THE ARMISTICE IN THE TRANS VAAL.
THIS fuss about the Armistice which Sir Evelyn Wood has concludea in the Transvaal is surely very unreason- able. We cannot agree with those Radicals who maintain
that Great Britain is wholly in the wrong in its quarrel with the Boers, or those who imagine it our duty to hand over this great State, with its 800,000 blacks, all more or less grate- ful for British interference, to a minute caste of farmers, in numbers not half as numerous as the landlords of Ireland, and in principles far more oppressive, without guarantees or effective checks against a practical slavery. We understand, therefore, and sympathise with sensitiveness about the terms to be granted to the Boers, but we cannot see the objec- tions to an armistice. On the face of the admitted facts, the Government have always offered, if the Boers would give up their resistance and admit the Queen's authority, to inquire into the grievances alleged, and if possible to grant terms which will prevent their recurrence for the future. To save time, they sent to Sir George Colley a sketch of the outside limit of those terms, and had he followed usual precedents, he would, while forwarding to the Boer leaders the views of her Majesty's Government, have abstained from further opera- tions. He was not, however, bound to do this, negotiations often proceeding without armies halting, as, for instance, in the Austro- German war, and ho made his rush and failed. Sir Evelyn Wood thereupon continued the negotiations, accompanying them, apparently at the instance of the friendly President of the Free State, with the grant of an armistice for eight days, rendered necessary by the distance between the Boer forces and the insurgent Government ? Where is the humiliation in that ? There may be any amount of humiliation in the terms, but where is the hutniliation in suggesting that while the terms are being considered, no more lives should be thrown away ; or in other words, that English soldiers should not be shot, because Mr. Kruger was some way off Laing's Neck? Suppose the terms are unconditional surrender. Would the Tories refuse to cease firing while they were being discussed ? If they would, they are anxious for fighting for its own sake, and without any reference to the objects of fighting,—an utterly immoral state of mind. The Boers are not pirates, to be sunk when a chance offers, as enemies of the human race, of whom the world is well rid ; but at the worst, insurgents, misled partly by patriotism and partly by selfishness, who have fought fairly, according to all the laws of war, in the open field. If they want to leave off fighting, they are entitled to be hoard as to their conditions ; and whether the suggestion to leave off came from them, or from us, or, as we believe, from a recognised friend of both sides, does not signify a straw. What the Government wants is the terms for which it is fighting, not the embitterment of the quarrel by unnecessary killings of people against whom, if they will accept those terms, we have no grievance. The Tories say the Boers are rebels ; but if they are, their case drops to the ground, for it is certainly not the Queen's business to kill her subjects merely to avoid hear- ing what they have got to say. They should be heard, even if they are all killed afterwards. As for military honour, it should be protected, like civil honour ; but who ever hoard of a repulse in a skirmish involving military honour ? On that theory, there can never ho a pacification, for if we lose, we must fight till we win, and if the Boers lose, they must fight till they win, and so the war must last until one of the two parties is exhausted or exterminated. Statesmen cannot con- duct affairs in that way. They fight for certain adequate objects, and if those objects can be gained by a halt in the fighting, they halt. Bismarck would halt, if by halting he could gain all he wanted ; and that is, at all events, the theory of these negotiations. And he would be eager to halt, if by halting he could improve his military position, which is pre- cisely Sir Evelyn Wood's case. He loses nothing for his beleaguered garrisons, for he sends them the eight days' food ; and he gains the opportunity of bringing up his reinforce- ments, whose advance he refused to delay. If the negotiations end in peace, he saves lives ; and if they end in war, he is in the precise position as to his resources for storming Laing's Neck which he would have preferred. How could he have acted more wisely ? It is the terms which are important, not the halt arranged. for their discussion ; and of the terms no one outside the Cabinet and its agents knows accurately anything, except that they do not involve a simple regrant of independence. That would be a breach of Lord Kimberley's pledge that the rights of the natives should be guaranteed, and would be a concession to armed resistance fatal to the authority which it is necessary that the Home Government should possess throughout South Africa. But if the Boers desire to make the Transvaal a free colony on the model of the Cape Colony, there is no objection to that, for the Crown would retain its supremacy and its right of vetoing all legislation tending towards slavery. This was the original Boer demand at the time of annexation, which they thought was conceded, and the concession of which, in fact, if we understand Lord Kimberley's speeches, was promised, but never acted on, in view of their growing hostility. It is, moreover, a solution of which they must have thought., for they are always ex- pressing readiness to enter a South-African Federation. If, again, they propose to retreat into Reservations not occupied by natives, there to govern themselves, leaving such portion of the Transvaal as the Government may insist on in British hands, we see, as we have repeatedly said, no objection either. We do not want the Boers' vast plains merely as territory, and though there may be a clamour about "weakness," a war which ends in a cession of territory claimed by those who in- habit it is not a campaign that has failed. The force already on its way is irresistible, and Great Britain has no need, in conflict with a people so few, to stand upon punctilios. Beyond this, however, we should not willingly go, the suggestion of a Protectorate, mooted in some quarters, appearing to us to in- volve an abandonment of the native cause, for the sake of avoiding a difficulty or a contest, which in such a cause we ought to undertake. A Protectorate may mean anything, from a claim as vague as that of England and Franco on Egypt, to rights as definite as those which we once exercised in the Septinsular Republic ; but if it means anything less than effective authority to protect a population which haa fallen into our hands, and is willing to remain there, its estab- lishment would be a direct dereliction of duty. Whether with- in these strict limitations peace can be made we shall know in a few days ; our general impression is that it can not, that Mr. Kruger thinks independence possible, and will induce his countrymen to risk one more conflict; but his associates may be more reasonable than himself. They must know that they cannot succeed, they can hardly be anxious for the fatigues of another flight beyond the Limpopo, and they will be greatly influenced by the news that their natural sea route through Lorenco Marques has fallen into British hands. They were financially ruined in the effort to use that route, and now, if they cease to be British subjects, it has passed away for ever.. It is possible that, trusting Sir Evelyn Wood as they do, reasonable terms may be arranged; and if so, to reject the chance rather than suspend for eight days a possibility of operations which we had no means of commencing, would have been sulky childishness. British honour is deeply concerned, as well as British interests, in the right settlement of this Trans- vaal quarrel; but there is no honour in postponing policy to a desire for revenge for a repulse accidentally suffered in per- fectly fair fighting. How many times have we offered amnesty and redress of grievances, even to undoubted rebels, which the Boers cannot be honestly said to be ?
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