us to every unbiased
mind which had some knowledge of South Africa, was fully realized by
those who directed British policy, or whether, having realized their
force, they nevertheless judged war the better alternative, is a
question on which we are still in the dark. It is possible--and some of
the language used by the British authorities may appear to suggest this
explanation--that they entered on the negotiations which ended in war in
the belief that an attitude of menace would suffice to extort
submission, and being unable to recede from that attitude, found
themselves drawn on to a result which they had neither desired nor
contemplated. Be this as it may, the considerations above stated
prescribed the use of prudent and (as far as possible) conciliatory
methods in their diplomacy, as well as care in selecting a position
which would supply a legal justification for war, should war be found
the only issue.

This was the more necessary because the Boers were known to be intensely
suspicious. Every weak power trying to resist a stronger one must needs
take refuge in evasive and dilatory tactics. Such had been, such were
sure to be, the tactics of the Boers. But the Boers were also very
distrustful of the English Government, believing it to aim at nothing
less than the annexation of their country. It may seem strange to
Englishmen that the purity of their motives and the disinterestedness of
their efforts to spread good government and raise others to their own
level should be doubted. But the fact is--and this goes to the root of
the matter--that the Boers have regarded the policy of Britain towards
them as a policy of violence and duplicity. They recall how Natal was
conquered from them in 1842, after they had conquered it from the Zulus;
how their country was annexed in 1877, how the promises made at the time
of that annexation were broken. They were not appeased by the
retrocession of 1881, which they ascribed solely to British fear of a
civil war in South Africa. It should moreover be remembered,--and this
is a point which few people in England do remember--that they hold the
annexation to have been an act of high-handed lawlessness done in time
of peace, and have deemed themselves entitled to be replaced in the
position their republic held before 1877, under the Sand River
Convention of 1852. Since the invasion of December 1895, they have been
more suspicious than ever, for they believe the British Government to
ha