the other hand there is the policy of patience and of peaceful and conciliatory negotiation. That second policy was supported, and demanded from the Imperial Government, by the Natal Parliament, by the Cape Parliament, by Lord Rosmead, who had been High Commissioner, by the Commander-in-Chief, and by all the constituted authorities except the High Commissioner, and by all who had special knowledge of the question. The alternative was a policy of force and of threats depending upon force. Who was in favour of that policy? I cannot find any authority of the same quality as those I have quoted. The right hon. Gentleman went on to develop this question of the strength of troops, and he said that the Government worked the number of troops up to 12,000, but that I was well aware that those troops were not in a thoroughly efficient state because they were not, as he said, coordinated. We seem to be drenched with that word "co-ordinated" in military as well as in educational matters. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that I had peculiar knowledge on the subject, and I asked him whether he referred to the conversation which I had the pleasure of having with him, and to the correspondence which followed. He said that he did, and I asked for leave to break the seal of secrecy or of confidence and to state what occurred. It was on 20th June, 1899. The right hon. Gentleman wrote to me a note saying that he would be very pleased if I would let him have a little conversation with me. I replied in similar terms, and the right hon. Gentleman came to my room. He told me that he wished to submit to me, and of course to those with whom I acted, two proposals that the Government were contemplating. The first was to send out 10,000 men to the Cape-I think Natal-and the right hon. Gentleman asked whether the Opposition would join in recommending that step to the House and to the country. I think I must have looked a little surprised, or I may have uttered a few words of surprise, for the right hon. Gentleman went on to I think I ventured to express frankly to the right hon. Gentleman my opinion that such a policy was unworthy of the country. If I did not say that, I felt it; but at all events I said that it was a rash and dangerous policy, that it was dangerous to begin a course of bluff when you did not know what it might lead to, and I said that I must consult my colleagues. I only gave my own personal impression at the time. Then the right hon. Gentleman said that there was another thing-that the forces in Natal were deficient in equipment-in transport especially-that it lacked mobility; and the right hon. Gentleman wanted to know whether there would be any adverse feeling expressed if that fault were made good. Well, Sir, I said that I would consult my colleagues on both of these proposals. I invited my colleagues to come, and I told them what the right hon. Gentleman had said, and I took their mind on both these questions. With regard to the equipment of the troops, which, I think, meant the purchase of mules and horses mostly, we said that we thought there was nothing to be urged against the proposal-it being desirable, if we had a force, that it should be efficient, provided that it was done in such a way as not to be ostentatious or provocative -as not to be trumpeted about-with the view possibly of producing some effect upon the minds of men in South Africa. But as to the other proposal we could only reply that the responsibility for a great movement of troops such as that lay entirely with the Executive Government, and that we were not prepared to relieve them of any part of their responsibility. I think that that was practically the gist of what occurred. I wrote a note to the right hon. Gentleman expressing these opinions that the undivided responsibility must rest with the Governmentand the right hon. Gentleman replied on 24th June, saying that he quite understood and appreciated what we had said, and hoped that there would be an opportunity later of further private consultation, if desirable, or something to that effect. No such opportunity for further consultation presented itself, and there the matter ended. MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not want to interfere in the slightest degree with the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but I do not entirely agree with the account which he has given. With the permission of the House, I will explain when he has finished. * SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I will confess to the House that for a long time afterwards, and indeed up to the present moment, that declaration of the policy of the Government sunk into my mind and remained there. To my mind it amply explains all the want of preparation, all the mistakes, and all the complaints. Some, including the Prime Minister, have blamed the soldiers for the want of preparation. The right hon. Gentleman blames the Opposition. Some Ministers say that they were fully informed in every respect. But we cannot forget what Lord Salisbury told us that they knew nothing about it, because the Boer cannon were conveyed by some wonderful feat in piano-cases and the like. But what is the use of troubling our heads with all these excuses and methods of accounting for the facts, when we have this declaration that a game of bluff was being played, that there was no sincere expectation or intention of using actively any forces which might be sent out? us I do not know that I have anything more to say on that question. I do not wish to speak at all in too strong terms of anything that has happened, or to rake up old questions of difference. But not only have I myself from the first been convinced that the policy of the right hon. Gentleman was a mistaken policy, that patience and good nature and concessions of a small kind would in a few years (probably by this time) have smoothed over the whole difficulty, but I am convinced that, if the right hon. Gentleman was intending to pursue the policy of force, nothing could have been more unworthy of this country than the particular form of that policy which is denominated by the name of bluff. One thing more I wish to say, and it applies to the Chief Secretary. He quoted a despatch of Lord Ripon's on the question of the franchise, a despatch which he represented to the House as being rather in the nature of an ulti matum presented to Mr. Kruger. What are the facts? It was not a despatch in the sense of having been ever despatched. It was a Paper. There were negotiations going on about Swaziland, and Lord Loch was directed to go up to Pretoria and arrange with the Transvaal Government. Mr. Kruger at this time hinted that it was his intention to raise the question of the Convention; and Lord Ripon wrote to Lord Loch to say that, if that question were raised, the first thing put forward would be the question of the five years franchise, and in this Paper Lord Ripon used certain arguments in favour of it. Why, Sir, we are all in favour of a five years franchise, if not of a lower one, in the Transvaal- everybody except, apparently, the present governing authorities in the Transvaal. But when the negotiations began Mr. Kruger never raised this question of the Convention at all; therefore, a fortiori, the question of the franchise was never raised. This document remained, therefore, merely a hypothetical confidential instruction for Lord Loch. Some time. ago the late Secretary of State for the Colonies asked Lord Ripon whether he would allow the arguments used in this Paper to be printed in a public document, and that was agreed to, out of courtesy, as between one Secretary of State and his successor. The right hon. Gentleman now uses this Paper, which was never more than that, as a parallel case to the hurling of an ultimatum at a foreign State. THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM, Dover): Lord Milner made the same proposal, but he did not hurl an ultimatum. * SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Well, I do not know. If there was not an ultimatum there were a good many ultimata. There was practically a great deal of shaking of fists, a great deal of fumbling with the butt-end of the revolver. The sands were running out and the sponge was being squeezed. No, Sir, I think that the right hon. Gentleman was misled in quoting that document in the way he did. It is not what I should have expected from him, and I think that if he looks into the thing he will find that it hardly bears if that could be done, to remove altoout the character of importance which gether any Party feeling or controversy he gave to it. That is all. I have from the further discussion of the disposed of the points which the right subject. I spoke to the Prime Minister, hon. Gentleman put forward so violently Lord Salisbury, on the subject, and last night, and I trust that I have made I had his assent to communicating it clear to the House that most of us with and seeing the right hon. Gentlehave had no other intention than to man. The right hon. Gentleman avoid, where we could, embarrassing therefore, has omitted the way in the Government in any way, and, at which the conversation was opened by the same time, to advocate in this me. I told him what I have said to the House that peaceful settlement and House. I told him that if he was arrangement in South Africa which inclined to accept that view of the would, I believe, have accomplished situation, and to consider that a great the same results, and better results, than matter of this kind, affecting national have been produced by the waste of all interests, should be treated not in the the blood and treasure which have been ordinary sense of a Party question, but spent. as a matter in which the Opposition had as much right to be consulted as the Government, then on my part, and on behalf of my colleagues, I was prepared to make him this offer, that we would take no steps whatever without consulting him, and that, if of course we found afterwards that we could not agree, it might be necessary to separate; but, at all events, that each further step from that date, if he and his colleagues saw eye to eye with us, would be in effect a joint proceeding. The right hon. Gentleman, I thought, accepted the idea without unwillingness, but he said— MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Mr. Speaker, in reference to the communications between the right hon. Gentleman and myself, to which he has referred again to-day, we are both, as the House perceives, in a certain difficulty, inasmuch as the papers connected with it are in both our cases at a distance. I have done my best to supply the deficiency by sending down to Birmingham this morning, and I hope I may be able before I leave to obtain the original papers. They consist of the letters referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, and also, in my case, of an account of the conversation written immediately afterwards. I differ from the right hon. Gentleman, both in regard to what passed-I do not differ very substantially, but I do differ considerably-as to what passed in our conversation, and as to that it is possible that we may be unable to come to an absolute agreement, because it is always difficult to remember what passed at a conversation. But, fortunately, there can be no difficulty whatever with regard to the correspondence, and I differ also from the right hon. Gentleman in regard to that. Now, at the time of which the right hon. Gentleman speaks-Junematters, although in my opinion they were not by any means poignant, were undoubtedly serious, and I deprecated more than anything else the possibility that a serious discussion, which might ultimately end in hostilities with other Powers, should be treated as a Party matter, and it was my earnest desire, "What kind of consultation? What are you thinking of now, for instance?" Then I told him that two questions were before us. The first was whether the 12,000 troops that were then in South Africa should be made up-I think the proper word is to complete the unit; I am afraid I am weak in the matter of military terms *SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Transport. MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Well, I have no doubt the transport was an important portion of the proposal, but my recollection is that at that time there was a deficiency of field artillery in proportion to the numbers of the troops and a deficiency of cavalry, and that we proposed to send, not, of course, a large number, but a sufficient number of cavalry, artillery, and transport to complete the forces then in South Africa. The right hon. Gentleman said, almost in the words he has used to-day, speak- to consider whether it would not be ing for himself and not for his colleagues, desirable to produce a considerable force that as far as he was concerned he saw in South Africa with a view to giving no objection whatever to that he did us greater influence in the further negotianot think any objection would be taken tions. Now I come to the letters, and to that. Then I said there was another here I differ in an important sense from proposal, which was to reinforce the the right hon. Gentleman, and I believe garrison by sending out a considerable that the letter which he wrote to me will number of men-it may have been prove that I am right. My recollection 10,000; I do not remember, but I told the of that letter is this, that having said in right hon. Gentleman that in my opinion private conversation that, so far as he there was no probability at that time of was concerned, he was quite willing to war. But I said that our difficulty was approve of the strengthening of the then, as it had been all along, to 12,000 men, though he doubted whether convince the Boers that we were in he and his colleagues would be willing to earnest, and it had been represented, I do send a large additional force, in his letter not know whether I expressed it as a he wrote that he, having consulted his settled opinion of the Cabinet, but, at colleagues on the proposition I madeall events, it had been under considera- which included this proposition for a tion by us, whether it would not have a sort of neutral ground in dealing with good effect to send out a considerable this matter, the absence of political body in order to impress on the Boers controversy, which was really the the fact that we did mean to pursue this important point-that he, having conmatter to the end. The right hon. sulted his colleagues, they had come to Gentleman now says that I used the the conclusion that they could not accept word "bluff." I cannot charge my the offer of the Government, and they memory with a contradiction. It is not must leave the Government to entirely a word that I am fond of, or that I think take its own responsibility. He went on I should have been likely to use. My to say in the same letter that in those impression would have been, but for the circumstances I must consider as withcontrary statement of the right hon. drawn any statement which he had made Gentleman, that I did not use that word. on his own account with regard to thenot what he said just now [Cries of "Oh!"], certainly not; I must give the exact words-that I must understand that the words which he had used as expressing his own opinion with regard to the strengthening of the 12,000 men in the field must also be considered as withdrawn. That is my recollection, and, as I say, the production of the letter, either by the right hon. Gentleman, if he has it, or by me, if I can find it, will clear up that entirely. It does not in the least degree affect the good faith and sincerity of the right hon. Gentleman or of myself, but it is not an unimportant difference as to the facts, because it is my impression that our offer was entirely and absolutely refused; and we told that even in the small matter of increasing the force and making complete the unit in South Africa the Opposition would give no Party support beforehand to that, but must leave us to take whatever steps we pleased on our own responsibility. That is my view of the position. T *SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to prove that I have not said so from my own memory only? Immediately after leaving the right hon. Gentleman I came into the House and met one or two of my colleagues, and I used the same expression to them. It is within their recollection. MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: That I quite believe, and I absolutely believe that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that I used it. But he must remember this. It may have been the impression I gave him, but it may not have been the word I used or the impression I intended to give. I certainly feel confident that at that time I had no idea whatever of "bluffing" in the sense in which the right hon. Gentleman considers that I used the word. My whole intention and object was-and about that I am absolutely certain-to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues VOL. CXXIX. [FOURTH SERIES.] were We are *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR which we are this afternoon. INDIA (Mr.BRODRICK, Surrey, Guildford): here under this indictment that What we are faced with at this moment is an indictment for want of preparation for the war and for the absence of troops in Natal. What is the right hon. Gentleman's own confession? The right hon. Gentleman's own confession is that the urgency of this matter was brought before him as early as June 20th, 1899. The right hon. Gentlemen was invited to co-operate, and he has given reasons which are perfectly clear as to the opinion which he held, and which he was entitled to hold, that our policy was a mistaken policy, and that by patience, good nature, and concessions on small points, further action might be avoided. He is entitled to hold those views, but I ask Members on this side of the House on what possible ground can he then come forward and complain that the Government did not complete the preparations which he himself did his best to discourage. *SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, I did not. My objection in this particular case was to what I called a policy of bluff. If the right hon. Gentleman had come and told us of a dangerous condition of things, and if they had admitted us to some of their secret information, we might have modified our view. *MR. BRODRICK: The right hon. Gentleman understood that the question had arisen of reinforcing the troops in Natal and sending 10,000 men there. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly entitled to hold the view that no such reinforcement was necessary, and that he at all events and his Party would not contribute to any such demonstration for the purpose of securing peace. His view was that peace could be secured by weakness in Natal, and not by strength. For five weeks, nay more, after these pour parlers between my right hon. friend and the right hon. Gentleman, he came down to the House and told us that as to the war itself he could only repeat what he had said elsewhere that "from the beginning of this story to the end of it I can see nothing whatever which furnishes a case for war." That is the right hon. Gentleman's were willing to risk the good name of the country in negotiations and by bluff, but that we were not preparing for the actual event of hostilities. I think that anybody who looks at the whole of this story will see that the approach to the Leader of the Opposition was a patriotic approach. It was a peaceful approach. It only occurs to me now as I am speaking, that such an approach is not unusual among men of patriotic feeling when their country is in danger of a devastating war. What is going on at the present moment in Japan? We saw in the telegrams only yesterday or the day before, I think, that not merely members of the then Government, but the past members of past Governments had been called in and convoked in order to give their counsel. For what? Not in order to raise Party difficulties in a great national emergency, but in order that the nation should present an unbroken front to an enemy at a moment of overwhelming danger. I would say for that side of the House that they did not rate any lower than we did the danger and difficulty of warlike operations with the Dutch States in South Africa. They were fully conscious of that danger, and an invitation was addressed to the right hon. Gentleman who had hitherto stood aloof. We knew that he had been backward in supporting the Government at a moment when we thought that from patriotic motives they deserved support. The mass of the House never knew till to-day how backward he had been, and under what pressure. The right hon. Gentleman has made his own attempt to absolve himself. I think it was a vain attempt. SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have nothing to absolve myself from. *MR. BRODRICK: The right hon. Gentleman says he has nothing to absolve himself from. Then, are we to understand that he dissociates himself from the attack on the Goverment for having undertaken this war with a want of preparation, in which preparation he declined to associate himself, and to which preparation he put by his speeches. every impediment which was in his |