On September 18th the official reply of the Boer Government to the message sent from the Cabinet Council was published in London.  In manner it was unbending and unconciliatory; in substance, it was a complete rejection of all the British demands.  It refused to recommend or propose to the Raad the five years’ franchise and the other measures which had been defined as the minimum which the Home Government could accept as a fair measure of justice towards the Uitlanders.  The suggestion that the debates of the Raad should be bilingual, as they have been in the Cape Colony and in Canada, was absolutely waived aside.  The British Government had stated in their last dispatch that if the reply should be negative or inconclusive they reserved to themselves the right to ’reconsider the situation de novo and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement.’  The reply had been both negative and inconclusive, and on September 22nd a council met to determine what the next message should be.  It was short and firm, but so planned as not to shut the door upon peace.  Its purport was that the British Government expressed deep regret at the rejection of the moderate proposals which had been submitted in their last dispatch, and that now, in accordance with their promise, they would shortly put forward their own plans for a settlement.  The message was not an ultimatum, but it foreshadowed an ultimatum in the future.

In the meantime, upon September 21st the Raad of the Orange Free State had met, and it became more and more evident that this republic, with whom we had no possible quarrel, but, on the contrary, for whom we had a great deal of friendship and admiration, intended to throw in its weight against Great Britain.  Some time before, an offensive and defensive alliance had been concluded between the two States, which must, until the secret history of these events comes to be written, appear to have been a singularly rash and unprofitable bargain for the smaller one.  She had nothing to fear from Great Britain, since she had been voluntarily turned into an independent republic by her and had lived in peace with her for forty years.  Her laws were as liberal as our own.  But by this suicidal treaty she agreed to share the fortunes of a State which was deliberately courting war by its persistently unfriendly attitude, and whose reactionary and narrow legislation would, one might imagine, have alienated the sympathy of her progressive neighbour.  There may have been ambitions like those already quoted from the report of Dr. Reitz’s conversation, or there may have been a complete hallucination as to the comparative strength of the two combatants and the probable future of South Africa; but however that may be, the treaty was made, and the time had come to test how far it would hold.