would have immense trouble with their sick and great suffering with those of their garrison who were sick. The whole of the staff were shut up in Ladysmith. I thought I knew that I had official information in writing that the garrison could not be fed beyond the end of the year. I was wrong, I have found out since. . . . It was then December 15-the end of the year was fifteen days off. The message I had to send to Sir George White was that I had made the attack and that I had failed, and that I could not possibly make another attempt for a month, and then I was certain I could only do it by slow fighting and not by rushing. That was the message I had to send, and I had to ask him certain questions. I wrote a telegram out and looked at it two or three times, and said, 'It is a mean thing to send a telegram like that. He is a gallant fellow. He will sit still to the end.' I was in command; whatever responsibility there was there was mine, and I thought, Ought I not to give him some help, some assistance, and some lead, and something which if it came to the last absolute moment would have enabled him to say-Well, after all, I have Sir Redvers Buller's, as my commander's, opinion in favour of this?' Therefore I spatchcocked into the middle of the telegram a sentence in which I suggested that it would be necessary to abandonto surrender the garrison; what he should do when he surrendered, and how he should do it. I put it between one question he had to answer and followed it with another question. I did not like to suggest to a man I believed to be a brave man and a good soldier-I did not like to suggest that he should do this, or that, or the other, but I stuck that into the thing simply because if he ever had to give up it might be some sort of cover to a man whom I thought in much greater difficulty than I was myself. That was the telegram.' Sir R. Buller

concluded with a challenge for the production of the incriminated telegram (which he said must have been stolen) and for an explanation how it was obtained. "And when they do that," he said, "I will publish the certified copy of the telegram I sent, and the public shall judge me."

There were practically no two opinions as to the want of judgment and self-restraint characterising the utterance of which the salient features have just been given. There was recognised in it, indeed, alike in the substance of Sir R. Buller's account of his heliogram to Sir George White, and in the wish avowedly prompting the whole speech to save his friends from taking rash action on his behalf, abundant evidence of the chivalrous temper which had won for Sir R. Buller such widespread affection in the army and elsewhere. But the prevailing sentiment among the educated public was that the speech illustrated, in a high degree, both in its scope and its tone, those defects in the speaker's character which were unfavourable to his holding with success positions of arduous responsibility in the field.

On October 23 an official announcement was issued from the War Office stating that, "in consequence of the speech delivered by Sir R. Buller on the 10th inst., the Commander-inChief, after full consideration of all the circumstances, and of the explanations furnished by Sir Redvers Buller, has recommended that he be relieved of his command. Action has been taken accordingly, and Sir Redvers Buller has been placed on half-pay."

It was added that Major-General (local Lieutenant-General) French would take command of the First Army Corps when his services were no longer required in South Africa, and pending his return, Major-General (local Lieutenant-General) Sir H. Hildyard would command the force at Aldershot.

This

The general feeling in regard to this really terrible blow inflicted on a distinguished soldier was one of sorrowful but entire acquiescence in the action of the Government. acquiescence, however, was qualified by enhanced disapproval of the original appointment, and it was not universal. There were not a few persons, both officers and civilians of independent judgment, who, without defending the speech, held that it furnished no ground for dismissal. They denied that, as was the preponderant opinion, it must be regarded as a breach of discipline, and maintained that its faults of discretion and taste were not such as had any bearing on a general's fitness for high command. Among the rank and file of the Army the slight put upon an extremely popular officer was believed to be much resented, and among the masses of the people there was some reason to believe that Sir R. Buller was widely regarded as the victim of harshness and injustice. This view was taken up with considerable vehemence by many of those who were opposed to the Government with regard to the war, and the frequent, though by no means universal, coincidence of proBoer with pro-Buller sentiments did not fail to strike the more cynical observers of public affairs. Speaking at Liverpool (Oct. 25), Mr. Long, President of the Local Government Board, offered a general defence of the Government, and in particular of Mr. Brodrick, who had been prevented by domestic affliction from appearing on public platforms, from the imputation made in some quarters that Sir R. Buller's unfortunate speech had been seized upon as affording an occasion for bowing to the clamour raised in the Press against his appointment to the First Army Corps. "There was not," he said, "one shadow of foundation for that statement." The Government, he averred, had nothing to apologise for, and nothing of which they were ashamed. The fact that Sir Redvers Buller was allowed to take up again his command at Aldershot would be justified upon grounds of policy and of justice, and the fact that it had been necessary to remove him from his command would be justified upon one simple ground alone. It rested with the Commander-in-Chief to do what he thought right, in order that the discipline of the

Army might be maintained. The Commander-in-Chief, after the most careful examination of the circumstances after, to his certain knowledge, every opportunity had been offered to Sir Redvers Buller to make his explanation, and to justify, if he could, the course he had taken, and after the most anxious-he might almost say agonised-consideration, the Commander-inChief arrived deliberately and clearly at his conclusion, and upon his advice the Secretary of State for War, with the entire concurrence and support of his Majesty's Cabinet, acted as he maintained he only could possibly have done in the circumstances. They all deeply regretted the sad termination of a great military career. It was said in some quarters that the record of the past should be allowed to outweigh the indiscretion, as it was called, of the present. Was that an argument that could possibly be used by any thoughtful man? greater the record of the past the greater the demand upon the man to act wisely in the present; the greater the hero the greater his influence upon the soldiers of the Army, whether they were officers or privates.-These observations plainly offered not a vindication but a promise of one. In Devonshire, Sir R. Buller's native county, in which he was held in the highest esteem and affection, attempts were made to get up an agitation on his behalf, but it did not attain any important dimensions. It fell under suspicion immediately through the zeal with which Radical politicians took it up, and leading persons in the county declined to aid in a movement which might well operate injuriously on the maintenance of discipline in the Army.

The

Almost the only interruption of the political calm which possessed the country for the first five or six weeks of the recess was the bye-election in North-East Lanarkshire, caused by the death of the Liberal Member, Mr. J. Colville. A three-cornered and lively contest was here developed, with Mr. Cecil Harmsworth as the official Liberal candidate, Mr. Smillie as Labour representative, and Sir W. Rattigan as Liberal Unionist. In regard to general politics Mr. Harmsworth appeared to be in line with the average Liberal candidate, but his Imperial views about the war, though not put forward in an extreme form, and his near relationship to the proprietor of the Daily Mail, a journal of a somewhat flamboyant Imperialism, brought down upon him the hostility of the extreme opponents of the war, like Sir Wilfrid Lawson. Even a Scottish politician by no means professing pro-Boer opinions, the Master of Elibank, lent his support to Mr. Smillie, for whom the Trade Unionist and the somewhat considerable Irish vote in the district was also cast. The result (Sept. 27) was as follows: Rattigan, 5,673; Harmsworth, 4,769; and Smillie, 2,900, which was a handsome present of the seat to the Unionists.

This result did not in any way discourage Mr. Asquith, who opened the regular autumn campaign by a speech to his con

stituents at Ladybank, Fifeshire (Sept. 28), from restating with his habitual decision his familiar views on the war, or tempt him into any endeavour to conciliate Irish support. As to the war, he held, he said, in a sentence, that we were “fighting with clean hands, and with a clear conscience, in a just cause." But the right of criticism remained. He exercised that right with regard to the Unionist electioneering statements in 1900, and went on to say that on various points explanations were wanted from the Government. Thus, when objection was taken in the House of Commons to Lord Kitchener's proclamation of August 6, an assurance was given that the proclamation was simply a warning, and would not be put into effect till legislation had been passed for the purpose. Yet it was now announced that ten persons had been sentenced to banishment on the assumed authority of the proclamation. If the statement was correct, there was a startling discrepancy between the undertaking given by the Government and its action. People would be also glad to know whether the Government were adopting vigorous measures to bring the campaign to a close or whether they were once more in a mood of lethargic happy-go-lucky optimism.

Mr. Asquith then went on to advert to a topic which, since the census had shown the continued decline in the Irish population, both absolute and as compared with that of Great Britain, had been a good deal discussed in the Unionist Press. The demand for a reduction in the proportionately excessive representation of Ireland had been strongly put forward, and though, perhaps, not directly based on the conduct of the Irish Members in the present Parliament, that consideration could hardly fail to exercise influence wherever the topic was raised. Mr. Asquith, for his part, deprecated any idea of a partial or punitive redistribution of seats. For one thing, it would be useless, for even if the Nationalists were reduced to fifty they would be quite strong enough for an effective guerilla warfare. Moreover, though he did not hold the consideration decisive, he thought it not immaterial to remember that the Irish representation was fixed by the Act of Union at a figure which was then far below what Ireland was entitled to, on the principle of proportional representation, and that whatever changes had since been made had been made with the assent, expressed or presumed, of the vast majority of the Irish people themselves. In any case, there were even more glaring anomalies in the representation of Great Britain than in that of Ireland.

Then followed an interesting declaration. The claim to independence of English parties which the Irish party put forward-and had just exercised in Lanarkshire-must, Mr. Asquith said, of course, be fully recognised; but there must also be reciprocity in these things; and he himself held that the Liberal party "ought not to assume the duties and responsi

bilities of office until it could rely on an independent Liberal majority in the House of Commons." Such a majority might take a long time to secure, but he was satisfied that it was the only practical alternative to a Tory Government.

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To this avowal Mr. Redmond, speaking in Dublin (Oct. 1), replied in a high tone. Mr. Asquith's declaration, he said, was rash and foolish," and he advised him to remember that a greater than he took office at the head of a party dependent on the Irish vote, and brought in a Home Rule Bill within six months of having appealed to the electorate to give him a majority independent of the Irish vote. Further, Mr. Redmond expressed his very poor opinion of the Imperialist wing of the Liberal party, and their prospects. Soon, he believed, they would disappear, and the Liberal party "would be made up of men of the stamp of Lloyd-George.

The very vigorous resumption of the offensive by the Boers at the end of September, at widely distant parts of the field of operations, caused an appreciable amount of disquietude here. That feeling was not altogether allayed either by the contemplation of the splendid and, though costly, successful defence made by the garrison of Fort Itala, on the Zululand border, and by Colonel Kekewich's force in the south-west of the Transvaal respectively, or by the theory that these onslaughts were the last desperate flashes of Boer hostility in arms. In some quarters there was a call for sterner measures, and for pronouncing outlawry against the Boers who should still keep the field. Against any such idea Mr. Winston Churchill, speaking at a Primrose League meeting in Yorkshire about this time, strongly protested. It was, he said, not by threats or proclamations, but only by the vigorous application of military force that this matter could be settled as it should be settled. Ministers, however, seemed to him to be "drifting helplessly as in a dream," instead of, as they ought to be, "ceaselessly planning for the future." The particular plan which he urged was not, as many advocated, the mere pouring in of more reinforcements. They wanted, he said, quality rather than quantity, leaders rather than generals, men, not masses. Lines of communication must be held and towns garrisoned; but beyond the troops needed for this work, who were more than sufficient, a force of 15,000 to 20,000 men must be put in the field equal to the Boer commandoes in initiative, determination and resource, in marksmanship, mobility and endurance, and superior to them in numbers, equipment and the quality of their horses.

was,

The public mind was puzzled and anxious, and by no means soothed by Lord Halsbury, who, at the Cutlers' Feast at Sheffield (Oct. 3), ineptly said that "a sort of warfare indeed, still going on, but asked "Is it war?" Enough of the genuine article, men thought, to keep 200,000 British soldiers engaged in the unsuccessful attempt to stop it. On the same occasion, Lord Halsbury, on the question of a redistribu