Those offers could hardly have been made in sincerity, but rather as a temporary device and to meet the susceptibilities of the advising Powers, for all the time preparations for war were never relaxed for a moment, but were pushed on with extreme vigour.  On the other hand, the British programme seeking to ensure peace by the franchise expedient had been strictly followed without deviation.  When the Transvaal Government professed irritation over the disposition of some British troops too near the Transvaal border, they were promptly removed to more remote and less strategic positions, rather than incur the risk of rupture.  During the month preceding the outbreak of the war, some large continental consignments of war munitions were, as usual, permitted to reach the Republics unhindered through several Colonial ports, portions being actually smuggled over the Colonial railways as merchandise addressed to a well-known Pretoria firm, but on arrival were secretly delivered, under cover of night, at the various forts and arsenals.  These proceedings were carried out with the connivance of the Colonial Bond authorities, and though known to the British Governor, it was all winked at rather than hazard the momentous objects of peace by the introduction of another knotty subject.  To sum up the situation, it was a diplomatic contest on the part of Great Britain aiming at peace and to safeguard her possessions and prestige, while the Afrikaner Bond, on the other part, continued active in the work of sedition and preparing for a war of usurpation.  Every one must admit that the demand of the British Ministry for an immediate and adequate representation proceeded from the necessity and the desire to overcome the South African crisis in a just and pacific way.  The measure was counted upon to effect conciliation between the Uitlander and burgher elements, and as a further result was earnestly hoped to bring about the secession of the Transvaal from the Afrikaner Bond, and so reduce that dangerous confederacy to a somewhat negligible impotence.  To discover other objects of a sinister sort lurking behind needs a more than inventive genius.  A united Afrikaner Bond, persistent to carry out its fell project, definitely meant war sooner or later.  Its first step in launching out to it was that notorious ultimatum, which was tantamount to snatching back the feigned offers of the seven and five years’ franchise.  According to original programme, the very next step to accomplish the coup d’etat was the immediate seizure of all Colonial ports, and to complete a general and irrevocable Boer rising all over the Colonies.

All the while the old device had been put into practice of hiding Bond guilt by accusing England of designs against the integrity of the Boer Republics.  But directly after, in the exultation of victorious invasions, the mask was shamelessly dropped, and Boerdom stands out defiantly and nakedly self-confessed, aiming at conquest and supremacy over all South Africa.  Will the ensuing century have in store an instance to match that record plot of artifice and dissimulation, and see half the world duped into partisanship with it—­by journalistic craft?