It was announced on Thursday that the Secretary of State
for War had despatched the following telegram to Lord Kitchener in reply to one from Lord Kitchener dated August 25th, in which it was stated that an officer and two men (New South Wales Artillery) were shot down at Graspan after they had surrendered :—" We understand you have as yet received no satisfactory assurances respecting the murder of our wounded at Vlakfontein. In view of the occurrences reported in your telegram of 25th 'inst., we are of opinion that you should notify by proclamation that the members of any commando by which such an outrage may be committed who may be captured, and after trial proved to have been present on such an occasion, will be held guilty whether they actually committed the deed or not; that the leader of the commando will be sentenced to death, and other members of the com- mando punished by death or less sentence according to the degree of their complicity." That is a very severe order,' for it practically means that we shall inflict the death penalty on: any leader of a commando who does not keep proper disci- pline among his men, and make them obey the rules of civilised warfare. We are by no means prepared to say. the Government are not justified in taking this action, for the killing of surrendered men is an atrocious outrage, but we trust that Lord Kitchener will insist that the evidence in the case of any men tried under the new order shall be most rigorously tested.
