forces in South Africa were absolutely and absurdly inadequate for
the purpose of the defence of our own frontier. Surely such a fact
must open the eyes of those who, in spite of all the evidence,
persist that the war was forced on by the British. A statesman who
forces on a war usually prepares for a war, and this is exactly
what Mr. Kruger did and the British authorities did not. The
overbearing suzerain power had at that date, scattered over a huge
frontier, two cavalry regiments, three field batteries, and six and
a half infantry battalions--say six thousand men. The innocent
pastoral States could put in the field forty or fifty thousand
mounted riflemen, whose mobility doubled their numbers, and a most
excellent artillery, including the heaviest guns which have ever
been seen upon a battlefield. At this time it is most certain that
the Boers could have made their way easily either to Durban or to
Cape Town. The British force, condemned to act upon the defensive,
could have been masked and afterwards destroyed, while the main
body of the invaders would have encountered nothing but an
irregular local resistance, which would have been neutralised by
the apathy or hostility of the Dutch colonists. It is extraordinary
that our authorities seem never to have contemplated the
possibility of the Boers taking the initiative, or to have
understood that in that case our belated reinforcements would
certainly have had to land under the fire of the republican guns.

In July Natal had taken alarm, and a strong representation had been
sent from the prime minister of the colony to the Governor, Sir W.
Hely Hutchinson, and so to the Colonial Office. It was notorious
that the Transvaal was armed to the teeth, that the Orange Free
State was likely to join her, and that there had been strong
attempts made, both privately and through the press, to alienate