CONOENSED CABLEGRAMS

Manawatu Herald, 8 February 1900, Page 2

CONOENSED CABLEGRAMS

•London.

CHAMBERLAIN'S SPEECH.

In tho House of Commons, Sir W. V. Harcourt, supporting Lord Fitzmaurice'.s amendment, said inquiry must now or never be made into the circumstances of the war, which was traceable to the dictation and reversal of the former British policy. Mr Joseph Chamberlain replied in a notably brilliant and frank speech. He said the issues between Boer and Britain were grave and really long antecedent to 1881, but Majubft had intensified them. Tho policy of magnanimity had proved a failure, and both Gladstone and Schreiner had been obliged to forcibly compel the observance of the agreements entered into by the Boers. The Government was ready to bear the blame of the absence of fuller military preparations, because it had hoped for peace, but it was now repairing these mistakes. He said that as soon as the British army in the field in South Africa numbered two hundred thousand, and tho Colonials forming part of it, it would out number the British troops engaged at Waterloo, and would be nearly equal to the British Army employed in the Crimea. Government was resolved to allow no second Majuba and no citadel to remain which threatened the paramountcy of Britain in South Africa. He indicated the steady realisation, of the federation of the wholo British race, which would make for peace, liberty and justice. A great national volunteer defence scheme would be inaugurated.