, they believed, would result not merely in the
destruction of the Republics, but in the loss of the prospect--which
they then enjoyed--of achieving through the existence of the Republics
the independence of the Afrikander nation as a whole. All this Lord
Milner made perfectly clear to Mr. Chamberlain. The illusory
concessions embodied in President Krueger's Franchise Law were yielded
by the Republics with the object of securing the "moral support" of
the Cape Afrikanders in the negotiations, and thereby obtaining the
delay which was required to complete their military preparations;
since the Republican nationalists, unlike those of the Cape, believed
that the independence of the Afrikander nation could be wrested from
Great Britain by force of arms. The efforts made by the Cape
nationalists, first to secure these concessions, and then to induce
the republican nationalists to grant the further concessions which
would have satisfied the British Government, were made for the same
purpose as the Bloemfontein Conference had been arranged--namely, to
avert a conflict which, being premature, would be disastrous to the
nationalist cause, not only in the Republics but in the Cape Colony.
The respective objects both of the republican and Cape nationalists
had been divined by Lord Milner, and, therefore, immediately after the
failure of the Conference, he had urged the Home Government to send
reinforcements to South Africa sufficient to defend British territory
from attack, and to check any incipient rebellion in the Cape Colony.
The negotiations might, or might not, result in a peaceful settlement;
but it was futile, nay more, it was dangerous, he said, for Great
Britain to go on as though war were out of the question.

[Footnote 156: The reader is referred to p. 5 in Chap. I. for
the racial characteristics of the South African Dutch, and to
the note on p. 48 in Chap. II. for the political significance
of the word "Afrikander," as stated by Mr. S. J. du Toit.]

[Sidenote: Lord Milner's position.]

This was the view of the South African situation which Lord Milner
laid before the Home Government in June. We have seen what was done by
them in response to these representations. Some special service
officers were sent out to organise locally the defences of the Cape
Colony and Rhodesia. The Cape and Natal garrisons were strengthened by
a few very inadequate reinforcements arriving in the course