counter-petition which so "emphatically" declared the administration of
the South African Republic "to be all that could be desired."


5.--_The Petition and the Despatch of May 10th._

They were _bonâ fide_ workmen who took the initiative in the petition of
March 28th, 1899, called forth by the murder of their fellow-workman,
Edgar. We see, from Mr. Rouliot's report, that the Chamber of Mines
regarding the petition as compromising, disassociated itself from it.
Nor was that all. The President of the South African League in the
Transvaal, Mr. W. John Wybergh, a consulting engineer by profession, was
dismissed by one of the principal companies.

These undeniable facts prove that "capitalist intrigues," as Dr. Kuyper
calls them, were not the causes of the present war.

The British Government could not disregard a petition which 21,684
British subjects addressed to it; even had its responsibility not been
pledged by Articles 7 and 14 of the Convention of 1884, relying upon
which those British subjects had settled in the Transvaal. Every
civilised Government concerns itself with injuries done to its citizens
in foreign lands. The petition of March 28th, was acknowledged by Mr.
Chamberlain in a despatch to Sir A. Milner of May 10th, 1899, in which
he says that "the complaints of the Uitlanders rested on a solid basis."
From the moment that the British Government "put its hand to the
plough," and that Lord Salisbury declared it would not draw back, the
end was easy to foresee. Mr. Krüger had recourse to his habitual
expedients. I said at the time what must certainly be the result; and an
eminent French statesman may remember a conversation I then had with