Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/169

 1899.] The South African Question. [161

ment. Lord Ripon's despatch in 1894 could not have remained long unanswered, but everything was thrown back by the raid, and no doubt the delay is due to the sense which we all feel of having put ourselves in the wrong. It was not the time for us to put exceptional pressure on President Kruger. During the whole of the three years the attitude of the Colonial Office and the Government has been one of excessive patience and modera- tion. We have avoided as far as possible every cause of com- plaint — perhaps too much so. We have waited in the hope that President Kruger would make some concession ; on the contrary, things have gone from bad to worse. ... No one dreams of acquiring this country, which we of our free will retroceded. No one has any wish whatever to interfere with the inde- pendence which we have granted ; on the contrary, we desire to strengthen this independence. We desire to place it on a firm basis by turning discontented aliens into loyal fellow-citizens of the Dutch. ... On the other hand, the condition of our non- interference is that the Government of the Transvaal should accept in principle and make some approach in practice to that equality of condition between the two white races which was intended to be provided by the convention, and was certainly promised in the interviews and conference before the convention was signed. Without this the Transvaal will remain what it is at present — a source of unrest, disturbance and danger. Although the situation is an anxious one, I am hopeful of the future. I am hopeful because President Kruger has, I believe, come to the conclusion that the Government is in earnest; because I have an absolute conviction that the great mass of the people of this country are prepared to support us, if the necessity should arise, in any measures we may think it necessary to take to secure justice to the British subjects in the Transvaal/'

Several minor points of criticism were raised by other speakers, some of whom denounced the very thought of sup- porting our remonstrances by force ; others were equally vehement in declaring against the unwisdom of making de- mands without an adequate strength to enforce them; whilst others again urged that Mr. Chamberlain was alone to blame for President Kruger's irritation and want of confidence in British diplomacy. For example, Sir W. B. Gurdon (Norfolk, N.) deprecated any active interference in the Transvaal by Great Britain ; Col. Saunderson (Armagh, N.) traced the origin of the present difficulty to the surrender after Majuba ; and Mr. Dillon (Mayo, E.) denounced Sir. A. Milner's despatches as unworthy and sensational. These criticisms from all quarters of the Liberal side of the House were interspersed with a few words of support and encouragement from the Ministerial side, but it would oe scarcely accurate to qualify Mr. Courtney's speech by such terms. He recognised, however, at the outset that by allowing the debate to wander over a wide ground Mr. Chamberlain had skilfully disarmed effective criticism, and he

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