1899.] Arbitration Correspondence. [179
follows from the inherent right of this republic as a sovereign international State." In his covering letter, Sir A. Milner observed that Mr. Reitz's contention went further than had been done in any previous despatch. It " appears to me," said the High Commissioner, " to be contradictory of the position consistently maintained by us, and in fact in the nature of a defiance of her Majesty's Government.' '
In his reply (July 13, 1899) Mr. Chamberlain expressed his general concurrence in Sir A. Milner's views. Briefly reviewing the status of the Boers since the Sand River Convention, he showed that that convention, with which their recognised existence as a distinct political community began, was, like the Pretoria Convention, " not a treaty between two contracting Powers " (these words are Lord Derby's, Nov. 20, 1883), "but was a declaration, made by the Queen, and accepted by certain persons, at that time her subjects, of the conditions under which, and the extent to which, her Majesty could permit them to. manage their own affairs." Again, in the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 the relation of the republic to Great Britain was that of a dependency publici juris. The Boer deputation in 1883 no doubt endeavoured to get this relation changed by the negotia- tion of a treaty as between two contracting Powers, and sub- mitted a draft treaty. This was, however, entirely rejected by Lord Derby as "neither in form nor in substance such as her Majesty's Government could adopt." In concluding, Mr^ Chamberlain, as the Government of the Transvaal had appealed to Lord Derby's personal views, referred them to a statement made by him in the House of Lords on March 17, 1884> immediately after the conclusion of the London Convention,, when he said : " Whatever suzerainty meant in the Conven- tion of Pretoria, the condition of things which it implied still remains ; although the word is not actually employed, we have kept the substance. We have abstained from using the word because it was not capable of legal definition, and because it seemed to be a word which was likely to lead to misconception and misunderstanding."
During the same week (Aug. 26) the Colonial Office also issued another series of papers relating to the Transvaal. Some of this correspondence (June and July, 1899) dealt with the question of arbitration. The upshot of it was that while steadily refusing to hear of the intervention, in any form or shape, of a foreign arbiter or umpire on points at issue between Great Britain as the paramount Power in South Africa and a dependent State like the Transvaal, her Majesty's Government recognised that there might be " fair differences of opinion as to the interpretation of the details " of the articles of the conven- tion of 1884, and expressed themselves in a despatch from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir A. Milner (July 27) "willing to consider how far and by what methods such questions of interpretation as have been above alluded to could be decided by some judicial
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