THE BECHUANALAND EXPEDITION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—Owing to the absence of bloodshed from the operations of the expedition to Bechuanaland, public attention has been but languidly interested in the achievements of the force under the command of Colonel Sir C. Warren. It is now given out semi- officially that, in consequence of the absence of a "butcher's bill," there will be no Gazette.
Will you permit me to say that the absence of bloodshed is entirely due to the masterly arrangements made by Sir C. Warren and his chief of the staff, Colonel Walker, C.B., and to the loyal and self-effacing manner in which every officer on the staff carried out the wishes of his chief ? Nothing would have- been easier than for any " energetic " officer to have provoked a collision, the consequences of which would have been a further expenditure of two millions sterling—and a Gazette.
It is thus made clear by the Conservative Government that the line of least resistance towards promotion and honours lies in the provocation of a collision, where, by tact and judgment, a collision is avoidable. The effect of the precedent thus set by the War Office will probably cost the country dear in the next expedition, where the issue is capable of two methods of treatment. Having been on the spot, and seen something of the work involved in the creation and defence of a line of com- munications four hundred miles in length, I may venture to ask Members of Parliament whether the country does well to ignore such loyal and whole-hearted services as those rendered by Sir C. Warren and the members of his staff. It is true that Sir Charles has been created a G.C.M.G. ; but as he relapses to the rank of Colonel, the distinction is satirical; and in the absence of rewards to those officers who have served their country so well under his command, must create feelings of a, mingled nature in the mind of the gallant officer himself.-1
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