as accepted with little demur;
but a long discussion arose on the question of the degree in which the
the British Government would recognise the debts incurred by military
and civil officers of the late Republics in the course of the war. The
Boers desired that all Government notes and all receipts given by
their officers for goods, whether commandeered or not, should be
recognised to be part of the liabilities of the Republican Governments
for which the new Government was to become responsible. Lord Milner,
on the other hand, expressed the opinion that such a demand was very
unreasonable. The British Government would take over, with the assets
of the Republican Governments, all liabilities existing at the time
when the war broke out, but it could not be expected to pay for
expenses actually incurred by the Boer leaders in carrying on a war
against itself, which was, in its later stages, at any rate, utterly
indefensible. The British people, he said--

"would much prefer to pay a large sum at the conclusion of
hostilities with the object of bettering the condition of the
people who have been fighting against them, than to pay a much
smaller sum to meet the costs incurred by the Republics during
the war."

As, however, the principle of the recognition of these notes and
receipts had been conceded in the Middelburg terms, he was willing,
with Lord Kitchener's concurrence, to refer the matter to the Home
Government, although he disapproved of the clause in question in the
Middelburg terms.

This point was thus left to be settled by the Home Government, and the
clause which they drafted to deal with it was that which ultimately
became Article X. of the Terms of Surrender. That clause represented a
compromise between the desire of the Boer leaders to have a definite
sum allotted for the payment of debts contracted by them in the course
of the war, and Lord Milner's desire to ignore these debts but to make
a free grant for the relief of the Boer people. The British Government
followed Lord Milner in making such a free grant--L3,000,000--and in
rejecting the claim of the Boer leaders that this sum should be
devoted to the payment of the promissory notes and receipts issued by
them but it nevertheless allowed such notes and receipts to be
submitted "as evidence of war losses" to the commissioners who were to
be appointed to distribute the L3,000,000 grant.

The minutes of these discussions reveal v