The saddest feature of the South African episode was its sordidness.  This robbed it of every dignity and destroyed every sympathy of those who looked at it impartially or from another point of view than that of pounds, shillings and pence.  England has been cruelly abused for its conduct in South Africa, and abused most unjustly.  Had that feeling of trust in the justice and in the straightforwardness of Great Britain only existed in the Dark Continent, as it did in the other Colonies and elsewhere, it would have proved the best solution to all the entangled questions which divided the Transvaal Republic from the Mother Country by reason of its manner of looking at the exploitation of the gold mines.  On its side too, perhaps, England might have been brought to consider the Boers in a different light had she disbelieved a handful of people who had every interest in the world to mislead her and to keep her badly informed as to the truth of the situation.

When war broke out it was not easy for the Command to come at once to a sane appreciation of the situation, and, unfortunately for all the parties concerned, the unjust prejudices which existed in South Africa against Sir Alfred Milner had to a certain extent tinctured the minds of people at home, exercising no small influence on the men who ought to have helped the High Commissioner to carry through his plans for the settlement of the situation subsequently to the war.  The old saying, “Calumniate, calumniate, something will always remain after it,” was never truer than in the case of this eminent statesman.

It took some time for matters to be put on a sound footing, and before this actually occurred many mistakes had been made, neither easy to rectify nor possible to explain.  Foremost among them was this question of the Concentration Camps.  Not even the protestations of the women who subsequently went to the Cape and to the Transvaal to report officially on the question were considered sufficient to dissipate the prejudices which had arisen on this unfortunate question.  The best reply that was made to Miss Hobhouse, and to the lack of prudence which spoiled her good intentions, was a letter which Mrs. Henry Fawcett addressed to the Westminster Gazette.  In clear, lucid diction this letter re-established facts on their basis of reality, and explained with self-respect and self-control the inner details of a situation which the malcontents had not given themselves the trouble to examine.

“First,” says this forceful document, “I would note Miss Hobhouse’s frequent acknowledgments that the various authorities were doing their best to make the conditions of Camp life as little intolerable as possible.  The opening sentence of her report is, ’January 22.—­I had a splendid truck given me at Cape Town through the kind co-operation of Sir Alfred Milner—­a large double-covered one, capable of holding twelve tons.’  In other places she refers to the help given to her by various officials.  The commandant