On Tuesday Mr. Asquith continued the debate in a speech
which deserves high praise for its manliness and courage, Mr. Asquith did not want, and quite rightly, for no patriotic man can wish any further ruptures in the Opposition, to emphasise the divisions in his party, but rather to maintain as great a semblance of unity as possible ; but at the same time he was determined to speak out plainly on the question of the war, and to dissociate himself from those infatuated men who desire to restore to the Boers their Republics, their flag, and their Presidents. But though we give all honour to Mr. Asquith for his speech, we do not agree with his demand that the Boers are not to reap as they have sown, and are to be relieved of the consequences of their invasion of our terri- tory by obtaining relief from their mortgage creditors, and by having their farms restocked at the public expense. If we had Fortunatus's purse we should readily agree to the pro- posal; but as public treasuries are limited, we would rather reserve what money can be spared to help the loyalists who have stood by us in South Africa, and who have suffered quite as greatly as the Boers, though they have not such clever and ingenious spokesmen as have the men who drove them from their homes in the autumn of 1899. There are plenty of loyalists now in the field who have lost everything in the war, and after some two years of fighting will be left without any means of livelihood. We would consider them first. The Boer will not starve, even though he has to learn the lesson that even white men must work.
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