If the question of Concentration Camps had been examined seriously, it would have been at once perceived what a tremendous burden the responsibility of having to find food and shelter for thousands of enemy people imposed on English officials. No one in Government circles attempted or wished to deny, sorrowful as it was to have to recognise it, that the condition of the Camps was not, and indeed could not be, nearly what one would have wished or desired. On the other hand, the British authorities were unremitting in their efforts to do everything which was compatible with prudence to improve the condition of these Camps. Notwithstanding, people were so excited in regard to the question, and it was so entirely a case of "Give a dog a bad name," that even the appointment of an Imperial Commission to report on the matter failed to bring them to anything approaching an impartial survey. Miss Hobhouse's report had excited an emotion only comparable to the publication of Mrs. Beecher Stowe's famous novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Miss Hobhouse came to South Africa inspired by the most generous motives, but her lack of knowledge of the conditions of existence common to everyone in that country prevented her from forming a true opinion as to the real hardship of what she was called upon to witness. Her own interpretations of the difficulties and discomforts which she found herself obliged to face proved that she had not realised what South Africa really was. Her horror at the sight of a snake in one of the tents she visited could only evoke a smile from those who had lived for some time in that country, as a visitor of that particular kind was possible even in the suburbs of Cape Town, and certainly offered nothing wonderful in a tent on the high veldt. The same remark can be applied to the hotels, which Miss Hobhouse described as something quite ghastly. Everyone who knew what South Africa really was could only agree with her that the miserable places there were anything but pleasant residences, but the fuss which she made as to these trivial details could only make one sceptical as to the genuineness of the other scenes which she described at such length. No one who had had occasion to watch the development of the war or the circumstances which had preceded it could bring himself to believe with her that the British Government was guilty of premeditated cruelty.