At Ashington, in Northumberland, on Saturday last Mr. Asquith made
a speech at once firm and moderate in support of the Government in regard to South Africa. His opinion is, he declared, that war was neither intended nor desired by the Government and the people of Great Britain. As to the condition of our fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal, "they were taxed without representation, subject to laws in the work- ing and administering of which they had no effective voice, deprived at one and the same time of the two alternative remedies, votes and arms." Mr. Asquith also quoted Mr. Gladstone's saying, "I am persuaded that there is nothing more permanently demoralising to a community than passive acquiescence in unmerited oppression." We entirely agree. If the Outlanders had continued to endure passively the condition of political servitude forced upon them by the Boers, they would soon have become "the 8011M of the earth" they were always falsely and sometimes maliciously repre- sented to be. As to the future, Mr. Asquith wisely supported what is clearly the Government policy—the policy of a liberal settlement within the Empire—a policy, that is, of equal rights for both races, with inclusion within the Fax Britannica as a guarantee against unrest and insecurity in the future.
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