28 JUNE 1902, Page 32

AMNESTY.

go THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:] Sin,—Every one is glad that peace has brought amnesty with it. Nevertheless there is a class of men whose return to Africa should be closely scrutinised. I refer to some of the Commandants and others who have been lecturing and collect- ing subscriptions in this country [the United States]. Of course one would welcome such lecturers if they told us what is approximately true, but this they have not done. The art of misrepresentation, as practised at political meetings, is the skilful use of exaggeration, suppressio yeti, and so forth. Some of these men have gone very far beyond that. Their deliberate purpose seems to have been to inflame men's passions against Great Britain, and although the best type of American estimates them, no doubt, at their proper value, it is certain that thousands of honest but uncritical men, ever ready to sympathise with the " under dog," have had their minds poisoned in this way. Now, Sir, there are ignorant Boers as well as ignorant Americans, and it is impossible to suppose that these valiant lecturers are sufficiently uninfluen• tial for their presence in South Africa to be innocuons.—I am,