[q. v.] was at first retained at the Cape as High Commissioner, but, in obedience to liberal remonstrances, Kimberley abruptly recalled him by telegram (1 Aug.) on the plea that South African federation was no longer possible (John Martineau's Frere, ii. 390–395). Irresolution also marked his treatment of the Transvaal Boers, who, encouraged by liberal election declarations, were chafing against annexation. The Queen's speech pronounced that British supremacy must be maintained in the Transvaal, and Kimberley defended that resolve on the ground that ‘it was impossible to say what calamities our receding might not cause to the native population.’ In his subsequent attitude to the crisis, Kimberley was freely credited with want of resolution and of clear purpose. The Boers took up arms; on 16 Dec. the South African Republic was proclaimed, and on 27 Feb. 1881 Sir George Colley [q. v.] was defeated and slain on Majuba Hill. Kimberley, meanwhile, had opposed in the cabinet on 30 Dec. the suggestion made by members of the Cape legislature that a special commissioner should be sent out (Morley's Gladstone, iii. 33). But, early in January, on the prompting of President Brand of the Orange Free State, he set on foot three different sets of negotiations, while stipulating that armed resistance must cease before terms of peace could be discussed. Through the Free State agent in London he placed himself in communication with President Brand, who handed on his views to the Boer leaders, President Kruger and General Joubert; he also communicated with President Brand through Sir Hercules Robinson [q. v. Suppl. I]], the new governor of Cape Colony, and with President Kruger through Sir George Colley (Sir William Butler's Colley, 322–352) and, after Colley's death, through Sir Evelyn Wood. Despite Colley's fatal reverse (27 Feb.), an eight days' armistice was arranged on 16 March; it was extended, and on the 22nd Gladstone announced the terms of peace, viz. the grant of complete self-government to the Boers on the acceptance of British suzerainty, native interests and questions of frontier to be settled by a royal commission. Kimberley had written to Colley on 24 Feb.: ‘My great fear has been lest the Free State should take part against us, or even some movement take place in the Cape Colony’ (Morley's Gladstone, iii. 40). On 31 March Kimberley in the House of Lords defended the ministerial policy against the trenchant attacks of Lords Cairns and Salisbury. He maintained that if we conquered the Transvaal we could not hold it, and—taking up a phrase of Cairns's—that the real humiliation would have been if, ‘for a mere point of honour,’ we had stood in the way of practical terms (Hansard, vol. cclx. cols. 278 to 292). Kimberley tried to get the district of Zoutpansberg set aside as a native reserve, but the commissioners were unable to accept the suggestion, and the plan formed no part of the convention of Pretoria (8 Aug. 1881). [For Kimberley's despatches see Parl. Papers, vols. l. and li., and 1881, vols. lxvi. and lxvii.; for an apology for the government, Morley's Gladstone, iii. 27–46.] In May 1881 Kimberley directed Sir Robert Morier, British minister at Lisbon, to drop the treaty he was negotiating with the Portuguese government, by which a passage was to be granted both to the Boers and to the British troops through Lourenço Marques; such an arrangement might have prevented the South African war of 1899–1902 (Letters of Sir Robert Morier, i. 400).
On 16 Dec. 1882 Kimberley was transferred to the India office in place of Lord Hartington, and held the appointment until the fall of the liberal government in June 1885. He cordially supported the viceroy, Lord Dufferin, in coming to an understanding with Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, at the Rawal Pindi durbar (Lyall's Dufferin, ii. 96); and on 21 May 1885 made a declaration in the House of Lords to the effect that Afghanistan must be regarded as outside the Russian sphere of influence, and inside the British (Hansard, vol. ccxcviii. cols. 1009–1011). During those years he was generally active in debate; he took charge of the franchise bill of 1884 and the redistribution bill of 1885 in the House of Lords, and spoke frequently on Egyptian and Soudanese affairs. He believed that if he had been in London he could have stopped the mission of Gordon to Khartoum, as he could have shown him to be unfit for the work (Fitzmaurice's Granville, ii. 401). On 27 Feb. 1885 he defended the government against the vote of censure moved by Lord Salisbury, but was defeated by 159 votes to 68. He was made K.G. and retired with the fall of the administration in June.
Kimberley found no difficulty in supporting Gladstone's policy of home rule, which was announced in the winter of 1885–6, and returned to the India office during Gladstone's short-lived home rule administration of 1886 (February to August). In April 1891 he succeeded
