Speaking at a meeting of the West Cumberland Liberal Association
on Monday evening, Lord Spencer, while support- ing the vigorous prosecution of the war and condemning President Kruger's ultimatum as an insane and reckless document, found fault with the conduct of negotiations on our side as provocative and even insulting. He endorsed the view put forward in the current Edinburgh, that the alleged conspiracy for establishing a Dutch South African Republic was an Imperialist nightmare, entirely unsupported by evi- dence, and while he took his stand by ascendency [i.e., British ascendency] he dreaded trying to crush the Dutch Boer population by force. We welcome the criticism of such honourable men as Lord Spencer, holding it in the light of a useful drag on Imperialism, but we energetically deprecate his unfortunate apology for recent ebullitions of Nationalist Anglophobia in Ireland, on the ground that the passion for nationality had not been met and that the Irish saw they were still treated unjustly by England. The answer to this argument is admirably given in the verses which we print in another column.
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