A -vigorous and well-founded appeal on behalf of the dis-
tressed loyalists in South Africa signed by Lady Edward Cecil, Lady Charles Cavendish Bentinck, the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, K.C., M.P., the Duke of Montrose, and others was published on Tuesday. The signatories take their stand on Lord Milner's estimate that at best loyalists will only be com- pensated up to 50 per cent. of their losses, and point out that life below the poverty line in South Africa, which has now to be faced after three years of hardships and privations by thousands of British Colonists, involves even greater hardships than it does here owing to the peculiar uncertainty of .the climate. In many places, moreover, they have to face not only poverty, but discouragement and hostility. Yet the appeal is not organised at their instigation. " We must remember that the people we are anxibus to help are drawn from classes which under normal circumstances would never need, and under no circumstances will ask, assistance." We do not hope to better the comment of the Daily Chronicle on this appeal, and will offer no excuse for reproducing it here :
" We do not conceal the fact that this particular appeal is limited to sufferers from the war who stood by their Sovereign and their flag. It lacks therefore the political altruism and piquancy of some other appeals. But after all, even loyal Britishers are human and can suffer and even starve. And the Christian duty of loving our enemies was never meant to involve the desertion of our friends."
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