attempted to secure arbitration it was not until
feeling had become so heated that he was compelled to announce to the
Dutch Government that it was not possible to arrange for arbitration.
The German Government, it was declared, regarded any appeal to a Great
Power at that time as hopeless and as very dangerous to the Transvaal.
The German and the Dutch Governments each believed that President Kruger
should not have rejected the English proposal then before him for a
joint commission of inquiry.[2] The German Government had nothing for
which to reproach itself in regard to the outbreak of war or with
reference to the fate of the Republics. "Of course there are certain
lengths to which we could not possibly go. We could not, in order to
prevent the door from being slammed, let our own fingers be crushed
between the door and the hinges; that would not have helped the Boers
and would only have harmed ourselves,--and when the war had broken out
it was impossible for us, in view of the general situation of the world
and from the standpoint of German interests as a whole to adopt any
attitude except that of strict neutrality."[3] Continuing, Count Von
Buelow pointed out the fact that the policy of a great country should not
at a critical moment be governed by the dictates of feeling, but should
be guided solely in accordance with the interests of the country, calmly
and deliberately calculated.

[Footnote 2: The German Chancellor seems slightly in error in assuming
that the Transvaal _rejected_ the English proposal for a joint inquiry.
It will be remembered that immediately following the Bloemfontein
Conference President Kruger had drafted a law considerably modifying the
Transvaal demands in the conference, and later submitted the proposals
of August 19, which he alleged had been" induced "by their implied
acceptance on the part of the British agent. When these proposals lapsed
from the fact of their non-acceptance by the British Government, he
declared that he was ready to return to the discussion of the proposed
joint commission of inquiry and was met by the English assertion that
the condition of affairs no longer warranted a discussion of the
original proposal for such a commission, and that Great Britain would
have to formulate new demands to meet the altered conditions. The
outbreak of war had forestalled these demands.]

[Footnote 3: Speech in Reichstag, London Times, Dec. 11, 1900, p. 5,
col. 1.]

The possibility