Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/237

 1899.] Death of the Khalifa. [229

fore it should be cancelled in view of the willingness of the Boers to assent to conditions which would secure our rights and the rights of British subjects. " In believing that the Boers would observe those conditions," said Mr. Chamberlain, they were " egregiously mistaken.' ' The Transvaal work of prepara- tion for war " began long before the Jameson Raid." As to the future, the Boers had " made for us a clean sheet on which we could write what we pleased/' and it was absolutely necessary to see to it that it was never again within the power of the Boers of the two republics to threaten the peace of South Africa.

Mr. Balfour had used similar language — speaking on November 29 at Dewsbury at the Annual Conference of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associa- tions — with regard to the terms on which the war could be ultimately concluded. Mr. Balfour explained Boer obstinacy in part by the fact that in the long run adequate Outlander representation would have meant the downfall of the corrupt Boer oligarchy.

It may here be recorded that by a Convention agreed to early in November among the three Governments concerned the joint control of the Samoan Archipelago was brought to a close. The effect of the agreement was to divide the islands of that archipelago between Germany and the United States, giving England as compensation the exclusive control in future of other islands, particularly the Tonga group, to which Ger- many had previously made partial claims. This arrangement, though not without its drawbacks from the British point of view, and from that of natives preferring British to German rule, was a distinct boon in respect of its removal of a long- standing cause of friction between the two Powers.

Another event which, at any ordinary time, would have attracted a good deal more than the passing congratulatory notice which it received, was the clearing away of the one remaining serious obstacle to the prosecution of England's civilising work in the Soudan, by the final defeat and death of the Khalifa. That beaten tyrant, as may be remembered, had succeeded in escaping from Omdurman just as Lord Kitchener entered it, and as long as he remained at large there was always a possibility of the recrudescence of the fanatical movement which he led and on which he subsisted. The engage- ment in which he and his principal emirs were killed — with the exception of Osman Digna who, for a brief period, again escaped — was fought by an Egyptian force under British officers, with Colonel Sir Francis Wingate in command. The behaviour of the troops was admirable, and illustrated afresh the high morale established among them by the influence of a devoted band of British officers.

It was a singular fact that the completion, on its military side, after many tragic vicissitudes, of the great mission under-