<P> The more radical Liberals however such as David Lloyd George and John Ellis were prepared to raise the matter in Parliament and to harass the government on the issue, which they duly did . St John Brodrick, the Conservative secretary of state for war, first defended the government's policy by arguing that the camps were purely "voluntary" and that the interned Boers were "contented and comfortable," but was somewhat undermined as he had no firm statistics to back up his argument, so when his "voluntary" argument proved untenable, he resorted to the "military necessity" argument and stated that everything possible was being done to ensure satisfactory conditions in the camps . </P> <P> Hobhouse published a report in June 1901 that contradicted Brodrick's claim, and Lloyd George then openly accused the government of "a policy of extermination" directed against the Boer population . The same month Liberal opposition party leader Campbell - Bannerman took up the assault and answered the rhetorical question "When is a war not a war?" with his own rhetorical answer "When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa," referring to those same camps and the policies that created them . The Hobhouse report caused uproar both domestically and in the international community . However, there was very little public sympathy for the highly reactionary Boer president Kruger . </P> <P> Although the government had comfortably won the parliamentary debate by a margin of 252 to 149, it was stung by the criticism and concerned by the escalating public outcry, it called on Kitchener for a detailed report . In response, complete statistical returns from camps were sent out in July 1901 . By August 1901, it was clear to government and opposition alike that Miss Hobhouse's worst fears were being confirmed--93,940 Boers and 24,457 black Africans were reported to be in "camps of refuge" and the crisis was becoming a catastrophe as the death rates appeared very high, especially among the children . </P> <P> The government responded to the growing clamour by appointing a commission . The Fawcett Commission, as it became known was, uniquely for its time, an all - woman affair headed by Millicent Fawcett who despite being the leader of the women's suffrage movement was a Liberal Unionist and thus a government supporter and considered a safe pair of hands . Between August and December 1901, the Fawcett Commission conducted its own tour of the camps in South Africa . While it is probable that the British government expected the Commission to produce a report that could be used to fend off criticism, in the end it confirmed everything that Emily Hobhouse had said . Indeed, if anything the Commission's recommendations went even further . The Commission insisted that rations should be increased and that additional nurses be sent out immediately, and included a long list of other practical measures designed to improve conditions in the camp . Millicent Fawcett was quite blunt in expressing her opinion that much of the catastrophe was owed to a simple failure to observe elementary rules of hygiene . </P>

The number of voting citizens in the world swelled after the great war because