The Uitlander looked with mistrust upon a law voted one day which could
be modified the next by a simple resolution of the Volksraad; he
considered it an illusion which might vanish at any moment Mr. Krüger
and his friends thought proper.


4.--_The Joint Commission._

The British Government might have replied that it did not recognise this
law, and have confined itself to the proposals put forward by Sir Alfred
Milner at the Bloemfontein Conference. It did not take this attitude
which, in France, would have been advised by the most half-hearted of
our Nationalists, had the French Government been engaged in similar
negotiations.

In his despatch of July 27, Mr. Chamberlain appears to think that "the
concessions made to the Uitlanders to guarantee them something of the
equality promised them in 1881 were made in good faith; but this law of
July 19th is full of complicated details; he therefore proposes that it
should be examined by a joint commission." In the Colonial Secretary's
despatch of August 2nd to Pretoria, he adds: "It is understood that the
Commission to examine into the question of the Uitlanders' Electoral
rights shall be prepared to discuss every subject that the Government of
the South African Republic may desire to bring before it, including
arbitration, exclusive always of the intervention of Foreign Powers."


5.--_Bargaining._