New-York tribune., 1901-11-24

We're to be done to reform the War Office and to
bring hostilities to end. 1t would be necessary
for the people to stand over the government
with a stick. The Dukes of Northunl berland
and Marlborough had been defending the gov
ernment and this natural. since a Prime
Minister in difficulty ought ito put up his
dukes; but such defences deplora BILE, and
the truth ought to be told. 1t had been through
the mistakes and miscaculations of important
military officials that England had suffered dur
ing the Everything in Mr. Brodrick'S gar
den absolutely grand except what grew
there The campaign must be won. and with all
possible dispatch. Ministers. after supplying the
army with everything that was demanded, ought
not TO be allowed to run away and play and
feed ducks in the Serpentne. Lord Kitchener
was the most capable man IN the Kings uni
form, with immense energy for detail of all
kinds; but his time was taken up with unimpor
tant and disconnected matters so that he could
not think out broad and general plan of cam
paign. Sixty-nine so-calIed mobile columns
in the field, but nobody knew on what plan
they were working. The army was worn out by
continuous marching, trek trek, trek, over the
veldt month after month on the chance Of meet
ing a Boer, and with the probability that when
they pressing him hard they would be
called away three hundred miles for something
else. With this dangerous mismanagement be-
fore ones eyes. it was idle to cry peace when
there was no peace or confidence when there
was grave room for doubt
This is only a rough and ready analysis OF
exceedingly able speech, delivered in terse
sentences admirable for animation and lucldlty
The argument led up to the conclusion that
while Lord Kitchener had a free hand he had
more kinds of work than any man. even an
other Napoleon, could manage; and that the gov.
in SOJ,Th
as to limit ana assign the functions of the COM
rnander-in-chief and not to allow him to lose
his way in mass of irrelevant details. This
was perhaps a feeble exordium, even when
pieced out with a rhetorical passage in which
John Bull represented as making Pllgrlnl
Progress through the Valley of the Shadow OF
Death and the Slough of Despond, looking i'll
vain for Greatheart with his bright armor and
commanding countenance, and setting MS face
toward the Delectable Mountains of Victory.
1t would be a questionable policy to relieve
Lord Kitchener of administrative functions,
and it is not probable that the commander-n-
chief in South Africa desires so radical a
change Mr. Churchilrs constructive sugges-
tions had little weight and he laid little stress
upon them What was significant in his speech
was his sustained and destructive criticism of
ministerial sluggishness and military manage
ment. An almost exclusively Tory and Union
list audience listened to him with sympathetic
interest and warmly approved his caustic strict
ures He was manifesty in touch with the
undercurrent of public opinion in the country.
The self-confidence of young a politician
might be phenomenal, but his instinct was nn-
erring.
London does not always know what is going
on in the provinces. 1 am always impressed
with the superior buoyancy and fexibility of
English character when I make a journey to
provincial centres and get fairly outside of the
stagnant atmosphere of the metropolis. While
men In the London clubs are talking in strain
Of hopeless pessiInism about the war and the
collapse OF British prestige, the great industrial
hives Of the North brmmng over with
energy and hopefulness. In workaday centres
Ike Manchester there is no time for da~dlinS
in clubs and croaking about the perils OF a de-
caSent empire; and even in old fashioned
citv such as Leiceste a picked Tory assem-
blare laughs cheerily out not thoughtlessly
when a young political surgeon like Mr.
Churchill applies with deft, If impractical,
hands caustic 10 the national wounds There
is no lack Of either courage or energy in the
Ntdlands and in the North There is impatience