CHAPTER V.

Relief of Pekin Legations-Difficulty of Chinese Problem-Discussion as to Date of Dissolution-Mr. Brodrick at Guildford-Publication of South African Letters-Effect on Public Opinion-" Protestantism before Politics" Movement-Labour Difficulties on Railways-Trade Union Congress-Important Changes in Rules-Dissolution Announced-Opposition Complaints-Manifestoes by Party Leaders-The one Dominating Issue-Personal Attacks on Mr. Chamberlain-Domestic Questions-Church Discipline Bill-Imperial Liberal Council-Mr. Chamberlain's Heywood Telegram-Mr. Balfour's Explanation-The Polls-Great Ministerial Majorities in Urban Constituencies -County Returns less Conspicuous but Equally Decisive-Summaries of Results-Liberal Differences-Anglo-German Agreement-Guerilla War in South Africa-Lord Wolseley's Utterances-Ministerial ReconstructionMinisters at the Mansion House-Sir M. Hicks-Beach at Bristol-Liberal Speeches-The Winter Session-Debates on Unionist Electioneering, Military Measures and Ministerial Policy in South Africa, Business Relations of Ministers, and War Expenditure-Front Opposition Bench Differences— Close of Century.

THE deep shadow of apprehension with regard to events in Pekin which rested over England and Europe up to the prorogation of the British Parliament was happily dispelled in the course of a few days. Four days after its despatch a telegram arrived stating that on August 14 the Chinese capital had been reached and the legations relieved. The sentiment of this country in regard to the news of the safety of the British and other legations and the great majority of those connected with them, and also as to the admirable fortitude and gallantry displayed by persons of all classes and occupations engaged in the defence, was deep and universal. The Queen promptly expressed the relief and pride of her subjects in a telegram to the officer commanding the Royal Marine Guard at Pekin. "I thank God," said her Majesty, "that you and those under your command are rescued from your perilous situation. With my people I have waited with the deepest anxiety for the good news of your safety, and a happy termination to your heroic and prolonged defence. I grieve for the losses and sufferings experienced by the besieged." All the details which gradually arrived with respect to the manner in which the attacks on the legations had been pushed by the instigation of the Chinese authorities, and the atrocities. perpetrated without any kind of restraint or rebuke, if not actually ordered, upon defenceless Europeans there and elsewhere, intensified the relief felt at the success of the allied forces at Pekin. At the same time the general satisfaction was considerably qualified by the escape of the Dowager-Empress and the high officials who had been her chief prompters or tools in the pursuit of her anti-foreign policy, while the withdrawal of the Emperor with her to the remote city of Si-ngan-fu appeared to preclude the possibility of the setting up of a reforming Government which could claim the allegiance of the Chinese people. Indeed it very soon came to be realised that the relief of the legations, though it had doubtless averted a catastrophe of almost unprecedented horror, was after all only the successful close of the first chapter in a series of transactions fraught with

almost infinite possibilities of local difficulty and of international complication. Meanwhile an agreement arrived at among the Powers upon the appointment of the German Field Marshal, Count von Waldersee, to act as generalissimo of the allied forces in the metropolitan province of China, although received with little enthusiasm in the press anywhere outside of Germany, appeared to indicate a general desire for loyal co-operation among the European Powers in regard to the early developments of the situation. In this connection Mr. Brodrick, speaking in a tone of authority as on behalf of the Government (Aug. 15), employed studiously friendly language. After paying a high tribute to the distinction of Count von Waldersee, Mr. Brodrick went on to say that this country had often found its interests running side by side with those of Germany, and that he hoped that "as good comrades they might advance together again, certainly to victory, and, let them all trust, also towards the strengthening of the ties between that great nation and ourselves."

Apart from the Chinese question the first weeks of the recess had for political enlivenment little beyond a somewhat futile discussion as to the probable and suitable date of the dissolution of Parliament. This discussion was at the outset almost entirely confined to the columns of the press. On the Opposition side it was assumed that Mr. Chamberlain was urging his more scrupulous colleagues to hurry on a "khaki" election, and this course was denounced as an unworthy exploitation of the sentiment aroused by national emergencies and successes for party purposes. Sometimes it was maintained that the statesman whom it had become the constant habit of a large part of his opponents to treat as the evil genius of the Cabinet and of the nation was on the way to a triumph over the wills of his weaker colleagues. At other times-or by other writers at the same time—it was affirmed that political virtue was holding her own in the counsels of the Government, and that there would be no early dissolution. On the Ministerial side it was argued that a clear declaration of the national will in regard to the retention of the fruits of the war was required at an early date in the interest of the pacification of South Africa. There were, indeed, some supporters of the Government who entertained misgivings as to the propriety of an appeal to the country under circumstances which could lend any colour to the suggestion that a party gain was being sought by means of the freshness of the public exultation over British military successes in South Africa. Voice was given to this sentiment by the National Review, which in two or three numbers urged vigorously that a "khaki" election would not be in accord with the understood rules of the political game. This, however, appeared to be the opinion of only a small minority of Unionists. Very few politicians of any high position spoke in the country after the prorogation, so that speculation as to the earlier or later approach of a dissolution had a free field. The silence was at length broken (Aug. 29) by Mr.

Brodrick who, speaking at Guildford, referred to the subject of the general election in terms the general effect of which seemed unmistakable. Touching at the outset of his remarks on the affairs of China, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs said that the Government were prepared to do whatever was necessary or possible to preserve the trade with that country, which England of all nations had done most to build up; but that we could not undertake the responsibility of governing China. He then proceeded to enter upon an elaborate argument in favour of an early appeal to the constituencies. There were, Mr. Brodrick said, two or three questions which the war had brought up, and which pressed for settlement. The first regarded the administration of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony. There was every reason to believe that when we had established equal laws in those countries, given them an efficient railway system, and abolished corrupt monopolies, they would enjoy a prosperity which had never been their lot before. But he could imagine nothing more fatal to the progress of this settlement than that it should be interrupted by a a general election, which must raise hopes in the disloyal that the purpose of the Imperial Government might be changed. The second great question was that of the reorganisation of the Army. The necessary changes could not be made in the middle of a war. The time for reform would come when the campaign was over and when the most prominent of the officers now conducting it were available for work at the War Office. It might then be necessary to give some Minister a free hand, but that could hardly be done by an expiring Parliament. The Government must have at its back a young, fresh and vigorous Parliament if it was to deal satisfactorily with this question.

This line of reasoning from a Minister who, as Lord Salisbury's departmental lieutenant, might be to some extent in his confidence, seemed to leave little room for doubt that the Prime Minister had made up his mind to consult the constituencies before again calling Parliament together; but whether before or after the municipal and school board elections in the month of November was still undecided.

Pending this decision an effect unquestionably favourable to the Government and unfavourable to at least an aggressive section of the Opposition was produced by the publication (Aug. 23) as a parliamentary paper of the letters discovered in the archives at Bloemfontein and Pretoria, to which reference had been made in Parliament before the close of the session. This correspondence was of two classes-from eminent Cape Afrikanders to leading Free Staters in the six months preceding the outbreak of the war, and from British members of Parliament, directly or indirectly, to Mr. Kruger during the same period, with, thrown in, a letter from an English M.P. to a lady in Cape Colony relating to the administration of martial law and cognate matters during the war. The most striking letters

were a series from Sir Henry de Villiers, Chief Justice of Cape Colony, who had served on the commission which drew up the convention by which peace was concluded after the Transvaal war in 1881. Nothing that had been said by any British Minister in 1899 or 1900 in condemnation of the conduct of Mr. Kruger and the dominant clique of Boers and Hollanders at Pretoria surpassed in severity the opinions conveyed in the same sense by Sir H. de Villiers. Their general effect was impressively summed up in the following sentence from a letter which he wrote to Mr. Steyn on the eve of the Bloemfontein Conference between Mr. Kruger and Sir A. Milner: "I am quite certain that if in 1881 it had been known to my fellow commissioners that the President would adopt his retrogressive policy, neither President Brand nor I would ever have induced them to consent to sign the convention. They would have advised the Secretary of State to let matters revert to the condition in which they were before peace was concluded; in other words, to recommence the war.'

There lay, put by a friend of the Transvaal, the whole case of the British Government of 1899 against President Krugerthat he had plainly broken the understanding on the strength of which independence, under British suzerainty, was conceded to the Transvaal Boers. Moreover, having thus shown how completely up to June, 1899, Mr. Kruger had put himself in the wrong, even in the eyes of a sympathetic observer, Sir H. de Villiers went on to urge that he should at last put himself in the right by making concessions precisely of the kind sought at the Bloemfontein Conference. In so many words he specified a franchise for the Outlanders, based on five years' residence with retrospective operation, as required, together with local self-government in the Outlander towns, to provide reasonable safety-valves for the activities and aspirations of the immigrant population. The concession of a liberal franchise, he pointed out, could be made subject to a power reserved to the President to reject individual applicants. Two months later (July 31) Sir H. de Villiers wrote to Mr. Fischer, of the Orange Free State, expressing his regret that the frank policy he had advocated had not been acted on by Mr. Kruger at Bloemfontein, and condemning the course which had been taken, after the conference, of passing a Franchise Bill, "so obscure that the State Attorney had to issue an explanatory memorandum to remove the obscurities." Surely," he added, "a law should be clear enough to speak for itself, and no Government or court of law will be bound by the State Attorney's explanations." On the same day, writing to his brother, Mr. Melius de Villiers, Chief Justice of the Orange Free State, Sir H. de Villiers observed: "I see that Mr. Chamberlain again holds out an olive branch by proposing a joint inquiry into the Franchise Bill. If the President is wise he will, even now at the eleventh hour, show a conciliatory

spirit, and if he cannot prevent a partial loss of independence he will, at all events, prevent a total loss. If he appoints irreconcilables on the commission, and does the whole thing in a haggling spirit, no good will come out of the inquiry. . . . What I fear is that Kruger may object to the Outlanders being in any way represented at the joint inquiry, if one should take place; and yet it is impossible to see how a satisfactory settlement can be made without their concurrence. Why should he not appoint as one of his nominees an Outlander of position, whose integrity and judgment he has confidence in? If none such exists, it would only be a proof of his want of tact and statesman- · ship in not rallying such people to his side." Sir H. de Villiers concluded by saying that Mr. Reitz treated the whole matter as a joke. "Other incidents show that he is a danger in the present situation."

Sir H. de Villiers's last letter, addressed to Mr. Fischer (Sept. 28), made an appeal to him, and to all who had any influence with the Transvaal authorities, to accept the terms of the next British despatch, if they could be accepted without actual dishonour. Could better terms be possibly obtained after a war? What would be the position of the Republics after the subjugation of the Transvaal? If the despatch formulated all the British demands it would prevent further demands being made in future. "What I feel in the matter," proceeded Sir H. de Villiers, "is that, however badly the Transvaal may have been treated from a diplomatic point of view, there is at bottom good ground for the irritation against its Government. The manner in which the latest proposals were rejected does not give one much ground for hope. Take such a reasonable proposal as that members should be allowed to address the Volksraad in the English language. Surely it ought not to have been rejected in such a summary, I might almost say contemptuous, manner. I confess I look with horror on a war to be fought by Afrikanders to bolster up President Kruger's régime. I could understand a war in defence of the South African Republic after it has made reasonable concessions to the demands of the newcomers, and after it has displayed the same desire to secure good government as is seen in the Orange Free State, but of such a desire I have not seen the faintest trace. I am afraid that neither Reitz nor Smuts is the man for the present crisis. I have carefully read the latest correspondence, and I am by no means satisfied that the British Resident was guilty of a breach of faith. The utmost I would say is that there was a misunderstanding. The despatch of the 21st August seems to me to have been wholly unnecessary, unless something happened between the 19th and 21st which led the Transvaal Government to think they had yielded too much. I have heard it said that between those dates a cablegram from Dr. Leyds gave hopes of European intervention, and the return of Wolmarans from the Orange Free State gave