enunciation by Great Britain of its position as
paramount Power in South Africa. In other words, the Pretoria
Executive had repudiated the arrangement made by Mr. Smuts with Sir
William Greene. Mr. Chamberlain, noticing the material variation
between the original offer as initialled by Mr. Smuts and forwarded by
Sir William Greene, and Mr. Reitz's note of August 19th, instructed
Sir William Greene to obtain an explanation of the discrepancy from
the Transvaal Government. The reply was a curt rejoinder that there
was not "the slightest chance of an alteration or an amplification" of
the terms of the arrangement as set out in the note of the 19th.[134]
In these circumstances Mr. Chamberlain telegraphed a reply on August
28th, in which he accepted the original offer, and rejected the
impossible conditions subsequently attached to it.[135] The terms of
settlement thus proposed were in substance the same as those of the
despatch of July 27th, with the exception that an inquiry by the
British Agent was substituted for the Joint Commission, and the five
years' franchise of the Smuts-Greene arrangement was accepted in lieu
of the seven years' franchise of the Volksraad law. The Transvaal
reply was a further essay in the same useful "art of gaining time." It
was dated September 2nd, and contained a definite withdrawal of the
Smuts-Greene offer as embodied in the notes of August 19th and 21st,
and a vague return to the Joint Commission.

[Footnote 133: Then Mr. Conyngham Greene. C. 9,521.]

[Footnote 134: C. 9,521.]

[Footnote 135: _Ibid._]

"Under certain conditions," wrote Mr. Reitz,[136] "this
Government would be glad to learn from Her Majesty's Government
how they propose that the Commission should be constituted, and
what place and time for meeting is suggested."[137]

[Footnote 136: The despatch was presented to the British
Agent, and telegraphed, through the High Commissioner, to the
Home Government. Its diplomatic ambiguity was due to Mr.
Fischer's influence.]

[Footnote 137: C. 9,521.]

And this with the consoling promise of a "further reply" to other
questions arising out of the despatch of July 27th, which the
Transvaal Government had not yet been able to consider.

The response to this astute document was the last effort of the
Salisbury Cabinet to arrange a settlement upon the basis of the
"friendly discussion" inaug