Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-10-06

England to accede to peace proposals.
The details of this battle will bear re-
counting, If only to emphasize the fact
that the British have no child's play in
prospect, should war eventually end the
present tension of affairs.
General Colley of the British army
had taken up his stand with 600 men on
the top of the small and precipitous hill
called Majuba. Before him was the
Boer army with General Joubert at its
head-the same General Joubert who is
now commander-in-chef of the Trans
vaal forces. Believing his position i'm
pregnable, Colley exultantly sent down
challenge to Joubert to attack him. The
old Boer needed no invitation, nor did
he need as strong force as the English.
He called for only $50 of his men to pit
against the 600 on the hill. These $50
volunteers, in broad daylight, began the
ascent. Terrace after terrace they
scaled. availing themselves of rocks and
powders as protection against the leaden
hail rained upon them by the English.
Aud when, after five hours of climbing,
the last terrace was reached, only one
man had dropped from their ranks.
Taking position only 80 yards from the
British, the praticed BOer marksmen be-
gan the slaughter of an army of four
times their number. General Colley
himself and many of his officers were
killed; and when another small Boer
band reached the summit and the Eng
fish were in imminent peril of being
flanked, the latter broke into the widest
kind of panic and rolled and tumbed
and dropped down the sides of the hill,
followed by the unerring fire of the
Beers. The result of the battle was as
remarkable as its conduct. OF the 600
British troops, 92 were killed, 134
wounded, and 50 made prisoners. OF
all the Beers engaged in the fighting,
only one was killed and but five
wounded!
Such lesson as that was not wasted
on the home government. The party of
Gladstone came into power and prompt
ly sought to end struggle in which the
right was clearly with the Beers. The
independence of the Transvaal in inter-
nal affairs was conceded and the war
came to an end.
But times change, and Joe Chamber
lain is not Gladstone. The hollowness
of the pretext of demanding aser fraE-
chise laws from the Boer government is
thus exposed by the Review of Reviews,
whose editor, w. Il. Stead, is an Eng
lishman of Englishmen:
The assertion that the naturalization con-
ditions are a severe hardship to Englishmen
in the Transvaal would be amusing If it were
not being used as pretext upon which to
force a war of conquest. There are undOubt
eddy many Englishmen who have been at.
tracted to Johannesburg and the gold mines.
But who for moment supposes that these
Englishmen are eager In good faith to re.
nounce the privileges of British citizenship
in order to be able to say that they have no
country except the Transvaal? The simple
fact is that these Englishmen, like those who
for temporary commercial purposes have
gone to various other parts OF the world out
side the British empire, value their birthright
as Englshmen above almost everything else
In the WORLD and no conditions of natural.
iZatiOn, however easy, could possibly induce
them to renounce the Queen and swear al
legiance to the South African republic in
good faith. II they went tn ~ough such nat
uralization process, ii would be for the pur
pose of swampiIg the Beers and delivering
the country over to England. 1t is rather too
much to expect that this, as a deliberate
policy on the part of the uitlanders, could be
countenanced and aided by the Boer citizens
of the Transvaal who really prize their in