Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/242

 234] ENGLISH HISTORY. [dec.

Lothian, a fund was started locally to supplement the equipment which would be provided by the War Office for any men from that corps or the two counties concerned who might volunteer for 8outh African service. Similar funds were raised in other counties and were readily supported, although during the previous months patriotic benevolence had contributed hundreds of thousands of pounds for the relief and support of those dependent on Reservists and other soldiers fighting and perhaps falling in South Africa. To the evolution of this spirit, and the welding influences of simultaneous or rapidly sequent bereave- ments endured in the country's cause by families of every rank, was due the undoubted fact that if the Christmas of 1899 found the English at home a sadder it also found them a more closely united people than for many a year back. Nor was that the only, or indeed the most striking, of the compensations afforded by the mournful experiences of the South African war. Other chapters of this volume will tell in local detail of the magni- ficent colonial rally all through the autumn in support of the empire's cause — a rally which became only the more resolute and wide-ranging as the course of the conflict took unexpectedly gloomy developments. But here it must be said that the telegrams which poured in, especially after the repulse of General Buller at Colenso, illustrating the eagerness of Cana- dians, Australians, and New Zealanders, to put large numbers more of their gallant sons in the fighting line, stirred the heart of Great Britain with a grateful pride that was altogether beyond expression. Before the end of the year the Parliaments of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia — in the three other colonies where the Legislatures were not sitting the ministers confidently anticipated their loyal desires — had enthusiastically approved the despatch of contingents making up a force of 1,100 mounted infantry, additional to those which had already gone from Australia to South Africa. The senior colony also contributed half a field hospital — sixty men — and a field battery numbering 180 men, while New Zealand sent a separate force of 200 men. Canada had offered a second con- tingent months before, and though it was not then accepted, the Dominion Government had got the necessary equipment ready, and on the first intimation that the Imperial Government would welcome the renewal of the offer the Cabinet of Sir Wilfrid Laurier sanctioned the formation of three field batteries and three squadrons of mounted rifles — 1,050 men in all. This prompt action of the constitutional authorities, supported by keen popular enthusiasm, in our great self-governing colonies in America and Australasia, remote though they are, by vast ocean spaces, from the scene of imperial trouble, amounted to an historical event of the first importance. For it demonstrated in a fashion quite unmistakable the effective unity of the British race throughout the world.

Not much more remains to be told of England in 1899. In