THE REBELLION IN THE CAPE COLONY...................... 341

CHAPTER IX

THE "CONCILIATION" MOVEMENT........................... 373

CHAPTER X

THE DISARMAMENT OF THE DUTCH POPULATION............... 413

CHAPTER XI

PREPARING FOR PEACE................................... 470

CHAPTER XII

THE SURRENDER OF VEREENIGING.......................... 536

INDEX................................................... 585

ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF LORD MILNER _Frontispiece_
_From a photograph by Elliott & Fry (Photogravure)_

FACING PAGE

LORD MILNER AT SUNNYSIDE.............................. 473

MAP OF SOUTH AFRICA........................... _At the End_

LORD MILNER

CHAPTER I

DOWNING STREET AND THE MAN ON THE SPOT

The failure of British administration in South Africa during the
nineteenth century forms a blemish upon the record of the Victorian
era that is at first sight difficult to understand. If success could
be won in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in India and in Egypt,
why failure in South Africa? For failure it was. A century of wars,
missionary effort, British expansion, industrial development, of lofty
administrative ideals and great men sacrificed, had left the two
European races with political ambitions so antagonistic, and social
differences so bitter, that nothing less than the combined military
resources of the colonies and the mother-country sufficed to compel
the Dutch to recognise the British principle of "equal rights for all
white men south of the Zambesi." Among the many contributory causes of
failure that can be distinguished, the two most prominent are the
nationality difficulty and the native question. But these are problems
of administration that have been solved elsewhere: the former in
Canada and the latter in India. Or, to turn to agencies of a
different order, is the cause of failure to be found in a grudging
nature--the existence of physical conditions that made it difficult
for the white man, or for the white and coloured man together, to
wring a livelihood from the soil? The answer is that the like material
disadvantages have been conquered in Australia, India, and in Egypt,
by Anglo-Saxon energy. We might apply the Socratic method throughout,
traversing the entire range of our distinguishable causes; but in
every case the inquiry would reveal success in som