NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE threatened debate on affairs in South Africa came off on Friday week, and was not unworthy of the occasion, the protagonists being Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Chamber- lain, followed by Mr. Courtney and Mr. Labouchere. Sir William Harcourt's speech was a little, as Mr. Chamberlain said, too much like that of counsel for a prosecution ; but it was a very able speech, and certainly proved beyond the possibility of answer that Mr. Rhodes knew of and sanctioned the Jameson Raid, that the Raid was tainted with a stock- jobbing smell, and that the managing director and Mr. Beit were in effect the Chartered Company. Mr. Rhodes had hood- winked Sir Hercules Robinson and deceived Mr. Chamberlain. Sir William, while exonerating him from the charge of money- grabbing, accused him of overweening ambition, and de- nounced his plot as carried out with "fraud and falsehood." He maintained that the Company was really a governing body under the British Crown, and that as the Crown would at once have removed a Governor who acted in this way, so it ought to withdraw the Charter and remove the managing director. At present the Chartered Company, though de- prived of its control of the armed force, was in possession of all powers of civil administration. Sir William wound up by declaring that the character of the British Government was involved, and that if it condoned the conduct of the Chartered Company it would be deemed, and not unjustly deemed, "perfidious."
