however, that
Lord Milner, alike in the Middelburg and Vereeniging
negotiations, although he was opposed to any payment of the
costs incurred by the Boer leaders in carrying on the war,
was prepared to go even farther than the Home Government in
the direction of a generous treatment of the Boers in all
other matters that concerned their material prosperity.

One variation as between the Middelburg and Vereeniging terms
is noticeable in view of the statement, made in the House of
Commons by the present (1906) Under-Secretary for the
Colonies (Mr. Winston Churchill), that the use of the word
"natives" in clause viii. of the Terms of Surrender prevented
the introduction of any legislation affecting the _status_ of
Asiatics and "coloured persons" in the new colonies prior to
the establishment of self-government. This assertion was
based upon the contention that the word "natives" is
understood by the Boers to indicate the "native of any
country other than those of the European inhabitants of South
Africa." The actual text of the corresponding clause in the
Middelburg terms (Lord Kitchener's despatch of March 20th,
1901, in Cd. 528) is as follows: "As regards the extension of
the franchise to the Kafirs in the Transvaal and Orange River
Colony, it is not the intention of His Majesty's Government
to give such franchise before representative government is
granted to these colonies, and if then given it will be so
limited as to secure the just predominance of the white
races. The legal position of coloured persons will, however,
be similar to that which they hold in Cape Colony." Apart
from the fact that the Boers were debarred by Lord Milner's
specific statements either from going behind the English text
of the Vereeniging Terms of Surrender, or from "explaining
[the Vereeniging Terms] by anything in the Middelburg
proposal," it is difficult to see how this Middelburg clause
could have raised any presumption in the minds of the Boer
commissioners that the English word "native" was intended to
include not only the Kafirs (of which word it is a loose
equivalent, since the dark-skinned native of the Bantu