Now that Lord Roberts has actually left Pretoria we are really beginning to hope again that the end of the war is coming into sight. On Wednesday, when Mr. Chamberlain's salary came on for discus in the House of Commons, another debate principal result, however, ise the state of hopeless disinter which the Liberal Party has fille. Me. Sydney Buxton, a Liberal ex-Under-Secretary, in introducing the debate, lid most stress on the subject of the treatment of the rebel Datch in Cape Colony; and this was the point'to which most of the subse-their attention. "But Sie Wilfrid Lawson, ent Liberal speakers principally directed
who moved a reduction of Mr. Chamberlain's salary, denounced the policy of his own country in the bitterest terms, describing it as the policy of the freebooter, the filibuster, the burglar and the Boxer.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman adopted exactly the course which might have been expected of him, declining to vote cither for ast the reduction, and while the bulk followers copied his example, there were not a few who voted for and not a few who voted against the amendment, Mr Chamberlain, who made a very vigorous defence of the policy of the Government, was accused by several of his opponents of making an "electioneering" speech. There was no daubs an element: of truth in the charge; but nothing could hare been more helpful to Mr, Chamberlain from an electioneering point of view than the feebleness and lack of concord displayed by his opponents. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman declared that while the Colonial Secretary in all his speeches repudiated vindictiveness in the punishment of tre rebels, the spirit of vindictiveness breathed through them all, 'To call a Eve years' disfranchisement a vindictive punishment for high treason is, however, just a little too absurd,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.