again in the internal affairs of the republic. That promise, of course, it was impossible to give, after all the experience we have had, which teaches us at least to say that we can place no faith in the Transvaal government The answer of the republic to that despatch was to declare that the terms were offered only subject to the conditions, that a refusal to consent to the conditions upon which they were offered was equivalent to a refusal of the terms themselves. Nothing further took place before the outbreak of war except this, that Mr Chamberlain at the last moment added a new demand. He demanded, if the franchise was settled, that the new members who represented the Uitlanders in the volksraad should be allowed to speak English. Of course, as they would not be able to speak Dutch, their presence in the volksraad would be useless without that permission. There is no objection made to the French Canadians speaking French in the parliament of Canada. But that demand the Transvaal government refused absolutely.
And then, when the grass on the veldt was grown enough to afford forage for the horses, they declared war with an ultimatum which demanded that we should remove at once all our troops from the borders of the republic, that we should remove from South Africa all troops landed there since the 1st of June, and that the troops then at sea should not be landed in South Africa The ultimatum came at a time when negotiations had never been broken off, when it was still possible for either party to make fresh proposals. It demanded too that we should leave ourselves disarmed, with nothing but our usual small garrison, in the presence of two armed republics, and it is no wonder that such an ultimatum as that was instantly refused[1].
If we are asked what it is we are at war about, I would
- ↑ The fact that it was so framed lights up the uncertainty that might possibly have still rested on the policy of the two republics, and exhibits them insisting on a position of military superiority in South Africa.
