Convention, reasserts the claim
of suzerainty, declines to allow foreign arbitration, and
demands the immediate fulfilment of Article IV. In a despatch
of May 9th, 1899, Mr. Reitz asserts that the Republic is "a
sovereign international State"; and on June 13th Mr.
Chamberlain replies that he has no intention of continuing
the discussion.]

[Sidenote: Milner's visit to England.]

In the (English) winter of 1898-9 Lord Milner paid a visit to England.
Sir William Greene, who had left Pretoria on a holiday on June 29th,
was also at home during the same period. Lord Milner's visit was due
in part to the necessity for medical treatment;[49] but, in any case,
it had become desirable that he should be able to communicate fully to
Mr. Chamberlain the grave views which he had formed on the South
African situation. He left for England on November 2nd, landed on the
19th, sailed on January 28th, and reached Capetown again on February
14th. During the whole of the two months that he was in England he was
engaged in an endeavour to impress upon Mr. Chamberlain, and everybody
else with whom he could converse, that the existing state of affairs
was one which, if allowed to remain unchanged, would end in the loss
of South Africa.

[Footnote 49: Owing to a slight affection of the eye.]

During nineteen months of close observation and earnest, patient
study, Lord Milner had grasped the situation in its completeness. What
he saw was the demoralising effect of the spectacle of the Dutch
ruling in the Cape Colony, and the British being tyrannised over in
the Transvaal. Looking at South Africa as a whole, there was the fact,
as indisputable as it was grotesque, that the British inhabitant was
in a position of distinct inferiority to the Dutch; and this although
the Cape and Natal were British colonies, while the Transvaal and the
Free State were states subject to the authority of Great Britain as
paramount Power. It was an impossible position. What Lord Milner urged
upon the Imperial Government was the plain necessity of putting an end
to an intolerable state of things which showed no capacity of righting
itself; of pressing for justice to the British population of the
Transvaal, with an absolute determination to obtain it. That such a
policy might result in war, he knew; though neither he nor any one
else realised, in the beginning of 1899, how near war actually was.
The rel