A Suggestion Towards a Settlement.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 13, 27 March 1902, Page 2

A Suggestion Towards a Settlement.

In an article in a recent number of the Fortnightly Review entitled ' Russia, Germany, and Britain ; a Warning and a Moral,' the Rev. Canon Malcolm McColl, a leading English ecclesiastic and thinker, makes a suggestion that is certainly worth noticing towards a settlement of the trouble in South Africa. Canon McColl, who is the author of an important work on British Foreign Policy and has an undoubted claim to be considered an expert on the subject, begins by drawing a parallel between the state of things in India just after the Mutiny, in 1858, and the position of affairs in South Africa today. The Anglo-Indian loyalists of the time clamored eagerly and loudly, as the loyal British in South Africa are now doing, for drastic measures against the rebels and for a policy of absolute confiscation and extermination. The Conservative Government believing that the Anglo-Indian community were too near the scene of trouble to take a dispassionate view of the situation, resisted the pressure brought to bear upon them and in spite of the angry protests and sinister predictions of those on the spot boldly declared for a policy of amnesty, clemency, and conciliation. The result was that the rebellion was soon quelled ; the rebels returned

to the homes which had fortunately never been destroyed, and Oude has proved ever since one of the most loyal provinces in the Indian Empire.

The moral of all this is obvious, and Canon McColl leaves the reader to draw it for himself by offering a practical suggestion to the Conservatives, who have inherited this ' splendid heirloom of generosity,' as to the way in which in the lesson of 1858 may be given effect to. His suggestion is that the Government should propose an armistice, and send out a Commission of able and fair-minded men representing both parties, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Lord Spencer, and Lord Reay, and to this Commission he would add Lord Kitchener, ' for his is an eminently equitable and judicious mind.' It would be the business of this Commission to examine the whole situation with their own fresh eyes and mind, taking counsel of Boers and British alike. They would then return with a scheme of settlement which Parliament might be trusted to discuss without party spirit.

Such is Canon McColl's proposal. If it were a proposal that Britain should proceed to make peace with the enemy, it would, of course, at once be scouted, but it is a great deal less than that. It is a mere suggestion that an impartial and fairminded Commission of both parties should quietly discuss the matter and see whether or not some settlement cannot be arrived at. That appears a fair and reasonable enough proposal, and it is possible that it may yet receive the serious attention which it seems to deserve.