in the
South African command would seem, on the face of it, to have been a
grave administrative error. It is enough for us to record the
undoubted facts that Lord Milner was supremely dissatisfied with the
action of General Butler as his military adviser, and that whereas the
High Commissioner had requested the Home Government to provide him
with a new military adviser in June, General Butler did in fact remain
at the Cape until the latter part of August.

General Butler is reputed to be both an able man and a good soldier.
It is interesting, therefore, to know what was his view, and to
compare it with that of Lord Milner. In these opinions, which
dominated General Butler during the period in question (May to August,
1899), there was only one point in which he and Lord Milner found
themselves at one. This was the danger of the war; that is to say, the
seriousness of the military task which would await Great Britain in
the event of war with the Dutch in South Africa.

[Sidenote: What Lord Milner thought.]

As a great deal has been written on the subject of the military
unpreparedness of England, and it has, moreover, been frequently
stated in this connection that Sir William Butler was the only man to
form a just estimate of the military strength of the burgher forces,
it is very desirable to place on record what was really in Lord
Milner's mind at this time. He agreed with General Butler in his
estimate of the formidable character of the Boers; but he differed
from him in everything else. To Lord Milner's mind the situation
presented itself primarily from a political, and not from a military
point of view. He believed that England was bound to struggle at least
for political equality between the British and Dutch throughout South
Africa. He felt that, after our bad record in the past, it would be
absolutely fatal to begin to struggle for this equality unless we were
prepared to carry our efforts to a successful issue. He thought that
such a claim as this for the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders was one
that admitted of only two alternatives--it must never be made, or,
being made, it must never be abandoned. The whole weakness of our
position in South Africa was a moral weakness. The contempt which the
Dutch had learnt for England was writ large over the whole social and
political fabric of South Africa. Englishmen could not look the Dutch
in the face as equals. If, after all our previous humiliations and
failures;