" on November 15th, 1901, not only
has Lord Milner placed on record the actual position of affairs in the
new colonies at this time, but he has sketched with masterly precision
the nature of the economic and administrative problems that awaited
solution. The progress towards pacification won by the mobile columns
and the blockhouse system, the dominant influence of the railways as
the agency of transport, the condition of the Concentration Camps, and
the degree in which our responsibility for the non-combatant and
surrendered Boers limited our capacity to restore our own people to
their homes, the economic exhaustion of the country, the threatened
danger of the scarcity of native labour, and the processes and
problems of repatriation--all these subjects are touched as by a
master of statecraft.

[Sidenote: Improved situation.]

"Without being unduly optimistic," he writes, "it is impossible
not to be struck by two great changes for the better in [the
military situation] since the time when I first took up my
residence in the Transvaal--just eight months ago. These are the
now almost absolute safety and uninterrupted working of the
railways and the complete pacification of certain central
districts. As regards the railways, I cannot illustrate the
contrast better than by my own experiences. In the end of last
year and the earlier months of this I had occasion to make
several journeys between Capetown and Johannesburg or Pretoria,
and between Johannesburg and Bloemfontein. Though most careful
preparations were made and every precaution taken, I was
frequently 'hung up' on these journeys because the line had been
blown up--not, I think, with any reference to my movements, but
in the ordinary course of affairs. Small bodies of the enemy were
always hovering about, and a state of extreme vigilance, not to
say anxiety, was observable almost everywhere along the line.
Since my return from England I have again traversed the country
from East London to Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, and from
Johannesburg to Durban and back, to say nothing of constant
journeys between this place and Pretoria. On no single occasion
has there been the slightest hitch or the least cause for alarm.
The trains have been absolutely up to time, and very good time.
They could not have been more regular in the most peaceful
count