Since the Shamrock Li's second defeat yesterday we have given up all hope of winning the America Cup this year The very close race on Saturday, when the Shamrock sustained her first defeat, and her favourable position when Tuesday's race was abandoned, had considerably hopes. But although at first ied _"strong hopes of a victory it cannot be said that the ment in London was anything like as great as on the opening day of the races. There were contparatively few people on the embankment to watch the Ted and green lights on the shot tower and the other devices for signalling the progress of the race. Only an almost impo-sible conjunction of favourable circumstances or a serious accident to columbia cin now enable the Shamrock to win, and the general feeling here is as much one of pathy for Sir Thomas Lipton as of disappointment at the National defeat. Already, it is said. a Scottish syndicate has been formed to issue a new challenge and build anew yacht: but these reports are always rife after a Cup race, and I do not know what foundation there is for this one.
The War and the Government, Led by the "Times" and the "Standard," the Unionist papers are one after another joining in a severe attack upon the Government in regard to the prosecution of the war. It has arisen in the first instance out of the news of our heavy losses in what must at present be considered the somewhat doubtful victories of Itala and Moed-well, and in the second instance out of the reports of friction between Lord Kitchener and the War Office. The first of these reports was to the effect that Lord Kitchener had actually resigned, and had only been induced by considerable pressure to withdraw; his resignation. That rumour which appeared in the Pro-Boer organ, th official denial; but the "Pall Mall Gazette" "Daily News" received a prompt semi.
and other Unionist papers took up. the cudgels and insisted that there had been friction even if it had not gone to the length reported. Then the War Office issued an official statement declaring not only that there had been no tender of resignation, but that "no friction of any sort has existed between Tord Kitchener and the War Office since he took over the command in South Africa from Lord Roberts." Even the "Times " declin swallow this statement except with a grain of salt. [t points out that "friction is a somewhat indefinite term, and that Lord Kitchener's protest against the kind of material sent out to him recently in the shape of Yeomanry was evidence of what some people would call friction,"
Intolerable.
The "Standard" goes a good dear further. It declines to accept the War Office declaration as a guarantee that Lord Kitchener has obtained from the War Office the freedom of action which he requires; and it adds: "Tt is certain that impatience with the delay in bringing the war to an_end ix growing. It is felt that the campaign ought to be o and that: it tolerable to have to contemplate several months more of this guerilla fighting, which is involving the country ina ruinous expense, and keeping an enormous army locked up in South Africa; and itis dificult not to believe that, if proper measures had been taken and the oper tions carried on with no other thought, save that of bringing them to a speedy' conclusion, the resistance of the Burghers vould have been finally extinguished by this time and the Evening Standard" adds: "The unflattering picture of great Army unable to suppress a miserable handful of fugitive farmers is accepted as little short of a national humiliation,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.