unhappy war as the only real "Little Englanders." A genuine -desire for the safety and welfare of the Empire over seas should be a sufficient motive for seeking to check the reckless extravagance of some soi-disant Imperialists. And one of the best means for effecting this object is a reasoned presentment of the real needs and dangers of the Empire. Those who have fairly weighed the duties that England owes to India, or faced the peril involved in the growth of a vigorous and bitterly hostile population in South Africa, will hardly be tempted to swell the noisy chorus of militant Imperialism.

Another, and yet a more effective remedy for the Imperial war fever, may be found nearer home, in the pressing needs of our own people, and in the latent dangers of the social problem. Let us not be misunderstood. The mere material interests of any one class, however numerous, can never be set above the claims of honour and duty. And a simple comparison of numbers will hardly help us here. A war that brings widespread suffering on the multitude may be justly undertaken in order to save or vindicate a few men whose life and liberty is endangered in some distant land. The state which shrank from this duty would seal its own doom; and in the long run the multitude would have good reason to rue this fatal weakness. But it is throwing dust in our eyes to suggest that this was the case in the controversy that plunged us into this disastrous war. The matters in dispute were but questions of civil reform in the government of the South African Republic. And it is at least a perfectly legitimate question whether the interests of our own people at home should not outweigh the conflicting interests of a few English Outlanders who were prepared to become citizens of the Transvaal. We are often told that these matters cannot be settled by the rule of three. Perhaps the more complex calculus actually employed in their solution may be found in a well-known definition. For the modern Imperialist may well be described, like the philanthropist, as "one whose benevolence increases with the square of the distance." How else can we reconcile his tender solicitude for African Outlanders with his callous indifference to greater grievances nearer home?

Unfortunately the ignorance of some and the self-interest of others lend support and encouragement to this false and fatal policy. For there are only too many who know little of the crying need for domestic reforms and social legislation; while others, we fear, avail themselves of the imperialist policy in order to lead the electorate away from these much-needed measures. The eloquent enthusiasm of some of its advocates has cast a glamour over the imperialist ideal. But after all we have to deal with no idle sentiment. And it is likely enough that the outward charms of Imperialism would be fruitless and ineffectual without the stronger

and meaner motives of sordid material interests.

Poets and orators

are less important and powerful factors in the movement than mines and money. And the flag itself has been described in a moment of inconvenient candour as a "commercial asset."

If true patriotism is to hold its own against these combined forces, it must be something deeper than a mere sentiment of romantic attachment to our country or a pride in its ancient glories. In a word, it must be at once an enlightened and a practical patriotism. The progress of Imperialism will never be arrested by a mere negation without some alternative positive policy. And happily that policy is not far to seek. The Imperialists invite us to a career of conquest; they boast of redressing wrongs, of giving the blessings of good government and civil rights, and promoting the advance of civilisation. Have the patriots no alternative to offer? Before we take up the task of civilising savages, or imposing English institutions on reluctant Dutchmen, let us at least begin by setting our own house in order. Civilisation forsooth! How many of our millions can be truly said to enjoy its blessings? How many

of our people at home have the civil rights claimed for the Outlanders? Here at our very doors are wrongs to be redressed before we can go forth as knights errant of civilisation. A true patriotic party has before it a work and a mission far more glorious than the proudest career of imperial conquest. To lift up the submerged masses, to enlighten the dark homes of poverty and labour, to bring liberty to the sweater's white slaves, to break the power of a tyranny far more oppressive than that of any Dervishes of the Soudan or burghers of South Africa-these are some of the tasks awaiting the patriotic party of the future.

It may be that little can be done at the present moment. For the times, as we are told, are not propitious for such measures. Nor is the prospect likely to brighten so long as the war fever is in the ascendant. But sooner or later there must come the inevitable reaction of popular feeling. When all the heat and excitement of the struggle has passed away we shall be left at length to taste the bitter fruits of defeat or of victory. And when once they have fairly tasted of these fruits, the English people will soon be weary of worshipping the brazen idols of Imperialism. The hour will come; and it may be hoped that the man will not be wanting. Exoriare aliquis. Some true leader shall yet arise to bring the people back to the paths of peace and patriotism.

W. H. KENT.

PRETEXTS FOR VIOLATING THE BOND.

"President Kruger would deny that to insist upon fourteen years' residence before giving the newcomers the franchise was incompatible with the principle of equal rights, for no Boer was allowed to have the franchise until he had lived fifteen years in the Republic. Every state has the right to fix the period of residence necessary to naturalise foreigners as citizens."-Review of Reviews, October 1899, p. 364.

By those who apparently go on the principle that two wrongs make a right, it is often said that the Government of the South African Republic violated the London Convention, and the inference is suggested that such a lapse from right on the part of the Boers justifies the British Government in doing likewise. A strange argument truly! If I commit murder, does that justify you in committing it? If the Boers violated the Convention, you were justified in compelling them to respect it. Beyond this you were not justified. As you now violate it, the Boers are justified in compelling you to respect it. Beyond this they are not justified. Both Boer and Briton have rights under the Convention. Their duty is

to maintain them against encroachments. Neither of the two Powers have any right or any duty to embark on a war of grab. On October 23, 1899, the civilised world was assured by the Marquis of Salisbury that grab was not the aim of the British Government. "We seek no goldfields: we seek no territory," said he in a speech at the Mansion House. But on March 11, 1900, when his ten-toone heroes had marched into the Free State, he informed Presidents Kruger and Steyn that her Majesty's Government were "not prepared to assent to the independence either of the South African Republic or of the Orange Free State." Whether they are prepared or, as usual, unprepared for their coming humiliation, which they so richly deserve, the friends and supporters of the noble Marquis will again have to assent to independence in South Africa just as they had to assent to it after Majuba. This time, contemptuously flinging aside every consideration of justice and humanity, they have gone to the full length of their powers.

The rights of Britishers and other foreigners in the Transvaal are clearly stated in the Convention :

"All persons other than natives conforming themselves to the laws of the South African Republic (a) will have full liberty, with their families,

to enter, travel, or reside in any part of the South African Republic; (b) They will be entitled to hire or possess houses, manufactories, warehouses, shops, and premises; (c) They may carry on their commerce either in person or by any agents whom they may think fit to employ; (d) They will not be subject in respect of their persons or property, or in respect of their commerce or industry, to any taxes, whether general or local, other than those which are of may be imposed upon citizens of the said Republic." (Article XIV.)

The granting of the franchise to foreigners is in this Convention clearly left at the discretion of the Transvaal Government, as in this country it is left at that of the Home Secretary. And justly so. For, although a good man has unquestionably a right to participate in the governing of his own native land, this fact can give him no right whatever to share in governing a land 6000 miles away. When Mr.Gladstone, a Home Ruler, agreed to the London Convention, he knew that foreigners can never in any country in the world be justified in claiming to be put on a footing of political equality with the sons of the soil. There is nowhere any right vested in anybody to govern in another man's household. When people come to Rome they must do as Rome does. If they do not like what Rome does they must leave Rome. Nobody forces them to come; nobody hinders them from leaving. They are not in the position of the native-born, who have, so to speak, the country and its government thrust upon them, with the duty of defending both against undeserved invasion. To the franchise in the Transvaal this duty was attached. Those who would not fight for the country were rightly not thought worthy of sharing in its government.1 Now British

subjects strongly objected to fight for the Republic. In 1894 they made a clamour against being legally impressed for military service,

1 "Those who went on commando were entitled to it, but no others. Those persons who showed they loved the country by making such sacrifices were entitled to the franchise, and they should get it. . . . The Raad might just as well give away the independence of the country as give all these newcomers, these disobedient persons, the franchise. These persons knew there was a law, but they wished to evade it; they wished to climb the wall instead of going along the road quietly, and these persons should be kept back." (President Kruger in the great Franchise debate in the Volksraad, reported in the Johannesburg Star, August 17, 1895.) Mr. Chamber-lain argues (Commons, July 28, 1899) that on May 10, 1881, President Kruger promised political equality in the Transvaal for all whites, present and to come. But Mr. Kruger distinctly says in the very words quoted by Mr. Chamberlain : 'There may, perhaps, be some slight difference in the case of a young person who has just come into the country." Here clearly is an indication that, if necessary. the principle of discretion might be applied. Had Mr. Kruger promised to put all foreigners, present and to come, on the same political footing as the sons of the soil, before they had lived in the country as long as those sons, he would greatly have wronged his people. To give tens of thousands of newcomers, after a residence of five years, what the sons of burghers do not get after living in the country fourteen years, is to favour one set of newcomers at the expense of another set. Fourteen years is not an unreasonable time for a man to take in getting assimilated to a country, whether he comes into it a babe or full grown. In point of fact it requires more time to wean the adult from his affections and interest in other countries than it takes to train up the child to the duties of citizenship. Besides, it is certain that whatever President Kruger said referred to the arrangement then about to be made; namely, the 1881 Convention, which was only accepted provisionally, and, after trial, was superseded by the Convention of 1884. The latter instrument alone governs the political relations of the two countries, and what is not in it binds neither,

and Lord Loch went to Pretoria and secured their exemption. Yet their unreasonable agitators still intrigued and conspired to get them the full burgher franchise. They were to have its benefits and powers without sharing its duties! And this monstrous, this preposterous demand the British Government backed up!

According to his telegram of August 15, 1899, Mr. Conyngham Greene, the British agent at Pretoria, told the Boer State-Attorney "that her Majesty's Government, who had given pledges to the Uitlanders [foreigners], would be bound to assert their demands, and, if necessary, to press them by force."1 Let the reader take special note of this. It has already been demonstrated in the WESTMINSTER REVIEW for January 1902 that, under the Gladstonian Convention of 1884, the British Government is pledged to respect the internal independence of the Transvaal. It has also been demonstrated that the demands of the Uitlanders to the franchise are not countenanced in that Convention. Yet here is the agent of the Salisbury Government threatening the Transvaal with war if it fails to grant those demands. The Transvaal Government pointedly described this monstrous violation of its Bond in these words: "Great Britain has offered two alternatives: a five years franchise or war." To escape the latter it offered the former, but only to find to its chagrin that the British Colonial Secretary had up his sleeve "other matters of difference between the two Governments which will not be settled by the grant of political representation to the Uitlanders, and which are not proper subjects for reference to arbitration." 2

Yet "We did not seek this war!" You know whether you sought it. I only know that you acted as if you sought it. An Englishman's spoken word was once thought to be his bond. foreigners would now accept it if he wrote it a thousand times.

Few

What kind of people were these Uitlanders, to whom the present British Tory Government pledged itself to break the pledges of a past British Liberal Government? For whose dear sake were the interferences, the threats, the abuse, the flooding of South Africa with troops, the calling out of the Reserves, the cards kept up the sleeve, &c. ? At least they ought to have been as good as the thousands, if not millions, of outraged and murdered women and children in Armenia, whom the British Government was pledged to protect 1 Blue Book, C. 9521, p. 45. The Uitlanders' intriguing organisation called itself the Transvaal National Union. In point of fact National was exactly what it was not. It ought to have been called the Union of Foreign Conspirators in the Pay of Jew Financiers who, having no country of their own, exploit in war and in peace all countries. I said "all," but there was one in which Shylock found his master, "in all countries perhaps but one, Finance, in the picturesque language of the American, is the "top dog." The one country where it is not in the position of being able to bite, where and when it pleases, is the Transvaal, and in this fact lies the deep-seated cause of most of the political trouble in that country. The biggest financiers have sometimes to bow the knee. They have been known to crouch in Kruger's kraal and praise his methods, when they abhorred him in their hearts."-"The War Game in South Africa," by Morley Roberts, Fortnightly Review, February 1899, p. 262. 2 Blue Book, C. 9251, p. 50.