nationality problem would be solved if the principle of equality
could be established all round. The Transvaal is "the one State where
inequality is the rule, which keeps the rest of South Africa in a
fever." It is inconsistent, he says, with the position of Great
Britain as paramount Power, and with the dignity of the white race,
that a great community of white men "should continue in that state of
subjection which is the lot of the immigrant white population of the
Transvaal." And he concludes:

"I see it is suggested in some quarters that the policy of Her
Majesty's Government is one of aggression. I know better than any
man that their policy, so far from being one of aggression, has
been one of singular patience, and such, I doubt not, it will
continue. But it cannot relapse into indifference. Can any one
desire that it should? It would be disastrous that the present
period of stress and strain should not result in some settlement
to prevent the recurrence of similar crises in the future. Of
that I am still hopeful. It may be that the Government of the
South African Republic will yet see its way to adopt a measure
of reform more liberal than that proposed at Bloemfontein. If
not, there may be other means of achieving the desired result. In
any case, it is a source of strength to those who are fighting
the battle of reform, and will, I believe, contribute more than
anything else to a peaceful victory, to feel that they have
behind them, as they perhaps never had before, the unanimous
sympathy of the British people throughout the world."[73]

[Footnote 73: C. 9,415.]

In the four months that followed the Bloemfontein Conference a burden
of toil and responsibility was laid upon Lord Milner which would have
crushed any lesser man into utter passivity or resignation. An
Afrikander Cabinet, with a nationalist element reporting its
confidential councils with the Governor to Mr. Hofmeyr, the Bond
Master, and President Steyn, the secret ally of President Krueger,
would have been sufficient in itself to paralyse the faculties of any
ordinary administrator at such a crisis. But this was not the only
adverse influence with which circumstances brought Lord Milner into
collision. Incredible as it may seem, it is none the less the fact
that Sir William Butler, the General-in-Command of the British forces
in South Africa, and the milit