Let me borrow the immortal words of Lincoln, and applying them to this new condition, let me remind you that this republic cannot endure half slave and half free. [Applause on the Democratic side.] Either we must all be citizens or else in time we shall become subjects. I did not want these alien and inferior races, and I fervently pray that we may yet be delivered from the impossible task of assimilating and governing them. [Applause on the Democratic side.] But, sir, if you will take them, you must make them a part of us; we must share their destiny with them, and they must share their destiny with us, for there is no place under our form of government for that wretched creature without citizenship. Every man who stands beneath the ample folds of that flag which adorns yonder speaker's stand shall have the right to face the world, and with that prouder than Roman boast upon his lips, proclaim, “I am an American citizen." [Great applause on the Democratic side.]

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR

ON THE BOER WAR

[Arthur James Balfour, an English statesman, Conservative and Imperialist, was born, 1848, in Scotland. He is the eldest son of the late James Maitland Balfour, who married Lady Blanche Gascoigne Cecil, daughter of the second Marquis of Salisbury, father of the present marquis. Mr. Balfour is distinguished for intellectual attainments of a high order, and has the true Scottish taste for logic and metaphysics. He was educated at Eton, and graduated in due course from Trinity College, Cambridge. He has accepted honorary doctorates from six other universities, and is a F.R.S. Mr. Balfour entered Parliament as member for Hertford in 1874, and became private secretary to the Marquis of Salisbury, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He attended the Berlin Congress on a special mission in 1878, and was created Privy Councilor in 1885. In 1886 he was appointed to a seat in the Cabinet. He became First Lord of the Treasury, and leader in the House of Commons in 1891. He has written many valuable works on religion from the standpoint of reason. He is at present M.P. for the Eastern District of Manchester. On the retirement of the Marquis of Salisbury, at the conclusion of the Boer War, Mr. Balfour became Premier, 1902. As a speaker Mr. Balfour is clear, cogent, and convincing. He is not addicted to flights of rhetoric, but sometimes seasons his argument with a spice of irony. The address given here was made to his own constituency in Manchester in 1900, during the progress of the Boer War.]

IN

N order that we may judge fairly of the course of events which have led up to the position in which we find ourselves, let us attempt to do that which is not always very easy to do—I mean, let us attempt to throw ourselves in imagination at the present moment into the position in which we were, one and all, six or eight months ago. What then was our view of the South African difficulty? The difficulty was, no doubt, there with us, as it has been present with us all throughout the term of office of this govern

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ment, and as it had been present throughout the term of office of our predecessors and their predecessors again. But there was no ground for feeling that these perennial difficulties, whatever their ultimate outcome might be, were sufficient to daunt our determination that the controversy which had arisen should be settled once and for all; but which will not be settled easily, immediately, without further difficulty, without further bloodshed. Well, what was, in our view, in the general view, the position of affairs? We knew that there was this constant friction between the Transvaal government and successive British governments. We knew that they were always fretting against the bit; that they desired nothing so much as to tear up all the provisions in the conventions between the two countries which limited their autonomy, and to claim, among all the nations of the world, an absolutely independent place. That we knew. We knew, further, that there was a progressive ill treatment of uitlanders, mostly men of our own speech and of our own blood; and we knew, further, that there were progressive armaments, purchased at the cost of taxes laid upon foreign and principally British industry, British capital, and British labor. We found ourselves in this condition of things hampered diplomatically at every turn by the raid-that most unfortunate and ill-omened enterprise—and it found us also determined to require ultimately from the Transvaal a treatment of British subjects. not grossly or scandalously different from the treatment that we accord to men of Dutch speech and Dutch blood in the freedom of an English self-governing colony. Now, of course, that position was a dangerous one, and, of course, it was a position which at any moment might have led to hostilities. It was dangerous, because of the misgovernment, and because of the corruption-of the corruption, as I have told you, fed by British industry, of the misgovernment of which British subjects were the victims; and it was dangerous because of the magnitude of the armaments which the Transvaal had made and because of that overweening military pride which, to our loss, and still much more to their eternal loss, had entirely turned their heads and blinded their eyes to the military power of this country. But while it is true that all thoughtful observers

regarded the situation as one which had within it elements of peril, and while a large number of persons thought that as time went on a struggle between the pretensions of the Boers and the duties of the imperial government would bring about a conflict, I do not believe that in anybody's mind, and certainly not in the mind of the government, was it regarded as inevitable, or even in any high degree probable, that before the autumn had drawn to its close the Orange Free State and the Transvaal would be involved in hostilities with this country. I recapitulate these facts, familiar to all, because from day to day, when we are anxiously awaiting the telegrams, when our minds are absorbed in the varying fortunes of the war, we are too apt to consider too little the circumstances which led up to the present state of things; and some of us, though I think not many, may be tempted to judge harshly the government responsible for the conduct both of civil and military affairs. Now, why did not the government, knowing that armaments were being accumulated in the Transvaal, enter a protest two years ago, and declare that either the accumulating of armaments, which could only be directed against this country and its colonies, should cease, or else we should regard it as a cause of quarrel between us and the Boer government? There is a conclusive reason, and a melancholy reason, why that argument should not have been used against the Boer government. Our hands were tied and our mouths were closed at the time by the raid. How could we say to the Boer government, You disarm; you have nothing to fear from us"? How, I say, could we use that argument when three years ago an expedition composed of our countrymen had made an onslaught-a feeble and ineffective onslaught, it is true, but still an onslaught -on the Boer government? We were helpless in the face of that argument. It was always open for the Boer government to say, "These arms which we are accumulating, these munitions of war which we are buying, are intended not for aggression, but for protection, for self-defense against a second raid upon our territory." You will see that the argument that I wish to use is this-that we entered upon this war insufficiently prepared to deal on the spot with the military situation which we had to face, and

looking back impartially, I say that the steps we took were, in the state of our knowledge, sufficient steps, and that the policy we took was one which ought to commend itself to the impartial judgment of the country.

We are attacked, indeed, now for having done too little. The very men who now attack us are sometimes the men who six months ago attacked us in terms not less bitter for having done too much. Now, just consider what course a government ought to pursue which is engaged in a difficult and delicate negotiation, which is anxious as we were for peace; which, indeed, thinks war possible, as we thought it possible, but does not think it probable, as we did not think it probable. I say the course that such a government would take was, in the first place to abstain from unnecessary menace, which might hamper, and fatally hamper, the course of peaceful negotiation; but while abstaining from preparation of the nature of menace, it would at the same time do that which it thought necessary to meet defensively the eventuality of war, if, as was improbable, but possible, war should be the ultimate issue of the negotiations. That was the course we pursued. If we were wrong in thinking war improbable, we erred with the great mass of opinion instructed upon South African affairs. I do not say that you might not find here and there some prophet of evil who told us that, as soon as the grass grew, the Boers and their horses would be in the field; but if you consider, as I had to consider, the balance of competent opinion on the South African question, while few men were rash enough to hazard the prophecy that the South African question would ultimately culminate in war, for the present, at all events, the probability was that we should obtain such rights for the uitlanders in the Transvaal as should at least tide over the present year and the present difficulty, until, perhaps, some period arrived when, either by accident or by design, it might suit the Boer leaders to precipitate a struggle, from which they hoped, but vainly hoped, to reap so much for their national advantage. And, observe, this was not a question on which the government had, could have, or ever pretended to have, special means of information. There have been, and may be, European questions on which the public cannot be taken into the con