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Show Will It Be Peace? ONE of the Boer envoys to this country, on his way to San Francisco Fran-cisco from Washington, where he and his companions were turned down by the president and secretary of state, stopped over in Salt Lake long enough to be interviewed by the Deseret News. tie expressea nis gratitude for the friendly feeling exhibited by the American Amer-ican people and uttered no word of complaint against the administration, notwithstanding a British camp to supply its army with horses is allowed to exist near New Orleans. He spoke feelingly of the suffering endured by his people in the concentration camps established by Kitchener, and dwelt upon the inhuman mode of warfare conducted by the British. This Boer envoy was confident that the burghers in the field could prolong the war for two years or for an indefinite period, and nothing short of independence I would satisfy the Boers. ' This interview- was given a short time after the inspiring news of Me- thuen's defeat and capture, and it was only natural that the envoy should draw such an optimistic picture. Did he express himself in. any other way, he would not be a Boer, even if in his own mind he was convinced that his countrymen were prolonging a hopeless hope-less struggle. Since that glorious victory of De-larey De-larey at Klerksdorf other minor engagements en-gagements have' taken place in which Boer and Briton were successful. The latter recaptured the two guns taken from them at Klerb-srinrf besides a hun dred or more prisoners. The British loss in killed and woundecLwas as ten to one of the Boers, but that does not count alongside the guns. In the cold computation of losses in this Boer war, a gun is worth a regiment of British infantry. The capture and imprisonment imprison-ment of a hundred burghers compensates compen-sates for the loss of a whole British division, when the fighters in this unequal conflict are compared. There can be no more than a couple of thousand Boers left to continue the fight against the quarter of a million of the enemy, and at any day now we are liable to hear that half of that little lit-tle army of patriots are hemmed in by the blockhouse cordon and cut off from escape. That means that they must die fighting or surrender. In either event it puts the Boer forever out of action. Under all these' circumstances, it is best that the Boers accept terms upon, tome basis of provincial autonomy. The acting president of the Transvaal and the president of the Orange Free State, according to dispatches from South Africa, Af-rica, are now in conference with the Boer commanders iri the field. They were escorted thither by a convoy of . ......... -QUllj, II, JClIlfe UIIUCIDIUUJ that they had some proposal from either Kitchener or the British home government. govern-ment. "What decision may be reached is left to conjecture. But it is certain that the British people are as anxious now for peace as they were strenuous before for jingoism. ' The humiliation over Methuen's. capture, the generous treatment accorded the British general fcy Delarey, who released him, all have had a marvelous effect upon the British Brit-ish mind and sobered it to reason. There are other reasons equally strong why the British people should desire peace. Their treasury has been drained. Their prestige has languished. Their Indian empire is imperilled. Their king desires peace, above all things, to crown the glory of his coronation. The Boers have selected an auspicious time to make terms with the enemy; yet If those terms are short of anything but the same freedom enjoyed by colonists of Great Britain, it were better that the burghers die fighting rather than wear the chains which the conqueror has placed about Ireland. |