No one recognised better than the Cabinet of the day under what an obligation they lay to the mercantile world which had seen them through the short but grave crisis in South Africa, nor did any men appreciate better than they the contract into which they had virtually if not technically entered, to recoup those whom their abrupt negotiations for peace had left in the lurch. It could not be denied that the published despatches of Lord Milner and the frequently expressed determination of the Government never to treat with the Dutch rebels in the Transvaal, had led the community in general to imagine a conflict of indefinite duration. And if, for reasons which it is not my duty to criticise here, they saw fit to reverse this policy and to put their names to a regular treaty, the least they could do for those whose patriotism had accumulated provisions to continue the struggle, was to recompense them not only equitably but largely for their sacrifice. The decision so to act and to repurchase, with a special generosity, the eggs accumulated for our forces, was reinforced by many other considerations besides those of political equity. It was recognised that for some time to come a considerable garrison would be necessary to constrain the terrible foe whom we had so recently vanquished; it was recognised that of all articles of diet the egg has recently been proved the most sustaining for its weight and price; the perishable nature of the commodity, though it had been counteracted by the scientific methods of the packers, was another consideration of great weight, certain as it was that the preservation of these supplies could not be indefinitely continued, and that the moment they were moved dissolution would be at hand; finally, the Government could not forget that these eggs, worth but a paltry farthing apiece upon the shores of the Baltic or in the frozen deserts of Siberia, would exchange in the arid waste of the veldt for fifty times that sum.