Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/209

 .] Lord Rosebcry's Letter. [201

by 5 p.m. on October 11, would be regarded by the Transvaal Government as a formal declaration of war.

On the receipt (Oct. 11) of this despatch, Sir A. Milner was forthwith instructed to inform the Transvaal Government that the conditions demanded by it were such as her Majesty's Government "deem it impossible to discuss/ ' On the same day President Steyn definitely conveyed to Sir A. Milner the intention of the Free State to throw in its lot with the Transvaal, as already foreshadowed in a resolution passed on September 27 by the Free State Volksraad.

On the same day also Mr. Balfour seized the opportunity of a meeting at Edinburgh to vindicate the course which the Government had taken. He claimed that the more the public had known of the Government's aims and actions, and the longer they studied the methods of the Government of Pretoria, the more they came to the conclusion that if the Government had erred it was on the side of patience. That was the right side to err. "We have had war forced upon us because we desired to see established that state of things under which alone peace is possible in South Africa. . . . We have never asked for anything but justice; we have never desired any- thing but freedom."

With characteristic clearness and promptitude Lord Bose- bery threw himself forward as the spokesman of a large section of the Liberal party. He had been silent, he said, writing (Oct. 11) in reply to a correspondent, because he was loth to re-enter the field of politics. Now, however, a situation had been created beyond party polemics. "I think, indeed," continued Lord Bosebery, " that in a survey of the past three years there is much in the relations of our Government with that of the Transvaal to criticise if not to condemn, but that is all over for the present. It is needless to discuss how we could best have attained our simple and reasonable object of rescuing our fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal from intolerable conditions of subjection and injustice, and of securing equal rights for the white races in South Africa, for an ultimatum has been ad- dressed to Great Britain by the South African Bepublic which is in itself a declaration of war. In the face of this attack the nation will, I doubt not, close its ranks and relegate party controversy to a more convenient season. There is one more word to be said. Without attempting to judge the policy which concluded peace after the reverse of Majuba Hill, I was bound to state my profound conviction that there ia no conceivable Government in this country which could repeat it."

The last sentence in Lord Bosebery's letter caused consid- erable heart-searchings, and was denounced in some quarters- as a gratuitous attempt to shake off association with the Gladstonian foreign policy. But it was soon recognised to be the opinion of those Liberals who most hoped to again return