The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-02-15

what the others said that they intended
| the Transvaal to boss the whole OF
! South Africa. They were satisfied that
it had mission. The man who thinks
| he has mission resembles the man
who fulfills a prophecy about himself.
| / recollect, just az the war of 1870 broke
| out, Meroslowski, the Polish General,
| predicted German victory. His rea-
sons We're, "Guillaume Sc croft une mis-
sion ct Moltke ne laisse rien au hasard."
The Salisbury Government, we all
know, looked forward to the South Afri-
can crisis which came last October But
what levity and temerity it has shown
all these years in regard to the lmpend-
ing danger! What excuse can 1T give
for all the terrible losses due to it's way
of leaving everything to chance, save
the puerile Jameson raid, which beal s
the Government mark of temerity and
levity?
The Salisbury Cabinet unlike the last
Gladstone one, has swayed as it pleas
ed the Crown and the House. Why
then, did it not prepare, in every way
that would not excite Boer suspicious,
for the threatened danger? Was any
strategical mission sent to Natal and
other parts of South Africa to draw up
maps and otherwise prepare the way
for Generals? Why not have told the
financi6ts of the Rand that to protect
themselves they must form corps Of
peddlers devoted to their interests who
would go from farmhouse to farmhouse
and study short cuts, drifts and noun
tain passes out of beaten tracks? That
ie what Moltke did in preparing for the
invasion of the Vasges and possible
march into France through Switzerland.
l remember spending a Summer beforo
the war in a hilly and sylvan 'art Of
the Seine ct Disc. We We're infested
with peddlers speaking with herman
accent, Some came as costermongers,
some as itinerant fishmongere, some on
ether pretenses. How they eyed gard
en- walls that might afterward be loop
holed, and terraces that Nigh be con-
verted into Businesses! A German Col
onel with whom I was acquainted vent
as a horse dealer to Tarbes, and thence
made excursions into the Pyrenees, with
a view to an invasion from Spain led
by Prim.
The late Sir Philip Cunliffe owen told
he had 1t from the late EN-
peror-that staff officers were sent to
serve as walters at Strasburg, Nancy,
and Metz. All the walters of the chief
hotel of Metz when the Emperor Ma
poleon III. was there were Generals.
This was, as Mierolawski said, leaving
nothing to chance. Why did not Her
Majestys Government act in
a similar way? AS it is, Butler, War;
rem, and the other Generals on the Tu-
gela seem engaged in game of blind
mans buff. None of them knows
where he is going. Not one of them has
any notion of what sort of ground he
has before him. Warren did not, as DR..
Leyde remarked, know that Spion Kop
was dominated by other ridges. One
policeman guided General Gatacre in
mis- disastrous night march. He proved |
% be a blind man leading the blind.
Had there been several other guides, |
hey could have checked him. All the |
for want Of foresight and |
makes the British Generals |
he object of Continental 'jeers. The |
plendid soldiers under them are despite |
heir heroism, rather objects of pity
han of admiration. Can we wonder at |
his 9-Paris letter TO London Truth