Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/166

 158] ENGLISH HISTORY. [july

with the matter on the Colonial Office vote on the last night (July 18) on which supply could be discussed at length. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman (Stirling Burgh) frankly admitted in his opening words that he would have been glad if the discussion had begun with a statement from Mr. Chamberlain. The debate had been wisely postponed as much as possible, and even now reticence must be observed, (1) because the matter was not yet concluded and (2) because of the critical state of feeling in South Africa. He then went on to discuss the situation on the same lines as Lord Kimberley in the other House. Acknow- ledging the dangerous state of affairs, he said he could see no ground of surprise at the stubborn resistance made by the burghers, and especially by President Kruger, to the proposal to admit the Outlanders to the franchise. They must remember that the Boers had " trekked " into the Transvaal to live by them- selves, and now they felt themselves swamped by the new comers, however much it increased their prosperity. Then there was the Jameson raid, which the Boers could not forget. This stubbornness would be best overcome by bringing to bear upon the Transvaal Government the influence of enlightened Dutch opinion at the Cape. The admission to the franchise must be retrospective, because obviously otherwise any redress or improvement of the present state of things would be put off for a long time. There was a certain strangeness in the idea that we should go to war to enable our fellow-citizens to give up their own citizenship in favour of another. But at present there was no case, he would not say for armed intervention, but even for a threat, or the very idea of a threat, of war.

Mr. Chamberlain agreed with the last speaker as to the im- portance of saying nothing that might embitter race feeling, but he doubted whether some of his observations could further a peaceful settlement. The question to be settled was not a new one, and had engaged the attention of various Governments for the past fifteen years, and now it had been brought to a head by certain occurrences in the Transvaal. There had been efforts to minimise the grievances of the Outlanders, but the Government had made an independent investigation, and were of opinion that their complaints were well founded. He might quote in support of his view Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's words at Ilford : " They have no municipal government, police protection, organised maintenance of order, or the even-handed administration of justice which, in all civilised communities, are regarded as the very elements of civil rights and liberty.' ' In that list he had not included the absolute loss of any political right whatever : the fact that a community which was a majority in numbers, which found nine-tenths of the whole taxation of the country, had not even a single seat in, or a single vote for the governing body. The Afrikander party had shown by then- action and their speeches that they recognised that there were wrongs to be remedied, and he believed that, even in the Trans-