Mr. Kipling's noble poem, " The Settler," telegraphed from Cape
Town, and published in the Times of Friday, marks a
fitting epilogue to Mr. Chamberlain's memorable visit of en- couragement and conciliation. We can only find space ,to quote one of the verses which tells how,' out of the fields tilled, not by the fiery ploughs of war, but by those of peaceful labour, will come the corn that Boer and Briton will eat together, forgetting all former wrongs and sufferings. It is the settler who speaks :— " Where my fresh-turned furrows run and the deep soil glistens red,
I will repair the wrong that was done to the living and the dead Here where the senseless bullet fall, and the barren shrapnel burst, I will plant a tree, I will dig a well against the heat and the thirst."
It is by majestic patriotic verse of this kind that Mr. Kipling has earned himself the laurel crown of the Empire. We do not wish to say a word in depreciation of Mr. Austin or his verse, but would it not be possible, just as every parish has a vicar's churchwarden and a people's churchwarden, to have a
King's Laureate and a people's Laureate ?—and who could fill the latter post better than Mr. Kipling ?
