time.

The Transvaal Government formally notified Portugal that the passage of
British troops and munitions of war through Beira would be considered in
the Transvaal as tantamount to hostile action. Nevertheless, on May 1,
the Chamber of Deputies at Lisbon rejected an interpellation made by one
of its members to question the action of the Government with reference
to the privilege which Great Britain sought. The Minister for Foreign
Affairs, however, stated that the Transvaal Government had not ordered
the Portuguese consul to leave Pretoria. He denied emphatically that any
incident whatever had followed Portugal's notification to the Transvaal.
When further interrogated, the Minister declared that the English troops
had been granted permission to use the railway inland from Beira upon
the plea of treaty rights already possessed by Great Britain. No power,
he asserted, had protested except the South African Republic. It was
promised that the Government would later justify its action in granting
the permission by producing the documents showing the right of England
to the privilege, but it was not considered convenient at that time to
discuss the question.[19]

[Footnote 19: London Times, April 21, 1900, p. 7, col. 3.]

The protest of the Transvaal against the alleged breach of neutrality on
the part of Portugal was without effect, and this was the only means the
Republic had of declaring itself. To have entered upon hostile action
against Portugal at that time would have had only one result, the
stoppage of all communication with the outside world by way of Delagoa
Bay. The British forces were sent into Rhodesia, and though the
subsequent part they played in the war was not important the purpose of
the expedition was admitted. It was to cut off any possibility of a