The Colonial Secretary's despatch of the 8th September refuses to go back to the seven years' franchise proposal, as the Imperial Government are satisfied it is insufficient; but is willing still to accept the lately proposed five years' franchise; assumes that the English language is to be used by the new Volksraad members; and suggests a new Conference to discuss the Arbitration and other outstanding questions.

Now we reach the fatal despatch of State Secretary Reitz of the 16th September, after the commandoes had been ordered out and sent to the Natal border. Pretoria will not agree to a five years' franchise unless on the conditions already imposed, and refuses the use of the English language in the Volksraad, but will now agree to a Joint Inquiry.

The reading of this remarkable diplomatic correspondence at this point should be accompanied by a war map. The explanation has already been given. It was the effect on the Imperial Government of the presence of commandoes on the Natal border that was awaited, more than the tenor of this despatch.

The reply of the Colonial Secretary of the 22nd September closes the discussion, and announces the intention of the Imperial Government to "formulate its own proposals for a final settlement of the issues which have been created in South Africa by the policy constantly followed for many years by the Government of the South African Republic."

Last comes that most insolent document, flushed with insane arrogance-the Ultimatum. It is, as has already been stated, not a diplomatic document at all. The Afrikander leaders saw that war had come upon them through the impatience of the veldt Boer; and now was their last chance of a parting greeting to the foe they had so fatuously contemned. Its modest demands deserve enumeration:

First.-All matters of difference to be settled by Arbitration.
Second.-British troops on the borders to "be instantly withdrawn."
Third.—“ All reinforcements of troops which have arrived in South

Africa since the 1st of June, 1899, shall be removed from South
Africa."

Fourth.-"Her Majesty's troops which are now on the High Seas
shall not be landed in any part of South Africa."

"An immediate and affirmative answer" is requested "before or upon Wednesday, 11th October, 1899, not later than 5 o'clock P.M."

Failure to accept these terms before 5 o'clock P.M. is to be regarded as a declaration of war.

Any further movement of British troops is also to be regarded as a declaration of war.

These terms would have been rejected with scorn by Montenegro. The Imperial Government is calmly requested to evacuate British territory and to recall British troops on the high seas.

Still, with all this insolence, even to the last is to be perceived the note of non-European subtleness. This arrogant Ultimatum attempts to lay the responsibility for a declaration of war on the Imperial Government, because, indeed, they will not evacuate British territory and will not prevent British troops from landing at British ports.

But, as has been seen, it was intended as nothing but a parting insult to the Imperial people and Government, whom the separatist Afrikander had foolishly despised since Majuba Hill. And so, once again, is the Chancellor Oxenstierna justified of his saying-" Vides, mi fili, quantilla sapientia homines regantur.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

ON WHICH SIDE WAS THE AGGRESSION?

FROM what has been seen of the methods and objects of the Afrikander in power in Pretoria and Bloemfontein, it will be clear that the aggression and the making war was not on the side of the Imperial Government.

There was no aggression or undue or unwarrantable interference in the Imperial interposition to put an end, as a measure of self-defence, to an intolerable menace to the peace of South Africa and to the very existence of the Empire, involved in the presence of a formidable and hostile military Power on the border, ever ready to attack at a moment when the Empire should become involved in foreign complications. It was no aggression to intervene for the protection of the oppressed Uitlanders; it was an Imperial duty to citizens of the Empire and of friendly Powers; it was self-defence to prevent the growing disaffection of the Colonial Dutch.

This is the real justification of the Imperial position; the situation was so menacing and intolerable that it would have justified armed intervention and occupation of the Boer states.

I prefer to call attention to this-the real inwardness of the situation rather than to the platform question, “Who struck the first blow?"

As a matter of fact, the militant Afrikander led his misguided people into striking the first blow, by seizing, annexing, and renaming British towns and territory in Natal and Cape Colony; and by looting and destroying houses and

property of British citizens; and by cruelly expelling and maltreating the majority of the European inhabitants of the Transvaal.*

But, we are told, although it is admitted that the Boers struck the first blow, seized British territory and expelled and maltreated British citizens, still their action was only technically aggressive. Believing they were going to be attacked, they, in their simple way, took up defensive positions on alien soil. As Mr. Leonard Courtney put it, they, in entire innocence, took the Colonial Secretary's intimation that discussion was useless, and that the Imperial Govern

As it is not my intention to write in this book a history of the unprecedented scenes of the Exodus from the Transvaal, or of the progress of the war, I, therefore, deal with that unparalleled outrage on civilisation, by order of the Afrikanders in power in Pretoria, in connection with the question of the responsibility for the war. I resided near Johannesburg during most of the period, and had abundant proof of the misery wrought at the instance of the Afrikander office-holders, Secretary Reitz and State Attorney Smuts, who, as lawyers, advised the Pretoria Government to take this step. Johannesburg at last appreciated the educated Young Afrikander.

It is, of course, true that, under International Law, a State at war is entitled to order the withdrawal of subjects of the other belligerent. But here, if ever, must be applied the exception, "Summum jus, summa injuria." The general rule, taken from the custom of States in Europe, applied to far different circumstances. Nowhere in the history of the civilised world has the majority of the inhabitants of a territory, men, women, and children, been driven from their homes in which they have lived for years by an armed minority. There was no justification in military necessity, or otherwise, for advising the expulsion of these poor people.

The cruelty of the manner of the expulsion surpassed the injustice of the Afrikander order. Not even tolerable provision was made by Messrs. Reitz and Smuts for the transport of the expelled refugees. I have seen women and children huddled in open cattle trucks and coal waggons, exposed to the rain and the night, while the rough Boer, accustomed to sleep in the open veldt, was sent by Afrikander order to first-class carriages. Curae leves loquuntur; ingentes silent.

In one political move, the Young Afrikander signally failed. A long list of prescription had been compiled, containing the names of the Reform prisoners, of the leaders of the South African League, and of others, such as editors and staffs of the Uitlander journals, who had made themselves obnoxious to the Afrikander leaders. Warrants of State Attorney Smuts for the arrest of these Uitlanders as hostages, under a fictitious charge of treason, were prevented from being executed by the timely flight of those proscribed, many of whom have since marched into Pretoria in the Uitlander corps.

ment would formulate its own proposals to end an intolerable position, as meaning, "Wait until I get my pistol and I shall renew the discussion."

Here, again, I prefer not to rely on a minor, though perfectly legitimate, answer, that re-naming of towns hardly is consistent with taking up more defensive positions on alien territory-even by a pastoral peasant. But the true reply is, that if their Afrikander leaders had fulfilled the obligations of justice, and the pledged faith of their people, to give fair treatment to the Uitlanders, and had abandoned their project of ousting British power from South Africa, there would have been no prospect of their being attacked.

In one sense, of course, more especially since the tide of war has turned, the Boers have waged a war of defence. But, looking through mere phrases to the reality beyond, the defence they carried on was not of their independence, in the sense of autonomy, on the basis of justice, equality and liberty to civilised inhabitants, but of the right to dominate, as a privileged oligarchy. In that sense, the war waged by the Confederate States of America was a merely defensive war to retain the right to keep negroes in slavery.

In any case it was, with the Afrikander leaders, only a question of time and season. There is too vast an accumulation of proofs-apart from those supplied by the annexations and rebellions which have marked the course of the war— that active aggression on British territory at a favourable moment has long been designed.

Dominating every thought and action of the militant Afrikander party was one idea-that the Boer had an inherent superior right to the land of South Africa, in the Cape, in the Transvaal, everywhere, "Ons Land." The intolerable injustice of this assumption has already been pointed out. A plain deduction is that the assertion of their right was only a question of finding a favourable moment, when the Empire was at war with another great Power. This, in that world, the most formative of action, that of ideas. What of deeds and declarations?

Colossal armaments-a world's wonder-have been re