The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-10-25
CURSE OF WAR.
Blood and Treasure Expended In
South Africa by England.

South Africa by England.
Baltimore American: With the
struggle in South Africa now stretch
ing into it's third year, and with no
end in sight, little wonder is it that
the discussions over it in England are
becoming more heated, and that no
opportunity is missed to call the gov
eminent to account and to demand
from it's representatives explanations
and for it's failures to keep
it's promises and the continued de-
feats of it's forces by the Beers. The
secretary Of war has been compelled
to admit that England has now 314,-
900 men directly or indirectly con-
cerned with the operations in South
Africa, and the estimated cost of the
val up to date is close to a thousand
millions Of dollars. More than >1O0,-
900 of the men sent into the field have
been killed or wounded or taken pris-
oners or invalided home. And this
enormous army, with every modern
equipment and with the best supplies
money can buy, has been now for over
two years fighting a little army which
never amounted to $4,000 men and
which now will not count up 10000
Great Britain has in the field twenty
soldiers to every Boer able to carry
a gun, and is no nearer the conquest
Of the little republic than when the
war began. Whoever sent the tele-
gram to Paul Kruger congratulating
him on the work the Beers had done
in the last two years knew whereof
he wrote.
This enormous outlay of money,
this waste of human life, this uncertain
ty regarding the final outcome of the
struggle, have begun to arouse a feel
ing of bitterness among those who
have been the chief sufferers and upon
whom the burdens have fallen the
heaviest. This bitterness, the out
growth. of grief and disappointment,
has begun to overshadow the patriot
ism of which all Englishmen boast,
no matter in what part Of the world
they live. The repeated failures in
South Africa stare them in the face.
They see thai Kitchener has done no
better than his predecessors, and
that the greatest soldiers England
a produce have been virtually COM
pb1JaJ 4> 1~,,f,c, +J,+ ~, +,c1r 20 49,
quering the Beers is too much for
them. Kitchener is even now trying
his best to get home, to rest from
his failures and to let another stand
the torrent of criticism which has
swept down from London upon every
general put in charge of the South
African campaign.
Meanwhile, at home, Sir Redvers
Butler, hero of the defeats of Spion
Kop, Colenso and a half a dozen other
disasters, has begun to fight his bait,
ties over again and in a spirit which
indicates that he doesn't care a farth-
ing what the government or the Eng
fish people think of him. He has
just startled the country by his an
nouncement that he had advised the
garrisons at Ladysmith to surrender,
and by this confession has very like
ly ruined all his chances for a peer
age. Embittered by the criticisms
hat have been passed upon him, Bull
Ter has grown desperate, and his
course will doubtless eventually lead
to an Investigation which will lay be-
fore the public all the miserable
blunders of the disastrous campaigns
against a handful of brave and deter
mined men. Great Britain entered
into conflict and is now paying the
price that staggers humanity.