communication; the difficulty of the fact that the Boers occupy the central position, and act, as the military experts term it, on the interior lines; the difficulty, above all, in the quality and character of the race which we are fighting—sturdy, brave, simple, God-fearing, straight-shooting peasants—the sort of men that the English Horse Guards and our military system have never been able to cope with, and found it impossible to deal with in the days of the revolted American colonies. My belief is that we have a most serious task before us—exceeding in difficulty any task in which this country has been engaged during the life of any one of us. Moreover, you cannot but expect, not only from outside indications but from the character of foreign States, that if this war lasts long enough, advantage will be taken of the difficulties in which England finds herself by these foreign States to make some attempt upon her possessions, or in some way to interfere with her power and to involve and damage her future. That, of course, is not absent from the minds of Her Majesty's Government; that was not absent from the mind of the First Lord of the Admiralty when he found it necessary to fit out a new flying squadron. I hold that this is one of the most dangerous wars in which this country has been involved for two generations. It is a war which is only too likely to be complicated by other Powers, not one of whom but hates us, with the sole exception, perhaps, of Austria. ["No, no."] Yes, Austria alone is our friend.

*SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Italy.

*MR. GIBSON BOWLES

Italy! I do not except Italy, and if I did I should not greatly care to have her alliance.

*SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

What about the Italian fleet?

*MR. GIBSON BOWLES

That is my opinion. My belief is that, from the naval point of view, an alliance with Italy would be rather a weakness than otherwise. As I have said, it is a most serious matter to leave Her Majesty's Government uncontrolled by this House for three months in which events of the most awful and momentous character may occur. I say these circumstances are most serious and most grave. One last word, and it is this. Those of us who have been most opposed to this war, who have most hoped that the war would be avoided—those of us who refrained from saying one word that would embarrass the Government in these negotiations, or do anything that would tie their hands; those of us who were, anxious that the Government should get for the Uitlanders all that could be got; those of us who held our tongues—perhaps too long; those of us who most dreaded the event which has now occurred, are those—I speak for myself at any rate—who will be the most determined to see the war right through to its proper end. I say this to the Government, "Now you are in the struggle you have to get completely through with it. There must be. no faltering, no hesitation, no patched-up half peace." It is a dreadful and horrible struggle to my mind, but having been begun it should be gone through with. If reverses, even if disasters should attend our arms—["Oh, oh!"] It is not impossible. We already have had a Saratoga, when 4,000 British troops surrendered to colonial peasants; we already have had a Yorktown, where 7,000 British troops surrendered to colonial peasants. It is not impossible that we may meet with disaster in this war—

*SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

Not likely.

*MR. GIBSON BOWLES

Who said "No"?

*SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

I said so.

*MR. GIBSON BOWLES

I wish I could feel the same confidence. There may be reverses, there may be disasters, but, if there are, the efforts of the Government must be redoubled to meet them and answer them by British suc- cesses. It must be shown to the world that not one army corps, not one campaign is the measure of the might of England, but that the resources of the Empire will suffice to bring this unhappy war to a successful conclusion, and to an abiding and a generous peace.

*MR. LUTTRELL (Devon, Tavistock)

The hon. Member for King's Lynn has stated that this war was inevitable. I think this country and South Africa have a right to ask why was it inevitable. I cannot but think that it is discreditable to diplomacy, and that there must have been faults on both sides, to have brought a question such as this to the awful issue of war. Most of the speeches in these debates have been retrospective; I would urge that we should make them also prospective. When the hon. Member for Caithness brought forward a very important point we were told that these were belated yarns. There are many of us who believe that this war is unjustifiable and ought not to have been gone into, and that it should be ended as soon as possible. I ask whether the Government will give us an expression of opinion as to how they would welcome peace-makers. ["Oh, oh!"] We still hope that peace may come, and come quickly. We still hope that opportunity may arise for arbitration in some manner, and for coming to terms—["No, no!"] Why the opposition to arbitration? It was only a few months ago that we, in common with the rest of Europe, were singing the praises of arbitration and seeking for some methods for its introduction into international disputes. If we have an opportunity of practising what we preach we ought to avail ourselves of it. I hope the Government will have such an opportunity and will avail themselves of it. I think some good may be done if there came from the Government an expression of their willingness to come to terms, if these terms are reasonable. ["No, no!"] What else are you fighting for? Accusations have been made that this war has been made for the purpose of annexation. I hope the Government are not responsible for such an opinion. I do not think that they entered on this war for the purpose of annexation, and the sooner we make it clear to the world that that is so the better it will be for the country. I hope, therefore, that they will give an expression on that point, and that, should reasonable terms be offered by the Boers, the Government would be willing to treat with them. I ask why should you refuse reasonable terms, if asked for, such as a low franchise? As to the suzerainty, I must confess that I do not think it of any considerable importance. This country is paramount in South Africa, and there is no necessity for asserting our power. I hope that the effect of this awful war, which I deplore, will be to carry the reforms which ought to have been secured without war, and that we shall end the war as soon as possible.

*SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

I protest against the pessimistic vaticinationsof the hon. Member for King's Lynn, and I join issue with him upon every point. I believe that though the Boers are a brave people this war will be brief and we shall be victorious, and I do not believe in the foreign complications with which the hon. Gentleman threatened us.

*MR. GIBSON BOWLES

What I said was that I conceived it was possible that foreign complications might arise out of our African difficulties, and that it seemed that the Government were of that opinion also, since they have fitted out a special squadron.

SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

I do not think it appears that I misrepresented the hon. Gentleman. He made a most pessimistic and fearful speech, full of gloom and alarms and perils. If there should be foreign complications I think we shall be found to possess some powerful friends. But, Mr. Speaker, I merely rose to say that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has made a serious confusion in his speech. He appealed to the Government on two different subjects. He first asked for arbitration, but finding that the House regarded it as preposterous to ask for arbitration under the present circumstances, he changed the tenor of his remarks and suggested the acceptance of terms to be offered by the Boers. Of course, if the Boers were to offer to surrender upon terms which were reasonable in the opinion of the Government, the war would come to an end.

*MR. LUTTRELL

I would explain to the hon. Member that my object was two-fold. First to ask whether the Government would accede to arbitration, should such be offered; and, second, whether they would accept now those terms which they would have accepted previous to the outbreak of hostilities.

*SIR ELLIS ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

I do not wish to pursue this further. I am obliged to the House for allowing me to make these remarks. I can only say I believe the war will be brief and that we shall be victorious, and that such a result will be to the advantage of the Boers, the blacks, and the British alike.

*MR. MACIVER (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

I very much agree with the remarks of my hon. friend who has just sat down, but I rose for the purpose of protesting against what appears to me to be a most mischievous speech. As representing a very large constituency, I thought I was not altogether wrong in offering a few remarks on this occasion. I have been present at every representative meeting at Liverpool, and I have not the slightest doubt in saying that Liverpool opinion brushes aside nine-tenths of the argument that has been pressed over and over again in this House; and, whilst in Liverpool there are people who may believe that persons like my hon. friend could negotiate the matter better than my right hon. friend the Colonial Secretary, still they do not regard the right hon. Gentleman as a failure, and they believe he knows what he means and has the country with him. Liverpool opinion believes in the personal honesty of the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary and of every member of the Government, and they believe they have all honestly done their best. But what Liverpool feels is that our present commercial interests are most important, and Liverpool wants to back up the Government to bring this matter to a swift and successful conclusion. Hon. Members opposite have done their best to prevent this, because the Boers and people of other countries do not know their true position in this House, and greater importance has been attached to their utterances than they deserved. I do not wish to use unpleasant language, but we all remember a certain hundred idiots who telegraphed to the King of Greece and had much to do with that unhappy war, and in Liverpool, at all events, we know that this war is largely due to a similar device which the same hundred idiots have pursued.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon, etc.)

said the hon. Member who had just sat down had illustrated to a certain extent the sort of arguments they had had to listen to in this controversy. He had given a certificate of character for personal honesty to the members of the Government, but this was not the manner in which questions in that House ought to be debated upon. The Opposition charged the Government with having blundered, and blundered seriously, in consequence of which this country and the Transvaal had suffered severely. He ventured to say that the reply of the Colonial Secretary to the Member for Caithness on this point had been singularly inadequate. They had gone to war practically on the question of franchise. He would assume that that was the cause. The Transvaal Government offered a seven years franchise. What would have been the position if that had been accepted? There were two Chambers in the Transvaal, and in one Chamber aliens would have the right to vote in two years if the Bill of the Boer Government had been passed, and if it had been allowed to come into operation every resident in the Transvaal could have had a vote for the two Chambers. He asked whether any man who supported going to war realised that every man in the Transvaal, whether he were born in that country or not, would have had the right to vote for two Chambers in seven years?

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

That is inaccurate. The offer of the seven years franchise was retrospective, and was accompanied by a whole cloud of difficulties—registration qualification and so on, which would not have enfranchised the whole of the aliens, but only a very few of them.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

said he had some experience in registration, and the condition of things in this country was a great deal worse than those contained in the Franchise Bill of the Transvaal, with the result that a whole body of men like Wesleyan ministers were disfranchised. In this country it takes three years before a man can get a vote; and he knew of a case where an alien resident in this country for very many years never had become an elector because he could not pay naturalisation fees. We had two Chambers in this country, but a man, although he might be a permanent resident, could not get a vote for one Chamber; while for the other—the House of Lords—if he lived for ever he would never get a vote. The Government denied them educational reform in Wales, where there were two millions of people, many of whom were engaged in fighting the battles of the country; but when the Uitlanders of the Transvaal, including Jews and others, claimed electoral reform, this country did not hesitate to go to war on their account. This was not merely wrong, but a palpable act of hypocrisy. This all came of the new diplomacy. What was this now diplomacy? It is carried out with a view of working up public opinion in this country and turning it upon the question of the moment, and by deliberately misrepresenting the concessions made by the other side, which is a shameless proceeding.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

I beg to ask you, Sir, whether the words "deliberately misrepresenting" are in order?

MR. SPEAKER

I was on the point of rising, when the right hon. Gentleman intervened, to say that the hon. Member was exceeding the limits imposed by the rules of debate in this House.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

said he, of course, bowed to the ruling of the Chair. He had not intended to refer personally to the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary. What he meant was, either there must have been criminal negligence, a negligence involving the lives of hundreds of our soldiers, or there had been deliberate forgery on the part of someone; and he left it to the Government and the officials of the Colonial Office to choose between those two horns of the dilemma. He did not say that the blame rested with the right hon. Gentleman, who was without doubt above doing anything of this kind; someone in South Africa must have done it. Here we were in a state of war on documents which misrepresented, intentionally or unintentionally—that made no difference at all, as the result would be the same—the concessions made by the Transvaal Government, and it had involved the loss of hundreds of lives up to the present moment, and heaven only knew what it would yet mean to this country. He believed there would be a reaction against the Government before long when the country came torealise the true state of affairs, and that was why there was some hurry in holding bye-elections in this country just now. There was a boom in the election market. It was said that we were fighting for the franchise and a pure and honest administration in the Transvaal. The fact was that the war had been forced on by a Government which had divided three millions of money amongst its own supporters by a measure carried by a Chamber composed of landlords, who benefited to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds a year—a Chamber for which no native-born British subject had a right to vote. That was the Government and the Chamber which was spending millions of money in order to enforce a pure and honest administration in the Transvaal.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill read the third time and passed.