I sum up that neither the different claims that the convention has been broken by the Transvaal government, nor the claims to redress for grievances to individuals, have been such as could be made a cause of war. They have either been such as we could not make at all against a stronger foreign country in which the same circumstances occurred, or they have been claims for which, the facts as regards them being disputed, the true remedy would have been arbitration. And before I leave that part of the subject, I will say that I think the attempt to find for these various claims a justification on the ground of the conventions, or of the conversation of 1881, has seriously damaged our case. It has led to untenable arguments being used, and to the introduction of the principle, a perfectly untenable principle, that the conventions themselves have not to be interpreted according to their language but under the assumption of a vague suzerainty. The kind of argumentation which has been used, the introduction of this vague suzerainty, has, I think, contributed to that suspicion of our motives, to that suspicion of our being unwilling to abide by any written agreement, which no doubt has been one of the causes of this war. But I think we may pass them by in consideration of the vastly more important matters which arise out of the general policy of the Transvaal state since it was established on its present footing by the convention of 1884. It does seem to me that there is very great reason for contending that it has systematically acted in such a manner as to constitute a grave danger, which entitled this country to throw the letter of the convention aside and to demand relief from a situation which had become intolerable[1].
- ↑ I believe that the bad and mischievous argumentation to which
the conversation has turned up in the discussions on the subject of the franchise. It was therefore with amazement that I read in the Queen's speech, at the dissolution of parliament on 9th August last: "The position of my subjects in the South African Republic is inconsistent with the promises of equal treatment on which my grant of internal independence to that republic was founded."
