MR.. CHAMBERLAIN AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CLUB.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN is one of the very best debaters in the House of Commons, but to our mind he never speaks so well as when he speaks on the practical matters with which he himself has to deal, for then he shows not so much his great qualities as a controversialist as his still greater qualities as a man of action. His speech at the Constitutional Club on Wednesday was a signal illustration of this. While he was attacking Lord Rosebery for not returning Lord Salisbury's lead on foreign politics as Lord Salisbury had returned his lead, be was skilful enough, though be scarcely made sufficient allowance perhaps for the difficulty of combining reason- able support with the conventional criticism of an Oppo- sition leader, and especially of a defeated Opposition leader. It is much easier to be magnanimous in victory than to be magnanimous in defeat, and Lord Rosebery has had to combine the attitude of one who does not wish to let the country speak with two voices on foreign policy with the attitude of one who does wish to encourage his own party to fight boldly under discouraging circum- stances. However, Mr. Chamberlain was not unfair, though he was rather more severe on Lord Rosebery than he need have been. But when he came to his own Department he spoke with the most admirable mixture of candour and firmness. He acknowledged at once the cordial support he had received at this difficult crisis in Colonial affairs from his official opponents. He expounded the difficulties of the situation with the most admirable lucidity, and in treating of the affairs of the Transvaal he dwelt with singular sagacity and strength on the key of the situation. He not only took the bull by the horns, but he grasped both its horns with equal force. We had, he said, to govern a vast region in which our people are by no means a majority with a just regard for what the other great race inhabiting it has a right to ex- pect, but we have to govern it with the firmness and fore- sight of the paramount Power, who is acknowledged to be paramount throughout that vast region, and who is bound to show that it intends to remain the paramount Power, and to vindicate for itself the supremacy which it has purchased by expending freely such great resources and so much blood in imposing order on so many barbarous tribes. We are bound to remain the paramount Power, and yet we are bound to show ourselves perfectly just to the great Dutch race which still outnumbers us in South Africa, and which is justly aggrieved at the unsuccessful attempt recently made to outwit and overpower them by an act at once violent and treacherous. We have got to live with the Dutch in South Africa as we have got to live with the Irish in the United Kingdom, and in neither region can we hope to succeed by an oppressive or cunning policy,—which is indeed thoroughly inconsistent with the genius of our race. We have to do justice to the Boers and the Afrikanders in South Africa, and the only way to obtain their loyal support is to keep our engagements with them strictly and honourably, while we nevertheless insist on their doing out own people the justice which they are only too much inclined to with- hold. Mr. Chamberlain showed that he both fully under- stood our own engagements to President Kruger and his people, and that he was fully determined to keep them to the letter, and also that he understood the duty of making the people of the Transvaal feel that they could not go on refusing our people justice without endangering their own position, in spite of our fidelity to the promises we had given them. Nothing was more admirable in Mr. Chamberlain's speech than his frank language in relation to the gross abuses of the Boer Government, the scandals of their Courts of Justice, the " corruption " of their whole system of administration, and the extraordinarily grasping spirit with which they appropriate all the gains of the Outlanders' enterprising operations and commerce, and yet refuse them the commonest rights of citizens. However faithfully we restrain our people from resenting these wrongs, it is perfectly obvious that a time will come when we can restrain them no longer, if while our own people multiply and grow rich, the Boers, who hold them down and govern them with an iron rod, remain as few and as poor as ever. Mr. Kruger and his people distrust the Outlanders, and are justified in dis- trusting them when such outbreaks as the Jameson raid occur. But at the same time the Boers themselves, who have on more than one occasion set the very example which Dr. Jameson unfortunately followed, must know that they were causing a sort of pressure which they them- selves under similar circumstances would not tolerate, and it is not for a paramount Power like that of the United Kingdom to ignore all this injustice on the Boers' part, while it condemns and restrains those of our own race who ream unable to endure it without retaliation, or rather without a dishonest and ill-conceived attempt at retalia- tion which was fortunately foiled. Many of us thought that Mr. Chamberlain had gone a little too far in the direction of reparation to Mr. Kruger, when he explained to him that the Queen was not despatch- ing troops to South Africa with any hostile intention, for the Queen is certainly not responsible to Mr. Kruger for the orders she may give to her own forces. But even if this explanation were a step too far in the direction of con- ciliation, it was only by way of showing that we had heartily condemned the conspiracy against the Transvaal Govern- ment which resulted in Dr. Jameson's raid ; and Mr. Cham- berlain fully made up for this supererogatory courtesy in the firm and frank way in which he laid bare on Wednesday the abuses and corruption of the Boer rule. If we are to hold back our own people from acts of violence and from breaches of law, we must enforce by repeated and per- tinacious remonstrance the evils of the system which has led to those acts of violence and breaches of law, and will lead to them again, if they are not gradually re- formed. And even Mr. Kruger, who, willing as he has often shown himself to ignore his own engagements, when he sees a chance of ignoring them with impunity, is quite shrewd enough to see when he cannot escape from the consequences of ill-doing, will certainly recognise the force of Mr. Chamberlain's comments, and will; reluctantly and slowly, press on his dull Boer colleagues the positive necessity of admitting the Outlanders who bring wealth and lend intelligence to the people of the Transvaal, to some of the essential privileges of citizens. It is no easy matter to reconcile the English and the Afrikander elements in South Africa, but without reconciling them, there will be no peace and prosperity in South Africa, and if there is a statesman in the United Kingdom who can really effect that difficult feat, we believe that it is Mr. Chamberlain. Admirable as he is in debate, he sometimes, perhaps, passes too lightly over his opponent's strongest points, and too much emphasises his weaker positions. But he never makes any error of that kind in his practical statesmanship. There he always recognises and takes the strongest possible grasp of his opponent's strongest position, and shapes his own policy with relation to that strong position. He is showing this quality in his South African policy, and we fully believe that Mr. Kruger will recognise this, and will be at least shrewd enough to draw in his horns before so able and so frank an antagonist.
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