There was, naturally, an outcry at all sterner measures that were proposed, by what may be called the “Prolong-the-War Party”—the pro-Boer orators who were daily, by their excited utterances, betraying the Boers into the belief that their showy sympathy would bring about practical results. But in reality the stern measure was intended as a merciful measure to save desperate men from a suicidal policy of resistance to the inevitable, the country from devastation, and women and children from suffering. Their territories were annexed, their leaders, most of them, were exiles or prisoners, hostilities had developed from guerilla warfare to simple brigandage and outrage, and the British were keeping up the supply of troops with the determination of “fighting to a finish.” Indeed, by the middle of 1901, there were 138,000 regulars, 58,000 Colonials, 23,000 yeomen, 20,000 militia, and 10,000 volunteers—a total of 250,000 men under arms in South Africa. With this ever-increasing multitude bearing down upon them, the days of the belligerents were numbered, but this they doggedly refused to believe, or, even if they believed the worst, they decided—like the wasp who parts with his sting only to die—on leaving behind them the largest legacy of pain and trouble the circumstances would admit.
The South African Constabulary by the middle of the year had grown into an effective force, and were operating from the vicinity of the railways and occupying fortified posts, and thus rendering themselves exceedingly valuable in checking the efforts of the enemy to pass through the cordon around the cleared districts. The Boers, by the loss of their ox-waggons, were seriously impeded in regard to their supply arrangements, and the series of captures which took place in all parts of the country made a considerable drain on their numbers in the field. Still, small gangs of three to four hundred men roving loosely over the country could, in cases of emergency, concentrate and cause vast trouble and annoyance and even danger to the small mobile columns, broken up as they were, in order to operate over vast areas in search of the scattered hordes.
Viewing the intense labour and increasing strain suffered by the Commander-in-Chief at this time, it is pleasing to quote the letter of an officer competent to speak regarding the magnificence of the steady if slow work that was being accomplished:—
“We are eleven hours a day in the saddle on patrol duty, and good solid work is being done by mobile columns. You will not get much of our movements through the Press, as the policy of secrecy is really the only safe one with the Cape Colony now undermined by rebels from north to south. It would be difficult to over-praise Lord Kitchener for his remarkable power of self-control and ability to keep his own counsel. His ceaseless efforts to get the right men into the higher and brigade commands are recognised by all of us who have suffered in the past from incompetent leaders. In spite of the clap-trap that is being talked in Parliament by ignorant and vain knights of the shires, I can assure you that a more humane and pacific general never directed a force on active service, and this testimony is from Boer and British alike.”
Considerable stir was created in England among the so-called humanitarians regarding the mortality of children in the concentration camps, where the Boer families had of necessity to be housed and cared for. The mortality was certainly high, but on strict inquiry it was found that mainly through the ignorance, listlessness, and idleness of the Boer mothers the sick infants were treated wrongly or neglected. Dr. Jane Waterston, late President of the Women’s Rand Relief Committee, in a letter to the Cape Times, with level-headed brevity discussed some points which the Boer sympathisers had carefully ignored. She pointed out that—
“Ordinary colonial women who have been through the stress and strain of the last two years are not very favourably impressed by the present stir in England over the assumed privations of the Boer women and children. If looting, flogging, ruining, and train-wrecking can be dignified by such a name as war, they hold that in all matters of supply our fighting men, who, as well as fighting our battles, guard our women-folk or our sick men, injured by wounds or disease in our service, come first and foremost; after them come our own civilian population; and lastly come our prisoners, or those Boers who have surrendered or been brought in.”
Again she said:—
“Large as was the sum collected in Great Britain by voluntary subscriptions, at no time did the women and children of the loyal colonial refugees of the poorer classes receive more than mere sustenance. Judging, however, by some of the hysterical whining going on in England at the present time it would seem as if we might neglect or half starve our faithful soldiers, and keep our civilian population eating their hearts out here as long as we fed and pampered people who have not even the grace to say ‘thank you’ for the care bestowed on them.
“As we see it, the problem before our military men is, how to manage, feed, and care for large numbers of women and children, and yet not feed the enemy and so prolong the war, or rather existing brigandage. If the women are left on the farms with food, that food will be promptly handed over to the commandos, who would lightly take it all, and trust to British soft-heartedness not to let their women and children die of starvation, but to replenish all the empty larders by means of scattered convoys, which would give them at the same time grand chances of loot and first-rate practice in sniping. To obviate this the military have had to make up their minds either to let the women and children starve on their farms or else gather them into large concentration camps. This war has been remarkable for two things: first, the small regard that the Boers, from the highest to the lowest, have had for their womankind; and secondly, the great care and consideration the victors have had for the same, very often ungrateful, women.
“It is the fault of the Boer men, not ours, that their women and children are in concentration camps. The task of our pro tem. rulers is not made easier by the fact that no consideration of the stuff on a supply train being partly meant for their own wives and children would hinder Boer husbands and fathers from wrecking the train and destroying the food. They comfort themselves with the thought that the soldiers may have to go on half rations and tighten their belts, but ‘these fools of English will serve out as usual the daily ration to the refugee camps.’ At present there is the danger that the Boers will waken up to have a care for their womenfolk, and will go on fighting for some time so as to keep them in comfortable winter quarters at our expense, and thus our women and children will lose a few more of their husbands and fathers.”
In corroboration of Dr. Waterston’s statements it may also be noted that the Government, while spending hundreds of thousands of pounds monthly on the Boer refugees, had devoted only £50,000 towards the Imperial Relief fund for helping the loyalists.
Naturally, among the British sufferers, the continual attempts to propitiate an irreconcilable enemy were looked upon with disgust and even suspicion, and very rejoiced were they to find that steps were taken to arrest and remove Boer sympathisers in Johannesburg and elsewhere, who were known to be assisting in a widening conspiracy to get surrendered burghers to return to their commandos, and so reproduce a recrudescence of hostilities. On all sides the lying tongues of the Boer party, who had declared war and quitted the field, strove to urge the remnants towards further resistance by declaring that Great Britain was divided against itself, and that it had not sufficient endurance to see the matter through.