andant-General Botha: "If this is the position you take, we should
like to receive from you a final answer to our proposals."

Lord Milner: "Do you wish us to refer your proposals to His Majesty's
Government?"

Commandant-General Botha: "Yes, unless you have full powers to give us a
final reply."

Lord Milner: "I am quite convinced that your proposal will be rejected;
and I feel bound to say that to refer it, as it stands, to His Majesty's
Government will only do you harm."

Commandant-General Botha: "If you have no power to decide upon this
proposal here, we should like you to refer it to His Majesty's
Government."

Lord Milner: "I have no objection to taking the responsibility of
refusing your proposal on myself. The instructions received by myself
and Lord Kitchener are quite clear on this point."

Commandant-General Botha: "I must then understand that when Lord
Salisbury said that this war was not carried on with a view to annex
territory, he did not mean it."

Lord Kitchener: "It is no longer a question of territory, for annexation
is an accomplished fact."

Commandant-General Botha: "I am unable to see how our proposal is
inconsistent with annexation."

Lord Milner: "I cannot now recall the exact words used by Lord
Salisbury, but it is true that Lord Salisbury declared that his
Government did not begin the war with the intention of obtaining
territory. But in the course of the war circumstances developed in such
a way that the decision to annex the Republics became a necessity, and
the British Government have pronounced their firm intention not to
withdraw from this decision."

Judge Hertzog: "I should like to be informed as to what the great
difference is between the basis now proposed by us and that laid down by
His Majesty's Government during the negotiations of last year--I do not
mean the difference in details, but in principle."

Lord Kitchener: "Do you mean by your proposal that the Boers will become
British citizens?"

General Smuts: "I cannot see that our proposal is necessarily in
contradiction to that of last year. Our proposal only makes provision
concerning the administration."

Lord Milner then quoted from the terms offered at Middelburg by the
British Government the previous year:--

"At the earliest possible date military administration shall cease, and
be replaced by civil administration in the form of a Crown Colony
Government. At first there will be in each of the new Colonies