and De Wet were in favour of accepting the British terms. Finally, on May 31st, the conditions of surrender were signed. Mr. Steyn was the only important absentee from the final conferences at Pretoria. Thus ended a war in which Great Britain had spent £200,000,000, raised and equipped some three hundred thousand men, of whom one-sixth were Colonial troops, and performed the unparalleled feat of supplying quick and satisfactory transport and subsistence for this great body of troops to a distance of seven thousand miles from the seat of Government. The people had never wavered, the Government had, apparently, never hesitated, the credit of the country had not been affected, even the prosperity of Great Britain had not been touched. Speaking of the conduct of the people in this connection the _Times_ of July 2d paid the following personal tribute: "A splendid example of patriotism and devotion was set them by our late Sovereign Lady, and they nobly followed it. It is worth recalling now that, while she deplored the necessity of war, she never wavered to the end in her conviction that it must be fought through. It is to her, perhaps, above all others, that we owe the calm dignity of temper with which the peoples of her Empire have passed through the greatest ordeal they have been called upon to undergo since the days of Napoleon. Her son, King Edward, has inherited her spirit and kept before his subjects the ideals she held up to them." The terms of peace included the promise by Great Britain of self-government in gradual stages and "as soon as circumstances will permit"; the exemption of burghers from civil or criminal proceedings in connection with the war (with certain specified exceptions); the recognition of English as the official language, and the promise that Dutch should be taught in the schools when desired; the granting of arms, under license, to the burghers and the postponement of native franchise questions until the period of free government had arrived; the grant of £3,000,000 to be expended by Commissioners in the work of repatriation and the supply of shelter, seed, stock, etc., to the returning burghers; and the reference of rebels to their own Colonial Courts for trial, with the proviso that the death penalty should not in any case be inflicted.