of the services of the colonial contingents, to which up to that time very subordinate duties had been assigned.

Public attention was so completely absorbed in the details of the campaign that political speakers wisely abstained from wasting their breath. A certain interest, however, was aroused by Mr. Balfour's utterances. When addressing his constituents (Jan. 8) at Manchester, he dealt with some of the problems of the war. His defence of the Government was timid and apologetic rather than informing and conclusive, for, admitting that the great military preparations of the Boers and the misgovernment of the Outlanders had constituted a dangerous situation, the Government had not been led to believe up to the last that war was "inevitable or even in any high degree probable." As to the lack of preparedness, Mr. Balfour argued that the Government, although well informed as to the Boer armaments, could not protest against them, because its hands were tied and mouth closed by the Jameson raid.

"We knew that there was this constant friction between the Transvaal Government and successive British Governments. We knew that they were always fretting against the bit, that they desired nothing so much as to tear up all the provisions in the conventions between the two countries which limited their autonomy, and to claim, among all the nations of the world, an absolutely independent place. That we knew. We knew, further, that there was a progressive ill-treatment of Outlanders, mostly men of our own speech and of our own blood, and we knew, further, that there were progressive armaments purchased at the cost of taxes laid upon foreign and principally British industry, British capital, and British labour. We found ourselves in this condition of things hampered diplomatically at every turn by the raid-that most unfortunate and ill-omened enterprise-and it found us also determined to require ultimately from the Transvaal a treatment of British subjects not grossly or scandalously different from the treatment that we accord to men of Dutch speech and Dutch blood in the freedom of an English self-governing colony."

The criticism, however, which he wanted to meet was that they entered upon the war insufficiently armed and quite unprepared. People now attacked them for having done too little who attacked them six months ago for having done too much. If it had been a mistake on the part of ministers to think at first that peace was possible, it was a mistake shared by a large portion of the public; and when once it was recognised that war was inevitable, the absence of petty or party feeling on the question among the 40,000,000 of the British nation was astonishing. He admitted that the Government, like almost everybody else, had underrated the military efficiency of the Boers, but even had they taken a different view they could scarcely have acted otherwise than as they did. Had they been assured that the Boers would deliberately precipitate a war fatal to themselves

and hurtful to this country, no other action was possible than that which was actually taken. With regard to the question of artillery, it was necessary in the choice of guns to make a compromise and sacrifice mobility to destructiveness and vice versâ, and that was one of the great difficulties they had to contend with. Though the people who criticised the War Office had rather sneered at the linked battalion system, the Reserve, and so on, the whole mobilisation had been accomplished in a manner that was up to the most sanguine expectations. The mobilisation of three army corps at a distance of 7,000 miles was a thing which the world had never seen or attempted before; yet it had been accomplished without a hitch. Speaking with a full sense of responsibility, he would urge the Volunteers at home to train more diligently than ever, for efficiency on their part was never more needed than it was now. He appealed to the nation not to criticise the commanders in the field, but to leave them to work out the difficult problem upon the solution of which depended the position Great Britain was in future to occupy among the great Powers. Our generals in South Africa had a perfectly free hand, and had not been hampered by orders from home. He would not venture to prophesy and say that brighter things were in store for us. But one certain result of the war would be that South Africa would remain peaceful for generations. This great imperial struggle was not, as some of our foreign critics imagined, a beginning of the dissolution of our empire; it would cement our common citizenship and give us the permanent foundation on which alone our empire could rest. Even by the organs of his own party Mr. Balfour's speech was regarded as inadequate, and his declaration that he did 'not feel the need, so far as his colleagues or himself were concerned of any apology whatever," showed either complete ignorance of the actual state of public opinion, or indifference to it. On the following day (Jan. 9) Mr. Balfour again addressed his constituents in the same spirit of happy indifference to the fact that in its short course our casualties in the war before we had crossed our enemy's borders were upwards of 7,000 men, mostly prisoners, on account of the carelessness of their commanding officers. He said that even the most successful wars we had undertaken had not shown in their early stages any promise of their final successful conclusion. It was quite true that in the war in South Africa we had anticipated greater and more rapid successes than had yet been achieved; but it was not true that we had suffered strange or exceptional reverses. He had no more doubt of the end of this war than he had of any set of transactions which, from the beginning, were predestined to end in a happy and successful manner. The feeling of enthusiastic and genuine patriotism was from day to day knitting closer every branch of the English-speaking race, and making us all feel that we had in common one great destiny which it was our duty above all things to accomplish. The

nation that could not bear defeat, and at once set to work to repair defeat, was a nation not worthy of empire.

At a subsequent meeting at Ardwick on the same day, Mr. Balfour repudiated as a false calumny the charge that we were animated in this war by a mean and petty desire to add wealthy regions to our already gigantic empire. We had nothing to gain by this war; we had not attacked, but had been attacked by a country with which we had had long cause of controversy, and which had never had a shadow of a grievance against us. We were seeking an end, which whether near or far we meant to get, and would get. That resolution was based on no vain spirit of boasting, but inspired by the knowledge that our cause was the cause of civilisation. We could not reconcile ourselves to the abandonment of those of our blood who were fighting along with us for their dearest rights, and who would have the right to reproach us for any abandonment of their cause. We should never be truly accused of abandoning the most sacred responsibilities which could be entrusted to a nation.

With every allowance for the necessity of defending his colleague, Lord Lansdowne, it was felt that Mr. Balfour's tone was justified rather by the weakness of the parliamentary Opposition than by the strength of his own case. No minister had shown himself a more consistent upholder of the traditions of the War Office than Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman during his tenure of the Secretaryship of State for that department. His acquiescence, therefore, in the results of the system he had done so much to strengthen might be reckoned upon. But there were others, military men and civilians, who were under no such restrictions, and from these there arose a demand for an explanation of the "military conundrum" of the campaign, of which the solution was beyond the powers of all critics, civil and military, outside the Cabinet. To these, in his concluding speech at Manchester (Jan. 10), Mr. Balfour made show of a reply in a spirit of unabated optimism which carried little conviction to the mind of the public at large. He had previously defended the War Office on the ground that the Boer troops were more numerous and better equipped than had been anticipated, and now, although forced to admit that they "were all mounted," he had not a word to say in explanation of the attitude taken by the War Office in response to the offers from the colonies, that infantry rather than mounted troops would be preferred, and the overwhelming evidence that our guns were outclassed, and our rifles less serviceable than those of the Boers. On the contrary, he said that the War Office had not concealed any unpleasant truths, and there were no facts to his knowledge concerning that department's administration which, if revealed, would produce an unpleasant impression. The field guns supplied to the artillery would compare favourably with those employed by any great nation. In past years everything had been attacked in our military administration except the

guns, and now these were the subject of criticism. He was not sceptical as to the value of criticism, but he had not yet seen a satisfactory suggestion for Army reform. No nation had so difficult a task in Army organisation as ourselves. Continental armies were designed to fulfil certain definite functions; our Army might be, and was, called upon to fight different enemies in different countries. Each war required different armaments, different transport, and different equipment. The War Office did not claim to be perfect, but it claimed that it had not been unequal to the present call upon it. The novel feature of the war in South Africa was the fact that the enemy were all mounted, and no one could have foreseen the remarkable results which mounted infantry could attain. Until the War Office could be shown to be behind the best military information of the time it seemed ludicrous to attack it for want of prescience. As long as the voluntary system lasted the public could not expect to put into the field a much larger and better equipped force than the one sent to South Africa.

Quite unintentionally Mr. Balfour by his defence of the 'War Office drew upon that department an amount of criticism which increased public distrust in its management. Successive Secretaries of State had tried to introduce changes, but none had succeeded in effecting anything approaching a real reform. On the retirement of the Duke of Cambridge from the post of Commander-in-Chief in 1896, it was understood that the relations of his successor with the Cabinet would be placed upon a very different footing, but nothing bearing on the change transpired to the public. As the war went on, it became increasingly evident that Lord Wolseley's advice had been in many instances set aside by the Secretary of State. It further transpired that after the accession to office of the Salisbury Ministry, and on the appointment of Lord Wolseley as field marshal, commanding-in-chief, the supreme authority over the Army was vested in a committee of national defence (in accordance with the recommendations of a parliamentary committee), composed of the Prime Minister, the First Lord of the Treasury, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War, and for some unexplained and inexplicable reason-unless a personal one-the Lord President of the Council (Duke of Devonshire). The Commander-in-Chief had no seat on this board, and was only summoned to its meetings when the occasion for his presence arose, and his duties were strictly limited by its decisions. It was the Committee of National Defence which made selection of Sir Redvers Buller to take command of the forces in South Africa, just as it was the same body which subsequently set him aside in favour of Lord Roberts. Sir Redvers Buller had been allowed a free hand, and his requirements were supplied without question or demur. On leaving England, it was understood that his plan was to march with the bulk of his force to Bloemfontein, leaving the beleaguered towns of Lady

smith, Kimberley and Mafeking to chance. After the check sustained by the British troops in Natal, this plan was modified, whether by pressure from that colony, or in accordance with instructions from home, was never clear, for no heed was paid to the official denials that any, save military considerations, had influenced the conduct of the campaign. It was, however, sedulously put about that the home Government, while not approving of making the relief of Ladysmith the primary object, accepted the decision of the general they had selected. His repulse on the Tugela, however, somewhat changed the situation, and endangered the credit of the Ministry. Lord Roberts was suddenly summoned from Ireland and offered the supreme command in South Africa, but at the same time, as was freely asserted, Sir Redvers Buller was ordered by the Committee of Defence to relieve Ladysmith, an undertaking of which Sir Redvers Buller himself doubted the expediency in view of its obvious difficulties. This policy resulted in another serious loss of men and prestige, for Sir Redvers Buller, after having obtained a foothold north of the Tugela, was forced to recross the river, and temporarily abandon the attempt to relieve Ladysmith, and to be satisfied with the negative advantage of holding in check a large body of enemies, eager to force their way into Southern Natal.

The international difficulties arising out of the South African war were chiefly confined to the columns of the newspapers. The principal organs of the continental press, irrespective of party, espoused the cause of the Boers, whom they represented as a liberty-loving people, animated by a sincere and honest dislike of British rule, as shown on previous occasions, when they had voluntarily faced exile and hardships rather than submit to it. On the other hand, the policy of England was represented by the same journals as one of spoliation and determination to crush the Dutch influence in South Africa. The campaign was undertaken in the interests of the Johannesburg capitalists, and to satisfy the Imperialism of Mr. Chamberlain and the "Jingoism" of the British populace. The stoppage of the German ships conveying breadstuffs, and presumably munitions of war to Delagoa Bay, for the use of the Boers, was seized upon by the official and semi-official press of that country to advance the Emperor's demand for the increase of the German Navy, and as an outlet to German popular feeling, which was especially hostile to England, but on what grounds no two exponents seemed able to agree, except on that of commercial rivalry. The most intelligible explanation of this state of feeling was not creditable to Great Britain, which was her attitude in the affair of Angra Pequeña in 1882, and more recently in 1895 in the Armenian question. In the latter matter Italy, the ally of Germany, had been invited to join with Great Britain in forcing Turkey to more humane treatment of her Armenian subjects. With the consent of Germany, and with the assurance of her support,