SOME PLAIN SPEAKING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 86, 10 April 1906, Page 5

SOME PLAIN SPEAKING.

FAB-REACHING EFFECTS OF INTERFERENCE.

(By Cable.—Press Association.—copyrignt..

(Received 8.36 a,m.) LONDON April 9. The "SpectatorJ" in commenting on 3lr. Churchill's speech on South African affairs, says that he was not justified on the facts and wholly unjustified by Imperial practice. Lord Elgin's interference had certainly done no good. "Mr. Churchill's remark that autonomy had been given too readily, will not tend to soothe matters," the "Spectator" continues, and goes on to eulogize the attitude of the great self-governing colonies for the clear and temperate tone in which the colonial Press is upholding the true doctrine of Imperial relations. Autonomy onoe given cannot be whittled away. The "Spectator"' adds that Lord Elgin was not justified in interfering with the court martial. The "Times" Johannesburg correspondent says that the hands of the clock of conciliation had been put back "by many years by the events_of th>3 last few months. The Boer leaders had been encouraged in the belief that they would obtain political supremacy, and were unlikely to calmly watch the hopes deliberately raised by the Liberal Government dashed at tb/ eleventh hour. If the Government was resolved to uphold British interests, it must expect a recrudescence of racial antagonism in its bitterest form. ,