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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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14 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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Geneva Convention was not in conflict with the interests of Great Britain, it must be observed that the objections taken by Her Majesty's Government have not been to the substance of the Treaties or engagements in question but to the methods by which the Government of the South African Republic have appeared to them to seek to avoid the provisions of Article 4 of the Convention.

15. The Aliens Expulsion Law and the Press Law, which form the next subject of discussion in the Note of the Acting State Secretary, were referred to in my Despatch, No. 93, not as in themselves necessarily conflicting with the London Convention, but as containing provisions which, if applied to foreigners not shown to have failed to conform to the laws of the Republic, might amount to breaches of that Convention.

16. Her Majesty's Government have been glad to learn that the Volksraad has passed a resolution in favour of an amendment of the former of these laws, which they trust may he of such a nature as to remove the danger of a breach of the Convention. As regards the Press Law, as has been stated in my Despatch, No. 93, a case has already occurred under it which it appears to justify the objection taken to it.

17. Her Majesty's Government note with satisfaction that the Government of the South African Republic see in the fulfilment of the mutual obligations under the London Convention one of the best guarantees for the maintenance of a mutual understanding and for the promotion of reciprocal confidence. Her Majesty's Government have uniformly fulfilled these obligations on their part, and they must strongly protest against what appears to be an implication in the Note under consideration that the incursion of Dr. Jameson can be considered as either a breach of the Convention by Her Majesty's Government or a grievance against them. That incursion was the act of private individuals unauthorised by Her Majesty's Government, und was repudiated by them immediately it became known. The immense importance to the Government of the South African Republic of that repudiation, and of the proclamation issued by the High Commissioner under instructions from Her Majesty's Government, is recognised through- out South Africa.

18. Her Majesty's Government maintain strongly that since the Convention of 1881 there has never been any breach or even any allegation of a breach on their part of that or the subsequent Convention, and, as the subject has been raised by the implied accusation contained in the Note under consideration, Her Majesty's Government feel constrained to contrast their loyal action in the case of the Jameson raid with the cases in which they have had cause to complain that the Government of the South African Republic failed to interfere with, if they did not countenance, invasions of the adjacent territories by its burghers in violation of the Convention, and they feel bound to remind the Government of the Republic that in one of these cases Her Majesty's Government were compelled to maintain their rights by an armed expedition at the cost of about one million sterling, for which no compensation has ever been received by them.

19. Finally, the Government of the South African Republic propose that all points in dispute between Her Majesty's Government and themselves relating to the Convention should be referred to arbitration, the arbitrator to be nominated by the President of the Swiss Republic.

20. In making this proposal the Government of the South African Republic appear to have over-looked the distinction between the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 and an ordinary treaty between two independent l'owers, questions arising upon which may properly be the subject of arbitration.

21. By the Pretoria Convention of 1881 Her Majesty as Sovereign of the Transvaal Territory accorded to the inhabitants of that territory complete self-government subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, upon certain terms and conditions and subject to certain reservations and limitations set forth in 33 articles, and by the London Convention of 1884 Her Majesty, "while maintaining the preamble of "the earlier instrument, directed and declared that certain other articles embodied therein "should be substituted for the articles embodied in the Convention of 1881." The articles of the Convention of 1881 were accepted by the Volksraad of the Transvaal State, and those of the Convention of 1884 by the Volksraad of the South African Republic.

22. Under these Conventions, therefore. Her Majesty holds towards the South African Republic the relation of a suzerain who has accorded to the people of that Republic self-government subject to her suzerainty upon certain conditions, and it would be incompatible with her honour and diguity on the suzerain that position to submit to arbitration the construction of the conditions on which she accorded self-government to the Republic.

23. One of the main objects which Her Majesty's Government had in view in retaining

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the suzerainty under the Conventions was the prevention of the interference of any foreign Power between Her Majesty and the South African Republic, a matter which they then held, and which Her Majesty's present Government hold, to be essential to British interests, and this object would be defeated by the course now proposed.

24. The clear intention of Her Majesty's Government at the time of the London Convention, that questions in relation to it should not be submitted to arbitration, is shown by the fact that when the delegates of the South African Republic, in the negotiations which preceded that Convention, submitted to Her Majesty's Government in the first instance (in a letter of the 26th of November, 1883, which will be found on page 9 of the Parliamentary Paper C. 3947 of 1884) the draft of a treaty or convention containing an arbitration clause, they were informed by the Earl of Derby that it was neither in form nor in substance such as Her Majesty's Government could adopt.

25. The Government of the South African Republic put forward as a precedent for the proposed arbitration the provision in Article of the London Convention for the settlement of the details of the line to be fixed as the boundry of the Republic; but there can be no comparison between the fixing of the exact details, which could not be ascertained before the signature of the Convention, of a boundary which had been agreed upon in principle, and the construction of the conditions laid down in the Convention itself.

26. The other case relied on as a precedent is one in which Her Majesty's Government agreed to submit to the arbitration of the Chief Justice of the Orange Free State a question arising out of the construction of a law which had been passed by the Volksrand. It is essential, however, to the proper conception of this transaction to point out that this law had only been passed by the Volksraad on the prior and voluntary assurance of Her Majesty's Government that Her Majesty would, for the occasion, waive the rights she had reserved to herself under the Convention in respect of the law proposed, and as a matter of fact the construction of the law and not of the Convention (though it had some bearing on the question in dispute) was the subject of arbitration.

27. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, for the foregoing reasons, cannot consent to submit questions as to the infringement of the Convention to the arbitration of any foreign State or of the nominee of

any foreign State. 28. I request that you will instruct Her Majesty's Agent at Pretoria to communicate a copy of this Despatch to the Government of the South African Republic.

I have, &c.

R. E. W.

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