his mind. That hope the Government cherished, as we now know, until the
end of the first week of September, when the Boer forces were so far on
in their preparations that Natal had been begging for protection. The
Government then sent ten thousand men, making the sixteen thousand of
Sir George White. Yet the Government at that time had before it the
military view that to compel the Boers to accept Great Britain's will
seventy thousand men would be required. Evidently, then, the sending of
the ten thousand arose not from the military view, but the civil view
that war is a disagreeable business, and that it is to be hoped there
will be none of it, or at any rate as little as possible.

The misfortunes in Natal will probably be repaired and the war in time
brought to its conclusion--the submission of the Boers to Great
Britain's will. But suppose the dispute had been with a great Power, and
that in such a case the military view had been shut out from the day the
negotiations began until the great Power was ready? The result must have
been disaster and defeat on a great scale. Disaster and defeat on a
great scale are as certain to come as the sun to rise to-morrow morning
unless the Government arranges to take the military view of war into its
midst. There will have to be a strategist in the Cabinet if the British
Empire is to be maintained. This is another unpopular view and is
hateful to all politicians, who declare that it is unconstitutional. But
it does not, in fact, involve any constitutional change, far less change
than has been made since 1895 at the instance of Mr. Balfour; and it
would be better to alter a little the system of managing the Nation's
affairs than to risk the overthrow of the Empire.