1s they saw fit, or to reveal the disposition '4ud number of our forces in the field, at the most critical junctures: as was done persistently and with impunity by numbers of war correspondents of all nationalities in the South African war, frequently with disastrous ences. It is a well-known fact," he continued, warming to the subject, "that the Boer Government received the greater part of most important information, not from their Generals in the field, but from their agents in London, who were cabling to them, daily, the Istest information obtained and cabled to London by an army of war correspondents. And some of these very war c: ite—I am thinking," he said, "of one, not a Britisher, on board this very steamer now, who in South Africa wrote, and was allowed to continue it, in the most offensive and outrageous manner of the British Government in general, and of the British Army and its officers in particular."
Thappened to be on board when he came off to sxe about hi cable, and ovecof the ship's offciale: "I hope there are jim: eayii first thing to one rome of those darned British officers travelling by this boat?"
"And here he is again. What has happened? After kicking his heels for weeks at Tokio, where he and others found it easier and quicker to obtain information from the front at head-he and another war correspondent of the same nationality succeeded in getting to the front—only to leave two lays before the great battle of Lisoyang began, apd which all the other war correspondents with the armies had an opportunity of witnessing."
To judge by the remarks one has overheard from this gentleman, one would be led to believe that he and his compatriots were never allowed anywhere near active operations, and that they and the others were being perpetually POOLED" BY THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT, who, in endeavouring to pursue a middle course in to privileges accorded, Seip mcecodad in giving' ollace to all with the result that, beginning, I believe, with Mr. rae Burleigh, of the "Daily Telegraph," they have most of them, at any rate the principal ones, left the country; and, whether by a strange coincidence, or in consequence of what they represented, Japanese stock did actually suffer a temporary pression in London; that a lama attempt has been made to whistle them back; but that, as far as he and his compatriots were concerned, they did not feel justified in continuing at the front—or rather in the vicinity of the front—at huge expense to the papers they represented, when they could never see any actual fighting, and were dependent on Japanese officials for information which frequently proved incorrect. "As @ matter of fact," continued my informant, the story at Tokio is that these two gentlemen w a fruitful source of anxiety as we as danger; that they endeavoured to play, in Manchuria, exactly the same game as they had ployed with impunity south Africa; that the climax was reached one day by the conduct of one Y|or both of them towards a Japanese General who was only doing his. duty,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.