The Wanganui Chronicle AND RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1901. CRUEL KINDNESS.

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 August 1901, Page 2

The Wanganui Chronicle AND RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1901. CRUEL KINDNESS.

It would be idle to deny that the protraction of the war in South Africa has been a disappointment to the British people, and especially to the people of the British colonies. Many, weary months have passed by since the first of the colonial contingents set sail for the scene of. operations. At that time there were many who wondered if our boys would reach the front in time.to take part in the fighting. They were in time, and how they bravely boro their share of the work and returned to ua with. honour is now an eld story. Contingent, after contingent has followed them, each one being despatched in the hopo.that ii would be the last. To-day the war cloud still rests heavily on what we call the conquered States, and the silver lining is shrouded in the smoke of guerilla strife. Through it all the people of the Empire, at Home and abroad, have remained loyal and true, but they have none the less been' disappointed. And the disappointment has been intensified by the growing belief that the war has been unnecessarily prolonged. The yelping pro-Boers, whe have nothing better to do than to traduce their country, may spend their mock sympathy upon the "illused" Boers, but the fact remains—and is endorsed by outside authorities—that the British policy has all along erred on the side of leniency. Captain Slocum, United States military attache with the British Army in South Africa, has officially reported to the Government that in his opinion, "the British have been too merciful," and has expressed tho belief that had a more rigorous course, been adopted when the army first entered Bloemfontein, and the enemy thoroughly stamped on, the war would have beer, materially shortened. Continental experts have voiced similar opinions;, and the British press has clamoured for the adoption of such measures as were likely to bring the struggle to a quick and definite conclusion. One of tho latest protests against the, continuance. of the policy of unwise magnanimity and cruel kindness is raised by a writer in the Empire Review, who warmly takes up the cause of the South African loyalists. The loyal British colonist in South Africa, he says, has been betrayed over and:over again. "He was left to bsar all the odium of the retrocession in 1881.' On him has fallen the bruni

of the present campaign. Het was sacrificed twenty years ago, and there is every chance of his being sacrificed again.1' Tha writer draws a pointed comparison between the carelessness evidenced on behalf of the starving loyalists and. the paternal solicitude with which the Boers have invariably been treated. There is v ring of bitter resentment about the artich which robs it somewhat of its value, wher read by those who are not in a positiof to appreciate the sufferings of those whose cause it champions, but in the main it presents a strong case against the policy of leniency as applied to the stern business of war. It is to bs hoped that Lord Kitchener's latest proclamation will prove the value^ of the opposite- policy, and that the reported discouragement of the Boer leaders still in the field is th« prelude to the long-desired cessation oi hostilities.