Impressions of South Africa | Page 5

had been a vigorous and skilful government, giving to the inhabitants the comforts and conveniences of municipal and industrial life at a reasonable charge, the narrow electoral basis on which it rested would have remained little more than a theoretic grievance, and the bulk of the people would have cared nothing for political rights. An exclusive government may be pardoned if it is efficient, an inefficient government if it rests upon the people. But a government which is both inefficient and exclusive incurs a weight of odium under which it must ultimately sink; and this was the kind of government which the Transvaal attempted to maintain. They ought, therefore, to have either extended their franchise or reformed their administration. They would not do the former, lest the new burghers should swamp the old ones, and take the control out of Boer hands. They were unfit to do the latter, because they had neither knowledge nor skill, so that even had private interests not stood in the way, they would have failed to create a proper administration. It was the ignorance, as well as the exclusive spirit of the Transvaal authorities, which made them unwilling to yield any more than they might be forced to yield to the demand for reform.
The position in which Britain stood needs to be examined from two sides, its legal right of interference, and the practical considerations which justified interference in this particular case.
Her legal right rested on three grounds. The first was the Convention of 1884 (printed in the Appendix to this volume), which entitled her to complain of any infraction of the privileges thereby guaranteed to her subjects.
The second was the ordinary right, which every State possesses, to complain, and (if necessary) intervene when its subjects are wronged, and especially when they suffer any disabilities not imposed upon the subjects of other States.
The third right was more difficult to formulate. It rested on the fact that as Britain was the greatest power in South Africa, owning the whole country south of the Zambesi except the two Dutch Republics (for the deserts of German Damaraland and the Portuguese East-coast territories may be practically left out of account), she was interested in preventing any causes of disturbance within the Transvaal which might spread beyond its borders, and become sources of trouble either among natives or among white men. This right was of a vague and indeterminate nature, and could be legitimately used only when it was plain that the sources of trouble did really exist and were becoming dangerous.
Was there not also, it may be asked, the suzerainty of Britain, and if so, did it not justify intervention? I will not discuss the question, much debated by English lawyers, whether the suzerainty over the "Transvaal State," mentioned in the preamble to the Convention of 1881, was preserved over the "South African Republic" by the Convention of 1884, not because I have been unable to reach a conclusion on the subject, but because the point seems to be one of no practical importance. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is a suzerainty, it is perfectly clear from an examination of the Conventions and of the negotiations of 1884 that this suzerainty relates solely to foreign relations, and has nothing whatever to do with the internal constitution or government of the Transvaal. The significance of the term--if it be carried over and read into the Convention of 1884--is exhausted by the provision in Article IV of that instrument for the submission of treaties to the British Government. No argument, accordingly, for any right of interference as regards either the political arrangements of the Transvaal or the treatment of foreigners within its borders, can be founded on this real or supposed suzerainty. This view had been too frequently and too clearly expressed by the British Government before 1896, to make it possible for any British official to attempt to put any such construction upon the term; and the matter might therefore have been suffered to drop, since the right to veto treaties was explicit, and did not need to be supported by an appeal to the preamble of 1881. The term, however, though useless to Britain, was galling to the Transvaal, which suspected that it would be made a pretext for infringements upon their independence in internal affairs; and these suspicions were confirmed by the talk of the Uitlander spokesmen in Johannesburg, who were in the habit of appealing to Britain as the Suzerain Power. It has played a most unfortunate part in the whole controversy.
Suzerainty, which is a purely legal, though somewhat vague, conception, has in many minds become confused with the practical supremacy, or rather predominance, of Britain in South Africa, which is a totally different matter. That predominance rests on the fact that Britain