eat Britain "meant business." It was good policy to offer the Joint
Inquiry, given the truth of the assumption upon which this offer was
based--namely, that the Bill represented an honest desire on the part
of President Krueger to provide a peaceable settlement of the Uitlander
question. Lord Milner knew, within the limits of human intelligence,
that this assumption was wholly unwarranted. The Home Government
apparently did not. As the result of this difference, Lord Milner's
policy was again deflected to the extent that two months of
negotiation were devoted to a purely futile endeavour to persuade the
Pretoria Executive to prove the good faith of a proposal, which was
never intended to be anything more than a pretext for delay. And, as
before, the injury to British interests lay in the fact that, while
the Home Government was prevented from making any adequate use of this
delay by its determination not to make preparations for war until war
was in sight, the period was fully utilised by President Krueger, who
since Bloemfontein had been resolutely hastening the arrangements
necessary for attacking the British colonies at a given moment with
the entire burgher forces of the two Republics.

[Sidenote: Krueger urged to accept.]

The offer of the Joint Inquiry was formally communicated to the
Pretoria Executive in an eminently friendly telegram[120] from Lord
Milner on August 1st. Efforts were made on all sides to induce
President Krueger to accept it. Chief Justice de Villiers wrote
strongly in this sense to Mr. Fischer,[121] and to his brother Melius,
the Chief Justice of the Free State. Mr. Schreiner telegraphed to Mr.
Fischer, and Mr. Hofmeyr to President Steyn, both urging that the
influence of the Free State should be used in favour of the proposal.
The Dutch Government advised the Republic "not to refuse the English
proposal";[122] and further informed Dr. Leyds that, in the opinion of
the German Government, "every approach to one of the Great Powers in
this very critical moment will be without any results whatever, and
very dangerous to the Republic."[123] Even the English sympathisers of
the Boers were in favour of acceptance. Mr. Montagu White, the
Transvaal Consul-General in London, cabled that "Courtney, Labouchere,
both our friends, and friendly papers without exception," recommended
this course; and that "refusal meant war and would estrange friends."
The letter which he wrote to Mr. Reitz on the same day (