THE WAR SCANDAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1528, 9 August 1905, Page 3

THE WAR SCANDAL.

Y'JiBLIC INDIGNATION,

■LONDON, Juno 33. ' i r&s might have been expeeteu, ;the Jput-Hcataon of the Buller Report on. ,5/the South African war scandals nas completely dwarfed every, otner topic jof public interest-. The House ot Commons has been unable oven to think of anything else'' -since it reassembled after the JiVhilauntide recess, and some fairly warm debates have already occurred. So far, Sir Henry, Campbell-Ban-nerman and the Opposition Party, have, as usual, made rather a met® .of the very, strong case that had so QPPorUincijr come into • tneir JianciSThey seem So be muddling the -whole thing and simply affording Mr Bal'four an opportunity for the exercise of his deariy-beloved dialectict. H* s singular intellectual keenness aid yv.markafolo skill way of in- . steiuouit mystification have once more ■served him well in an emergency,, Unicrlnnately a stumbling plocK ©xists on the threshold of any. deal- ■ £ng with the Butler Report, and that obstacle is the tawdry and hysterical language employed by. feir [Rilliam Butler in drawing it up, ana ‘‘ exaggerated ‘and tasteless rhe-toric,’-'as the Times justly caliedj it. 'All • that flapdoodle about '•some clumsy pantaloon in putties, and t'somt agile harlequin in a helmet, • might have been merely laughed at as a bad case of' addiction to what the Yankees call “talk, talk, - but When employed in so grave and momentous a public document as this report, which ‘reflected o-n the honor and good iaith of several prominent and trusted public men, it (became not merely _an offence against good tasite and literary art but also aimed at the trustworthiness and credibility of the report itself ' People felt, and even said, ‘f That is not the way to talk or Write about sluoh, a serious matter. If the affair were really no serious as the committee tries to make *ut they surely Would not hav e dealt With it in sudh a flippant and mclo dramatic way,”- It was a rather curious coincidence that the limes, Whose comments upon one of tpo officers concerned had led to its being mulcted in heavy damages, and whose same comments were praxdic(ally justified and endorsed by *ir William Butler and his colleagues, should have given the cue to the course of criticism now being adopKed b 7 those who wish to hush the matter up. I do not go so far as to assert that the Daily 5s among these, yet in its most recent leading article upon the -easo, J it refers %o the reckless diatnhes which Sir William Butler calls are-

'*•" short, this forms a very cogent illustration of the mitchief that js done to a side or a question by the . overstatement of its own case, °r by the decoration of the case with no,rid and foolish verbal frippery, strangely mistaken for eloquence and .wit, •