e of Assembly, August 28th.]

[Footnote 163: One of the earliest measures of precaution
which Lord Milner desired was a plan for the defence of
Kimberley. But when, on June 12th, the people of Kimberley
requested the Government of the Colony to take steps for the
protection of their town, the reply which they received,
through the Civil Commissioner, was this: "There is no reason
whatever for apprehending that Kimberley is, or in any
contemplated event will be, in danger of attack, and Mr.
Schreiner is of opinion that your fears are groundless and
your anticipations without foundation."]

[Sidenote: Schreiner and Steyn.]

"I said to the President," he declared in the Cape Parliament a
year later,[164] "that I would not believe he would invade south
of the Orange River.[165] President Steyn's reply was, 'Can you
give me a guarantee that no troops will come to the border?' Of
course, I could give no such guarantee, and I did not then
believe that, although such a guarantee could not be given, the
Free State would invade British territory with the object of
endeavouring to promote the establishment of one Republic in
South Africa, as the Prime Minister[166] has said."

[Footnote 164: September 24th, 1900.]

[Footnote 165: This was on October 11th, 1899--the day on
which the ultimatum expired.]

[Footnote 166: Sir Gordon Sprigg--Mr. Schreiner's Ministry
was replaced by a Progressive Ministry in June, 1900.]

As the Boer invasion spread further into the Colony Mr. Schreiner
receded proportionately from his original standpoint of neutrality.
Indeed, three distinct phases in the Prime Minister's progress can be
distinguished. In the first stage, which lasted until the actual
invasion of the Colony by the Boer commandos, he used all his
constitutional power to prevent the people of the Colony, British and
Dutch alike, from being involved in the war: and it was only after a
severe struggle that Lord Milner prevailed upon him even to call out
the Kimberley Volunteers on October 2nd, _i.e._, a week before the
Ultimatum. This, "the neutrality" stage, lasted up to the invasion.
After the invasion came the second stage, in which Mr. Schreiner seems
to have argued to himself in this manner: "As the Boers have invaded
this colony, I, as Prime Minister