CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS.

Manawatu Herald, 18 December 1900, Page 2

CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS.

The Transvaal.

DE WET. De Wet is now reported to be proceeding towards Dewetsdorp. Major-General Knox is closely pursuing De Wet with a strong force. The mounted and other columns under the British general's command are converging on De Wet's commando. The Boers have released the thirteen British soldiers they captured at Barberton. Advices from pro- Boer sources in Brussels state that Russia has urged Mr Kruger to terminate needless bloodshed and accept Britain's conditions. HORSES AND MUTTON. Eight hundred and fifty army remounts have been shipped fron Sydney for South Africa. Another steamer will take a quarter of a million pounds of corned mutton for the army. • . SUPPLY OF ORDNANCE. Germany has stopped delivery in England of the guns manufactured by the Elirhards Ordnance Company ' under contract with the South African Chartered Company,' on the ground | that it was inconsistent with neutrality j to allow guns to be supplied. THE DELAGOA RAILWAY. It is semi-officially stated that Germany, England and Portugal will improve Delagoa Bay, England controlling the railway. CAPTURE OF A BISHOP. A party of Boers captured the Bishop of Zululand, near Vryheid. They commandeered the carriage ' horses and allowed the Bishop to return to Utrecht. , j THE YEOMANRY DISASTER. The Hon W. St J. Brodrick, Secretary of State for War, has dismissed two of the officers who were implicated in the disaster that befell the Yeomanry battalion at Lindley. Colonel Spragge, the commanding officer was exonerated. \ TROOPS IN SOUTH AFRICA. The Premier has received the following cable from London : — " The Secretary for War slates that it is necessary that more than 200,000 troops should be kept in South Africa and the expenditure could not be greatly reduced for some months: It is admitted that her Majesty's Government miscalculated the duration of the war." j MR KRUGER. I Count von Bulow, the Imperial Chancellor, stated in the Reichstag that Mr Kruger was warned while in '■ Paris that the Kaiser would not j receive him, but he nevertheless j presisted in his visit. Germany, said the Chancellor, was not accustomed to be thus taken by storm. The attitude of the Imperial Government was designed to promote the interests of the country and to tacilitate the maintenance of peace. Count von Bulow is reported to have added that the telegram despatched by the Emperor to Mr Kruger on the occasion of the Jameson raid had proved that in the event of a conflict with England Germany must rely solely upon her own strength. SERIOUS BRITISH REVERSE. A serious reverse has occurred to the force commanded by Major-General Clements at Nooitgedacht, a small place to the west of Krugersdorp, which is situated twenty-five miles in a westerly direction from Johannesburg. The Boer commandoes under General De La Ray and Beyer, to the number of 2500 attacked the British under Major-General Clements. The attack began at dawn on Thursday morning. Though the first attack of the Boers was repulsed the enemy assailed and occupied Magliesburg, which had been held by four companies of the Northumberland Fusiliers. ' By this effective movement the Boers were able to command the camp occupied by the troops under Major-General ' Clements, situated to the south of Magliesburg. The British commander was obliged to withdraw to a hill in the centre of the valley near Hekspoort, a place about fifteen or twenty miles to the north-west of Krugersdorp. Four British officers were killed, including Major Morton Legg of the 20th Hussars. There were many casualties on both sides. Colonel Alderson, trom Pretoria, and General French from Johannesburg, are hastening with reinforcements to . Krugersdorp. It has been ascertained that five : British officers and nine men have been killed ; and eighteen officers and five 1 hundred and forty-five men are missing. ' Major-General Clements reports the 1 Northumberland Fusiliers resisted the j 1 attack of the Boers until all their am- I munition had been expended. (

Some two thousand Boers attacked the hill where one thousand Britisher* were encamped. The hill was carried at half-past six o'clock in the morning, a company of Yorkshires having failed to reach the top to help in repelling the enemy. DE WET ESCAPES. Major-General Knox, with the troops under his command, drove De Wet and his three thousand Boers from the south up to the Thaba N'chu-Lady-brand line of entrenchments, which were held by the British. The Boers, assisted by a force operating from the north, desperately attacked the British, but the enemy lost considerably • while breaking through, and portion being unable to pa3B. The British captured one 15-pounder at Dewetsdorp, one pom-pom, and several waggons of ammunition. Twenty-two prisoners were taken. ACTIVITY OF THE ENEMY. It is stated that fifteen hundred now threaten Koomati Port, on the Transvaal and Portuguese border. The British garrison at Utrecht, in an endeavour to save several guns, attacked and repulsed a larger force of Boers. A force of Boers derailed a number of trucks ten miles from Standerton. The British troops, however, prevented them from capturing the supplies. General Louis Botha, with a commando of 1500 Boers, is now in the vicinity of Standerton, on the NatalTransvaal Railway, sixty miles to the north-west of the Natal border. The Boers have removed four waggons loaded with produce from the Riverton Road Station, which was unprotected. They burned the goods and destroyed the railway line. MORE TROOPS ORDERED SOUTH. Eight hundred mounted infantry troops now at Aldershot, together with an army medical corps of two hundred have been ordered to prepare for South Africa. Besides this, four hundred mounted troops are being sent to South Africa from Malta.