A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK T HE TIMES may be .right in suggesting
that the note jotted down by General Botha on the card that marked his place at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (not at the Versailles Peace Conference ; there was no such thing) has not been published before in this country,: but I feel pretty sure it has, though I could not put my- hand on the reference at a moment's notice. I have certainly read the note before. But it is well worth transcribing as The Times gives it : " God's justice will be meted out to every nation in His righteousness under the new Sun. We shall persist in prayer in order that it may be done unto mankind in love, peace and Christian charity. Today, the 31st of May, 1902 [the date of the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the South African War] comes back to me." Both the South African delegates at the Peace Conference habitually used language which showed how fully they were making eternity and the Eternal the measure of the human endeavours there • exerted. " God can see past this treaty," General Smuts said to me in one conversation during the conference ; and to another friend, " you know, Dr. So-and-so,. God is writing a very different treaty from this." In view of the General's published memorandum on the treaty there can be no impropriety in recalling those conversations now.
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