rbitration. President Brand refused the offer, but
President M. W. Pretorius of the South African Republic, who had
grievances against the Barolong, Batlapin, and Griqua tribes,
agreed. A Court was appointed, the Governor of Natal acting as
umpire. The interests involved were many, and on the subject of
their rights the various claimants seemed somewhat hazy. The Free
State was not represented, and the umpire, acting on the evidence of
Mr. Arnot (the agent of Nicholas Waterboer) gave judgment against
the South African Republic, and allowed the claim of the Griqua
Captain, including in the award the tract claimed by him in the Free
State. The complicated situation is thus described by Mr. Bryce in
his "Impressions of South Africa":--

"As Waterboer had before the award offered his territory to the
British Government, the country was forthwith erected into a Crown
Colony, under the name of Griqualand West. This was in 1871. The
Free State, whose case had not been stated, much less argued, before
the umpire, protested, and was after a time able to appeal to a
judgment delivered by a British Court, which found that Waterboer
had never enjoyed any right to the territory. However, the new
Colony had by this time been set up, and the British flag displayed.
The British Government, without either admitting or denying the Free
State title, declared that a district in which it was difficult to
keep order amid a turbulent and shifting population ought to be
under the control of a strong power, and offered the Free State a
sum of L90,000 in settlement of whatever claim it might possess. The
acceptance by the Free State, in 1876, of this sum closed the
controversy, though a sense of injustice continued to rankle in the
breasts of some of the citizens of the Republic. Amicable relations
have subsisted ever since between it and Cape Colony, and the
control of the British Government over the Basutos has secured for
it peace in the quarter which was formerly most disturbed.

"These two cases show how various are the causes, and how mixed the
motives, which press a great power forward even against the wishes
of its statesmen. The Basutos were declared British subjects, partly
out of a sympathetic wish to rescue and protect them, partly because
policy required the acquisition of a country naturally strong,
and holding an important strategical position. Griqualand West,
taken in the belief that Waterboer had a good title to it, was
reta