TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE TROUBLES OF THE COUNTRY. THE troubles of the country are no lighter, are rather, if anything, thicker than before. There is a momentary respite in Eastern Europe, the Government, as we read their action, having given way upon one of their cardinal points ; but in every other direction, the aspect of affairs is gloomy in the extreme. The news from South Africa, to begin with, without being disastrous, is entirely unsatisfactory. We have lost nothing important, but the war in Zululand is enlarging in proportions. The garrison in Ekowe has not been relieved, and it is clear that Lord Chelmsford has been compelled to attempt to relieve it before he is fairly ready. His reinforce- ments, especially in cavalry, had not reached the Tugela when Colonel Pearson flashed by the heliograph intelligence which rendered further delay impossible. His supply of provisions had been so reduced, that sickness had broken out in his camp ; he had 150 men in hospital, and would be unable to detach more than 500 men out of his original 1,380, to assist the relieving column. The rest must remain to guard his camp, and especially the sick. It was necessary, therefore, to act at once, and on the 29th the column, under Colonel Law, was ordered to march without cavalry, except 50 mounted Euro- peans and some Zulu scouts on horseback, and without Lord Chelmsford, who was to have accompanied it, but who two days after it had started telegraphs (March 31st) from Natal, and quotes a despatch he had received from the front. The force was not, when completed, fairly adequate for its work. The newspapers, which have become strangely indif- ferent to facts, persist in saying that it consists of 6,000 men ; but Lord Chelmsford himself states that it includes only 2,600 European infantry, 640 sailors and marines, 50 mounted Europeans, two nine-pounder guns, four rockets, and two Gatlings,—or at the outside, 3,350 white men, the remainder being made up of 2,300 natives, who may be as good as Sepoys, but who have been collected by a conscription so severe that Sir H. Bulwer has protested, and who hitherto have in every engagement disappeared at the critical moment. This force, all commanded by Colonel Law, is to relieve the garrison of Ekowe, occupy that position, and two others on the hills, and strengthen Colonel Pearson's debilitated force for the return march. When last heard of, on March 30th, it had covered a distance of eighteen miles, and had reached the bank of the Amatikulu, a liver 600 yards across, with great loss of draught-oxen, who, however, writes Lord Chelms- ford, would be replaced. It had still seventeen miles, or twelve miles—there is a doubt, caused by a short-cut of five miles constructed by Colonel Pearson—to traverse, three more streams to cross, and a low range of hills, marked in the Staff maps as 1,500 feet high, besides the Zulu army to break through. Of the strength of this army but little is known. Colonel Pearson, on the authority of native scouts, estimates it at 35,000 men, and Lord Chelmsford, on the authority pro- bably of his own consciousness, at 15,000 ; but the number, if the Zulus have resolved on resistance, is sure to be sevenfold that of our white men. It marches four miles a day to our one, its leaders know the country as no European can know it, and they are thoroughly well informed, probably by spies within our own Native Contingent. All this, which is officially admitted, may not be formidable, if the Zulus are not in earnest, and indeed, would not in India represent long odds ; but the Zulus fight splendidly, when they fight at all, the British army is cumbered with 110 huge waggons, the draught-cattle of which die fast, and time is of such importance that men and animals alike must be overdriven. It is possible, probable, or even cer- tain, that Colonel Law, who is described as taking the most minute precautions, even prohibiting noise, in dread of a night attack, will force his way through, but it may well be with a terribly diminished armament. Even if he is not resisted, but little will have been accomplished beyond the relief of Colonel Pearson's worn-out force, for the Zulus are all around, and the chain of communications will be most diffi- cult to maintain, a stream of waggons being required to supply the three posts among which the force will be divided, until the general advance upon Ulundi has been arranged. If there is anything like disaster, six thousand additional men will be imperatively required in South Africa.
For, the old force in the colony has but little strength remaining. Colonel Pearson's column is shut up in Ekowe, and debilitated by disease ; Colonel Durnford's ceased to exist at Isandlana ; Colonel Glyn's, half destroyed in the same disaster, is prostrated by sickness at Helpmakaar ; and Colonel Evelyn Wood's may almost be pronounced besieged. On March 28th, that energetic officer, whose only fault seems to be that he cannot let his enemy alone, attacked Umbelini's corral, on the top of Mount Zoblana, and carried it, capturing a large number of cattle. Umbelini, however, reinforced by a number of Zulus—three regiments, it is said, of the force present at Isandlana—regained the cattle, and after some severe fighting, in which the British force was evidently in. great danger, drove Colonel Wood back upon his camp. On the following day, 29th March, Umbelini attacked Colonel Wood in_ position, with an army which that officer estimates at 20,000 men, but which must have consisted of about 3,000 Zulus and a host of Swazis, and although after most severe fighting the enemy was repulsed and pursued, the British lost seven officers and seventy men, and gained no serious advantage, beyond killing a certain number of their adversaries. That may be a real advantage, if the killed were Zulus, for the weakness of Cetewayo's posi- tion is that he is not only using up his army, but his nation ; but we greatly fear the men who fell may have been Swazis.. Umbelini is the head of the Swazis ; he has summoned his whole tribe—probably strengthened by immigrants from the. north—and if Colonel Wood's estimates are correct, it is a. second nation which, strengthened by Zulu regiments, but not drawing away the strength of the Zulu army, is assailing us at Utrecht. It is of no use counting savage foes ; if we begin that practice, we may as well retreat to our Islands ; but all this means that, in the event of another disaster, a campaign as extensive and as exhausting as a European wal- lies before the country. That is in no way beyond its strength, but it is folly either to underrate the danger, or to believe. that it can be met without insisting that our leaders at home and abroad shall be the strongest men to be discovered. No difficulty, either of party or etiquette, civil or military, or custom, ought to stand for a moment in the way of securing thorough efficiency.
If the statement sent home to the Daily News of the effect of the news of Isandlana upon the Court of Mandalay is correct• —upon which we have some doubts—we shall, in the event of a check of any kind in South Africa, see Pegu invaded ; and we note, with some alarm, the movements reported thence. It looks to Anglo-Indians as if the King of Burmah were really intending, if the English are in trouble, to pour his armed and brave rabble over the north-eastern frontier of that province, while General Gore, just in- vested with supreme command of all forces in British Burmah, was preparing to strike the return blow, rid the Irrawaddy, straight at his capital. It is, however, useless to• speculate upon Burmese intelligence. It is certain that the Government has played the country fair upon this point, that war with Burmah, except in self-defence, has been peremp- torily forbidden ; and that in Mr. Aitchison, the Chief Com- missioner, the country has a keen, determined Scotchman, of unusually wide experience, quite certain not to be carried away by Imperialist dreams, and quite certain, if the necessity cannot be avoided, to strike hard. Under those circumstances, if a bad lad, wild •with drink and the madness which unchecked power begets in the young, chooses to invade, there is nothing for the country to do but accept the calamity, strike him from his. throne, and then leave it to the wisest Burmese—and there are wise Burmese—to decide between a new and sane Prince of their own nationality, or submission to a British Chief Com- missioner. The Burmese crisis, though an aggravation of British troubles, is no fault even of Lord Beaconsfield, or of the viewy and rash litterateur to whom he has entrusted British India, but the intelligence from Afghanistan rouses more serious reflections. Although Sir Stafford Northcote pleads ignorance, we are really, by all local accounts, going to Cabul. In spite of the openly expressed alarm of experienced officers at the state of our communications, in spite of the con- dition of the finances, in spite of the accumulation of dangers menacing, not indeed us, but our resources everywhere, Lord Lytton has, according to all local accounts, made up his mind, and the orders for the organisation necessary for the fine/ advance are telegraphed from Lahore. Sir Samuel Browne takes a corps d'arme'e to Cabul. He will be supported by a reserve division at Jellalabad, under General Bright, and by General Roberts, who has been preparing for weeks, who has. received two first-rate European regiments, and who before May will, we believe, be moving down the northern slopes from the Shuturgardan direct upon the Afghan capital, only fifty miles away. A new campaign is commencing, in which the new Ameer, who has rebuilt his autho- rity, who has appointed the Ghilzai leader his Premier, and so has rebound the two dominant clans, the Ghilzais and Barukhzyes, who controls the Hillmen, and who, if not strangely changed by his imprisonment, is the best soldier in Afghanistan, must fight for his crown and his head. That is a most serious enterprise. Bribery, which it is now admitted, has purchased our easy passage through the Hills, will not help us with the great Afghan clans ; and although they may be defeated, and Cabul captured, they can keep up a permanent and most exhausting insurrectionary war, a war which will absorb 15,000 troops, and cost us £2,000,000 a year. Experienced observers on the spot declare that the Hill- men are all against us, that they accepted our bribes under an impression that we should return at once, and that they will now occupy themselves in cutting off our communications. Long and dreary warfare is before the country in two places at once, aggravated by the fact that while no end is visible, no ade- quate end is so much as desired. The very Government which allows the wars does not wish to keep Afghanistan, and forbids the acquisition of Zululand ; so that whatever the result, there can be for the Empire no compensation. We are fighting in Zululand only because we must, and in Afghanistan because Lord Beaconsfield thought a war there would be a war with limited liability, and cover the failure at Berlin.
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