Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/170

 162] ENGLISH HISTORY. [acg.

wished that the Colonial Secretary's speech had been confined to the commission proposal. He was glad of the announcement that no troops but white troops would be employed if a war broke out in South Africa. The difficulties in South Africa dated back before 1881. The admission of the Dutch to con- stitutional privileges was a comparatively recent matter, and it was because they had no share in the government that they moved into the wilderness. He agreed with Mr. Chamberlain in basing the British case mainly on the right of Britain to protect her subjects, and while not admitting some of the griev- ances alleged, especially the Edgar case, in which he adopted the Boer view, he agreed entirely in the policy of making the franchise more accessible, so that the Outlanders could look out for themselves. But the idea of making the difference between five years and seven years a casus belli was inconceivable ; time was on the side of the Outlanders.

South African affairs were not again referred to in either House, except by Sir Wilfrid Lawson on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill (Aug. 7), but it was understood that Mr. Chamberlain's despatch, suggesting the appointment of a joint commission to examine the effects of the franchise law, was still under consideration at Pretoria. If the only object of the Transvaal Government had been to gain time, the delay was taken advantage of by our own authorities, who continued to draft small detachments of men to strengthen the South African establishment, but there was a growing feeling in all quarters that some settlement, acceptable alike to the Boers and Out- landers, would be reached, and that the extreme demands of the latter would not be supported by the Imperial Government.

On the last day of the session (Aug. 9) Mr. Chamberlain, in answer to Sir Wilfrid Lawson (Cockermouth, Cumberland), announced that an addition of three regiments had been made to the military force in Natal, in response to representations of the Natal Government and "for all contingencies." Later in the day, on the third reading of the Appropriation Bill, Mr. Chamberlain said that the Government had already stated that they recognised the grievances under which our subjects in South Africa were labouring, that they found those grievances not merely in themselves a serious cause for interposition but a source of danger to the whole of South Africa, and that our predominance was " menaced by the action of the Transvaal in refusing to redress grievances and in refusing any consideration to the requests made in moderate language by the suzerain Power." That was a state of things which could not long be tolerated. " We have stated that we have put our hands to the plough, and we will not draw back, and on that statement I propose to rest."

There was little else to call for special notice in the pro- ceedings of either House. The bill for establishing an Irish Agricultural Department and placing technical instruction in