THE TERMS OF SETTLEMTINT.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Again to-day (Thursday) the papers tell us that Botha is negotiating for peace, or for time. On the last occasion our troops in Pretoria, stale with work and weary of the hardships of war, received the news of the failure of negotiations with cheers. They put the honour of Britain before all else, and so does the nation. The Boers wanted war, and forced it on us in autumn, 1899. Never was a war so waged. They, their leaders, have put to death the envoys of peace, who went to them under the white flag. Did the French in the Peninsula or the Germans in France protect and feed the enemy's women, so as to leave the men with absolutely free hands to fight ? Throughout the war we have shown too much foolish leniency, as well in the conduct of the campaigns as in the alteration of the law of tree-sou in Cape Colony. And though Mr. Chamberlain, luckily, is not given, like the Leader of the House, to listening to the "man in the street," he will do well to note the present temper of the nation. It Will have nothing but unconditicaull surrender. It will give the Boers justice, but only justice,— equality before the law. Alike in the schools, in the Law Courts, in the Government, there must be one language only, the English. The sooner and the more thoroughly the Boers are made to understand that they must obey their conquerors, the more chance there will be of lasting peace. Be sure the country is in no humour to tolerate another Gladstonian
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