Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/192

 184] ENGLISH HISTORY. [sept.

esty's Government would refer the Government of the South African Republic to the second paragraph of my despatch of July 13. Thirdly, her Majesty's Government agree to a discussion of the form and scope of a tribunal of arbitration from which foreigners and foreign influence are excluded. Such a discussion, which will be of the highest importance to the future relations pf the two countries, should be carried on between the President and yourself, and for this purpose it appears to be necessary that a further conference, which her Majesty's Government suggest should be held at Capetown, should be at once arranged.

" Her Majesty's Government also desire to remind the Gov- ernment of the South African Republic that there are other matters of difference between the two Governments which will not be settled by the grant of political representation to the Outlanders, and which are not proper subjects for reference to arbitration. It is necessary that these should be settled concur- rently with the questions now under discussion, and they will form, with the question of arbitration, proper subjects for consideration at the proposed conference."

This despatch, it will be observed, obviously contemplated further negotiations extending over a considerable period. Its purport, in respect of the " impossibility "of at least part of the conditions attached by Dr. Reitz's despatches to the five years' franchise offer was the same as that of the speech delivered by Mr. Chamberlain at Highbury two days before, but even in that respect it seemed less sweeping, and its tone was very perceptibly milder. In a word, the despatch did not, while the speech definitely did, suggest the approach of the period of ultimatums. This discrepancy had a good deal to do with the unfavourable criticisms for which the " new diplomacy " came in during the ensuing months, even sometimes from those who were satisfied as to the necessity of a strong policy in South Africa.

Thus Mr. Asquith, speaking on September 2, to the Leven and District Ladies' Liberal Association, said he did not altogether understand the methods of the new diplomacy, with its puzzling alternations of frankness and reticence. Every intelligent person, both here and in South Africa, agreed that the time had come for a definite and a permanent settlement of the long- standing controversy between the Government of the South African Republic and its immigrant population. No British Liberal could contemplate with satisfaction a system under which large numbers of our countrymen were denied some of those civil and political rights regarded as the necessary equip- ment of a civilised social community. No one, however, could compare President Kruger's attitude at the Bloemfontein Con- ference only a short time ago with his last proposals, hampered though those proposals still were by unacceptable conditions, without seeing that there had been a real advance. The diffi-