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Opposition was not absolutely at one with the Government, who held that the end which must be achieved was the absolute conquest and control of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. As to the terms of settlement, the leaders of the Boers knew perfectly well that they could lay down their arms at any moment with the certainty that their persons would be respected, that equal rights would be granted to the inhabitants of the two Colonies, and that when it should become possible free institutions would be granted. Apparently, the policy of the leader of the Opposition would be to promise to grant, immediately hostilities ceased, full representative institutions such as existed in Australia and at the Cape. The Government did not believe that that was a possible or a safe policy. It would be absolute insanity whilst the war was still fresh in every mind to give the Boers powers which might lead to internecine conflict or external war. The unconditional surrender which was required was only the surrender of the idea of independent government by the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony. The demand did not apply to individuals, but to institutions. Alluding to an allegation by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman that the farmhouses of the enemy had been burnt because the owners were our enemies, he described it as a gross misrepresentation. Upon the action of the Boer generals, who were carrying on a hopeless resistance, he did not wish to pass any harsh criticism. They were men of courage and heroism, but their treatment of peace emissaries had been excessively cruel, so that their patriotism was not unstained by brutality. The people whom he specially blamed were those in this country who used language which could have no other effect than to prolong the miserable struggle. He begged Members, therefore, to say nothing which could be twisted in South Africa into a suggestion that we meant to abandon the struggle. The Government and people had put their hands to the plough and would not withdraw. The struggle would be continued until it was brought to the only conclusion consistent with our honour. These vigorous declarations by the Leader of the House were loudly cheered.

In the course of the ensuing debate, Sir Howard Vincent (Sheffield, Central) complained of the "extraordinary absence" from the Royal Speech of any reference to social problems. Mr. W. Redmond (Clare, E.) enforced this complaint from the Irish point of view. Sir Charles Dilke (Forest of Dean, Gloucester) also expressed the belief that the troops which the Government had lately sent out were haphazard hasty reinforcements, inadequately trained, or even untrained men, whom Lord Kitchener would not be able to use for two or three months. Mr. Bryce (Aberdeen, S.) maintained that there was not the slightest evidence that any word said in the House had ever had the least influence with the Boers, and contended that the Government had never made it clear that they intended to offer terms merely excluding the future independence of the two

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Republics. In his view we should be far safer if, instead of annexing the two Republics, we turned them into protected States, strictly disarmed, deprived of foreign relations, helpless for any kind of mischief, but did not make them Crown Colonies. Short of this, there was another plan, which he believed would be better than the plan the Government proposed. Let us endeavour to secure to the States something like the freedom enjoyed by Canada or Australia, subject to British supremacy in all matters in which British control was necessary. not assert that self-government could be conceded in South Africa at once. The country must first be pacified. But the Government must make a new departure and must convey to the Boers the assurance that they would not be subjected to an indefinite continuance of autocratic government, but that in a very short time they would enjoy self-governing institutions, under which they would possess all the freedom that was compatible with the prevention of future insurrection. It was only by a conciliatory policy that there was any chance of reestablishing permanent government in the two Republics, and of recovering the goodwill of the people at the Cape. În the absence of such a policy our difficulties would go on increasing, and our hands would be weakened in every other part of the world.

The debate then wandered off (Feb. 15) into a discussion of a demand, raised by Mr. Chaplin (Sleaford, Lincolnshire), and supported by Sir C. Quilter (Sudbury, Suffolk) and Colonel Kenyon-Slaney (Newport, Shropshire), for immediate and early legislation for the protection of the public against the arsenical poisoning of beer, from which nearly 100 deaths were said to have occurred in 1900 in Manchester alone. Mr. Long (Bristol, S.), President of the Local Government Board, declared that the Government was fully alive to the gravity of the epidemic mentioned and the importance of the wholesome beer question, but that legislation on the subject must wait until various scientific and technical points had been cleared up by a Royal Commission.

The next subject touched on in the debate on the Address was the medical treatment of the sick and wounded in the South African war. The report of the Royal Commission appointed in July, 1900, to inquire into this and cognate questions, after Mr. Burdett-Coutts's very painful statements, had come out on the very day of Queen Victoria's death, and therefore inevitably failed to receive the amount of attention which it would have secured under ordinary circumstances. At the outset the commissioners-Lord-Justice Romer (chairman), Sir David Richmond, Ex-Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir W. S. Church, Professor D. J. Cunningham, and Mr. Frederick Harrison, general manager of the London and North-Western Railway-stated that "the military and medical authorities certainly never anticipated when this war became probable that it would be of the magnitude it had since attained.

The Royal Army Medical Corps was wholly insufficient in staff and equipment for such a war, and it was not so constituted as to have means provided by which its staff could be very materially enlarged, or its deficiencies promptly made good. These deficiencies were felt throughout the South African campaign. But the deficiency in the staff of the Royal Army Medical Corps before this war was not the fault of the Director-General and the staff of officers associated with him. They had for a considerable time before the outbreak urged upon the military authorities the necessity for an increase of the corps, but for the most part without avail."

Of course these deficiencies in staff and equipment inevitably caused much suffering among the sick and wounded. In the case of the hospitals at Bloemfontein and Kroonstadt for a limited period those sufferings were much aggravated by the fact that the railway service was almost entirely occupied in bringing up supplies for Lord Roberts's advance, so that the forwarding of many medical necessaries was much delayed.

The commissioners did not altogether excuse the medical authorities in South Africa from blame in not having drawn the attention of the War Office at an early stage to the fact that field hospitals were being abstracted from units already organised to supply deficiencies elsewhere. Of the officers of the Army Medical Corps as a whole, and of their services in South Africa, they spoke very highly, and they regarded the distrust of their professional skill entertained by many military officers as, in the main, ill-founded. But it was not altogether unfounded, and the commissioners strongly urged that steps should be taken to enlarge the staff permanently, to offer inducements which would attract men of good professional attainments, and to keep those who had joined thoroughly acquainted with the general progress of their profession.

These points, it was advised, should be referred to a Departmental Committee of experts, together with a number of other questions, such as the measures needed to enable surgeons and trained orderlies in sufficient numbers to be rapidly obtained and added to the ordinary staff of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the event of a great war, and to ensure a rapid supply of all hospital and other equipment required for the due care of the sick and wounded in such a war; the generally greater employment of female nurses in fixed hospitals; the appointment of properly qualified officers for sanitary work; and the adoption of improved types of ambulance waggons and hospital tents.

The commissioners also recommended that, as far as possible, hospital officers should relax the strict military rules at present enforceable in hospitals, and that it should be made. perfectly clear that such officers are authorised and bound to buy for their hospitals, at Government expense, any necessaries not in hospital and not procurable without delay elsewhere.

In concluding their report, the commissioners desired to say that "in our judgment, reviewing the campaign as a whole, it has not been one where it can properly be said that the medical and hospital arrangements have broken down. There has been nothing in the nature of a scandal with regard to the care of the sick and wounded; no general or widespread neglect of patients, or indifference to their suffering. And all witnesses of experience in other wars are practically unanimous in the view that, taking it all in all, in no campaign have the sick and wounded been so well looked after as they have been in this."

With reference to this report, in the debate on the Address (Feb. 15) Sir Walter Foster (Ilkeston, Derbyshire) contended that it bore out nearly all the allegations of Mr. Burdett-Coutts and others as to the breakdown of the Army Medical Service. The commissioners, it was true, stated that there had been no scandal; but, at the same time, they made very serious admissions. He asked what steps the Government intended to take to promote medical efficiency in future, and pointed out that the opinion of those who, in December, 1899, suggested that a committee of sanitary experts ought to accompany our army had been justified by the report.

Mr. Guthrie (Bow, etc., Tower Hamlets), who had himself been a witness before the Hospitals Commission, analysed some of the evidence taken with the object of showing that it was not the best that could have been obtained. More credence, he regretted to say, had been given to the testimony of officers of the Army Medical Department, which was practically on its trial, than to the independent evidence of civilians.

Mr. Burdett-Coutts (Westminster) also maintained that the inquiry had not been conducted in a way calculated to elicit the whole truth, and that there was much in the report which would excite dissatisfaction and even derision among the rank and file of the army. In this connection he referred to the minimising language employed with regard to the grievance of the damp condition of the tents in one case and the acknowledged presence of bugs in an old building used as a hospital at Cape Town. Mr. Burdett-Coutts went on to say that a great mass of valuable evidence from soldiers who had been in the hospitals had been collected by him with the greatest care during nearly five months, but when the Commission left this country for South Africa, stating that the English evidence would be taken when the commissioners returned, his offer to submit this evidence on their return was peremptorily refused. Altogether, he maintained that the conclusions of the commissioners had been influenced by a desire to be lenient to the Army Medical Corps, whose inefficiency their inquiries had clearly established.

In the course of a general contribution to the debate on the Address on February 19, Mr. Brodrick dealt with the subject of the Hospitals Commission report in a very frank and con

ciliatory manner. First, he reminded the House that some years ago a committee reported that there were too many Army doctors, and that they were too highly paid. Economy was insisted upon, and medical provision was made for two Army Corps abroad and three at home. But in Africa there were troops equivalent in number to six Army Corps, and consequently the strain had been severe. In addition to the difficulties caused by Parliamentary demands for economy there had been another disturbing influence, namely, the discouraging attitude of the medical profession towards the Department. The concession of military titles to Army doctors, the War Secretary acknowledged, had not produced quite as good results as were anticipated. The report of the Hospitals Commission, however, showed that there was no general disposition in the Department to shirk its duties, and that there had been great devotion shown among the medical men. If there had been indications of insufficient organisation, that defect could be repaired; and if, in some cases, there had been deficient skill, the explanation was that the officers had been so hard-worked that they had not had opportunities of studying their profession. He admitted that the experience gained in the war showed that the services of sanitary experts would have been useful; and he did not deny that the inquiry which had been held disclosed the existence of a certain amount of professional jealousy and some disinclination to benefit by external assistance in emergencies. Perhaps there had been a disposition to be bound by too much "red tape." He thought that those who had interested themselves in this subject had done good, and he believed that upon the report of the Commission drastic reforms could be based. The Government was determined to call to its assistance the heads of the medical profession, and hoped, by making the system more elastic and attractive, to secure the services of able men.

These declarations secured the almost entire cessation of Parliamentary complaint, for the time, in regard to the administration of medical relief to the sick and wounded in South Africa. But there was no check in the stream of hostile criticism and remonstrance in regard to the war generally from what had come to be known as the pro-Boer section of the British Opposition, their attacks being always sure of support, strenuous in form, but purely negative in its effect on English public opinion, from the Irish Nationalist Members. Discussions on farm burning and other points connected with the conduct of the war and with the kind of terms which, as was contended, might have been, or ought now to be, offered to the Boers in arms, formed, so to say, the continuous groundwork of the lingering debate on the Address, on which were embroidered discussions of entirely disconnected topics of home and foreign concern. The Chinese question was raised (Feb. 15) by Mr. J. Walton (Barnsley, Yorks, W.R.), who had travelled lately in

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