SOME THINGS WE ARE TO KNOW LATER ON.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 19, 14 July 1900, Page 1

SOME THINGS WE ARE TO KNOW LATER ON.

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Mr Wyndham, the Undersecretary of War, assured Sir Howard Vincent in the Hou.,e the other evening (writes the Star's London correspondent) that at the close of the war an offical enquiry would be held into various incidents of the campaign which have caased so much anxiety and have presented so many difficulties to tho?e who have tried to explain them. No inquiry will be more needed, and probably none will be more interebfcing, then that which deals with the investment and siego of Ladysinith. Id the first place the public will learn why Ladysmith was selected as a place d'armes, and why, having bean so selected no steps of any Kind were taken to defend it, to fumibh ib with an adequate garrison, to fortify it, or to supply it with an adequate artillery Then again, light will be thrown upon the obscure circumstances which attended the surrender of '"over 1800 Biinsh troops at Nkholbon's Nek, under command of their officers, with arms in their hands. We shall learn whether Sir George White's assumption of the entire responsibility for the whole of that unfortunate incident was merely the expression of a generous readiness to shield others, or was a statement of fact which requires no qualification. Something, also, will probably be discovered as to the relative numbers of besiegers and besieged, and we shall know whether a British army of 13,000 men was shut up and nearly starved into submission by an inferior force, as is stated by some people who professs to know the truth about the Boer army. If this should prove to be the case; a new and curious precedent will have been created. Also, we shall ascertain why this powerful and well-equipped force remained absolutely quiescent and made noattempt whatever to assist the troops which were coming to its relief. There are heaps of other little matters affecting our nationa vanity that require to be looked 'into very olosftly— -the treatment of troops in transport, the waste of good food in hospital camps, the reported "crucifying of erring soldiers on gun wheels, etc." Also, we much desire to locate the absolute responsibility for that jewel of a cable "Infantry preferred," which answered Australasia's ofl'er to provide men for the fronfc. But, of all all things we most desire the commission that will be appointed to and ont is why some _4000 British soldiers have been idling at Pretoria as the result of white flagging. There is a strong feeling abroad that the greater proportion of these ytoen were captuaed because their f officers were lacking in more than I one essential of the true British soldier^