Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/144

 136] ENGLISH HISTOEY. [™«

religious liberty was inconsistent with the existence of a national Church, then the two parties came into conflict. Re- ferring to the conference between Sir Alfred Milner and Presi- dent Kruger, he said it had not, so far, been successful. The failure of the negotiations was a disappointment to her Majesty's Government, but he did not concur with the view that the controversies which divided the South African Eepublic and Great Britain were incapable of a satisfactory solution. He believed the contrary, for we asked and desired no more than the elementary rights of civilisation for our fellow-countrymen in the South African Eepublic, and he was convinced that the whole opinion of South Africa — Dutch as well as English — was .that those rights should be accorded them. That it was the duty of her Majesty's Government to see that those rights were not trampled in the dust no one would deny, and he believed that the good sense, policy, and wisdom of the leaders of the South African Republic would make for some settlement which would rightly preserve the independence of the republic con- sistently with the concession to our fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal of the rights which every man was entitled to possess in a civilised land.

The leader of the Opposition, Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- man, also made the Transvaal question the text of his speech to the Liberals and Radicals of Uford (June 17). He told them that of the conduct and policy of the Government they could not judge till the papers on the subject were issued, and till they were available a discussion in the House of Commons would be of no advantage. Some of the newspapers, however, talked freely of the probability, and even the necessity, of war, and he must say plainly that for his part he could see nothing in what had occurred to justify either warlike action or military preparation. The people of this country had no hostility to the people of the Transvaal, and no desire to humiliate them or deprive them of their independence. Their only desire was to see the inhabitants of all the States in South Africa living and prospering in harmony. But the attainment of such harmony was no easy matter ; it was constantly endangered so long as there continued the relations between the Transvaal Govern- ment and the Outlanders which had subsisted of recent years. " They have not," he said, " the municipal government, the police protection, the organised maintenance of order, the even- handed administration of justice, which in all civilised com- munities are regarded as the very elements of civil right and civil freedom." It was this danger which compelled them to spare no effort in order that this chronic discord might be healed. After alluding to the failure of the recent conference, and characterising as anomalous and absurd the idea that we should go to war because a number of our countrymen in the Transvaal were not allowed to become Boers as rapidly as they desired, Sir Henry pointed out that considerable concessions

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