The supreme authority throughout the Transvaal rested with Lord Kitchener. Civil considerations had of necessity to give way to military exigency. The work of the civil authorities was naturally restricted and subject to limitations from which on the return to normal conditions it would be freed. Nevertheless they acted with foresight, preparing such seeds as would ensure a good harvest in time to come. In a report made to Mr. Chamberlain in December, Lord Milner spoke hopefully of this happy era: "We have come into possession of a magnificent estate, which has been woefully mismanaged. As far as local administration is concerned--I am not speaking of the political development of South Africa as a whole--it requires no extraordinary statesmanship, it simply requires ordinary decent government and reasonable liberality in public finance to ensure not only a great advance in material prosperity, but in all the essentials of civilisation." Lord Milner also expressed the opinion that, terrible as had been the ravages of the war, the great fact remained that the Transvaal possesses an amount of mineral wealth virtually unaffected by the war which will ensure the prosperity of South Africa for the next fifty years, and other resources, both industrial and agricultural, which, properly developed, should make it a rich country, humanly speaking, for ever. Before constructing the blockhouse lines Lord Kitchener determined that the enemy must be deprived of his guns. His efforts in that direction were speedily rewarded. By June 1901 nearly the whole Boer artillery was captured or had been destroyed by the Boers themselves. General French was responsible for the capture of guns in the Eastern Transvaal, and we know how effectively his work was carried out. General Babington deprived Delarey of nine guns, two were taken by Rawlinson and more by Dartnell and others. In all twenty-seven guns were reported to have been taken during the year; twenty-six of them during the months of February, March, April, and May. They included half-a-dozen pom-poms, seven or eight Maxims, several 15-pounders, Krupp guns of varying calibre, Creusot, Hotchkiss, and quick-firing guns. In addition to these armaments, more than half-a-dozen of our own guns taken from British positions at various times were recovered. Of rifles 7993 were captured, and during the year it was estimated that 8589 vehicles had been taken by the British. In fact the process of the gradual depletion of the enemy's resources had been most effective. The number of prisoners taken was about 27,000. The surrenders prior to Lord Kitchener's proclamation in August had averaged about 500 a month. During the later months the surrenders decreased, while the number of prisoners captured increased. Naturally at the close of the year there was a decline in the number of Boer casualties, for the continued attrition of the Boer resistance necessarily reduced the number of antagonists accounted for.