But the Government was still hidebound in bad traditions, thinking that
democracy means the tail wagging the dog, not seeing that if the
statesman leads straight along the path of duty the Nation is sure to
follow him. Happily, a statesman was sent to Cape Town, probably because
the Cabinet hardly realised how big a man he was. Sir Alfred Milner
mastered his case, thought out his cause, and at the opportune moment
put it before the Government. The first result was the Bloemfontein
conference. There, with the prescience and the strength of a Cavour or a
Bismarck, Milner put the issue: either the minimum concession which will
secure the political equality of the two races or war. Kruger's
obstinate refusal of the concessions required showed plainly that it
would be war. There was only one possible way of averting war; if fifty
thousand men had been at once sent to South Africa, Kruger and his
people would have known where they were, and might have accepted
possible terms, those offered at Bloemfontein. The moment of the
breaking off of the conference was the crisis, and to appreciate men you
must watch them in a crisis. Mr. Balfour expressed his unbounded
confidence in Kruger's sweet reasonableness and in the justice of the
British cause; he could not believe there would be war. Mr. Chamberlain
entered into ambiguous negotiations, beginning in a way that made
everyone, especially Kruger, imagine that the Government would accept
less than the Bloemfontein minimum. Of preparing to coerce the Boers
there was no sign. The Boers began to get their forces in order. In
England big speeches were made; "hands" were "put to the plough"; but at
the end of July no military force was made ready. At length, when Natal
appealed for protection against the Boer army, ten thousand men were
ordered so as to bring up the garrison of the colony to some seventeen
thousand. After the ten thousand not another man was sent until October
20th.