Mr. Balfour, presiding at a meeting of the East Lothian
Unionist Association at Haddington on Wednesday, spoke with equal good sense and feeling on the subject of the war. If the Government had erred, they had erred at all events on the right side. " We can look back—we and those who sup- port us—upon those long and anxious months with the con- scientious conviction that war is none of our seeking, war is none of our desire. It has been forced upon us by those who are not men fighting for the freedom of their country, but an oligarchy fearing that the hour of their domination is nearing its end." The choice before us, Mr. Balfour went on, was "either to insist that all the white races in South Africa—in that portion of the Continent in which we claim to be the paramount Power—should stand on an equality ; or, on the other hand, to lose irremediably, and I think righteously, the claim to be a nation which not only has the desire, but has the power, to see that justice is done in all the regions over which it claims paramount influence." Let those who try to contend that this war is a war manufactured by fire-eaters remember these words. Mr. Balfour ended by a statement as to foreign opinion on the war, which we most heartily endorse :—" I do not much care what judgment be passed on this matter upon us by those who perhaps have not the oppor- tunity, and perhaps have not the inclination, to judge us as a nation fairly." It is needless to say that by foreign opinion we do not mean American opinion, nor, we are sure, does Mr. Balfour. We should deeply regret to be misunderstood in America, and we shall greatly rejoice if A.merioa takes our
side,-as we are confident her people will if only they have the facts brought fairly and squarely before them.
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