fairly when you say, for instance, that you do not wish to pay
the accounts of both parties. There is one matter with reference to
the Orange Free State which we must specially note. We have contracted
no loans and we have issued no Government notes. The notes we used
were South African Republic notes, of which some were sent to the
Orange Free State also. Our (Orange Free State) law is based on the
principle that in case of war, all cost could be met by commandeering
notes. This was acted on in the Orange Free State, and receipts in the
usual form or in the shape of requisition notes were given. If we take
this into consideration, and at the same time also the fact that we
have always acted, and still act, as a party which is a lawful
belligerent party, then we come and only say: from our side we give
all that we possess, and ask the other party to acknowledge only that
which if we had concluded a loan would in any case, in the shape of a
public loan, have fallen on the British Government, which takes over
everything from us. Lord Milner will thus understand that from our
point of view it is of as much importance for us to obtain payment of
these receipts as it will be for the South African Republic to obtain
the taking over by the British Government of the liability of a loan
concluded before the war. But I can even go further and give Lord
Milner the assurance that if we had also concluded a loan before the
war, we could never have acted so economically as we have done by
using receipts. That was also actually the reason why the Orange Free
State never wished to conclude a loan beforehand, because now we have
purchased only what was absolutely necessary for the day and for the
circumstances. So that really Lord Milner will have to admit that we
stand in the same position in respect to those who now hold receipts
as we would have stood to any other creditor that we may have had
before the war. I have already informally pointed this out to Lord
Milner, and can now only express my agreement with what the Commandant
General has said that this difficulty is almost insurmountable.

Lord MILNER: We can refer this to our Government; but your proposal is
entirely in conflict with the Middelburg proposals, because in them it
was absolutely refused to take over all State debts.

Lord KITCHENER: I wish that we could know the amount.

General DE LA REY: I issued Government notes to the value of between
L20,000 and L40,000; but