and then made manful terms. We differ on many points, no
doubt, and I do not expect them to rejoice with us in what has
happened, or to feel affection for a man who, like myself, has been
instrumental in bringing about the great change which has come over
the Constitution of the country. But I firmly believe their word when
they come forward and meet us, and, without professing to agree in all
respects with the policy of the Government, declare that they desire
to co-operate in all questions affecting the prosperity of the country
and the maintenance of public order. I accept the assurance they give
in that respect, and I think it is practically impossible to put your
hands on anything done by myself or any member of the Government which
can be regarded as a manifestation of distrust of the men who have
shown themselves, and do show themselves, men of honour. Let me say,
then, I am perfectly satisfied that so great is the influence of their
leaders over the minds of the main section of the Boer population that
so long as those leaders maintain that attitude a general rising is
out of the question."

Those are the words which Lord Milner used three years ago, and I think
they are words which do justice to the subject and to the speaker. But
more than two years have passed since the representations were made to
the right hon. gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square,
which induced him to confer a measure of self-government on the
Transvaal. Those representations laid stress on the fact that the
desire for self-government was not put forward only by the Boers, but
that both sections of the community in the Transvaal desired to take
the control of affairs into their own hands. The right hon. gentleman
published a Constitution. That Constitution conferred very great and
wide powers. It conferred upon an overwhelming elected majority the
absolute power of the purse and control over legislation. But it has
always been my submission to the House that that Constitution had about
it no element of permanence, that it could not possibly have been
maintained as an enduring, or even a workable settlement; and I am
bound to say--I do not wish to be controversial this afternoon if I can
avoid it--that, when I read the statement that this representative
government stage would have been a convenient educative stage in the
transition to full self-government, the whole experience of British
colonial policy does not justify suc