Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/211

 1899.] The Autwnn Session. [203

An influential city meeting, convened by the Lord Mayor of London at the Guildhall (Oct. 16) most heartily voted its support to the Government, after speeches in that sense by Sir B. Hanson, senior member for the city ; Sir John Lubbock ; Mr. S. S. Gladstone, governor of the Bank of England ; Mr. A. G. Sandeman, president of the London Chamber of Commerce, and others.

In the preceding week there began the first of many calls upon the patriotic generosity of the British public, which were to grow and spread over many months. Sir A. Milner tele- graphed appealing, "in the name of British South Africa,' ' for help for the multitudes of British refugees from the Transvaal, who were daily pouring into the British colonies, especially the seaport towns, and whose needs — energetically as those who could were helping themselves — were far more than could possibly be met by local benevolence. A fund was immediately opened by the Lord Mayor of London, and in less than a week reached 80,00CW.

The autumn session, necessitated by the calling out of the Beserve, with a view to strengthening the British forces in South Africa, was opened on October 17 by royal commis- sion. The Queen's Speech touched on no other topic than " the difficulties which had been caused by the action of the South African Bepublic." Otherwise, Parliament was assured, " the condition of the world continues to be peaceful." Measures, said the speech, would be laid before the Com- mons "providing for the expenditure which has been or may be caused by events in South Africa."

In the Lords the address in reply to the speech from the throne was moved by the Marquis of Granby, and seconded by Lord Barnard, a Liberal Unionist peer. The Earl of Kimberley said that, whatever the Opposition might think of the mode in which negotiations had been conducted with the Transvaal, they were as ready as any on the other side of the House to support whatever measures were necessary to vindicate the honour and interests of this country. As to the negotiations, he was old-fashioned enough to be sorry that they had been carried on coram populo. Speeches made by the Colonial Secretary had been unfavourable to a successful issue. "In- cisive speaking in public was contrary to every principle on which negotiations should be conducted." As to the contro- versy about suzerainty, he complained that while the Boers must have supposed after the negotiations of 1884 that both the word and the thing were abandoned, except in so far as by the provisions of the Convention of that year they were retained, the word had latterly been used on our side to set forth a vague and undefined claim, which caused apprehen- sions to a people naturally suspicious, having regard to the ■"unhappy, nay criminal" raid.

Lord Salisbury, in replying for the Government, after