THE WAR IN AFRICA.

Waikato Argus, Volume IX, Issue 768, 1 October 1900, Page 2

THE WAR IN AFRICA.

[UNITED I'BIiSS association!. (BY KLECTBIC TELEGBAFH.—COPYBIGHT). (Received September 29. 10.10 a.m.) HoiURT, September 29. The Assembly has authorised the Premier to communicate with the Premiers of the other colonies, with the view to having a cable sent to England to the following effect: -" The Governments of the Australasian colonies congratulate Mr Chamberlain on the success of the British and colonial forces in South Africa, and are hopeful at this important juncture that the electors of Great Britain will/ by an emphatic vote, insist that the fruits of the victory won with such heroic sacrifice of blood and treasure, shall be effectually secured to the nation, in such a way that those cherished liberties enjoyed everywhere under the British flag may be established and endure in these recently acquired possessions."

THE REAL De WET. In a recent issue of the Loudon Daily Mail Douglas Story, a war correspondent with the Boers, supplies the following particulars regarding Commandaut De Wet. who has been called the " Boer 8.P." :- Ohristiaan De Wet is a man of Moltkelike taciturnity. Lone since his Government ceased to ask him for despatches, and the news of his victory was communicated to Kroonstad and Pretoria by a chance sergeaDt of scouts. Middleaged, middle-sized, middle-broad, and middle-complexioned, De Wet attracts one only by the bright restlessness of his eye. Like a bird, he notes everything within a circumferential horizon. He is the highest development of the Boer hunter, as Louis Botha is the highest development of the Boer soldier. He knows nothing of the manoeuvring of troops, of the marshalling of brigades, of the handling of an army He is but a blunt Boer peasant, who knows every yard of his native country and can adjudge the strengths and weaknesses of a position at a glance. He fights always on " the passive offensive," waiting for his enemy to make a move, and pouncing upon him at the place and time of his greatest weakness. He has no orderly idea of his own tactics. Days after a battle I have waited upon him and failed utterly to recognise his plans and description of a fight we have seeu together. To him an opposing army is a herd of springbuck with a capacity for inflicting injury. This latter quality redoubles his watchfulness, but does not alter his strategy. He has all the qualities of a Robin Hood, learned in the same hard school under a similar master.

Curiously enough, no account of De Wet I have read has becn ; written by a man who has seen the hero of the Free State, When I last saw him he wore a beard, and I doubt if the exigencies of his later experience have led to his discarding that national trade-mark, I never heard him utter a word of English, and I know he was never further from Bloemfonteiu than Pretoria in his life. The Christiaan De Wet who took his B.A. at Cambridge is a much younger man, a member of a totally different family, from the colony, who acted as Press censor in Pretoria, and left there on June 4th for the East. To him I have to render much thanks for journalistic enterprise gone to waste, The one man who in any way auswers the description of the De Wet piitured by the correspondents is Hoofd Commandant Piet De Wet, the brother of the commandant-general. Piet De Wet is a younger man, speaks English, and always acts in concert with his now more famous relative. Louis Botha and Lucas Meyer are the only Boer generals who can ever be called " polished gentlemen." Christiaan De Wet is the most useful and the most successful type of Boer leader —a feasant-who is unable to express his own ideas of leadership.