The Boer War Criticized (1900)
David Lloyd George

I think it is one of the most extraordinary speeches I ever heard in this House. For my part, I rather admired it for what I would call its audacity. The right hon. Gentleman held up his hands in holy horror, and exclaimed that he could not imagine how anybody could regard his conduct with regard to South Africa with suspicion.... the history of the last four or five years in South Africa is simply one record of facts, each and every one of them affording good, solid, substantial ground for suspecting the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman in everything that he does in South Africa. ...

Anybody who listened to his speech knows perfectly well that that speech had nothing whatever to do with South Africa. It was not a speech directed to South Africa, or having any connection with South Africa, and it was not intended to deal with the South African business. It was a speech intended purely for the hustings. It was an electioneering performance. ... he is determined that this war should have one result—that is, a Chamberlain Ministry in the next Parliament. That is electioneering; it is not statesmanship; and it is not the way to settle the peace of South Africa. The worst of the whole business is that these are the considerations that have directed his entire policy, instead of considerations of statesmanship and conciliation which might have settled the whole thing without war.

When you come to the effect of your policy in South Africa upon the Empire at large, it is found to be most disastrous. We have been obliged to drop all those great proposals for domestic reform of which the right hon. Gentleman claimed to be the apostle. And when you come to consider how it has paralysed the power and arms of Great Britain abroad  the policy might very well be described in the phrase of the right hon. Gentleman himself as calamitous. One thing has struck me. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are wont to congratulate themselves upon the fact that the European Powers have not offered to intervene. But has it never occurred to them to consider what is the reason why those European Powers which are hostile to us, who hate us, and are willing to strike a blow at the very existence of this Empire, have not intervened and have not talked of intervening? ... The reason is that the Powers that hate and dislike us do not want to stop the terrible exhaustion of our power going on in South Africa. There is nothing that suits them better.

The  right hon. Gentleman, in answering the speech of my hon. and learned friend, said that to talk of suffering was irrelevant. That is an extraordinary declaration to make. He said, "What is the loss of 8,000 men killed on the one side and 3,000 or 4,000 on the other; what is the maiming of 40,000 for life?—and that is only the beginning of it. All that is perfectly irrelevant!" Surely in a question of this kind the suffering undergone is more or less relevant. Does not the price you are to pay come in when you are considering whether you should go to war? ... It was because the right hon. Gentleman did not foresee what would happen, because he was misled by his own prejudices and prepossessions and by the men "who know the country" that he went into this terrible war in South Africa. I would ask the Committee what is it we have gained by this war? Taking the facts as they are at the present moment I venture to say that as far as regards all the objects we set before ourselves when we entered into the war, we are worse off now than before it began. We entered into the war in order to establish equal rights between the white races in the Transvaal. That was the avowed, open, and declared object. How do we stand now, even according to the declaration of the Colonial Secretary? Equal rights! Not at all. The first thing is that you have got to conquer the territory, and that will take at least a year. And then there is to be a military occupation. Afterwards you will set up a Crown Colony, which is to last according to the behaviour of the Boers. But, taking the right hon. Gentleman's own previous declaration, this feud may last for generations. Does he believe that if he annexes these two Republics he will restore peace and amity in ten or fifteen years, so that you can trust them with self-government? And what does a Crown Colony mean? A Crown Colony does not mean giving votes to anybody. You cannot set up self-government in the Transvaal and enfranchise the Uitlanders alone. The right hon. Gentleman knows that  perfectly well. He deprives everybody of votes, and governs that State by means of nominees of the Crown. We started the war in order to obtain the franchise for everybody, and we end it with the franchise for nobody. It is true that you establish a kind of equality between the white races there, but it is not equal rights, but equal wrongs. ...

All this means that if we had not gone into this wretched war, we would have had the franchise and equal rights in seven or ten years at the outside; and what would have been spared to humanity? Eight thousand and more of our own soldiers dead! And the worst of a war like this is, that it is not the guilty persons who are punished, but the innocent. I know not who is responsible for this war. President Kruger? It may be; but he is not the man to be punished. It may be the right hon. Gentleman himself—as I believe—but he is not the man to be punished for it.  What had these 8,000 British troops who had been killed done? What had the 450,000 men, women, and children who have been turned out of their homes and are roaming over the veldt in the Transvaal done? Yes, or even these poor burghers in the field? They, at any rate, had profited nil by the corruption of President Kruger and his Hollander gang. That is the worst of it. If we had only waited with patience all would have come out well in five or ten years, and the suffering, the detestation, and the stain on the name of Great Britain would have been spared. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh!] Yes, all that would have been saved. ...

I ask hon. Members, will they venture to say that this war has re-established British prestige in South Africa or elsewhere? A force of 250,000 of the picked and trained men, not only of this country, but of the colonies, is required to crush 35,000 peasants. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh!]

... British prestige has suffered, and no one will deny  that this great war has done nothing more than to multiply grief and poverty. As for our military reverses, it is not for me to dwell upon them; but, at any rate, there is in them no restoring of prestige. I remember perfectly well the great cry at the last General Election was "Support home industries," and the Government, and above all, the Minister who got his party into power on the prohibition of foreign brushes, is now engaged in the task of restoring British prestige with guns made in Germany, soldiers fed on French vegetables and South American meat, Hungarian horses provided with American saddles, and foreign fodder carried by Spanish mules. That is how we are restoring British prestige and the credit of the country. The fact is that this war was based on a gross miscalculation—upon a series of miscalculations.

The miscalculation was a miscalculation of statesmanship—a miscalculation as to the character, disposition, ideals, and tenacity of the men with whom we had to deal. And that miscalculation must rest entirely on the shoulder's of the right hon. Gentleman himself. He has led us into two blunders. The first was the war. But worse than the war is the change that has been effected in the purpose for which we are prosecuting the war. We went into the war for equal rights; we are prosecuting it for annexation. ...

It is exactly as if you had entered into a man's house to protect the children, and started to steal his plate. You entered into these two Republics for philanthropic purposes, and remained to commit burglary. In changing the purpose of the war you have made a bad change. That is the impression you are creating abroad. Our critics say you are not going to war for equal rights and to establish fair play, but to get hold of the goldfields; and you have justified that criticism of our enemies by that change. But, worst of all, a change has been effected in the character of the war. Up to a certain point it was conducted with considerable chivalry, and, so far as war can be so conducted, with apparent good temper on both sides. A war of annexation, however, against a proud people must be a war of extermination, and that is unfortunately what it seems we are now committing ourselves to — burning homesteads and turning women and children out of their homes. ...

Source: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1900/jul/25/class-ii