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Government gets its legitimate share by taxation levied in England itself.

FROM The Times, DECEMBER 19, 1900.

As in your leading article this morning you ask the question whether I maintain that no revenue should be raised in the Transvaal for any purposes whatever until there is a representative system, I hasten to answer that I do not, and to explain that, no doubt by my fault, you misunderstand my letter. I do not mean that, as there is at present no representative assembly in the Transvaal colony, there ought to be no taxes for the government of the colony, but that, as there are no representatives of the colony in the Parliament of England, there ought to be no taxation of the colony for paying war expenses which have been voted by that Parliament. The Crown Government in the colony will, of course, levy taxes to be expended in that colony for its development, until it is ready for representative institutions. But it would be a very different thing to proceed to levy taxes of any kind whatever in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies in order to send money to England to cover in part the expenses of the war undertaken by England herself. It is here where the American parallel comes in. Such a tribute to an Imperial Government, whether levied in ancient times by the Great King on the provinces of the Persian Empire, and by Athens on the cities of the Athenian Empire, or in modern times levied by Spain in the form of a tax on precious metals discovered in her colonies, or attempted by England in the American colonies in the last century, or proposed to be attempted now in the South African colonies, always has been, and will be, a ruinous blunder, because it produces a disaffected population, which has not voted such a tribute or contribution-call it what we will-to be

raised in one part of the world, and used, or abused, in another.

I only wish a stronger voice than mine could be raised against this ill-advised proposal to exact a tribute to England from her two latest colonies. December 18.

FROM The Times, DECEMBER 29, 1900.

Mr. Edmund Kimber's letter, which appears in your columns of the 26th inst., expresses the very spirit of despotism which it is imperative to avoid if England is to retain a permanent hold on the affections of her South African colonies. His motto is Vae victis. He advises his country to act the part of Napoleon. It is also likely enough that England could have elected to treat the Transvaal and her ally, according to his wishes, as conquered countries to be trampled down in Napoleonic fashion. She could at any rate have charged them as foreign countries with a war indemnity, as I admitted in my letter of the 18th inst.

But from the first England has declared her intention to act in a different spirit, to treat her enemies as colonies, to aim at gradually making them part of a South African federation of representative Governments, to let bygones be bygones, to shake hands and be friends, to pursue a policy of conciliation. She has begun to realize this benevolent intention by constituting the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies. Whatever they may have been before, they are now like any other colonies, whether in Africa, or in Australia, or in America, or in any other part of the British Empire.

In these circumstances the simple question arises how England is to attach these colonies to herself as she desires. The answer is as simple as the question, because it is founded on human nature. England can establish a system by which a tribute or

contribution shall be paid out of the taxes of those colonies to defray the expenses of the war undertaken by England herself. But, as they have not voted it, how are they to be induced, as time goes on, to pay it? A similar system has often tempted human cupidity, and with the same results. The despot has for a time collected the tribute, but has never attached the tributary to himself. The power of resistance has indeed differed according to the courage and circumstances of the tributaries. But in the present case England is dealing with free and fierce people. She has to reflect that South Africa is neither Egypt nor India; and its white inhabitants, Dutch and not Dutch, are of European origin, inheriting the principles of free men. If they are made tributary to the English Parliament, in which they have not, and cannot have, votes, they will not only hate England, but will lie in wait to free themselves from the tribute which they have not voted and from the Power which has imposed it against their will.

In short, Sir, England may make the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies pay for the war; but to make a man pay is not the way to make him a friend.

RUSSIAN POLICY AND CONSTITUTIONAL

RESPECT

On March 15, 1917, as a result of a revolution in St. Petersburg, the
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicated. A Provisional Government
was formed consisting of an Executive Committee of the Duma (or
Russian Parliament), with Prince Lvoff as Liberal Prime Minister.
In July M. Kerensky became Prime Minister of a Government of
Moderate Socialists. On November 7 Lenin and Trotsky carried
out a second revolution, and inaugurated the Bolshevik régime.
On March 3, 1918, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Peace of
Brest-Litovsk with Germany and Austria. In August, British and
French troops were landed at Archangel. They were withdrawn in
September 1919.

In the summer of 1920 war was in progress between Soviet Russia and Poland; Bolshevik armies were successfully advancing upon Warsaw. There was a question of Great Britain re-entering the Russian theatre of war in favour of Poland, and on August 10 a debate on this question took place in the House of Commons. The Labour Party formed a Council of Action', which passed a resolution against any form of military or naval intervention against Soviet Russia. If the Government undertook such a policy, resistance was to be made through direct action', i.e. by any and every form of 'withdrawal of labour which circumstances may require' (August 13). On August 16-18 the Poles defeated and drove back the Bolshevik armies outside Warsaw at the Battle of the Vistula. Mr. Lloyd George later stated that the British Government had made up its mind, independently of the Council of Action, not to intervene in the Polo-Russian War; indeed his speech previously made in the House of Commons, on August 10, proved this (see next letter).

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FROM The Times, AUGUST 10, 1920.

It is only natural that we should hate as well as dread Bolshevism, sympathize with the sufferings of the Poles, and long to help them against Russia. But Politics ought to be conducted, not by feeling, but by reason directed to the good of our own country, which is sick of war, disappointed that its vision of eternal peace after war has turned out a delusion, worn out by taxes, distracted with its difficulties, economical, social, and political, uncertain of its future, and at its wit's end how to feed itself and to warm itself properly in the coming winter, how to protect its persons and their property, how to have and to hold a good government of its own people.

Before the war, during the war, and since the war, trade unionism, guided by its leaders and assisted by demagogues, has more and more undermined the rights of liberty, property, and contract, which are, and have been for centuries, the real basis of the prosperity, justice, and happiness of this country. It was encouraged by the present Prime Minister, from the outset of his office, to practise audacity and to make a new world. Under the name of reconstruction, and by means of State

control, which advances nearer and nearer to Socialism, it has through the arbitration of the State extracted higher and higher wages without earning them and without gratitude to the employers who have to pay. It has altered not only the circumstances and the actions, but also the moral character of the workpeople of this country into arrogance and the injustice of claiming as a one-sided right what morally and lawfully is a mutual right of contract. In consequence, it is bringing the business of the country nearly to a standstill, and, if it chose, it could stop it altogether; and it could also stop the government of this country.

This absolute trade unionism is now entering on a new phase of might without right. It is striking not only against private owners, but also against the State itself. It is well on its way to becoming perforce the de facto Government of this country. The Prime Minister does not seem to see that he encourages this process by the constant and undignified familiarity with which he received Mr. Thomas and others in deputation, and in negotiations which usually begin with declaring that he will ne'er consent and end with his consenting-to the pecuniary advantage of trade unionism, but to the disadvantage of everything else. Parliament, too, seems unaware how defenceless it really is, and that, as in Russia the Duma was set aside by the Soviet and the Bolshevists, so in this country the Houses of Lords and Commons may be superseded by the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party Conference, and then by Bolshevism at last.

At this dangerous moment comes the present crisis. While the nation is heartily sick of war, trade unionism is positively opposed to war against Russia. Moreover, if, unfortunately, the Government were to drift into this war, the organization of trade unionism is so complete and so powerful that

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