Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/225

 1899.] Fresh Attacks on Mr. Chamberlain. [217

that it ought to be provided by any permanent addition to the debt of the country — an addition winch could only be justified in the case of war with a first-class Power. What he purposed was to make a temporary addition to the floating debt, and he should accordingly ask for power to raise a sum not exceeding 8,000,000/. by Treasury bills. It was well to leave a margin, but he had no intention of placing anything like that amount of bills on the market at once, the less so that the Com- missioners of the National Debt were going to put considerable sums out of the funds in their hands at the disposal of Govern- ment. Sir M. Hicks-Beach went on to adduce various reasons of expediency for not imposing any fresh taxation during the remaining months of the financial year, and added that he saw no reason why, in the event of our final success, the South African Republic should not be called upon to pay at least a part of the expenses in which its action had involved us. At the same time he left it to be inferred that there was a fair chance of an augmented income-tax for the year 1900-1, beside possibilities of new indirect taxation. He concluded by moving the necessary resolution.

Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman generally acquiesced in the Ministerial proposals, and after a brief debate the resolution was carried by 336 to 28.

The special business of the autumn session was thus practically completed, but on the second reading of the Ap- propriation Bill on October 25 there was another debate of some length on the "new diplomacy " and the war. In its course Mr. Davitt (Mayo, S.) again denounced the war with intense bitterness, and announced his intention to resign his seat as a protest against it. Mr. Chamberlain's diplomacy was condemned by Mr. Dalziel (Kirkcaldy Dist.), who com- plained bitterly that Mr. Chamberlain had made no effort to remove the Boer misunderstanding of his despatch of August 28. On the other hand Mr. Paul ton (Bishop Auckland), one of the Liberals who had voted with the Government against Mr. Stanhope's amendment, asked why the despatch was misunderstood, and said that to him it seemed that the un- willingness of President Kruger to look for points of agreement was really responsible for the disastrous issue. Mr. Labouchere maintained that the Colonial Secretary had " hustled and fooled his colleagues into war," and Sir Wm. Harcourt again called attention to the Highbury garden-party speech as offering provocation and menace at a moment when a conciliatory Boer despatch was about to be met by what was intended as a conciliatory British reply. Thereon Mr. Chamberlain refused to admit that the Highbury speech was provocative. An accidental opportunity being afforded, he deemed it wise to convey to President Kruger in a non-official manner a plain intimation, supplementing the despatch that was about to go out, that no further dilatory proceedings could be permitted