Impressions of South Africa | Page 7

the harm which the restriction of the franchise was causing, and point out that to enlarge it might remove the risk of a collision over other matters which did fall within the scope of British intervention.
We are therefore, on a review of the whole position, led to conclude that Britain was justified in requiring the Transvaal Government to redress the grievances (other than the limited suffrage) which were complained of. Whether she would be justified in proceeding to enforce by arms compliance with her demand, would of course depend upon several things, upon the extent to which the existence of the grievances could be disproved, upon the spirit in which the Transvaal met the demand, upon the amount of concessions offered or amendment promised. But before the British Government entered on a course which might end in war, if the Transvaal should prove intractable, there were some considerations which it was bound seriously to weigh.
One of these was the time for entering on a controversy. The Jameson invasion was only three years old; and the passions it evoked had not subsided. In it British officers, and troops flying the British flag, if not Britain herself, had been wrongdoers. Suspicions of British good faith were known to pervade the Boer mind, and would give an ominous colour to every demand coming from Britain. The lapse of time might diminish these suspicions, and give to negotiations a better prospect of success. Time, moreover, was likely to work against the existing system of the Transvaal. Bad governments carry the seeds of their own dissolution. The reforming party among the Transvaal burghers would gain strength, and try to throw off the existing r��gime. The President was an old man, whose retirement from power could not be long delayed; and no successor would be able to hold together as he had done the party of resistance to reform. In the strife of factions that would follow his retirement reform was certain to have a far better chance than it could have had since 1895. In fact, to put it shortly, all the natural forces were working for the Uitlanders, and would either open the way for their admission to a share in power, or else make the task of Britain easier by giving her less united and therefore less formidable antagonists. These considerations counselled a postponement of the attempt to bring matters to a crisis.
In the second place the British Government had to remember the importance of carrying the opinion of the Dutch in Cape Colony, and, as far as possible, even of the Orange Free State, with them in any action they might take. It has been pointed out how before December, 1895, that opinion blamed the Transvaal Government for its unfriendly treatment of the immigrants. The Dutch of both communities had nothing to gain and something to lose by the maladministration of the Transvaal, so that they were nowise disposed to support it in refusing reforms. The only thing that would make them rally to it would be a menace to its independence, regarding which they, and especially the Free State people, were extremely sensitive. Plainly, therefore, unless the colonial Dutch were to be incensed and the Free State men turned to enemies, such a menace was to be avoided.
Finally, the British authorities were bound to make sure, not only that they had an adequate casus belli which they could present to their own people and to the world, but also that the gain to be expected from immediately redressing the grievances of the Uitlander outweighed the permanent evils war would entail. Even where, according to the usage of nations, a just cause for war exists, even where victory in the war may be reckoned on, the harm to be expected may be greater than the fruits of victory. Here the harm was evident. The cost of equipping a large force and transporting it across many thousand miles of sea was the smallest part of the harm. The alienation of more than half the population of Cape Colony, the destruction of a peaceful and prosperous Republic with which Britain had no quarrel, the responsibility for governing the Transvaal when conquered, with its old inhabitants bitterly hostile, these were evils so grave, that the benefits to be secured to the Uitlanders might well seem small in comparison. A nation is, no doubt, bound to protect its subjects. But it could hardly be said that the hardships of this group of subjects, which did not prevent others from flocking into the country, and which were no worse than they had been for some time previously, were such as to forbid the exercise of a little more patience. It was said by the war party among the English in South Africa that patience was being mistaken