On Thursday a Blue-book was issued giving the Report of
the Military Court of Inquiry which has been investigating the action of the Remount Department. No one ever imagined that there was any corruption in the Department, and it will therefore be no surprise to any one that nothing of the kind is reported. The general result of the Report seems to be that the Department did its best, but that it was quite un- prepared to deal with any sudden emergency and had no machinery with which to meet the crisis of the war. Con- sidering all this, the Report suggests that the Department really acquitted itself wonderfully well. Very likely. But what we want to know is how the Secretary of State for War and the War Office allowed such a vital matter as the provision of horses to be in such feeble hands. We suppose the excuse is that no one thought the war would be a mounted war; but that is really no excuse, for a civilian, quite as much as a soldier, ought to have known that it would be a mounted war. The fact that the Boers were all mounted made that a necessity. Men on foot cannot hunt down men on horseback. To have missed a point so simple, and to have failed to make the necessary provision, is a fault which cannot be lightly for- gotten. The Report, of course, does not deal with this terrible neglect of common-sense in those ultimately responsible for the management of our military affairs.
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