Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-11-11
Allows No News to
Come From Africa,
BUTLER IS NOT READY
Middle in the Training of the Siege
GunS-BritiSh Are Not Wasting
Any Ammunition at Ladysmith-
Beers Planting More Guns.

London, Nov. II, 4:3O a. m.-Complete
silence has again fallen upon affairs il
South Africa. The British public must
pefforce be content with the brief, stereo-
typed report which the censor allows tc
filter through from Capetown. That this
condition of affairs is no longer due to
pressure of work or defective cables has
been amply proved. The Eastern Tele-
graph company reckons that the real
delay in transmission is about two days.
1t is evident, therefore, that the censor
ship is responsible for the other two DAYS
OF delay. which seems to befall all the
dispatches.
Moreover, the Daily telegraph an
hotnces that it's ''inappropriated" dis
patch from L~adyslnith, dated Monday V.
which the war office published on Tues
day, was not delivered in Fleet street
until yesterday (Friday) morning. 1t is
believed that the war Office received fur
Their dispatches last evening, but moth
ing has been published.
At a banquet in the city of I.ondon
yesterday the Duke of Cambridge. sneak
ing of the war, said:
I'VE ought never to have allowed orr
selves to be in the position that the out
break of the war found us. 1t has raised
q cry over the loss of valuable lives
which might nave been spared"
1t is said General Butler never expected
to begin operations before Christmas,
and 1t now looks as if this would be the
case. Certainly no artillery can reach
Durham before Nov. Il, and without adj
dltlonal guns an a from Estcourt
would be impossible. No doubt, as Lord
Salisbury said in a recent speech, Eng
land will "muddle through it," n yet
another illustration has become apparent
in the fact that gunnery instructors have
only just arrived at Woolwich arsenal for
instruction in siege train duties. AL
though hurried preparations are being
made to prepare the siege trains. the
fact that the men are at Davenport and
the guns at Woolwich seems to show
that the idea of the siege train was quite
ar afterthOught.
The Morning Post says: What will
come of such muddling, if we ever come
to fighting a foe able to turn !. to adj
vantage? Some radical reforms are
needed in our mobilization arrange
mentS."
The statement from L%adysmith that the
British gums do not reply to the Boer
artillery because the concrete beds for
the guns rave not yet hardened is inter
pfeted in some quarters to mean simply
that the British are outstanding their
ammunition, as the Boer fire is only a
trick to get the British to waste shells.
Among the few items that have arrived
from the Cape today is one saying that
the Beers are planting more guns in the
hills surrounding Ladysmith.
A gentleman who visited Nicholson's
Mex after the engagement counted 25 in
killed and 70 wounded. The latest advices
from Kimberly, dated Nov. 2, say that
all was we'll there then. An explosion had
been heard and the supposition was thai
the Beers had blown up the railway cul-
vert south of Dronfield.
The Belgian government, it is said. has
warned Dr.. Leyds, whose headquarters
are at Brussels, that Belgium is a eutra
country. A corps of engineers from Glib
raltar will accompany the siege train to
the Cape and the men will be used in
mounting the heaviest guns in en-
brasures. Two battalions of mounted in
fantry, every man selected for his riding
and shooting qualities, will be sent to the
front.