§ Perhaps, Sir, I may be asked what is to happen if peace should come in a few weeks, and if the large sums of 56 or 57 millions I have suggested should not be all required for the purposes of the war. Well, I would remind the Committee that, in the first place, though war is a very costly thing to wage, it is also a very costly thing to terminate. We shall have to provide for gratuities and bounties to our soldiers who have served in the war. We shall have to provide large sums for disembodiment; considerable sums, I hope, for transport of reservists and others home, and for the maintenance, no doubt, of a considerable force in South Africa. Means will have to be provided for something more—something which I am sure will be more agreeable to the minds of all of us than expenditure on war. Means will have to be provided for the relief and re-settlement of the two Colonies which have been so terribly devastated by the war. Means will have to be provided for rebuilding and restocking farms—farms, I should hope, not only of those who have been our friends in the war and have fought on our own side, but also of: those who boldly and honestly have been our enemies in the war, and whom we hope to make our friends in the future. I think the House of Commons, if peace is made on terms which in our belief will be satisfactory, enduring, and safe, will be generous in these matters; and yet I do not believe that they need involve any great charge upon this country. For I am convinced, looking 175 at the remarkable progress which has been already made even, during the war in the restoration of industrial prosperity in the goldfields and in the more important centres of the Transvaal, that it will be perfectly possible for the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, if we were to advance to them loans for the purposes I have described and for other similar purposes—for railway extension, for enabling them to obtain on fair terms control over their own railways, and matters of that kind—to repay such advances, both capital and interest, on terms which would be eminently satisfactory to the taxpayers of this country. Of course, any proposals of this kind could not be carried out by the Government without being fully explained to the House of Commons and without the authority of the House of Commons, and therefore no one need fear, as I think the right hon. Gentleman's Question tonight rather suggested, that, if the money which I shall ask the Committee to provide primarily for the possible cost of the war is not expended on that service, it will not be expended beneficially, and in matters which will be infinitely more agreeable to us than any war expenditure can be.