In regard to the much-debated question as to what was
meant by our reservation of suzerainty or paramountcy in the case of the Transvaal, it is interesting to look back to what was said on this point at the moment when their autonomy was restored to the Boers. A correspondent reminds us that in the Spectator of March 26th, 1881, we commented upon the Convention, and in effect declared that under it the Transvaal would occupy towards us the position which is occupied by the dominions of the Nizam. Though we acquiesced in the arrangement, we did so with mis- giving. The Government, we declared, " have probably decided right in making of the Transvaal a protected State ; but we make the concession without heartiness, and in the teeth of a strong feeling that it would have been a nobler course to offer the Boers complete self-government as a Colony, and if they refused that, to take up the burden wearily again. War for prestige is utterly bad, but war to preserve the rights of men who have become our subjects is, at all events, not immoral. We feel keenly for the weariness of the overladen Titan ; but is not some of the weariness due to relaxation of fibre which will not be restrang by conces- sions, partly to humane feeling, and partly to a very real but not wholly defensible political expediency ?" We held, that is, that the Transvaal had become a protected State, and in no sense an absolutely independent Republic.
Previous page
