We must protest, however, most strongly and most indignantly against
Mr. Morley's astonishing attempt to give point and momentum to his charge against Lord Kitchener by placing immediately after it the brutal rubbish about "potting niggers" written home by some boy from Bulawayo. No doubt Mr. Morley dropped the phrase that it had nothing "in the least to do with the Kitchener vote," but in the context the effect of the story was inevitably to empha- sise the innuendo of bloodthirstiness and brutality made against our soldiers when engaged in Imperial work. Yet Mr. Morley must know perfectly well that "the potting of niggers" and the executions at Bulawayo were not the work of our soldiers, but occurred within the dominions of the Chartered Company. If Mr. Morley wants to support his case against Lord Kitchener, let him bring authentic cases of cruelty by our soldiers which were encouraged or not sternly stopped by their officers. In truth, all this sentimental controversy about the .hdi's head is almost as forced and unreal as the " gushing " of those ladies who go to the museums and denounce the wicked- ness of taking the mummies out of their tombs. No man can do the State a better service than by keeping a vigilant watch over our treatment of inferior races, and by denouncing all acts of cruelty, oppression, and injustice wherever found. The fuss over the Mahdi's remains does, however, positive harm, for it tends to make a good cause ridiculous, and to defeat the efforts of those who earnestly desire to stop cruelty and oppression.
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