THE BOER WAR.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 22 June 1901, Page 2

THE BOER WAR.

[BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT.]

[per press association.]

London, Juno 21. The Queen's Hall meeting revived the Continental clamor against England. The French are urged to boycott British goods until the independence of the South African Republics is epneeded.

In an address to the Essex Liberal Federation, Mr Asquith declared that the South African war had been most humanely conducted. No man in the Empire was more penetrated with the spirit of humanity than Sir Alfred Milder. It was impossible to restore the status of the Republics, but he hoped to see a free, federated dominion on the model of Canada or Australia.

Mr Austen Chamberlain, speaking at a Conservative luncheon in London, declared that the meanest scribblers in the meanest journal never made a more infamous or unfounded charge than that made by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman in alleging the barbarity of Lord Kitchener or the army.

Mr Asquith in addressing the Essex Liberal Federation, protested against Liberal Imperialists being denounced as schismatics. They neither repented nor recanted their view that the war was forced upon Great Britain without adequate reason and entirely against our will. No authority in the Liberal party, pontifical or otherwise, was empowered to excommunicate holders of that view. The resolution passed at the Queen’s Hall inculcating unconditional surrender to the Boers was not an authoritative exposition of Liberal opinion. The Boer refugees in the camps in the Orange River Colony, besides those for natives, are’ requiring the weekly importation of 88 tons of food stuffs. The average mortality in these camps is 116 per thousand per annum, largely the result of the Boers disregard of sanitation and the women’s neglect of children.