the summer, and therefore every column is dependent for its food and ammunition upon a line of railway, which a handful of Boers may at any moment and at any point in its hundreds of miles temporarily interrupt.  These considerations should be kept in view not merely in reviewing the conduct of the campaign and the work of the British generals, but above all in the preparations now being pushed forward throughout the Empire.  The project of a Corps of Imperial Yeomanry is a step in the right direction.  If it is to contribute to success due importance must be given in the selection of the men to straight shooting, without which good riding can be of little use.  Equally important, too, is the selection of leaders.  The home-trained officer, however good, must not be exclusively relied upon.  Every local war we have had, beginning with the campaigns against the French in America which led to the Seven Years’ War, has proved the necessity of giving full scope to local experience and local instincts.  Old and new instances abound of the way in which the neglect of the feelings of colonists and of their special qualifications for special work rankles in breasts of a colonial population.  If, then, the new Yeomanry are to be of real service in South Africa and to deserve the name Imperial a proportion of their officers of all grades should be men of colonial birth and colonial experience.  The South African troops now at the front have done fine service, and some of their officers might be promoted and transferred to the new Yeomanry, their places being filled by promotions in the corps which they leave.  The preparation of transport ought not to lag behind the despatch of reinforcements.  At the earliest possible moment the attempt should be made to send into the enemy’s territory a great raid of horsemen, on the model of the raids of the American Civil War.  A body of several thousand mounted men should march right through a part of the Free State, living upon the country, consuming every scrap of food, and clearing out every farm of all its provisions.  If that operation can be repeated two or three times a belt of country will be left across which the Boers without transport will not be able to move, while the British, properly equipped, will not be delayed by its exhaustion.

The plan adopted by the authorities for raising a volunteer contingent is more significant for the future of the National defences than has yet been realised.  Each volunteer battalion is to supply a company to its line battalion in the field and to keep a second company ready at home in reserve.  Thus the volunteer force is to be used by being absorbed into the Army.  That leads inevitably to the amalgamation of the volunteers with the regular Army, and is a death-blow to the specific character of each of them.  It means that henceforth the British Army, like other armies, will be homogeneous, containing no other categories than men with the colours and men in reserves, classified according to the immediacy