n the Nation has
quite made up its mind to have something done which another Nation or
State has made up its mind shall not be done. When there is this
point-blank conflict of wills, and neither side can give way, there must
be war; and the military view is that when you see war coming you should
get your troops into their places, because the first moves are the most
important, and a bad first move is very apt to lead to checkmate.

In the case of South Africa the true view was taken at the right time by
Sir Alfred Milner. He was instructed that Great Britain would take up
the Uitlander's cause, and sent to Bloemfontein to see whether President
Kruger was prepared for an equitable settlement. He proposed such a
settlement, and, as President Kruger declared the terms impossible, he
made it plain that if there were no settlement on such lines as he had
suggested, there must be war. That was the true view, and the moment
when the conference was broken off was the moment for Great Britain to
get her forces ready with all convenient speed. But Mr. Balfour on the
day when he heard the news took a civilian view; instead of looking the
war in the face he expressed the hope that President Kruger would change
his mind. That hope the Government cherished, as we now know, until the
end of the first week of September, when the Boer forces were so far on
in their preparations that Natal had been begging for protection. The
Government then sent ten thousand men, making the sixteen thousand of
Sir George White. Yet the Government at that time had before it the
military view that to compel the Boers to accept Great Britain's will
seventy thousand men would be required. Evidently, then, the sending of
the ten thousand arose not from the military view, but the civil view
that war is a disagreeable business, and that it is to be hoped there
will be none of it, or at any rate as little as possible.

The misfortunes in Natal will probably be repaired and the war in time
brought to its conclusion--the submission of the Boers to Great
Britain's will. But suppose the dispute had been with a great Power, and
that in such a case the military view had been shut out from the day the
negotiations began until the great Power was ready? The result must have
been disaster and defeat on a great scale. Disaster and defeat on a
great scale are as certain to come as the sun to rise to-morrow morning
unless the Government arranges to take the military view