John Morley: “How should we look in the face of the civilised world if we had so turned our back upon our duty and sovereign task?”

The omnipotent though not omniscient divinity called public opinion intervened.

Could ministers justify abandonment, without far stronger evidence than they then possessed that they could not govern the Transvaal peaceably?

I am trying to feel my way through the most difficult problem, the most difficult situation that a responsible Government can have to face.

All alike concerned themselves with its truth or falsehood, with what they counted to be its abstract fitness or unfitness.