Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/229

 1899.] Lord Rosebery's Resolute Speeches. [221

periment" prompted by Mr. Gladstone's deep Christianity, but also by his overpowering conviction of the might and power of England. "Now we know how that magnanimity was rewarded. We may feel perfectly confident, we who follow Mr. Gladstone, that were he alive, and had he the control of the destinies of this country, it would not be possible for him, nor would it enter into his contemplation, had he to make terms after this war, to make terms such as were made after the skirmish of Majuba Hill."

Having sketched the subsequent history of the Transvaal, and advised his hearers to read Mr. Fitzpatrick's book, " The Transvaal from Within," as setting forth in detail the griev- ances of the Outlanders, Lord Rosebery referred to continental ill-feeling towards England, which he thought quite without justification; and then in an eloquent peroration touching on the loneliness of England and the magnitude of her empire, he confessed that he had no hesitation in recurring to the opinion of Chatham and saying once more, "Be one people: forget everything for the public/'

Again, speaking on November 1 at Edinburgh, Lord Rose- bery struck the same resolute note after the arrival of the melancholy news of Nicolson's Nek. Such incidents, he said, were to be looked for in the course of a considerable campaign ; Britons had had many such, and they generally muddled out right at the end. " But whatever happens," continued Lord Rosebery, " there can be no mistake about this — we have got to see this thing through. It may cost us more battalions than we have lost ; it may cost the lives of more officers and men, and will cost us more than we have already lost ; it may cost us millions we do not yet dream of ; but there is one thing certain — we mean to see this thing through."

Speaking at the Sheffield Cutlers' Feast on November 2, Lord Lansdowne, Secretary of State for War, expressed his great satisfaction at the way in which the Reserves had come up — 98 per cent, of them having responded to the call — and also at the patriotic consideration which employers all over the kingdom were showing in keeping open Reservists' places. In this connection may be mentioned the prompt and liberal response made to the appeal issued a few days earlier by the Secretary for War and the Commander-in-Chief, asking the public to subscribe to county associations which, in concert with the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families' Association, would deal locally with every case of hardship, assisting the wives of all soldiers on active service, whether they had married with leave or not. In support of this appeal Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who had taken a conspicuous place as the writer of stirring patriotic verses, issued a vigorous poem in the vernacular which obtained an immense vogue. Further evidence of the widespread evolution of patriotic zeal was afforded by Lord Wolseley's statement at the Lord Mayor's Banquet that he only wished he