will serve to
convey an impression of the complete immunity with which not merely
the rank and file, but commandants and generals, entered and left the
British lines. It is believed that on one night General Louis Botha
slept in Johannesburg close to Lord Roberts, the British
Commander-in-Chief. The next morning he left the town in company with
some of the British troops. And in the Natal campaign it is notorious
that the camps of the Ladysmith relieving force were swarming with
Boer spies whom it was impossible to detect and punish. Even in the
besieged town itself the utmost secrecy at headquarters did not always
avail to prevent a timely intimation of a contemplated attack from
reaching the enemy's lines. Add to this the fact that every Boer
farmhouse throughout South Africa was an Intelligence Depot for the
enemy, and it is easy to understand the facility displayed by the
mobile and ununiformed Boer forces in evading the British columns.

Whether the humanity displayed by the British Government in thus
recognising the burghers as regular belligerents, and in other
respects, did not tend to bring about the very evil sought to be
avoided is another question. It is quite possible to maintain that the
comparative immunity from punishment and the disproportionate military
success which the Boers enjoyed did in fact, by contributing to the
prolongation of the war, ultimately produce a greater loss of life,
and a greater amount of material suffering, than would have been
incurred by the South African Dutch if the war had been waged with
greater severity on the part of Great Britain. That it increased the
cost of the war both in lives and in treasure to the British nation is
obvious. But this is a consideration which does not affect any
estimate of the merit or demerit displayed by the British Army in the
field that may be formed either by British or foreign critics. In
order to prove competency it is not necessary to show that no single
mistake was made or that nothing that was done might not have been
done better. No war department, no army ever has been or ever will be
created that could come scatheless from the application of such a test
of absolute efficiency. What we require to know is whether the same
standard of efficiency was shown to have been attained in the War
Office and in the Army as is required and obtained in any other branch
of the public service, or in any successful or progressive undertaking
conducted