favour had caused the appointment of unfit commanders. Nay, one British general had, on the very eve of war, been actually intriguing with the enemy, or at least had purposely left British territory unprotected! But this excited and foolish language found no favour with the general public, and parliamentary debate in a very few days cleared the air, and brought to men's minds a far juster appreciation of the work that had been done by the Government and the War Department to meet the great and unexpected difficulties of the situation. Mere party criticism found hardly any place in public or parliamentary discussion. With the exception of the Irish Nationalist members the House of Commons was practically at one as to providing all the means asked for by the Government to bring the war to a victorious and rapid conclusion. The Opposition by way of protest brought forward and pressed to a division an amendment to the address condemning the Government for want of foresight and for mismanagement of the negotiations preceding the war, and then, having placed their view on record, proceeded to crowd into the Government lobbies in support of the very large votes for men and money which were asked for. Surely men must have little knowledge of English history who find in the events of the present Session an example of parliamentary factiousness, and must set but little value on the British Constitution if they find no place in it for criticism by a House of Commons Opposition!

It is quite certain that no Government carrying on unsuccessful war for any length of time can long remain in office. It must win or go. The want of success may not be attributable to any faults of the Government of the day; but assuredly it would be held responsible all the same for any prolonged failure of British arms. It is, for instance, clear enough that the three great reverses of the second week of December at Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso were due to events on the field with which neither Government nor War Department had anything whatever to do. It has been the duty of the Government to repair our misfortunes, to call out and organise the power of the nation, and to restore as quickly as possible the shaken prestige of our arms. The House of Commons and the country were told by Mr. Wyndham in the debate on the address what measures had been taken, and were being taken, with this object; or rather with the double object, first of all of bringing the South African war to a satisfactory conclusion, and, secondly, of strengthening for the future the military

position of the Empire. Into the details of these proposals we do not intend on the present occasion to enter. We prefer to call the attention of our readers to some of the main lessons of the war, in their bearing on the general position and interests of the nation.

For four months it is hardly too much to say that our arms met with uniform want of success in the field. If the word 'defeat' ought not to be used of several severe actions in which we were engaged, it is certain that the objects for which those engagements were fought were not attained. Indeed, had the Boers possessed that mobility which it has been the fashion to attribute to them, had they shown as much capacity for pushing home their successes as in repelling the attacks of their enemy, our difficulties would have become veritable disasters. For certain purposes the Boers constitute in all probability as effective a fighting force as any army in the world. But they have the defects of their qualities; and on more than one occasion it was fortunate for the British generals in the field that they were not opposed by Frenchmen or Germans. Yet there is no reason for supposing that French or German troops, had they had our work to do, would have been one whit more successful than we were in the early months of the campaign; while it is quite certain that the transport of so great an army to so great a distance in so short a time was entirely beyond the power of any other nation. That an army of 180,000 men should have been landed in South Africa, without the loss of a single man, and that ammunition and stores and transport for so great a force should have been despatched, with only insignificant losses, from home and from distant lands, are great facts which loom large, we may feel confident, in the keen eyes of continental critics. To a nation not possessed of naval supremacy such things would be impossible. In our case they are an extraordinary demonstration of power and of organisation. We have been hitherto accustomed to regard ourselves as a nation powerful, perhaps allpowerful, in defence; supreme at sea, capable of reinforcing our troops, if need be, in India and elsewhere, and of sending an expeditionary force of a few thousand men to carry on those little wars' against African or Oriental nations in which we are so constantly involved; but we did not consider ourselves a great military power in the continental sense at all. Till the last few months we believed that our colonics stood in no need of the presence of Imperial troops. Why, then, should we require to have ready for service

across the seas so huge an army? The quarrel with President Kruger is bringing about consequences quite unconnected with South Africa. In result it may go far to alter the standpoint from which Englishmen regard the military problem of the Empire.

On the Continent an almost universally hostile press has been gloating over greatly exaggerated accounts of the checks and reverses to our arms, while it has pretended to believe that the military strength of the British Empire is a sham and a delusion, and that it had been reserved for what it describes as that brave little nation, the Boers, to prick the bladder'! No doubt owing to recent British victories, the continental press has somewhat changed its note. But, in all soberness, let us ask, has this war betrayed our weakness or revealed our strength? On the whole, in spite of many disappointments, of some mismanagement, of local and temporary failures due to an utter misreckoning of the difficulties to be encountered, a satisfactory answer can safely be given to the question. It may be that our policy has been to blame for generations past in limiting the scale of our military preparations, and in refusing to contemplate as a probability to be provided against the despatch over sea of a British army of 150,000 men. We do not say this is so, though it is clear that our present Government is to blame, along with its civil and military advisers in South Africa and at home, for not more correctly estimating the severity of the struggle on which the country was entering. The nation, in truth, was taken by surprise, when it should have been forewarned. But has the surprise found us lamentably deficient in military strength, and in means to repair an unhappy situation which should hardly have occurred? In our last number we referred to the military exigencies arising from the entanglements' of Ladysmith and Kimberley. The reverses of the middle of December served to put the nation on its mettle, and in a very few weeks, thanks to the patriotism of the people and the energy of the Government, the strength of the army in South Africa was more than doubled, and Lord Roberts began a campaign under infinitely more favourable circumstances than his predecessors. Nothing short of a surprise of this kind would have tested some parts of our system. There have been military critics in recent years who have treated even our 80,000 reservists as little better than a paper force! But that militia, volunteers, and yeomanry should come forward in tens of thousands for service with

the regular army in a far distant land, and should at once prove themselves capable and efficient soldiers, has been little less than a revelation. With an army of conscripts it is no easy task for a Continental nation to despatch troops to the remoter regions of the earth. With a military system based upon volunteering everybody wants to go!

When we endeavour to weigh the results of experience hitherto gained by the struggle in South Africa, we find little to justify the belief that changes in modern warfare are likely to tell against the security of the Empire. Not soon again, let us hope, shall we find ourselves engaged in the work of conquest with men of European blood for our foes. Our wars will probably be defensive wars, whether waged in Europe or elsewhere. The efficiency of irregular troops with modern weapons in defensive positions has been demonstrated. The Boer successes have been won by the rifle -it is hardly too much to say by the rifle alone-aided only by the spade. We have been taught by sharp experience how large must be an invading army which is to defeat even very limited numbers of irregular riflemen who know how to use their weapons and avail themselves of natural or hastily constructed defences. Do these lessons make us feel less competent to defeat an invading army at home or in India?

It is natural that uneasiness should be felt at the isolated position in which the country stands. Of the ill-will of every great continental nation, with the exception of Italy, it is unhappily hardly possible to doubt. True, the interest of every one of them lies in maintaining peace with Great Britain, and this is probably well understood by their rulers and statesmen. Unfortunately the history of the origins of war shows that enlightened self-interest has far less part in causing national strife than the jealousies, suspicions, and angry temper that take possession of men's souls. Peace, for instance, throughout South Africa was demonstrably the first interest of the British colonies and of the two republics, and was at least among the first interests of the British Empire. Yet a devastating war has been raging where all wise men saw the necessity of patience and the advantages of peace! So, perhaps, it may be in Europe, and it has been manifestly the duty of our Government to spare no expense and to strain every effort to bring this war rapidly to a satisfactory conclusion, lest the prolongation of British difficulties in South Africa should seem to offer to rival nations an opportunity of indulging their ill-will in some