should inquire into the working of
the proposed Bill before it was put into a final form. The proposal was
submitted to the Raad upon August 7th, with the addition that when
this was done Sir Alfred Milner was prepared to discuss anything else,
including arbitration without the interference of foreign powers.

The suggestion of this joint commission has been criticised as an
unwarrantable intrusion into the internal affairs of another country.
But then the whole question from the beginning was about the internal
affairs of another country, since the internal equality of the white
inhabitants was the condition upon which self-government was restored
to the Transvaal. It is futile to suggest analogies, and to imagine what
France would do if Germany were to interfere in a question of French
franchise. Supposing that France contained as many Germans as Frenchmen,
and that they were ill-treated, Germany would interfere quickly enough
and continue to do so until some fair modus vivendi was established.
The fact is that the case of the Transvaal stands alone, that such a
condition of things has never been known, and that no previous precedent
can apply to it, save the general rule that a minority of white men
cannot continue indefinitely to tax and govern a majority. Sentiment
inclines to the smaller nation, but reason and justice are all on the
side of England.

A long delay followed upon the proposal of the Secretary of the
Colonies. No reply was forthcoming from Pretoria. But on all sides there
came evidence that those preparations for war which had been quietly
going on even before the Jameson raid were now being hurriedly
perfected. For so small a State enormous sums were being spent upon
military equipment. Cases of rifles and boxes of cartridges streamed
into the arsenal, not only from Delagoa Bay, but even, to the
indignation of the English colonists, through Cape Town and Port
Elizabeth. Huge packing-cases, marked 'Agricultural Instruments' and
'Mining Machinery,' arrived from Germany and France, to find their
places in the forts of Johannesburg or Pretoria. Men of many nations
but of a similar type showed their martial faces in the Boer towns.
The condottieri of Europe were as ready as ever to sell their blood for
gold, and nobly in the end did they fulfill their share of the bargain.
For three weeks and more during which Mr. Kruger was silent these
eloquent preparations went on. But beyond them, and of infinitely