I must say frankly that I am against the continuance of the war, and my reasons are briefly these: It is stated that we did not commence the war with the hope of intervention, but with faith in the Lord. I cannot quite agree with that, and I say that we did begin the war with the hope of intervention, and now we find that that hope will not be realised. If we did not cherish that hope, why did we send the Deputation to Europe? And why, while we were still in Natal, was it stated in war reports that the Deputation were doing good work? That was said to encourage the Burghers. Many took up arms in that hope. Who was the cause of that hope originating amongst the people I do not know, but many Volksraad members spoke as if our independence had been guaranteed by European Powers. The truth of what I say was proved when the meetings to elect delegates for this meeting were held. I was present at several of those meetings, and at each one of them the burghers insisted that we should try to get into communication with our Deputation. Why should they have done that if there was no hope of intervention? That hope dwindled away when we noticed that there was no ground for it. It is thus plain that we did not commence the war with faith in God alone. A further proof of this is that we hoped and expected much from what our comrades in the Cape Colony would accomplish. That hope has also vanished, now that General Smuts has declared that we must not expect much from the Cape Colony, and that there will be no general rising there. Another reason why I am in favour of peace is because our commandos have been much weakened. From 50,000 men our number has fallen to 15,000, and that number is fast decreasing. Another reason is the scarcity of foodstuffs. Last year this scarcity was also spoken of, but that was nonsense. Now it is only too true. You can now ride from Vereeniging to Piet Relief, and only here and there will you come across a few cattle. I may say that you will see scarcely any cattle. Then we must think of the suffering of the women and children still with us, and especially of those in the Concentration Camps.