ered conditions produced by the
extension and perfection of telegraphic communication, and the
development of the Press throughout the civilised world, gave such
utterances a value in international relations altogether different from
that possessed (say) by similar utterances on the part of the
anti-nationalists during the Napoleonic wars--is a circumstance that
merits the most serious consideration. No one will deny that this
unpatriotic form of opposition, so long as it exists, constitutes an
ever-recurring danger to the most vital interests of the community. The
ultimate remedy lies in the creation of a representative council of the
Empire, and the consequent separation of questions of inter-imperial and
foreign policy from the local and irrelevant issues of party politics.
Until this is done, it remains to establish a mutual understanding
under which such questions would be recognised as being outside the
sphere of party recrimination; and for this purpose it is necessary to
create a force of public opinion strong enough to compel the observance
of this understanding; or, failing this, to visit its non-observance
with political penalties commensurate to the injury inflicted.

[Sidenote: The Army Corps absorbed.]

The conflict which followed the expiration of the forty-eight hours
allowed by the Boer ultimatum is in more than one respect the most
extraordinary in the annals of war. The existence of the cable and
telegraph made instant and continuous communication possible between
the army in the field and the nation at home. Public opinion, informed
by the daily records furnished by the Press, became a factor in
determining the conduct of the war. Nor is it strange that a civilian
population, separated by 6,000 miles from the theatre of operations,
should have proved an injurious counsellor. The army was ordered to
conquer a people, but forbidden to employ the methods by which alone
it has been hitherto held that conquest is attainable. But no
influence exercised upon the course of the war by false
humanitarianism or political partisanship produced any results
comparable to the original injury inflicted upon the British Army by
the ignorance and irresolution displayed by the nation. The
postponement of effective military preparations by the Home Government
until the necessity for these preparations had become so plain that
no effort of the Opposition could embarrass its action, was the _fons
et origo_ of all subseq