Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/205

 1899.] Boer Charges of Bad Faith. [197

a hope that there would be a response in the sense his speech in- dicated. Bnt President Kruger was deaf to such representations, and events went speedily to prove that he was better acquainted with racial feeling in South Africa than our Colonial Office.

The attitude of the Free State Government was shown by the tone of President Steyn's reply to a telegram in which, on September 19, Sir A. Milner had informed him that it had been deemed advisable to send a detachment of troops, ordin- arily stationed at Cape Town, to assist in securing the line of communication between the Colony and the British territories' to the north, and had conveyed the assurance that the integrity of the Free State would be strictly respected, if it maintained a strict neutrality.

In reply President Steyn intimated that the proposed move- ment of British troops would " naturally create a strong feeling of distrust and unrest " among the Free State burghers, for any consequences of which he disclaimed responsibility. After an appearance of consulting the Free State Volksraad, he induced that body to pledge itself to support the Transvaal in resisting the British demands. President Steyn's temper was further shown by his associating himself, in a speech to his Volksraad, with the offensive allegation that the Transvaal Government had been " decoyed " into making their conditional offer of the five years' franchise by hints given by Mr. Conyngham Greene, the British Agent at Pretoria, to Dr. Smuts, the State Attorney, in regard to the attitude which her Majesty's Government might be expected to assume. As to this charge of " decoying," it may be well to give here Mr. Greene's report, at the time, of part of an important conversation between himself and the State Attorney, which related to the. "conditions " of the Boer proposal. " I have not," wrote Mr. i&reene, " in any way com- mitted her Majesty's Government to acceptance or refusal of proposal ; but I have said that I feel sure that if, as I am solemnly assured, the present is a bond fide attempt to settle the political rights of our people once for all, the Government of the South African Bepublic need not fear that we shall in the future either wish or have cause to interfere in their internal affairs. I have said as regards suzerainty that I feel sure her Majesty's Government will not, and cannot, abandon the right which the preamble to the Convention of 1881 gives them, but that they will have no desire to hurt Boer susceptibilities by publicly reasserting it, so long as no reason to do so is given . them by the Government of the South African Bepublic."

On the same date (Sept. 22) as that of his "interim despatch " Mr. Chamberlain, in a separate despatch, dealt with Dr. Beitz's charges of breach of faith. He pointed out that it was certainly not the fact that the proposals made by the Government of the South African Bepublic on August 19 and 21 were "induced by suggestions given by the British Agent to the State Attorney. ,, "On the contrary," he p£$*jl(