THE TRANSVAAL WAR: POINTS FROM Mr. Chamberlain's Speech IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, October 19th, 1899. DESIRE FOR PEACE. "Well, Sir, I say that, having most carefully considered all the circumstances in the light of the most recent events-in the light of the ultimatum and in the light of the recent speeches of President Kruger and others--I have now come to the conclusion that war was always inevitable. It is a conclusion at which I have only recently and most reluctantly arrived. . . . From the first day I came into office I hoped for peace; I strove for peace. At that time, and at an earlier period, down even to the most recent period, I have believed in peace. But do let us all look at the matter in the new light in which it is now presented to us. Have we ever been near peace? We appeared to be near peace; reasons have been given to us to make us think that we were near it. But is it not true, when we come to look at the whole situation, that always there have been cardinal differences; that there have been things which it was essential for us to demand and to obtain; and that these things President Kruger and his friends and advisers have always been determined not to give? When I have been in doubt as to President Kruger's intentions I have given him the benefit of the doubt. I am taunted with having spoken of his magnanimity. I desired to believe this the right hon. gentleman did not state it accurately last night. He said the condition was that we should not make this a precedent for further intervention. If that had been all I do not think we should have refused it; but what they asked in addition was that there should be no further intervention. With our experience of the Transvaal, with the knowledge that the next day some difficulty of a similar character might arise, with the knowledge that promises made might not be kept, with the knowledge that the anticipations we had formed might be disappointed and that we should have all the trouble again in a week's time, we were under no circumstances and at no time to practise any intervention. That was impossible. . Then what happened? The Transvaal, without reason as conceive, formally withdrew their own proposal. They asserted that we had refused their conditions, although they could not prove it. They withdrew their proposal, and they went back to a proposal which was then, I think, a month or six weeks old, and asked us once more to engage in a commission which might have met and lasted for weeks, but which in the end was certain to have one, only one, result, because in the meantime we had ascertained from our own examination of the provisions of the Bill that as it stood it was perfectly inadequate to give us the substantial representation we asked. Let me again quote the words of the hon. and learned gentleman the member for South Shields. He is a lawyer and quite competent to consider a subject of this kind. He said, 'I have gone carefully through the proposed Franchise Bill by which President Kruger claims to have given a seven years' franchise to the Uitlanders. I do not hesitate to say that that Act is a grotesque and palpable sham.'. It is true we sent an interim despatch to say we could not accept the proposal, the belated proposal, for a new inquiry into an Act which we knew to be insufficient and inadequate, and that under these circumstances we should have to formulate our own conclusions. We said that under the circumstances it was useless to proceed, useless to argue with people who had then made up their minds." Times, October 20th, 1899. (It will be remembered that before Her Majesty's Government had "formulated their own conclusions," President Kruger ended the negotiations by sending his ultimatum.) Printed and Published by McCorquodale & Co. Ltd., "The Armoury," London, S. E. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the new leader of the Radical Party in the House of Commons, denies the legend that he "found salvation" at the time of Mr. Gladstone's first announcement of a Home Rule policy. Nevertheless his attitude towards the Irish Question immediately before Mr. Gladstone's conversion by Mr. Parnell and his Nationalist allies was so clearly defined by himself as to leave no room for doubt. Answering a question at South Queenferry in 1885, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman said: "Home Rule may mean anything or nothing. I am "in favour of giving to the Irish people the same power "of managing their own local affairs as is given to 'England and Scotland, but when you come to a legisla"tive Parliament that is a very different thing, and "I should not be prepared to support "that."-Scotsman, 21st November, 1885. It is a matter of history that Sir H. CampbellBannerman was a member of Mr. Gladstone's Government both in 1886 and in 1892, when the first and second Home Rule Bills were presented as Government measures. His latest declaration is to the following effect: "The Liberal Party stands to Home "Rule as it stood before. Our "principles are well known. They have been declared "over and over again. The only question that remains "is as to the method of their application. Of the most "effective method of their application we have a right to "retain our judgment."-In the House of Commons, 16th February, 1899. Compare with this the recent opinions of his more prominent colleagues on the Irish Local Government Act of 1898. Sir Edward Grey "The Act had not settled the Irish Question. At 'some future date the Irish demand "would have to be met in the spirit in "which Mr. Gladstone endeavoured to "meet it."-At Darlington, 8th September, 1898. Sir Henry Fowler "The constituencies of Great Britain would require "that this great experiment should be fully, fairly, and "completely tried before they would recon"sider the question of any further change in "the Government of Ireland."-At Wolverhampton, 21st November, 1898. Mr. Bryce "A system of Local Government had been created "which might offer new modes of satisfying the "legitimate desires of Ireland."-At Cumnock, 20th October, 1898. Mr. John Morley "All he had to say for himself was this, that if the "Irish demand for a national Assembly was persisted in, "and if the demand were presented, as it was in 1886, "for a subordinate Assembly, then British Liberals "would be no more justified in retreating "from the arguments which they had all "pressed than their forefathers felt them"selves free to fling overboard the cause of "Catholic Emancipation."-At Montrose, 19th January, 1899. Mr. Asquith "For his part he retained to the full without qualifi"cation, modification, or reserve, all the views he had "held and expressed on the Irish Question since he (( entered public life The problem "might be shelved, but it could not be "got rid of."-At Darwen, 27th January, 1899. Mr, Herbert Gladstone "Don't tell me Home Rule is dead. "It is not. The prospects of Home Rule "were never brighter."-At Leeds, 11th October, 1898. Lord Tweedmouth "For himself, he stood where he did with regard to "Home Rule, and nothing would induce him "to see it struck out of the Liberal "programme."-At St. Helens, 14th October, 1898. Lord Ripon "Now I will take some of them (the items of the "Newcastle Programme), and first and foremost, in my "estimation at all events, the question "of Home Rule, Mr. Dillon "Some of the leaders of the Radical Party were true to their words and some were not. They had changed "their minds before, and in the face of a United Ireland, "those who were untrue now would "change their minds again."-At Manchester, 18th March, 1899. |