TOPICS OF THE DAY.
OUR PROSPECTS.
THE first act of the South African drama dragged, and seemed to the over-impatient audience tediously long, but the second has gone through with a rapidity of which Field-Marshal Roberts, in a General Order to his troops, is justifiably proud. He has conquered the Orange Free State and occupied its capital in twenty-nine days. Con- sidering the character of the enemy, the great distances to be traversed, and the endless difficulties of transport, that is splendid ; and allowing always for the unforeseen, and especially for the risks to which the life of the chief strategist is necessarily exposed, we see many reasons for believing that the third and fourth acts—the passage over the drifts of the Vaal, and the long tramp across the plains to Pretoria—may be accomplished with nearly equal speed. The conditions which so hampered us at first have almost all disappeared. We have a general who is a real brain to his army, that army is strong enough for its work, there is a magnificent force of cavalry—larger, we fancy, than a British general has ever commanded before—and the weak points of the enemy are at last thoroughly understood. Like most half-disciplined troops, the Boers have an even exaggerated horror of being attacked in rear, and, like all mounted infantry, are more anxious about their horses, which have no rifles, than about themselves, who have. There will be a great effort, we doubt not, to defend the Drakensberg on the one hand, and the Vaal on the other, but it will not be the kind of effort which was made to defend the hills round Ladysmith and the Modder River. Morale counts heavily in battle, and the morale of the Boers has suffered some of the rudest shocks. In the first place, they have been disillusioned, and that by a process which convicts their leaders of something like wilful deception. We write on good evidence when we say that the average Boer, when the negotiations began, disbelieved in the existence of a powerful British army, and the ability of the Queen to despatch more than twenty thouSand men for an invasion of his States. He finds himself confronted by an army of nearly two hundred thousand men, which is incessantly reinforced by still more soldiers, who drop into Cape Town with every succeeding week. He thought, moreover, that a British soldier was always more or less of a fool in uniform, that he knew nothing of frontier warfare, that he would always attack in front, and that consequently he could always be repulsed with heavy loss. The leaders, in fact, have always traded on this idea, and have written their absurd bulletins to suit it. The Boer now knows that his own strategy is child's play as compared with that of a competent general ; that he can be outmanoeuvred, out- marched, and even, as in Cronje's case, surrounded and forced to surrender at discretion. These are a kind of enlightening facts which deprive even brave men of much of their ignorant confidence in themselves. They have all the effect of the charges in the Peninsular War, which first taught Napoleon's Marshals that their men could not stand up against the British bayonet. They may not affect the leaders whose splendid position as wealthy oligarchs is directly at stake in the war, but they do affect the men, who are, after all, the strength of armies as of nations. This is evident from the despairing efforts which the chiefs are making to hearten up their followers. President Kruger issues address after address, each more Scripttiral than the last, but each admitting with greater distinctness the terrible severity of the struggle. He spoke when it began of an assured victory, but he now tells the Boers not to despair even if half of them should die. "But suppose we all die ?" answers the Boer. Mr. Steyn resorts to another argument, and threatens death to every Free" Stater who submits. He has no power of inflicting death, and those whom he addresses know this, but the fact that the most ambitions and unscrupulous of the Boer leaders should use such menaces shows how complete the disillusion of his followers must have been. The fiercest of generals dues not threaten death to runaways while his meu are charging, or ready to charge. These changes in the mental attitude of the enemy must of themselves greatly facilitate Lord Roberts's march, and there are other changes among ourselves, for we also have not been free of illusions. It has been a sort of conviction with many of us, and especially with those on the spot, that • the Boers—partly because they were fanatics, and partly because they were • Dutchmen—would die in the last ditch, and, as Mr. Kruger once threatened, " stagger humanity " by some act of supreme self-sacrifice. That conviction has disappeared. The Boers of the Free State are as Dutch as those of the Transvaal, they are at least as "pious," and they are quite as brave ; and they are submitting as other people do when beaten in the field. The reception of Lord Roberts in Bloemfontein may have been in great part a British reception, the English of South Africa greatly enjoying the wonderful climate of the Orange capital, a climate only rivalled by that of California ; but the Orange burghers are returning in hundreds to their farms, entire " commandos " are " con- sidering " the propriety of surrender, and the central villages, which are called locally cities, are submitting with hurried readiness. It is no longer held expedient even to blow up a railway culvert. The Transvaalers may hold out longer, because they had originally more hope and more ambition, but men always yield to the inevitable, and the Boers, though we heartily acknowledge that their bravery equals that of the Southerners in the American Civil War, are no more prepared to make a holocaust of them- selves than the planters were. Had they been so pre- pared they would have come out with Cronje from that last laager singing psalms, and have perished to a man under the British fire,—a spectacle which would have awed the British world.
Lord Roberts's march to Pretoria, therefore, though opposed, will not be a specially difficult one; and then will come the great question of the fifth act. Will the defence of Pretoria be a gloomy and awful tragedy, or only the usual ending of a great campaign ? Will the Pretorians die like Saguntines, or yield like the defenders of Metz ? We venture to predict that they will not imitate the former, that the grand weakness of oligarchies, the want of per feet sympathy between rulers and ruled, will finally reveal itself there, and that with Kruger and his Court still pro- testing the people, armed and unarmed, will insist upon submission. Indeed, we are not certain that Pretoria is not for a grand final defence a little too grandiose. As we understand the descriptions of it, it is a vast amphi- theatre of sand locked in by hills, and studded with build- ings, some of them fortified. It is, however, a very large amphitheatre. If it were defended by fifty thousand resolute men, and if they had a year's supply of food, and if their ammunition were inexhaustible, and if they were resolved to endure all the horrors of a siege till all were dead, Pretoria might offer a terrible de- fence ; but there is no certainty that the Boers, who have their farms to protect, will concentrate in Pretoria, no proof that the amphitheatre will be ready for a siege, no evidence that the great circle round it is impenetrable to besiegers. Why, moreover, should the common men endure all the misery which in a protracted siege must fall to their lot ? They will not preserve the " independence of their country," or, in other words, their right to rule everybody, white and black, within the district on which they have settled ; they will not wear doWn the British if hatred of them is their motive; and they will not obtain better terms, the terms already offered being peace, pardon, and protection, if only they will live quietly under laws far more merciful than their own. Their lives will be in no danger, their creed will be treated with every respect, their properties will be as safe as those of Englishmen ; what when they once realise that their independence has been forfeited under the award of the battlefield is there left to the common folk to fight for ? Their hope of becoming the sovereign caste in South Africa ? It is gone. Their scorn of the British? It has been replaced by a dry respect. Their votes ? They will be restored within five years. We can see nothing, and therefore believe that Pretoria will yield, and that the Dutchmen of South Africa, conscious that they have fought a magnificent fight and will live in history, will become quiet Colonists intent mainly on preventing direct taxation, on establishing some endurable relation with their labourers—that will be the next difficulty— and on keeping for the Colonies the amazing wealth which the intruding British settlers have succeeded in winning for them. Our view may prove too optimistic, but it is as yet the view most closely supported by the known facts.
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