These figures show that there was a defect somewhere.

It was not in the absence of courage.

I think it lay in the absence of discretion.

The Briton should have done one thing or the other: discarded British methods and fought the Boer with Boer methods, or augmented his own force until--using British methods--it should be large enough to equalize results with the Boer.
To retain the British method requires certain things, determinable by arithmetic.

If, for argument's sake, we allow that the aggregate of 1,716 British soldiers engaged in the 4 early battles was opposed by the same aggregate of Boers, we have this result: the British loss of 700 and the Boer loss of 23 argues that in order to equalize results in future battles you must make the British force thirty times as strong as the Boer force.