The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1900. PRETORIA ABANDONED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 100, 1 June 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1900. PRETORIA ABANDONED.

Commencing with Kruger's famous ultimatum, the South African War has furnished us with one long succession of surprises. The first series, including the Nicholson's Nek, Stormberg, Modder River, and Tugela River reverses, were surprises of a nature that we could very well have dispensed with. 1 Since then, however, there has come a more pleasant phase of the unexpected in the swift and masterly strokes whereby Lord Roberts relieved Kimberley, defeated Oronje and captured his army, relieved (indirectly) Ladysmith and Mafeking, invaded the Transvaal, captured Johannesburg, and now, last and most important, has frightened the Boers out of Pretoria, and has the capital city of the enemy in his hands without any attempt at a struggle. The hero of Kandahar evidently went to South Africa to some purpose. What more remains for Lord Roberts and his army to do cannot be very much; the Transvaal is aconquered country, and England's day of reckoning with the Boer leaders has come. Kruger's vaunted boast as to how Pretoria would be defended is already proved to have been an utterly hollow one. He has had his day, and a disastrous day it has been for the country he affected to love and serve, but which he selfishly and criminally exploited to the last. It will i take a long time to clean up matters in South Africa, even after the war has closed, and that at present distressful country will claim attention for many a year to come, but it is safe to say that with the falling of Pretoria into the hands of the British the cleaning up process may be considered to. have started, and each fresh step now taken will be in the direction of tstablishing British rule over the annexed Republics, and administering them according to English ideas of Liber ;y and Right. The nation for the moment rejoices in the brilliant consummation of its military operations. Soon enough will come the contemplation of its aftermath and the realisation of how grim and heartbreaking is the underside of glory.