ch and British in the
British Colonies side by side with the permanent subjection of
the British to the Dutch in one of the Republics. It is idle to
talk of peace and unity under such a state of affairs.

"It is this which makes the internal condition of the Transvaal
Republic a matter of vital interest to Her Majesty's Government.
No merely local question affects so deeply the welfare and peace
of her own South African possessions. And the right of Great
Britain to intervene to secure fair treatment to the Uitlanders
is fully equal to her supreme interest in securing it. The
majority of them are her subjects, whom she is bound to protect.
But the enormous number of British subjects, the endless series
of their grievances, and the nature of those grievances, which
are not less serious because they are not individually
sensational, makes protection by the ordinary diplomatic means
impossible. We are, as you know, for ever remonstrating about
this, that, and the other injury to British subjects. Only in
rare cases, and only when we are very emphatic, do we obtain any
redress. The sore between us and the Transvaal Republic is thus
inevitably kept up, while the result in the way of protection to
our subjects is lamentably small. For these reasons it has been,
as you know, my constant endeavour to reduce the number of our
complaints. I may sometimes have abstained when I ought to have
protested from my great dislike of ineffectual nagging. But I
feel that the attempt to remedy the hundred-and-one wrongs
springing from a hopeless system by taking up isolated cases, is
perfectly vain. It may easily lead to war, but will never lead to
real improvement."

[Sidenote: Enfranchisement the remedy.]

"The true remedy is to strike at the root of all these
injuries--the political impotence of the injured. What diplomatic
protests will never accomplish, a fair measure of Uitlander
representation would gradually but surely bring about. It seems a
paradox, but it is true, that the only effective way of
protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our
subjects. The admission of the Uitlanders to a fair share of
political power would no doubt give stability to the Republic.
But it would, at the same time, remove most of our causes of
difference