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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1901)
4 The Commoner. ?w The Failure of Kitchener. The situation in South Africa and in Great Britain as well is clcarjy shown by the com ments of the British newspapers. That the war is not yet ended, nor likely to he soon, is evi " denced hy tho comments of the British news papers upon tho many failures of Kitchener and his policies of concentration, banishment and starvation. Tho time set by Kitchener's proclamation demanding surrender upon pain of banishment when captured expired on Sep tember 15. That tho proclamation failed to accomplish tho object sought is shown by the following series of editorial comments from the Manchester (Eng.) Guardian: Guardian, Sept. 15: With every week of the South African spring tho problem we have to meet at the seat of war becomes more definite. It be comes easier to eliminate various confusing ele ments which disturbed calculation in the earlier part of the year, and the prospect, of the next Bix months is seen to depend on a simpler and less numerous set of conditions'. Briefly, the one main question to be answered is this: What progress are 'we making in the exhaustion of the enemy, and what chance is there of that progress being maintained? We pannot continue indefinitely to spend from a million and a half to a million and three-quarters a week, (the war office calls it a million and a quarter, but that figure is got at by the convenient trick of leaving out all debts and only counting current expenditure), we can no longer reinforce properly and the army cannot bear an indefinite strain. These are the commonplaces of a situation which everyone knew would be aerioua if the war should bo allowed to drag on past August, b.ut which is so far suppressed or minimized in the Rhodeslan press that it is well for independent newspapers to emphasize it upon all occasions. If within the- next four months by next January the enemy is not really ex hausted we shall have to prepare for a new cam paign; we shall have an appeal for a largo rein forcement, we shall have a special session of par liament to Vote the necessary moneyv and we shall have something like a financial crisis attendant on the political one. This may como before the close of the year. The government before parliament rose had but twenty millions to end the war with, and it "confidently expected" that the war. would have ended already. What chances have we of ending it before January, or at least of draining the enemy's resources so effectively as to make our ' communications secure, and to permit of some gov ernment being established in at least a part ofCthe annexed territories? Guardian, Sept. 16: Unofficial telegrams from South Africa state that, as far as is known in some of tho principal districts, there have been no im portant surrenders in response to Lord Kitchener's proclamation requiring the Boers to give up the strugglo before the 15th or take tho 'consequences, in tho shape of banishment or financial, liability for the maintenance of their families. Two min isters who recently went to Mr. Steyn and De Wet in order to induce them to surrender have returned vvithout accomplishing their purpose. Mr. Steyn told tho ministers that he had now -greater hope than he had a year ago, because the expense would .make England unable to continue the war much longer. Moreover, ho said, tho British only occu pied tho capitals and the railways, and tho Boers were free to go wherever they wished. De Wet is .reported to have told the ministers that their place was in the pulpit, and that he declined to dis cuss the matter with them. In tho Transvaal trea son trials a document has been produced purport ing to be signed by Louis Botha, and stating that the Boer generals have decided to declare Lord Kitchener and all the British officers outlaws after the 15th Jnst., and that burghers are to shoot any armed Englishmen whom they may encounter. In Capo Colony unsuccessful attacks on Sutherland and Heidelberg are reported. Guardian, Sept. 17: As to what the govern ment is doing to help Lord Kitchener to eaten the Boers in other words, what its war policy may" be we know less than ever now that September 15 has come and gone. We have always tried to attach their full value to the weekly statistics fur-, nished by Lord Kitchener; but, speaking broadly, his policy of concentration and starvation has not proved a success. It has indeed hurt the Boers, the women and children more than the men; at tho same time it has increased our military diffi culties and decreased the effectiveness of the army. As far as supplies of food go, our own army in South Africa will, we fear, be starved out before the Boers. How is an army of 200,000, tied hand and foot at every turn, to starve out 10,000 men who can divide at will into small parties and have all South Africa to roam over? When our men visited the eastern Free State lately, after an interval of nine months, they found corn a foot high; and it is not very long since a party of Boers ' was captured in the Western Transvaal who, were peacefully sowing their fields, and declared that they thought the war had ended in their favor. The country is too vast for the policy of starva tion. And though our army is too small for the country It is far too large to carry on the work of destroying food with impunity. The bareness of the country hampers its mobility, because every force that goes out from the railway has to take its supplies; and it prevents us from swamping the .country with men (supposing we had them), be cause we cannot diminish the Boer food supplies without also diminishing our own. Guardian, Sept. 19: Lord Kitchener yesterday reported a slight reverse in Cape Colony. Apatrol of the Grenadier Guards was surounded on a farm near Reit siding, on the De Aar-Naauwpoort line, and after a stubborn resistance was captured. The officer in command and one man were killed, two men were dangerously wounded, and a sergeant was drowned while crossing a river to go for as- ' sistance. The unofficial telegrams indicate that Lord Kitchener's last proclamation has practically failed to bring about the desired surrenders. Guardian, Sept. 20: Two main sets of facts have to be recognized and made the best of. In tho first place, the war is in no sense a guerilla war, either by the nature of the operations or by the conduct of the men who are fighting. It fol lows that the government's preparations must be based on the fact that wo are in the middle of a war which, if the government only bungles with sufficient ingenuity, is still capable of being lost. To fight such a war and such men with bills for board and lodging is to sweep back the Atlantic with a mop. Illegality is no substitute for mili tary effectiveness, and petty meanness is unavail ing against men who can manoeuvre like Botha and capture one hundred and fifty British prison ers. As for the bolder villany which some would have us adopt, that would complete the ruin of the army in South Africa and dam" back altogether the tide of recruits, which as it is flows "slowly enough. The only thing left to the government to do is to revert to tho older traditions of British warfare, as upheld by a veteran like Field Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain to fight hard and to fight honorably. Tho second great fact that we have to recognize is that tho concentration system has toiled to attain the results hoped for; all the mili tary -usefulness has been extracted from it, and if continued It will do Infinite military mischief. It is at the present moment chiefly responsible for .the constant expansion in the area of the war, for tho diminished mobility of our forces, and for the failure of all our important strategic move ments. The general plan of campaign must be re constructed, and we believe that military methods which took less out of the country and inflicted less suffering on the non-combatant population would befound to be more efficacious. Telegraphing from Pretoria on Wednesday night, Lord Kitchener states that on Tuesday three companies of mounted infantry under Major Gough, with three guns, were reconnoitering to tho south of the Utrecht, in the southeastern cor ner of the Transvaal, in conjunction with some Johannesburg Mounted Rifles under Major Stew art. Major Gough saw about 300 Boers retiring on BJood River Poort, where they halted. Major Gough made for a ridge overlooking Blood River Poort, at the same time asking Major Stewart, who was an hour behind, to co-operate. The Boer move was evidently a trap, for when within reach of his objective Major Gough was suddenly at tacked in front and on the right flank, and after severe fighting was overpowered, losing the guns, of which, however, the sights, and breech-blocks were first destroyed. Two officers and fourteen men were killed, four officers and about twenty-five men wounded, and five officers and 150 men cap tured. Major Stewart was unable to co-operate, and fell back to the Natal frontier. General French has reported to Lord Kitchener that Com mandant Smuts, in order to break through tho cordon by which he was being hemmed in, rushed a squadron of the 17th Lancers at Elands River Poort, near Tarkaotad, in the centre of Cape Col ony, killing three officers and twenty men and wounding an officer and thirty men. The squadron fought most gallantly, inflicting heavy loss on the enemy, who, being dressed in khaki, were mistaken for British troops. Commandant General Louis Botha is believed to be advancing on Natal, hav ing with him 1,500 men, a Creusot'gun, and a pom-pom. It was Botha's ' force which over whelmed Major Gough's small column. Guardian, Sept. 21: Lord Kitchener sends a .dispatch announcing" that the Boers have cap tured two more guns with their escort of Moiirit'ed Infantry. This is said to have taken place at "Vlakfontein," near "Waterworks." Whether they were the waterworks of Pretoria or Bloemfontein ov Capetown is not stated; but as Lord Kitchener writes from Pretoria and one ot the innumerable Ylakfonteins is at a plausible distance from that town, probably it is the Pretoria waterworks that are meant, This is very serious news-Within a week we have, had a bad defeat on .frontiers of Natal and a. couple of checks in the heart of Cape Colony; Belfast,, on the Delagoa Bay line, has been attacked; and last Saturday Johannesburg itself had a fright and the Rand Rifles were called out. Now we lose two guns and a hundred men out side Pretoria, in a district that must have been permanently occupied by us since Juno of last year. Lord Kitchener adds that he" is- making a "strict'- inquiry and that columns are in pursuit, two sen tences which are familiar to readers of official telegrams, and have almost uniformly meant in the past that we should hear nothing more about the affair from official sources. We do not like to think that the sentence about the "strict" inquiry is a meaningless tag, for if it were it would bo cruel and unjust to the officers and men concerned. But if it is not a tag, what does it mean? In one sense, an inquiry of some sort is or ought to be held over every reverse. But to announce publicly that a strict Inquiry is" to be held is at once to throw suspicion on the conduct of the officers and men, and it is perhaps the most serious feature of the latest reverse that Lord Kitchener should, seem deliberately to do that. If the trade of China were worth 100 times What it really is Worth the repeal or substantial modification of the exclusion act would be too great a price to pay for it. Chinese merchants will trado with America if they can make money, and to make money they will submit to the "indignity" of identifying themselves at our ports of entry. Tho exclusion act is no barrier to commerce, but it is a restraint upon the Southern Pacific's profitable" business of colonizing this country with Asiatics who never can become Americans. Philadelphia North American.