DR. CONAN DOYLE'S LESSONS FROM THE BOER WAR.

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HE first place in Cornhill for October is given to a paper by Dr. A. Conan Doyle, entitled "Some Military Lessons of the War." The writer begins with the comprehensive declaration that the defense of the empire is not the business of a single warrior-caste, but of every able-bodied citizen."

INVASION OF ENGLAND-IMPOSSIBLE.

This apparently alarming demand is promptly followed by a piece of most cheering optimism. Dr. Doyle says:

"One of the most certain lessons of the war, as regards ourselves, is once for all to reduce the bugbear of an invasion of Great Britain to an

absurdity.

DR. A. CONAN DOYLE.

With a moderate efficiency with the rifle the able-bodied population of this country could, without its fleet and without its professional soldiers, defy the united forces of Europe. A country of hedgerows would with modern weapons be the most terrible entanglement into which an army could wander. The advantage of The advantage of the defense over the attack, and of the stationary force against the one which has to move, is so enormous and has been so frequently proved by the Boers against ourselves, as well as by ourselves against the Boers, that the invasion of Kent or Sussex, always a desperate operation,

has now become an impossible one. So much national consolation can we draw from the ordeal through which we have passed. While we can depend for the defense of our own shores upon some developed system of militia and volunteers, we can release for the service of the empire almost all the professional soldiers."

ONLY ONE WEAPON IN THE WORLD."

The writer urges the need in the infantry of more liberal musketry practice, of greater facility in entrenching, and of better knowledge of cover. He would require the officer to carry a rifle, like his men, and to take his profession more seriously." He says: "During five months' intercourse with officers, I have only once seen one of them reading a professional book." He would transform the cavalry wholly into mounted infantry. Dr. Doyle is very emphatic on one point:

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The true statistics of the outbreak will probably never come out, as the army returns permit the use of such terms as simple continued fever' -a diagnosis frequently made, but vague and slovenly in its nature. If these cases were added to those which were returned as enteric (and they were undoubtedly all of the same nature), it would probably double the numbers, and give a true idea of the terrible nature of the epidemic. Speaking roughly, there could not have been fewer than from 6,000 to 7,000 in Bloemfontein alone, of which 1,300 died."

The lack of hospital accommodation he attrib utes to a very laudable motive:

houses without permission, or to tear down corrugated iron fencing in order to make huts to keep the rain from the sick soldiers. This policy,

which sacrificed the British soldier to an excessive respect for the feelings of his enemies, became modified after a time; but it appeared to me to increase the difficulties of the doctors."

Dr. Doyle does blame the department for not having more medical men on the spot at a time when Cape Town was swarming with civil surgeons."

A SCHEME OF ARMY REFORM.

On the general subject of army reform, Dr. Doyle does not agree with a common opinion that the army should be increased. Rather, he argues, We should decrease the army in numbers, and so save the money which will enable us to increase its efficiency and mobility. When I say decrease the army, I mean decrease the number of professional soldiers; but I should increase the total number of armed men upon whom we can call by a liberal encouragement of volunteering, and such an extension of the militia act as would give us at least a million men for home defense, setting free the whole of the highly trained soldiers for the work of the empire.

To the regulars he would give pay at the rate of half a crown a day.

ONLY 100,000 PICKED MEN.

He thus goes on to outline his scheme :

Having secured the best material, the soldier should then be most carefully trained, so that the empire may never have the expense of sending out a useless unit. Granting that the professional army should consist of 100,000 men, which is ample for every requirement, I should divide them roughly into 30,000 mounted infantry, who should be the élite, trained to the last point, with every man a picked shot and rider. These might be styled the Imperial Guard, and would be strong enough in themselves to carry through any ordinary war in which we are likely to engage. Thirty thousand I should devote to forming a powerful corps of artillery, who should be armed with the best weapons which money could buy. Ten thousand would furnish the engineers, the army service corps, and the medical orderlies. use in feeding and paying men in time of peace when we know that we can get them easily in time of war, and rapidly make them efficient. In all these three departments it would be practicable to fill up the gaps by trained volunteers when they are needed. For example, the St. John's Ambulance men showed themselves per

There is no

fectly capable of doing the hospital duties in South Africa. From the various engineer battalions of volunteers the sappers could extend to any dimensions. There remain 30,000 men out of the original number, which should form the infantry of the line. These should preserve the old regimental names and traditions, but should consist of mere cadres '-skeleton regi ments to be filled up in time of war. There might, for example, be 100 regiments, each con. taining 300 men. But these men, paid on the higher scale, would all be picked men and good rifle-shots, trained to the highest point in real warlike exercises."

For that academic temper and attitude of mind which made Mr. Froude such a lamentable failure in the task he set himself, are plainly discernible in Sir A. Milner, though in him they are combined with and in part concealed by other attributes. Both men are temperamental imperialists of the sentimental academic school, thoroughly convinced that British rule is the greatest secular agency for good known to the world,' and not disposed to entertain nice scruples as to the methods of extending so beneficent an agency. Sir A. Milner was commended by a dignitary of the Church, when he set forth on his South African mission, as the finest flower of human culture that the University of Oxford has produced in our time.' But there is reason to suspect that the intellectual atmosphere in which these flowers of human culture' are produced exercises some hardening influence on their humanity and morals; substituting for those warm, wholesome sympathies which are the safest guides in understanding our fellows and in regulating our conduct towards them a cold, critical demeanor of superiority which lays down carefully calculated ends, applies casuistic subtlety in adopting means, and is capable of fierce resentment and even persecuting zeal, if any attempt

be made to question their authority or thwart their will. This inhumanity is, of course, quite consistent with a certain superficial courtesy and even affability of manner, which, though not expressly so designed, serves as a glove upon the iron fist."

Sir Alfred Milner's political experience, says Mr. Hobson, was no better adapted to fit him for his work than was Sir Bartle Frere's :

"Sir Alfred Milner's experience fitted him in no degree for such a task; it made him what he is a strong-headed bureaucrat, extremely capable in the autocratic conduct of affairs; able to impose his will upon inferiors, and to drive reluctant and evasive Easterns along paths of British 'good government,' but incapable of that genuine and full-hearted sympathy with the free and sturdy humanity of colonists who would not be driven, and unable to throw off the habits of his past official career."

A TEMPERAMENTAL JINGO.

The Blue Books alone are enough to show that Sir Alfred Milner, "partly from temperamental jingoism, partly from deficient power in judging character," allowed himself to become the instrument of the wreckers:

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"As matters were nearing the catastrophe, he lost his head, and even permitted passion so to overrule his sense of common honesty as to mutilate that portion of Mr. Steyn's dispatch which he professed to transmit intact. Those who follow most closely his conduct since the outbreak of hostilities will best appreciate the chorus of applause with which he is greeted by the league and their financial backers. This strong man' destroys the constitutional selfgovernment of the colony, openly espouses the league policy, and vehemently denounces those who seek conciliation'; utters historical speeches, in which he propounds the false finality of a never-again policy; and trusts in militarism and disfranchisement as means of securing peace in South Africa. But it is the sheer collapse of intellect which stands out most clearly in the documents, the weird jumble of sharp reasoning and claptrap, the pitiful inability to distinguish good evidence from bad, which mark his dispatches."

Mr. Hobson concludes his article as follows: "To claim actual success for Sir Alfred Milner's policy requires considerable effrontery. One may assume that Sir A. Milner did not want war; yet he had three distinct opportunities of settlement upon terms and by methods honorable and profitable to Great Britain, and he evaded all of them; he deceived the govern ment into thinking Mr. Krüger would not fight,

being so deceived himself, and into believing that Free-State opinion was such as to preclude active, armed coöperation, believing this himself. This same man, governed by the same temper and receiving his information from the same sources, now asserts that an era of annexation for the republics and of martial law, followed by wholesale disfranchisement in the colonies, will form the basis of a lasting peaceful settlement in South Africa. It is reasonable to believe him, or to obey the demands of that British South Africa which has so often and so terribly deceived us with regard to the likelihood of war, and its measure and duration, when it seeks to place in Sir Alfred Milner's hands the full administration of the new order in South Africa."

"There will have to be in the Transvaal, as also in the Orange River Colony, a lieutenantgovernor (acting under the high commissioner) and an executive council, and both states will have to remain crown colonies for a certain period; unless, indeed, the two be administered as a single crown colony, which would be better. The executive council should consist of about twelve members, and it would be wisdom to offer four or five out of the twelve seats to the Boers. They might elect their own representatives, and the remaining seven would be nominees of the imperial government (advised, no doubt, in their selection by the loyalists in South Africa), who might be relied on to insist upon an enlightened system of administration. As to the four or five seats to be offered to the Dutch, I should not hesitate to offer them to Botha, De Wet, and other prominent men. Indeed, one of our greatest dangers for the future is lest the government of these new colonies should fail, as the government of the Transvaal failed in 1880, for want of knowledge of the people of South Africa. is common enough for Englishmen, and Colonists, to suppose that they understand the Dutch population. After a war of conquest, it is frequently imagined that it matters but little whether the people are understood or not. Military government may be necessary for a brief period.

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should, however, be very brief; for in military government it is not necessary to understand the governed. It is a system of order, not of justice a state of siege. But when this transitory régime is over, it will be of the first importance not only to understand what the Dutch want, but so to act that when they realize that they are not set aside, but that they form a part of the subjects of a country ruled and governed on equitable lines, they will appreciate the position and fall into line with the general population."

FIRST END THE WAR.

If this is done, Mr. Robinson prophesies that there will be no easier race in the world to govern than the Dutch." But first the policy of continuing the war of extermination must be abandoned, and overtures made to the Boer leaders.

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It may perhaps be said: The Boer diplomacy is very clever is there not danger in opening any discussion?' Perhaps so-any discussion of a general kind; but that is no reason against the plain offer of a safe return home to the farms without transportation or confiscation, on condition of surrender of arms. I have said nothing of any armistice; the offer would be one to be accepted or rejected at once. No doubt arms might be buried or concealed. But the amount of the armament is fairly well known, and it would be well to give notice that any concealment of arms would be punished by confiscation of property. Further, it is not so simple a matter to conceal arms; the country swarms with na

tives; and it is not easy to find the native from whom the sight of a few half-crowns would not draw any secret he had at command."

SOUTH AFRICA'S FUTURE.

As to the future development of South Africa, Mr. Robinson is, as ever, optimistic. It may become the greatest of British colonies:

The resources of the Transvaal are endless. It is seamed with rich minerals of every kind. Its population, under a modern administration, will go up by leaps and bounds. It may well be, in population, wealth, and commerce our premier colony. Certainly the Vaal Colony will lead South Africa. Johannesburg is now the capital of South Africa, and such it will remain, while its trade with England will shortly become a mainstay of our home prosperity. What we are doing we must do well, and so build as to endure. Let us throw away all paltry, personal, and even racial considerations, and appoint to initiate its government men who will know how to construct, on the basis of two able races, a great and permanent commercial state."

JOHANNESBURG THE CAPITAL.

Johannesburg, he says, must be made the capital and he gives the plausible reason that the Boer farmers as well as the industrials would find this the more convenient, as it would make the market for stock and the headquarters for business transactions the same place. Under the late government, Mr. Robinson says, the Boers were forced to come to Johannesburg to sell their stock, and then to make a second journey to Pretoria to carry out any business transactions. As to the expenses of the war, Mr. Robinson

says:

"I have been asked how the expenses of the war are to be met. In my opinion there is no difficulty whatever in the question. The opening up of the Transvaal by an honest and fair administration will develop a trade with Great Britain which will tell heavily even on the magnificent figures of her exports and imports, and she ought to be prepared to pay a heavy share herself. Then the revenue from imports, licenses, etc., will rise enormously. Besides, the new Transvaal Government will inherit from the old very large estates in land-much of it gold-bearingin addition to the state share in the railwaylittle or none of which, I have reason to believe, has been sold; and this will provide also a large share of the £60,000,000 or £70,000,000 which the war seems likely to cost."

F

ON THE BEIRA RAILWAY.

the Siberian Railway beats the world for length, the Beira Railway easily holds the record for nastiness. A very interesting account of the Portuguese line is contributed to the Contemporary Review for October by Mr. L. Orman Cooper, who, if his account is not exaggerated, certainly must have had a tough constitution to survive and tell his experiences. The portion of Portuguese territory through which it lies is the plague spot of the earth, inhabited by every kind of beetle, bug, and insect which stings, buzzes, or smells. It is the region of the tzetze fly, and almost uninhabitable by Europeans.

their luck.' In fact, it holds a unique place in the annals of railway work."

FEVERLAND.

The railway runs through a fever district, and accidents are so common that the company employs a physician to look after its employees. His life is not a pleasant one:

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He is continually on the move. One man is only able to look after about 200 miles of the railway. Even along that small area seldom a day passes but he has some one to mend up or physic. Sometimes he has to travel over 100 miles on a nigger-propelled trolley in order to look up one sick case; yet, at the same time, many die without attention. The fever on the Beira Railway is about the worst kind of fever to be met with anywhere. It never fails to attack the white man sooner or later. It is extremely stealthy in its onslaught, and nothing can be done to ward it off entirely. Windows shut at sunset, so as to prevent the dank, deadly mist which nightly arises from the swamps, can do something. Attention to hygiene, and avoiding the long grass in springtime and after sunset, can do more. Abstention from alcoholic beverages can do most of all; at least, attention to the latter detail very often prevents fatal effects."

VENOMOUS LIONS.

The country through which the railroad runs is infested with lions, who, in addition to their other virtues, have a poisonous bite :

The lions roaring after their prey do seek their meat from God-at least so the Psalmist says. They seek it also vid man-fortunately not always with success. On one of these surveying expeditions a man fell off a tree close to the open mouth of a lion. (It was to escape the said lion he had climbed it.) The creature sucked in a toe.

THE GROWTH OF THE RAILWAY

The Beira Railway was opened for traffic as far as New Umtali in April, 1898.

"Old Umtali, its original terminus, was done away with then, because it was cheaper to compensate folks for their buildings, and give them new sites, than to bring the railway through the rugged country to the old town. The line was moved ten miles eastward at that date,-from the old to the new town, and £70,000 was paid as compensation to the Umtalians for this change of route. It was while the extension of the railway from Beira to Salisbury was being made that the gauge was altered from two feet to that of the other Cape lines. At first it was only a contractor's line, practically, with only one train a week each way for passenger traffic. Now the trains are fairly numerous.

only went as far as Umtali. For the first few years, too, the telegraph Now it is extended to Salisbury, and thus is in communication with

Cape Town. In those days the postal arrangements were most disgraceful, as is every job undertaken by the Portuguese. Pioneers were quite shut off from civilization, and were dependent on the ships which came into Beira about five times a month, or on the post-cart from Salisbury."

THE LINE OF THE FUTURE.

In spite of all its drawbacks, Mr. Cooper thinks that the Beira route is the route of the future. The Cape Town-Buluwayo line is of so tremendous a length and so artificially created that its charges for freight are enormous. will never, however, become noted for its attractions.

THE AMIR OF AFGHANISTAN.

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DETAILS of My Daily Life" is the sub

ject of a paper contributed to the first number of the Monthly Review by Abdur Rahman, the Amir of Afghanistan.

In an

other he had the trigger free, let fly, and killed the lion. The mumbled man was terribly mauled, and had to be carried to a Dutch farm hard by. The baas was kind enough to him, but it was a ghastly sight to see the foul matter left by the lion's molars squeezed from the wounded leg daily. The man recovered after a long time; but many a one has succumbed to lion-poison, even when the wounds were apparently trifling. The smallest bite sometimes gangrenes in that terrible climate; so the onslaught of a lion has a double terror about it."

From my childhood up to the present day," says the Amir, "my life is quite a contrast to the habits of living indulged in by nearly all other Asiatic monarchs and chiefs. They live for the most part a life of idleness and luxury; whereas I, Abdur Rahman, believe that there is no greater sin than allowing our minds and bodies to be useless and unoccupied in a useful way. . My way of living and dressing has always been plain and simple and soldierlike. I have always liked to keep myself occupied day and night in working hard at something or other, devoting only a few hours to sleep. As habit is second nature, it has become a habit of mine,