Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/632

 STATE PAPERS— TRANSVAAL. [1899.

concentrating all my energy upon the question of franchise, or, more properly speaking, of the admission of the Outlanders to citizenship, I am quite conscious that it is open to criticism. I might have stayed at Bloemfontein fourteen days or longer discussing dynamite, the Edgar case, the Amphitheatre meeting, the aliens' law, the press law, police incompetence, the illicit liquor traffic, education, the crusade against the English language, the dependent condition of the courts, the un- certainty of the laws — liable as they are to be altered at any moment by the resolution of a single Chamber. But my view was this : I had to pursue one of two policies ; either (1) to seek in a spirit of broad compromise to obtain for the Outlanders such a position as would enable them gradually to remedy their principal grievances themselves ; or (2) to insist on a series of specific reforms which should relieve the Outlanders from at least the more serious of these grievances. Of the two possibilities, No. 1 was, in my opinion far the better, and No. 2 only to be resorted to in case of the failure of No. 1. But to introduce No. 2 prematurely would make the successful pursuance of No. 1 im- possible. It was, of course, necessary to indicate, and indicate clearly, as I repeatedly did, the existence of grievances ; but to propose to deal with them in detail, that is to say, to propose to interfere here, there and everywhere, in the internal affairs of the Republic, would have been totally inconsistent with that line of firm, but friendly, pressure for the admission of the Outlanders to citizenship (id est, to a position in which they could remedy grievances for themselves), which, in the first instance at any rate, it seemed best to pursue. But policy No. 1 having broken down, it seemed to me unadvisable at the conference itself to embark on policy No. 2. For one thing I was imperfectly instructed as to your view with regard to it. I knew full well that my franchise proposals would have your entire approval and that of the British public But what we should press for in respect of particular grievances, if franchise failed, I was not equally certain, and I did not wish to commit myself too rashly to particular demands. Moreover, I thought it would be prema- ture to conclude that franchise on the broad lines proposed by me was unobtainable. It was evidently impossible to get more out of President Kruger at Bloemfontein, especially as the Free State authorities were inclined to regard his proposals as adequate (though how they could come to such an opinion is beyond my understanding), and there was therefore no hope of any pressure being brought to bear on him at that time to make further concessions. But I thought that when the two policies were known throughout South Africa, and when it was seen that her Majesty's Government took a strong line, my proposal might yet receive such an amount of support as would compel President Kruger to accept my solution on the question of franchise, and thereby to obviate the necessity of our pressing him about a whole series of internal reforms.

At the moment of writing it seems to me as if this anticipation were likely to be fulfilled. Not only is the British community in South Africa unanimously in favour of my scheme, but there is evidence that, outside the Republics, a good many of the Dutch take the same view. It would not surprise me if, within the next few days, a very