jected. He mentioned that he was in communication with Sir A. Milner and Lord Kitchener, who would tell him if anything further could be done. Of the determination of the British people to prosecute the war to the end there could be no doubt. Although it had lasted longer than any one anticipated, the country would grudge no sacrifice to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.

On Feb. 19, Mr. Asquith (Fife, E.) made a vigorous, but not altogether successful, attempt to defend the Opposition against Mr. Chamberlain's strictures. He criticised the speech of the Colonial Secretary, describing it as provocative and unprovoked. By fastening the epithet "pro-Boers" on Opposition speakers the right hon. gentleman, he held, was putting gratuitous obstacles in the way of that Parliamentary unanimity on the African question which he professed to desire. Yet Mr. Asquith had to say that he "did not in the least concur" with the attack made by Mr. Lloyd-George on the methods by which the war was being carried on. It was a delusion, he contended, to suppose that a considerable number of the Opposition were in favour of revoking the annexation of the two Republics and of restoring the status quo ante. For his own part he believed that there was no practicable alternative to annexation. The Colonial Secretary had also erroneously ascribed to the leader of the Opposition the opinion that after the Boers had accepted terms the grant of self-government must immediately follow. In the circumstances an attempt to erect the machinery of constitutional government as soon as the war came to an end must fail. An interval would be necessary before the work of reconstruction could be undertaken. But military government ought not to continue a moment longer than was necessary, and when the administration of the two colonies assumed a civil character some representative element ought to be introduced in order that the Government might keep in touch with the sentiments and interests of the people. He did not agree with those members on his side of the House who thought that peace could have been secured after the occupation of Pretoria, but he was not surprised at the failure of the steps taken subsequently for the purpose of ending the war. The proclamations, for example, were not sufficiently clear, and the destruction of farmhouses, though carried out as humanely as possible by officers and men, was a wasteful and almost futile measure. To secure an honourable peace two things were necessary-a strong mobile army and a scheme of pacification which it would not be derogatory for us as victors to offer or for the vanquished Boers to accept.

Mr. Brodrick, after saying that the tone of Mr. Asquith's speech compared very favourably with that of the speeches of other occupants of the front Opposition bench, dwelt on the inexpediency of party recrimination at such a time as the present. By the proclamations that had been issued the Boers as

individuals had been offered terms such as had never before been granted to a vanquished nation. In the first instance, prisoners had been set free on parole, but they had abused this Îenient treatment. Then they were deported; but so great was the Boers' dread of the sea that many had preferred to remain in the field rather than to surrender. A third policy was consequently adopted; and those who surrendered were now sent to laagers where they were protected with their families. Surrender had thus been made easy. He scouted the idea that promises of even restricted independence should be given to a general like De Wet, who flogged and killed peace emissaries. Of the Stop-the-War Committee and the Conciliation Committee he spoke in terms of strong condemnation. One of those bodies was responsible for the gross accusation that Lord Kitchener had given orders to his men to shoot Boer prisoners. Atrocious statements of that kind were disseminated throughout Cape Colony and embittered the feelings of the Dutch population. Describing next the steps taken by the Government to bring the war to a conclusion, he stated that they had endeavoured to anticipate Lord Kitchener's demands. Since the announcement a short time ago that more mounted men were wanted, more colonial troops than were asked for had come forward, and 2,500 cavalry and mounted infantry had left this country for the seat of war. Some 10,000 men had been enrolled in the African colonies, and the response to the call for yeomanry in this country had been highly satisfactory. By the end of March he hoped to have increased Lord Kitchener's mounted troops to the extent required. Care was now taken to send horses to Africa a month before they would be required in the field, so that they might become fit for service. This diminished waste. In a little over three months 30,000 horses had been sent out an unprecedented feat. Lord Kitchener had procured besides 13,000 horses locally and 4,000 mules, and the supply was now, in his opinion, satisfactory. The Government hoped that before long Lord Kitchener would be able to reduce greatly the area of the operations.

Two or three more speeches by members with pro-Boer sympathies were made on the same evening, which was briefly enlivened by the attempt of Mr. J. O'Donnell (Kerry, W.) to address the House in the Irish language. The Speaker, however, firmly insisted that such a proceeding was not in order, notwithstanding Mr. J. Redmond's reference to the fact that Maori members are allowed to address the New Zealand Legislature in their own language, and Mr. O'Donnell then, on his leader's advice, deferred to the Chair, and sat down, declining to put his observations into an English garb. Late in the evening of February 26 Mr. Dillon began, and completed on February 27, a speech of great vehemence in support of an amendment to the Address, condemning the practices pursued by the British generals in South Africa as contrary to the usages of civilised war, and

demanding that an effort be made to end the war by offering such terms as brave and honourable men might be expected to entertain. He maintained that widespread devastation had been effected, and that farms had been burned, for the most part, not punitively, but for the purpose of making the country uninhabitable by the enemy. He quoted letters from troopers at the front in support of this contention, as well as a report in the Times of January 4 of a meeting of burghers addressed by Lord Kitchener, at the end of which report were the words: "Orders have been issued forbidding the burning of farms unless to punish the wrong acts of the inhabitants," which implied that the contrary practice had prevailed. The forcible deportation of women and children he denounced as disgraceful and cowardly, and he even maintained that there was sufficient evidence to demand investigation in support of the statement that Lord Kitchener had issued secret orders that no quarter was to be given to the Boers. The amendment was seconded by Mr. Channing (Northampton, E.), who besought the Government not to adopt in their dealings with the Boers a policy of exasperation and extermination.

Mr. Brodrick deprecated the passion, invective and terrible exaggerations of Mr. Dillon, and taunted members like Mr. Lloyd-George, who did not scruple to quote in support of their groundless allegations documents which had been "doctored " by the Conciliation Committee. He then vindicated the conduct of Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, which Mr. Dillon had arraigned. Dealing with some of the hon. Member's specific charges, he asserted that it was not true that there had been a wholesale devastation of the country in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. A large number of deserted farms had been looted and burned by Kaffirs. But farmhouses had, of course, been destroyed by order for punitive purposes. Our generals had been compelled to deal in this way with the dwellings of treacherous inmates, and he approved of their action. Other houses had been destroyed because it was absolutely necessary to protect the lines of communication. This war, however, he maintained, in point of humanity compared favourably with any previous campaign. In no previous war, for example, had generals undertaken to feed the wives and children of the enemy. He insisted that we had a right to be proud of the humanity of our officers and men. Our generals had power to communicate freely with the Boer commanders on the question of the terms of peace, and it was well known to all Boer leaders in the Transvaal that there was no reluctance to meet them on the part of his Majesty's representatives. The Government meant to prosecute the war vigorously, but were still willing to grant unusually favourable terms of peace to those who were ready to surrender their arms and return to their homes.

The closure having been carried, after some further speeches, by 226 votes against 117, the amendment was negatived by 243

votes against 91. The leader of the House then claimed that the main question should be put, and, this having been sanctioned by 297 votes against 78, the Address was agreed to.

During the long continuance of the debate on the Address in the Commons the Upper House had had very little occupation. On February 26 Lord Avebury moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the hours of labour in shops, and whether any, and if so what, steps could be taken to reduce them. Lord Salisbury assented to the motion, but took care to intimate that no Government would be in any way bound by any report which might be made by the proposed committee. He also expressed the hope that evidence would be obtained as to the feelings of working men, whose choice of hours for purchasing the necessaries of life would be limited by any such legislation as Lord Avebury contemplated.

On the previous afternoon (Feb. 25) there was a short conversation in the House of Lords on a subject which was to play a considerable part, positive and negative, in the session of 1901. This was the situation created by the judgment delivered on December 20, 1900, by the Queen's Bench Division in the case Regina v. Cockerton, which had excited much anxiety and apprehension in School Board circles. Mr. Cockerton was an auditor of the Local Government Board, who, in the discharge of what he conceived to be his official duty, had disallowed certain payments made by the London School Board, and surcharged some of the members of that body therewith. These disallowances, being appealed against by the London School Board, were endorsed by the judges (Justices Wills and Kennedy) in the Queen's Bench Division, in judgments of very uncompromising quality, the effect of which was to declare illegal any application of the School Board rates (a) to the provision and maintenance in day elementary schools of advanced instruction in science or art, conducted in accordance with the "Directory" of the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, with a view to obtaining grants from that Department; and (b) to the provision of similar instruction, or to the instruction of adults at all, in evening continuation schools.

There could not be any serious doubt that in the case of the first of these developments of the work originally imposed upon them by the Education Acts, as well as in the establishment of "higher grade" teaching under the provisions, and aided by the grants, of the Whitehall Education Code, spirited School Boards had received sanction, and even direct encouragement, from the Central Education Authorities. The Education Department at Whitehall had indeed sometimes refused to pass plans for school extension or construction prepared with a view to the setting up of a science and art section, to be carried on with the aid of South Kensington grants, as being ultra vires of School Boards. On the other hand, there were certain

conspicuous cases-notably at Manchester and South Shields in 1893 and 1899 respectively-in which the approval of the Education Department had been given to schemes embracing the provision of instruction of the kind in question. The Science and Art Department itself, over a period of several years, set itself to induce and persuade School Boards to give systematic science teaching in accordance with its Directory, with a considerable amount of success. In regard to the character and scope of the teaching in evening continuation schools and the age of the scholars, both School Boards and the managers of voluntary schools had been encouraged by successive developments of the Evening School Code issued by the Education Department at Whitehall to enter upon large extensions. Especially had this been so with the Evening School Code issued in 1893, under the auspices of Mr. Arthur Acland. From that time forward the evening continuation schools had included in their curriculum such subjects as modern languages, political economy, science and mathematics of advanced kinds, and many branches of technical instruction. Also, under the same code, what had been the maximum age limit of twenty-one was removed.

Having regard to these circumstances, it might be perfectly true that, as the Queen's Bench Division had emphatically declared in their judgment of December 20, 1900, there was not and never had been any legal authority for the application of rates to advanced scientific education of the South Kensington type, or to the education of adults. But it could not be denied that School Boards had a considerable amount of excuse for supposing, almost to the last year of the nineteenth century, that the Central Education Authorities had no wish for them to interpret their rating powers in at all a rigid manner. In or about that year there was no doubt a modification in the attitude of the Education Department, or, as it must now be called, the Board of Education (under which was, at least potentially, included, in pursuance of the Board of Education Act of 1899, the old Science and Art Department). The Board of Education, of which the Duke of Devonshire and Sir John Gorst were the Parliamentary chiefs, evidently became possessed with the belief that, with a view to the satisfactory co-ordination of secondary and elementary education, it was very desirable that School Boards should be restricted to the control of the latter and not encouraged to trespass over the border-line into the field of secondary education. For this view there was a great deal to be said, both theoretically and practically-indeed it was generally held by educationists not associated with the School Board system. Those who were so associated, however, feeling, quite justly, that they had filled a gap in the border-territory between primary and secondary education during several critical years, resented the new attitude of the Board of Education, and