awful repetition, but they never do-there is no change, always that silly, useless pop! pop!

And there are other things that wear into the brain: there are the spies. You know they are about you, watching everywhere, but you can't see them: perhaps that man that saluted just then is one-perhaps not. In Ladysmith it was impossible to detect them; the first thought when you decide to do something-"How many of them know of it?" It is the mysterious, the unknown, where the terror is. But even spies have their comic side. In the case of the somewhat similar experience already referred to, it was known that some of the civilians shut up with us were in communication with the enemy outside. One dark night a light was seen to flash from the town. The fort which saw it was a mile away over rough country, with an awkward spruit between and across this. Authority set out to spot that treacherous light: it was a sad, cold trudge; but the light was in front, and guided the grim party over everything till they were close upon it, still flashing. It came from a candle inside a loophole in a defended house, by which the officer in charge was reading a greenbacked novel!-rank disobedience and a wigging, but it all helped to pass the time. There is that ghastly picket duty, when the officer stands beside those heaps that huddle up in the cold night, and twist and groan, and mutter about bright things, when he wishes for a second pair of ears and that

his feet would thaw-he may not stamp them. A stick cracks, a night-bird croaks, the heaps start up to crouch and clutch their rifles-night after night of this-to-morrow and to-morrow; will it never end? is England never coming back? Then the food question is always pressing. When that starved woman's face looks up at you, in her arms a fading scrap of child's life, "Only two spoonfuls of Swiss milk, and it will not die-oh, sir!" It is the women, poor souls, who are bravest. But they give trouble; they don't mean it. If there was a volley blazed off at us-the Boers like doing this at night; it is rather brave, and wakes the men, till it gets monotonous like all the rest-every woman would look out or run across to ask, "What is it?" And men don't like to see a woman shot. So it was arranged that they and their children should sleep in the women's laager, a stone wool-store in the centre of the town. Who was to sleep with them to keep order? There were fifty or more, many Dutch. Then our parson stepped out— he was a slip of a boy, rather starved, with a weak voice, and a tie that was always whiteand he slept in that laager every night till it was done. Fifty women and that small curate he was a hero, and his name was Spratt.

A dinner was arranged by the pretty daughter of the leading storekeeper, and "You know there will be a tapioca pudding." So she said to Authority, and clapped her hand to her mouth, for all

bread stuffs had been impounded, and she stood out a traitress and Authority looked stern and laughed.

The liquor question is prominent most of all. It is the first thing seized, and the capture of it entails much artifice. A man on sentry is drunk a whole picket goes to sleep, and the empty bottles betray them-Who did it? Where did it come from? Where was it bought? and so on for a tedious time. You know that the delinquent will not be found, yet the safety of the garrison depends upon it. All this and more happened in Ladysmith.

The closing-in of her Colonies round England in her hour of need tells us that the men across the sea do not forget their fatherland. They have sent, unasked, their sons to fight with us more than that, they have sent their hearts-spontaneously. Men in England, we confess it without reserve, have called these men colonists, with a small c; but others who have gone about the world, who have visited these Colonies, have been met by these people when they landed, have been their guests while they stayed,

and have bid them Good-bye on the landing - stage, call them men, honest, capable men, with their wits about them, whom they hope to meet again. And in England now, at last, we are learning as a fact that Colonists have carried home across the sea and keep it going there very much as we do here-with us heart and soul. It is the blood that does it! In the bush, on the veldt, in the snow these men are with us-always for they are ourselves.

The present war is completely changing -or, rather, it has already changed-the relation in which the Colonies stand to the Mother country in matter of imperial defence. They have willingly fought for England and will do so again: if they do they will surely demand to have a voice in the quarrel. As Englishmen they appreciate the difference between right and wrong; can we wonder if they ask what it is that they are called upon to fight for? They have built up those great continents, in which they live, half-way across the world. Is their assistance to be refused when England wants it? They have helped her with their arms, can she not make use of their heads also?

WITH the British flag flying over the Presidency at Bloemfontein, Cronje and his troops sent, or at all events ordered, to St Helena, Kruger and Steyn telegraphing to Lord Salisbury as to terms of peace, it is permissible to hope that this sanguinary war is drawing to a close. Although the only termination to this struggle which Great Britain could accept, from regard to her own security and honour, the safety of the loyalists, and the just claims of the Colonies, must be the unconditional surrender of the Boers, the extinction of the two Republics and their Governments, and the complete establishment of British authority throughout South Africa, we still hope and believe that it will be speedily attained. It causes us no misgiving that the terms of the telegram were as studiously insulting as the terms of the ultimatum. That is merely an incident of impolicy, further evidence, if we wanted any, that we are dealing with an imperfectly civilised foe. It is clear, in their own words, that they are reduced to a condition of "appalling misery and devastation," with, as they say, "moral and economic ruin staring them in the face. In that position the interests of the defeated oligarchy and of the rank and file of the burghers are not identical. The former must keep up the game of brag and bluff to the end, other

VOL. CLXVII.—NO. MXIV.

wise it ceases to exist. The latter must in increasing numbers be anxious to escape from an intolerable position.

In

The Boer Government at Bloemfontein has ceased to exist, surviving the Presidents' telegram by little more than a week. When the Government at Pretoria has also vanished, the "conditions" proposed in the telegram will be those of two private and irresponsible persons, who have both of them ceased to exercise any influence over the course of events. The certainty of impending impotence, the conscious loss of authority, were evident in their reckless disregard of prudence and State considerations. the presence of overwhelming military power it is inconceivable that persons who really retained any sense of responsibility for their country and its inhabitants could have indulged in such idle taunts to their victors. It was the part of political clowns rather than of statesmen to talk in the circumstances of "the incontestable independence of both republics as sovereign international States," and to call for a complete indemnity to all rebels against the Queen's authority who had sided with them. The real object of the telegram was graciously to assure all whom it might concern that the oligarchy withdrew its ultimatum of last October, and no longer sought to eject British authority from 2 Q

South Africa and establish its own ascendancy instead. It regarded the prestige of the British Empire as assured by its military successes, and felt convinced on reflection that its own purposes had always been limited to those of selfdefence, in which it declared that it would persevere to the end. Lord Salisbury pointed out that the war had been very suddenly declared by both republics, after costly, secret, and prolonged preparations, when no infringement of the rights of either of them had ever been alleged, and in the case of one of them there had not even been any discussion. This war "has been the penalty which Great Britain has suffered for having in recent years acquiesced in the existence of the two republics." In view of the use to which they have put the position given to them, their continued independence could no longer be allowed.

The public approval which has been accorded to this declaration of policy has been almost unanimous. The Boers provided the occasion for making it, and it was to all appearance fully justified by the course of military events. There never was any other alternative, for any course short of the extinction of the two republics would amount to national defeat, treachery to the loyalists in South Africa on a still greater scale than in 1881, and an abandonment of all future claim to the loyalty of our Colonies. The British public is so fully roused to the

gravity of the situation as it affects the future of the empire that no other decision was possible. We must note, however, with profound astonishment that, on the very evening on which this telegraphic correspondence was read to the House of Commons, two wellknown politicians, not however of any very great weight, Mr Labouchere and Sir Wilfrid Lawson, entered a protest against it, and declared that, notwithstanding all that had happened, the the Boers should have their independence restored to them. In other words, that we should withdraw our forces, with the full certainty that in ten or twenty years' time they would be required to fight this contest all over again after the Boers had recruited and re-established their military strength. The former declared that the whole civilised world "protested against this attack attack on the rights of independent countries," that the Boers having been driven out of British territories, there was no ground for continuing the war. It was an iniquity, a disgrace, a crime, and a blunder even to propose the surrender of independence. Sir W. Lawson declared that a war to destroy the independence of two free republics was a cowardly and an infamous war.

It is remarkable that men in the constant habit of considering public affairs can be so wrong-headed. Whatever independence existed was derived from grants by the territorial sovereign, which did not

se

cede territory. In both cases it was most grievously abused, and a war inflicted upon us which has been costly in blood and treasure, and which even menaced the empire. It is now sought to restore the independence which has been the source of this great calamity; whether with or without limitations, with or without curities for the future, is not stated, and it is idle to inquire, since experience has shown that limitations and securities are alike without value. If the object of this war was only to eject Boers from British territories, it might have been omitted altogether; for in that case it would have to be repeated over and over again, and would be beyond our resources and not worth while. There will be no lasting peace unless we render future aggression impossible, by revoking an independence which ought never to have been granted. We believe that the Boers themselves will prove to be more reasonable than the fanatics in our midst. They are being taught by the hard facts of experience. They have learnt that their ultimatum was misconceived, and that their strategy, hopeful as it might have been at the outset, has miscarried. With the British flag flying at Bloemfontein, and the war localised, as it soon will be, in the Transvaal, their dreams of ascendancy and conquest are at an end. The real result is that they, as distinguished from the Dutch oligarchy which has exploited them to their ruin, are now

in direct relations with a Power which, in the words of Lord Roberts' proclamation, "bears the people no illwill, and is anxious to preserve them from the evils which the action of their Government has caused." The determined hostility evoked from all parts of the British Empire is not directed against themselves personally, but against the "mischievous outside influences" which have perverted their Governments. If an entirely hopeless struggle is persisted in, with desperation and a total disregard of life and suffering, or if their leaders direct wanton destruction of property for no practicable end, they may come to be regarded as hostes humani generis, and liable to the severest treatment which the safety of others prescribes. Lord Roberts' proclamation has borne excellent fruit in the Free State, and there is every reason to hope that a similar proclamation

addressed later on to the Transvaal will have a like result. It is said that defections have been numerous already. It must be clear that Great Britain will no longer be trifled with, and also that the end in view is not oppressive, but aims at bringing to South Africa— in the words of Lord Roberts' Kimberley speech-"prosperity, peace, and liberty," in which the Boers of the late republics will eventually share on the same equal terms which are accorded to the Dutch in Cape Colony.

In order to share in that "prosperity, peace, and liberty," they must transfer their allegi