If The Transvaal Contention Were Correct It Is
Clear That Great Britain Had Been Tricked And Jockeyed Into Such A
Position, since she had received no quid pro quo in the second
convention, and even the most careless of Colonial
Secretaries
could hardly have been expected to give away a very substantial
something for nothing. But the contention throws us back upon the
academic question of what a suzerainty is. The Transvaal admitted a
power of veto over their foreign policy, and this admission in
itself, unless they openly tore up the convention, must deprive
them of the position of a sovereign State. On the whole, the
question must be acknowledged to have been one which might very
well have been referred to trustworthy arbitration.
But now to this debate, which had so little of urgency in it that
seven months intervened between statement and reply, there came the
bitterly vital question of the wrongs and appeal of the Uitlanders.
Sir Alfred Milner, the British Commissioner in South Africa, a man
of liberal views who had been appointed by a Conservative
Government, commanded the respect and confidence of all parties.
His record was that of an able, clear-headed man, too just to be
either guilty of or tolerant of injustice. To him the matter was
referred, and a conference was arranged between President Kruger
and him at Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. They
met on May 30th. Kruger had declared that all questions might be
discussed except the independence of the Transvaal. 'All, all, all!
' he cried emphatically. But in practice it was found that the
parties could not agree as to what did or what did not threaten
this independence. What was essential to one was inadmissible to
the other. Milner contended for a five years' retroactive
franchise, with provisions to secure adequate representation for
the mining districts. Kruger offered a seven years' franchise,
coupled with numerous conditions which whittled down its value very
much, promised five members out of thirty-one to represent a
majority of the male population, and added a provision that all
differences should be subject to arbitration by foreign powers, a
condition which is incompatible with any claim to suzerainty. The
proposals of each were impossible to the other, and early in June
Sir Alfred Milner was back in Cape Town and President Kruger in
Pretoria, with nothing settled except the extreme difficulty of a
settlement. The current was running swift, and the roar of the fall
was already sounding louder in the ear.
On June 12th Sir Alfred Milner received a deputation at Cape Town
and reviewed the situation. 'The principle of equality of races
was,' he said, essential for South Africa. The one State where
inequality existed kept all the others in a fever. Our policy was
one not of aggression, but of singular patience, which could not,
however, lapse into indifference.' Two days later Kruger addressed
the Raad. 'The other side had not conceded one tittle, and I could
not give more. God has always stood by us. I do not want war, but I
will not give more away. Although our independence has once been
taken away, God has restored it.' He spoke with sincerity no doubt,
but it is hard to hear God invoked with such confidence for the
system which encouraged the liquor traffic to the natives, and bred
the most corrupt set of officials that the modern world has seen.
A dispatch from Sir Alfred Milner, giving his views upon the
situation, made the British public recognise, as nothing else had
done, how serious the position was, and how essential it was that
an earnest national effort should be made to set it right. In it he
said:
'The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted
answer is that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in
fact, the policy of leaving things alone has been tried for years,
and it has led to their going from bad to worse. It is not true
that this is owing to the raid. They were going from bad to worse
before the raid. We were on the verge of war before the raid, and
the Transvaal was on the verge of revolution. The effect of the
raid has been to give the policy of leaving things alone a new
lease of life, and with the old consequences.
'The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in
the position of helots, constantly chafing under undoubted
grievances, and calling vainly to her Majesty's Government for
redress, does steadily undermine the influence and reputation of
Great Britain within the Queen's dominions. A section of the press,
not in the Transvaal only, preaches openly and constantly the
doctrine of a republic embracing all South Africa, and supports it
by menacing references to the armaments of the Transvaal, its
alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which,
in case of war, it would receive from a section of her Majesty's
subjects. I regret to say that this doctrine, supported as it is by
a ceaseless stream of malignant lies about the intentions of her
Majesty's Government, is producing a great effect on a large number
of our Dutch fellow colonists. Language is frequently used which
seems to imply that the Dutch have some superior right, even in
this colony, to their fellow-citizens of British birth. Thousands
of men peaceably disposed, and if left alone perfectly satisfied
with their position as British subjects, are being drawn into
disaffection, and there is a corresponding exasperation upon the
part of the British.
'I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous
propaganda but some striking proof of the intention of her
Majesty's Government not to be ousted from its position in South
Africa.'
Such were the grave and measured words with which the British
pro-consul warned his countrymen of what was to come. He saw the
storm-cloud piling in the north, but even his eyes had not yet
discerned how near and how terrible was the tempest.
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