The Daily 4Tews of Wednesday publishes a long and painful
description of the sufferings of the women and children in the refugee camps, written by Miss Holthouse. That Miss Iiobhouse desired to speak the truth and nothing but the truth we do not doubt for a moment, but it is questionable whether she has the qualifications required for handling judicla 01131y this very difficult matter. She speaks vehemently, for. example, of the terrible heat and of the absence • of shade, but surely that is not the fault of the British. She also evidently thinks that the very existence of the camps is an outrage, and she sets down ez parte statement s: made by the Boer women as if those statements afforded conclusive proof of the facts alleged. We know how un-, trustworthy are the statements made even by our own soldiers when they are enduring the discomforts of hospital camps. How much more likely to be valueless are the, statements of those whose minds are in addition deeply prejudiced by bitter racial hatred. We do not blame the Boer women for not being reliable witnesses—their animus is most natural—but it seems to us absurd to parade their loose and unsifted testimony as facts of import- ance. We have dealt elsewhere with the whole question, but will only say here that we are glad to see from a telegram in Thursday's Times that every effort is being made to organise the camps in a way that shall cause the minimum of suffering to those detained in them. It is satis- factory to hear that schools have been established in all the camps, and that though attendance is of course voluntary, great alacrity is shown by the parents in having the children taught. It is curious to note that when Dutch and English schools were established side by side the English school had within a fortnight emptied the Dutch school. We should add that we cannot open our columns to letters on the subject of the camps, except, of course, in case we can be shown to have made any error in regard to facts.
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