The decline and fall of the British Empire - University of Oregon

48
The Decline and Fall
seem to have thought that a fleet
was their sole need.*
Let us observe for a moment a few
aspects of this wide Empire at the
close of the South African war. In
the first place the blacks in South
Africa, to say nothing of the Boers,
were as five to one. Most of the
natives in Basutoland were armed
with Martini-Henri rifles and pos-
sessed an adequate supply of
cartridges. The mere numbers of
these uncivilized barbarians, and
their knowledge of the grave Native
problems in the United States, should
have put the English on their guard,
even if they had never learned the
and I was reluctant to put forward demands which
would have caused a still further reduction."—Earl
Roberts' statement before the Royal Com7t>.ission
on War in South Africa. Minutes ofEvidence I. ,
page 433.
* I would here ask the reader to remember
how, till the very night of their doom, the English
never realized that, through the increased speed
of the modern steamship and the submarine march
of the torpedo, the English Channel had virtually
become a moat, and Britain was rapidly ceasing
to be an island*