confiscate their property, no burgher
having been forced to take the oath against his will.'

It is quite certain that the Boer Government committed a very clear
breach of the Conventions of The Hague in compelling, or even in
permitting, these men to rejoin the ranks. 'In such cases,' says Article
X., 'their own Government shall not require of, nor accept from, them
any service incompatible with the parole given.' This is clear as
regards the Government. But in the case of the men it is different.
Their promise was in a sense conditional upon effective protection from
our troops. We had no right to place a man in so terrible a position
that he had to choose between breaking his parole and death at the hands
of his own countrymen. If we were not sure that we could protect them,
we could have retained them in guarded camps, as we eventually did. If
we chose to turn them loose upon the wide veldt, then it was our fault
more than theirs that they were forced into the ranks of the enemy. To
their credit be it said that even under such pressure many of them were
true to their oath.

But if their guilt is indeed no greater than our own, then how are we
justified in burning down their houses? It seems to me that these cases
are very different from those in the other two categories, and that the
question of compensation to these men should be at least considered. I
take it that the numerous cases where 'on commando' is marked against a
burned farm on the official list, means that he had returned to commando
after giving his parole. The destruction of his house under those
circumstances is, in the peculiar conditions of the case, a harsh
measure, but if 'on commando' means simply that the man was away doing
his duty to his country, without any question of parole, then our
conscience can never permit that man to go without compensation.

We can trace in this account of the communications between the leaders
the growth of those harsher measures which have been so generally
deplored in this country. So long as the war was regular it is certain
that nothing could be more regular than the British conduct. When,
however, the war became irregular upon the part of the Boers, and their
army dissolved into small bands which harried the lines of
communications, the small posts, and the convoys, there was a
corresponding change upon the part of the troops. Towards the end of the
year 1900 that change was pushed to considerable lengths. C