“If this report is confirmed this important change in the proposals of President Kruger, coupled with previous amendments, leads the government to hope that the new law may prove a basis of a settlement on the lines laid down by Sir Alfred Milner at the Bloemfontein conference.”
But somewhere in the counsels by which the British authorities acted at this time there was an element of suspicion and of yet unsatisfied aggression, which did not make for a peaceful settlement. After the Volksraad of the South African Republic had passed the seven years’ franchise law, together with enlarged representation [[237]]of the uitlanders in both raads, and after Mr. Chamberlain had made his hopeful announcement in the House of Commons, the whole subject was reopened by a new request. The Transvaal government was asked to agree that a joint commission of inquiry, made up of expert delegates representing the Transvaal and the British government, should be appointed to investigate the exact effect of the new franchise law.
It is not surprising that this request fell as a shock upon a government which had received from the power making this and other extraordinary demands a guaranty, in the convention of 1884, that it should be in every sense independent in the management of its internal affairs. On the 21st of August President Kruger formally declined to accede to the request for a joint committee to investigate the effect of the new franchise law, and submitted an alternative proposition: The South African Republic would give a five years’ retroactive franchise, eight new seats in the Volksraad and a vote for President and Commandant-General, conditioned upon Great Britain consenting:
“1. In the future not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Transvaal Republic. 2. Not [[238]]to insist further on its assertion of the existence of suzerainty. 3. To agree to arbitration.”
In a dispatch dated the 2d of September, 1899, Mr. Chamberlain, having rejected President Kruger’s alternative proposals, suggested another conference, to be held at Cape Town, and ended with the significant statement:
“Her Majesty’s government also desires to remind the government of the South African Republic that there are other matters of difference between the two governments which will not be settled by the grant of political representation to the uitlanders, and which are not proper subjects for reference to arbitration.”
In dispatches printed on the 7th of September President Kruger signified a willingness to attend the Cape Town conference, and, while holding that no good could come of a joint inquiry into the effect of the new franchise law, he would agree that British representatives should make an independent inquiry, after which any suggestions they might make would be submitted to the raad. Concerning suzerainty he announced the unalterable purpose of his people to adhere absolutely to the convention of 1884.
On the 8th of September the British cabinet formulated a note to the South African Republic [[239]]very much in the nature of an ultimatum, refusing point blank to entertain the proposal that Great Britain should relinquish suzerainty over the Transvaal and pointedly intimating that the offer of a joint inquiry into the effect of the seven years’ franchise law would not remain open indefinitely.
The Transvaal’s rejoinder, printed unofficially on the 16th of September, announced that the South African Republic withdrew the proposal to give a five years’ franchise, that it would adhere to the original seven years’ law already passed by the Volksraad, and that it would, if necessary, adopt any suggestions Great Britain might make with reference to the practical workings of the law.
On the 25th of September, after three days’ consideration, the British cabinet gave out the text of another note to the South African Republic, which read as follows: