Majuba, and one more violent oscillation of policy in the
concession of a virtual independence to the Transvaal.

Whatever we may think of the policy of this concession, and Lord Morley
has made the best case that can be made for Mr. Gladstone's action, it
is certain that it was only a link in a long chain of blunders for which
both great political parties had been equally responsible, and of which
the end had not yet come. The nation at large, scarcely alive until now
to the existence of the Colonies, was stung into Imperial consciousness
by a national humiliation, for so it was not unnaturally regarded,
coming from an obscure pastoral community confusedly identified as
something between a Colony, a foreign power, and a troublesome native
tribe. The history of the previous seventy years in South Africa was
either unknown or forgotten, and Mr. Gladstone, who in past years had
preached to indifferent hearers the soundest and sanest doctrine of
enlightened Imperialism, suddenly appeared, and for ever after remained
in the eyes of a great body of his countrymen, as a betrayer of the
nation's honour. Resentment was all the greater in that it was
universally believed that Laing's Nek and Majuba were unlucky little
accidents, and that another month or two of hostilities would have
humbled the Boers to the dust.

This illusion, which is not yet eradicated, and which has coloured all
subsequent discussion of the subject, lasted unmodified until the first
months of the war in 1899, when events took place exactly similar to
Laing's Nek and Majuba, and were followed by a campaign lasting nearly
three years, requiring nearly 500,000 men for its completion, and the
co-operation of the whole Empire. It is impossible to estimate the
course events would have taken in 1881 had the war been prolonged. If
the Free State had joined the Transvaal, it may be reasonably
conjectured that we should have been weaker, relatively, than in 1899.
Though the Boers were less numerous, less well organized, and less
united as a nation in 1881, they were even better shots and stalkers
than in 1899, because they had had more recent practice against game and
natives; nor was there a large British population in the Transvaal to
counteract their efforts and supply magnificent corps like the Imperial
Light Horse for service in arms against them. Our army, just as brave,
was in every other respect, especially in the matter of mounted men and
marksmanship, les