The Transvaal WAR.

Evening Star, Issue 11252, 28 May 1900, Page 4

The Transvaal WAR.

CROSSING THE YAAL. IN TRANSVAAL TERRITORY. HIRED PATRIOTS DISBANDED. TRENCHES MADE TO BE ABANDONED. BRITISH RAPIDLY ADVANCE. Pros* Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON. May 26. Official intimation has been received that Lord vanguard crossed the Vanl River, near Pary’s Drift, on Thursday. The Boers are retreating. Pary’s Drift is some twenty-five miles distance west of the railway line. The retreating Boer force have retired beyond the Vnal River. General lan Hamilton has reach Boschbank, near Hindlique’s Drift, a short distance west of the railway line. The British scouts are at Viljoen’s Drift, where the railway crosses the Vaal River. General Botha has disbanded the Italian commando for insubordination. Twelve hundred Free Staters at Rhonoster River deserted their defences, which extend for eleven miles, covered by thirty guns. The British troops are marching wonderfully well. General Hunter’s force covered forty-five miles in thirty-four hours, and the Highland Brigade did thirty-eight miles in eighteen hours. Commandant Snyman is reported to have entrenched his force at Bultfontein, ten miles east of Mafeking. EXPLANATIONS. LONDON, May 36. General Bethune attributes the disaster to Captain Goff in Zululand to his attacking an entrenched comntando without reinforcements. AN ACCIDENT. LONDON, May 26. ) A servant accidentally shot Lieutenant Roberts, nephew of Lord Roberts. The bullet indicted a severe wound in the knee. Lieutenant Roberts was at the Modder River at the time. TO RELIEVE THE REGULARS. LONDON, May 26. Eleven thousand troops embark for South Africa in June. Thirty thousand veterans have applied for enrolment in the Royal Reserve Battalion. ITEMS. ■ LONDON, Mav 27. Portugal has removed the embargo upon foodstuffs for the Transvaal. Colonel Tunbridge, a Queenslander, commands the second regiment of Bushmen at Marandellas, comprising Queenslanders, Tasmanians, and South Australians. SYDNEY, May 27. The New South Wales contingent of Imperial Bushmen arrived at Eeira all well. ENTRY OF THE TRANSVAAL. During the service at St. Matthew's last night the \ icar (the Rev. W. (Jurzon-Si£crei*a) announced that the sub-editor of the ‘Star’ had again very kindly brought him a message of great importance from a humanitarian point of view—viz., the telegram announcing the entry of the Transvaal by Lord Roberts’s vamuuinl through Parys Pass. The importance of this to them was to raise a feeling of thankfulness that so much bloodshed had been averted. Parv’s Drift was easy of defence, and that our‘forces should have forced nr passed it so easily showed the demoralised condition of the Boers, and meant a great saving of life, for which thev would sing the National Anthem. The position of the British now was this : There wererthree columns in the Transvaal, all of which could concentrate on Johannesburg or Pretoria via Johannesburg. There was the Mafeking column, which could go via L’.chtcnlmrg, a by no means difficult route. 1 hen the, Barton-Hunter column now near Christiania could march straight on and seize the railway at Klerksdorp. as the new column, Roberts’s vanguard, flanked the Boers at each point on that line. Furthermore, it was impossible for the Boers now to hold Vereeniging, as this vanguard flanked that place. Again, nothing now could prevent General Buffer entering the Transvaal, as Laing’s Nek could not be held now that this vanguard had got into the Transvaal. That so much had been done with so little loss of life foretold the end of the war, so far as its serious aspect was concerned, within a. fortnight, though complete subjugation might take longer unless a proclamation were issued that all farms would be confiscated and all Boers treated as outlaws who did not submit within a given date. The National Anthem was sung most heartily by the large congregation. MILITARY AND CIVILIANS AT KIMBERLEY. The Kimberley ‘Advertiser’ of March 30, referring to the questions put by Mr MacNeill in the House of Commons regarding the relations of the military authorities with Mr Rhodes and the Press during the siege of Kimberley, says that both articles were written from a sense of duty to the town (if Kimberley, and not (as suggested bv Air MacNeill) by order of Mr Rhodes or anybo'.’v else connected with the direction and management of the ‘ Diamond Fields Advertiser.’ “If, however,” proceeds the ‘ Advertiser.’ “ Air MacNeill is desirous of following up his investigation we will give him a few points. He might, for instance, ask the Under-Secre-tary for War (1) whether it is true that the first of the articles alluded to by the Pi-ess censor as injurious to the defence merely discounted as an impossible rumor the report that the military authorities, in the event of Kimberley being relieved, contemplated the wholesale eviction of the whole of the noncombatant population from their homes, and "whether such an extraordinary scheme was ever seriously contemplated as necesia-y and practicable; (2) whether strong appeals for relief were made to Lord Roberts by the Mayor of Kimberley in conjunction with Mr Rhodes and other leading citizens on the grounds stated in the impugned article ol 10th February; (5) whether it is true that the military censor refused to allow the fact that Kimberley was being bombarded by the 6-inch gun to be telegraphed to English aud colonial newspapers, and whether his action in the matter was strongly protested against by the whole of the Press representatives wud were in Kimberley during the siege ; (4) what steps, if unv. were taken by the military authorities in Kimberley to provide bombproof shelters for the inhabitants, or other places of refuge during the firing of the bbr gun ; (5) whether it is tme that largo quantities of hams and other foodstuffs, badlv needed by the sick, were hoarded up by the military authorities until they were unfit for food, and had to be destroyed. We do not ourselves see that- any good objects are served in raking up incidents connected with the siege which are perhaps best forgotten. We merely su«"/est these questions in order to show that the field of inquiry is much more extensive than Mr MacNeill appears to imagine.”—‘Cape Times,’ April 4. -ft