HOW TO END THE WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4383, 14 June 1901, Page 4

HOW TO END THE WAR

It is many months since Sir Alfred Milrster wrote that the inhabitants of the two South African Republics were tired of the war, that they longed for peace, and that thoy were desirous of an opportunity of yielding to British arms. Opportunities to surrender had been offered, but these were indifferently treated. Many Boers gave up their arms, swore neutrality or allegiance to Great Britain and returned to their farms topvsrsue in peace, it was thought, arts of husbandry which has been so long neglected. The opinions held of the situation after Bloemfontein was reached by Lord Roberts and his army were highly optimistic. Within one short fortnight Paardeberg was won, Cronje captured, Ladysmith relieved and the capital of the Orange Free State occupied by British troops. Then wo were told that the war was practically ended, as it only remained to march into the capital of the Transvaal, when all would be over. Very soon afterwards, when Lord Roberts reached Pretoria and entered what was regarded as the stronghold of the enemy without the firing of a gun, it was confidently asserted Jhat the struggle-was at an end. Still, however, the war went on, 1 . General Buller drove the Boers through Laing’s Nek and joined his forces with those of the Commander-in-Chief, Komati Poort was taken, and the Delagoa Bay railway was in the hands of the British. Yet the conflict was not terminated. Nearly a year has passed away since Pretoria fell, and still the struggle is not ended. Lately, so confident were the authorities that the raiding of the Boers would henceforth be only fitful and spasmodic, that thousands of troops returned to Great Britain. The Boers were reported to be near the end of their tether; their leaders were mad and the men starving and mutinous. The supplies of. the Boers seem to be, however, inexhaustible, and in a small area round about Ficksburg and Bethlehem, LieutenantGeneral Bundle has captured within the past six or seven weeks thousands of tons of grain and forage, hundreds of waggons and something like ton thousand sheep, cattle and horses. It is apparent that, if that can be done in one district in the Orange Free State, the ability of the Boers to continue the struggle is far from being worn cut Besides, it was when the enemy scented to the War Office least able to carry on that raiding parties crossed the Orange river and invaded Cape Colony itself. Tile war has been proceeding now for twenty-one months. It was to have been finished by Christmas of 1899, but its end does not appear to be within measurable distance yet, notwithstanding the fact that negotiations for peace

have again been opened up. Proceedings of that kind have hitherto not been fruitful of results. Indeed, they have proved valuable to the enemy, in that he lias been able to gain breathing time to prepare for another struggle. The story has lately been repeated that the Boers arc now disheartened, demoralised, without food and without ammunition, but such captures as General Bundle has just made give a convincing denial to all the optismistic assertions of Lord Kitchener and his staff. ’xha British public has been deceived by the military reports from South Africa. Deception may have been the best policy to pursue under the circumstances ; but there ought to be no further need for dissimulation. Lord Kitchener has something like two hundred and fifty' thousand troops, sixty thousand of whom are mounted men, in Scuth Africa, and surely it is time he developed that “crushing movement’’ he has had in contemplation for so many months. Two officers belonging to one of the New Zealand contingents informed us a few weeks ago that Lord Kitchener would soon end the war if he were allowed. Their complaint was that too, much leniency and consideration were shown the enemy, who had as yet never been made to suffer any great hardships on account of the war. Boers were given their liberty and their farms on taking an oath of neutrality that they not understand, and certainly violated immediately a commando traversed their district.

How is the war to be ended? Must every commando he hunted down and destroyed before there can be any general pacification? A conference at the Hague between Messrs Kruger, Loyds, Fischer, Wolmarans and Mrs Botha will amount to little while Generals Do AVot, Botha and De La Rey are marauding the Transvaal or entrenching themselves at Blaauwbank. A writer, discussing this question, in the “National Review,” declares that, if the claws of tho guerilla hands are to bo cui, tho kidglove methods of wearing down tho enemy must cease. To spare tho country and the fee is but to prolong tho agony and give the Boer.; fresh courage. To devastate the property of tho Boors and bring them to poverty, quickly, sharply and decisively, though a harsh method, is declared to be the most merciful method in the long run. As General Sheridan reduced {he Shenandoah Valley by relentless devastation in 1864, so, it is urged, Lord Kitchener must hunt down the commandoes and devastate the territory that gives them succour and support. It has been said that “war is hell, and you cannot refine it”; so tho justification for cruel measures is found in the statement that if the enemy is made to submit in two months By harsh treatment, there, would bo no greater suffering or hardship than if the war were to last for another year. It is assumed in some quarters that tho director of the wholesale slaughter at Omdurman has developed “tender mercies,” but that explanation is not a satisfactory one. Lord Kitchener is pursuing the war as relentlessly as it is politic to do with a large population all around him in British colonies whoso sympathies are with their friends and relatives in the Boer ranks. Were he to adopt the tactics of “making a wilderness and calling it peace,” tho result might bo the very reverse of what tho writer in the “National Review” anticipates. The physical difficulties of Lord Kitchener’s task aro no less formidable than the political. Unless, therefore, some terms of peace are arranged, tho war must be, fought out to its hitter and far-off conclusion, at further heavy expenditure of blood and treasure.