There will be a Dutch South
African conspiracy, but it will be one of our own making. We shall have
our own treatment of these people to thank for it. Be sure of this, that
for every house up here that is destroyed, three or four in the south
are slowly rousing to arms.
You will think, I daresay, that I have been putting the case
one-sidedly. Possibly that is so; but I am putting the side that wants
putting. I am constantly seeing it stated that any measures are
justifiable so long as they are likely to end the war. "Well, but we
must end it somehow," is a common phrase. That is all rubbish. We must
fight fairly, that's the first rule of all. I daresay there may have
been individual acts of cruelty or treachery on the part of the Boers,
but I am sure that any just and unprejudiced officer will tell you that
on the whole they have behaved surprisingly well, and in a way that is
really very striking when we consider how undisciplined and individually
independent they are. Let us then, on our side, play the game fairly. No
doubt it is very exasperating to have the thing dragging on in the way
it is doing, and the present intangible, elusive warfare is desperately
irritating, but there is after all nothing unfair about these tactics of
the Boers, nothing illegitimate in any way; they are merely the turning
to account of natural advantages; and this being the case, we have no
right to lose our tempers and get vicious just because we have taken on
a tougher job than we thought for.
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