y the obvious reluctance of the
British Government to make war upon a puny enemy, was more than
counterbalanced by the spectacle of a great Power prevented from
employing the most elementary military precautions by a nice regard
for the susceptibilities of its political and commercial rivals. The
idea that the sentiment either of the world at large or of the
over-sea British would be favourably impressed by the three months of
futile negotiations was a sheer delusion. It was the people of England
who had to be educated.

[Footnote 147: Cd. 18.]

[Sidenote: The Manchester meeting.]

How little they knew of the actual situation in South Africa, and of
the real character of the Boers may be seen from what happened on
September 15th. On this day a meeting was held at Manchester to
protest against the mere idea of England having to make war upon the
Transvaal. Lord (then Mr.) Courtney "hailed with satisfaction" the
British despatch of September 8th, which, having been published in the
Continental papers on the 13th, had appeared a day later (14th) in
those of Great Britain. "It was a rebuke to the fire-eaters," he
said, "and a rebuke most of all to one whom I must designate as a lost
man, a lost mind--I mean Sir Alfred Milner." And Mr. John Morley, like
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, was convinced that there was no need of
any preparations for war; the Transvaal Government "could not withdraw
from the five years' franchise." The day on which these words were
uttered was the day on which the note containing President Krueger's
determination to "withdraw" from the five years' franchise, and his
refusal even to consider the British offer of September 8th--hailed
with satisfaction by his old ally, Lord Courtney--was handed to Sir
William Greene.

CHAPTER VI

THE ULTIMATUM

The British people were destined to pay a heavy penalty for the
ignorance and irresolution that caused them to withhold, from June to
September, the mandate without which the Government was unable to
prepare for war. What that penalty was will be made sufficiently clear
when we come to consider the position of grave disadvantage in which
the British forces designated for the South African campaign were
placed at the outbreak of the war. For the moment it is enough to
notice that, just as the real source of the military weakness of
England in the war was the fact that only a very small proportion of
her adult male population had receive