Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/201

 1899.] Public Opinion and the Government [198

sible. Not less so was the Transvaal claim to be a sovereign international State. But he maintained that President Kruger could not be reasonably accused of excessive slowness in accepting reforms which involved a vital change in the whole political system of the Transvaal, especially having regard to the raid and the revolutionary aims of the South African League. Sir Wm. Harcourt thought that the Transvaal Government, having offered the five years' franchise, should have stuck to it. But, on the other hand, in his opinion, her Majesty's Government should have accepted the conditions attached to the five years' offer.

Sir B. T. Beid, Attorney-General in the last Liberal Government, expressed himself similarly in a letter to a con- stituent : " I believe that there ought to be peace, and that there can be peace; but the only way of securing it is by unreservedly respecting the Convention of 1884, and making it clear that we do so in reality and not merely in words. This would not in the least impair our right to insist upon redress for any real wrong or injustice to British subjects, but it would remove suspicion."

More remarkable, however, was the speech of Sir Edward Clarke at a meeting of the Plymouth Conservative Association (Sept. 25). Notwithstanding the protests and interruptions of the audience, Sir E. Clarke insisted that although there had been much to complain of in the action of the South African Bepublic with regard to the Outlander population for years past, it must be remembered that the Jameson raid, which had no justification or excuse, to a great extent disarmed and disabled our Government in its protest against the misgovernment. Since the raid there had been a correspondence going on which had resulted in the strained situation which made us so anxious to-day. He refused, however, to believe that the Government would allow a clumsy correspondence to issue in unnecessary war.

But those who held that the Government were likely to abandon pacific methods except under pressure of the most cogent necessity, were, so far as could be judged, a small minority. Among Unionist politicians, of both wings, there were a few dissentients. Among Liberals the proportion was, no doubt, much larger, but both among the moderate and the more advanced members of the Opposition there were many who held that the state of things in the Transvaal required effective British intervention. The Nonconformists were deeply divided, many of their ministers condemning the idea of war with the Boers as sinful, but perhaps quite as many, or more, being influenced in favour of a firm Transvaal policy by the strong disapprobation entertained by English missionaries for the Boer attitude towards natives. An anti-war demonstration in Trafalgar Square (Sunday, Sept. 24) proved a complete fiasco. The opponents of the organisers of the meeting were in

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