who know more about the subject than I do, that they are at least as good as our own. When we are called upon to use the mighty power of the Empire to enforce the claims, just or unjust, of our countrymen abroad, we may be pardoned for reflecting how little they help us to maintain the tremendous and ever-growing burden of that power. Nor can we quite forget the audacious and disloyal menaces which have sometimes come from the lips of representative uitlanders. And it is too obvious to be ignored that in the minds of such persons the greatest grievance of all is the Convention of 1884, by which, on the admission even of Sir S. Shippard, we are bound in honour to abide. Again, one reads with some amazement an argument which leaves out of account the history of the Raid, just as if it had never happened. But all impartial persons in this country will surely admit that that disastrous incident profoundly modified the situation of the Transvaal leaders. It inspired in them a distrust of Great Britain as profound as the distrust felt by Sir S. Shippard for them. Remembering the Raid and its consequences, Sir S. Shippard might have restrained the virulence of his attack on the Pretoria Government. Their bad faith,' he says, 'is beyond doubt or question.' He is content with one instance their treatment of the Reform leaders in 1896. After receiving and treating with a deputation of those leaders, and utilising them for the purpose of inducing the inhabitants of Johannesburg to lay down their arms, the Pretoria Government broke their implied pledge of a general amnesty, arrested and tried the leaders, and ultimately extorted 220,000l. from them as the ransom of life and liberty.' I can find no trace of any such implied pledge. The surrender of Johannesburg was described by Sir Hercules Robinson as unconditional.3 The prisoners were prosecuted, and four of them were sentenced to death. The Colonial Office intervened on the question of bail, and again in regard to the commutation of the death sentence. The Colonial Secretary on the 11th of February 1896, in a speech which mentioned the forthcoming trial of the leaders, said: I am one of the first to recognise the moderation and the magnanimity that President Kruger has shown in regard to recent events.' I can find no trace of an implied amnesty, and must conclude that Sir S. Shippard has been as much misled about the Pretoria Government as about the institutions of his own country. But notwithstanding all these things, there are, I should hope, few people in this country who do not heartily wish for a settlement favourable to the claims of the uitlanders and consistent with the independence of the Transvaal. And inasmuch as the prospect of such a settlement is at this moment more hopeful than it has been for a long time, there seems to me to be less justification than there Telegram of the 7th of January 1896: Johannesburg has surrendered unconditionally this afternoon.' might otherwise have been for reviewing the action of the Colonial Office down to date. Some day, when this unhappy dispute shall have been settled, the conduct of the Government will have to be explained and justified to the House of Commons, to which it is responsible. We can well afford, in the prospect of peace, to pass over incidents which have aroused anxiety and distrust. Mr. Chamberlain and Sir A. Milner will in due course be heard in their own defence. In the meantime there may well be a truce. It must be understood, however, that those who stand as they believe for justice will at all times repel the accusations of party spirit and disloyalty to which they have been subjected by naturalised and other pretending patriots. It must be understood also that, however strongly we may condemn the mismanaged administration of the Transvaal, and however deeply we may sympathise with its victims, we agree with Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in holding that there has not been and there is not now any occasion for warlike action, or even for military preparations. EDMUND ROBERTSON. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake THE NINETEENTH CENTURY No. CCLXXI-SEPTEMBER 1899 ARE WE TO LOSE SOUTH AFRICA? A REJOINDER MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON'S article in the August number of this Review purports to be a reply-apparently from the Fenian or, at any rate, the Little England' point of view-to my paper on the same subject in the July number. It is, of course, always most desirable and necessary that the British public, with whom rests the final verdict, should have every possible facility for hearing and considering all that can be said on both sides of every great question of policy. I must assume that Mr. Robertson, whom I have not the honour of knowing, is not merely posing as advocatus diaboli, or adopting the attitude of a debating society orator, 'equal to either fortune,' but on the contrary that he has written in all sincerity and really entertains the views which he sets forth. On this hypothesis I rejoice to find how feeble are the so-called arguments or attempts at reasoning of even the ablest of those who, consciously or unconsciously, have for so many years been labouring to bring about the disintegration of the British Empire, and the consequent destruction of a world-wide Power which, as even they must in lucid intervals admit, is based, like the United States of America, on the eternal principles of truth, justice, and freedom. I have somewhat to say in reply to Mr. Robertson's remarks about myself, and also with regard to the South African question generally; but I desire in the first place to disclaim any intention of imputing wrong motives to those who differ from me on that question. In VOL. XLVI-No. 271 A A discussing a matter of such magnitude personal attacks or recriminations would be out of place. I yield to no one in my love for justice in national or international affairs no less than in private cases, and I am willing to believe that Mr. Edmund Robertson and those who think with him also have to the fullest extent that love for justice to which they lay claim. We are all honourable men, for that matter; but this assurance will not suffice to enable us to solve the complicated South African problem. Mr. Robertson has apparently a rough and ready method of settling all difficulties in the matter. He starts with the assumption that a Boer, like a king, can do › no wrong, that the very right of the case between Her Majesty's 1 Government and that of the Transvaal must be entirely on the side of the Boer oligarchy, and that whatever inherent rights of objecting to the maltreatment of British subjects might otherwise belong to the Crown have been finally surrendered by the misbegotten and ill-conceived Conventions of 1881 and 1884. On that I join issue with Mr. Robertson. I say, and I can prove, that the rights, powers, and duties of the Crown with regard to the Transvaal have always been, and still are, those of the Paramount Power. The word 'suzerainty' matters nothing. The fact remains that England has been all along, and still is, supreme over the self-styled South African Republic. If the Transvaal Government had acted fairly and honestly, and had kept faith with their suzerain with regard to treatment of British subjects on a footing of equality with Dutchmen, England would with perfect equanimity have allowed the Boers to manage their internal affairs in their own way in all other respects. The venality, corruption, and tyranny of the Pretoria oligarchy are matters of common knowledge, and it is useless to deny it. Their oppression of British subjects has reached a point which threatens the peace of all South Africa, and the duty of Her Majesty's Government under all the circumstances can hardly admit of doubt in the minds of any loyal British subject who is not blinded by political bias or preconceived prejudices. As regards the divisions and rivalries of political parties in England, certain distinctions are patent to all the world. The policy, if such it can be called, of the Irish Nationalist, Separatist, or Fenian party is invariably one of open and deadly hostility to England on all questions of whatever nature, and is so evidently made to order' as part of a system of foreign origin that it is unworthy of serious consideration as an expression of general opinion on the part of any member of that loquacious and quarrelsome brotherhood. On the other hand, the Gladstonian Radical party, or so much of it as survives, still includes in its depleted ranks many well meaning disciples of the learned and eloquent leader who, through some mental aberration or cerebral lesion possibly due to senile decay, closed a long career of extraordinary brilliancy by a hopeless attempt at felling the ideal British oak. With the best intentions and the loftiest aspirations, he wrought the people of this empire lasting harm. As the late Mr. Froude once remarked, 'Mr. Gladstone split the Liberal party from crown to base.' Good ultimately comes out of evil, and it may be that Mr. Gladstone, by going to the Fenians and so driving from him his oldest and best friends, was unconsciously instrumental in welding together the strongest party that has ever held office in England. Be that as it may, the present position of the remnant of his bewildered followers in this country, who in their honest simplicity and love of what they call justice are still busily engaged in trying to do all the damage they can to her domestic, foreign, and colonial interests, is highly suggestive of the oft-cited caricature of the mạn sawing off the branch of a tree at a point between his own seat and the parent trunk. I apologise for the chestnut.' The metaphor is trite but true. Imitators generally out-herod Herod. As for those members of the Radical party who are trying their utmost at the present moment to sever the great South African limb from that / giant tree, I do not question their sincerity or their high-mindedness. All I say is that they know nothing about South Africa. Ignorance rather than self-seeking is the root of the disastrous blunders of these visionaries, but it is high time for them to awake out of sleep. The centre of political power in this country has been shifted till it is now practically in the hands of the working men of England; and the British workman has become an Imperialist while his Radical guide, philosopher, and friend has been slumbering à la Rip van Winkle. If it were any part of my business to engage in a political propaganda in this country it would be to the working man exclusively that I would address myself, and so long as the policy submitted to him were one based on justice, and carried out with the firmness requisite for the maintenance of the empire, his verdict might be thoroughly depended on. His own vital interests and those of his children are at stake in the question of the empire, as he well knows. Mr. Robertson describes Englishmen who have long served the empire in all parts of the world as having lost touch with the motherland and become virtually foreigners. If this remark be intended for wit, it is inane; if seriously meant, it is indefensible. To say educated Englishmen in these days of steam, electricity, and that an cheap literature, proceeding to a colony or dependency of the empire and there holding office in Her Majesty's service for many years, with occasional visits to England, loses touch with the motherland and becomes virtually a foreigner, or to assert that a man who has spent the best years of his life in a colony does not know more about that colony-to say nothing of the empire at large-than a gentleman of England who sits at home at ease and moralises from his armchair, is to talk nonsense. I must admit that I am unable to understand what Mr. Robertson |