more
importance, there was one fact which dominated the situation. A burgher
cannot go to war without his horse, his horse cannot move without grass,
grass will not come until after rain, and it was still some weeks before
the rain would be due. Negotiations, then, must not be unduly hurried
while the veld was a bare russet-coloured dust-swept plain. Mr.
Chamberlain and the British public waited week after week for their
answer. But there was a limit to their patience, and it was reached on
August 26th, when the Colonial Secretary showed, with a plainness of
speech which is as unusual as it is welcome in diplomacy, that the
question could not be hung up for ever. 'The sands are running down
in the glass,' said he. 'If they run out, we shall not hold ourselves
limited by that which we have already offered, but, having taken the
matter in hand, we will not let it go until we have secured conditions
which once for all shall establish which is the paramount power in
South Africa, and shall secure for our fellow-subjects there those equal
rights and equal privileges which were promised them by President Kruger
when the independence of the Transvaal was granted by the Queen, and
which is the least that in justice ought to be accorded them.' Lord
Salisbury, a little time before, had been equally emphatic. 'No one
in this country wishes to disturb the conventions so long as it is
recognised that while they guarantee the independence of the Transvaal
on the one side, they guarantee equal political and civil rights for
settlers of all nationalities upon the other. But these conventions are
not like the laws of the Medes and the Persians. They are mortal, they
can be destroyed...and once destroyed they can never be reconstructed
in the same shape.' The long-enduring patience of Great Britain was
beginning to show signs of giving way.

In the meantime a fresh dispatch had arrived from the Transvaal which
offered as an alternative proposal to the joint commission that the Boer
Government should grant the franchise proposals of Sir Alfred Milner
on condition that Great Britain withdrew or dropped her claim to a
suzerainty, agreed to arbitration, and promised never again to interfere
in the internal affairs of the republic. To this Great Britain answered
that she would agree to arbitration, that she hoped never again to have
occasion to interfere for the protection of her own subjects, but that
with the grant of the franchise all occa