from this moment at which I am writing onwards.

"What I want to put plainly to His Majesty's Government are these
two questions: (1) Are we to be allowed to go on purchasing good
land, by voluntary agreement wherever possible, but compulsorily,
if necessary? And, assuming this question to be answered in the
affirmative, (2) what amount shall we be able to dispose of for
this purpose in the immediate future?"[319]

[Footnote 319: Cd. 1,163.]

It had been arranged during Lord Milner's last visit to England that
the large expenditure inevitably arising out of the economic
reconstruction and future development of the new colonies, should be
provided by a loan secured upon their assets and revenues. The
purposes for which this immediate outlay was especially required were
the acquisition of the existing railways and the construction of new
lines, land settlement, the repatriation of the Boers, and the
compensation of loyalists for war losses both in the new colonies and
in the Cape and Natal. Lord Milner now proposed that the Home
Government should decide to appropriate, out of the funds to be thus
raised, a sum of L3,000,000 to land settlement, and that of this sum
L2,000,000 should be spent in the Transvaal and L1,000,000 in the
Orange Colony. The "development" loan, as it was called, was not
issued until after Mr. Chamberlain's visit to South Africa in the
(South African) summer of 1902-3; but Lord Milner's proposal was
approved in principle, and he was enabled to employ the limited
resources at his disposal in the purchase of blocks of land suitable
for the purposes of agriculture in both colonies.

Apart from the progress thus achieved in this matter of supreme
importance, as Lord Milner deemed it, to the future of South Africa,
the preparation of the administrative machinery, the _materiel_ of
transport, and the supplies of all kinds required for the repatriation
of the Boers, was pushed forward with increasing activity. At the same
time certain other administrative questions were brought by him to the
consideration of the Home Government during these months (January to
May, 1902), with the result that the ink was scarcely dry upon the
Treaty of Surrender before he was able to ask for, and obtain,
decisions upon them.

[Sidenote: On the eve of peace.]

The telegrams which passed between Lord Milner and the Colonial Office
on these matters, during the weeks immediately pre