Never has there occurred in history a great struggle such as the present
which has not had a deep moral teaching.

England is now suffering for her past errors, extending over many years.
The blood of her sons is being poured out like water on the soil of
South Africa. Wounded hearts and desolated families at home are counted
by tens of thousands.

But it needs to be courageously stated by those who have looked a little
below the surface that her faults have not been those which are
attributed to her by a large proportion of European countries, and by a
portion of her own people. These appear to attribute this war to a
sudden impulse on her part of Imperial ambition and greed, and to see in
the attitude which they attribute to her alone, the provocative element
which was chiefly supplied from the other side. There will have to be a
Revision of this Verdict, and there will certainly be one; it is on the
way, though its approach may be slow. It will be rejected by some to the
last.

The great error of England appears to have been a strange neglect, from
time to time, of the true interests of her South African subjects,
English, Dutch, and Natives. There have been in her management of this
great Colony alternations of apathy and inaction, with interference
which was sometimes unwise and hasty. Some of her acts have been the
result of ignorance, indifference, or superciliousness on the part of
our rulers.

The special difficulties, however, in her position towards that Colony
should be taken into account.