On this account, as well as for other reasons, it contended that as no suzerainty existed between the two countries, the objection to Arbitration as a means of settling disputes would disappear, and the Government reiterated their appeal to have such differences or disputes disposed of by Arbitration.

[Sidenote:  The object of the suzerainty dispute.]

Naturally this was exactly what Mr. Chamberlain did not want.  He was opposed to Arbitration dispute, because it would have probably led to the humiliation of the British and not of the Boer Government.  The suzerainty question was introduced in the meanwhile as a “Constitutional Proposal,” which might be used for the purpose of humiliating the South African Republic.

In his answer to the arguments put forward by the South African Republic,[38] Mr. Chamberlain could only persist in repeating his contention that suzerainty still existed, and did not even attempt to refute the statement that Lord Derby had himself erased the preamble of the Convention of 1881.  It was clearly his opinion that Lord Derby had, through stupidity and thoughtlessness, abandoned the suzerainty in 1884, just as Lord Russell had abandoned the idea of obtaining the South African Republic in 1852, so that he would now, just as Shepstone in 1877, have to try and disconcert the Republic by a display of force and inflexible determination, so as not to be deprived of these eminently “Constitutional means.”

[Sidenote:  The Transvaal a sovereign international state.]

[39] His arguments in this dispatch, that both the suzerainty of Her Majesty and the right of the South African Republic to self-government were dependent upon the preamble of the Pretoria Convention, and that if the preamble were null and void, not only would the suzerainty but also the right to self-government disappear, were clearly designed to intimidate the South African Republic; but in other respects the argument was perfectly correct.  Accordingly the Government of the South African Republic replied that it did not base its claim to self-government on the preamble of the Convention of 1881, nor on the Convention of 1884 (for no mention is made of self-government in that document), but simply on the ground of its being a sovereign international state.

In other words, it contended that the Convention of London implied that the South African Republic was a sovereign international state, and that it was therefore superfluous in that Convention to specify or define its rights.  Into this answer, which is not only juridically and historically correct, but which rests on the basis of common sense, the astute High Commissioner was able to read a menace to Her Majesty’s Government, although the Government of the Republic distinctly stated in that reply that it adhered to the Convention of London, an assurance which it had already made hundreds of times.

[Sidenote:  Justice of the Transvaal contention.]