a _suzerain_ who has accorded to the
people of that Republic self-government upon certain conditions, _and it
would be incompatible with that position to submit to Arbitration the
construction of the conditions on which she accorded self-government to
the Republic_."

[Sidenote: Reply of the Transvaal Government.]

[37] In its celebrated reply of the 16th April, 1898, the Government of
the South African Republic proved with unanswerable force that the
preamble of the Convention of 1881 had been abolished, that Lord Derby
had himself in 1884 proposed a draft Convention, in which the preamble
was erased (see Appendix B.), and that by the ultimate acceptance of
that proposal, the suzerainty had ceased to exist.

On this account, as well as for other reasons, it contended that as no
suzerainty existed between the two countries, the objection to
Arbitration as a means of settling disputes would disappear, and the
Government reiterated their appeal to have such differences or disputes
disposed of by Arbitration.

[Sidenote: The object of the suzerainty dispute.]

Naturally this was exactly what Mr. Chamberlain did not want. He was
opposed to Arbitration dispute, because it would have probably led to
the humiliation of the British and not of the Boer Government. The
suzerainty question was introduced in the meanwhile as a "Constitutional
Proposal," which might be used for the purpose of humiliating the South
African Republic.

In his answer to the arguments put forward by the South African
Republic,[38] Mr. Chamberlain could only persist in repeating his
contention that suzerainty still existed, and did not even attempt to
refute the statement that Lord Derby had himself erased the preamble of
the Convention of 1881. It was clearly his opinion that Lord Derby had,
through stupidity and thoughtlessness, abandoned the suzerainty in
1884, just as Lord Russell had abandoned the idea of obtaining the
South African Republic in 1852, so that he would now, just as Shepstone
in 1877, have to try and disconcert the Republic by a display of force
and inflexible determination, so as not to be deprived of these
eminently "Constitutional means."

[Sidenote: The Transvaal a sovereign international state.]

[39] His arguments in this dispatch, that both the suzerainty of Her
Majesty and the right of the South African Republic to self-government
were dependent upon the preamble of the Pretoria Convention, and that if
the preamble wer