in for a Nicaragua Canal debauch, and have it the members would, knowing that the White House looked on approvingly. It seems now that it was Russia, not Germany, who was going to buy the Danish West Indies from the Standard Oil Company. The reporter made the mistake of saying Germany, because he had not at first reflected that "the ways of Russian diplomacy are much darker and more silent than those of German diplomacy." But they will have to be mighty dark and silent to deceive the New York Times reporter. He will make these diplomats bolt from their subterranean burrows. For our part, we maintain that it was the Sultan who was about to buy the islands, and that his commission to the Standard Oil Company was to be his way of paying the missionary indemnity. But we admit that this dark and silent plan has been broken off by the fearless exposure of the Times. Meanwhile, it is reassuring to learn from Secretary Root that his war-cry at the Grant dinner was not directed at Germany, for this nefarious transaction of the islands, or for any other. In fact, Mr. Root explains, he had no particular nation in mind. He just let off his whoop on general principles-it was merely "academic," he says. This is a much more elegant description of his proceeding than that applied to it by the Brooklyn Eagle, which said that it came at "the alcoholic stage of a public dinner." We shall have to be on our guard hereafter when diners reach the academic stage. The President's appointment of Mr. Dole as first American Governor of the Hawaiian Islands is eminently fit. There is an upstart and hot-headed faction among the Hawaiians which has taken offence at President Dole's conservative ways, and would have been glad to see him replaced by a man more after its own heart. It is said to have maintained a lobby at Washington to prevent the nomination of Mr. Dole. But President McKinley has wisely decided to respect the wishes of the more intelligent and stable elements of the population, and to continue at the head of affairs a man who, both as judge and as President, has shown himself steady and safe. The real difficulties of Hawaiian self-government lie further on; but, in the preliminary step of selecting a Governor, no mistake has been made. Massachusetts continues to be very fortunate in having Governors who recognize the obligation of the Executive to thwart measures which are pushed through the Legislature by the party machine, or which make their way through both branches because the lawmakers are afraid of the "soldier vote," or of some other organized element in the electorate. Mr. Crane, who began his charged with violating the anti-Trust law of the State. To cap the climax, he followed up this performance by demanding that he be sent to the national convention as a delegate from a State halge, to run no further back. The Legis- whose Republicans profess in their plat lature recently passed a bill to "get assault on the merit system, and the Le- forms to be "down on Trusts." There were indignant protests from the party press, under the lead of the Omaha Bee, the chief Republican organ, which declared last week that the party would "invite disaster" if it should at the same time "condemn the Trusts and endorse the Trusts by placing the attorney of the Standard Oil Trust at the head of its delegation to the national convention." But Thurston had too strong a hold to be dislodged, and the disaster was invited by a vote of 609 to 500. There is no doubt that among the Bryanites themselves sentiment is now rapidly growing in favor of cutting loose from "16 to 1." The absurdity of a party's tying itself to an out-of-date theory, which the nation has evidently rejected, is coming to be seen, not only among the men who control the party machinery in the East, but in the States of the Middle West, and to some extent in the South. There are reports of a powerful movement to eliminate from the Kansas City platform the whole matter of free coinage at a fixed ratio, and to substitute a vague deliverance in favor of "bimetallism," such as used to be a great favorite with Republican conventions out West a few years ago. Bryan himself, however, is represented as clinging desperately to the old plank. In fact, he seems as bent in May, 1900, upon push It is pleasant to find President McKinley also making use of the veto power. He grew up in a State which has never given the Executive this right, and both nature and habit have inclined him always to accept this view that the Governor-or the President-does not properly share in the law-making power. But he has just vetoed a bill, and one of the sort that it was very easy to sign, too. A perfectly proper measure, originating in the House, to rectify the boundaries of the Navajo Indian reservation, so as to restore to a few white men the ranches which had been inadvertently included in it, was amended in the Senate so as to open, under the mining laws, a part of the reservation where gold is supposed to exist, and the House agreed. Mr. McKinley, however, has refused his approval to the outrage. He points out that it would inevitably be regarded by the Indians as a breaching "16 to 1" to the front as McKinley of good faith, and insists that "they should be dealt with in a manner calculated to give them confidence in the Government, and to assist them in passing through the inevitable transition from wards of the Government to a state of civilization and full citizenship." This is sound doctrine, and peculiarly timely when we are taking on so many more "wards of the Government," in different parts of the world. Nebraska may pretty safely be put down in the Bryan column after the action of the Republican State convention on May 2. The success of the Populists in the past has been due to the badness of Republican rule rather than to any merit of their own, and this badness has grown out of the control of the party organization by corporation influences of the most obnoxious sort. Senator Thurston has always typified these influences, and a few weeks ago he made himself more offensive than ever by deserting his duties as a national legislator at Washington, and going to Nebraska to appear before the Supreme Court as counsel for the Standard Oil Company, when that corporation was was upon making his campaign exclusively on the tariff issue in April, 1896. Gov. Roosevelt's political education is proceeding apace. That is the true inference to be drawn from his consenting to make party spoils of the responsible and delicate duties of the transfer-tax appraisers, and allowing Platt to fill the new offices with a set of machine politicians. True, he insisted upon "naming" a friend of his own for one of the "places," but the rest he flung as unblushingly as Croker could to the party wolves. The time has passed, however, for reformers to get excited about these performances of the man who once led the whole choir of reform. Their true rôle now is to watch, with amused interest, the stages of his political evolution. Time was when Theodore Roosevelt, as Gen. Harrison said in Carnegie Hall, wanted to reform everything "right away," and thought everybody else terribly slow. But, under the skilful tutelage of Platt, he has learned those great principles of temporary surrender to the devil which he now takes every occasion to expound as the true method of attaining political salvation. No speech of his, no Cromwell article, is now complete without warnings against those ineffably silly reformers who do not see that real reform is necessarily nine-tenths corruption. Some carping critics have found in these reiterated assertions of the Governor that it is the highest duty of political man to make compromise with sin, an apolegetic note, as if the new Roosevelt were conscious that he stood condemned by the old Roosevelt that Harrison knew. But apology is not in keeping with the frank simplicity of his character as we see it. Platt has shown him the more excellent way of using the patronage of office, and Gov. Roosevelt, while acting on the Senator's instructions, is merely paying public tributes to the teacher at whose feet he is now sitting. Gov. Roosevelt did well in refusing to approve the bill relieving school trustees from the legal obligation to purchase furniture made in the State prisons. Had he signed it, the manufacture of such furniture in the prisons would have been stopped, a quantity of expensive machinery would have been made useless, many more prisoners would have been condemned to idleness, and in subsequent sessions of the Legislature other bills would have been passed which would have destroyed the whole system of employing convicts. But the message in which the Governor explains his action is extremely weak. He states that the decrease in the number of prisoners since 1895 is the consequence of the abolition of the contract-labor system, a proposition which is entirely unsupported by either experience or reason. He favors giving up the present use of machinery in the industries carried on in the prisons, regardless of the fact that in that event the cost of producing school furniture or any other staple articles of manufacture would be so great as to make it impossible to compete with outside manufactories. The public institutions of the State are required to use the articles produced in the prisons only when they are as cheap and as good as those offered in the outside market, and if the prisoners are not to have the aid of machinery, the cost of their products would render them unsalable. It is true, as Gov. Roosevelt says, that the people of this State do not expect to make a profit by running prison factories. If they ever had any such expectation, they must have long ago abandoned it in despair. But they have a right to ask that the heavy charge of maintaining convicts in idleness, or of relieving them from the duty of supporting themselves by productive labor, shall not be increased. as Gov. Roosevelt would have it. In July, 1896, the Treasury estimated the "per capita" circulation at a trifle over $21. The monthly report just is sued, as of May 1, 1900, places the fig- lem of disestablishment is thus steadily forced forward, and it may now at any time become the question of the day in English politics. Gen. Roberts's advance progresses favorably, and if his transport does not up $450,000,000. This gain will probably break down, there is no reason why he Conservatives, that the whole affair was wretchedly handled. Quite a flutter was caused by the unexpected success of the Nationalists in the Paris municipal election. It seemed as if the boastful Jingo and anti-Dreyfus had more hold on the electorate than people dreamed. But the returns from similar elections in the interior show that the Nationalists have not gained the confidence of the conservative' dwellers in the small towns, and indicate once more how poor an index to the political sentiment of France Paris has become. The present French Government is essentially one of peace and conciliation, and finds its support among the steady-going Republicans of the provinces. was A decision of great importance to the Church of England has been rendered by the Primate, the Archbishop of York concurring. The decision prohibits the "reservation of the Sacrament" in all its forms, and will force the High Church element to come to an equally important decision on its part. Hardly any With a bourgeois President at practice was more violently opposed by the head of it, it makes its appeal to the the early Protestants than that of re- bourgeoisie of the country, and, so far, has serving the Sacrament by the clergy. It met with astonishing and gratifying rewas believed to imply the existence of sponse. When we recall the fact that especial sanctity in the priesthood; a the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry Catholic assumption which the robust formed confessedly as a stop-gap governspirit of the Reformation fiercely an- ment, to pull the country through the tagonized. The modern Anglican spirit, Dreyfus agony, its continuance in power however, is very different, and the ten- all these months is a surprise, and speaks dency to introduce the Catholic ritual has much for the skill and tact with which become very strong. Some of the mani- it has managed to hit the sentiment of festations of this tendency, such as the the country between wind and water. For use of incense and portable lights, have the rest, the municipal election in Paris been already pronounced illegal, and the was a good deal of a comedy. position of the High Church clergy is be- were parties so split up, so divided for coming more and more untenable. It the purpose of being fantastically recomwas believed that, while the reservation bined. One candidate for civic honors of the Sacrament for the purpose of announced himself as a “Republican-Naadoration would be forbidden, the prac- tionalist-Socialist." Another summed up tice would be allowed for the sick and his political opinions as those of a “Lidying, but, as the decision is reported, it❘ beral-Republican-Anti-Semite." Still anmakes no exceptions. The great prob- other ran simply as a "Frenchman.” Never THE GREAT REPUBLICAN IF. The important Constitutional question raised by the conquest of Spanish possessions by the United States has been passed upon by the United States Cir cuit Court in Minnesota. A writ of ha beas corpus was applied for by one Ortiz, a Porto Rican, who was arrested, tried by a military commission, and sentenced to imprisonment in February, 1899. The writ was refused by Judge Lochren, on the ground that the military commis、 sion had jurisdiction until the treaty of peace with Spain was finally ratified, which did not take place until April 11. But Judge Lochren found occasion to hold that by the cession of Porto Rico it became an integral part of the UnitConstitution ed States, and that the thereupon, ex proprio vigore, extended over the island and its people. The precedents, as we have pointed out, are overwhelmingly in favor of this doctrine; but the point does not seem to❘ have been necessarily involved. Nevertheless it is satisfactory to have a judge whose standing is as good as that of Judge Lochren declare himself in favor of maintaining the principles of Constitutional government. Put on as bold a front as they may, the Republican managers have all along had moments of sinking and qualms about their policy of Imperialism. Judge Lochren's decision reveals again the death's head at the Republican banquet. The party is committed to a plan which may be declared illegal by the Supreme Court. In other words, it must write its platform this year in the conditional mood. If the Court will permit us, we shall do so and so. But if it will not? That is the terrible contingency which will take the heart out of Republican campaign oratory and make the shouting hollow. No party can arouse enthusiasm over a great perhaps. That the whole fabric of their Imperial policy may go down on the verdict of a majority of nine judges, the Republicans do not deny. How nervous and alarmed they are over the awkward possibility that it will, they show in many ways. One of them is the extraordinary pains they are taking to keep a case involving the issue out of the hands of the Supreme Court as long as possible. Litigants sure of their ground do not thus desperately strive to delay trial. Moreover, in their sneers at Judge Lochren, the party organs avow the low motives which they hope to see operative in the highest court of the land. He, they say, is "a Democratic judge"; his law is found only for the purpose of embarrassing the Administration. The inference is clear that when the case finally comes before the Supreme Court, partisan considerations are expected to twist the law so as to aid the Republicans. This new form of insult to an august tribunal the Imperialists may well be allowed to mono polize. If they could have their way, going to be very stern and high-minded in doing its duty by the poor islanders, even at great cost-but if-and there's uncommonly great virtue in this if— their products cannot be tariffed in our ports, why, Republicans are determined to take the cash and let the credit go. In a word, the new idols of the Republican party have not supplanted its old idol, Protection. Imperialism is but a gilded toy compared with the dear old grinning monster before which the party has gashed and cut itself all these years. If the two cannot peacefully divide the Just why it is so, was left clear by Republican worship-if one has to be admissions of Republican leaders in smashed-Imperialism will be the fetish Congress in the course of the Porto Rico to be cast out, so as to leave Protection debates. That small island they cared without a rival near the throne. And if nothing about; but beyond it, and le- the Supreme Court gives the word, the gally in the same status, lie the Philip-❘ Republican managers will take the lead pines. The thought of free trade with in the very act-withdrawal from the that archipelago appalls the stoutest Re-Philippines-which they now denounce publican heart. "Why," said Senator as one of shameful cowardice and disForaker, "if we are not allowed under the honor. Constitution to levy duties upon Philippine products, and treat the natives like aliens, the annexation of the islands is a great calamity, and we must hasten to get rid of them as soon as possible." The loud amen was heard from Republicans in either House and from the party press. That is to say, if Imperialism threatens the protective system, overboard it will be flung, and the party will not first look to see if a hospitable whale is there to take care of its Jonah. Pause a moment to note what a beautiful comment this makes upon all the brave words of the Republicans about national duty and honor. The defence of the Philippine adventure has passed through three stages. First, it was all humanity, with incidental glory. Then it was business and profit. Finally, as the country has seen that there was neither glory nor cash in the affair, the defence has come down to noble appeals to live up to the national obligations we have assumed. We may have been asses, as Bishop Potter admits we were, to go to the Philippines, but we should be poltroons if we came away. Our honor is involved. We should be disgraced in the eyes of the world if we were now to withdraw. What, haul down the flag? What, scuttle? You can hear the choking indignation. But, bless these bursting orators, one little decision of the Supreme Court would make them bawl for scuttling and hauling down as loudly as they now do for being true to our imperative duty to stay. If our heroic sacrifices of men and money to subdue the Filipinos are to result in our being compelled to admit their goods free of duty, they may go hang for all we care. Japan may take the islands, or Russia, or Germany, or even England; or they may stew in their own, grease; America will have absolutely nothing to do with them if they take away one jot or one tittle from the sacred system of protection. That is flat. The Republican party is HOW DEPENDENCIES ARE RULED. The Congress of the United States has had occasion during the present session to constitute governments for Porto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska. The case of Porto Rico, however, monopolized pub takes the lic attention. A few persons, perhaps, If we compare the treatment of the three Territories for which Congress has just legislated, we see how little part the interests of their inhabitants played in the final determination. The extraordi nary vicissitudes of the Porto Rican bill reflected the influence of American interests, not of those of the inhabitants of that island. The vital consideration, from the point of view of both parties, was the event of the coming political campaign in this country. A few statesmen were profoundly interested in the constitutional question involved, but they regarded chiefly the ultimate effect of a colonial policy on the nature of our own government. The leaders of the Administration were absorbed in calculating how far it would be safe to go in lowering duties, without alienating protectionist voters. The leaders of the opposition were chiefly concerned to have the bill so constructed as to make as much trouble as possible for their adversaries. In this case, fortunately, the open display of the sordid motives of the protectionists shocked the humane sentiments of our people, and brought about | a compromise which was reasonably favorable to Porto Rico. But even this compromise left the control of the government of the island in the hands of American officials, whose salaries are to be paid by the Porto Ricans. The President of the United States fills all the important offices, and practically controls the disposition of franchises. In the case of Hawaii, the influence of American political theories was, for a number of reasons, more potent than that of party considerations. The public took no interest in the matter, and there was no public opinion to be deferred to, nor were many votes to be lost or won. No question of tariffs was involved, and it was perfectly clear that Hawaii was already governed in an orderly manner. The bill originally introduced by the Hawaiian committee, whose members were familiar with the situation, was substantially in accordance with the desires of the American element. It provided for the continuance of the existing government, by means of a restricted suffrage, and by the practical limitation of appointments to office to resident Americans. But the measure was torn all to pieces by Congress. The prohibitionist sentiment was gratified by a provision that saloons for the sale of intoxicating drinks should not be allowed, and it was only in the last stages of the contest that this matter was committed to the proper body, the Legislature of Hawaii. property qualification for voters was abolished, and the poll-tax requirement met the same fate, the democratic prejudices of this country overriding all considerations of Hawaiian expediency. The Of course, the practice of importing laborers held to service for a term of years had to go, a reform for which the Hawaiian planters were prepared, having supplied themselves with laborers in advance. But Congress was not content with this, and not only prohibited the importation of contract laborers, but also nullified all existing contracts made with them. Chinese immigration was prohibited, and the Chinese already in Hawaii were forbidden to enter this country. The control of franchises was transferred to Congress, and corporations were forbidden to acquire and hold more than a thousand acres of land, vested rights being preserved. A vigorous, and for a time successful, attempt was made to have the Territorial offices turned over to our politicians, but finally Hawaii, more fortunate than Porto Rico, was allowed to have its rulers appointed by the President from among its own citizens, and to have them paid by the United States. The worst evils of carpet-bag government will thus be avoided. It seems impossible to predict what the future of Hawaii will be under this form of government, for the reason which we have assigned, that it is the embodiment of American political theories. The suffrage is restricted to citizens who can read, write, and speak English or Hawaiian, which seems to leave the control of the government in the hands of the natives. But the Portuguese and Japanese are very numerous, and, if they choose to qualify, they are numerically able to take control. The American element will be apparently in the situation of the white people of the South after the civil war; but it is improbable that Congress will tolerate the expedients by which the Southern whites have established their supremacy. Commercially, the future of Hawaii depends on the sugar industry, and no one can tell whether that industry can be carried on without contract labor. The history of Jamaica is full of warning. It may be repeated in Hawaii; but the ruling element there has only itself to thank if the administration of the government by Congress be less satisfactory than it was when it had it wholly in its own hands. The condition of Alaska has long been a scandal, and the bill finally passed by Congress at least provides for the administration of justice in that Territory. It contains a civil code of procedure, and provides a judiciary, with a corps of attorneys and marshals. But this bill was not allowed to pass without placating the prohibitionists, although hardly any one supposes that the liquor traffic can be annihilated by being made illegal. The measure contains no provision for a Territorial Legislature, and creates a very crude system of taxation by means of licenses. Its fate long depended on the result of a conflict between mining interests, certain enterprising Lapps having anticipated the American miners in the Cape Nome region, and the latter being resolved to oust them. It is hard to tell from the provisions of the bill how the question will be determined, and the whole measure is evidently tentative in character. It shows, and the debate on its passage shows still more clearly, how impossible it is for such a body as Con gress to govern remote regions with much regard to local conditions. THE STRIKE EPIDEMIC. The month of May has often been distinguished by unrest in the industrial world. The severe conditions of winter are over, and, with the onward rush of spring, there is a universal impulse to increase activity and to enlarge life. It is the period of hope and bright anticipations, and all laborers feel that if they are to better their condition, this is the season to accomplish it. Not long since, a universal strike on the 1st of May was urged by the international union of laborers; and while the plan was too extensive to be successful, the date chosen was the natural one. The demand for farm labor is then urgent, and the great industry of building is normally at its highest pitch of activity. The general demand for workmen is thus intensified by the absorption of the unemployed, and the conditions of the labor market, as a rule, are at such a period more favorable than at any other season to an advance in wages. For other reasons the disposition of laborers to strike is at present peculiarly strong, and the extent to which strikes are taking place has become very great. These strikes are no doubt regarded with much alarm in many quarters. The Republican politicians are especially concerned. Their mainstay in the coming campaign was to be the prosperity of the country. Every one was supposed to be "feeling good"; to have a deep, underlying sense of comfort, which would cause him to reject counsels of discontent. Workmen in general, they argued, were making good wages and working full time, and they would of course feel that their prosperity was due to the beneficent administration at Washington. But the widespread disturbance in the world of labor upsets these calculations, and demolishes the theory on which they rest. Perhaps the workmen ought to be contented; but the fact that they are so generally striking work proves conclusively that they are not. No doubt there has been a general, possibly a universal, advance in money wages within the last two years. But American workmen are a rather intelligent class. They showed in 1896, when the Democrats promised them higher wages in silver, that they understood. how un. substantial such an advance might be. They reasoned that the price of everything for which they paid out wages would be higher, and they concluded that such prosperity would be illusory. Many of them reason in the same way now. They consider that the advance in the price of the necessaries of life has been greater than the advance in wages, and that they are really not so well off as before. They cannot live so well as they could when times were no minally less prosperous, because everything costs so much more. It cannot be denied that the retail prices of many staples of consumption have risen more than wages. Workmen no longer live by bread alone, and while many articles of food are relatively cheap, many other articles universally consumed by the working classes are relatively dear. ought to be so rich, no man is so able as to deserve such inordinate rewards; and what moderately rich people think when they look at the multi-millionaires, poor people think when they look above their own ranks. They see that men of dishonest character and bad morals, men even of questionable business sagacity, are realizing enormous profits, while the most industrious and virtuous laborer obtains at best but a slight increase in his income. Accordingly they strike for higher wages and shorter hours of work whenever they see an opportunity, and it is idle to suppose that any fancied "gratitude" for producing prosperity so unequally and, as they believe, so inequitably distributed as at present, will restrain them. Let the people who have made great fortunes be grateful to the powers that be; the profits must be more liberally shared with the laborers if they are to be won over. MILITARY LESSONS OF THE WAR. We incline to the opinion that working people do not sufficiently consider the increase in the volume of employment. The activity prevailing in nearly every department of industry proves conclusively that a great many more workmen are now fully employed than were employed two or three years ago. Good workmen are employed more steadily, and poor workmen find at least something to do. In the aggregate the difference is very great. The fund actually devoted to the payment of wages in this country is much greater than ever before. Granting that the purchasing power of the day's wages of the individual workman has somewhat decreased, the number of days' work has increased so much as to leave the balance in favor of the laboring class. And this is the rule in times of prosperity. Such times, in the common estimation of mankind, are always times of rising prices, and it seldom happens, and for a number of reasons it seldom can happen, that the rise in wages comes SO quickly or goes so far as the rise in general prices, nor, it may be added, does the decline in wages follow a different rule. The quantity of employment measures the participation of labor inperts have been very cocksure; deep general prosperity better than the rate of money wages. The It is doubtful if such considerations appeal with much force to ordinary laboring men, for it is easy to see that the cause of their present discontent is not actual suffering. They complain not so much of positive as of relative lack of prosperity. The terrible strikes of 1877 were due, to a great extent at least, to the poverty and distress of many laborers. They could not live with any degree of comfort on the meagre and irregular wages which they were getting, and they struck in desperation. No such conditions prevail now. working classes, as a whole, are comfortable. But they are undeniably, and we should hesitate to say either unreasonably or unjustly, affected by the boasts of prosperity with which our newspapers teem. They read of the wonderful increase of our commerce, of the vast advance in railroad earnings, of the colossal profits of the iron companies, and the fabulous gains of the Standard Oil magnates, and they are angry. No doubt envy has much to do with their attitude. The humbler class of capitalists, men not worth more than a million dollars, perhaps, may be seen to shake their heads at the existence of the great modern fortunes. No man, they will say, The eagerness with which military critics and military attachés have followed the operations of the South African war is due, in part, to ignorance. What we mean is that modern warfare is in the experimental stage. For thirty years the nations have been revolutionizing their armaments, yet in all that time there has not been a great war, with the exception of the Russo-Turkish early in the period, to show exactly how the new weapons and the new tactics would work in practice. On paper, the military ex down in their boots they have had troubled suspicions that the thing might not come off according to their neat demonstrations. They have longed for a corpus vile on which to experiment. The Greco-Turkish war held out hopes of an instructive vivisection, only to disappoint them. Our war with Spain, so far as land operations were concerned, taught little except not to do the things which we did. But in South Africa war on a grand scale has at last yielded the desired lesson in anatomy; and the military men have gathered about the demonstrator as in Rembrandt's picture. The first inference was a sickening doubt concerning the value of infantry. It seemed as if the Boers were going to force a reorganization of all armies, by their demonstration of what mounted infantry could do. It was not only the British War Office which was surprised and thrown into something like consternation. Military critics in France and Germany began to feel as if the foundations were being destroyed under their feet, and as if they would have to put all their soldiers on horseback. Such mobility, in attack or flight, such power of swift concentration, such command of victorious retreat-what could foot-soldiers hope to do against an agile enemy like that? The British Generals at once laid the lesson to heart, and essayed to meet the Boer tactics by imitating them, putting their infantry in the saddle as fast as possible. Would not all armies have to do the same to an extent never dreamed of before? Well, the first impressions have been modified as the experiment has gone on. It has come to be seen that the Boer strategy has been so highly successful because so exactly fitted to country and people. The nature of the territory operated in and the lifelong habits of the burghers defending it have made their case so exceptional that lessons of universal application cannot safely be drawn from it. Even as it is, the Boers have shown the defects of their qualities. They have not displayed the power of disciplined infantry. They have been distinctly weak on the offensive. If their mounted infantry had been trained cavalry, they could have punished Buller and Methuen terribly. But when horses are ridden only up to the edge of the battlefield and there left, you get neither the morale of infantry nor the crashing stroke of cavalry. On their side, the British have found the same disadvantages in the use of mounted infantry. It has not been successfully employed in important attacks. The reason is that inbred custom cannot be changed in two months or six. If men have learned to attack as infantry, they cannot suddenly attack as cavalry. For scouting and skirmishing, for rapid concentration, as of Methuen's mounted infantry at Modder River, foot-soldiers temporarily on horseback have, no doubt, a greater part to play in future wars than has been assigned them in the past. But, on the whole, the relative importance and proportions of the two arms of the service will remain in military theory very much as they have been. The enormous power of defence which goes with magazine rifles in the hands of well-intrenched men has certainly been put beyond question by repeated demonstrations on the Tugela and Modder Rivers. What was clearly foreshadowed at Plevna has now been completely established. The great extension of the zone of fire and the rapidity of discharge make charges on fortified positions truly historic-things of the past. But here, too, some rather rash conclusions have been drawn. It has been argued that the defence is now so much stronger than the attack that the superior numbers of an assailant can be disregarded. England, it has been said, could easily, with her small army, repel the most formidable invasion-from Germany, for example. H. W. Wilson has triumphantly argued that the German army could never force the French line of defence. This, however, is not so certain. If a small intrenched force can hold off a large attacking army, it will likewise be true that the attack can also hold the enemy with a thin line, similarly intrench |