Nothing perhaps can excuse such an obstructive policy as that which was followed by the Colonial Government upon the very eve of hostilities. It is only when we come to deal with the situation which their neglect has created that we can adequately measure the full extent of their culpability. The claim of so important a centre as Mafeking upon their attention was wilfully ignored with a persistence which is positively criminal, and when taken into consideration with the repeated warnings which were sent to them by leading members of the community of Mafeking it is difficult to believe that the Colonial Cabinet, by so flatly contravening the spirit of their loyalty to the Imperial Crown, were not directly conniving with a hostile oligarchy for the downfall of this colonial town. Had Mafeking been anything but Anglo-Saxon at heart, had it possessed that proportion of debased Dutch and renegade British colonists which is to be found in Vryburg and those other hostile areas in our own colony, the story of Mafeking would have been a story of treachery and deceit, of broken allegiance, and of palsied faith. As it was, when the petition for extra armaments was ignored, the town, disdaining the danger which confronted them, proceeded to stand their ground, and to show, at any rate, a firm front to any enemy that might assail them. While Colonel Baden-Powell organised the defences of the Western Border, the men of Mafeking, under the supervision of Colonel Vyvyen, base commandant, strongly entrenched the position of their town, which hitherto had been open to every corner of the earth. In times of peace Mafeking is a collection of buildings placed upon the veldt, lacking both natural and artificial protection, the centre into which all roads come and from which all classes of people go. It is a thriving mid-African township which, more by good management than by good luck, has become at the present time an important outpost of our Empire. In these days, when the boom of cannon destroys the silences of our splendid isolation, and the scream of shell disturbs the harmony of night, Mafeking rests with patient steadfastness behind its hastily improvised earthworks, seeking shelter when the shells of the enemy press too hotly upon one another, yet always ready for work at the outposts, prepared for the fitful turbulence of our invading foe. Possibly from the Boer trenches Mafeking may look an armoured citadel. Possibly it is the sturdy appearance of our ramparts which have caused the Boers to bring their heavy artillery to bear upon our mud brick walls. Yet there is humour in this situation, since the gravity of our position accentuates the grim travesty of our defences. We have not so much as appears, and it would be unfair to give such a moment as the present the correct estimate of dummy camps which have been built, dummy earthworks which have been thrown up, of dummy guns which are in position. The