constitutional means.]

But how was this humiliation to be brought about, and how, above all,
was it to be brought about by those "Constitutional means," which, since
the failure of the conspiracy, had become a _sine qua non_?

The new Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner of South
Africa, who had enjoyed the distinction of a brilliant university
career, who had learnt humility and moderation at the feet of Mr. W.T.
Stead, and who had learnt by his experience with the fellaheen in Egypt
how to govern the descendants of the Huguenots and the "Beggars of the
Sea," would know very well how to evolve "Constitutional means" in order
to humiliate the South African Republic, and to crush it into the dust.

[Sidenote: The suzerainty.]

There was at any rate the burning question of suzerainty, which the
South African Republic had unconsciously and innocently raised in the
following way:--

After the Jameson Raid the Volksraad had passed certain laws with a view
of removing some of the causes of that movement, as, for example, the
law by which dangerous individuals could be expelled from the State, and
the law by which paupers and people suffering from contagious diseases
could be prevented from entering the Republic.[33] These laws were
declared to be in conflict with Article XIV. of the London Convention.
Violations of Article IV. were also said to have taken place in regard
to certain extradition and other treaties, which had been concluded
between the South African Republic and Foreign Powers.[34] On the 7th
May, 1897, the Government of the South African Republic dispatched a
very important reply to these accusations, in which, after fully stating
the reasons why the Government differed from Her Majesty's Government,
an appeal was made for arbitration as being the most suitable method of
settling the dispute.

This appeal was couched in the following language:

[Sidenote: The appeal for Arbitration.]

[35] "While it respects the opinion of Her British Majesty's Government,
it takes the liberty, with full confidence in the correctness of its own
views, to propose to Her British Majesty's Government the principle of
Arbitration, with which the honourable the First Volksraad agreed, in
the hope that it will be taken in the conciliatory spirit in which it is
made. It considers that it has every reason for this proposal, the more
so because the principle of Arbitration is already laid down in that
Convention