In the meantime the British Government was still waiting for a reply to its offer of a Joint Inquiry. On August 7th the Volksraad discussed the question, and on the 12th a despatch was written by Mr. Reitz refusing the offer on the ground that such a proposal was inconsistent with the independence of the Republic. It was held back, however, until September 1st; that is to say, until the Portuguese authorities had allowed the Transvaal ammunition to leave Lorenzo Marques. Then, as we shall see, it was forwarded in conjunction with a second despatch of September 2nd. The delay was won by a characteristic display of "the art of gaining time," in which, as Mr. Labouchere remarked, the Boers were past-masters. On the same day that Mr. Reitz wrote his despatch (August 12th), Mr. Smuts approached Sir William Greene[133] with the offer of a still further simplified seven years' franchise in lieu of the Joint Commission. When, however, Sir William Greene assured him that the British Government would not accept anything less than the Bloemfontein minimum, he subsequently agreed to an arrangement of which the main items were: A five years' franchise; the workable character of the new law to be secured by the submission of its provisions to the British Agent with a legal adviser; and increased representation in the Volksraad, together with the use of the English language. After communications had passed between Sir William Greene, Lord Milner, and Mr. Chamberlain, these proposals, with certain reservations, were formally communicated to the British Government by Mr. Reitz on August 19th. Two days later a second note was forwarded in which the offer contained in the previous note (August 19th) was declared to be subject to the acceptance by the British Government of two conditions. These conditions—an undertaking not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Republic in the future and a specific withdrawal of the claim of suzerainty—amounted in effect to a formal renunciation by Great Britain of its position as paramount Power in South Africa. Boer diplomacy. In other words, the Pretoria Executive had repudiated the arrangement made by Mr. Smuts with Sir William Greene. Mr. Chamberlain, noticing the material variation between the original offer as initialled by Mr. Smuts and forwarded by Sir William Greene, and Mr. Reitz's note of August 19th, instructed Sir William Greene to obtain an explanation of the discrepancy from the Transvaal Government. The reply was a curt rejoinder that there was not "the slightest chance of an alteration or an amplification" of the terms of the arrangement as set out in the note of the 19th.[134] In these circumstances Mr. Chamberlain telegraphed a reply on August 28th, in which he accepted the original offer, and rejected the impossible conditions subsequently attached to it.[135] The terms of settlement thus proposed were in substance the same as those of the despatch of July 27th, with the exception that an inquiry by the British Agent was substituted for the Joint Commission, and the five years' franchise of the Smuts-Greene arrangement was accepted in lieu of the seven years' franchise of the Volksraad law. The Transvaal reply was a further essay in the same useful "art of gaining time." It was dated September 2nd, and contained a definite withdrawal of the Smuts-Greene offer as embodied in the notes of August 19th and 21st, and a vague return to the Joint Commission.

"Under certain conditions," wrote Mr. Reitz,[136] "this Government would be glad to learn from Her Majesty's Government how they propose that the Commission should be constituted, and what place and time for meeting is suggested."[137]

And this with the consoling promise of a "further reply" to other questions arising out of the despatch of July 27th, which the Transvaal Government had not yet been able to consider.

The response to this astute document was the last effort of the Salisbury Cabinet to arrange a settlement upon the basis of the "friendly discussion" inaugurated at Bloemfontein. The British Government, Mr. Chamberlain wrote, had "absolutely repudiated" the claim, made in the notes of April 16th and May 9th, that the South African Republic was a "sovereign international state," and they could not, therefore, consider a proposal which was conditional on the acceptance of this view of the status of the Republic. They "could not now consent to go back to the proposals for which those of the note of August 19th were intended as a substitute," since they were "satisfied that the law of 1899, in which these proposals were finally embodied, was insufficient to secure the immediate and substantial representation" of the Uitlanders. They were "still prepared to accept the offer made in paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 of the note of August 19th," provided that an inquiry, joint or unilateral as the Transvaal Government might prefer, showed that "the new scheme of representation would not be encumbered by conditions which would nullify the intention to give substantial and immediate representation to the Uitlanders." They assumed that "the new members of the Raad would be permitted to use their own language." They expressed their belief that "the acceptance of these terms would at once remove the tension between the two Governments, and would in all probability render unnecessary any further intervention" on the franchise question, and their readiness—

"to make immediate arrangements for a further conference between the President of the South African Republic and the High Commissioner to settle all the details of the proposed Tribunal of Arbitration, and the questions ... which were neither Uitlander grievances nor questions of interpretation"

of the Convention. And they added that if the reply of the Republic was negative or inconclusive, "they would reserve to themselves the right to reconsider the situation de novo, and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement."[138]

The text of this despatch was telegraphed to Lord Milner late at night on September 8th. It was presented to the Transvaal Government on the 12th, with a request that the reply might reach the British Agent not later than midday on the 14th. This limit of time was fixed by Sir William Greene on his own initiative, and it was withdrawn by Lord Milner's instructions, in order that the Pretoria Executive might not be unduly hurried. The Transvaal reply, which was delivered on the 15th, was a refusal to accept the Smuts-Greene arrangement, re-stated by the British Government, as the basis of the franchise reform, coupled with a charge of bad faith against Sir William Greene.

It was a cleverly composed document, which owed its diplomatic effect in no small degree to Mr. Fischer, who had revised it. It was written for publication, since, in Mr. Fischer's opinion, the time had come to write despatches which would "justify the Republic in the eyes of the world"; and with this end in view it contained the suggestion that the British Government was bent upon worrying the Pretoria Executive into war.

"This Government," it explains, "continues to cherish the hope that Her Majesty's Government, on further consideration, will feel itself free to abandon the idea of making the new proposals more difficult for this Government, and imposing new conditions, and will declare itself satisfied to abide by its own proposal for a Joint Commission at first proposed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Imperial Parliament, and subsequently proposed to this Government and accepted by it."[139]

The British despatch of September 8th represented the united opinion of the Cabinet Council which had met on that day to consider the South African situation. In sending it, the Government also decided to raise the strength of the Natal and Cape forces to the total of 22,000, estimated by the War Office as sufficient for defensive purposes, by the immediate addition of 10,000 men, of whom nearly 6,000 were to be provided by the Indian Army.[140] The despatch itself, definite in contents and resolute in tone, was the sort of communication which, in Lord Milner's judgment, should have been forwarded to the Transvaal Government after the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference; and the additional troops now ordered out were nothing more than the substantial reinforcements for which he had applied in June. The three months' negotiations had led the Salisbury Cabinet to the precise conclusion which Lord Milner had formed at Bloemfontein. The only hope of a peaceable settlement lay in a definite demand, backed by preparations for war. But to do this in June, and to do it in September, were two very different things. Assuming that diplomatic pressure could in any case have availed to secure the necessary reforms, it is obvious that, whatever prospect of success attached to this course of action—Policy No. 2, as Lord Milner called it—in June, was materially diminished in September. During the interval the British Government had done practically nothing to improve its military position. That of President Krüger had been conspicuously improved. He had carried the Free State with him; he had got his Mauser ammunition and additional artillery, and he had completed his arrangements for the simultaneous mobilisation of the burghers of the two Republics. Even now the military action of the British Government was confined to preparations for defence; for the order to mobilise the army corps was not given until the next Cabinet Council had been held on September 22nd. The spirit of Pretoria was very different. The commandos were on their way to the Natal border before the reply to this British despatch of September 8th was delivered to the British Agent. That was President Krüger's real answer—not the diplomatic fencing of September 15th.

More than this, the three months' negotiations had embittered the relations of the British and Dutch factions in every South African state to such a degree that any compromise of the sort proposed by Lord Milner at Bloemfontein was no longer sufficient to effect a settlement. The moderate measure of representation then suggested would have been rejected now by the Uitlanders as wholly inadequate for their protection, in view of the violent antipathy to them and the gold industry which the diplomatic struggle had evoked among all classes of the Dutch inhabitants of the Transvaal. The particulars of the outrageous treatment, and still more outrageous threats, to which the British Uitlanders were subjected from this time onwards up to the ultimatum are to be found in the Blue-books. As early as the middle of August, when the Smuts-Greene negotiations had just been commenced, Mr. Monypenny, the editor of the Johannesburg Star, was warned that the Transvaal Government intended to issue a warrant for his arrest on a charge of high treason. This intention, postponed during the fortnight of delay won by these negotiations, was carried out on September 1st, on which day Mr. Pakeman, the editor of the Transvaal Leader, was secured, while Mr. Monypenny succeeded in effecting his escape. This indefensible act was followed by a characteristic attempt to disown it, made by Mr. Smuts, the State Attorney, the nature of which is sufficiently exhibited in the following telegram, despatched by the High Commissioner on September 4th to the Secretary of State:

The violence of the Boers culminated a week before the Ultimatum (October 9th-11th) in the wholesale expulsion of the British subjects still remaining in the two Republics. Assuming that this measure was justifiable on military grounds, there can be no excuse for the brutal precipitancy with which it was enforced. It crowded the colonial ports with homeless and impoverished fugitives; it inflicted unnecessary suffering and pecuniary loss upon inoffensive and innocent non-combatants, both European and native; and it was accompanied in some instances by displays of wanton cruelty and deliberate spite utterly unworthy of a people of European descent.

Thus it was only when Lord Milner's foresight had been unmistakably confirmed by the stern logic of facts that the British Government ordered these 10,000 troops to South Africa, 6,000 of whom—the Indian contribution—arrived just in time to save Natal from being overrun by the Boers. The three weeks preceding the Cabinet Council of September 8th, at which this decision was arrived at, had been a period of intense anxiety for the High Commissioner. With the spectacle of the increasing activity of England's enemies, and the increasing dismay of England's friends, before his eyes, his protests against the inactivity of the Home Government had become more urgent. In the middle of August he declared that he could no longer be responsible for the administration of South Africa unless he were provided immediately with another military adviser. General Forestier-Walker was then appointed, and after the departure of General Butler the Imperial Government intervened at length to check the further passage of munitions of war through the Colony to the Free State.[142] The Norman, the mail-boat of August 23rd in which Sir William Butler sailed for England, took home the masterly despatch[143] in which Lord Milner explained the position taken up by him at the Bloemfontein Conference, and showed how completely the proposals of the Transvaal Government differed from the spirit of the settlement which he had then invited President Krüger to accept. In doing so he reviewed the whole course of the subsequent negotiations, pointed out the insidious character of the last Transvaal proposal (August 19th and 21st), and emphatically protested against the suggestion that the Imperial Government should barter its rights as paramount Power for "another hastily framed franchise scheme," on account of its "superficial conformity" with what, after all, was only a single item in the long list of questions that must be adjusted before the peaceful progress of South Africa would be assured.[144] On August 28th Mr. Schreiner, when called to account in the Cape Parliament for having allowed, "in the usual course," the Mausers and ammunition for the Free State to pass through the Colony, made the strange declaration that in the event of war—

"he would do his very best to maintain [for the Cape Colony] the position of standing apart and aloof from the struggle, both with regard to its forces and with regard to its people."

Three days later (August 31st) Lord Milner sent a still more impressive appeal for "prompt and decisive action" on the part of the Home Government. The despatch, which was telegraphed, is otherwise significant for its account of the situation in Johannesburg:

"I am receiving representations from many quarters," he said, "to urge Her Majesty's Government to terminate the state of suspense. Hitherto I have hesitated to address you on the subject, lest Her Majesty's Government should think me impatient. But I feel bound to let you know that I am satisfied, from inquiries made in various reliable quarters, that the distress is now really serious. The most severe suffering is at Johannesburg. Business there is at a standstill; many traders have become insolvent, and others are only kept on their legs by the leniency of their creditors. Even the mines, which have been less affected hitherto, are now suffering, owing to the withdrawal of workmen, both European and native. The crisis also affects the trading centres in the Colony. In spite of this, the purport of all the representations made to me is to urge prompt and decided action, not to deprecate further interference on the part of Her Majesty's Government. British South Africa is prepared for extreme measures, and is ready to suffer much in order to see the vindication of British authority. It is a prolongation of the negotiations, endless and indecisive of result, that is dreaded. I fear seriously that there will be a strong reaction of feeling against the policy of Her Majesty's Government if matters drag. Please to understand that I invariably preach confidence and patience—not without effect. But if I did not inform you of the increasing difficulty in doing this, and of the unmistakable growth of uneasiness about the present situation, and of a desire to see it terminated at any cost, I should be failing in my duty."[145]

Indeed, while in England Mr. Chamberlain was remarking (at Highbury, August 27th) that he "could not truly say that the crisis was passed," and picturesquely complaining of President Krüger "dribbling out reforms like water from a squeezed sponge," every loyalist in South Africa knew that the time for words had gone by. On September 6th and 7th public meetings were held respectively at Maritzburg and Capetown, at which resolutions were passed affirming the uselessness of continuing the negotiations and the necessity for the prompt action of the Imperial Government.

Even this did not exhaust the evidence which was needed to persuade the Salisbury Cabinet to make effective preparations for the defence of the British colonies. The Cabinet Council of September 8th had before it, in addition to the Transvaal note of September 2nd, a direct and urgent request[146] for immediate reinforcements from the Government of Natal—the loyal colony which, as Lord Milner had declared, was to be defended "by the whole force of the empire."

These were the circumstances in which the Salisbury Cabinet did in September what Lord Milner had advised them to do in June. It is impossible to maintain that the British Government had gained anything in the way of political results comparable with the fatal loss of military strength incurred by the three months' delay. The over-sea British did not need to be taught either the justice or the necessity of securing citizen rights for the industrial population of the Transvaal. Before Lord Milner had been authorised to state that the petition of the Uitlanders had been favourably received by the Home Government, the citizens of Sydney had recorded in a public meeting their "sympathy with their fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal," and expressed their hope "that Her Majesty might be pleased to grant the prayer of her subjects." Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales had all three offered military contingents by July 21st;[147] the other colonies refrained only from a desire not to embarrass the Home Government in its negotiations with the Transvaal. Whatever good effect was produced upon the public opinion of the continent of Europe and the United States of America by the obvious reluctance of the British Government to make war upon a puny enemy, was more than counterbalanced by the spectacle of a great Power prevented from employing the most elementary military precautions by a nice regard for the susceptibilities of its political and commercial rivals. The idea that the sentiment either of the world at large or of the over-sea British would be favourably impressed by the three months of futile negotiations was a sheer delusion. It was the people of England who had to be educated.

How little they knew of the actual situation in South Africa, and of the real character of the Boers may be seen from what happened on September 15th. On this day a meeting was held at Manchester to protest against the mere idea of England having to make war upon the Transvaal. Lord (then Mr.) Courtney "hailed with satisfaction" the British despatch of September 8th, which, having been published in the Continental papers on the 13th, had appeared a day later (14th) in those of Great Britain. "It was a rebuke to the fire-eaters," he said, "and a rebuke most of all to one whom I must designate as a lost man, a lost mind—I mean Sir Alfred Milner." And Mr. John Morley, like Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, was convinced that there was no need of any preparations for war; the Transvaal Government "could not withdraw from the five years' franchise." The day on which these words were uttered was the day on which the note containing President Krüger's determination to "withdraw" from the five years' franchise, and his refusal even to consider the British offer of September 8th—hailed with satisfaction by his old ally, Lord Courtney—was handed to Sir William Greene.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VI

THE ULTIMATUM

The British people were destined to pay a heavy penalty for the ignorance and irresolution that caused them to withhold, from June to September, the mandate without which the Government was unable to prepare for war. What that penalty was will be made sufficiently clear when we come to consider the position of grave disadvantage in which the British forces designated for the South African campaign were placed at the outbreak of the war. For the moment it is enough to notice that, just as the real source of the military weakness of England in the war was the fact that only a very small proportion of her adult male population had received an elementary training in arms, so the futility of her peace strategy must be traced to the general ignorance of the bitter hatred with which British supremacy was regarded, not only by the Boers, but also by the Dutch subjects of the Crown in the Cape Colony and Natal. In a world-wide and composite State such as the British Empire, it is, of course, natural that the people of one component part should be unfamiliar, in a greater or lesser degree, with the conditions of any other part. What makes this mutual unfamiliarity dangerous is the circumstance that the control of the foreign relations, and of the effective military and naval forces, of the Empire as a whole, remains exclusively in the hands of the people of one part—the United Kingdom. In the absence of any administrative body in which the over-sea Britains are represented, the power, thus possessed, of moulding the destiny of any one province of the Empire lays upon the island people the duty of informing themselves adequately upon the circumstances and conditions of all its component parts. It is obvious that the likelihood of this duty being efficiently performed has been diminished greatly by the extension of the franchise. Fortunately, however, in the case of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, questions involving a decision to employ the Army or Navy which Great Britain maintains for the defence of the Empire have arisen rarely in recent years. It is in regard to India and South Africa that these decisions have been constantly required; and for half a century past each of these two countries in turn has been the battlefield of English parties. But while the efficiency of British administration has suffered in both cases by variations of policy due to party oscillations, infinitely greater injury has been done in South Africa than in India.

In respect of South Africa, while, speaking broadly, Liberal Governments have sought to escape from existing responsibilities, or to decline new ones, Conservative Governments have sought to discharge these responsibilities with the object of making this country a homogeneous and self-supporting unit of the empire. To persuade the nation to accept a policy which might, and probably would, involve it in an immediate sacrifice both of men and money, was plainly a more difficult task than to persuade it that no need existed for any such sacrifices. The "long view" of the Imperialist statesmen was supported in the present instance by past experience and by the judgment of the great majority of the British population actually resident in South Africa. The home English, remembering that the recall of Sir Bartle Frere had been followed by Majuba and the Retrocession, were anxious to maintain British supremacy unimpaired in South Africa. What kept them irresolute was the uncertainty as to whether this supremacy really was, or was not, in danger. Lord Milner had told them that the establishment of a Dutch Republic, embracing all South Africa, was being openly advocated, and that nothing but a striking proof of Great Britain's intention to remain the paramount Power—such as would be afforded by insisting upon the grant of equal rights to the British population in the Transvaal—could arrest the growth of the nationalist movement. He had pointed out also that the conversion of the Boer Republic into an arsenal of munitions of war, when, as in the case of Ketshwayo, there was no enemy against whom these arms could be turned other than Great Britain, was in itself a definite and unmistakable menace to British supremacy. This, moreover, was the deliberate and reasoned verdict of a man who had been commissioned, with almost universal approval, to ascertain the real state of affairs in South Africa. If the nation had believed Lord Milner in June, the British Government would have received the political support that would have enabled it to make the preparations for war in that month which, as we have seen, it was now making in September.

The agency which, by playing upon the ignorance of the public, prevented the nation from accepting at once the truth of Lord Milner's verdict, was the Liberal Opposition. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the official leader of the Liberal party, maintained throughout the three months in question that no reason existed for military preparation. Mr. Labouchere wrote, on the eve of the war: "The Boers invade Natal! You might just as well talk of their invading England." When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman maintained that there was no need for the Government to make any military preparations, we must presume that he believed one of two things: either that President Krüger would yield, or that, if President Krüger did not yield, there was nothing in the condition of South Africa to make it necessary for Great Britain to give any proof of her ability to maintain her position as paramount Power by force of arms. The action of the Liberal Opposition resolves itself, therefore, into a declaration, on its own authority as against Lord Milner's, that neither the republican nor the colonial Dutch had any intention of making war upon Great Britain in South Africa, or any resources which would enable them to carry out such an intention with any hope of success. Now, apart from the overwhelming testimony to the utter falsity of this assertion which is afforded by the facts of the campaign, and apart from such documents as the manifestos issued by both Republics upon the outbreak of the war, we possess—thanks to the exertions of the Intelligence Department—a mass of evidence, in the shape of private and official correspondence, which enables us to learn what was actually passing in the minds of the Dutch at this time. On the 15th of this month of September, 1899, the meeting to which we have referred[148] was held at Manchester, with the object, not of strengthening the hands of the Government in the military preparations which they were making thus tardily, but of protesting against the very idea that there was anything in the attitude of the Dutch in South Africa to make war necessary. A perusal of two of these captured documents will enable the reader to judge for himself in what degree this Liberal view of the situation corresponded with the facts. The first is a letter written on September 25th—that is to say, ten days after Lord Courtney was denouncing Lord Milner as "a lost mind" at Manchester—by Mr. Blignaut, brother to the State Secretary of the Free State. It is concerned with the safe arrival in the Free State of a Colonial Afrikander, who has left his home in the Western Province of the Cape Colony to join the republican forces:

This is not an isolated or exceptional expression of opinion. It is a typical statement of what was in the mind of ninety-nine out of every hundred republican nationalists at this time. The aspirations it contains were proclaimed a fortnight later to the world by President Krüger himself in the boast that his Republic would "stagger humanity." They appeared in the nonchalant remarks made a few days later by Mr. Gregorowski, the Chief Justice of the Transvaal, in bidding farewell to Canon Farmer,[150] who was preparing to leave his cure at Pretoria in view of the certainty of war.

"Is it really necessary for you to go? The war will be over in a fortnight. We shall take Kimberley and Mafeking, and give the English such a beating in Natal that they will sue for peace."

War, then, for the Boer meant "an opportunity of annexing the Cape Colony and Natal, and forming the Republican United States of South Africa." When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. John Morley, Lord Courtney, Mr. James Bryce, and other Liberal leaders saw no reason why the British Government should make military preparations—did, in fact, do all in their power to induce the English people to withhold the support necessary to allow the British Government to make these preparations—there were, twelve thousand British troops in South Africa to oppose the "forty-six thousand fighting men who had pledged themselves to die shoulder to shoulder" to secure the independence, not of the Transvaal but of "South Africa".

And what of the Dutch in the Cape Colony? Our second document will enlighten us on this point. It is an invitation, composed in doggerel rhyme, to the Boer forces to invade Griqualand West, signed by the chairman of a district branch of the Afrikander Bond. The date is not given; but as the proclamation under which Head-Commandant C. J. Wessels annexed the districts in question is dated November 11th, 1899, it was obviously written during the first three or four weeks of the war.

But, apart from this profound misconception of the real feeling and intentions of the Afrikander nationalists in South Africa, manifested with such disastrous effect during these critical months—June to September, 1899—the leaders of the Liberal Opposition otherwise displayed in their public utterances an ignorance of this province of the Empire that can only be characterised as "wanton." For what expression other than "wanton ignorance" can be used to describe the habit of mind which permits public men to make statements in direct conflict with the facts of South African history, as established by ascertainable evidence, or to state as facts allegations which proper inquiry would have shown to be untrue? Here again, from a mass of material provided by the utterances which came from the Liberal Opposition leaders on South African affairs, a few instances only can be brought to the notice of the reader, and these in the briefest form consistent with precision. On September 5th Mr. John Morley, speaking at Arbroath, stated that Sir Bartle Frere had "annexed the Transvaal." The present baronet, the late High Commissioner's son, called him to account at once; but it required three successive letters[152] to wring from Mr. John Morley a specific acknowledgement of his error. The evidence which establishes the fact that Frere did not annex the Transvaal is the following statement, bearing his signature and published in February, 1881:[153]

"It was an act which in no way originated with me, over which I had no control, and with which I was only subsequently incidentally connected.... It was a great question then, as now, whether the annexation was justifiable."

This was on the 5th. On the 27th a letter was published in The Times in which Sir William Harcourt wrote, in respect of the suzerainty question:

"All further argument is now superfluous, as the matter is decisively disposed of by the publication at Pretoria of Lord Derby's telegram of February 27th, 1884, in which the effect of the London Convention of that date was stated in the following words: 'There will be the same complete independence in the Transvaal as in the Orange Free State.'"

In a letter written on the day following, and published in The Times of October 2nd, the writer of the present work pointed out, among other inaccuracies, that the words actually telegraphed by Lord Derby were: "same complete internal independence in the Transvaal as in Orange Free State." That is to say, before the word "independence" the word "internal"—vitally important to the present issue—was inserted in the original, and omitted in the Boer version, from which Sir William Harcourt had quoted without referring to the Blue-book, Cd. 4,036.

The third instance occurred some three months later. Mr. James Bryce, speaking on December 14th, 1899, stated that Sir Bartle Frere "sent to govern the Transvaal Sir Owen Lanyon, an officer unfitted by training and character for so delicate and difficult a task."[154] The following passage, which the present writer subsequently published, affords precise and overwhelming evidence of the absolute untruth of Mr. Bryce's assertion. It appears in a letter written by Sir Bartle Frere on December 13th, 1878, to Mr. (now Sir) Gordon Sprigg, then Premier of Cape Colony.

"The Secretary of State has nominated Lanyon to take Shepstone's place whenever he leaves [i.e. when Lanyon leaves Kimberley, where he was Administrator of Griqualand West]. This was not my arrangement, and had it been left to me I think I should have arranged otherwise, for while I believe Lanyon to be one of the most right-minded, hardworking, and able men in South Africa, I know he does not fancy the work in the Transvaal, and I think I could have done better. However, it does not rest with me, and all I have to do is to find a man fit to take his place when he leaves."[155]

All of these three men were of Cabinet rank. Two of them, Mr. Morley and Mr. Bryce, enjoyed a great and deserved reputation as men of letters; and their public utterances on the South African question, accepted in large measure on the strength of this literary reputation, were responsible in an appreciable degree for the distrust and coldness manifested by the people of the United States of America towards Great Britain during the first year of the war. But this is a consideration of secondary importance. The vital point to recognise is that, so long as the Empire remains without a common representative council, a knowledge of the conditions of the over-sea Britains must be considered as necessary a part of the political equipment of any English statesman as a knowledge of Lancashire or of Kent. After the war had broken out, Lord Rosebery, almost alone among Liberal statesmen, did something to support the Government. This distinguished advocate of Imperial unity and national efficiency then recommended the English people to educate themselves by reading Sir Percy FitzPatrick's The Transvaal from Within, and encouraged them by declaring his belief that England would "muddle through" this, as other wars. It does not seem, however, to have occurred to Lord Rosebery that, if he had used his undoubted influence in time to prevent his party from making it impossible for the Salisbury Cabinet to carry out in June the effective peace strategy long recommended by Lord Milner, the prospect of a "muddle" would have been materially diminished, if not altogether removed.

There is one other fact that cannot be overlooked in estimating the degree in which the Liberal leaders are answerable to the nation for the fatal error of postponing effective military preparations from June to September. After the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference Lord Milner, as we have seen, asked for immediate and substantial reinforcements. Mr. Chamberlain then approached Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman with a proposal that the Government should inform the Opposition leaders of the circumstances that made military preparations necessary, and of the precise measures which they might deem advisable to adopt from time to time, on the understanding that the Opposition, on their part, should refrain from raising any public discussion as to the expediency of these measures. The object of this proposal was, of course, to enable the Government to make effective preparations for war, without lessening the prospect of achieving a peaceful settlement by the negotiations in progress. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's reply to this overture was a refusal to make the Opposition a party to any such arrangement. If the Government chose to make military preparations they must do so, he said, entirely on their own responsibility.

The significance of this refusal of Mr. Chamberlain's offer appears from the answer which was subsequently put forward by the Prime Minister, the late Lord Salisbury, to the charge of "military unpreparedness" brought against the British Government after the early disasters of the campaign. What prevented the Cabinet, according to the Premier, from taking the measures required by the military situation in June was the British system of popular government. Any preparations on the scale demanded by Lord Milner and Lord Wolseley could not have been set on foot without provoking the fullest discussion in Parliament and the Press. The leaders of the Opposition would have contested fiercely the proposals of the Government, and the perversion of these opportunities for discussion into an anti-war propaganda might have exhibited England as a country divided against itself. It may be questioned whether, in point of fact, the Liberal leaders could have done anything more calculated to injure the interests of their country if the Government had mobilised the army corps, and despatched the ten thousand defensive troops in June, than they did when these measures were postponed until September. But, however this may be, the circumstance that this proposal was made by Mr. Chamberlain, and refused by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, is noteworthy both as an indication of the spirit of lofty patriotism of which the Salisbury Cabinet, in spite of its initial error, was destined to give more than one proof in the course of the war and as an example of a method of escaping from the injurious results of a well-recognised defect in the democratic system of government—a method which, it is not unreasonable to hope, may be employed with success should the like occasion arise at any future time.

This, then, was the state of affairs in England. The Opposition throughout the negotiations was proclaiming that war was out of the question, and that preparations for war were altogether unnecessary. The people, being ignorant of the progress which the nationalist movement in South Africa had made, were irresolute, and withheld from the Government the support without which it could not make adequate military preparations, except at the risk of defeat in Parliament and possible loss of office.