In the House of Commons Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who opened
the debate on the Address, complained very bitterly that the Government had misled the country as to the military position in South Africa. The announcement that the war was at an end, made during the General Election, was either a ludicrous miscalculation or a scandalous mis- representation. The Opposition not only questioned the military arrangements, but they doubted whether the political conduct of the war had been such as to conduce to an early and honourable settlement. For a long time our forces on the spot were inadequate, and it was only just before Parlia- ment was going to meet that a scratch force of thirty thousand reinforcements was got together. And of these some were really police and counted twice over. After urging the Government to make known a more generous policy in regard to South Africa, he expressed his conviction that the Com- mons would cheerfully make adequate provision for the needs of the Crown.
