The Convention with the Transvaal Republic has been signed, and
the government is to be formally handed over to the Boers on Monday next, August 8th. The Convention has not yet been officially published, but we now know that it contains no reservation of land for the natives, but seeks to protect them by entrusting their location to a Commission, of which the British Resident is to be a permanent member, and by jealous securi- ties for their interests taken under the treaty. We do not see, however, what power we have of enforcing these conditions, if they are not observed by the Boer Government, without war ; and of course, that same difficulty would have been felt, what- ever the character of the local self-government given to them, if there had been no army of occupation to enforce compliance,— plainly an impossible supposition. The Convention, no doubt, will turn out to be, so far as regards its enumeration of right stipulations, everything we could wish ; but no one can help sympathising with the obvious embarrassment of Sir Hercules Robinson, when, in his speech to the natives, he had virtually to imply that if the Boers did not observe their own promises, we could do little more than complain of their faith- lessness. Nothing can make of the Convention a satisfactory transaction.
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