TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE VIOLENCE OF THE PEACE PARTY.
NOTHING is to be more regretted, nothing has done more harm, during the present South African crisis than the want of sobriety, fairness, and reasonableness shown by the peace party. In that they are anxioua for peace we honour them, and though we cannot agree with them, we have not the slightest doubt that they are sincere when they argue that England is committing a crime in preparing to use force, if force should prove the only method of obliging the Boers to give a measure of political emancipation to a portion of the Outlander population. But though we can respect the English opponents of the claims of the Outlanders for their independence of view, and though we gladly and fully acknowledge that there is nothing in intention unpatriotic in their conduct, but rather the reverse, and that they are taking up an attitude which they conscientiously believe to be that of true'lovers of their country, we cannot but be astonished at the " heady " and intemperate manner in which they too often state their gospel of peace. They may be, and we believe are, anxious to act the part of patriots, but they seem to a very great extent to have forgotten Burke's super-excellent dictum that "we must remember so to be patriots as not to forget we are gentle- men." Take, for example, Mr. Page Hopps's amazing letter to Wednesday's Daily News. The Daily News has throughout the present controversy taken up a line which is a credit to English journalism. Its articles have been as temperate in phrase as they have been firm and statesmanlike in tone, and it has never indulged in language which has been in the slightest degree unfair or insulting to its opponents. 'Yet this is the kind of language in regard to the present situa- tion which Mr. Page Hopps asks the Daily News to print. He says that our "rulers" ought to know "what is the state of mind of those who are disgusted with their conduct towards South Africa." "My experience is that multitudes of English men and women are struck chiefly with the low cunning and vulgar caddishness of the whole business." Mr. Page Hoppe goes on to declare that "we entirely believe that, from the very first, our rulers have sought for excuses to possess themselves of the Transvaal, and that the present proceedings are only a continuation of the conspiracy that led up to the Rhodes and Jameson raid, and we specially detest the hypocrisy and slime of the thing." There is, he thinks," something caddish, too, about this constant gloating over the help offered by the Colonies, and our pressure upon Portugal to illegally hold back the Republic's consignment of ammunition." "We talk of. English honour," dignity," glory,' and all the rest of it, and yet, in conspiring to wipe out this little Republic, that we may grab its gold, we try to tie its hands, and beckon to its brothers and cousins (who ought to protect it) to stand ready to help us kick. And to this has chivalrous old England come !—pushed and dragged through the mud by a mob of greedy speculators and cowardly thieves." We should not have devoted so much space to Mr. Page Hopps's letter were it not, unfortunately, typical of a great part of the utterances of the peace party at the present juncture. Even so able a man of letters as M. Frederic Harrison seems completely to lose his head, and to indulge in a style and tone which, though not vituperative like that of Mr. Page Hoppe, it seems almost incredible can have come from the pen of the accom- plished author of the study of Cromwell and of the historical and literary essays that have so often delighted us. In a long and highly rhetorical open letter to Lord Salisbury published in Wednesday's Daily Chronicle, and plentifully "peppered" with "My Lords" and other artifices of the kind usually confined to the minor imitators of Junius, he bids Lord Salisbury take the negotiations with the Transvaal out of Mr. Chamber- lain's hands and conduct them himself: . Here is an example of Mr. Frederic Harrison's handling of the diffi- cult and delicate problem before the country :—" My Lord, it is you whom history will hold responsible for this war, and for all its ulterior results. It is Louis Napoleon whom France holds answerable for Sedan ; and not Eugenie, 011ivier, or the Marshals. Mr. Chamberlain may be technically within his rights in pitting himself against President Kruger, as if he were defying the Opposition across the floor of the House. But it will be the Marquis of Salisbury who will plunge this Empire into war, whom France, Germany, Russia, and the rest will call upon to deal with all its ulterior complications. And it is you, My Lord, whom our Queen will hold to be that one of her servants on whose head lies the weight of a war clouding the end of her long and glorious reign— a war which the majority of Englishmen know to be mean and unjust, which many men of great experience look on as charged with permanent trouble and possible disaster to our vast and scattered Empire." That there is another side of the Transvaal question we have never denied, though we do not think it is the right side, but surely this is not the way to get people to see it and support it. Take. again, Mr. Harrison's amazing declaration :—" To many of us it seems an unnatural thing that our country should be on the verge of a formidable war, the ulterior complications of which no man can predict, whilst you [i.e., Lord Salis- bury] are more or less in the background ; at most, a consenting party to protracted negotiations wherein you are not known to take any personal share." Is it not astonishing that a man who has been conversant with public affairs so long as Mr. Harrison should write in this way, and evidently be impressed by the newspaper "babble" that Mr. Chamberlain is allowed to do exactly what he likes, and that the Prime Minister and all the rest of the Cabinet stand shivering in the background, not permitted to know what the mighty Colonial Secretary is doing, but anxiously suspecting that he is up to mischief, though they dare not stop him ? Mr. Harrison's allusion to "protracted negotiations wherein you are not known to take any personal share" is truly marvellous. We do not find it impossible to conceive that though it is not known to Mr. Harrison, yet Lord Salisbury may have taken some share in the negotiations. We would go further, and would suggest that though the Cabinet may not be known to have taken any share in the negotiations, it is as certain as anything can be that they, as well as the Prime Minister, have anxiously considered and sanctioned the general line of policy adopted at the Colonial Office. In a word, we may feel certain that without waiting for Mr. Harrjson's appeal, Lord Salisbury has thoroughly informed himself of all that is going on, and that no great step will be or can be taken without his sanction and without his responsibility. This is a fact of great importance, and we would draw to it the special attention of Mr. Harrison's readers. He admits the cool judgment, the love of peace, and the masterly statesmanship of Lord Salisbury. But if Lord Salisbury, being what he is, sanctions and takes the responsibility for our present policy, how many and how great must be the reasons for pursuing that policy. Mr. Harrison may rest assured that Lord Salisbury is not the man to allow any one of his colleagues, however able and distinguished, to rush the country behind the back of the Cabinet into an unneces- sary war. Another example of the extravagance of thought and language of the advocates of keeping the peace at all costs is afforded by the letter of Dr. Clifford to Wednesday's Daily Chronicle. Dr. Clifford apparently thinks that the Boer oligarchy ought not to be coerced because we have a House of Lords. "The Boer oligarchy has not done a thousandth part of the mischief that has been wrought by that ancient House. May we invite the military to terminate the water oligarchy,' and let Londoners dunk?, Is it permissible to dismiss, by the same swift process, the land oligarchy' so that there may be more room and air for the thousands who are being destroyed in body, mind, and character by overcrowding." That is, perhaps, the strangest plea for allowing the Boers to tyrannise aver the Outlanders, and for supporting a system under which the majority of the inhabitants of a, country are not allowed any share in its government, which has ever been put forward by a thinking man. We might add almost indefinitely to these inflammatory appeals for peace, but we shall be content with the examples already given,—examples written by men of ability, position, and, we must add, of sincerity and good intention, despite their violence. They are enough, we think, to justify our main contention. If not, and if any further proof is needed, we may refer our readers to the chief organs of the anti-Outlander Press. There they will find plenty of peaceful vituperation.
We shall be told, no doubt, that if the peace party are violent, and unreasonable, and if they give way to accesses of suspicion and nervous irritability, the other side are just as bad. Possibly ; but even so, we can never admit that two wrongs make a right, or that an ex- plosion of Jingo violence is any excuse for counterblasts of fury. Again, it is not unreasonable to expect from those who deny our right to resort to arms to obtain redress for the Outlanders, and who take the extreme humanitarian standpoint, a greater reasonableness and sobriety of tone. The men who say that force is no remedy, that reason must be our guide, and that we must respect the rights of others, • may surely be ex- pected not to bring reckless and unproved charges, not to inflame the situation by heated language, and not to call names rather than to argue. We are quite willing to admit that occasionally some of the newspapers support- ing the policy of the Government have written in a tone that deserves the strongest condemnation, and whenever occasion has offered we have condemned such violence. If, however, we were asked to cast up a balance of violence, we cannot honestly say that we think the result would be favourable to the peace party. In imputing motives—take, for example, the monstrous imputation con- stantly made that Mr. Chamberlain is anxious to make war and spill blood in order to satisfy his own wounded amour propre—in suggesting suspicions, in the use of vituperative and heated language, and generally in forgetfulness of the duty of not inflaming a dangerous situation, it appears to us that the party of peace are the greater offenders. The duty, however, is as clear on one side as on the other. If it should happen—though we still main- tain it is not likely—that the next few months are to be darkened, not merely by war, but by violent internal dis- agreements, it will behove us one and all to remember Burke's great saying quoted above. Both sides here will think, and sincerely think, theirs is the patriotic part, and both sides must remember "so to be patriots as not to forget they are gentlemen." We, on our side, must refrain from calling the supporters of the Boers traitors or enemies of their country, even if they hope for the defeat of British arms in what they will regard as an unrighteous war ; and they, on their side, must refrain from imputing base motives to their opponents, and from saying that the Government and its supporters are thieves and robbers engaged in raiding the gold of the Transvaal. Neither will they be intentional enemies of their country nor we thieves because we and they differ over the merits of the present crisis. If we cannot bear this in mind, and act upon it, how are we better than the warring factions of France over whom we are apt to grow censorious ?
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