On the evening of Friday week a mass meeting in
connexion with the Conference of the National Union of Conservative Associations was held in the Albert Hall under the presidency of the Duke of Northumberland. Mr. Balfour, who was the principal speaker, devoted himself, not to the question of re- organisation which bad agitated the Conference, but to the easier task of criticising the policy of the Government. It was, he said, in spite of all disclaimers, a "Government by mandate," which meant the negation of reason or argument, and therefore an unwarrantable use of the Closure. He criticised Mr. Haldane's Army proposals on the ground that till you have found the machinery for expansion it is lunacy to reduce what you have already got. But the most important part of the speech was devoted to the question of the new Constitution for the Transvaal. He disclaimed any intention of "using our Colonial Empire as a pawn in the party game," but he complained that in this matter of Imperial importance no information had been given to enable the House of Commons to take an intelligent view of the question. All that the country had fought for in the war was at stake, and if we put the power of determining the destiny of South Africa into the hands of our late enemies, who had not even a numerical superiority, we should be imperilling the very existence of the British Empire. The British Colonist all over the world would be entitled to say that "the Empire of which be was proud offers no safeguards to him."
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