Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/165

 1899.] The Transvaal and Parliament. [157

came about, he never came to the English Government to consult them as to how this great and marvellous phenomenon could be dealt with. No one could have said to him, " You are bound to let your population be overwhelmed and swept away." Some people put the conventions of 1881 and 1884 in the position of the laws of the Medes and Persians. But they were not. So long as they were observed, and given their due vitality, Lord Salisbury thought that every party in England was willing to recognise and sustain them. But those con- ventions could be destroyed by the act of the parties for whose benefit they were concluded, and if anything took their place it would not be conventions in the same style: " Without in- truding on his thoughts, I do not think that President Kruger has sufficiently considered this. With respect to our present policy ... we have to rescue British subjects from treatment which we should not think it right they should endure in any country, even if there were no conventional engagements be- tween us, but which it is doubly wrong for us to permit when the very terms of the protocols and conventions of 1881 and 1884 obviously protect them from any such disgraceful treat- ment How we are going to do this, how we intend to apply this remedy, to dissipate this great evil, I naturally cannot now examine in detail. I agree with the noble earl opposite that the advances that have been made are, to a certain extent, for good, and if they are genuinely carried out, and a real desire is shown to eliminate this racial inequality and animosity, and to put the two races fairly and honestly on the same footing, I think we may fairly look forward to a peaceful solution of a crisis which is undoubtedly complicated and anxious. How long we are to consider this solution, and what patience we are bound to show, I will not discuss, for reasons which the noble earl suggested to me. We have to consider not only the feelings of the inhabi- tants of the Transvaal, but that which is much more important to us — namely, the feelings of our fellow-subjects at the Cape. ... I can only say, what in one form or another has been said by many members of her Majesty's Government — and I prefer to use the words employed by Lord Selborne — we have put our hand to the plough, and we do not intend to look back."

In the House of Commons the debate took a wider range in consequence of its laxer party discipline, and still more of the bitter hostility with which Mr. Chamberlain's every action was criticised and his motives maligned by the Badicals who at one time looked upon him as their future leader. There had been some little finessing about the form in which the South African debate should be raised, and naturally the Opposition were anxious that the materials should be supplied by the Ministerialists. This, however, was impracticable, as was also the ordinary expedient of putting forward a subordinate member of the party to raise a debate in which the leaders would choose their own time for intervening. It was finally decided to deal


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