the least sacrifice of liberty with any party--it simply meant
coincident peace, prosperity and security, and would relieve England of
a considerable burden of anxiety. The scheme promised to find all-round
acceptance, but, unaccountably, except to Bond men, its greatest
opponents were the Cape Colonial Boers. It was, however, confidently
hoped that, with patience, opposition and indifference would be
overcome, and in view of this no opportunity was lost to prove England's
loyal sincerity by genial treatment, by conciliating the various
interests, and gratifying the wishes of the Boer communities, and so to
ensure the desideratum of complete _rapprochement_ between the white
races.

Conferences were convened with the objects of coming to agreements for
the establishment of a general South African Customs Union, and for
adjusting railway tariffs upon fair bases and a more reliable permanency
of rates suggesting reciprocal terms advantageous to the Republics.
These efforts also proved fruitless through similar opposition.

The Afrikaner Bond party, as the reader will understand, had ranged
itself against all such attempts, whilst successfully masking its own
object all the time.

Other differences, which, with a friendly and united spirit, were
capable of easy adjustment, were welcomed by that party as grist to its
mill in order to widen the gulf and to increase the tension.

Besides the chagrin over the failure of its peace policy, the British
Cabinet had finally to admit itself confronted with a very real and
ominous national peril, face to face with the South African Medusa,
Afrikanerdom, defying Great Britain in preconcerted aggression and