Year: 1879

If the British government is determined
to make peace in Zululand, and finds itself
under the pressure of an absolute neces-
sity in that respect, but fears that 1t would
be unsafe to make peace save under cover
of a victory. then the battle gained by Lord
Chelmsford at Ulundi will probably answer
the purpose as well as victory that would
stand closer scrutiny. And that is per-
haps the policy. Her Majesty's governments
have crushed the savages. otherwise
it could only make peace in Africa
at the peril of having a more trouble
some enemy on its hands in England.
And in order that the British people may
believe the Zulus are crushed it is mainly
necessary that government dispatches and
newspapers in the government interest
should clamorously and persistently de-
clare that the battle just fought is a victory,
is decisive victory, and that Cetywayo
must make peace; or that if he will not
make peace it does not greatly matter, since
the results of the victory will permanently
cripple his operations. IT that is the pur-
pose with which almost everybody concerned
has declared that Lord Chelmsfords battle
ends the war it is useless to criticise it, for
the ruses of statecraft may come under the
same rule as songs in their immunity from
the support of affidavits and from argumen-
tative opposition; but If it should be
seriously pretended in military sense that
the war must come to an end because of that
A. In, hou ha
vinced. If Cetywayo had twenty thousand
men and lost eight hundred, that did not
cripple him as to his force. He has got
nineteen thousand yet, and for him
the difference between nineteen thou
sand and twenty thousand is not
the same as the difference between
victory and annihilation. For Cetywayo
the loss Of eight hundred men is bagatelle.
1t is fact that he will not consider as of
any moment whatever-a mere trivial mis-
adventure. Yet in what other respect did
this battle hurt him? In none at all, for
the pretence put forth at one moment that
they had destroyed his magazines and stores
in the krsal at Ulundi is found to be false.
He had moved his stores months since
to a newly built kraal far away, and
at Ulundi they burned only an empty
shell. One in search of partic-
ular snake who should find and destroy
the skin out Of which that snake crept last
year could not fairly claim that he had hurt
the snake; yet that claim would be about
the same as the one that Chelmsford makes
when he says that in burning the aban-
doned kraals at Ulundi he has accom-
plished the objects Of his expedition. The
facts Of the war now are these:-Chelms-
ford has not reached nor touched any
vital part of the Zulu power; he
did not find and destroy Cetywayo's
force; on his march he was attacked
by Cetywayo and repelled the attack
with loss to himself which he has ingen-
iously unders,ated in his reports. That
fight left Cetywayo in the field with nine
teen thousand men, accepting on this point
the English reports. Since the fight
Chelmsford has retreated to point thirty
miles soath of Ulundi toward the sea.
And there is a chorus that the war is over
But they are counting without the Zulus
and there are some reasons to believe that
peace made in that country without
Cetywayo will not be permanently salts
factory.