These terms were practically the same as those which had been refused by Botha in March 1901.  Thirteen months of useless warfare had left the situation as it was.

It had been a war of surprises, but the surprises have unhappily been hitherto invariably unpleasant ones.  Now at last the balance swung the other way, for in all the long paradoxical history of South African strife there is nothing more wonderful than the way in which these two sturdy and unemotional races clasped hands the instant that the fight was done.  The fact is in itself a final answer to the ill-natured critics of the Continent.  Men do not so easily grasp a hand which is reddened with the blood of women and children.  From all parts as the commandos came in there was welcome news of the fraternisation between them and the soldiers; while the Boer leaders, as loyal to their new ties as they had been to their old ones, exerted themselves to promote good feeling among their people.  A few weeks seemed to do more to lessen racial bitterness than some of us had hoped for in as many years.  One can but pray that it will last.

The surrenders amounted in all to twenty thousand men, and showed that in all parts of the seat of war the enemy had more men in the field than we had imagined, a fact which may take the sting out of several of our later mishaps.  About twelve thousand surrendered in the Transvaal, six thousand in the Orange River Colony, and about two thousand in the Cape Colony, showing that the movement in the rebel districts had always been more vexatious than formidable.  A computation of the prisoners of war, the surrenders, the mercenaries, and the casualties, shows that the total forces to which we were opposed were certainly not fewer than seventy-five thousand well-armed mounted men, while they may have considerably exceeded that number.  No wonder that the Boer leaders showed great confidence at the outset of the war.

That the heavy losses caused us by the war were borne without a murmur is surely evidence enough how deep was the conviction of the nation that the war was not only just but essential—­that the possession of South Africa and the unity of the Empire were at stake.  Could it be shown, or were it even remotely possible, that ministers had incurred so immense a responsibility and entailed such tremendous sacrifices upon their people without adequate cause, is it not certain that, the task once done, an explosion of rage from the deceived and the bereaved would have driven them for ever from public life?  Among high and low, in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, in the great Colonies, how many high hopes had been crushed, how often the soldier son had gone forth and never returned, or come back maimed and stricken in the pride of his youth.  Everywhere was the voice of pity and sorrow, but nowhere that of reproach.  The deepest instincts of the nation told it that it must fight and win, or for ever abdicate its position