Transvaal.

The Schreiner Cabinet was the velvet glove which covered the mailed
hand of Mr. Hofmeyr. Dr. Te Water had been Colonial Secretary in the
Sprigg Ministry up to the crisis of May, 1898. He was now "minister
without portfolio" in the Schreiner Ministry. His presence was the
sign and instrument of the domination of the Bond; and the domination
of the Bond was as yet the permanent and controlling factor in the
administration of the Colony under Responsible Government. The fact
that only two out of six members of the Ministry were Bondsmen, is to
be referred to the circumstance that the actual business of
administration had been hitherto mainly in the hands of a small group
of British colonial politicians, who were prepared to bid against each
other for the all-important support of the Dutch vote. With the
majority of these men, to be in office was an object for the
attainment of which they were prepared to make a considerable
sacrifice in respect of their somewhat elastic political principles.
The denial of political rights to the British population in the
Transvaal, by threatening the maintenance of British supremacy in
South Africa, had now for the first time created a British party in
the Cape Colony--the Progressives--strong enough to act in
independence of the Bond. The existence of this British party, not
only free from the Bond, but determined (although it was in a
minority) to challenge the Bond predominance, was a new phenomenon in
Cape politics. In itself it constituted an appreciable improvement
upon the previously existing state of affairs; since the British
population was thus no longer hopelessly weakened by being divided
into two parties of almost equal strength, nor were its leaders any
longer obliged to subordinate their regard for British interests to
the primary necessity of obtaining office by Bond support.

[Sidenote: Policy of the ministry.]

Mr. Schreiner's Ministry, however, in spite of a difference of motives
on the part of its individual members, was unanimous in its desire to
prevent that intervention of the Imperial Government for which, in
Lord Milner's judgment, there was "overwhelming" necessity. The idea
of inducing President Krueger to grant such a "colourable measure of
reform"[60] as would satisfy the Imperial Government, or at least
deprive it of any justification for interference by force of arms,
was in contemplation some months before the Bloemfontein Conference
took pl