having won absolute
constitutional liberty and the fullest powers of self-government, plus
the protection of the British fleet. There may be something in this
view, but I am sure that the feeling goes a great deal deeper than
self-interest. Mutual respect has arisen between those who ten years ago
were enemies fighting each other.

*Appeal to People's Imagination.*

Moreover, the Boer now knows a great deal more of the British Empire and
what it means than he did then. Lastly, the supreme generosity evinced
by Britain in giving their enemy of the day before every right and
privilege that is owned by her other oversea dominions with whom she has
never had a quarrel appeals deeply to the imagination of the Dutch
people. Now, the world sees the results. Germany, which has
miscalculated so much in connection with this war and the part that the
British Empire would play in it, miscalculated nowhere more than it did
in the case of South Africa. The German war lords hoped that India and
Egypt would rise, they trusted that Canada and Australia would prove
lukewarm, but they were certain that South Africa would seize the
opportunity to rebel. How could it be otherwise, they thought, seeing
that but yesterday she was at death grips with us. Then came the great
surprise. Lo and behold! instead of rebelling, South Africa promptly
cabled to England saying that every British soldier might be withdrawn
from her shores, and, further, that the burghers of the land would
themselves undertake the conquest of the German possessions of Southwest
Africa for the Crown. They are doing so at this moment. I believe that
today there is no British soldier left at the Cape, and I know that now
a great force is moving on Southwest Africa furnished by Boer and Briton
alike. Can the history of the world tell us of any parallel case to
this--that a country conquered within a dozen years should not only need
no garrison, but by its own free will undertake war against the enemies
of its late victor? Surely this is something of which Britain may feel
proud.

*Deep Distrust of Germany.*

Now, some of your readers may ask: "Why is it? How did this miracle, for
it is little less, happen?" My answer is that it has been caused first
by a supreme and glorious trust in the justice and generosity of
England, which knows how to rule colonies as no other nation has done in
the history of the earth, and secondly by a deep distrust of Germany. To
my own kno