Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/619

 1899.] STATE PAPEES— TEANSVAAL. 195

admitted to a share in the Government, and while that turmoil lasts there will be no tranquillity or adequate progress in her Majesty's South African dominions.

The relations between the British Colonies and the two Republics are intimate to a degree which one must live in South Africa in order fully to realise. Socially, economically, ethnological ly, they are all one country — the two principal white races are everywhere inextricably mixed up; it is absurd for either to dream of subjugating the other. The only condition on which they can live in harmony and the country progress is equality all round. South Africa can prosper under two, three, or six Governments, but not under two absolutely conflicting social and political systems — perfect equality for Dutch and British in the British Colonies side by side with permanent subjection of British to Dutch in one of the Republics. It is idle to talk of peace and unity under such a state of affairs.

It is this which makes the internal condition of the Transvaal Republic a matter of vital interest to her Majesty's Government. No merely local question affects so deeply the welfare and peace of her own South African possessions. And the right of Great Britain to intervene to secure fair treatment to the Outlanders is fully equal to her supreme interest in securing it. The majority of them are her subjects, whom she is bound to protect. But the enormous number of British sub- jects, the endless series of their grievances, and the nature of those grievances, which are not less serious because they are not individ- ually sensational, makes protection by the ordinary diplomatic means impossible. We are, as you know, for ever remonstrating about this, that, and the other injury to British subjects. Only in rare cases, and only when we are very emphatic, do we obtain any redress. The sore between us and the Transvaal Republic is thus inevitably kept up, while the result in the way of protection to our subjects is lamentably small. For these reasons it has been, as you know, my constant endeavour to reduce the number of our complaints. I may sometimes have abstained, when I ought to have protested, from my great dislike of ineffectual nagging. But I feel that the attempt to remedy the hundred and one wrongs springing from a hopeless system by taking up isolated cases is perfectly vain. It may easily lead to war, but will never lead to real improvement.

The true remedy is to strike at the root of all these injuries — the political impotence of the injured. What diplomatic protests will never accomplish, a fair measure of Outlander representation would gradually but surely bring about. It seems a paradox, but it is true, that the only effective way of protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our subjects. The admission of Outlanders to a fair share of political power would no doubt give stability to the Republic, and it would at the same time remove most of our causes of difference with it ; and modify, and in the long run entirely remove, that intense suspicion and bitter hostility to Great Britain which at present domin- ates its internal and external policy.

The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted answer is that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in fact,