Mr. Asquith warmly repudiated the charge of bad faith made
by the Opposition. The liquidation of the evil state of things introduced by the late Government could not be achieved instantaneously ; but he declared that the pledge given in regard to Chinese labour had been fulfilled in the letter and the spirit. Mr. Balfour, who contended that there had been fresh labour legislation in the Transvaal on the old lines—the very thing which he understood Mr. Asquith to have said would not be sanctioned—and that the Government had violated their pledges, appealed to them to lay upon the table the correspondence which must have passed with the Transvaal Government on the subject. We cannot congratulate Mr. Lyttelton on his action in reviving this controversy. The mineowners have long decided to regard the episode as closed; but Mr. Lyttelton, unconvinced and unrepentant, makes a party fetish of his consistency. The effect of the " slavery " cry at the Election of 1906 has been grossly exaggerated, and admitting that the Liberal Government acted foolishly in promising to undo at once what could not he wholly undone for years, their lack of foresight is as nothing compared to the short-sightedness of their predecessors in initiating so disastrous a policy.
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