ritish who were the weak one, and any sympathy given on the other
understanding was sympathy misapplied. From that time onwards the war
had to take its course, and the British had no choice but to push it to
its end.

6. _That the British refused to arbitrate._--This has been repeated _ad
nauseam_, but the allegation will not bear investigation. There are some
subjects which can be settled by arbitration, and all those Great
Britain freely consented to treat in this fashion, before a tribunal
which should be limited to Great Britain and South Africa. Such a
tribunal would by no means be necessarily drawn from judges who were
committed to one side or the other. There were many men whose moderation
and discretion both sides would admit. Such a man, for example, was Rose
Innes amongst the British, and de Villiers among those who had
Africander sympathies. Both the Transvaal and the British Governments
agreed that such a tribunal was competent, but they disagreed upon the
point that the British Government desired to reserve some subjects from
this arbitration.

The desire upon the part of Great Britain to exclude outsiders from the
arbitration tribunal was due to the fact that to admit them was to give
away the case before going into Court. The Transvaal claimed to be a
sovereign international state. Great Britain denied it. If the Transvaal
could appeal to arbitration as a peer among peers in a court of nations,
she became _ipso facto_ an international state. Therefore Great Britain
refused such a court.

But why not refer all subjects to such a South African court as was
finally accepted by both sides? The answer is that it is a monstrous
hypocrisy to carry cases into an arbitration court, when you know
beforehand that by their very nature they cannot possibly be settled by
such a court. To quote Milner's words, 'It is, of course, absurd to
suggest that the question whether the South African Republic does or
does not treat British residents in that country with justice, and the
British Government with the consideration and respect due to any
friendly, not to say suzerain power, is a question capable of being
referred to arbitration. You cannot arbitrate on broad questions of
policy any more than on questions of national honour.' On this point of
the limitation of arbitration the Transvaal leaders appear to have been
as unanimous as the British, so that it is untrue to lay the blame of
the restriction upon one side only