deration of personal or party relationship.
It was in no sense the incapacity to measure the strength of an
opponent, still less did it arise from any failure to perceive the
cogency of an opinion in conflict with his own. Before the eight years
of his administration had passed, Lord Milner's knowledge of the needs
of South Africa and the Empire had become so profound that it carried
him ahead of the most enlightened and patriotic of the home statesmen
who supported him loyally to the end. Through the period of the war,
when the issues were simple and primitive, they were wholly with him.
But afterwards they supported him not so much because they understood
the methods which he employed and the objects at which he aimed, as
because they were by this time convinced of his complete mastery of
the political and economic problems of South Africa. It is to this
inability to understand the facts of the South African situation, as
he had learnt them, that we must attribute the comparative feebleness
shown by the Unionist leaders in resisting the perverse attempt which
was made by the Liberal party, after the General Election of 1906, to
revoke the final arrangements of his administration. The interval that
separated Lord Milner's knowledge of South Africa from that of the
Liberal ministers was profound; but even the Unionist chiefs showed
but slight appreciation of the unassailable validity of the
administrative decisions with which they had identified themselves,
when the "swing of the pendulum" brought these decisions again, and
somewhat unexpectedly, before the great tribunal of the nation.

[Sidenote: Arrival at Cape Town.]

Lord Milner sailed for the Cape on April 17th, 1897. At the actual
moment of his arrival the relations between the Home Government and
the South African Republic were strained almost to the breaking point.
In a peremptory despatch of March 6th, Mr. Chamberlain had demanded
the repeal of the Aliens Immigration and Aliens Expulsion Laws of
1896--the former of which constituted a flagrant violation of the
freedom of entry secured to British subjects by Article XIV. of the
London Convention. This virtual ultimatum was emphasised by the
appearance of a British squadron at Delagoa Bay, and by the despatch
of reinforcements to the South African garrisons. The evident
determination of the Imperial Government induced the Volksraad to
repeal the Immigration Law and to pass a resolution in favour of
amending th