But the condition of the fourth party is to be considered. That fourth party is the annexing country. It may be very well for the Natives and for the Dutch, and for the English in the Transvaal, but how will it suit the English at home? It became immediately necessary for us to send a large military force up to the Transvaal, or to its neighbourhood. Something above two regiments have I believe been employed on the service, and money has been demanded from Parliament for the purpose of paying for them. Up to this time England has had to pay about £125,000 for the sake of procuring that security of which I have spoken. Why should she pay this for the Boers,--or even for the English who have settled themselves among the Boers? And then the sum I have named will be but a small part of what we must pay. Hitherto no violent objection has been made at home to the annexation. In Parliament it has been almost as well received by the Opposition as by the Government. No one has said a word against Lord Carnarvon; and hardly a word has been said against Sir Theophilus. But how will it be when other and larger sums are asked for the maintenance of the Transvaal? Surely some one will then arise and say that such payments are altogether antagonistic to our colonial policy,--by which our Colonies, as they are required to give nothing to us, are also required to support themselves. The answer to this I think must be that we have been compelled thus to deviate from our practice and to put our hands deeply into our pockets by our folly in a former generation. It is because we came to a wrong judgment of our position in 1852,--when we first called upon the Dutch Boers to rule themselves,--that we are now, twenty-five years afterwards, called upon to pay for the mistake that has since occurred. We then endeavoured to limit our responsibility, saying to ourselves that there was a line in South Africa which we would not pass. We had already declined to say the same thing as to Natal and we ought to have seen and acknowledged that doctrine of the house on fire as clearly then as we do now. The Dutch who trekked across the Vaal were our subjects as much as though they were English. Their troubles must ultimately have become our troubles,--whereas their success, had they been successful, might have been as troublesome to us as their troubles. We repudiated two territories, and originated two Republics. The first has come back upon our hands and we must pay the bill. That is the Transvaal. The other, which can pay its own bill, will not come back to us even though we should want it. That is the Orange Free State. I have now answered the three questions. I think the annexation was justifiable. I think that it has been justified by the circumstances that have followed it. And I have given what in my opinion has been the cause for so disagreeable a necessity.