country to be
launched.

III

When the question of annexation had originally come before parliament, Mr.
Gladstone was silent. He was averse to it; he believed that it would
involve us in unmixed mischief; but he felt that to make this judgment
known at that period would not have had any effect towards reversing what
had been done, while it might impede the chances of a good issue, slender
as these might be.(12) In the discussion at the opening of the final
session of the old parliament, Lord Hartington as leader of the
opposition, enforcing the general doctrine that it behoved us to
concentrate our resources, and to limit instead of extending the empire,
took the Transvaal for an illustration. It was now conclusively proved, he
said, that a large majority of the Boers were bitterly against annexation.
That being so, it ought not to be considered a settled question merely
because annexation had taken place; and if we should find that the balance
of advantage was in favour of the restoration of independence, no false
sense of dignity should stand in the way. Mr. Gladstone in Midlothian had
been more reserved. In that indictment, there are only two or three
references, and those comparatively fugitive and secondary, to this
article of charge. There is a sentence in one of the Midlothian speeches
about bringing a territory inhabited by a free European Christian republic
within the limits of a monarchy, though out of 8000 persons qualified to
vote, 6500 voted against it. In another sentence he speaks of the
Transvaal as a country "where we have chosen most unwisely, I am tempted
to say insanely, to place ourselves in the strange predicament of the free
subjects of a monarchy going to coerce the free subjects of a republic,
and to compel them to accept a citizenship which they decline and refuse;
but if that is to be done, it must be done by force."(13) A third sentence
completes the tale: "If Cyprus and the Transvaal were as valuable as they
are valueless, I would repudiate them because they are obtained by means
dishonourable to the character of the country." These utterances of the
mighty unofficial chief and the responsible official leader of the
opposition were all. The Boer republicans thought that they were enough.

On coming into power, the Gladstone government found the official evidence
all to the effect that the political aspect of the Transvaal was decidedly
improving. The commissioners, the administrator