s arranged or accepted without protest this new system of sending out
the Army in fragments, each of which may be invested or used up before
the next can arrive.

THE NATION'S PROBLEM

_December 14th_, 1899

The failure of Lord Methuen's attack at Magersfontein has brought home
to every mind the extreme gravity of the situation in South Africa, and
it seems most likely that in the western theatre of war the crisis has
issued in a decision unfavourable to the British cause.

It is well to keep the whole before our eyes even when examining a part,
so I begin with a bird's-eye view. In Natal Sir Redvers Buller seems to
be ready, and to be about to strike, for the advance of Barton's brigade
towards Colenso must be the prelude to the advance of the main body to
the right or the left to cross the Tugela above or below the broken
railway bridge. If Sir Redvers Buller is so fortunate as to bring the
principal Boer army to an action and to defeat it so thoroughly as
seriously to impair its fighting power, the balance in the eastern
theatre of war will have turned, and attention may be concentrated upon
the restoration of the position in the west. There the balance has
turned the wrong way. General Gatacre's defeat at Stormberg would not be
a very serious matter, for his force was small, were it not that it
damages the credit of British generalship, and that it must have given a
great stimulus not only to the Free State army but to the rebellion of
the Cape Boers. For the Boers Stormberg is a great victory, which will
encourage them to fresh enterprises in a country where at least every
second Dutch farmer is their friend and ally. They may, therefore, be
expected to turn their attention as soon as they can to Lord Methuen's
communications. This probability rendered Lord Methuen's position at
Modder River doubly critical. On Sunday he was ready, and set out to
test his fate. On Tuesday he was back again in his camp, the measure of
his defeat being given by his assurance that in his camp he was in
perfect security. Those are ominous words, for they have not the air of
the man who does not know that he is beaten, and who means to try again
at once. It is, however, conceivable that, as the defeat seems to have
been caused by an inexplicable blunder, the marching of a brigade in the
dark in dense formation close up to the muzzles of the enemy's rifles,
the effort may be made to attack again with better dispositions. A
seco