there is, however, no immediate prospect.  The present Cabinet has given its testimonials:  a challenge sent to the Boers by a Government that did not know it was challenging anyone, that did not know the adversary’s strength, nor his determination to fight; and a war begun in military ignorance displayed by the Cabinet, and carried on by half measures until the popular determination compelled three-quarter measures.  Does anyone suppose that this Cabinet, that did not know its mind till the Boers declared war, knows or will know its mind about the conflict with Russia in Asia, or about any other of the troubles, foreseen and unforeseen, which await us?  A victory in Natal would save the Cabinet and drown the voices of its critics; and in that case the present leaders will infallibly go halting and irresolute into the greater contests that are coming.  A defeat in Natal would destroy the Government at once if there were before the public a single man in whose judgment and character there was confidence; but there is no such man, and, as the Opposition leaders are discredited by their conduct in regard to the quarrel with the Boers, the present set will remain at their posts to continue the traditional policy of waiting to be driven by public opinion.  The Nation, therefore, has before it a necessary task as urgent as that of reinforcing the Army in the field, which is to find the man in whose judgment as to war and policy as well as in whose character it can place confidence.

The man to be trusted is, unfortunately, not Lord Wolseley.  I have for years fought his battle by urging that the Government ought to follow the advice of its military adviser, a theory of which the corollary is that the adviser must resign the moment he is overruled.  I have never meant that the adviser is to be a dictator, nor that the Cabinet should follow advice of the soundness of which it is not convinced.  The Cabinet has the responsibility and ought never to act without full conviction.  The expert who cannot convince a group of intelligent non-experts that a necessary measure is necessary is not as expert as he should be; and if he still retains his post after he has been overruled on a measure which he regards as necessary he has not the strength of character which is indispensable for great responsibility.  Now, though the relation between a Cabinet and its advisers ought to be secret, in the present case each side has let the cat out of the bag.  Lord Wolseley’s friends defend him by declaring that he has been overruled.  But that defence kills him.  If he has been overruled on a trifle it does not matter, and the defence is a quibble; if he has been overruled on an essential point why is he still Commander-in-Chief?  No answer can be devised that is not fatal to his case.  Lord Lansdowne’s friend, for such Lord Ernest Hamilton may be presumed to be, says:  “Supposing, for the sake of argument, that the short-comings of the War Office in and before the present war were due