TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CHANGE IN SOUTH AFRICA.
THE country is a little disposed, in its thankfulness at the supersession of Sir Bartle Frere and Lord Chelmsford, to exaggerate the immediate benefits to be expected from Sir Garnet Wolseley's appointment. We are rid at last of a High Commissioner who, whatever the graces of his personal charac- ter, has displayed in every post he has filled a lack of far- sighted judgment, who had made up his mind to burden the Empire with a second India in South Africa, and who had shown himself not so much unwilling as unable to act in subordination to the Government at home. We are rid also
of a Commander-in-Chief who, whatever his abilities or his character, had obviously no genius for savage warfare, who showed no resource in meeting novel difficulties, and who framed and modified costly and cumbrous plans of campaign with a fatal facility. We have in exchange for both of them a Captain-General invested with all powers, who may be a statesman, and who is certainly a soldier, full of resource and energy, specially skilled in making the best use of inadequate means, and entirely trusted and loved by all immediate subordinates. "Fellows work for Sir Garnet with a will." Whether Sir Garnet Wolseley is a really great man, whose high qualities are a little concealed—as is the case with so many Irish- men—by a thin, superficial coating of vanity (ride his biography), or whether he owes much of his success, as his enemies allege, to puffery, will be settled by his career at the Cape ; but great experts pronounce for the former view, and it is certain that he has not been selected for any reason of favouritism. The Horse Guards are none so fond of him. He is a thorough soldier, that is undisputed ; he knows South Africa well, and when there, realised the formidable strength of the Zulu army as no other General had done ; and he has, for his years, astonishing experience in out-of-the-way warfare. Above all, he goes out unburdened by promises or " policies " of aggres- sion, thoroughly aware that the country and the Government want the war finished on any honourable terms, and fully in- structed that on this occasion a strong peace, and not a great aggrandisement of the Empire, will be reckoned to him as success. The change is a very great one, and creditable to a Government which, to secure it., must have overborne much resistance ; but it must not be exaggerated. Sir Garnet Wolseley cannot arrive on the Tugela for a month, and before that time, though we think it improbable, the war may have assumed even wider proportions. The Zulus have fired the grass, and Lord Chelmsford, unable to reach the retreating enemy, may have decided on seizing positions for a second year's campaign, or, being at all events an unlucky man, may have sustained some new disaster,—such, for example, as the destruction of the animals dragging his huge convoys. A feat of that kirrd may not be at all beyond either Zulu cunning or Zulu courage. The advancing columns would then be stranded like whales left on a shoal by a receding tide, and the Home Government would be called on for yet further efforts to put them afloat again. Even when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrives, the war will not be ended. He is no deity, to say to the tribes, "Peace, be still." He has no power to make peace without Cetewayo's consent, and unless we misread Ministerial speeches, no instructions to consent to a mere policy of "as you were." He must, in some degree at least, be bound by his predecessor, and must insist on some effectual reduction of Ceteway-o's power. It is true, Dr. Colenso, who is a passed expert in Zulu matters, thinks Cetewayo anxious for peace on quite acceptable terms—the re- duction of his army, for example, to a reasonable size, by emanci- pating all men above a certain age from the conscription ; but after all, Lord Elcho had reason for his very imprudent speech of Tuesday. Cetewayo is a savage, bred to consider bloodshed the evidence of power, and you can no more reckon on a savage once "raised," as the Americans say, than you can reckon on a leopard that has once struck a human being. Cetewayo may want vengeance, for what anybody knows, and be utterly in- accessible to reason. In that ease, Sir Garnet Wolseley must fight on, and though he may fight better than Lord Chelms- ford, and even devise some new way of fighting more effective than marching three miles a day, the campaign may still be long, costly, and exhausting. We know Sir Garnet will want to end it, and end it even if Cetewayo does not cease to reign, and that is a great improvement in the position ; but he cannot end it without his adversary's consent, or without imposing reasonable terms. Nor can he get rid of the great
Transvaal difficulty all in a minute, say, by a proclamation re- leasing the people from allegiance. He must call a Parliament,- and hold conferences, and procure the acceptance of some com- promise endurable to the nation, as well as to the more rea- sonable Boers. Even if nothing has happened meanwhile, he will have plenty to do, and it is foolish to expect him to do it without great exertion, much negotiation, and arrangements which will involve great expense. The Government chose to give agents whom it condemned three months to work their will in, and the country, which blamed, but did not coerce, the Government, must take the consequences. In spite of the tardy repentance at head-quarters, there will be less meat in every cottage in England next year in consequence of Sir Bartle Frere.
What a curious narrative the secret history of this Govern- ment will be ! Sir W. Harcourt was quite right in his acrid little outburst on Tuesday. There is no reason apparent in any of the Ministers' speeches why the Cabinet should not have exe- cuted their volte-face three months ago. Sir Michael Hicks- Beach may say, and may believe, that Sir Bartle Frere is in- dispensably wanted at Cape Town, and no doubt, if South Africa is to be compelled to confederate itself, to be offered, for- example, as the Quarterly Review advised, the alternatives of Confederation or independence, he will be wanted there to protect the Bill which the Secretary for the Colonies says he is at once to bring in ; but unless some revolutionary step of that sort is to be taken, nothing new has occurred in the situa- tion. There was just as much need that all power at the seat of war should be concentrated in one hand three months ago as there is now, and just as much danger that Sir Bartle would' postpone home affairs to an ambitious foreign policy. Some- other motive must have influenced the Government, and we cannot but believe it to have been of this kind. The Cabinet never liked either the Zulu policy or the Zulu war, though ready to trust their agent, on whose judgment, be it remem- bered, they relied in their Afghan war, until disasters happened. When they happened, they could not remove either Sir Bartle- Frere or Lord Chelmsford, partly because they could not dis- credit their Afghan policy, and partly because a powerful party,. including, it is surmised, the Court, would not hear of the proceeding. They resolved, therefore to give both the High Commissioner and the Commander-in-Chief a full chance, and it was not till they felt, through the drafts and indents from South Africa, the terrible dimensions to which the war was growing, that they reconsidered the decision. Those dimen- sions, however, seriously alarmed them. They might,. even if victorious, have to go to the country with an appalling bill, for which there was nothing appreciable to. show. The English elector would sanction any expenditure- in a European war, or even for a striking expedition but mil- lions spent in a Colonial quarrel, in which, as he thinks, only colonists benefit, exasperate and alarm him. Then the chiefs of the Army were fretted by the constant demands on their small reservoir of power, by the recurrent losses of good officers,. by the condition of some of their regiments, by the resultless expenditure of stored-up energy.. It is neither their interest nor their pleasure to use up their machinery without return. Statesmen and soldiers alike found the whole affair too costly and too irritating, and resolved that it should be brought to, a close ; and as Lord Chelmsford could not and Sir Bartle Frere would not bring it to a close, resolved to supersede both. Smaller reasons, some obstinate despatch from Sir Bartle, some new demand for troops from Lord Chelmsford, may have quickened the decision, but it was taken on general grounds. As usual, when the knot of responsible men who govern are fairly roused, all opposition was overcome, and the change was made, though made on condition that it should be as honorific to the superseded agents as the nature of the case admitted. That is, as we believe, the true history of the affair, but for twenty years to come there will be no means of proving the accuracy of any step in the narrative. All that is certain is that, whereas three months ago, Sir Bartle Frere, though cen- sured, was retained in full charge of South-African policy, and Lord Chelmsford was fiercely defended, Sir Bartle is now deprived of his control of the policy, and relegated to the Cape Colony, and Lord Chelmsford becomes an ordinary General of Division. Both are complimented. Neither, it is officially declared, is super- seded. Only the charge of directing the war and carrying out the policy is confided to Sir Garnet Wolseley, whose ideas, it is admitted, will be those of the Government,—that is, will be, the precise reverse of those entertained by his predecessors. That is all that has been done, but that is so much, that the pre- sent danger is lest the British public should think it everything.
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