he documents laid before the
Governments by the Commission would now be read to the meeting.
Thereupon Mr. D. Van Velden read the following letter:

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION.

PRETORIA, _28th May_, 1902.

_To the Governments of the Orange Free State and the South African
Republic:_

HONBLE. GENTLEMEN,--

In accordance with instructions received from you, we went to
Pretoria in order to negotiate with the British authorities on the
question of peace. We have the honour to make the following report:

The meetings lasted from Monday, May 19th, to Wednesday, May 28th,
its prolongation having been principally caused by the length of
time taken up by the cable correspondence with the British
Government.

We first handed in a proposal (annexed under A)[113] in which we
attempted to negotiate on the basis of a limited independence with
surrender of part of our territory. Lords Kitchener and Milner
refused emphatically to negotiate on this basis, and expressed the
opinion that to cable this proposal to the British Government would
be detrimental to the objects of these negotiations. They told us
they had already informed the two Governments that the British
Government would only negotiate on the basis of an amended form of
the Middelburg proposal. In order finally to formulate this
proposal, Lord Milner asked the assistance of some members of the
Commission; and this was granted, on the understanding that the
assistance of these members of the Commission should be given
without prejudice to themselves.

As the result of the deliberations of this sub-committee, Lord
Milner produced a draft proposal, in which we insisted that a fresh
clause (No. 11) should be inserted; and this was done. This draft
proposal (annexed under B)[114] was then cabled to the British
Government, revised by them, and then communicated to us in its
final shape (annexed under B).[115] We were informed by the British
Government that no further revision of this proposal would be
allowed, but that it must now be either accepted or rejected in its
entirety by the delegates of the two Republics; and that this
acceptance or rejection must take place within a stipulated time.
We then told Lord Kitchener that he should know our final decision
by the evening of the next Satu