The Anglo-German Controversy in the Transvaal.
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THE ANGLO-GERMAN CONTROVERSY IN THE TRANSVAAL. TT may be convenient at the present time -*- to consider the Anglo-German contro versy in the Transvaal from the standpoint of international law. The political facts involved in it are of too recent and familiar a character to require anything more than the briefest recapitulation. The idea of South African confederation, subject to the golden link of the British Crown, had laid a strong hold on the imagination of the Earl of Carnarvon, who was the British Colonial Secretary of State in the Conserva tive government of 1874. In 1877 Sir Bartle Frere went out to the Cape as gover nor, with the fixed intention of realizing it if he could. The Transvaal, the home of the Boers or Dutch settlers, who had grad ually been "trekking" northwards from the South before the ever widening range of the sphere of British influence, was annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone on April 12, 1877. The situation was a peculiar one. The Boers had recently been defeated by the Zulus. Their army was disorganized. Their treasury was practically empty, and Shepstone, who was the English agent in the matter, concluded that they were in favor of annexation, and took the step above re ferred to almost before Sir Bartle Frere had got fairly to work as governor. The Boer leader of the day, President Burgers, sent the now famous President Kruger and his colleague, Jorissen, to London to rouse public, and especially Liberal opinion against the annexation. They were not, however, particularly successful at the moment, and returned to the Transvaal during 1877 or 1878. The English, whatever may be thought of the morality or policy of the original annexation, undoubtedly did good service to the Boers in protecting them against Zulu or Kaffir attacks and ravages.
But they did not become reconciled to Eng lish rule; and in the spring of 1879 the great Boer camp was formed near Pretoria and a memorial prayer that the annexation might be undone was forwarded to England. It was rejected by the Conservative govern ment, much to the dissatisfaction of the Liberal opposition of the day. Mr. Glad stone was especially strong in his denun ciations. He described the annexation of the Transvaal as the invasion of a free country; and on another occasion, referring to the Transvaal and Cyprus (of which Eng land acquired possession under the KarsBatoum arrangement) : " If these acquisi tions were as valuable as they are valueless, I would repudiate them because they are obtained by means dishonorable to the character of the country." The general election of 1880 put Mr. Gladstone in power with a large majority. In June, 1880, he intimated to Kruger and Joubert that the Queen could not be ad vised to relinquish her sovereignity over the Transvaal. On Dec. 16, in the same year, Kruger issued a proclamation declaring the Republic re-established. The British troops who were despatched against them were defeated at Brownker's Sprint and Majuba Hill, and Mr. Gladstone's government con cluded the convention of 1881, by which the internal independence of the Transvaal and the suzerainty of Queen Victoria over it were at once and explicitly recognized. This convention was however, amended in 1884 by another convention, in which there was no reference to the Queen's suzerainty, but which contained a provision that the South African Republic should conclude no treaty with any foreign power other than the Orange Free State, without Her Majesty's sanction and approval. The question at
