A "Special" on England's Wars

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 84, 27 December 1884, Page 3

A " Special" on England's Wars

« Mr Melton Prior, a " special artist" of the Illustrated London News, in reply to an interviewer said, " Precious little good has come of ail our fighting, so far as those English wars are concerned. If you or auy other man can show me any good ihat has come to England or to anybody else from those campaigns in the Soudan, for instance, I give it up. We went to relieve the garrisons, aud found the enemies' guns served by men whom we went to relieve. We did not open the road to Berher ; and as fer •■ecuring the safety ot Souakim, O-sinan Digna will be there like a shot as soon as the last of our soldiers is withdrawn. I hardly think you will say that our Transvaal war did any good. At least I hardly see the fun of being licked four times running and then giving in, while the Loyals who trusted us were left to he ruined by the men who had whipped us. In Zululand also it was a pretty mess Battles enough and bloodshed ; but at the end of it all everything, was worse than before. In like manner our fighting among the Basutos came to nothing. It ruined many Basutos and cost a great deal of money, but that was all. In faot, so far as the wars in which we have been engaged are concerned — and I have seen them all for the last dozen years, outside Asia— John Bull had much better have stopped at home and kept the powder dry instead of rampaging about the world killing his neighbours.