order
to hamper the movements of the commandos, and when large numbers of
farmhouses were destroyed under the circumstances already mentioned, it
became evident that it was the duty of the British, as a civilised
people, to form camps of refuge for the women and children, where, out
of reach, as we hoped, of all harm, they could await the return of
peace. There were three courses open. The first was to send the Boer
women and children into the Boer lines--a course which became impossible
when the Boer army broke into scattered bands and had no longer any
definite lines; the second was to leave them where they were; the third
was to gather them together and care for them as best we could.

It is curious to observe that the very people who are most critical of
the line of policy actually adopted, were also most severe when it
appeared that the alternative might be chosen. The British nation would
have indeed remained under an ineffaceable stain had they left women and
children without shelter upon the veldt in the presence of a large
Kaffir population. Even Mr. Stead could hardly have ruined such a case
by exaggeration. On some rumour that it would be so, he drew harrowing
pictures of the moral and physical degradation of the Boer women in the
vicinity of the British camps. No words can be too strong to stigmatise
such assertions unless the proof of them is overwhelmingly strong--and
yet the only 'proof' adduced is the bare assertion of a partisan writer
in a partisan paper, who does not claim to have any personal knowledge
of the matter. It is impossible without indignation to know that a
Briton has written on such evidence of his own fellow-countrymen that
they have 'used famine as a pander to lust.'

Such language, absurd as it is, shows very clearly the attacks to which
the British Government would have been subjected had they _not_ formed
the camps of refuge. It was not merely that burned-out families must be
given a shelter, but it was that no woman on a lonely farm was safe amid
a black population, even if she had the means of procuring food. Then,
again, we had learned our lesson as regards the men who had given their
parole. They should not again be offered the alternative of breaking
their oaths or being punished by their own people. The case for the
formation of the camps must be admitted to be complete and overwhelming.
They were formed, therefore, by the Government at convenient centres,
chiefly at Pretoria,