l made by the Imperial Government--

[Footnote 62: Letter of Te Water to Steyn. See forward, p.
162, where this letter is given.]

[Footnote 63: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 64: Then under the editorship of Mr. Massingham.]

[Footnote 65: C. 9,345.]

[Sidenote: The conference arranged.]

"in the hope that, in concert with the President, you may arrive
at such an arrangement as Her Majesty's Government could accept
and recommend to the Uitlander population as a reasonable
concession to their just demands and a settlement of the
difficulties which have threatened the good relations"

between the two Governments. This was the famous despatch of May 10th,
in which Mr. Chamberlain reviewed carefully and exhaustively the whole
situation as between the Transvaal and the Imperial Government, and
formally accepted the Uitlanders' Petition to the Queen. It was not
published until June 14th, _i.e._, after the Bloemfontein Conference
had been held. It was then issued, together with Lord Milner's
despatch of May 4th, in a Blue-book containing the complete record of
all discussions of Transvaal affairs subsequent to Lord Milner's
appointment.

In the course of the next few days communications passed rapidly
between Lord Milner, Mr. Chamberlain, President Steyn, and President
Krueger, with the result that, on May 18th, President Steyn's
invitation was formally accepted, and on the following day it was
arranged that the Conference should begin on May 31st. Never was
intervention more effective, or less obtrusive. Mr. Hofmeyr's part in
the affair was confined apparently to an after-dinner conversation
with the High Commissioner. Nor was the directing hand of the Master
of the Bond revealed more fully until Lord Roberts's occupation of
Bloemfontein placed the British authorities in possession of part of
the communications which passed at this time, and during the four
succeeding months, between the Cape nationalists and their republican
confederates. And even in these documents Hofmeyr's name is rarely
found at the end of a letter or telegram. It is Schreiner or Te Water
who writes or telegraphs to Steyn or Fischer, adding sometimes, by way
of emphasis, "Hofmeyr says" this or that. In the meantime (May 22nd),
Lord Milner had telegraphed, for "an indication of the line" which Mr.
Chamberlain wished him to take at the Conference. He himself
suggested that the franchise