Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XII

Bare and jejune as are these telegrams, they tell us something of the spirit of relentless vigour by which Lord Milner drove the cumbrous wheels of Downing Street into quicker revolutions at the shifting of the scenes from war to peace. Within six weeks of the surrender of Vereeniging he was fully engaged in what he afterwards called "the tremendous effort, wise or unwise in various particulars, made after the war, not only to repair its ravages, but also to re-start the new colonies on a far higher plane of civilisation than they had ever previously attained."[322] The story of this "tremendous effort," with its economic problems and its political agitations, must be reserved for a separate volume. It only remains, therefore, to relate the part which Lord Milner played in determining the conditions under which the republican Dutch were incorporated into the system of British South Africa.