On Wednesday the Colonial Office issued the correspondence relating to
the status of the South African Republic which has passed between our Government and the Transvaal. We have dealt elsewhere with the very striking statement of Sir Robert Herbert which shows that the suzerainty was never either explicitly nor by implication given up. It was made in answer to the Rev. D. P. Faure, who acted as interpreter at the conferences with the Boer delegates held in 1884, and who had stated " that it was clearly under- stood and agreed by both contracting parties that her Majesty's suzerainty should be abolished except to the extent defined in Article IV." Indeed, as Sir Robert Herbert points out, Mr. Faure in effect contradicts himself, for, in addition to the passage just quoted, he states that Lord Derby refused to agree to an article being embodied in the new Convention specifically revoking the suzerainty "because of the opposition it would cause." According to Mr. Faure, Lord Derby also repeatedly told the Boers that they were making a mountain out of a molehill as regarded the question of suzerainty.
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