But this full record of the shifts and doublings of Boer diplomacy would not reach London for another two weeks and a half. It was necessary, therefore, to use the cable. Early the next morning Lord Milner sent a telegram to the Secretary of State, in which he warned the Home Government of the extreme discouragement produced among all who were attached to the British connection by The Times statement of their readiness to accept the Franchise Bill. On that afternoon (July 20th), Mr. Chamberlain made a statement in the House of Commons in which he took up a much more satisfactory position. The Government, he said, were led to hope that the new law "might prove to be a basis of settlement on the lines laid down" by Lord Milner at the Bloemfontein Conference. They observed, however, that "a number of conditions" which might be used "to take away with one hand what had been given with the other" were still retained. But they—
"felt assured that the President, having accepted the principle for which they had contended, would be prepared to reconsider any detail of his schemes which could be shown to be a possible hindrance to the full accomplishment of the objects in view, and that he would not allow them to be nullified or reduced in value by any subsequent alterations of the law or acts of administration."
That is to say, Mr. Chamberlain was no longer willing to take the bill at its face value, but in accordance with his determination to exhaust every possible resource of diplomacy before he turned to force, he gave President Krüger credit for a genuine desire to promote a peaceable settlement. A week later he formulated the method by which the President was to be allowed an opportunity of justifying this generous estimate of his intentions. In the meantime Lord Milner had sent lengthy telegrams to the Secretary of State on the 23rd, and again on the 26th, and the Salisbury Cabinet had determined to make a definite pronouncement of its South African policy, and to endeavour to arouse the country to a sense of the seriousness of the situation with which President Krüger's continued obduracy would bring it face to face. On July 27th Mr. Balfour declared, in addressing the Union of Conservative Associations, that—
"If endless patience, endless desire to prevent matters coming to extremities, if all the resources of diplomacy, were utterly ineffectual to untie the knot, other means must inevitably be found by which that knot must be loosened."
On the day following (July 28th) the Transvaal question was debated in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of Lords the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, delivered a moderate and almost sympathetic speech. After making all allowance for the natural apprehension experienced by President Krüger at the sudden inrush of population caused by the discovery of the Witwatersrand gold-fields, he expressed the opinion that an attempt "to put the two races fairly and honestly on the same footing" would bring a peaceful solution of the crisis. But, he added—
"How long we are to consider that solution, and what patience we are bound to show, these things I will not discuss. We have to consider not only the feelings of the inhabitants of the Transvaal, but, what is more important, the feelings of our fellow-subjects.... Whatever happens, when the validity of the Conventions is impeached, they belong from that time entirely to history. I am quite sure that if this country has to make exertions in order to secure the most elementary justice for British subjects,—I am quite sure [it] will not reinstate a state of things that will bring back the old difficulties in all their formidable character at the next turn of the wheel. Without intruding on his thoughts, I do not think President Krüger has sufficiently considered this."
The Joint Commission.
In the House of Commons Mr. Chamberlain announced that he had proposed to the Transvaal Government that a joint commission should be appointed to test the efficacy of the scheme of electoral reform embodied in the new Franchise Law. This proposal was set out in detail in a despatch already addressed to the High Commissioner, the substance of which had been telegraphed[119] to him on the preceding day (July 27th). The British Government assumed that "the concessions now made to the Uitlanders were intended in good faith to secure to them some approach to the equality which was promised in 1881"; they proposed that the "complicated details and questions of a technical nature" involved in the new law should be discussed in the first instance by delegates appointed by the High Commissioner and by the South African Republic; and if, and when, a "satisfactory agreement" had been reached on these points, they further proposed that all disputes as to the terms of the Convention should be settled by a "judicial authority, whose independence ... would be above suspicion," and all remaining matters in respect of the political representation of the Uitlanders by "another personal Conference" between the High Commissioner and President Krüger.
Although the position which the Salisbury Cabinet had now taken up was one which placed them beyond the danger of accepting an illusory franchise scheme in lieu of an adequate measure of reform, it was not the course of action which was best to follow, except from the point of view of opening the eyes of the British public. In itself further delay was dangerous. It gave the Boers more time to arm, while we, for this very reason for which it was necessary to protract the negotiations, were prevented from arming vigorously. It discouraged our friends in South Africa, and made them even begin to doubt whether Great Britain "meant business." It was good policy to offer the Joint Inquiry, given the truth of the assumption upon which this offer was based—namely, that the Bill represented an honest desire on the part of President Krüger to provide a peaceable settlement of the Uitlander question. Lord Milner knew, within the limits of human intelligence, that this assumption was wholly unwarranted. The Home Government apparently did not. As the result of this difference, Lord Milner's policy was again deflected to the extent that two months of negotiation were devoted to a purely futile endeavour to persuade the Pretoria Executive to prove the good faith of a proposal, which was never intended to be anything more than a pretext for delay. And, as before, the injury to British interests lay in the fact that, while the Home Government was prevented from making any adequate use of this delay by its determination not to make preparations for war until war was in sight, the period was fully utilised by President Krüger, who since Bloemfontein had been resolutely hastening the arrangements necessary for attacking the British colonies at a given moment with the entire burgher forces of the two Republics.
Krüger urged to accept.