New-York tribune., 1901-07-25

trustworthy authority may be pardoned If
they insist upon having the censorship abolished
and every facility offered to press correspond
ents for describing the methods adopted by the
military columns marching through Dutch ter
ritories and the precise condition of the swarms
of refugees in the concentration camps
Sir Henry CAMPBELL -Bannerman is the re-
sponsbe leader of the opposition. and he has re-
Gently asserted that British methods in clearing
the districts of the two conquered, but unpaci-
fed. colonies have been as barbarous as those
of the Spaniards in emptying and laying waste
large portions of Cuba. Probably he did not
know much about the Spanish tactics adopted
by General Weyler and would be astonished If
any one were to remind him that in Cuba all the
pacifcos, or -belligerents were driven into
narrow circles around garrisoned towns or forts
and left to perish from starvation and pesti-
lence; that their huts were burned, their stores
of provisions destroyed and their fields planted
with corn or potatoes dug UP, and that nothing
done keep these starving and diseased
refugees alive. Lord Milner has different
story to tell about the thirty thousand Boer refu
gees under British protection. Rations
served out TO them morning and night; hos
pitals have been opened for the cure of the
sick and the camps under regular medical
inspection; and in many instances there
schools to which the children are regularly sent.
This is not the Weyler method of devastating
the country and starving rebels into submission:
yet the Liberal leader, without being brought
face to face with the facts has made this X
traordinary comparison. It would
full purpose if some of the correspondents who
are now in high revolt against the ineptitude
of the military censorship were allowed to give
a plain recital of the incidents of one of the
clearance marches. and of the treatment
ceiyed by the thousands of refugees under Brit
ish protection. This would enable fair minded
men to ascertain whether Sir Henry Campbell
Bannerman Lord Milner is telling the truth
respecting British methods OF warfare in the
Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony.
The practical moral to be drawn from the
periences of war correspondents in South Africa
is that the business of supplying newspapers
with information concerning military opera
tions has become unmanageable. In modern
campaign the wires required for military
use. and the staff Of correspondents needs TO
be reduced to few trained men in the employ
of general press associations If half dozen
more experienced men like Mr.. Burleigh Mr..
Gwynne and Mr.. Wallace had been appointed
staff officers with the special function Of de-
scribing the camp incidents and battle scenes
for the entire English press. they would have
been their own censors and would have sup
piled the public at home with a trustworthy
and accurate history of the campaign from day
to day. If newspaper enterprise be incom-
patible with military requirements, the military
staff is under obligation 10 provide some sub
stitute for ii; and the services OF few trained
correspondents acting in confidential relations
with headquarters and released from the sur
veilIance of ignorant and captious
would be more satisfactory than the work which
has been done during the campaign in South
Africa. Each great newspaper might not have
its own representative at the front, but the
press as a whole would have news service OF
a high order of excellence, free from the taint
of irresponsible sensatonalism and untram-
melled by the restraints and vexatious an
noyances Of censorship. Some practical meas
ures of this kind will be Indispensable If the
English people hereafter are to have full and
accurate information respecting the work done
by their brave soldiers. !. n. f.