LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE BATTLE OF ULUNDL
(TO THE EDITOR OF Mt SPECTATOR:")
SIR,—The following paragraph appeared in a recent telegraphic despatch from the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph in Zululand:— " Attention has been drawn to the fact that no wounded were left alive on the battle-field of Ulundi. Our Native Contingent dispatched all who were found after the fiction. Had permission been given to the Zulus to remove their wounded, and our forces withdrawn to enable them to do so, the Zulus would certainly have availed them- selves of a privilege they value so highly, while the moral effect might have been immense. The absence of hospitals is given as an excuse, but until the kraals were burned the plea was hardly valid, the sur- gical staff being very numerous."
The Daily Telegraph's special correspondent is, I believe, Dr. Russell, the well-known correspondent of the Times in bygone days. It is, therefore, fair to assume that he would have taken pains to verify, before sending home, so serious an accusation against his own countrymen. If what Dr. Russell alleges is true, the English mode of conducting war against the Zulus has sunk to the level of Turkish warfare, with this difference,—that Turkish atrocities on the battle-field are in accordance with Turkish tradition and Mussulman religion ; whereas the slaying of the wounded Zulus is in the teeth of the letter and precepts of Christianity, and contrary also—I hope I may add—to the traditions of English warfare. Where is the sensitive conscience of Mr. Cowen? That he reads his Daily Telegraph is evident, from his inclignalio scum against the imaginary cruelties inflicted on the convicts, who are now proved to have been treatedd, with so much excep- tional humanity, on board the Nishui Novgorod P' I do not say that the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, in Zululand is a more trustworthy authority than the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph in St. Petersburg. But at least we know Dr. Russell's name, and the British public will not easily believe that he is a reckless calumniator of his own countrymen ? Will not Mr. Cowen then, ask a question in, the House of Commons P or does he think that what would be criminal in a Russian is justifiable in an Englishman P As I am writing, will you let me add an emphatic expression of the pain with which I have read some of the public and private utterances of our clergy in South Africa, on this lamentable and, as it seems to me, wholly unjustifiable war ? I cannot un- derstand the epidemic of crusading savagery which appears to have taken possession of the Minds of some of our Missionaries in South Africa,—some of thorn friends of my own. They really seem to imagine that the sword is the most potent and legitimate weapon of propagating the Gospel, Against this outrage on Christianity I wish to protest. I have had occasion to write against Bishop Colenso, and I have no sympathy with some of his opinions. But honesty obliges me to say that he appears to me to be the only minister of the Gospel in South Africa who has publicly acted in this deplorable war according to the spirit and precepts of the Prince of Peace.—I am, Sir, &c.,
MALCOLM MACCOLL.
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