From Sir Evelyn Wood to the Secretary of State for the Colonies:—
“19th April.
“I should allow them to reoccupy Nek. We are quite ready. This will give a decisive military result, and the happiest result for the country. I guarantee we dislodge them.”
[221] Extract from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Sir Evelyn Wood:—
“1st November.
“I am quite satisfied with the result of your visit to Umbandeen, which will no doubt have been very useful, and I think you have done all that was possible in the circumstances to settle Zulu affairs.—Kimberley.”
[222] Mr. Brand told them at the Nek, unknown to me, that if they gave way he was confident the British Government would not curtail the Transvaal.
[223] My Dissent was published in Blue Book, Transvaal Royal Commission Report, Part I., C. 3114, pages 34 and 56–66, issued in 1882, but a subsequent edition issued soon afterwards omitted my Dissent, which I therefore republish.
Sir Evelyn Wood, while concurring generally with the views of his colleagues, feels bound to record the grounds of his dissent on certain points, at the end of which Dissent he has signed the report.
Dissent.
As regards the question treated in paragraph 16, viz. the trial of those accused of murder during the late hostilities, Sir Evelyn Wood desires to place on record, that, in a telegram of the 30th March, he gave an opinion adverse to the trial of these persons, either by Boers or by ordinary process, and recommended the creation of a Special Tribunal: eventually, however, the Commission recommended the course which was adopted.
2. With reference to the territorial question, Sir Evelyn Wood is unable to concur with his colleagues in the arguments which led them to recommend the abandonment of the Scheme of Separation of Territory agreed to at Lang’s Nek. Paragraphs 44 to 53, of this report, give the arguments of the Boer Leaders against the separation of any territory East of the 30th degree of longitude.