he 25th, 1909, contained the
following announcement:--

"Naval Promotions. Lieutenant-Commander Francis Erskine, of H.M.
Fishery Cruiser _Cormorant_, to be Captain of H.M. Cruiser
_Ithuriel_. Lieutenant Denis Castellan, also of the _Cormorant_, to
be First Lieutenant of the _Ithuriel_."

On the evening of the same day, Mr Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, rose
amidst the tense silence of a crowded House to make another
announcement, which was not altogether unconnected with the notice in
the _Gazette_.

"Sir," he said in a low, but vibrant and penetrating voice, which many
years before had helped to make his fame as an orator, "it is my painful
duty to inform this honourable House that a state of war exists between
His Majesty and a Confederation of European countries, including
Germany, Russia, France, Spain, Holland and Belgium."

He paused for a moment, and looked round at the hundreds of faces, most
of them pale and fixed, that were turned toward the front Treasury
Bench. Since Mr Balfour, now Lord Whittinghame, and Leader of the
Conservative Party in the House of Lords, had made his memorable speech
on the 12th of October 1899, informing the House of Commons and the
world that the Ultimatum of the South African Republic had been
rejected, and that the struggle for the mastery of South Africa was
inevitable, no such momentous announcement had been made in the House of
Commons.

Mr Chamberlain referred to that bygone crisis in the following terms:

"It will be within the memory of many Members of this House that, almost
exactly ten years ago to-day, the British Empire was challenged to fight
for the supremacy of South Africa. That challenge was accepted not
because there was any desire on the part of the Government or the people
of this country to destroy the self-government of what were then the
South African Republic and the Orange Free State, but because the
Government of her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, knew that the fate of an
empire, however great, depends upon its supremacy throughout its
dominions.

"To lose one of these, however small and apparently insignificant, is to
take a stone out of an arch with the result of inevitable collapse of
the whole structure. It is not necessary for me, sir, to make any
further allusion to that struggle, save than to say that the policy of
Her Majesty's Ministers has been completely justified by the
consequences which have followed from it.