WHEN the South African War broke out in early October, 1899, Mr. Lloyd George was touring in Western Canada. The mutterings of the coming storm had already reached him in the distant regions of the Rocky Mountains, and that swift political instinct of his had warned him of grave events. He turned in his tracks, abandoned his holiday, and made for home.[41] While crossing the Atlantic he had abundant time to meditate on the great issue between the South African Republics and the British Empire. By the time he arrived in England he had already a very strong impression that a great wrong was being perpetrated. But before uttering any decisive word in public he made a very careful study of the many State Papers which set forth the case on either side in that momentous strife, especially the minutes of the negotiations between President Kruger and Lord Milner at Bloemfontein. For it has always been the habit of Mr. Lloyd George to study his documents in politics with fully as much care as a good judge preparing for the courts. We all know the conclusion he reached in regard to the Boer War.[42] He took the view, on the facts of the case, that the war was by no means inevitable. He held strongly throughout the following years that the war was the result of bad statesmanship. He did not deny the wrongs of the Uitlanders; but he believed that the results of the war could have been achieved by the patient pursuit of peaceful diplomacy. This view has certainly been strengthened since those days by that very remarkable book, _The Autobiography of Sir William Butler_.[43] Throughout the most bitter period of the controversy that followed Mr. Lloyd George always admitted that there were two sides to the case. He absolutely refused to join in the utter damnation of those Liberals, such as Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, who supported the war. “We take a different view of the facts,” was his way of putting it; and perhaps this view explains why he refused to make the quarrel over the Boer War a dividing issue within the Liberal Party. There were extremists on both sides who wanted to part company; and there were pro-Boers who even rejoiced when that strange creation, the Liberal League, came into being. Mr. Lloyd George was not one of these. Sir Edward Grey on the side of the war Liberals, and Mr. Lloyd George on the side of the peace Liberals, did their utmost to prevent a permanent split; and they succeeded. When the war was over the two branches of the party were able to come together, and found that they still agreed on the main issues of domestic politics.