ere must be: if by no other means, then by our intervention. But
before we intervene, let us be sure that they either cannot, or will
not, reform themselves. Therefore let us wait patiently, and make
things as easy as possible for President Krueger." More than this, he
had almost as little belief in the utility of the Conventions[28] as
Grey had in those of his epoch. Whether the Boers did, or did not,
call the Queen "Suzerain" seemed to him to be a small matter--an
etymological question, as he afterwards called it. What was essential
was that men of British blood should not be kept under the heel of the
Dutch. Moreover, the grievances for which the observance of the London
Convention, however strictly enforced, could provide a remedy, were
insignificant as compared with the more real grievances, such as the
attack upon the independence of the law courts, the injury to
industrial life caused by a corrupt and incompetent administration,
and the denial of elementary political rights, which no technical
observance of the Convention would remove. Nor did it escape Lord
Milner's notice that a policy of rigid insistence upon the letter of
the Conventions might place the Imperial Government in a position of
grave disadvantage. If any breach of the Conventions was once made the
subject of earnest diplomatic complaint, the demand of the Imperial
Government must be enforced even at the cost of war. The Conventions,
therefore, should be invoked as little as possible. For, if the Boers
denied the British Law Officers' interpretation of the text, the
Imperial Government might find itself on the horns of a dilemma.
Either it must beat an undignified retreat, or it must make war upon
the Transvaal for a mere technicality, a proceeding which would gain
for the Republic a maximum, and for the Imperial Government a minimum
of sympathy and support. Therefore, he said, "Keep the Conventions in
the background. If we are to fight let it be about something that is
essential to the peace and well-being of South Africa, and not a mere
diplomatic wrangle between the Pretoria Executive and the British
Government."

[Footnote 28: Apart from the question of the validity of the
preamble to the Pretoria Convention (1881), two
Conventions--the London Convention (1884), and the Swaziland
Convention (1894)--were in force between the South African
Republic and Great Britain. The relations of the Imperial