THE END IN SIGHT.

Evening Star, Issue 11252, 28 May 1900, Page 1

THE END IN SIGHT.

Thk relief of Mafeking ■will, to a large extent, reduce popular interest in the Transvaal War. The fears and hopes centred around that distant garrison heaving been allayed and gratified, the merely theatrical clement in the campaign ceases. Henceforward it will be a steady advance and rapid concentration of forces, consummated by our entry into the enemy’s capital, varied, perhaps, by an occasional ambush of a more or less sanguinary nature, but valueless in its effect upon the final issue. This being so, public interest will inevitably slacken!' The scanning of maps, the anxious inquiry, and the nervous haste with which we were wont to examine the cables, will pass into histoiy, to be replaced by a cheerful confidence and deep-seated sens? of gratified pride, into whichjwe trust the alloy of vanity or boastfulness will not enter. At the same time, the past eight months of the Empire’s history, and.the lessons to which that history has given birth, form perhaps the most momentous epoch in our national life. But they will have been recorded in vain, andturn to curses rather than blessings, if in the hour of victory rre put them aside. This aspect of the question is not one upon which experts alone are qualified to speak. The mistakes and blunders, perhaps worse, of our African campaign ar#so clear that, apart altogether from questions of military tactics | and strategy, that much-despised but ullpowerful factor ’’ the man hr the street ” is ; competent to apprehend them. And it will | be an ill day for the Empire when it turns a, deaf ear to the warning cty that has beeit raised throughout its length and breadth. Not that there was at any time reasonable justifugition for the pessimistic wails to which a certai i portion of the British and colonial Press gave voice. No one fairly conversant with the history of the race could feel anything but annoyed and indignant when monring after morning these woful sounds fell upon our ears, and the cry of “Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen” was iterated with melancholy persistency, and supported by the puerile chatter of pseudo military comments as ignorant as they were pretentious. A cheerful, sane, and reasoned optimism was the imperative duty of all leaders of .public opinion at that period, not only upon the ground of its unerring certainty of realisation, but that its opposite was to doubt the justice and power of that Empire of which we form a part. It was bad enough, iit all conscience, to have to. submit to the open hostility of Europe and the sneering condolences of a certain section—the largest however—in the United States. If France, Germany, Spain, Austria, and Russia exulted in what we have from the first tanned " temporary checks,” the United States took occasion to solemnly warn the undisciplined hatred of the Continent that even should England lose Africa and India, she would yet be a Great Power! Others, of the baser sort, however, ont-did the ravings of the Parisian boulevards and .the brutalities of the German banack room. These made comparisons between John Bull and Sardanapalus perishing amid the flames of his own creation, with the balance of sympathy slightly in favor of the hitter as a clean-living personage, and pointed their moral with a glowing appeal to their own particular form of public and private virtue. But these tirades and prophecies, though only the reduebio ad absurdum of their original premise, have had this supreme benefit : they have taught, at least we.hope they have, the Empire that in times of danger she must not look for material aid outside her own borders. And wc are glad that this is so. We lust after the territory of no other Power, nor are wo likely to wantonly proclaim war against any nation, hut we are determined to keep and to improve that which we already hold. To do this the Empire must rely upon her own resources. No “ entangling alliance ’’ can aid us here. And therefore it is that the lessons to whichthe South African campaign has given birth should he taken to heart and utilised for consolidating our possessions and perpetuating our defence. At the same time, however, we think that these lessons more nearly concern the Motherland than her daughter's. The colonies have a fair and, we believe, a just estimate of their own weakness and their own strength. We are alert to the possibilities of invasion, and patriotic enough to believe that we can cope with such an eventuality. Wo should not hysterically call upon the Home authorities, but quietly and confidently set our house in older to meet the attack. It is in the heart of the Empire that the lessons arising from the war need to be learned. The almost ludicrous ignorance of the British colonies displayed there—whether geographically, commercially, or socially—is still vast and profound ; tho supercilious loftiness of lone and assumption of superiority—of which the criticisms upon the Federal delegates and Australia's wishes furnish excellent examples —are still in the ascendant ; and the fact that the colonies have put an army of absolutely indispensable troops in the field, and that the colonists practically maintained the defence of Kimberley and Mafeking, are hardly yet appreciated in their full meaning. We have still journalists and politicians who talk of “ binding ” the Empire together, and of refusing to grant this or the other that they in their wisdom may deem incompatible with Imperial interests. And.it is to all these, and in relation to such criticisms, that light is needed. Nothing the Homeland can do can “ bind ” the Empire together ; the various portions will resent being “ bound ” in any shape or form. The present unity is based upon freedom of choice. The’ offer of material help sprang fioin the common sentiment of race. No formal agreement between England and her colonies could have called forth such an outburst of emotion. It was not bom of reverence for any institution, for memory of England as the land of their biAh—inasmuch as the majority of the members of the colonial divisions were not born there—nor a return for benefits received ; but it was the outcome of an honest indignation that some 40,000 of their brethren—bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh—were being treated like helots by an ignorant and corrupt oligarchy, plus that inherent British desire to teach those other nations who were believed to be at tho back of all that men of the bulldog breed were willing to fight for their brethren, no matter under what sky they may be. Hence our help. But the Old Country has not yet grasped this fundamental truth. She still talks, through her Press and politicians, as though the colonies were hardly competent to act upon their own responsibility, much

less able to cs?er advice to her. And it is this fallacy, this environing cloud of insular prejudice, that must be irretrievably,; swept away, as the one thing needful to England's clear recognition of the lessons from the var. Her political point of view, equally with her thoroughly discredited military tactics and Hyde Park officers, will have to be radically changed. Colonial sentiment is a “ touchy ” article, Snd the persons who attempt to force it or “ bind ” it will certainly bum their fingers, if they do nothing worse.