decision if such should, contrary to its expectation, be given against it.  The Government repeats the well-meant wish that this proposal may find favour with Her British Majesty’s Government; and inasmuch as the allegations of breaches of the Convention find entrance now even in South Africa, and bring and keep the feelings more and more in a state of suspense, this Government will be pleased if it can learn the decision of Her British Majesty’s Government as soon as possible.”

[Sidenote:  England refuses to arbitrate on ground of suzerainty.]

To this the British Government replied that according to the Convention of 1884, taken in conjunction with the preamble of the Convention of 1881, the South African Republic was under the suzerainty of Her Majesty, and that it was incompatible with the subordinate position of the South African Republic to submit to Arbitration any matters in dispute as to the construction of the Convention between it and the suzerain Power.

In order to avoid any misunderstanding as to this very remarkable document, the exact wording of the British dispatch is given:—­[36] “Finally, the Government of the South African Republic propose that all points in dispute between Her Majesty’s Government and themselves relating to the Convention should be referred to Arbitration, the Arbitrator to be nominated by the President of the Swiss Republic.  In making this proposal the Government of the South African Republic appear to have overlooked the distinction between the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 and an ordinary treaty between two independent Powers, questions arising upon which may properly be the subject of Arbitration.  By the Pretoria Convention of 1881 Her Majesty, as Sovereign of the Transvaal Territory, accorded to the inhabitants of that territory complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs, and successors, upon certain terms and conditions, and subject to certain reservations and limitations set forth in 33 articles; and by the London Convention of 1884, Her Majesty, while maintaining the preamble of the earlier instrument, directed and declared that certain other articles embodied therein should be substituted for the articles embodied in the Convention of 1881.  The articles of the Convention of 1881 were accepted by the Volksraad of the Transvaal State, and those of the Convention of 1884 by the Volksraad of the South African Republic.  Under these Conventions, therefore, Her Majesty holds towards the South African Republic the relation of a suzerain who has accorded to the people of that Republic self-government upon certain conditions, and it would be incompatible with that position to submit to Arbitration the construction of the conditions on which she accorded self-government to the Republic.”

[Sidenote:  Reply of the Transvaal Government.]

[37] In its celebrated reply of the 16th April, 1898, the Government of the South African Republic proved with unanswerable force that the preamble of the Convention of 1881 had been abolished, that Lord Derby had himself in 1884 proposed a draft Convention, in which the preamble was erased (see Appendix B.), and that by the ultimate acceptance of that proposal, the suzerainty had ceased to exist.