path of pleasure which our King must henceforth tread. He has before him, not only the imperative demands of duty, but an example of how a Sovereign may live and die for his people that might well seem unapproachable. It comforts us even now to know that it has not been in vain that he has inherited not merely the blood, but the instincts and the devotion to duty which inspired his mother throughout her life, as they had inspired his father down to the moment when he was torn from his family and from the nation which was learning to understand and love him. If, in their first deep grief, men and women could hardly bear to turn from the Queen's bier to watch the beginning of her son's reign, it was certainly not because they were lacking in any feeling of affectionate and loyal devotion to him. It was simply because they shared with him an absorbing sorrow. Queen Victoria, they will be anxious to do their utmost to sustain the hands of her son and of his august and gracious Consort, and to smooth their path in the lofty position to which they have been called so suddenly.

But now, out of their very love for

The King has many claims of his own upon the goodwill of his people, and those claims, one may rest assured, will before long be multiplied indefinitely. Yet, for the moment, that which seems to most of us the greatest claim of Edward the Seventh to the love and devotion of the people of the greatest of the world's empires lies in the fact that he was himself the loving and ever-dutiful son of the Queen who was not only the greatest monarch in our history, but the best-beloved of all the women who have ever worn a crown.

It was officially explained, when the news of the Queen's illness was first made known, that it was due, in part at least, to the great strain upon her powers during the past year. Everybody understood this simple statement, because, as a matter of fact, the strain has been felt in some degree by all. Not a little of the prevalent depression at the beginning of the month was due to the effect of the long-continued pressure and anxiety of the war. This month of January, instead of opening up those bright prospects of an early peace and a real settlement of the problem of South Africa which we had been led to expect, has given us a continuation of the struggle in the field under the most trying of conditions. The Ministry of miscalculations has made another signal blunder in its reckoning, and the war which was officially declared to be 'practically at an end' in the early autumn is still with us in midwinter. No wonder that people of all classes are depressed. To everybody is present the consciousness that whilst we are painfully engaged in the subjugation of a stubborn foe, and whilst the cost of the struggle in blood and money grows with every day that passes, our unfriendly rivals abroad are profiting by our embarrassments, and both in political and business affairs are gaining much at our expense. But, apart from this general experience, much of the depression now existing is due to the fact that all over the land there are homes where the anxieties of the inmates are concentrated upon individual units in the great army of South Africa. The fine patriotism which led so many of our youth to volunteer for service twelve months ago enables them to stand fast to the end of a struggle which has been unexpectedly protracted; but it cannot make them insensible to the prolonged strain of the campaign, or to the miseries of a possible severance for another year from the ties of family and the duties of home-life. It is not wonderful in these circumstances that the cheerfulness which in January last animated both those who went and those who stayed behind has to a large extent evaporated, or that it is upon the risks and hardships of the war rather than upon its excitements and its glories that most minds are now fixed.

This is a position which it is well to face without regard to any question of party politics. Party feeling does indeed enter into the discussion of the situation in our daily press, and controversialists on both sides are eager to make the most of existing facts in order to press them against their adversaries. Considering what the facts are it does not surprise anybody that the opponents of the Ministry have the advantage in the duel in which they are engaged. Yet there are many members of the Opposition who, whilst taking as strong a view as anybody else of the blunders of Ministers, do not feel that their own opinions are expressed by the advocates of an immediate stoppage of the war. The fact that the struggle for supremacy in South Africa has proved

to be a longer and more difficult affair than was anticipated does not incline them to listen to the advice of the extreme Radicals who insist that the war should be abandoned at once, and no matter at what cost to the national interests and dignity. Those Liberals who are determined that they will not allow the party to which they belong to be severed from the wider movements of the politics of the Empire, do not see in the invasion of Cape Colony and the continued resistance of Commander de Wet any reason for retreating from the position which they took up at the beginning of the war. Briefly stated, that position was that, the war having been begun, and begun by the action of Mr. Kruger, it must at all costs be carried forward to a successful issue. To fail in it, when not merely our supremacy but our very existence as a South African Power was at stake, would be to involve the Empire in the greatest disaster it has ever known. For this reason the great majority of Liberals a year ago refused to join in the attacks made upon the Ministry by the sympathisers with the Boers, and they are not disposed now, for any party gain, to take any step which might strengthen the hands of the enemy in the field, or weaken the position of Great Britain in the eyes of the world. Whatever depression may exist, therefore, there is no weakening on the part of the great body of politicians, both Liberal and Conservative, in the determination that the war must be carried to its appointed end, cost what it may.

But merely to state this fact, as it was stated by Sir Henry Fowler the other day, is regarded by the typical English sympathiser with Mr. Kruger as an offence which justly exposes the offender to the wrath and contempt of every Little Englander. It is hardly likely that Little England calumnies will have much effect either upon Sir Henry Fowler or upon the great body of Liberals who refuse to be animated by the bias of anti-patriotism. There is more reason to fear that the friends of Mr. Kruger in this country may obtain adhesion from the unthinking mob which cheered the war policy of 1899 so lustily. The howling Jingo of one day may easily become the desperate peace-at-any-price man of another. There is a class to whom the falsehood of extremes' always seems to be the truth, and it is not impossible that the appeals of the English Krugerites, not merely to common human sentiment but to the unpleasant experiences we have had of late in South Africa, may tune the songs of the music-hall Jingo to a new note strikingly different from the old.

In the meantime the month shows that, whilst the war is moving slowly, it still is moving, and towards the desired end. More troops are being sent out, and a fresh appeal has been made both here and in the colonies for volunteers for service as mounted men and sharpshooters. One could wish that the Government would show still greater energy in the despatch of the necessary reinforcements.

The invasion of Cape Colony has not been followed by that general rising of the Dutch which was so freely predicted, and though the process of dealing with the invaders is a tedious one, and costly in life and money, it is still being accomplished. The return of Lord Roberts to this country, where he has been received with the honour due to his eminent services, and has been promoted to the dignities of an Earldom and a Knighthood of the Garter, has left the control of the operations in the field to Lord Kitchener. The victor of Omdurman is not a universal favourite, and some of his methods in the field have been sharply criticised. He has been charged with many offences, from the wholesale burning of farms to the killing of Boers after they had ceased to resist. At present no trustworthy evidence with regard to any of these charges has been produced. Indeed, the burning of farms has been less common since Lord Kitchener took the command than it was before; and no act that could be described as one of unnecessary harshness has been proved against him. On the other hand, De Wet, according to a statement by Lord Kitchener himself, has in one instance at least grossly offended. His flogging of three peace emissaries, and the subsequent shooting of one of these unfortunates after the flogging, has given a new complexion to his character, which had previously been regarded as exceptionally high. Unfortunately even so inexcusable an act as the shooting of an English subject after he had been flogged has found apologists in certain English newspapers, and De Wet is excused by his sympathisers in this country on the ground that he was dealing with a secret agent who was attempting to seduce his soldiers from their allegiance. This significant fact furnishes a measure of the extremes to which some of the opponents of the war have allowed themselves to be carried. There has been no act, indeed, on the part of the Boers, from the original ultimatum and the proclamations annexing English territory in the Transvaal to the diplomatic falsehoods of Mr. Leyds and the flogging and killing of the peace envoys, which has not found defenders among those persons who bitterly resent the imputation that they can be correctly described as pro-Boers. Yet some people are filled with astonishment at the fact that many ardent Liberals, whilst clinging to their Liberalism, stoutly refuse to allow themselves to be identified with the opinions held by these advocates of the cause of our enemies.

Mr. Kruger has been suffering from illness-not however of a serious character-during the month, and, as a consequence, but little has been heard of him. But Mr. Leyds has been as active as ever, and is even, if rumour is to be trusted, engaged in finding recruits as well as armaments for the Boer forces in the field. It is probable that rumour is not to be trusted on this point; for even so confirmed an optimist as Mr. Leyds must recognise the

difficulty of strengthening the Boer commandoes, now that every port of entry into the country is in our hands, and that the chief obstacle to the subjugation of the enemy is his adroitness in avoiding anything like a pitched battle with our troops. The desire to see the war ended is, however, universal and prevails no less strongly on one side than on the other. Unfortunately the more knowledge we get of the actual situation the more difficult it becomes to see how any road to peace save that which the successful operations of our soldiers will furnish is to be found. The cry for arbitration which has been raised on the Continent, and in some quarters at home, is discredited by many reasons, among which the fact that no impartial arbitrator could be found in the great capitals of the world is not the least formidable. Conciliation finds many advocates, and any reasonable method of applying it would be favoured probably by most Liberals and not a few Conservatives. But so long as the Boer commanders in the field shoot the apostles of conciliation whenever they capture them, and Mr. Kruger stoutly maintains that he will listen to no terms short of the restoration of the independence of the Republics, it is difficult to see what hope there is for a policy of this kind. The most we can hope for is that a wise statesmanship will preside over the deliberations of our own Ministers, and that of their own initiative they will take every possible opportunity of convincing the Boers that we are anxious not only to put an end to the devastating war but to treat them with consideration and justice in the future settlement of South Africa. We are a long way now from the days of the new diplomacy' of 1899, and it is to be hoped that its spirit is no longer paramount in the deliberations of the Cabinet. The Africander mission now on its way to England, consisting of men of the high reputation of Mr. Merriman, Mr. Sauer and Mr. Schreiner, should give both Ministers and the country generally an opportunity of showing that, whilst we have not abated one jot in our determination to carry the struggle to a successful issue, we are prepared to listen with attention and respect to any representations that may be made to us by those who seek to promote the cause of peace, not only in the immediate future but hereafter.

In home politics, apart from questions directly associated with the war, the leading incident of the month has been one that, curiously enough, lies outside the conventional track of the politicians. Early in January it was announced that a change had taken place in the proprietorship of the Daily News, and that, in consequence, that journal was to lose the services of its editor, Mr. E. T. Cook. What made the announcement specially significant was the statement that the new proprietors of the paper-long recognised as the chief organ of the Liberal party in the daily press-belonged to the extreme section the members of which have come to be known as pro-Boers.