HOW TO END THE WAR

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1530, 27 June 1901, Page 40

HOW TO END THE WAR

THE ONLY WAY. A correspondent writes as follows in the London -‘Daily Graphic" of April 27: It is growing increasingly evident that unless the Boers give in of their owr accord we are not in a position to constrain them to do so. It may seem odd that some 20,000 men can thus set at defiance an army more than ten times their strength, but a little consideration may perhaps do much to solve the mystery. There was one very pregnant and instructive sentence in Lord Roberts's recent dispatches—that in which he pointed out that we were operating in a theatre of war as large as France, Germany and Austro-Hungary put together. Let any reader who wishes to realise the state of affairs take a large scale map of Europe—one of those large scale maps recommended by the present Prime Minister for our study some years ago. It is apparent that the territories named form the whole of the central and western portion of Europe, and we get an idea of the extent of country over which ° u |gffeg|£P 3 are operating when we compare in these two areas. Let us army landed at Havre and operating in an easterly direction across Europe through Metz, Munich and Vienna to Buda-Pesth. These well-known places correspond to Capetown—our base —eaufort West, Springfontein, Kroonstad, and Pretoria—following our own line of communications from Capetown to the .Transvaal capital. In place of the thickly populated, cultivated lands of north-eastern France let us imagine the desert waste of the Karoo; for the landscape of Bavaria let us substitute that of the southern portion of the Orange .Kiver Colony, witn its empty rolling plains; for Central Austria take the Southern Transvaal up to Pretoria, and this, the capital of the new South Africa, must take the place of the ancient one isf Hungary. If we imagine a single line of railway running along this route, with an auxiliary branch or two, from the Bay of Biscay and another joining in later on from Trieste, if for the Rhine and the Danube we substitute the Orange River and the Vaal, we have a fair idea of the distances and general features of the country that lies between Capetown and Pretoria.

Bnt in place of the busy life, the teeming population, the productive country of Western and Central Europe, we must Imagine a deserted, unproductive, desolate region, In wUich small villages at great distances apart take “the place of busy cities, and isolated four_room farms that of "smaller towns and villages, where you may travel all day from sunrise to sun* set witiiout the sight of a solitary human being. Tn the Vosges Mountains therff may be hidden a commando of a thousand men or &o; in the Bavarian Alps, as you pass through' them, are others not more numerous; in Switzerland, on your right, as you journey on, a few more desperate men are gathered; and beyond you, when you reach Buda Testh, you know that there are scattered bodies in the mountainous country that borders South Eastern Hungary. These men are few iff number, indeed, but desperate in resolve. Well acquainted with every mountain path fn the country, and in perfect sympathy with the few inhabitants of the entire district. Yon drive them ffrom the Vosges, they take refuge in the Alps; you force a them to the Bavarian Highlands, they move into Saxony; from there vou chase them across Austria, only to see them disappear somewhere in “the neighbourhood of the Balkans. How are you to deal with these small marauding bands tfiat J de“Ty you to catch them, and that now and again drop down on the single “line of railway that runs from Havre to Pesth, and. in the unproductive theatre of war, forms your sole means of supply ? *

But 20,000 —for the Boer forces in the field do uot now, probably, number more —against 25,000! What a disparity in numbers, you say. In the first place, remember that cut of that 250,000, pro. bably not more than one-fifth "can be reckoned on as a mobile fighting force, the other four-fifths contain the sick, of whom there ‘are many iust now, and the scattered garrisons J that hold one or two strategic points and guard the 1000 miles or so of railway. But ''even allowing that the British troops far outnumber the Boer, it by no means follows that they must 'speedily end the war if the latter insist upon running away whenever the forces are nearly equal, and confine their active operations to attacking a small post

or “a convoy in overwhelming numbers, to raiding cattle or horses, or destroying an unguarded piece of railway line. jAi well say that the chances against “the fox are 50 to 1, because he is hunted by twenty-five couples of hounds. As 9 a matter of fact, oftener than not he baf* ties his pursuers, although they hunt by lucent, that is, by instinct superior, in such case&, to reason == and “are guided by the superb or intelligence of a human hunts* man. The fox possesses superior “mo* bility," an intimate knowledge of the country, and a wise predilection for run« ning instead of fighting, and thus we find many vulpine "De Wets, who have snr* yived many a desperate chase, and grown grey in the “enjoyment of many a frisk over the open country of Central England. What,then, can we do to end a state of things that has become intolerable? Send out 30,000 mounted men —send 50,000 — send 100,000? No, these measures are futile, and no amount of force will succeed in subduing a desperate remnant of armed men, supported wherever they go throughout South Hfrifca by popular sentiment and active sympathy. At the present rate the war may go on for ever, unless the Boers in the field—who, after all are human —are suddenly seized with a distaste for further fighting and determine to make an unconditional surrender. But it will not do to count on that to deliver us from a state of things that has grown wearisome and —what is worse—constitutes a positive danger to the Empire at large as leaving her with an exposed side. What, then, can we do? There appears to be bnt one course to pursue—name a date, some little time hence, after which all persons in arms will be treated ,not as belligerents, but as outlaws, subject to the extreme pen. alty of the law. Establish civil government in both the conquered Republics, confine the troops to the essential strategic points, and to the lines of communication, open the mines, and let it be se«n that the only obstacles to trade, agriculture and manufacture are the evil disposition and implacable hatred of some few - irreconcilables. Whenever one of these is caught in an attack upon a place or an attempt to blow up a railway bridge or destroy a train, treat him as a murderer, and sho,ot him. This may seem an extreme course to pursue, but it is the most humane now open to us, and to every victim to it we are now losing at least ten good men on both sides, who do not wish to kill each other, who have no quarrel left, and who only desire to live together in peace if the few irreconcilables who will not accept the inevitable will only allow them to do so. Whether this policy seem* good or bad now, it is the only one that will end the struggle within a measurable distance of time, and soonest give peace to a distracted country.