In addition to being bound to recognise the independence of the Transvaal, the British Government is pledged, in the most solemn maxner, to respect that of the Orange Free State also. The instrument governing the relations of Great Britain to the Orange State is the Bloemfontein Convention, which was concluded between the two Powers on February 23, 1854. In the first article of this Bond we are told that—

"Her Majesty's Special Commissioner in entering into a Convention for finally transferring the Government of the Orange River Territory to the representatives delegated by the inhabitants to receive it, guarantees on the part of her Majesty's Government the future independence of that country and its government."

"That country" is now a ruin, but its people exist; its government also exists. It has not unconditionally surrendered the cause of right. Its living objects of British obligation still remain. This being the case, the old duties resting on Britain are just as binding as ever. The unsuccessful subjugator and exterminator must be compelled to fulfil his obligations. He must be made to feel that there is now in the world a power able and willing to secure justice for all nations, for the small ones as much as for the great, for the weak as much as for the strong. The pro-annexationists try to argue that the fact of the Burghers of the Orange State having invaded British territory deprives them of all right to independence. But the question is: Was the Orange State justified in the course it took? If it was then this pretext of its enemies falls to the ground. Let us hear what Mr. Steyn, President of the Orange Free State, has to urge on this point in his own defence. During last August Lord Kitchener, acting no doubt as the instrument of Mr. Chamberlain, sent to Mr. Steyn a letter containing this very argument, and the President of the Free State dealt with it in these words:

"When in the course of 1899 troops were massed on the borders not only of the South African Republic, but also of the hitherto friendly Orange Free State, and when it became evident to the South African Republic that the English did not desire the removal of the grievances, which are now declared on all hands never to have existed, but the destruction of the independence of the above-named Republic, she desired the British Government to withdraw the troops from her borders and to have all disputes settled by arbitration. This happened three weeks after the British Government had issued its ultimatum and about a month after the Government of the Orange Free State had received a telegram from the High Commissioner asking him to remain neutral, thereby distinctly proving that the British Government was determined to wage war against the South African Republic. This telegram was sent to the Orange Free State, though it was so well known that the Orange Free State had entered into a defensive treaty with the South African Republic in 1889. When the South African Republic decided to guard her borders against the enemy who lay there in the vicinity, I was obliged to take one of the most painful steps to me, namely, to break the ties of friendship which existed

between us and the British Government, and to be true to our treaty and stand by the South African Republic. That we were perfectly justified in our belief that the British Government was firmly resolved to wipe out the two Republics has been proved distinctly since the war broke out. It has not only been proved by documents which have fallen into our hands, from which it is distinctly evident that since 1896 [that is, since the Jameson Raid] the British Government was firmly resolved to invade both Republics; but only lately it was acknowledged by Lord Lansdowne that he had, as early as June 1899, discussed with Lord Wolseley, then Commander-in-Chief of her Majesty's forces, as to the best time for invading the two Republics. Your Excellency will thus see that we did not draw the sword, but that we only pushed away a sword that was already laid at our throats. We only acted in self-defence, one of the holiest rights of man, in order to maintain our existence, and for that reason I consider, with all due reverence, that we have the right to trust in a righteous God." 1

If in opposition to this it is urged that what justifies the two Republics in the line of action they have adopted, is no justification for the conduct of "rebels" in Cape Colony, I must point out that the British Government, by the suspension of Representative Institutions in that colony, has for the present, and until the selfgovernment of the colony is restored, done all that is needed to absolve the friends of the Republics from allegiance to the British connection. Self-government is not a privilege, but a right. So far as a ruler violates the rights of his subjects he destroys with his own hand the only legitimate foundation on which loyalty to his person and obedience to his decrees can be based. Where there is no respect for right there can be no duty of obedience. This maxim obtains in states as fully as in families. If it cannot justify natural despotism, still less can it justify despotism that is purely artificial. In 1872, Cape Colony obtained complete self-government. Now it is under martial law, which is no law, and taxes are levied upon its people without the consent of their representatives. Under these circumstances, what is called rebellion is but the legitimate assertion of popular right against the wrong of arbitrary power. The Cape

Colonists, both Dutch and British, have as much right to fight for the restoration of the self-government which has been wrongfully taken from them, as the Burghers of the two Republics have to fight for independence. What was it that justified the Englishmen of Cromwell's time in their so-called rebellion against Charles the First? He had usurped the functions of the legislature, raised taxes without the consent of Parliament, and quartered troops upon his subjects in the most illegal and vexatious manner. Arbitrary judgments,

1. From a letter held back by the British Government, but published in the Manchester Guardian, Oct. 28, 1901. This is evidently the "argumentative letter" referred to in one of Lord Kitchener's despatches. It is a reply to a letter sent to Mr. Steyn by Lord Kitchener, in which the latter quoted the scriptural text about the fate in store for those who take the sword. Some of the papers "fallen into our hands," as Mr. Steyn puts it, were described in the WESTMINSTER REVIEW for November last, page 497. The Scriptural text was dealt with on page 506.

exorbitant fines and unwarrantable imprisonments were grievances of daily and hourly occurrence.1 These facts justified Englishmen of that day in the line of duty to themselves and their posterity, which they had the manliness to adopt and the resolution to carry to a successful issue. The same facts justify Cape Colonists of this day in following a similar course. In their present shocking treatment the Colonists have greater justification than the men who disposed of Charles the First. I have never heard that the latter outraged humanity by compelling the friends and relatives of "rebels" to be present at their execution. If he did I have no doubt that by such barbarity he only managed to hasten his own downfall, as the British Government is now hastening in South Africa the downfall of British rule.

The British Government will have to humble itself by treating with the Governments whose independence it has acknowledged and which it is unable to destroy. About the same time that he sent the draft of the Gladstonian Convention of 1884 to the Transvaal Government, Lord Derby also reported to the Acting High-Commissioner at the Cape that it meant "the same complete internal independence in the Transvaal as in the Free State." My contention simply is that the obligation to respect this independence necessarily rests upon the British Government so long as the Boer Government exists to claim its fulfilment. The Majuba consequence has not, and, while the waters ran and the sun shines, it cannot be wiped out by shedding the blood of the Boers and doing to death their helpless wives and children. The obligations of the British Government are acknowledged by some of the leading spirits of our present Ministry. On March 8, 1896, no less an authority than Mr. Chamberlain himself uttered these remarkable words, in the Commons, at Westminster :

"To go to war with President Kruger to enforce upon him reforms in the internal affairs of his State, in which Secretaries of State, standing in their place, have repudiated all right of interference, that would be a course of action as immoral as it would have been unwise." 2

The obligation resting on Britain to honour the pledged words of its statesmen is here unmistakably acknowledged by the very person who, more than all others, has tried to shirk it.

In the Commons, on May 8, 1896, the same right honourable gentleman said:

"I think, in the last communication I sent to the President, I defined what I conceived to be our rights in the matter. I said that we did not claim and never had claimed the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the Transvaal, but that we did claim, both as representing the interests of our fellow subjects in the Transvaal and as the paramount Power in South Africa, responsible for the security of the whole country, to make friendly

1 Macaulay's Essay on Milton. Page 17 of popular edition of his Essays. * Hansard Parliamentary Debates, April 28 to May 19, 1896, p. 915.

representations to him and to give him friendly advice, as much in his interest as in our own."1

Speaking in the Commons on August 10 of the same year, Mr. Chamberlain threw cold water on the very idea of sending an army "to force President Kruger to grant reforms." "It is not

my policy," said he, "and it never will be." I wonder if there is one promise that the right honourable gentleman has ever kept. On August 12 of the same year, replying in the Commons to a Jingo speech delivered by Sir Ashmead Bartlett, Mr. Chamberlain said:

"What would be the policy of the hon. member for Sheffield as Colonial Secretary? We know what it would be. He would send, in the first place, an ultimatum to President Kruger that unless the reforms which he was specifying were granted by a particular date the British Government would interfere by force. Then, I suppose, he would come here and ask this House for a vote of £10,000,000 or £20,000,000—it does not matter particularly which and would send an army of 10,000 men, at the very least, to force President Kruger to grant reforms in a State in regard to which not only this Government, but successive Secretaries of State have pledged themselves repeatedly that they would have nothing to do with its internal affairs. That is the policy of the honourable gentleman. That is not my policy."

Unfortunately, it became his policy when the time suited for adopting it. Then his Government, or, in other words, he himself, did not call out 10,000 men, but 48,000, to join 24,000 more, already in South Africa, for the purpose of carrying out this very Ashmead Bartlett policy of forcing matters in which, by his own admission, he had no right to interfere.

These are remarkable pronouncements. They admit both the right of the Republic to internal independence and the obligation resting upon Great Britain to respect that right. Mr. Chamberlain condensed them into a nutshell when, on December 31, 1895, at the time of the Jameson invasion, he sent a despatch to Sir Hercules Robinson, in which he described the Transvaal as a "foreign State, which is in friendly treaty relations with Great Britain."2 And, indeed, in every point, save that mentioned in the last line of the quotation already made from the covering letter in which Lord Derby sent the draft of the Convention to Pretoria, the Transvaal is not only a foreign State, but it is a sovereign international State as well. Except in this one point-a point, let it be remembered,

1 Parliamentary Debates, May 8, 1896. For examples of Mr. C.'s friendliness see the WESTMINSTER REVIEW for November last, page 493 (note 1).

2 In insisting on the franchise for British subjects in the Transvaal, the Colonial Secretary was claiming to wield greater power in a "Foreign State" than he possessed in the British Colony of Natal. When questioned on July 21, 1899, in the Commons about unenfranchised Indian British subjects in Natal, Mr. Chamberlain said: "I have no power to insist on the franchise being granted in a self-governing colony." But in a foreign State a Colonial Secretary, as such, can have no concern whatever. Why did he usurp the office of Foreign Secretary?

that has nothing whatever to do with the present war-the South African Republic is as much a sovereign international State as France, Germany, and Russia are sovereign international States. Consequently, the right of the British Government to regulate the Franchise Laws, or other matters relating to the internal affairs of the Transvaal, is no greater and no less than the right of the same Government to regulate the internal affairs of the three Powers just mentioned. Let it be clearly understood that there is here no denial of the right of any Government to interfere, by force if necessary, in the affairs of any country whatsoever, whenever there is satisfactory evidence that such interference is necessary to the protection of the rights of its subjects. But this rule applies equally to all States: to the great ones as much as to the small ones. Boers never claimed to be exempted from it. "This Government," said Mr. Reitz, in a despatch dated September 2, 1899:

The

"has never, with reference to the question of intervention, either asked or intended that her Majesty's Government should abandon any right it may have, as a matter of fact, by virtue either of the Convention of London, 1884, or by international law, to take action here for the protection of British subjects."1

But the British Government had not, and did not even claim to have, either of these grounds of action. It would only have liked to have had them.

The Boers merely claim to be, and, in spite of paper annexations and sham occupations, they still are, within the limits of the Gladstonian Convention, an independent State as regards their internal affairs. That they do really possess this measure of independence has been admitted over and over again by statesmen of both political parties. Dealing with this question on September 1, 1884, in the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, Mr. Gladstone said: "We entered into arrangements with the Transvaal, and the Transvaal at this moment, not in every point, but in the main and for practical purposes, has recovered its independence." Mr. W. H. Smith, speaking as the leader of the Conservative Government in the Commons on February 25, 1890, said: "It is a cardinal principle of that settlement [viz., the Convention of 1884] that the internal government and legislation of the South African Republic shall not be interfered with." Speaking in the same place on January 31, 1896, Mr. Balfour said: "The Transvaal is a free and independent Government as regards its internal affairs." On the 31st day of the same month in the same year the Marquis of Salisbury, speaking in the Lords, said : "The Boers have absolute control over their own internal affairs." Now I contend that the fact of them fighting

1 Bluc Book C. 9530, p. 33.