put the final points at issue shortly thus. The British demand is for the franchise to be obtained after five years' residence, also by those who have already resided five years in the republic, together with a substantial number of new seats for the Rand. That is refused unless we give a promise, which we decline to give, of never again on any ground interfering with the affairs of the republic. That the promise so demanded was meant to include intervention on grounds of general international law is evident from the circumstance that the question of the suzerainty was made the subject of a separate condition in the terms proposed on 19th and 21st August. Then there is the other British demand of the free use of either language in the volksraad, which is refused absolutely. There is the Transvaal demand that we should submit not only particular questions but the general relations of the two countries to arbitration, which would be equivalent to referring it to an arbitrator to make a new convention[1], and that we should disarm our colonies in the face of their armaments. These are the short issues on which we are now at war. The Transvaal ultimatum was more than an ultimatum; it was a conditional declaration of war. It declared that if its terms were not accepted by the time named a state of war would exist. The terms were not accepted by the time named, and we instantly became as much at war in the regular international sense as if the Queen had herself made a declaration of war by the usual proclamation. Thereupon the Orange Free State issued a declaration of war against England on the ground of the
- ↑ The form in which this demand was made in the ultimatum was "that all points of mutual difference shall be regulated by the friendly course of arbitration, or by whatever other amicable way may be agreed upon by this government with Her Majesty's government." This could be worked as a peremptory demand for arbitration, simply by not agreeing to any other amicable way that might be proposed. The correspondence extending over years must be examined in order to appreciate the scope of the desired arbitration.
