WAR NOTES FROM LONDON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12243, 2 July 1900, Page 6

WAR NOTES FROM LONDON.

[From Ocr Correspondent.] LONDON, May 18, THE SURPRISE THAT FAILED.

' Mr Donohoe, the correspondent of the “Daily Chronicle” with, the main army, sends from Bloemfontein a characteristic example of Boer slimness. There had been a little skirmish between a British.patrol and the enemy, tire latter getting the worst of the exchange and! retiring. An hour or so later the wily enemy sought to spring a little surprise upon the patrolthe members ox Wiimn, alter- t-ue stiruush of the' morning, had “ loosened, girths,” . and were preparing breakfast. A lumbering Boer ambulance waggon, • drawn by oxen, was seen descending from a neighbouring kopje and advancing towards the farmhouse, ostensibly to look for wounded. - A. few hundreds-yards from the farmhouse the ambulance had to cross a spruit. Once in the bed of. the donga, and concealed by the high banks, the waggon, which flew the Red Cross flags fore and aft, halted for a moment. Out crept eighteen fully-armed men. Dropping into the bed of the donga, the party divided into two with the object of cutting off the patrol. 'But, says Mr Donohoe, “ two of oiir. scouts were in the donga bed. Seeing an ambulance waggon unloading riflemen, they, needless ,to say, did not tarry. Their alertness saved their comrades.” - THE GREAT GOD ROUTINE. , Mr Donohoe writes very bitterly of the red tape routine which is the curse of the British Army in peace and in war, and which it seems is rigidly adhered to even at the.expense of those whose life blood is ebbing .away on the field of battle, or who lie ittvtbe grip of the deadly enteric fever. Mr Dofiohoe remarks :• “The red-tape and seal-: departments are getting in their deadly work. The mighty heart of the EmpireAhrobs with pride at the glorious achievem&fcs of her soldiers —Imperial and Colonial —ihi-the present campaign, but at the very mbnient I am iyriitidg, thtse liri®S> fiftjj'of our 1 gallant fellows -are , lying, on the. open veldt at Hareeidbof in'the cteath throes of enteric ■with nothing but a blanket apiece to protect them from the. rain and the piercing cold, of rthe South African uplands. They are twenty-five miles from Bloemfontein, and ■ seven miles from the railway line. The local brigade field hospital can hold no more. When the grim fever fiend empties a few beds, the victims on the veldt will probably find shelter, should they be then alive. ' The men might easily be sent down to one of the base hospitals, but then that would be contrary to routine. Better an army should; die than, the fetish routine should suffer.”

; He gives a further illustration: “At the conclusion of one of the engagements which ensued after Paaxdeberg on the march across the Free State, a private of a line regiment with a bullet wound in the head, was piqked upland taken to the nearest 1 field hospital. The! man was unconscious and dying. His identification card was massing, arid there was nothing to show what regiment he be- i longed to, for his helmet with' its distinguishing badge was also gone. The.wound-; ed man was dumped down on the sand, ■ his life fast ebbing away. A medical officer on ■ duty bestowed, a cursory glance upon him. Then the/following; colloquy ensnedlf;---';/■ r. j “ Officer: ‘ Ytiiat brigade does this man be-' long to? Does he belong to the X.Y.Z. Brigade?’ “ Stretcher-Bearer: ‘ Don’t know, sir.’ “ Office]- -j ‘ Then what the dickens do you ; mean by bringing him here?. Find out. Which brigade he belongs to, and take him to his own hospital.’ “But in the meantime Tommy had obligingly died.” KRUGER’S COIN. CHAMisERLATN’S SCATHING ACCUSATIONS. No portion of the Colonial Secretary’s ■speech, at Birmingham, last Saturday, was more effective than his demonstration of the hoUowness arid absurdity of the parrot cry that the war is waged in the interests of capitalists. Ho had no difficulty in showing that the first essential for the profitable employment of capital is peace, and he rightly claimed 1 that the Uitlanders in the Transvaal were men of like fashion to those he was addressing. There are 120,000 more or less, of this despised class, and so far from being millionaires, .they are, with few expections, artisans, labourers, foremen, and the like, the pick and flower of the working classes, hi fact, who, " no more than the hard-beaded colonists of Canada, . Australia,-and. New, Zealand, ‘are; likely either to support or become the tools of capitalists or politicians. By , a swift ■and 'clever transition Mr Chamberlain put the saddle on. the right horse when he inquired who pays for”the flood of literature which is ponced, put over Great; Britain and the United’ States. From what sources ■proceed 'those large sums ,■.which.have undoubtedly, been used,in a way .‘never for-; merly attempted to influence the’Press ..o’ri the Continent of Europe, to go no further? All this coats money, and. from whence is it derived but from the corrupt group of Hollanders who have grown rich through the labours of the Uitlunderpaind who have battened on the ignorant burghers' of the Transvaal. These are capitalists to whom the: war is due. They well knew that with- the admission to some political rights of those whose industry had enriched the country their monopolies and extortions ■would be at an end, and, so, true to their selfish. lust fer unearned riches, they did not hesitate to plunge the country which they had plundered into- a cruel and, exhausting' conflict. Yes, it is a war promoted by capitalists, but they are Beets or Hollanders, of whom Mr Kruger is the chief example. Fifteen years ago he was a poor man. Now, after providing for a family and relatives innumerable, he is computed, on the most excellent authority, to be worth not far short of a million sterling. And while with unctuous phrase and Scriptural quotation he'defies what will doubtless be the last sitting of his Volksraad, he is at the same moment making his dispositions to safeguard the ■ ill-gotten gains which he has wrung from burghers Wo ignorant to discern hds actions, and from': Uitiandeais too oppressed to oppose ' them. It is to be trusted that a -sharp;eye’ will be kept upon his movemen ts and those of President Steyn. It would be/a. scandal if either of these rascals should be permitted' to leave South Africa with the spoil which is the fruit of their misgovemmetnt.

AUTONOMY FOR THE FREE STATE.

A further passage from Mr Donohoe's interesting letters is well worth attention The-future achnimrtratdon and government of the Free State is, ’ as he says, locally, cue of the burning questions of the hour, and it is a question which we of the Empire will soon have to face. Mr Donohoe says there is but little divergence of opinion aa to why; form of government should succeed the parsing away of the Steyn jygime. The burghers recognise that Steyn lias lost them, their national independence,, and' 'that however magnanimous England’ might be ,nho new,.• again, pernfitthe flag of an alien .Republic to fly oy;the Free State. This is fully .ufiderscd.rd by the men who were ■ in arms Against up a little over .a month ago. Forsthem the: future has but one dread possibihty— that, of being governed from either Gape Colony or Natal. “Anything save that, however humiliating the conditions ” eay they. “ Let uk merge into a -Crown Colony,' let us have ,a British' Resident- Governor, lot us be governed direct from - _ Downing Street, but save us' from becoming an appendage of your African colonial possession®.”

“There is no mistaking (Mi- Dpnohce avers) the inteilllgent 1 burgher feeling on this point. Sooner than; submit to colonial rule the Free State weald fight again, /rha’b’itteraesiv; of ,concjnc.jt is alive and 'active:"'” T'is&av and ut wise and bcneficeni \’c:ni. pf.,administration, it is to be.hoped, will’ 'd l o ' much 1 ‘towards promoting the closer union of burgher and Briton, nob on a Kruger-cum-Steyn basis, but rather on the broad linen of liberty and equality,’?