The English reader will naturally turn with more interest to Mr. Reitz's
narrative of recent negotiations than to his observations upon the
hundred years of history which he says have taught the Dutch that there
is no justice to be looked for at the hands of a British Government. The
advocates of the war will be delighted to find that Mr. Reitz asserts
in the most uncompromising terms the right of the Transvaal to be
regarded as an Independent Sovereign International State. However
unpleasant this may be to Downing Street, the war has compelled the
Government to recognise the fact. When it began we were haughtily told
that there would be no declaration of war, nor would the Republics be
recognised as belligerents. The war had not lasted a month before this
vainglorious boast was falsified, and we were compelled to recognise the
Transvaal as a belligerent State. It is almost incredible that even Sir
William Harcourt should have fallen into the snare set for him by Mr.
Chamberlain in this matter. The contention that the Transvaal cannot be
an Independent Sovereign State because Article 4 of the Convention of
1884 required that all treaties with foreign Powers should be submitted
for assent to England may afford a technical plea for assuming that it
was not an Independent Sovereign International State. But, as Mr. Reitz
points out, no one questions the fact that Belgium is an International
Independent Sovereign State, although the exercise of her sovereignty is
limited by an international obligation to maintain neutrality. A still
stronger instance as proving the fact that the status of a sovereign
State is not affected by the limitation of the exercise of its
sovereignty is afforded by the limitation imposed by the Treaty of Paris
on the sovereign right of the Russian Empire to maintain a fleet in the
Black Sea. To forbid the Tsar to put an ironclad on the sea which washes
his southern coast was a far more drastic limitation of the inalienable
rights of an Independent International Sovereign State than the