Over a year had passed since Lord Kitchener had embarked on the duties of Commander-in-Chief, and it was now possible to examine the system on which the war had been conducted, and the extent of progress made. The great and most important part of the work, which was still continuing, was the dividing of the settled from the unsettled portions of the country. The development of the blockhouse system, which effectually blocked the inroads of the marauders, went on apace, and already some 14,700 square miles of the Transvaal, and 17,000 square miles of the Orange River Colony were entirely shut off from their incursions. The area protected in the Transvaal was bounded on the north by a line from Zeerust to Middelburg, on the east from Middelburg to Standerton, on the south from Standerton to Klerksdorp, on the west from Klerksdorp to Zeerust. The Orange River Colony protected area went right across the colony south of the line from Kimberley to Winburg, Winburg to Bloemfontein, and Bloemfontein to Ladybrand. Within these boundaries the Boer could not exist, and beyond them the task of clearing the country and hunting down the enemy was pursued by means of small mobile columns. The work and activity of these columns throughout the year had been enormous. Though about 10,000 Boers remained sprinkled in the field, some 53,000 (half of which number had been accounted for during the last year) had been either killed, wounded, imprisoned, or protected in concentration camps. In regard to these camps a great deal had been said by the enemies of the Government for the purpose of raising a cry of inhumanity against the Ministers, but in a speech made by Mr. Brodrick he lucidly and concisely examined and disposed of these charges. "So long," he said, "as every house in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony was used at once as a telegraph station, a recruiting office, and a refectory for the enemy, it became impossible for Lord Kitchener to ignore the necessity of relieving the country of the population which was rendering futile the exertions of our troops. Under these circumstances you have to consider not what their condition is now as compared with what it would be in time of peace, but what their condition is now as compared with what it would have been if they had been left on their farms. You have not got to consider the difference between luxury and privation, but between starvation and great suffering, and the less suffering we can arrange for." He further showed that to a large extent the disease in the camp was due to the fact that the majority of persons who came in (some compulsorily, but the greater number voluntarily) were already half-starved, their resources being at an end, and half-clothed, with their bodies in a condition fitted for the reception of disease. Under those circumstances a large death-rate was certain.