29 MAY 1941, Page 5

The welcome and well-deserved appointment of General Smuts to be

a Field-Marshal in the British Army has, I see, revived the story, which is perhaps not as generally familiar as I thought it was, of the incident at the Conference of Vereeniging in 1901, when Botha and Smuts, faced with the terms of peace which Milner put before them, felt they went beyond what it was possible to swallow. Kitchener saved the situation. Drawing the Boer generals aside he said in effect: " Take my advice. Accept this. In three years the Liberals will be in power in Great Britain and they will give you self - government." It was a remarkable prediction, having regard to the political position in Great Britain at the moment, but it proved to be only two years and a few months out. Some years ago I asked General Smuts whether the story was true. Like a good diplomat, he would neither confirm nor deny it. * * * *