PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE.
many Liberals were inclined to do, in blind blinkers. Liberals had special responsibilities in the matter, because, as was well pointed out in the Daily News, it was a Liberal Government, guided by a great and magnanimous statesman, that gave the Transvaal back its independence in 1881, after three disasters to small bodies of British troops at Ingogo, Laing's Nek, and Majuba, and this at a time when sufficient reinforcements had arrived upon the scene to make it certain that a continuation of the war would have resulted in the ultimate triumph of British arms. It was even said that a Liberal Government was responsible for some of the difficulties with which they were face to face in South Africa to-day; but to this he would retort that it was the action of British officials, for which a Conservative Government was responsible, who, by their delay in granting the free constitution which was promised when the Transvaal was annexed in 1881, had prevented the Transvaal becoming a loyal and contented portion of the British Empire. Mr. Gladstone, in making the concession of 1881, said in his letter to the loyalists of that day, that his policy would secure to the settlers of whatever origin the full enjoyment of their property, and of all civil rights.
Kruger's declaration in 1881.Vice-President Kruger, in his speech to the Raad on behalf of the Triumvirate, delivered in April, 1881, said: 'I deem it my duty to clearly express before you and before the whole world that our respect for her Majesty the Queen of England, for her Majesty's Government, and for the whole English people has never been greater than now, when we have been enabled by this Treaty to give you proof of England's noble and magnanimous love of right and justice.'244
