Evening Post. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17,1900. THE ISSUE OF THE WAR.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 120, 17 November 1900, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1900. THE ISSUE OF THE WAR.

The last mail from the Old Country was despatched on the eve of the general election. Political feeling was running high, and the issues of the approaching struggle were being discussed freely and even vehemently by both sides. Of these issues the problem of South Africa completely overshadowed all others. Unoaists and Liberals vied with one another in explaining to the electors the different views entertained with reference to the justice of the war, and the proper policy to adopt at its conclusion. A large section of the Opposition was ready to support the Government policy, and was consequently upon the vital question of South Africa at variance with the rest of the Liberal Party. The electors, as the result proved, were anxious to see the Unionist policy carried out, and, as the Liberal Imperialists had not a free hand in framing the programme of their Party, the Ministry was kept in office by a .large majority. The dissensions in the Opposition ranks have not been cured by the crushing defeat of the Party, and, as we leara to-day, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman has thought fit to make a vigorous attack upon the Liberal Imperialists, while at the came time he, with striking inconsistency, invites Lord Rosebery to become leader of a united Liberal Party. ■ The continuance of these disputes and the anti-imperialistic utterances of the recognised Leader of the Opposition fully justify the electors in granting the Unionist Government another lease of power. They show that a Liberal Government would have been unable to carry out a final settlement of South Africa upon the lines laid down by a popular mandate of the whole Ejnpire. It is apparent from a perusal of the newspapers which have just come to hand that, although the majority of the British electors cordially approved of the war and the consequent annexation of the two Dutch Republics, there were many who doubted its justice, and believed that it might have been avoided. The ablest and most sincere of these objectors was' Mr. John Morley, who is trying to hand down intact the traditions of the Gladstonian policy after Majuba. He pointed out that war waged on such a scale "is a transaction in all senses so enormous that it has either been so demonstrably right or else so fatally wrong that it would be unworthy of the self-respect of free citizens to shirk the responsibility of 'looking at the case in all its bearings, and forming and expressing at the polls ft full and deliberate judgment, both upon the policy that has ended in so violent a catastrophe and upon the authors and managers of that policy." Mr. Morley held that after a careful scrutiny the N war would be found to be unjustifiable, but the British people came to the opposite conclusion. Arguing his case, however, he contended that " to have extinguished the independence of two States is no honour and brings no profit." He then proceeded to apply the hackneyed rea.soning which has been used on behalf of many a faulty Government in the past. "This at least," he urged, "is true, that the Government we have broken up and trampled out of existence was a Government so chosen and' cherished by the people to whom the country by all public law, right, and treaty belonged, that they were willing for it to sacrifice all that made life dear and to fight for it to the death." This idea has no doubt occurred to many conscientious British subjects besides Mr. Morley, but as our able contemporary, the London Spectator, observes, the argument would have applied with equal force to the Southern Confederation in the American civil war, and yet Vho hesitates to say on which side were justice and righteousness ? It does not follow that a Government is just or right, or even that it has a claim to continued existence, simply because men choose it and are ready to die for it. As with the Southern Confederation so with the Boer States, ye must seek deeper and probe the origin of the war before we acquit or condemn. The Spectator .discovers the real origin of the war in the refusal of the Boers to grant good and ,free government to the settlers , in their country, though they were bound in Jionour if not in law to give them equal rights. "Had they treated the Outlanders .properly" remarks our esteemed contemporary, "there would and could have been no war." There is, no doubt, a measure of truth in this statement, but it seems to us that, while the treatment of the Outlanders occupied the chief place in the negotiations which culminated •in war, the real reason lay* in Boer aspirations of which their treatment of the Outlanders was only a symptom. Had there been no Outlanders at all the struggle must have come sooner or later, for the Boers within and without the Transvaal were desirous of replacing British supremacy by Dutch supremacy. The welfare of the Empire, the good of the whole, demanded trie extinction of the Republics, the dependence of the part. The Spectator acknowledges the force of this reason, but places it second to the treatment of the Out'landers, whereas we would ourselves reverse the order. A. continual struggle between the two race 3in South Africa could not have been tolerated. The Boers represented racial arrogance and natural exclusiveness, whereas the British represent equality for all white races. Thus a supreme test of strength on behalf of British supremacy was both just and expedient.