Taken as a whole, the debate afforded curious proof of
the inability of the Opposition to grasp the true facts of the situation in South Africa. Sir William Harcourt is, of course, honestly anxious to stop the war and to get the Boers to lay down their arms. Yet he did his very best to extort from the Government pledges as to native policy and adminis- tration which, if they could have been heard by the Boers, would have had the effect of making them harden their hearts and refuse to give in. The thing of all others that makes them irreconcilable and ready to fight to the death is the dread of belonging to a community in which what they call the equalisation of white and black—i.e., justice and fair treatment for the natives—shall be the law of the land. Whenever Sir William Harcourt obtained what he considered a specially satisfactory admission from Mr. Chamberlain. he was supplying his Boer friends with confirmation of the absolute necessity for not yielding to "British tyranny." But Sir William Harcourt is like the Chinese theologians who consider that two contradictary views can be held at one and the same time if only you state them with sufficient violence.
Previous page
