A QUAKER ON THE WAR.
The Truth about the Transvaal War and the Truth about War. By John Bellows. (Printed by the Author, Gloucester. 2d.)— The author of this pamphlet, while travelling on the Continent, was dismayed by the ignorance of facts and the anti.English prejudice which he found prevalent. As a Quaker he was ex- pected to condemn the war, but, as he points out, it is one thing to be opposed to war on principle, and quite another, to regard England as the cause of an unjust war. So he has written the present paper to show that "the British Government before this war had not the smallest intention of touching the independence of the Boers, which it now justly refuses to re-establish, but has been dragged into it as the Orange Free State has been inveigled in, by Paul Kruger only." For this purpose he gives a short sketch of South African history, and then analyses minutely the progress of events in the past two years. His conclusion is that " except on the ground that all war is wrong, England cannot be blamed for this war in the Transvaal." From this he proceeds to show that the force which is already diminishing the horrors of war will finally lead to its extinction, and the pamphlet ends in a very interesting plea for universal peace. Mr. Bellows has given us a most valuable vindication of England's conduct from a Quaker standpoint, and he has shown finally that they are no true friends of peace who shut their eyes to the crimes of our enemies and devote themselves to anti- capitalist ravings and unintelligent fault-finding with their own Government.
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