e truth that she has voluntarily surrendered more
oversea territory than some important kingdoms ever possessed; but not
one of these many surrenders proved half so disastrous to all
concerned as that on which the Sand River Convention set its seal in
1852. At that time our colonial possessions were accounted by many
overtaxed statesmen to be all plague and no profit, involving the
motherland in incessant native wars out of which she won for herself
neither credit nor cash. That had proved specially true in South
Africa. When, therefore, the Crimean war hove in sight with its
manifold risks and its drain on our national resources, it was
resolved to lessen our liabilities in that then unattractive quarter
of the globe. The Transvaal was at that time a barren land, given over
to wild beasts, and to Boers who seemed equally uncontrollable. An
Ishmael life was theirs, their hand against every man's and every
man's hand against them. Every little township was a law unto itself
and almost every homestead; so the British Government threw up the
thankless task of governing the ungovernable, as soon as a life and
death struggle with Russia appeared inevitable. The Sand River
Convention gave to the Transvaal absolute independence save only in
what related to the treatment of the natives. There was to be no
slavery in the Transvaal; but no Convention ever yet framed could
apparently bind a Boer when his financial interests bade him break it.
So set he his face to evade the conditions both of the Pretoria and
the London Conventions of later date; and the one requirement of this
first Convention he set at nought. During several following years he
still hunted for slaves whom he took captive in native wars; sjamboked
them into serving him without pay; bought them, sold them, but never
called them slaves. They were "apprentices," which was a fine word for
a foul thing. So was the Convention kept in the letter of it and
broken in the spirit of it. For five-and-twenty years of widening and
deepening anarchy that Convention remained in force, the Transvaal
fighting with the Orange Free State, and Boer bidding defiance to Boer
with bullets for his arguments. When little Lydenberg claimed the
right to set up as an independent republic, Kruger himself reasoned
with it at the muzzle of his rifle, as we have since been compelled to
reason with him. So at last Shepstone appeared upon the scene to
evolve order out of chaos; and though he knew i