122 



CAPE COLONY AND SOUTH AFRICA. 



new guns; that the burghers had always been 

 armed, but their armaments had been suffered 

 to fall into neglect. The Free State Volksraad 

 voted money for equipping burghers and increas- 

 ing the defenses. The Cape ministers told Sir 

 Alfred Milner that they thought the franchise 

 proposal of President Krtiger practical, reason- 

 able, and a considerable step in the right direc- 

 tion, and that nothing had arisen to justify 

 active interference in the affairs of the Trans- 

 vaal. Mr. Fischer, a member of the Orange Free 

 State Cabinet, and Mr. Hofmeyer, after consulta- 

 tion with Mr. Schreiner, went to Pretoria to 

 urge President Kriiger to modify his proposals 

 so as to admit persons resident before 1892 im- 

 mediately to full citizenship, and to give the 

 option of obtaining the full franchise after seven 

 years without naturalization five years pre- 

 viously. Accordingly, on July 13, the President 

 submitted to the Volksraad a new draft law em- 

 bodying these changes, with the provision that 

 to obtain the full franchise after a domicile of 

 seven years, past residence also being taken ac- 

 count of, the intention to become naturalized 

 must be notified from the beginning. The Gov- 

 ernment also proposed to give an extra seat each 

 to Zoartpansburg and Pretoria, as well as 4 to 

 the Rand. Sir Alfred Milner would not accept 

 these concessions as satisfactory, having taken 

 the position that his own proposal was the irre- 

 ducible minimum. When Mr. Reitz proposed a 

 scheme for general arbitration Sir Alfred Milner, 

 while condemning the plan as unworkable and as 

 involving foreign interference, took the position 

 that nothing should be considered until the griev- 

 ances of the Uitlanders were redressed. Mr. 

 Chamberlain, in a dispatch dated July 27, re- 

 ferred to the position of Great Britain as the 

 paramount power in South Africa and the re- 

 sponsibilities arising out of the conventions, 

 which he regarded the republic as having vio- 

 lated in raising the period of residence necessary 

 for citizenship from one year by successive stages 

 to fourteen years, which was a complete reversal 

 of the conditions of equality between the white 

 inhabitants subsisting when the British Govern- 

 ment granted internal independence in 1881. The 

 successive proposals of President Kriiger for ex- 

 tending the franchise to Uitlanders he admitted 

 to be each more liberal than the preceding one, 

 and he proposed the appointment of delegates 

 by the Chief Commissioner and the State Presi- 

 dent to inquire into the matter, to be followed 

 after they had made their reports by another 

 conference. A proposal for arbitration he would 

 be willing to consider, but not the suggestion 

 of a foreigner for president of the tribunal, nor 

 would he admit the question of suzerainty to be 

 subject of arbitration. When the British Gov- 

 ernment had asked to have the latest enfran- 

 chisement bill submitted for its consideration 

 before it went to the Volksraad the State Secre- 

 tary returned a polite negative. The measure 

 was passed by the Volksraad and promulgated 

 on July 26. On July 31 Mr. Chamberlain pro- 

 posed the appointment of delegates to discuss 

 whether the reforms would give immediate and 

 substantial representation to the Uitlanders, and, 

 if not, what alterations would be necessary. On 

 Aug. i he telegraphed an invitation to President 

 Kriiger to confer with Sir Alfred Milner on the 

 franchise question, arbitration without the intro- 

 duction of a foreign element, and other matters. 

 Before this British cruisers had been sent to 

 Dolagoa Bay, and immediately after the invita- 

 tion was delivered to President Kriiger several 

 battalions were dispatched from England to 



Natal. When questioned in the House of Com- 

 mons, Mr. Chamberlain said they were sent for 

 the defense of Natal at the request of the Gov- 

 ernor, and that preparation was being made for 

 all contingencies. Fortifications were erected at 

 Ladysmith, and British troops encamped on the 

 frontier. In Rhodesia Col. Baden-Powell enlisted 

 a regiment of volunteers. Offers of military con- 

 tingents were sent to London from Australia, 

 Canada, and other colonies; even colored troops 

 were offered by Malay rajahs and by the West 

 African colonial authorities. The Indian Govern- 

 ment was asked how many troops it could spare, 

 and a force of 12,000 was got ready to embark 

 for South Africa. Lieut.-Gen. Sir William Butler, 

 who when acting temporarily as High Commis- 

 sioner had described the Transvaal troubles as 

 the work of the South African League, and said 

 the question was capable of peaceful adjustment, 

 was removed from the chief command of the 

 forces in South Africa, and Lieut.-Gen. Sir Fred- 

 erick Forrestier- Walker appointed in his place. 



The Transvaal Government replied on Aug. 19 

 to the note of Aug. 2 with an offer to comply 

 with Sir Alfred Milner' s irreducible minimum by 

 making five years' residence instead of seven a 

 requisite for full citizenship, and to increase the 

 representation of the gold fields to 10 members 

 in the First Raad, with the assurance that their 

 proportion should never fall below one fourth, 

 with a like addition in the Second Raad if de- 

 sired; the new electors to have the same right 

 of voting for the President and Commandant 

 General as the old electors; also to accept any 

 amendments or simplifications that the British 

 agent might suggest. This offer was made con- 

 ditional on the abandonment by Great Britain 

 of assertion of suzerainty and on its agreeing to 

 submit questions in dispute to arbitration, ex- 

 cluding any foreign element, but not reckoning 

 the Orange Free State under this exclusion; the 

 present intervention regarding the franchise not 

 to be regarded as a precedent, and Great Britain 

 in future to abstain from interfering with the 

 internal affairs of the republic. The Transvaal 

 Government suggested that if its alternative pro- 

 posals were accepted the Raad would be dis- 

 solved, and, after consulting the people, the new 

 law would go into force within a few weeks, the 

 object being to avert war in South Africa, which 

 would have far-reaching results. 



In answer to this, Mr. Chamberlain wrote on 

 Aug. 27 that the British Government had abso- 

 lutely repudiated the view of the political status 

 of the Transvaal taken by the Transvaal Govern- 

 ment, claiming the status of a sovereign state, 

 and would consider no proposal made conditional 

 on the acceptance of this view. Great Britain 

 was prepared to accept the franchise proposals, 

 assuming that they provided for immediate and 

 substantial representation of the Uitlanders, pro- 

 vided a commission of inquiry, whether joint or 

 unilateral, showed the new scheme to be unen- 

 cumbered with nullifying conditions, as to pre- 

 vious registration, qualification, and behavior, 

 assuming that the new members of the Raad 

 would be allowed to speak their own language. 

 If this were acceded to, the British Government 

 would be willing to settle the details of the pro- 

 posed tribunal of arbitration in a conference be- 

 tween the President and the High Commissioner, 

 the questions to come before the tribunal for 

 decision being neither Uitlander grievances nor 

 questions of the interpretation of the convention. 

 Should the reply be negative, the British Govern- 

 ment must consider the situation de novo, and 

 formulate proposals for a final settlement. 



