him.

"His whole career gives the lie to such aspersions. It was in May
of last year, ten months ago, that he first gained prominence.
Since then he has fought scores of engagements with us, some
successful, some unsuccessful, never with a suspicion of
dishonourable conduct. He has had at one time or another some
thousands of our men in his hands as prisoners-of-war. Many of them
I have myself met. At second or third hand I have heard of the
experiences of many others. I have never heard a word against him.
When men suffered hardships they always agreed that they could not
have been helped. But, on the other hand, I have heard many stories
showing exceptional personal kindness in him over and above the
reasonable degree of humanity which is expected in the treatment of
prisoners-of-war.

"I believe this view of him is universal among our troops in South
Africa. It makes my blood boil to hear such a man called a brigand
and a brute by civilian writers at home, who take as a text the
reports of these solitary incidents, incomplete and one-sided as
they are, and ignore--if, indeed, they know of it--the mass of
testimony in his favour."

This testimony about De Wet, as well as other Boer officers, has been
substantiated by scores of letters from other officers and privates.

The relation of the Boers to the coloured races in South Africa, and the
treatment of the latter, have been a cause of much offence and
misunderstanding. It is generally, though mistakenly, held that the
Boers ill-treated the natives, and that in the most brutal and
tyrannical manner. Such unwarranted assertions had furnished one of the
various flimsy excuses for war in South Africa. The natives had to be
protected! They were slaves, and must be liberated. Therefore--war! That
natives have sometimes received bad treatment at the hands of their
masters we shall candidly admit. In such instances the law-courts of the
country stood open to them, where justice was at all times meted out to
the guilty party.

On the whole, we maintain that the treatment of inferior races by the
Boers contrasts very favourably with that by the British. The Dutch have
always expressed themselves very strongly against the policy of placing
the natives on a footing of political equality with the whites, because
morally, intellectually, and industrially they are decidedly th