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is now, in the shape of a Commission, considering the condition of your universities, and you 7 appear to wish that they should so do ; and there seems in | Scotland to be an almost unanimous demand that the State should interfere with your secondary schools, and especially with their endowments. Now, how can higher education, either at school or at the university, be placed upon the best possible footing—and that I imagine to be the object of State interference—without an intelligent appreciation of the educational claims of the physical sciences, and specially of the extent to which they may be allowed to encroach upon the old classical domain ? I cannot make this remark without congratulating both the friends of science and all who care for your university, either as authorities or students, that you have my predecessor on 8 your University Commission. I know from experience that it | needs an exceptional amount of ignorance to withstand the rare power which Professor Huxley has of imparting information. But these physical sciences are almost as useful to the political student in method as in matter. I speak, alas ! from hearsay rather than from experience, but am I not right in saying that as in mathematics no deduction is permitted, or, indeed, is possible, except from a truth which is relevant to the truth which is sought, so in experimental science no result is considered to be obtained by induction unless all attainable facts have been weighed and compared ? The scientific method may, then, be considered for a politician a better brain habit 9 than the mathematical, because we are forced so | often in public affairs to proceed by induction ; and how much more successfully we should proceed if, before coming to a conclusion, we made it a rule to take all facts into account. And this brings me to the subject which, of all others, bears, perhaps, most directly upon the general purport of my remarks, and that is the study of history. There is, indeed, no study more necessary to a man who tries to do his duty to his country. The records of history are the storehouse of facts for the politician. They give him guidance and warning; they record for him the experiments of the political laboratory. I will not discuss whether history 10 should be a special subject. | (c.) At the rate of 150 words per minute. Takes 5 minutes. I have seen the letters from Mr. Lionel Phillips and Mr. James Salter-Whiter referred to, and, without in any way impugning the good faith of those gentlemen, I cannot accept their version of what passed between the Beform Committee and Sir Jacobus de Wet on the morning of the 7th of January last, and perhaps the House will bear with me while I state what I understood took place. On the 6th of January, Dr. Jameson and his forces being prisoners, and Johannesburg being in armed, but passive, insurrection, Sir Hercules Eobinson was informed by the Transvaal Government that Johannesburg must lay down its arms unconditionally within twenty-four hours, as a condition precedent to a discussion and consideration of grievances. He endeavoured to obtain some indication of the steps which would be taken in the event of disarmament, but without success. This decision was at once communicated 1 to I the Eeform Committee at Johannesburg by a telegram from Sir Jacobus de Wet. Late on the same day (the 6th of January) the Government announced that it would hand over Dr. Jameson and all other prisoners to be dealt with as Her Majesty's Government should decide, but that the transfer would not take place until Johannesburg had complied with the ultimatum just mentioned. It was therefore agreed that Sir Jacobus de Wet should proceed early on the 7th to Johannesburg, in order to interview the Eeform Committee, and explain the point to the people generally, who were infuriated with the Eeform Committee, by whom they thought that Dr. Jameson had been invited and betrayed. The interview which followed in the morning is the subject-matter of this question. I have no official information of what passed in conversation, but Sir Jacobus de Wet has 2 given the following account of his | own part in a letter which appeared in the Saturday Beview of the 4th of July: " Secondly, regarding the private promise which I am alleged to have made to the members of the Eeform Committee — that if they brought about a peaceful disarmament the Transvaal Government would grant a free pardon, this is also incorrect. What I did say to individual members of the Committee, who asked what would be done with them, was that I had no official information, nor any intimation, on that point, but that in my private opinion nothing would be done. Any one knowing the circumstances and attitude of the President would have been justified in drawing such an inference." At the end of the morning's meeting the Eeform Committee passed a resolution, saying that, having seriously considered the ultimatum of the Government that Johannesburg 3 must lay down its arms, they had unanimously | decided to comply with this demand. They went on to say that in coming to this decision the Committee had been actuated by a paramount desire to do everything possible to insure the safety of Dr. Jameson and his men, to advance the amicable discussion of the terms of settlement with the Transvaal Government, and to support the High Commissioner in his efforts. This resolution was telegraphed by Sir Jacobus de Wet to the Government at Pretoria, and elicited a reply from them, in which, after quoting the ultimatum of the day before, it was said, " As you will see, no single condition is included herein. The disarmament may be, as already stated, unconditional; therefore, whatever may happen with regard to the discussion of affairs or other things, of whatever nature, they have nothing to do with the laying down of arms. Whilst the resolution of the Commit--4 tee calling itself | the Eeform Committee makes mention of a discussion of grievances, and of a motion in the matter of the safety of Dr. Jameson, and so on, it is extremely desirable that the Committee calling itself the Eeform Committee should without delay be clearly placed in a knowledge of the true state of things." Sir Jacobus de Wet appears to have done what was 4—E. lα.

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