PREFACE.
The Question.
I have endeavoured in the following pages to separate the Transvaal question from the many side issues by which it is obscured.
In the "Affaire Dreyfus" I constantly recurred to the main point—Dreyfus was condemned upon the "bordereau"; Dreyfus was not the author of the "bordereau," therefore he was not responsible for the documents named in the "bordereau."
In this case, in like manner, there is but one question:—Has or has not the government of the South African Republic acted up to the convention of 1884, and is the English government bound to regard that convention as of no effect with regard to the Uitlanders who have established themselves in the Transvaal on the faith that England would insist upon its being respected?
Pro-Boer Argument.
Pro-Boers refuse to recognise this point, as did M. Cavaignac when, in his speech of July 7th, 1898, he abandoned the "bordereau" to substitute for it the Henry forgery.
They keep talking of the Great Trek of 1836; of England's greed; of the gold mines; and, above all, of the Jameson raid. The Jameson raid is their pet grievance; it takes the place of all argument. The Uitlanders may well say that "Jameson has been Krüger's best friend."