convention-articles, every appeal made by the Republican State-secretary to the general principles of international law has been since October 16, 1897 contemptuously put down on the Imperial side in the name of Her Majesty's pretended "suzerainty". And as to your government's presumptuousness in advocating the claims of the "Uitlanders", this, it is said, is quite lawful on account of your dominant position as "the paramount power" in South Africa. We know those two catchwoods. Like any feeble orator who has found a high sounding term with which he can hide the flaw in his logic, your colonial secretary delights in repeating his assertions to satiety. But we venture to assert that scarcely ever was there a further reaching pretence supported by more sophistical sham-logic. And we now go on to prove that assertion.

We do not wish to quarrel about words. "What's in a name?" So, in starting upon our argument, we grant that every Briton has the unrestrained liberty to call his gracious Queen the "Suzerain" of the Transvaal, and Great Britain the "paramount power" of the southern part of Africa. Provided we agree upon the sense of both expressions. It is, to begin with, an undeniable fact, that the South-African Republic does not enjoy complete independence. The convention of 1884 contains in article IV the provision that the "Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement with any state or nation other than the Orange Free State, nor with any native tribe, until the same has been approved by Her Majesty the Queen." Do you insist on account of that remnant of tutelage, in which

your government still holds the Boers-State across the Vaal-River, to continue speaking of "suzerainty", be it so. The sense of that feudal term, as applied to modern relations, is necessarily vague; therefore any dispute as to the exact limits of its legitimate use must needs fail to be decisive. Here we should allow some latitude of application. It is, further, an undeniable fact as well, that in South Africa, the territories which your Imperial government holds under its sway, are a great deal larger, the populations, over which it rules, by far more numerous than the area covered by the Dutch republics and the number of souls protected by their flags. Again, then, do you mean on account of those quantitative differences to maintain your use of that pompous "paramount power," be it so. The term has not even a flavour of a juridical sense: and so it would be madness to quarrel about its application, as if it were to be defined with the strictness of jurisprudence. Only, if by your persistent adherence to that twofold terminology you intend to make us believe that, apart from the precise case specified in the aforesaid article IV, there exists such a thing as a general ascendency of Great Britain, a general inferiority of the Republic, which beforehand precludes the latter from being treated by its mighty neighbour upon an equal footing in any respect, if that be your intention, no impartial lawyer will hesitate to challenge that conclusion as manifestly at variance with the general rule above stated: "Any sovereign who claims a certain superiority over his neighbour, has

to make the point thoroughly and wholly clear by a conclusive proof."

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True, the "proof" which your colonial secretary has tried to adduce, would not stand the test. "By the Pretoria"convention of 1881" thus runs his argument, "Her "Majesty as Sovereign of the Transvaal Territory accorded to "the inhabitants of that territory complete self-government "subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, Her Heirs and "successors, upon certain terms and conditions and subject to "certain reservations and limitations, set forth in 33 Articles; "and by the London convention of 1884 Her Majesty, while "maintaining the preamble of the earlier instrument, directed "and declared that certain other articles, embodied therein "should be substituted for the articles embodied in the con"vention of 1881. The articles of the convention of 1881 "were accepted by the Volksraad of the Transvaal-State, and "those of the convention of 1884 by the Volksraad of the "South African Republic. Under these conventions therefore "Her Majesty holds towards the South African Republic the "relation of a Suzerain". And hence all "arguments, based "on the general principles of international law as applied to "ordinary treaties between independent powers and on the "legislation of other nations do not, in the view of Her Majesty's "government, apply to the case under consideration."

Let us however subject that sample of ministerial dialectics

to a brief critical survey.

Firstly it strikes us that the general thread of the argument lacks consistency. Granted for a moment the correctness of the secretary's historical statements; even then reason objects to the stringency of the conclusion. Suppose: a potentate, who has been my sovereign till now, converts his sovereign right into the minor prerogative of suzerainty by formally granting to me a certain sphere of autonomy, circumscribed within well defined limits and subject to carefully determined conditions. Why then should such a grant logically imply that he who made it had reserved to himself the exorbitant privilege of being in all the disagreements, which henceforth might rise between himself and his vassal, party and supreme judge at the same time? Thus never even in feudal ages was the nature of vassalage understood. You cannot, for instance, be unaware of the celebrated article XXXIX in your own "magna charta", so pregnant notwithstanding the barbarisms of its Latin text. "No free man", thus it ran, "shall be laid hands on, nor be imprisoned, nor stripped of "his goods, nor be outlawed, exiled, or put to death, neither "shall we, be it personally or by proxy, make war upon him, "unless it be in accordance with a lawful judgment of his peers, "or with the common law". Such are the concessions King JOHN made to those who had sworn him fealty! And you would make your Queen grant less unto Her Vassal! No, human reason, which abhors the idea of suffering the left hand virtually to withdraw what, the moment before, the right hand has granted, will never interpret a liberal document in that

way. If between a suzerain power and its Vassal-state there arises a conflict as to the obvious sense of any of the bondageterms, the law of nations, in the absence of any express provision to the contrary, places on a level the contentions of both parties.

Thus our first consideration already upsets the whole argument. Now secondly we go on to test the value of your colonial secretary's historical reconstructions.

And here we find, that the minister's views as to the character of the Pretoria-settlement and as to the real meaning of the London-convention, by which the former was removed, are equally fantastical. To begin with, let us consider the document of 1881. Upon a superficial reading its wording affords to the above cited interpretation a semblance of truth, in as much as its preamble indeed "subjects the complete selfgovernment", graciously bestowed upon "the inhabitants of the Transvaal territory, to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, Her Heirs and successors". On closer inspection and reflection, however, even that semblance vanishes. What, we ask, does that term “the suzerainty of Her Majesty" mean? There were, indeed, among the following articles a good many provisions by which the concept, suggested by that word, obtained a solid sense. Her Majesty reserved to herself a threefold right, which seriously restricted the complete selfgovernment, as granted in the preamble. There was first: the right, from time to time to appoint in the Transvaal a British resident. Next came: the right to move