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The British manuals of the late 1800s/early 1900s were written or approved by senior officers who were trained with single shot rifles as cadets. We are products of our generation, so when Lee Enfields were created, they were fitted with magazine cutoffs. It was a piece of metal that slid over the magazine and prevented cartridges from being chambered from the mag.

Standard training back then was for soldiers to single feed - just like Martinis. It was thought that controlled fire could be maintained with an NCO/jr officer controlling the load/fire sequence in battle. It also prevented wasting ammunition. Feeding from the magazine was for "exigent circumstances only". IOW, when shtf.

Added: "Failures" of push feed rifles throughout history were almost always those of a man, not the mechanism.