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Credulity
27

is, indeed, curious that men and women with any knowledge of history should adduce the blessing of the Churches as testimony to the justice of any cause. Where have the priests ever failed to bless a war supported by authority and popular passion?

The consensus of general opinion among the British in South Africa and in this country, the authority of British politicians and of interested financiers, backed by a special British rendering of South African history contained in countless books issued by the British press, could carry no conviction to the minds of men accustomed to weigh evidence, unless these men had previously handed over their judgment to be driven by mob-passion.

The credulity regarding root-issues, thus induced, carries with it a credulity regarding details which is even more astonishing in its character. It may be worth while to remind readers that every British account of Boer atrocities in treatment of wounded, looting, white flag, and Red Cross incidents is paralleled by Dutch accounts of British atrocities rendered with a similar disregard of canons of evidence; that the history of the Franco-German, and indeed of every other war, has been riddled by similar stories. But while the 'intelligent' public