An important Blue-book on the working of the refugee camps
was published on Friday week. In it the coup de grdce to the charge of " methods of barbarism " is administered in the remarkable despatch from Lord Kitchener dated December 6th, 1901, showing that, as the result of repeated complaints from surrendered burghers who remained on their farms, be had appealed to General Botha last March in their interview at Middelburg to spare the families and farms of surrendered burghers, inwhich case Lord Kitchener undertook to leave undisturbed the farms and families of those on commando, provided they did not actively assist their relatives. Botha replied : " I am entitled by law to force every man to join, and if they do not do so, to confiscate their property and leave their families on the veld." Lord Kitchener then asked him what course he could pursue to protect the surrendered burghers and their families, and Botha, then said : " The only thing you can do is to send them out of the country, as if I catch them they must suffer." From the foregoing, as Lord Kitchener contends, it is perfectly clear that the responsibility for the alleged harsh treatment complained of by Mr. Schalk Burger in his letter of November, 1901, rests rather with the Boer generals than with the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces. We may add that in Mr. Schalk Burger's long list of complaints not a syllable is said of any insult or outrage to Boer women by British soldiers,—and for the very excellent reason that such outrages have had no existence except in the prurient imaginations of the Continental Pro- Boers.
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