Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1901-09-06
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS
ACTS AND OPINIONS GATHERED
FROM CONTEMPORARIES
HOPE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLES,

When the pprsians were cong ueTiuS
the Ionion Islands they used to met
the inhabitants. They would form a
line of soldiers extending from one
side of the island to the other. Then,
clasping hands, the troop would move
forward and when they reached the
other end they knew that every living
being on the way had been caught.
Some such process Is going on in South
Africa. The methods in vogue there
are unique in modern warfare. Usually
a country is conquered by the occupa-
ton of strategic points and the capture
or dispersal of organized armies. Only
a minute fraction of the population Is
directly affected. But the only way in
which England seems able to conquer
the Beers is literally to depopulate their
country. when former cOnquerors
smade soitute and called it peace
the expression was only fgurative. but
Great Britain is carrying it out In
absolute fact.
Two thirds of all the men in the Boer
REPUBLICS have been either killed or
captured. and the survivors are now
held in British prison camps. Most Of
the women and children have been
gathered in other camps. The war in
its present stage is simply the process of
gathering in the rest of the population,
one. two, or half-dOzen at time.
When the last Boer is a prisoner there
will be peace.
The fact that such unheard-of methods
are necessary to end war of conquest
must strengthen the faith of small
nations everywhere in their ability to
maintain their independence. If the
Boer republics had not been so micro
scopically minute it would not have
been possible to attack them on such
lines. Switzerland, Holland. Belgium.
Sweden are small countries; yet the
smallest of them has over three million
inhabitants and six hundred thousand
men of military age. 1t would be out
of the question for any invader to pen
UP quarter of such a population in
prison camps. With the Boer spirit,
any nation in Europe would be uncon-
Querable.
But that spirit after all, is the es-
sential thing Greece has ten times the
population of the Boer republics. She
has trained regular army and a navy
stronger than THAI of Turkey. In her
late war she had an almost impregnable
frontier to defend. Yet she could
hardly hold the Turks back longer than
it would have taken to march if there
had been nothing in the way.
But Swiss and Swedes and Dutchmen
may feel reasonably safe. What could
Of In ion,
even though 1t were a million strong.
do against 100000 SwitZers defending
the Alpine passes with modern rifles
aud the spirit of Sempach and Morgan
ten? Who could conquer a million
Dutchmen behind the bikes that let the
floods upon the armies of Alva. or
100000 Swedes and Norwegians fight
ing like the men of Gustavus Adolphus:
As Bloch has shown, the Beers at
Magersfontein defended line twenty
miles long with force of 300 men to
the mile. That line was never broken,
and Crone might have been holding ii
yet if the British had not brought up
forces numerous enough to envelop the
ends. If Switzerland We're attacked
from all sides al once she could line her
frontiers with forces of thousand TO
the mile, and she could defend the only
accessible routes of approach with
masses many times as dense. If the
Swiss should fight like the Beers, and
there is nothing in history to indicate
that they would not, all the neighbour
ing powers combined would find them
hard to conquer The day of the little
peoples is not Yet over.-Saturday
Evening Post.