Commandant-General Botha: "Perhaps it would be well if you would first give an answer to our proposals."
Commander-in-Chief de Wet: "I think that (unless your Excellencies have power to give a final answer to our terms) it would not be unfair if we were to ask you to lay our proposal before your Government."
Commandant-General Botha: "We are come here with the earnest intention of concluding peace; and I think that if our proposal is carried out Boer and Briton will be able to live side by side in this country. I presume that it is the wish of both parties to be fair and just, and to make a peace by which both can abide, and which will be permanent in South Africa."
Lord Milner: "That is certainly our aim."
Lord Kitchener: "Your proposal would involve important changes in our own—changes which, so far as I understand them, we should be unable to permit."
Commandant-General Botha: "I am of opinion that before a proposal is made from your side you should give a definite answer to ours."
Lord Kitchener and Lord Milner: "Well, then, change your proposal into ours."
Lord Milner: "I do not believe that the British Government is prepared to go any further to meet you than they have done in their last proposal. They think that they have already gone far in their efforts for peace—further, indeed, than the general opinion of the British public would warrant."
Lord Kitchener: "The difference between our proposals seems to be too great."
Commandant-General Botha: "We shall always remain under the supervision of the British Government."