It had been the custom during the war to submit very largely to the opinion of the colonies. In fact, the influence of colonial opinion had partly directed the policy of the Government for several years. Mr. Chamberlain constantly submitted to it, before, during, and after the war. He had based his bold venture of Tariff Reform on this very opinion. It was because the colonies would think this or would say that, that the British workman was to submit to a tax upon corn, a tax upon clothes, a tax upon everything else. It was reasonable to expect, therefore, that on such an important Imperial question, touching the welfare of a colony, to possess which the whole of the Empire had risen in arms, and men had poured from the snows of Canada and the rolling plains of the Bush, the opinions of the Five Nations would have been consulted. But even if the Government did not submit to this recognition of their services, to this acceptance of a common Imperial interest, it was only natural to have supposed that they would have at least taken into account the advice of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, who had experienced the evils of Chinese immigration. I have travelled all over the Orange River Colony, Natal, Cape Colony, and the Transvaal, and the colonial people and the Dutch were all unanimously against the introduction of the Chinese on the Rand. I have never yet met one person in favour of the Ordinance. And since the Ordinance became law, and the yellow slaves began their work at the mines, nearly every person I have met in South Africa has openly regretted the war, and declared that they preferred the days of Paul Kruger, whose Government may have been corrupt, but was at any rate based on the principle that it is the duty of a white government to look after the moral and social welfare of its white subjects. Mr. Chamberlain himself declared that there was considerable indignation expressed throughout South Africa at the proposal to introduce Chinese labour, and that a vast majority of the people throughout South Africa were bitterly opposed to the Ordinance. The colonies were not slow in sending passionate protests to the Colonial Office against the Ordinance. Mr. Seddon wired--"My Government desire to protest against the proposal to introduce Chinese labour into South Africa. They foresee that great dangers, racial, social and political, would inevitably be introduced by Chinese influx, however stringent the conditions of introduction and employment may be." Mr. Deakin, the Premier of Australia, declared that Australia had been told that the war was a miners' war, but not for Chinese miners; a war for the franchise, but not for Chinese franchise. The truth, if it had been told, would have presented a very different aspect, and would have made a very different appeal to Australia.