Critics of the war at home, to whose writing othe historian of the future will loo? for information, are no doubt deterred from speaking' out their minds by a feeling that it is unpatriotic to tell bitter truths that may discourage our men or put fresh heart into the enemy. But if ever there was a war that was entered into without the slightest serious attempt to count the cost, it is that on the third year of which we have now entered, forced into it as we were by the insolent ultimatum of President Kriiger, which our self-appointed judges on the Continent of Europe and elsewhere are so fond of ignoring. The doggedness of the Anglo-Saxon nature has been well displayed in the persistence of the British people. The war, they were first told, would nob last a year. It was virtually over, they were told, when Lord Roberts came back; it was over again when the parliamentary elections were held last year; and it is no Labouchere or other pro-Boer now, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself—the man who took away most of the British garrison from Shanghai because the home exchequer could not afford the cost of their maintenance—who doesn't hesitate to comfort our enemies by saying to a Colston Anniversary meeting at Bristol: "I wish I could say that this terrible war has come to an end, but can-30 not, and possibly T may have to ask ably '4 later for increased taxation."
If we 31/did not feel convinced of Sir Michael's patriotism and devotion to his leader, Lord Salisbury, we should think that he had been reading Mr, A. J. Wilson's "Investors' Review," and was "riding for a fall," so as to evade the financial crash that Mr. Wilson so persistently The ignorance and inefficiency of the Government in which Sir Michael holds such an important post must have reached an intolerable pitch before it could provoke a sober and temperate journal like the "Economist" print such an article as appears in its issue of the 28th of September last, under the heading " The Policy of Pounding Away." It begins: "The government will make a serious mistake if they underrate the annoyance with which the country receives tidings of such disasters as have recently been reported from South Africa."—This was written weeks before the disaster to Colonel Benson's column occurred; and the notable thing about this disaster is that it was contrived by a General, who only a few days before was reported to have been driven to fly for his life, leaving all his papers behind. Per-pee these papers were meant to be left behind?—"In every railway train," the "Economist" goes on to say, "and place of meeting in the country, those who support the Government are. asking how long the war is to continue, and who or what is responsible for a want of success, which on the face of facts, is almost inexplicable. There is a growing suspicion of mismanagement which has at least this prima facie justification, that the Government has in South Africa a force exceeding the whole of the adult male Dutch population, supplied with every necessary and. with the sea as its ultimate base, yet unable either to destroy or capture ten or twelve thousand Boers, who are very poorly supplied, who by no means fight astonishingly well, and who are, itis believed, under no general direction. The disparity of force is wonderful, yet it seems to have no effect."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.