The Transvaal.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 149, 7 January 1902, Page 4

The Transvaal.

London, January 8. The Boers withdrew their attack on the Swazi Queen's residence afclnjcanini when a strong impi of natives an. peared.

f Heavy cannonading has been heard south wards of the Frankfort-Tafelkod* blookbouse line. ,

De Wet was proriously at Leeuwkop. | The War Office has ordered from a [Montreal firm 1000 tons of Manitobiaa iflour for South Africa.

Continental calumnies with regard to the British Army have been acutely revived, more especially in some of the German newspapers; They make mon. stroua accusations, stating that both officers and soldiers have ravished onethird of the Boer women and female children captured, who were afterward* handed over to the Kaffirs. These statements are said to be based on the authority of al/rged eye-witnesses. I Those vile cVummeg have aroused intenss indignation throughout Great Britain.

Commandant Snynuan, formerly of De Wet's staff, in an inierview with President Roosevelt, declared that England would welcome a congress of intervention to end the war. The Boers were willing to make some concessions.

i January 4. Botha has forwarded a message to all commandants to continue fighting, and declares that the British Parliament will ahcrtly be asked to grant more money to .continue the war • the nation will refuse to grant any, and all troops will be withdrawn from South Africa.

i De Wet has ordered his followers to retard the construction of block-houses at all costs.

Thirty Boers were killed and many wounded at Twcefontein.

General Bruce Hamilton captured a ilaager, twenty-Uo Boers, and fourteon waggons, towards Swaziland.

Lord Kitchener reports that General Bruce Hamilton, operating east ofErmelo has captured since December 29ih, 100 prisoners, including General Erasmus, much stock and waggons. Earl Roberts, in replying to a German lady's statements in the newspaper Deutsche Blatb end other publications, in reference to the alleged violating of Boer women and girls, and the removal to Pretoria of females above twelve years of age from the Irene concentration camps for immoral purposes, deolares the charges to be absolutely baseless. Mr Rudyard Kipling, in a ringing, passionate poem published in the Times, appeals to the nation to face the necenities of Imperialism, accepting coa iption. He condemned the immense importance attached to cricket and football, and aocused the British of fawning* on younger nations for men who could shoot and ride*

Lord kitchener has telegraphed to Lord Minto, Governor-General of Canadaasking that trained troopers should | accompany the Canadian Contingent.

Boer circles in Brussels deny the depletion of Boer forces, and declara that the losses by deaths, captures and surrenders, are easily filled from the ranks i of the Africanders.

The Johannesburg Star has resumed publication. Lord Milnor, in starting the machinery, wished the paper a brilliant one.

January 5

The total reduction of the British field force in South Africa to the end of December was 2602 officors and 80,134men, including 931 officers, and 18,033 men by death, and 2664 officers and 61,606 men invalided home. The wa r has reduced the effective strength of the iarmy by 24,299 men.

Sydney, December 3,

The Cabinet have finally decided not to pay the second and subsequent contingents both Imperial and colonial rates. The men are equally determined, and will test the matter in the Court*.

Vienna, January 2

Max Nordau, a leading litarateur, writing in the Vienna newspaper, Nett Frei Press, siys that the tremendousexertions made in the Transvaal hav» strengthened Britain's position throughout the world. The historical and racialfrea united Canada stad Australasia to Great Britain now form a strong bond of union than any mere institutional bond could have done. Material had not influenced the devotion to the Mother Country shown by her colonies.

Brussels, January 2

An international meeting of Socialists condemned the hypocrisy of the Prussians. They pointed out the present barbarou c pjlicy pu sued in the Germanisation of the Poles by the Germans, while at the same time censuring British methods in South Africa.