separably linked together in the life of man. And how can a man help to guide his fellows unless he know in which direction to point them on both these issues?

All who wish to leave the world better than they found it, all who think they have perceived some truth, and hope to do some service, cannot escape from the responsibility of serving in the same army with the saints, the prophets, and the martyrs i.e. with those to whom truth was precious, and duty imperative; who saw clearly that there is a morality embracing all our actions, discernible to man in the present

ever.

---

now and for

Like them we must perceive that truth and right exist,-and our earnest effort must be that 'righteousness shall flow down like a river and truth like a mighty stream."

66

The foregoing article appeared in the New Order of September 1898.

The plain, unperverted man needs no argument to show him that his spirit strives towards goodness. But in the conflict between Church Christians asserting what is unverifiable, and scientists shutting from their minds the plainest facts of their inner consciousness, so many cultured people become perplexed, that I have thought it worth preserving this product of my own wanderings in the wilderness, in the hope that it may be of use to some of them.

WAR AND PATRIOTISM

MANY who express disapproval of war in general have considered it right to abstain from attempting to do anything to check the war in South Africa, or to discourage the patriotic spirit it has engendered at home. This has occurred even among Socialists, Secularists, Peace Societies, Christian Churches, Scientists, Non - Resistants, and members of "The Society of Friends."

It is always more difficult to meet confused thought than to reply to a positive mistake. And when many people share in one confusion, yet each states his case somewhat differently, an elucidation becomes almost impossible.

It therefore seemed to me difficult to apply non-resistant principles to this war in a way that would be intelligible to more than a small section of those I wished to reach.

While I pondered these things in my mind, John Bellows of Gloucester, a member of the Society of Friends, was moved to break from the general trend of Quaker thought and feeling, and to come forward as spokesman for those who, while theoretically disapproving of war, and refusing to share in it themselves, desire to support a war Government. He issued a pamphlet

in which he condemns all war, but seeks to defend and justify our Government for its part in the Transvaal War.

Those whom he represents in this matter could hardly have found anyone whose character and ability gave him a better right to be heard in their defence; and it seemed to me that by replying to this pamphlet I could focus the main arguments better than if I shot them into the air.

Part of John Bellows' purpose in writing was to instruct those foreigners who through ignorance believed us to have acted badly towards the Republics; and, utilising this circumstance, I tried, by pointing out what a well-informed foreigner might fairly charge us with, to put the matter as impartially and impersonally as in me lay. In the second half of my reply I was helped by the theoretical admissions John Bellows made that, in principle, war (when there are no wicked Boers to be chastised) was not a desirable way of spending the powers of mind and body intrusted to us.

The purpose of my article is to expose the fallacies by means of which this war and all wars are excused and perpetuated.

A LETTER TO JOHN BELLOWS ON THE WAR Dear John Bellows,-I have read the copy you kindly sent me of your pamphlet, "The Truth

about the Transvaal War and the Truth about War," written to supply a brief and simple answer to the condemnation of our Government expressed by foreign critics, and at the same time to explain your own belief that all war is wrong.

The high esteem I feel for your character and your many useful activities, the importance of the subjects you touch upon, and the detestation I feel for the wholesale, premeditated and systematic slaughter of my fellow-men (especially when continued after one party to the conflict has asked for peace) move me to reply.

I, too, have talked with foreigners, and if we consider what what their their indictment against our Government is, and what reply you are able to make to it, it should help to clear the issue as looked at from a point of morality no higher than that usually accepted among educated men to-day.

But I agree with you that we must not rest finally content with the code already generally accepted; and in the latter part of this reply I shall be most happy to follow you in considering what our conduct ought to be, judged by the highest standard our reason and our conscience supply.

What then are the main charges brought against us by well-informed foreign critics?

Their first and main contention is, that in 1884 the Pretoria Convention of 1881 was replaced by the London Convention. This made the Transvaal independent; deprived Britain of all right to

interfere in its internal affairs; and-except that the British Government retained a right to veto their foreign treaties - made the Transvaal a sovereign independent State. The first thing an apologist for the British Government must do is to meet this statement, on which the rest of the quarrel depends.

Among other proofs our critics adduce the facts that:

1. The Transvaal Government expressed the above view in their despatch of April 16, 1898, and maintained it throughout the late negotiations.

2. That it is the unanimous opinion of all the lawyers in Europe and South Africa to whom the case has been submitted that (except in the one particular mentioned) no "suzerainty" has in fact existed since 1884.*

In relation to the South African Republic the term Suzerainty has been used in two different ways.

In the Convention of 1881 it was used to define England's position in connection with the rights of interference she retained under that treaty. There was to be a British resident who would " report to the High Commissioner as representative of the Suzerain." In case of apprehension of war in South Africa, English troops might move through the Transvaal, and there were a number of enactments relating to the natives and to other questions, which gave the English Government ample scope to interfere in the internal affairs of the Transvaal should they wish to do so. The desire of the Boers to manage their own internal affairs was expressed in their dislike of the word "suzerainty.”

In the Convention of 1884 we abandoned the use of the word, and the Boer delegates who signed that Convention stated the matter to their Volksraad thus:-"It" (the 1884 Convention) "makes . . . an end of the British Suzerainty and . . . also restores her full self-government to the South African Republic, excepting a single