owever much we
recognise and value your kind intentions," they write, "we regret that
it is no longer possible for us to comply with the extravagant and
brutal requests of the British Government." Thus the Pretoria
Executive declared themselves on September 15th, 1899, to the Master
of the Bond, when they were in the act of refusing Mr. Chamberlain's
offer to accept a five years' franchise bill, provided it was shown by
due inquiry to be a genuine measure of reform. Very different was the
account of the same transaction given by Mr. Smuts, when, in urging
the remnant of the burghers of both Republics to surrender, he said,
on May 30th, 1902, at Vereeniging, "I am one of those who, as members
of the Government of the South African Republic, _provoked the war
with England_". But the passage in this document which is most useful
to the historian is that in which the republican nationalists remind
the Afrikander leaders at the Cape of the insincerity of their
original "mediation." In dialectics Mr. Fischer, Mr. Smuts, and Mr.
Reitz are quite able to hold their own with Mr. Hofmeyr, Dr. Te Water,
and Mr. Schreiner. They have not forgotten the Cape Prime Minister's
precipitate benediction alike of President Krueger's Bloemfontein
scheme and of the seven years' franchise of the Volksraad proposals.
They remember also how the "Hofmeyr compromise" was proclaimed in the
Bond and the ministerial press as affording conclusive evidence of the
"sweet reasonableness" of President Krueger and his Executive. And so
they remark, "We are sorry not to be able to follow your advice; but
we point out that you yourself let it be known that we had your whole
approval, if we gave the present franchise as we were doing."[160]
Here we have the kernel of the whole matter. A nine years', seven
years', or a five years' franchise was all one to the Cape
Nationalists, provided only that England was kept a little longer from
claiming her position as paramount Power in South Africa. For these
men knew, or thought they knew, that for England "a little longer"
would be "too late."

[Footnote 160: This document was among those secured by the
Intelligence Department, and published in _The Times History
of the War_.]

[Sidenote: Lord Milner and Mr. Schreiner.]

It was a greater achievement to have frustrated so subtle a
combination, directed by the astute mind of Mr. Hofmeyr--the man who
refused to allow his passions to interfe