the Orange Free State Consul in London, suggesting that Sir
H. de Villiers, the Chief Justice at the Cape, should be appointed a
Commissioner to go to the Transvaal to settle matters. Oddly enough,
about the same time the same proposition emanated from the Dutch party
in the Cape Colony, headed by Mr. Hofmeyer, a coincidence that inclines
one to the opinion that these friends of the Boers had some further
reason for thus urging Sir Henry de Villiers' appointment as
Commissioner beyond his apparent fitness for the post, of which his
high reputation as a lawyer and in his private capacity was a sufficient
guarantee.

The explanation is not hard to find, the fact being that, rightly or
wrongly, Sir Henry de Villiers, who is himself of Dutch descent, is
noted throughout South Africa for his sympathies with the Boer cause,
and both President Brand and the Dutch party in the Cape shrewdly
suspected, that, if the settling of differences were left to his
discretion, the Boers and their interests would receive very gentle
handling. The course of action adopted by him, when he became a member
of the Royal Commission, went far to support this view, for it will be
noticed in the Report of the Commissioners that in every single point he
appears to have taken the Boer side of the contention. Indeed so blind
was he to their faults, that he would not even admit that the horrible
Potchefstroom murders and atrocities, which are condemned both by Sir H.
Robinson and Sir Evelyn Wood in language as strong as the formal terms
of a report will allow, were acts contrary to the rules of civilised
warfare. If those acts had been perpetrated by Englishmen on Boers, or
even on natives, I venture to think Sir Henry de Villiers would have
looked at them in a very different light.

In the same telegram in which President Brand recommends the appointment
of Sir Henry de Villiers, he states that the allegations made by the
Triumvirate in the proclamation in which they accused Sir Owen Lanyon
of committing various atrocities, deserve to be investigated, as they
maintain that the collision was commenced by the authorities. Nobody
knew better than Mr. Brand that any English official would be quite
incapable of the conduct ascribed to Sir Owen Lanyon, whilst, even
if the collision had been commenced by the authorities, which as it
happened it was not, they would under the circumstances have been amply
justified in so commencing it. This remark by Presiden