erialist statesmen
was supported in the present instance by past experience and by the
judgment of the great majority of the British population actually
resident in South Africa. The home English, remembering that the
recall of Sir Bartle Frere had been followed by Majuba and the
Retrocession, were anxious to maintain British supremacy unimpaired in
South Africa. What kept them irresolute was the uncertainty as to
whether this supremacy really was, or was not, in danger. Lord Milner
had told them that the establishment of a Dutch Republic, embracing
all South Africa, was being openly advocated, and that nothing but a
striking proof of Great Britain's intention to remain the paramount
Power--such as would be afforded by insisting upon the grant of equal
rights to the British population in the Transvaal--could arrest the
growth of the nationalist movement. He had pointed out also that the
conversion of the Boer Republic into an arsenal of munitions of war,
when, as in the case of Ketshwayo, there was no enemy against whom
these arms could be turned other than Great Britain, was in itself a
definite and unmistakable menace to British supremacy. This, moreover,
was the deliberate and reasoned verdict of a man who had been
commissioned, with almost universal approval, to ascertain the real
state of affairs in South Africa. If the nation had believed Lord
Milner in June, the British Government would have received the
political support that would have enabled it to make the preparations
for war in that month which, as we have seen, it was now making in
September.

[Sidenote: The Liberal opposition.]

The agency which, by playing upon the ignorance of the public,
prevented the nation from accepting at once the truth of Lord Milner's
verdict, was the Liberal Opposition. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the
official leader of the Liberal party, maintained throughout the three
months in question that no reason existed for military preparation.
Mr. Labouchere wrote, on the eve of the war: "The Boers invade Natal!
You might just as well talk of their invading England." When Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman maintained that there was no need for the
Government to make any military preparations, we must presume that he
believed one of two things: either that President Krueger would yield,
or that, if President Krueger did not yield, there was nothing in the
condition of South Africa to make it necessary for Great Britain to
give any proof