as it was matter between Swazi and Swazi, and no European was involved.*

The Government of the Transvaal, on the advice of its new officials was proceeding to arrest the principal chief, who was called Bunu, when the High Commissioner interposed, and pointed out that, under the Convention, the Swazi usages were maintained intact, unless in conflict with civilised laws and customs, that the privileges of the principal chief were specially protected, and that the High Court had already decided that there was no jurisdiction.

At the same time the Imperial Government were quite prepared, by means of a new protocol, to enlarge the jurisdiction of the High Court, and in every way to facilitate the maintenance of order and the gradual introduction of European civilisation.

The Transvaal Government, on militant Afrikander advice, refused to admit that the Imperial Government had any right to a voice in the interpretation of the Convention -a bilateral instrument to which it was one of the parties. No remonstrance from the Imperial Government would be entertained—although the right was expressly reservedunless there should be a breach of the Convention; of which, apparently, Pretoria alone was to be the sole judge. They moved Transvaal troops-drilled volunteers as well as burgher commandoes-into Swaziland to seize the Swazi chief, who fled to British territory in August 1898.

The High Commissioner evidently saw that, behind the apparently minor dispute as to the interpretation of a convention there was a spirit and purpose to discredit conventional obligations, and to weaken the whole authority of the Imperial Power. Through the Acting British Agent, Mr. Edmund Fraser, what was practically an ultimatum was presented to Pretoria; and, as times were not then deemed ripe for war, the Transvaal troops were withdrawn from Swaziland; an arrangement was made that the Chief Bunu

The merits of this decision are immaterial; as most lawyers will agree, that another judge might very well have held that such a proceeding was contrary to civilised laws and customs."

was merely to be fined, and not hanged, as intended, and a new Protocol was signed, in October 1898, extending the jurisdiction of the High Court of Swaziland to cover cases of violent crime, even where only Swazis are concerned.

So within two months of succeeding to office in Pretoria, the Young Afrikanders had brought South Africa and the Empire to the verge of a war, such as has now convulsed the world.

This, of course, was quite undreamt of in England, where the declaration of the Colonial Secretary that five times within recent years war with the Transvaal was imminent, has hardly even yet been realised in its literal correctness.'

As it will explain much that follows, I may say that it was at this point, in October 1898, after many doubts and long enquiry that I realised the real trend-notwithstanding the most pacific professions-of the Afrikander movement. It meant war. The question was one only of time. That the leaders were absolutely assured that actual fighting would be necessary is another matter. If the Empire were at war with another Great Power, possibly the Imperial Government would peaceably cede South Africa to the Dutch-speaking dominion, and even accept a subsidy for policing the sea by its fleet, until the new dominion could spare time to create one of its own.

* I entered a strong protest against this method of interpreting Conventions, which is only meant as a political device to evade public obligations, and finally to ensure their destruction by desuetude.

The position taken up by State Secretary Reitz and his colleague, State Attorney Smuts, and their followers, was obviously-apart from their political purpose-that there is no real validity in stipulations pledged on the public faith. In fact, that International Law has no real existence, being "largely a matter of opinion, inasmuch as it has no law courts to enforce it," to quote Secretary Reitz's sagacious phrase. This must be interesting to English lawyers, being an instructive survival of English legal education-the Austinian heresy. It would no doubt surprise that amiable theorist, John Austin, to find his harmless abstractions helping to excuse the evasion of treaties.

The commandeering of British subjects in the Free State to fight against their own people, and the express declaration of Executive Councillor Fischer and President Steyn, " We don't recognise International Law here," will illustrate the same spirit (in the case of Dr. Dalgliesh, referred to in Sir Alfred Milner's despatch, 5th December, 1899.

N

My absolute conviction that there would be war was induced by the fact that I had learned to know the mind of the young Afrikander, and well knew the mind of the British people. It was as if one were looking through a stereoscope, from two points of view at once. In England no one could believe in the combined ignorance and audacity of two petty States rashly challenging the world-wide Empire; and so, no one dreamt of war. In the Transvaal and among the mass of half-educated Afrikanders, not to mention the veld Boer, although war was conceived as possible, their invincible ignorance of the extent of the resources, of the reserve military power, of the determination of the Imperial people was as great as British incredulity as to the magnitude of an audacity, the result of a hundred years of Imperial mistakes.

CHAPTER XIX.

AFRIKANDER ACTION AGAINST THE UITLANDER AND THE

EMPIRE.

LEAVING Pretoria, in November 1898, I made a tour through the Portuguese territory, the town of Lourenço Marques on Delagoa Bay; thence to Durban and other districts of Natal; and, visiting on the way the Eastern Province at East London and Port Elizabeth, arrived in Cape Town in January, 1899. My return to the Transvaal took place in April following.

Impressed as I had been on leaving the Transvaal, with the pending certainty of war, I endeavoured, while pursuing my other inquiries, to ascertain the views of leading men, of all political parties, in all these districts of South Africa on the possibilities of war. Among those who views I sought were the Governor of Natal, Sir Walter Hely Hutchinson, and the Acting High Commissioner, Sir William Butler; the leading members of the past and the present Governments, and of the legislative bodies; as well as of leading lawyers, of leading merchants and landowners in Natal, the Eastern Province and the Cape. With only two exceptions, I was assured that the prospects of war between the two Boer States and the Empire, or between Dutch and British in South Africa, were so remote that no sensible man would think about them. There were only two exceptions who, neither of them South Africans, realised the menace of the situation; one holding a high Imperial post; the other a friend, whose position in the Diplomatic Service, had given

him exceptional opportunities of understanding the South African problem.*

The last agitation of the Uitlanders of Johannesburg took place in January 1899, arising out of the outrage known as the Edgar murder. A British resident, being involved in some street brawl, took refuge in his own house. The Boer police-British being excluded from the force-broke in the door; and, although several in number, one of them shot the fugitive dead, instead of arresting him. The policeman was brought to trial, and after a charge from the Boer judge, was unanimously acquitted by the Boer jury. The Uitlanders determined to protest and to appeal for Imperial protection. Under the auspices of the South African League they drew up a petition to the Queen, and transmitted it in February to the Acting High Commissioner in Cape Town. It was returned on account of some informality in the presentation, and the Acting High Commissioner expressed himself in terms somewhat unfavourable to the methods of the League. A new petition of the 28th March, 1899, bearing 21,684 signatures was drawn up, and a deputation proceeded to the British Vice-Consul of Johannesburg to request his forwarding it to the Queen. For this exercise of the elementary rights of a British citizen, the leaders of the demonstration, Messrs. Webb and Dodd, were prosecuted at the order of the Afrikander State Attorney, Smuts, for infringement of the Transvaal law prohibiting public meetings. Incidentally to this proceeding, an illegal subpoena to attend the trial was served on the Vice-Consul, who refused to obey it.

At this point, the Uitlanders of Johannesburg began to suspect the genuineness of the sympathy felt with their lot by the educated Afrikander.

* A member of the present Cape Ministry reminds me that, in January, 1899, I told a party of friends at his house that war was inevitable during the year, and that a quarter of a million of Imperial troops would be required to cope with the Boer forces. This, no one present could be brought to believe; the theory of "Huis toe" and under-estimate of the veld Boers, prevailed among Imperialists at the Cape as well as Johannesburg; and, as regards their leaders, the educated Young Afrikanders, no one could realise that they could be so ignorant and so audacious.