After Mr. Balfour's speech the debate degenerated into an Irish
wrangle, Mr. Dillon moving a long and laboured amend- ment denouncing an ignominious war with "two small nations numbering in all two hundred thousand souls." We cannot profess to excite ourselves over the hatred of the United Kingdom and the sympathy for the Boers expressed moderately in Parliament, and openly out of it, by the Nationalists. When they mean all they say, which is seldom, their vituperation is quite harmless, and should be passed by in silence. For the most part, however, the so-called treason is mere chatter, and should be dismissed in Dryden's words :— " When they call knave and scoundrel from a garret They mean you no more mischief than a parrot." Nationalists, however, do not call from a garret, but from positions of great comfort and affluence. Before leaving this part of the debate we must not fail to note Colonel Saunderson's "excellent score." How were the people of this country, he asked, going to benefit by getting hold of the Transvaal P " Were the Members of the House of Commons richer for the gold except for the 210,900 given to
lion. gentlemen opposite by Mr. Cecil Rhodes?" That was excellent, but we hope we shall hear no more about the theatrical treason-mongery of the Nationalists. In the end the Irish amendment to the Address was defeated by a majority of 268 (322 to 54).
Previous page
