able that these gentlemen held their hands for fear of damaging
the Government, or that Mr. Chamberlain could afterwards have the
effrontery to publicly and solemnly deny all knowledge of the business
in the presence of gentlemen who had connived at the suppression of the
proofs that he _did_ know? Such a supposition is ridiculous, and yet it
is involved in the theory that the Commission refrained from pushing
their examination because they were afraid of showing their country to
have been in the wrong.

Again, even the most embittered enemy of Mr. Chamberlain must admit that
he is a clear-headed man, a man of resolution, and a man with some sense
of proportion as to the means which should be used for an end. Is such a
man, knowing the military record of the burghers, the sort of man to
connive at the invasion of their country by 500 policemen and two guns?
Would he be likely, even if he approved of the general aim, to sanction
such a harebrained piece of folly? And, having sanctioned it, would he
be so weak of purpose as to take energetic steps, the instant that he
heard of the invasion, to undo that which he is supposed himself to have
done, and to cause the failure of his own scheme? Why should he on such
a supposition send energetic messages to Johannesburg forbidding the
British to co-operate with the raiders? The whole accusation is so
absurd that it is only the mania of party spite or of national hatred
which could induce anyone to believe it.

Again, supposing for an instant that the British Government knew
anything about the coming raid, what is the first and most obvious thing
which they would have done? Whether Jameson got safely to Johannesburg
or not there was evidently a probability of a great race-struggle in
South Africa. Would they not then, on some pretext or another, have
increased the strength of the British force in the country, which was
so weak that it was powerless to influence the course of events? It is
certain that this is so. But nothing of the kind was done.

Mr. Chamberlain's own denial is clear and emphatic:

'I desire to say in the most explicit manner that I had not then, and
that I never had, any knowledge, or until, I think it was the day before
the actual raid took place, the slightest suspicion of anything in the
nature of a hostile or armed invasion of the Transvaal.'--(British South
Africa Committee, 1897. Q. 6223.)

The Earl of Selborne, Under-Secretary of State for the Coloni