For the last three months the Imperial Government has been in the unpleasant position of watching its adversaries grow continually stronger without being able to make adequate counter-preparations.

But when once this initial disability has been stated, it must also be admitted that the course of the military operations has been—­apart from their success or failure—­very lucky.  The Boers had the advantage of drawing first blood, and the destruction of the armoured train near Mafeking was magnified by them, as by the sensational Press in Great Britain, into a serious disaster.  A very bad effect was produced in the undecided districts—­it is perhaps wiser not to specify them at this moment.  But a few days later another armoured train ran out from Kimberley, and its Maxim guns killed five Boers without any loss to the troops.  The magnifying process was also applied to this incident with equal though opposite results.  Then came the news of the battle of Glencoe.  The first accounts, which were very properly controlled—­for we are at war with the pen as well as the sword—­told only of the bravery of the troops, of the storming of the Boer position, and of the capture of prisoners.  That the troops had suffered the heavier loss, that the Boers had retired to further positions in rear of the first, drawing their artillery with them, and that General Yule had retreated by forced marches to Ladysmith after the victory—­for tactical victory it undoubtedly was—­leaked into Cape Colony very gradually; nor was it until a week later that it was known that the wounded had been left behind, and that the camp with all stores and baggage, except ammunition, had fallen into the enemy’s hands.  Before that happened the news of Elandslaagte had arrived, and this brilliant action, which reflects no less credit on Generals French and Hamilton who fought it than on Sir George White who ordered it, dazzled all eyes, so that the sequel to Glencoe was unnoticed, or at any rate produced little effect on public opinion.

The Natal Field Force is now concentrated at Ladysmith, and confronts in daily opposition the bulk of the Boer Army.  Though the numbers of the enemy are superior and their courage claims the respect of their professional antagonists, it is difficult to believe that any serious reverse can take place in that quarter, and meanwhile many thousand soldiers are on the seas.  But the fact is now abundantly plain to those who are acquainted with the local conditions and with the Boer character, that a fierce, certainly bloody, possibly prolonged struggle lies before the army of South Africa.  The telegrams, however, which we receive from Great Britain of the national feeling, of the bye-election, of Lord Rosebery’s speech, are full of encouragement and confidence.  ’At last,’ says the British colonist, as he shoulders his rifle and marches out to fight, no less bravely than any soldier (witness the casualty lists), for the ties which bind South Africa to the Empire—­’at last they have made up their minds at home.’