gressive party, from the time of the Graaf
Reinet speech, had given unswerving support to Lord Milner's policy;
but the strength of the influence created by years of alternate
political co-operation with the Bond leaders may be gathered from the
fact that even so staunch a supporter of the British connection as Sir
James (then Mr.) Rose Innes did not publicly declare his adhesion to
the intervention policy until after the failure of the Bloemfontein
Conference. Moreover, the increasing political solidarity of the
British population in the Cape Colony augmented the bitterness with
which the few English politicians, who had remained in alliance with
the Dutch party, regarded the man whose resolution and insight had
penetrated and exposed the designs of the Bond.

[Sidenote: Intrigues and disaffection.]

It is difficult to convey any adequate impression of the atmosphere of
suspicion and intrigue by which Lord Milner was surrounded. The Dutch
party was in the ascendant in the Colony. The Cape Civil Service was
tainted throughout with disaffection. Even the _personnel_ of the
Government offices at Capetown, although it contained many excellent
and loyal men, included also many who were disaffected or lukewarm. It
is characteristic of the situation that during the most critical
period of the negotiations with the Transvaal, the ministerial organ,
_The South African News_, permitted itself to indulge, where Lord
Milner, was concerned, not only in the bitterest criticisms but in
outspoken personal abuse. To have abused the representative of the
Sovereign in a British colony of which one-half of the population was
seething with sedition, while a part had been actually armed for
rebellion by the secret emissaries of a state with which Great Britain
was on the verge of war, is an act which admits of only one
interpretation. Lord Milner was to be got rid of at all costs; for the
policy which _The South African News_ was intended to promote was that
not of Great Britain, but of the Transvaal. The paper was directly
inspired--it is indeed not unlikely that the articles themselves were
written--by some of the members of the Ministry, Lord Milner's
"constitutional advisers," whom throughout he himself treated with the
respect to which their position entitled them.

But nothing, perhaps, shows more vividly how extraordinary was the
position in which Lord Milner found himself than the fact, which we
have already noted, that the passa