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; after Majuba, and after the Raid, we were going to commence a struggle for equality--nothing more, and then not to get it, the shame would be too grave for any great Power to support, or for those who sympathised with us in South Africa to endure. We had raised the British party in South Africa from the dust by the stand which we had made against Dutch tyranny in the Transvaal. If we were going to retreat from that position, the discredit of our action would compel England to resign her claim to be paramount Power, and with the resignation of that claim England's rights in South Africa would inevitably shrink to the narrow limits of a naval base at Simon's Town, and a sub-tropical plantation in Natal. What was fundamental was not the possibility of war, but the impossibility of retreat. [Sidenote: Retreat impossible.]