Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/196

 188] ENGLISH HI8T0EY. [sept.

solemnly denied the existence of any British suzerainty. If Mr. Chamberlain repeated his invitation (given in his July despatch) to a conference on the July (seven years) Franchise Law, he (Mr Kruger), would send his commissioner. But having " given away jacket and trousers," he could not give up independence.

A few extracts from a despatch of August 23, received September 8, will help to illustrate the character of the situa- tion as it presented itself to her Majesty's ministers when they met for its consideration on the latter date. [Referring to the Bloemfontein conference Sir Alfred Milner observed: "I never said — indeed, I carefully guarded myself against the assumption — that an agreement with regard to this matter [Outlander citizenship] would put an end to all differences. What I did say was that it would greatly reduce the number of questions at issue between the two Governments, while it would, by establishing better relations between them, make it much easier to arrive at a satisfactory understanding on ques- tions not connected with the grievances of the Outlanders." Discussing the successive proposals made with regard to the admission of the Outlanders to citizenship, Sir A. Milner said : "The effect of the successive changes introduced into their original plan has certainly been to make its conspicuous features — five years' residence as qualifying for franchise and eight new seats for the Band district — as liberal as anything that I was prepared to suggest. But, on the other hand, the successive proposals have all been encumbered by a number of provisions, against which the Outlanders have vehemently, and, as it seems to me, with reason, protested, as calculated to make attainment of citizenship in many cases impossible, and to deprive the new citizens of that equality which it was our fundamental object to secure. ... At the present junc- ture, when fresh and most important changes have just been suggested by the Government of the South African Kepublic, I for one am totally in the dark, and her Majesty's Govern- ment must be equally in the dark, as to the exact nature of what we are asked to accept, and to accept on condition of our expressly renouncing the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the republic — including, of course, the question of the political rights of the Outlanders — for the future. [When this despatch was received, of course these new proposals had been withdrawn, and a previous one — the so-called seven years' franchise — again set up, which was clogged by 'encumber- ing provisions,' of the kind above indicated by Sir A. Milner] "With regard to other questions . . . which we cannot refer to arbitration, and cannot, in my view, without dis- credit or risk of a speedy revival of difficulties, abandon, I would specially refer to : (1) the position of British Indians ; (2) the position of other coloured British subjects; and (3) our claim that all British subjects should be entitled to treat-