action; you intervened frequently in its execution; you were not prevented either by distance or any other material obstacle from intervening more frequently still, had you deemed it expedient to do so. Was I wrong, then, in pointing out that it would have been in accordance both with precedent and the Queen’s Regulations for you to have supplied the Commander-in-Chief with a narrative of these important military events based on your own observations and on the reports of those of your officers who were immediately engaged with the enemy?’ * * * * * We have never been able to understand why the orders given to Sir Charles Warren were not published with the despatches two years ago. True they were called secret instructions, but of course the secrecy was a temporary matter, and they ceased to be secret when the operations were over. Without them there was no way for the public to learn officially, except in the most general way, what the General in command in Natal desired to do, and probably, owing to the wording of Lord Roberts’s despatch, a misconception arose, widely entertained in the army and highly prejudicial to Sir Charles Warren. This misconception was that Sir Redvers Buller instructed Sir Charles Warren to make his turning movement by way of Acton Homes, instead of which Warren obstinately preferred the route by Groote Hoek. It was supposed that by the first of these two routes the force might have marched a long way round, but would have got into Ladysmith with little difficulty, whereas the (hypothetical) substitution by Warren of the Groote Hoek road had necessitated the capture of Spion Kop. The publication of the instructions upsets this theory. The Acton Homes road is never mentioned. The only references to the direction of the turning movement are vague--‘to the West of Spion Kop’--‘acting as circumstances require’--‘refusing your right and throwing your left forward’--and it now appears that Sir Redvers Buller intended Warren to go by the Groote Hoek route. In vain has the Government endeavoured to shield the military reputation of Sir Redvers Buller at the expense of others. He has been consistent in his efforts to get the despatches published in full, even to the memorandum ‘not necessarily for publication’--a severe condemnation of Sir Charles Warren’s incapacity, but a more damning one of his own--and by his attitude has compelled the Government to give way. How truly applicable is an epigram of Mr. Henry Sidgwick, quoted by Sir Henry Howarth in a recent letter to the ‘Morning Post’: ‘The darkest shadows in life are those which a man makes when he stands in his own light.’