On the Eve of the War. By Evelyn Cecil, M.P.
(John Murray. 3s. 6d.)—The "ordinary reader" will soon be so sur- feited with books dealing with the events of the war in South Africa, that a volume dealing with incidents that preceded it may seem belated. But Mr. Evelyn Cecil is such a keen observer and so level-headed a man, that what he has to say of the per- sonages he saw, such as President Kruger, and his impressions of the currents of opinion, were distinctly worth printing. Mr. Cecil landed in Cape Town on September 11th, 1899; he was in Ladysmith on the day of the declaration of war and in Natal for three weeks after it had been invaded ; he was back in England by January 26th. Much of his political history is necessarily ancient ; many of his impressions, especially of what he observed then travelling, were hurried, and do not strike one as eminently original. Mr. Cecil is in favour of federation as the cure for the evils of South Africa, and evidently thinks Bloemfontein should be made the capital of the territory that will be created out of the two Boer Republics. He was the last Englishman to see Mr. Kruger before the outbreak of war. The refrain of the President's con- versation was : "Why does England want to kill me ? What are all these troops for ? " Mr. Cecil is certain Mr. Kruger had at the beginning of the dispute with the Colonial Office determined on war. Apart from politics, Mr. Cecil's book is mainly valuable for its excellent descriptions of Natal and Rhodesia, vivified as these are by admirable photographs.
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