The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1900.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2400, 1 March 1900, Page 37

The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1900.)

THE WEEK.

"•Sunqnam »lind natnrm, aliud taplentla dlxit."— Jdtznai.. "6*0(1 nature and good v scnse mast ever join." — Pppx.

Although the position of Lord Roberts is by no means such as to Tho Turn >. leave us free of anxieties, it of is, at all events, satisfactory the Tide. to feel that they are the

anxieties common to all warfare. An element ot intense relief has entered into the situation. We are now in the enemy's country, and consequently the enemy is compelled to come to our position instead of compelling us to go to his. The Boer system of 'fighting is to defend ■while under cover ; they have now to attack in the open, and it' remains to be seen how they will comport themselves in the new position. General Cronje is, of course, *at the favourite game, but there is all the difference in the world between entrenching as a last desperate' resource against annihilation and entrenching to block the further advance of your foe. The former is the predicament of General Cronje, and the very -fact shows what a swift organic change has come over the .whole aspect of the war. In all human calculation nothing can now save him short of reinforcements in such numbers as would overpower the bulk of Lord Roberts's army in positions of Lord Roberts's own choosing. We should say that the danger is email.' Fro^n the first the Boer forces have displayed quite phenomenal mobility, which, indeed, has been the secret of all tneir successes — if we can call their ability to hold their entrenched positions successes. 'But there is a limit even to their mobility, •The capture of 50 men who had just arrived from before Ladjrsmith shows that

the Boers lost no time in coming to the assistance of their surprised and discomfited general. But for detachments of mounted men to arrive in hot haste is one thing, to drag their heavy guns and ammunition with them is quite another. They have, of course, the advantage of a railway, but the railway journey takes them back to the Transvaal, and then south to the Modder River — a distance of some 500 miles. The masterly knowledge and keen military instinct of Lord Roberts enabled him at once to see that success or failure depended upon the promptitude with which successive reinforcements were dealt with, and the issue may very safely be left in his hands. Meantime, as we have said, the whole aspect of the war is altered, and the Boer has now to look to the defence of his own country.

The success which has attended the first

rapid -and telling movement The Two of Lord Roberts may easily Cowmaiiders. be the means of doing some injustice to Sir Redvers Buller, a thing to be avoided. General Buller has unquestionably had the hard and difficult part to play, and it is much to be hoped that he may soon, by the relief of Ladysmith, be set free with his army to strike a blow on his own account. General Buller may or may not have committed a mistake in the beginning of the war — a mistake, that is, in his conception of the immediate and most pressing work that lay before him. He may have been mistaken in deciding upon the immediate relief of Ladysmith by frontal attack, and, in a secondary sense, by personally identifying himself with the direction of the relieving column, which, of course, effectually debarred him from taking the control of a commander-in-chief over the entire theatre of the war. These may possibly have been mistakes, but the recognition of them as such is, it may be suspected, the sort of wisdom which comes after the event. It has been easy to see for some time past that the most effectual way to relieve Ladysmith was to advance in force into the Free State. And Sir Redvers Buller saw that before he left England for the Cape as readily as his critics see it now. His original intention was to invade the Free State pretty much as Lord Roberts is doing now. But the initial misfortune of/ the position, which has disastrously affected the course of the war up to the day of the relief of Kimberley, was the disaster to the 1500 men of General White's force at Nicholson's Nek, the news of which unhappy disaster met General Buller the day he landed in South Africa. Events have tended to show that he need not have altered his original plan of invasion on that account. But he was placed in a position of immense responsibility. The question then to be decided was, Could General White hold out or could he not.? General White himself made haste to say that the security of his position remained unaffected ; but the whole world — every domestic and foreign critic— thought he was in an extremely precarious position, as indeed he was. It was for General Buller to make a decision that was really momentous, and he did it instantly: he decided upon direct and immediate relief. It is by no means quite certain now that he made a mistake. For it must bo remembered tliat such army of invasion as General Buller c«uld have collected would in all probability have proved wholly unequal to the task imposed upon it. Events may be said to have proved the fact just as fully as that his frontal attack was unequal to the relief of Ladysmitfi. Every resource the Boers had at command would have been desperately put forth to impede his advance through the Free State ; and had Ladysmith, weakened after the demoralising surrender of 1500 men, fallen, the whole world would have cried out at a British general who had taken an indirect and circuitous method of relieving a garrison which was known to be in desperate straits. Lord Roberts, with an invading army of 50,000, has a hard enough task before him now. But his initial success, which enabled him to relieve Kimberley, to get a footing in the enemy's country, and to pen General Cronje up in the bend of a rivei like a rat in a trap, was made comparatively easy to him by virtue of the fact that General Buller kept. 30,000 Boers almost as effectually locked up around Ladysmith as the Boers kept General White locked up within the same place. And it is not difficult to see that for some time past — since the Spion Kop affair at all events — an understanding has existed between Generals Roberts and Buller which accounts for a good deal of the latter's apparent inactivity. The task thrown upon General Buller was to keep the. Boer army employed until Lord Roberts was ready to invade. " It was a vitally necessary task., but not a "glorious one. Hence the desire that, after the happy relief of the gallant garrison at Ladysmith, General Buller may have the opportunity of showing himself the' resolute soldier and, capable commander there is every reason to believe him to be.

No language could be more emphatic than that which Lord Roberts The Military employs in praise of the Emergence colonial troops now operatofthe ing at the seat of war, and Colonies. nothing could be more gratifying to the colonies than to read that language, coming from such a^source. And it is perfectly patent to the whole world that there is no sham about it ; it is the stern language "of truth. For among the numberless lessdns that are to be gathered from this war one stands out very clearly — namely, that although drill and military convention are never to be despised, nevertheless modern weapons and new conditions have, in particular circumstances, tended enormously towards the reduction of the chasm that existed between laboriously drilled and comparatively undrilled troops. The whole British Empire, professional and lay, the whole world, we may safely say, perceives the change that has come over the minds of men within the last few months. A paltry colony of ignorant and undrilled farmers, cut off from civilisation by their enemies, their neighbours, and their deserts, have contrived for months to

keep a magnificent army of the finest soldiers in the world at bay — have kept them at bay in such a way as to make onlooking nations reasonably hesitate before forecasting the ultimate issue. The British nation itself, the great, resolute majority, never had any doubt, but that, fortunately, is the nature of the beast. How have the Boers managed it? The question has been asked and answered until the subject has become stale. The secret has been their mobility and their command of the rifle. But -their mobility is made up of several qualities — thorough command of a horse and an instinctive ""eye for country. There was at one time a belief that these were qualities .of which the Boers had a kind of monopoly — that they were inherited and developed senses, which created the Boers a nation apart, and without drill or training rendered them uniquely formidable in war. Time has proved that their shooting is simply good shooting, neither better nor worse than that of neighbours who pay any attention to the rifle ; and a little experience has also shown that the qualities which render them so mobile are simply the conditions of colonisation. Given a new, ample, and sparsely-populated country, with long distances to be traversed, and numbei-less difficulties lying in the way of what is called in the old-world sense civilisation, and you at once begin to breed all the qualities that go towards mobility in war. We are all quite familiar with what such breeding" produces. When the Australian or NeAv Zealand bushman or the dweller in a country township meets a " new chum " we see the difference at once exemplified. The Boers are simply colonials, with, however, the unattractive advantage belonging to all ignorant, unambitious pastoral peoples — that of being satisfied with poorer fare and harder conditions than more forward colonials. So that when colonial troops receive very genuine praise from all impartial quarters, and quite obviously deserve it, there is no room for much surprise. The Boer is simply meeting in South Africa, in a section of the British people, the qualities that make himself formidable on his own ground. The Dutch Boer has been brought face to face with the British Boer, if we may be allowed the expression ; that is all. And the lesson to be learnt has been perceived and expounded by the Spectator, when that acute and thoughtful newspaper advocated a reserve army of colonials. If you want a perfectly mobile, resourceful force for any rough country war, and, indeed, for any war, you get the necessary conditions in colonial life. No doubt, also, you can get it in English country life to some extent, but the expanse and the ruder conditions are wanting. Let no one therefore be surprised if, 10 years nerve, the world recognises that Great Britain" has in her colonies a great reservoir of troops, whose special qualities shall be mobility and the unfailing capacity for taking the fullest advantage of the natural conditions of a theatre of wai\

The cable informed ais the other day that ' an inspired German newsA Doubtful paper rather effusively Invitation, offered President Kruger a

German asylum, assuming with unfiuttering haste that the time was approaching wnen the Boer President would find his own country too hot for him. After reading the proceedings of a recent meeting of the German Colonial Society in Berlin there might be some reason to doubt whether the invitation is entirely a disinterested one. The German Colonial Society is an important body, presided over by Duke Johann, the Regent of Mecklenburg, the aim of the body being to promote German colonisation. The society sympathises with the Boers (the prevailing sentiment of the world, it is to be feared, just at the present moment), but it is afraid the result of the war may be to drive President Kruger and his Boers into German South-west Africa (Damaraland), and it doesn't altogether like the prospect. Hitherto, the Boers when trekking to get away from British rule have always trekked northwards. The German Cplonial Society recognises that the northward movement is necessarily at an end, and that if our forces are successful the trek will be westward. In a memorial recently drawn up and presented to the Imperial Chancellor the Colonial Society says : —

"If the English element is to be predominant in the future in the Transva-al or in the Orange Free State, there can be no -doubt that a great section of the Boers, in accordance with their traditions, will seek a new home. ' The climate of the north is too tropical to suit them, and it is therefore probable that,- following in the suit of individual "pioneers, they will betake themselves to German Sou'tfi-west Africa. In view of the small capability of the Boers for adapting themselves to foreign conditions of life it may be questioned whether an immigration of this kind would be a thing to be welcomed in all circumstances. It could, in .fact, only be welcomed if the Boers were content to become German subjects and to submit to the obligation of German military service."

The memorial then goes on to urge that a considerable increase of German forces be made in South-west Africa in case of future difficulties arising. There .is something a little naive in all this — coming, as it does, from an important body which very frequently inspires German colonial policy. The German nation is bursting with sympathy for the Boer who would maintain a prehistoric and corrupt oligarchy in the Transvaal ; and with animosity against the British, who would have the country free to all coiners ; and yet there is a very lively fear that President Kruger would bring his exclusiveness and his " small capability for adapting himself to foreign conditions" into German territory ! We should say that there is but small reason to fear the trek. The Boer is no more a fool than he is a coward. He may cross the desert in his trek, but he never settles in it. And the bare notion of his leaving the Transvaal even as a free British colony, to trek into a forlorn German territory, where the first thing demanded of him would be military service to a foreign Power, is positively ludicrous. But we can understand that the Germans

! think it would be better on the whole to j provide President Kruger wijih a home Jn the outskirts of Berlin, rather than let him select one for himself in German Damaraland.

The disagreeable fact has been impressed of late on the minds of the An Unpopular British race all over the Nation. world that they are, without

exception, the most unpopular people which the world contains. We might go further on all but universal testimony, and say that the British nation is almost everj'- where the object of a very genuine hatred. It is very distressing, but it is, without doubt, true. The superficial observer might thiii£ that our war in Africa had evoked the feeling — that an ignorant, but distorted, idea as to the origin of the war had deprived us of all sympathy. But that is not so ; the war has but let loose in an undisguised way the deep dislike to us as a nation which almost everywhere exists. There is " some slight sympathy and good feeling for us in Greece, in Denmark, and, perhaps, in Hunga-ry, where remembrance still lingers of the asylum we provided for Hungarian patriots in their time of need. There is an alluring and popular idea that much national sympathy exists for us in America, but, on the whole, we should be sorry to see a poll of the American people taken upon the question. There can be no doubt of the fact that we are the best-hated nation on the face of the globe. From France, from Italy (in colder form)-, from Austria, from Germany, from Russia comes the evidence of intelligent British subjects that their lives are almost a burden to them in consequence of the manifestations of hatred towards their nation. In Germany particularly the outburst of haired is strongest and most virulent. The Germans hate us much more than they do the French, "Avho are a standing menace to their national existence ; and the French hate us much more than they do the Germans, who dealt them such appalling humiliation before the world. Fashoda has almost wiped out Sedan — so strangely is human nature compounded. Spain, which has some reason to hate us over Cuba and the Philippines, is infinitely less virulent than Germany, whom we rescued from Napoleon, and whose subjects we welcome to our shores on terms of tho most perfect equality.

It were vain to inquire into causes. The London Times has done it without conspicuous success. It sets a good deal of the feeling against us to the score of mere superficial national prejudices. Au Austrian paper talks of "the defiant self-confi-dence by which we have estranged all nations and governments." Other nations talk of our rapacity, our greed, our selfishness, our exclusiveness, our cold superciliousness. It is clearly impossible that the I British can possess a larger share of these undesirable qualities than their neighbours. Human nature is pretty much the same everywhere. Perhaps we are a self:sufncient nation ; possibly we do think that, having tumbled successfully into all the best places of the earth, the whole world should be largely regulated for our benefit. J But the explanation in all likelihood is simple and intelligible. We have to pay the penalty of our success as a nation — our constitutional, commercial, and especially our colonising, success. The invariably successful man, the man who seems to achieve everything without the toil and stress his neighbours have to undergo, is nearly always unpopular. And as a nation is only a bundle of individuals, we cannot be surprised if the same conditions should apply. Since the above Notes were written the most welcome intelligence The Beginning has come of the complete of and unconditional surrender The End. of General (Jronje. This was inevitable, but it might have been delayed. Beyond a doubt we are now, therefore, at the beginning of the end. We may e.xpect at any moment to hear that Lord Roberts has established himself at Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State, and we may even hear before long that steps are being taken to cut off the Boer reinforcements to Winberg, both from the Natal side and' from Pretoria. At any moment, also, we may expect to hear of the relief of Ladysmith. If General Joubert has not hurried off to the relief of Cronje we may be sure it is not for want of will. The truth is that Joubert is in effect invested by General Buller. The Boer general could not leave the hills around Lady- j smith without taking his guns and ammu- j nition with him, and these he cannot take while General Buller is harassing him night and day, and the British general is precisely .the man to take care that there is no relaxation in the important work. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that the real work of the war is so far finished that no more troops need be sent. Now really is the time for the troops to pour in, so as to give us ample guarantee of the swift settlement, not only of the military, but the political, problems before us. A last and desperate stand may be made at Pretoria, partly in the hopes that it may modify the terms of settlement, and partly in the forlorn hope that the nations may be induced to interfere. Every consideration demands that to the very end a crushing army should be on the spot. That will prove the truest economy. As for' foreign interference, there never has been any danger of it, and the more complete our success the less danger there is. These are certainly not the days in which nations rush into wars for quarrels in which they have no possible concern, and from which they have nothing to gain but the humiliation of an unpopular rival. We have reason to be heartily thankful, first, that the 'war broke out, and, secondly, that we have had so much difficulty in the prosecution of it, however sad the loss of life may have been. For the British nation would not' now tolerate any settlement which was not radically complete — which did not settle the paramountcy, of Great Britain in South Africa for all time.

Thanks to the courtesy of the Right Hon. the Premier, wo are able to announce this

morning that General Cronje and hiss/_,.rd4 have surrendered unconditionally to y-i&lcA Marshal Lord Roberts, and are now prig soners in the British camp. The event oew curred on the anniversary of the disaster o» Majuba Hill, and is memorable on that" ac-i count alone. The message came through tha Agent-general, who has on this occasion oom^ pletely outstripped the Press Association agents in London. The train from Middlemarch did not arrive in town on Tuesday night till about 9 o'clock* On the upward journey sparks from the en* gine set fine to the Flat Stream bridge which" had to be repaired before the train could re<4 turn. Hence the delay. The criminal sittings of the Supreme Court were continued on Tuesday, and on rising all but three of the cases on the calendar had been dealt with.. The "double voting" castf was not defended, merely extenuating circumstances being set forth by counsel for accused, and those circumstances admitted by. the Crown Prosecutor. It was suggested by, Mr Newton that the Minister of Justice might, in view of the facts, have ordered that no prosecution should be entered tipon. From this view, however, his Honor dissented, remarking that of course the Minister had not' acted upon the suggestion, and later on expressing the opinion that even where double voting was purely accidental a prosecution, ought to follow. A money penalty of £10 was imposed. The other cases, which were of an ordinary character, were dealt with as shown in our report. To-day the South Dunedin murder case is to be commenced, and if; is expected to occupy the court for two fu l ! days.

Alexander Cameron, aged 68, died suddenly at Balclutha on Monday night. He was attended to by Dr Smith, who certified that death was caused by colic peritonitis and heart failure.